Gender, Spirituality, and the Architecture of The Mother Church

The Mary Baker Eddy Library website has a recent Seekers and Scholars Podcast titled, Gender, Spirituality, and the Architecture of The Mother Church. The podcast guest is Dr. Jeanne Halgren Kilde, Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Minnesota.

This episode explores the two edifices of The Mother Church on the Christian Science Plaza in Boston. Guest Dr. Jeanne Kilde discusses how issues around gender in religion influenced design choices for the two buildings. She draws from her prize-winning article “Material Expression and Materialism in Mary Baker Eddy’s Boston Churches: How Architecture and Gender Compromised Mind.” Kilde poses the idea that Mary Baker Eddy’s followers misread the meaning behind an emphasis on God’s feminine nature in the first building. This, she asserts, forced Eddy to revert to a more masculine style for the church’s Extension, built 12 years later.

To listen to this podcast on https://www.marybakereddylibrary.org, please click here.