Dear Stephen,
I enjoy your writings but I was surprised to read in your March 25 article in the Wall Street Journal, “Thomas Jefferson’s cut-and-paste Bible,” the following passage:
“Americans have long been a people of the book. John Winthrop quoted from the Bible in his ‘city on the hill’ sermon in 1630, and American political leaders have been quoting from it ever since. But we craft new Bibles too, from the Book of Mormon of the Latter-day Saints to the Christian Scientists’ ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s ‘Woman’s Bible.’”
I cannot comment on the “Book of Mormon” or on Stanton’s “Woman’s Bible,” but “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, is not a “new Bible” and was never intended to replace the Bible.
All of us are mistaken at times and I know from reading your book “God is not one” that you strive to be fair. I hope you will accept this correction in good faith.
Sincerely,
Bill Scott
Stephen Prothero says
I am never opposed to correcting myself when I am wrong, but I wrote nothing incorrect here. To begin, I did not write, as you incorrectly state, that “Science and Health” was “intended to replace the Bible.” (Neither, for that matter, was the Book of Mormon “intended to replace the Bible.”) I simply said it was a “new Bible,” and I stand by that. The phrase is obviously colloquial rather than scientific. What it means, in my writing and in the writings of hundreds of others, is that it is a new scripture, like the other two texts I cite. In other words, it is used as scripture, read by Christian Scientists as authoritative and in fact read every Sunday in church.
[ Thanks for your comment! Please see my upcoming post for my response. – Bill ]
Kathy Ashby says
After the shock of reading the above referenced article in my Wall Street Journal, I reported it through the appropriate sources to Southern California COP. While I have heard nothing, I have yearned to see the error corrected — you are worth waiting for! Thanks for such a pointed, succinct, and powerfully loving response.
[ Hi Kathy, thanks for your kind words and for your efforts to see a correction to Mr. Prothero’s comment. Few Committees responded to this article because christianscience.com published a response very shortly after the WSJ article was printed. Thanks also for visiting the blog! – Bill ]
ann borowiak says
This is an incredibly up to the minute website; I’m a newcomer to it, and will keep this on my computer front burner. [ Thanks Ann! Glad to have you join as a new reader. – Bill ]
Frank Voorhees says
Thanks for your work Bill. Its nice to be in the loop in all this.
lilith says
I’ve heard that mistake before too. Thanks Bill for posting the this.