This is a list of former Christian Science churches, societies, and buildings. Following its early meteoric rise, the Christian Science Church suffered a steep decline in membership in the second half of the twentieth century. Though the Church is prohibited by the Manual of The Mother Church from publishing membership figures, the number of branch churches in the United States has fallen steadily since World War II. A 1992 study of the Christian Research Journal found that church membership had fallen from 269,000 in the 1930s to about 150,000.[1] Some believe membership has fallen further since then, however current estimates for church membership vary widely, from under 100,000 to 600,000.[2]
Dr. Stephen Barrett has reported that since 1971, the number of practitioners and teachers listed in the Christian Science Journal has fallen from about 5,000 to about 1,160 and the number of churches has fallen from about 1,800 to about 1,000.[3]
The purpose of this list is to identify and quantify this decline in Christian Science institutions and those related to Christian Science, as well as catalog the buildings and spaces once used by the Christian Science Church. While it is impossible to get accurate membership figures, it is possible to determine the decline in institutions through official church publications and other sources.
- ^ Study Archived February 10, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Swanson, Douglas J. EdD, "Standing Porter at the Door of Thought": The Social Order of the Christian Science Church, Paper presented in the American Studies section of the Western Social Science Association annual conference, Reno, Nevada, April 20, 2001
- ^ Barrett
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