OpenStreetMap (new tab)

Google Map (new tab)

Overview

The Christian Science movement experienced wide popularlty in North America following Mary Baker Eddy's publication of her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, in 1875. In this book, she detailed the healing power of scripture and how faith (and a proper mental state) could sustain human health. Even after Eddy's death in late 1910, the Christian Science Movement continued to thrive with many churches being built along the Pacific Coast, before World War II. After the war, the movement, which viewed the material world as illusory and that Christian Science spiritualism was the only path to health and enlightenment, lost momentum, with fewer new churches opening. Christian Science has, since its early days, appealed to higher-income followers and it has remained well-financed up to the present, although many large-scale churches have fallen into disuse and been closed. The emphatic social focus on the advancement of medical science during the 20th century, and its apparent progress, seemed to many to undermine the core tenets of the religion.

Building History

Christian Science teachers appeared in Southern California as early as 1892. A congregation chartered Pasadena's 1st Church of Christ Scientist in 03/1898. Some were vehemently opposed to its establishment, objecting specifically to its preference for spiritual healing over medical procedures. Francis S. Larkin, stated in a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times (03/17/1898): "I notice by this morning's paper the incorporation of a so-called 'new church,' the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Pasadena. If this is possible according to the laws of California, is it not time that some law should be passed making it impossible. The United States grants freedom of conscience in matter of religion, but only so long as people refrain from lawless and harmful conduct. I append a clipping from the Christian Advocate, N.Y., January 6, 1898, showing that in Pennsylvania, the treatment of disease is regarded as harmful conduct...." (See Francis S. Larkin, "Letters to the Times: Here is Trouble," Los Angeles Times, 03/17/1898.)

Building Notes

This Neo-classical temple possessed a central dome, echoing, on a smaller scale, the design of the mother church in Boston, MA.

Built just after the calamitous 1906 Earthquake in San Francisco, Burnham utilized a seismically-sturdy reinforced concrete structural system;

PCAD id: 5622