The Manual of The Mother Church is the book that establishes the structure and governs the Christian Science Church, functioning like a constitution. It was written by Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the church. It was first published in 1895 and was revised dozens of times. The final edition, the 89th, was published in 1910, two weeks after her death.
Background
Writing in September 1895 to Septimus J. Hanna, then an editor of Christian Science periodicals and First Reader of The Mother Church, Eddy described the work of establishing the various by-laws as having been "impelled" by circumstances which made the need for a rule apparent. The impetus was always the future protection of the church, to fortify its structural integrity by preventing battles for personal control and creeping bureaucracy, and to maintain its spiritual integrity by preventing frivolous experimentation and the intrusions of personal opinion that would eventually adulterate the teaching and doctrine of Christian Science. The final revision of the Manual, the 89th edition, was published two weeks after Eddy's death in December 1910.
Church constitution
The Manual was first published in 1895. Like a constitution, it establishes the framework for the government and operations of the church, as well as its "basic character". Its by-laws are organized into 35 articles that establish the duties and responsibilities of church officers, provide guidelines and rules for Christian Science practitioners and teachers, define the responsibilities of individual members and provide the means of discipline. The "Rule for Motives and Acts" typifies the nature of these by-laws and is the only by-law that was barely changed through the dozens of revisions. A lay church, there is no hierarchy. All members, including church officers, are bound by the rules of the Manual. Under the Manual, the church officers comprising the Board of Directors are charged with administration, and have no authority to govern the church, amend or interpret by-laws or create new ones. Eddy vested the authority for government of the church not in persons, but in the by-laws of the Manual itself. Branch churches are set up to be democratic and independent, related to but not controlled by The Mother Church. The appendix includes membership applications, the order of the church services, Sunday school and testimony meetings, as well as two deeds, court documents related to land conveyance. As legal documents describing the Board of Directors and setting limits to their authority, they cement the legal foundation for Eddy's intent regarding the Manual as the church's constitution. Adam Dickey, Eddy's last personal secretary, whom she appointed to the Board of Directors shortly before she died, wrote in 1922, "The safety of the Christian Science church does not rest in the Board of Directors; it lies in the integrity of each individual member, and in the determination of the members to obey the By-laws."
Estoppel clauses
There are 32 by-laws with "estoppel clauses" in the Manual, where Eddy's consent is required. Before her death, a few of her students, including William Rathvon and Hanna, a former lawyer and judge, concerned about the ramifications of these clauses in the event of her death, urged her to remove them, but she refused. Eddy's lawyer assured them that common law would simply look to the next in authority and grant them the power to act, a position later taken by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. According to Eddy biographer Robert Peel, the clauses add "moral force" and make it "morally incumbent upon the Directors" to take particular care to fulfill the 'spirit and letter' when considering steps governed by those by-laws.
Controversy
The 1991 publication of a book by Bliss Knapp sparked a controversy in the church that resulted in a lawsuit. The book, which had previously been refused publication as being incompatible with Eddy's teaching, had been named in two wills with a large bequest to the church if it published the book. Critics accused the church, then in need of funds to cover losses stemming from a failed entry into television, of violating the Manual in order to receive the funds. In 1993, the Board filed an affidavit based on their own then recently passed resolution which asserted that the Board was incapable of violating the Manual.
