Editor’s Note: March is Women’s History Month. Spirit of Abilene will highlight influential women, including biblical figures during the month.

Click here to read Hephzibah, Hezekiah, and Beulah BY Grace Sosa
Click here to read Delivering the Deliverer: The Women of Exodus 1 and 2 by Leslie Strader.

By Shellie Evans

In an era when women could not vote and certainly were not considered religious leaders, Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), became  a spiritual pioneer with her work encompassing the fields of science, theology, and medicine. 

A lifelong student of the Bible, she gained a powerful insight in 1866 when she experienced a dramatic recovery from a life-threatening accident after reading Jesus’ healings. From that pivotal moment, she sought an understanding of how she had been healed. She returned to the Bible and prayed for answers. It became clear to her that spiritual healing was based on divine laws of God, Spirit, and that these laws could be applied by anyone to heal every form of human suffering and sin.

Mary Baker Eddy

As she became known as a Christian healer, she was often called on to cure cases physicians had given up. Once she went to the bedside of a patient whom a well-known attending physician had pronounced dying of pneumonia.  The physician seeing the patient immediately restored to health encouraged her to write a book describing the method of metaphysical healing.  She wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures which became her primary work and the foundation for teaching and learning spiritual healing.  

Mary Baker Eddy went on to establish the Church of Christ, Scientist, as a Christian denomination and worldwide movement. She published 15 more books and started several weekly and monthly magazines—the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science—that feature inspirational articles and verified testimonies of healing. In 1908, at the age of 87, she founded The Christian Science Monitor, a global newspaper that provides balanced, humane coverage of world news. It was established to “injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” 

Discover her life and contributions to the world at MaryBakerEddyLibrary.org.

Shellie Evans is a member of Church of Christ, Scientist in Abilene.