Canaan Baptist Church of Christ/Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist (Solon Beman, 1904) 8/19/20
The 19th century new Christian movement’s rise is evidenced in the Chicago landscape.
Founded in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston, The Church of Christ, Scientist views the material world as an illusion. This is illustrated in the movement’s most commonly known aspect, its focus on prayer as the primary source of healing. Even as a kid I had an intellectual curiosity in small/new religious movements, but it wasn’t until Spalding Gray’s monologue Monster in a Box (1992), where he talks about his relationship with his mother and her faith, that “Christian Scientist” meant something to me other than a source for my high school research papers, The Christian Scientist Monitor. The movement is often confused with the more modern in origin Scientology. Much like Taylor Swift and Jonathon Swift the two are completely unrelated.
From the 1890s Christian Scientist congregations grew and built churches on all the sides of Chicago. By the late 1940s the number of practitioners started to decline. At the same time, the Great Migration of Black Americans to the northern states brought more people than could be housed in the ethnically segregated neighborhoods. With the end of housing covenants which maintained the separation and the availability of low interest home loans for White Americans (and the accompanying redlining & blockbusting) many of the neighborhoods underwent a dramatic demographic change in the 50s and 60s. Those churches live on due to the Black community’s stewardship, often now much longer than their original Christian Scientist use. One example, Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church (neé Third Church of Christ, Scientist) has been at home since 1947, almost two-thirds of the building’s existence.
The map below contains 21 former Christian Scientist houses of worship, some in the Chicago suburbs. The majority done in Classical Revival style. As with all CBA maps this is a work in progress and will be updated with more pictures and information over time. Each marker lists the architect, date of construction, and the current or most recent inhabitant.
An alphabetical list of all the sites is located below the map. A click on the list will jump you to its location on the map.
Contact CBA for a custom guided ride that includes some of these sights or for gift certificates for the cyclists in your life. Also, this map is just one layer of many on The Map, where you can plan your own ride, run, or walk around Chicago.
Sources: Chicago Patterns, WTTW, Nicolas Mollet’s Maps Icon Collection
