Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian
Christian Science, Unity, Religious Science, Swedenborgian and Spiritualist bodies.
Filed as Christian by some census sources, as a separate metaphysical family by ARDA and the Handbook.
Christian Science, Unity, Religious Science, Swedenborgians and Spiritualists — the American metaphysical family, where mind, spirit and healing are the heart of the matter.
Heritage
Emanuel Swedenborg's visionary theology reached America early — the Swedenborgian General Convention organized in 1817, and John Chapman, remembered as Johnny Appleseed, distributed its tracts along with his orchards. Phineas P. Quimby's healing practice in mid-1800s New England fed the New Thought current. Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston in 1879, after the healing she recounted and the writing of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures; Charles and Myrtle Fillmore founded Unity in Kansas City in 1889; Ernest Holmes's Religious Science became today's Centers for Spiritual Living; and Spiritualist bodies organized in the National Spiritualist Association of Churches in 1893.
Theological family
By self-description, since classification is contested: Christian Science describes itself as the Science of Christianity, teaching healing through prayer as Jesus practiced it; New Thought bodies teach the creative power of thought and affirmative prayer; Swedenborgians read Scripture through Swedenborg's revelations; Spiritualists affirm the continuity of life. Some census sources file these bodies as Christian; ARDA and the Handbook treat them as a separate metaphysical family — recorded here, not adjudicated. Most of these bodies' teaching differs from trinitarian doctrine; noted once, gently.
Who decides what
Varied by body: the Mother Church in Boston with self-governing branch churches under Eddy's Manual, led by elected Readers rather than clergy; Unity's association of ministries; Centers for Spiritual Living; NSAC congregations.
What a first-time visitor would find
A Christian Science service has no pastor: two Readers present a lesson-sermon of Bible and Science and Health passages, the same in every branch church worldwide that week, and Wednesday meetings hear testimonies of healing. Unity and CSL services center on affirmative prayer and practical teaching; Spiritualist services may include mediumship.
What it has always cared about
Healing; the authority of spiritual experience; publishing — from Science and Health to Unity's Daily Word; the Reading Room open to the street; quiet, orderly congregational life.
Its gift to the wider church
Told in the observer's voice: The Christian Science Monitor, founded by Eddy in 1908 "to injure no man, but to bless all mankind," gave American journalism one of its most respected institutions; and the family pressed questions about prayer, healing and the mind's role in health that medicine and the churches alike returned to generations later.
Commonly confused with
Unity with Unitarian Universalism — unrelated; Christian Science with Scientology — no relation whatsoever, and worth saying plainly; Religious Science with creation-science ministries — another pure name collision.
Range of views inside it
The family is a scholars' grouping of genuinely distinct movements — Swedenborgian sacramental worship and a Spiritualist service share little beyond the metaphysical frame; assert nothing across the family as a whole.
A note from the mapmakers: This family is grouped by scholarly convention, not shared confession, and its filing inside or outside Christianity is contested by the sources — recorded, not adjudicated. Assert nothing of a specific church, center or society. Sentences drawn from this record hedge by body, never by family.
Sources: Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Charles S. Braden, Southern Methodist University Press) · Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)
Where Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian churches are on the map
992 Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian congregations appear on The Church Map, across 47 states.
- California — 203
- New York — 71
- Illinois — 58
- Florida — 52
- Ohio — 45
- Texas — 45
- Massachusetts — 44
- Washington — 36
- Michigan — 34
- Oregon — 28
Bodies and networks in this family
- Unity Worldwide Ministries — association — 578 US congregations (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020)
- Church of Christ, Scientist — hierarchical — 314 US congregations (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020)
- Swedenborgian churches (General Church of the New Jerusalem; Swedenborgian Church of North America) — episcopal — 72 US congregations (RCMS 2020 (sum of 2 rows — our arithmetic), 2020)
- Spiritualist churches — association — 63 US congregations (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), National Spiritualist Association of Churches, 2020)
- The Christian Community — episcopal
- Divine Science — congregational
- Universal Life Church — none
- New Thought congregation unspecified — none
- Centers for Spiritual Living / Religious Science — association
- Spiritist (Kardecist) centres — association
Read The American Church Story · Find these churches on the map