Faith & Spirit Quote by Mary Baker Eddy

Eddy’s line is a velvet-wrapped provocation: it doesn’t defend religion so much as demote it. By pairing “religion” with “art,” she quietly shifts faith out of the courtroom and into the gallery. You can dislike a painting, find it tasteless or wrongheaded, but to “quarrel” over it is to misunderstand what it is: an expression, not a litigable fact. That analogy is doing heavy work. It asks the listener to trade the combative posture of doctrine for the looser, more pluralistic etiquette of aesthetic judgment.

The phrasing is calibrated for a culture where religion was still a social sorting mechanism and a pretext for moral policing. Eddy, a theologian who founded Christian Science, knew what it meant to be treated as a heretic and a fraud; she also knew the power of reframing. Instead of arguing theology head-on, she proposes a new social contract: let belief be personal craft. “No more” is the clincher - it implies she already refuses the quarrel, and invites you to feel a little antique for wanting one.

The subtext is both tolerant and strategically self-protective. If religion is akin to art, then dissent becomes taste rather than treason, critique rather than persecution. It’s a plea for civility that doubles as a demand: stop acting like your creed is public property. In a pluralizing America of sects, revivals, and reforms, Eddy is not just asking for peace; she’s redefining the terms of disagreement.