Rolling Away the Stone, by Stephen Gottschalk, was first released in 2006 to favorable reviews. Most of them highlighted the fact that this new biography of Mary Baker Eddy was top-drawer scholarship utilizing a great deal of new material from The Mary Baker Eddy Library. Based on the success of that first release, Indiana University Press has recently made Rolling Away the Stone available in paperback, which gives us a fresh opportunity to look at this book from the perspective of its value to readers of the Journal.
The title of the book comes from the Biblical image of the stone being rolled away from Jesus’ tomb following his resurrection. This stone, which Mrs. Eddy described in an Easter service as being “the belief of mind in matter” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 179), represents the materialism that would blind an individual to the teaching that is at the core of Eddy’s life and discovery of Christian Science—the allness of God, the understanding that “all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation . . .” (Science and Health, p. 468).
Although this book focuses on the last 20 years of Eddy’s life, readers should not expect a linear narrative of the events she experienced over the course of that time period. Rather, as Gottschalk explains in the introduction, “the book is organized, after the Prelude, according to a broadly chronological, yet topical plan.” It is this “topical plan” that really is the strength of this book, with each chapter highlighting an event or crisis that forced Eddy to prove a particular aspect of the Christian Science she taught in order to be able to move her Church forward. Some of these topics include: how Christian Science confronts the problem of evil, including evil’s general appearance within human existence, as well as its directed hatred toward Christian Science and Eddy in particular; how Eddy’s deepening Christian spirituality established her authority within the growing denomination she founded; how Eddy expected her followers to build a church on the basis of Christian healing rather than creeds; and finally, how Eddy expected her followers to be on guard against the encroachment of materialism into the Christian Science Church.
It may help to think of this book less as a story that is following the sequential steps of a person’s life, and more as a piece of music, with chords and melodies interweaving and repeating themselves to bring out an overall theme. We might say the topics just mentioned make up the notes of the chords. The specific events detailed in each chapter make up the melody. And the overarching theme of this composition, according to Gottschalk, is Eddy’s “effort to protect and perpetuate a religious teaching that could provide an alternative to the materialism she saw as potentially engulfing traditional Christianity.”
To take one example, in the chapter, “O God, is it all!” Gottschalk offers perhaps the most insightful explanation yet written of Mark Twain’s often antagonistic view of Eddy. But in a style typical throughout the book, he includes formative events from the previous six decades in order to help explain why things turned out the way they did. He shows how Twain’s notoriety, his disdain for Christianity without works, and his warmth for the idea of healing were all in parallel with Eddy’s. But Gottschalk also shows how the real issue that divided them was Eddy’s teaching about the nature of evil being ultimately powerless before God, whereas Twain’s defense of evil eventually led him down a path of despair and misery. Conversely, Gottschalk shows how Eddy’s willingness at a young age to challenge the fear-inducing theology of Calvinism, along with her unwillingness to deny the supremacy and goodness of God, led her to healing and to a deeper conviction of the liberating power of Christian experience.
The text of Rolling Away the Stone runs 420 pages. This new paperback edition is available from Indiana University Press for $24.95 but can be purchased at Amazon.com for $16.30. The book includes a great deal of fresh research and honest scholarship, and while no one is likely to refer to it as “light reading,” for the individual wanting to sink his or her teeth into a serious study of Eddy and the spiritual demands she felt needed to be met for effective Christian healing and an authentically alive Church, you have a lot to look forward to in reading this book.
