I have recently said some rather negative things about Swedenborg - this is misleading and I am (already) feeling guilty about it!
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=swedenborg
The fact is that I regard Swedenborg as a true Mystical Christian, but I just cannot digest his writings.
On The Other Hand; I very much like the video reflections of a young Swedenborgian chap called Curtis Childs - which have been regularly posted on YouTube over the past year; I especially like some of these One Minute vids:
Childs is a communicator of extraordinary ability and effectiveness - and can be genuinely inspiring.
Clearly, he is a man of his generation in terms of speech style and liberal/ new age-compatible socio-politics; but in these and other videos on the Off The Left Eye site sponsored by the Swedenborg Foundation, he functions a kind of one-man-band of evangelism and engagement with modern disaffected youth which much larger Christian organizations can only regard with awe, wish-for, and perhaps learn-from.
One individual can make a significant difference.
*
2 comments:
I don't think you were being overly critical - I've seen stronger reservations and disclaimers in translator's forewords to Swedenborg books. For me, the entire subject has been of the "The more I learn, the less certain I become" variety.
And here is Curtis Childs (http://www.newchurch.org/connection/issues/coping-with-failure/changing-lives-curtis.html):
"The Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg became hazardous to my health for a little while. Swedenborg’s teachings are awesome, but I found that they have the potential to be a little bit dangerous because they can give your fears a lot of ammunition". I can personally attest that reading Swedenborg in a non-dismissive state of mind can be quite unsettling as well as quite inspiring. For example: http://www.maps.org/research-archive/psychedelicreview/n11/n11063dus.pdf
Unfortunately, the many similarites between Swedenborg's teachings and Mormon doctrine seem to mostly intrest ex-mormons seeking to accuse Joseph Smith of plagiarism. http://craigwmiller.tripod.com/interest.htm is the best treatment I've found so far.
@Olof
Thanks for the links. Of course, 'influence' is inevitably put forward as the reason for similarity if supernatural reasons are ruled-out a priori.
Post a Comment