Merger into Centers for Spiritual Living

Religious Science organized into two separate principal bodies during the twentieth century, a divide that reflected differences in governance and emphasis rather than doctrine, and both bodies operated in parallel for decades training practitioners and licensing ministers under substantially the same teaching drawn from Holmes's original text. The two organizations merged in 2011 to form Centers for Spiritual Living, ending the institutional split and consolidating training, credentialing and publishing under one administrative structure while retaining Holmes's core teaching essentially unchanged.

Religious Science congregations today typically describe themselves as a spiritual philosophy compatible with continued participation in another faith tradition rather than as a substitute for one, a self-description consistent with Holmes's own insistence that the system was a set of practical spiritual principles rather than a creed demanding exclusive allegiance, and this openness has made Religious Science one of the more porous boundaries within organized American religious life. Centers for Spiritual Living today trains and credentials practitioners and ministers through its own accredited programs, maintaining Holmes's original distinction between spiritual mind treatment as a skilled practice requiring training and ordinary personal prayer, which the organization continues to treat as a related but separate activity open to anyone without formal preparation.