The New Church in the New World
A Study of Swedenborgianism in America
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A history of the development of the Church of the New Jerusalem in the United States.
The Church of the New Jerusalem, or New Church, is a Christian denomination that developed in the late eighteenth century, based on the writings of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). In this book, Marguerite Block explores the church’s beginnings and traces how it spread through the United States, from its introduction in Philadelphia after the American Revolution to its development through the nineteenth century. Originally published in 1932, this volume remains the most comprehensive book on New Church history in print. This 4th edition contains a new introduction and epilogue by Christopher A. Barber.
Customer Reviews
A Valuable Historical Chronicle, Though With Some Doctrinal Blind Spots
Marguerite Block’s The New Church in the New World is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking a historical overview of the General Church and its development, challenges, and theological controversies. Her archival research is thorough, and the book does a service in documenting events, figures, and shifts that helped shape the New Church movement in America. As someone deeply invested in the Heavenly Doctrine as revealed through Emanuel Swedenborg, I appreciated her detail on institutional development, the early schisms, and her documentation of voices both influential and problematic within the Church’s evolution.
That said, I found myself regularly at odds with some of her conclusions. While the factual reporting is solid, Block occasionally oversteps into commentary, often favoring the Non-Separatist or more liberal side of various doctrinal debates — including issues surrounding ecclesiastical authority, female ordination, socialism, and the classification of the Writings. Her approach sometimes reflects an intellectualized, even proto-feminist lens, which may have inadvertently shaped her sympathy toward ideas that contradict the very doctrines she is chronicling.
What the book does especially well is present the controversies themselves — such as the Conjugial Love heresy, the dispute over whether the Writings are the Word, and questions about external versus internal separation from the Old Church — giving readers like myself an opportunity to evaluate them directly against the Heavenly Doctrines. That, in itself, made it a valuable read. I also appreciated her exploration of figures like Benade, Tafel, and DeCharms, although some of their contributions (such as the “ministerial trine” or conflating the Writings with the Word itself) could have used more critical analysis.
Christopher Barber’s epilogue reflects an even more liberal perspective than Block’s, and many of his conclusions seemed to contradict both scripture and the Heavenly Doctrine, especially on social issues and church order. Nonetheless, the historical record they present gives faithful readers an opportunity to think about and sharpen their convictions.
I recommend this book to New Church readers with doctrinal discernment, or to anyone studying the Church’s modern history — but with the strong caveat to read it alongside The True Christian Religion, Conjugial Love, and The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, to clarify where the book's liberal sympathies drift from the truths revealed by the Lord through Swedenborg.