Christian Science’s ‘public face’ now looks out on waterfront

LYNN – Christian Science, the faith that got its spark of inspiration in Lynn, has moved its “public face” from Broad Street to a new oceanfront location.The Christian Science Reading Room is now open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 3-7 p.m. as well as additional hours in its new location in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, 153 Lynn Shore Drive.Founded in 1879 by Lynn resident Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science has 2,000 branches in 78 countries.In 1875, while living in the Diamond District, Eddy wrote her textbook on Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” In 1992 the Women’s National Book Association named Science and Health one of “75 books by women whose words have changed the world.”Church member Amy Anderson said the move gives the reading room more visibility, especially in the warmer months, on a major local thoroughfare, and centralizes local Christian Science resources.Every Christian Science church is required to maintain a reading room as a public source of information about Christian Science and its teachings.The collection includes Bible reference books, volumes containing accounts of Christian Science healing dating from 1899 to the present as well as current magazines, biographies of Eddy, children’s products, computer programs, music discs and copies of Science and Health and Eddy’s other writings.”The reading room is a place that’s open to everyone. It’s the church’s public face,” Anderson said.Anderson said the former Broad Street reading room attracted two or three visitors a day and said people with a variety of questions and interests in the faith have visited the new reading room.A church librarian is assigned to the room during regular hours while volunteers like Anderson spend time in it reading and talking to visitors.”There are life changing moments for people who come to the reading room and find this sort of healing is going on,” she said.The reading room’s new location in First Church is significant to Christian Scientists. It borders Red Rock where Eddy enjoyed reading and writing, including these lines:”And o’er earth’s troubled, angry sea, I see Christ walkAnd come to me, and tenderly, divinely talk.Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock, upon Life’s shore’Gainst which the winds and waves can shock, oh nevermore.”