Parallel Passages Tool

A while ago Freya Fitzpatrick, who is working on a new, critical edition of the Latin text of True Christian Religion, sent me a parallel passages spreadsheet (.xls) that she put together. I've now finally figured out a way to make it available to people online.

Here's Freya's introduction to the document:

This is not a complete or definitive listing of all possible parallel passages. These parallels have been compiled over many years by different people for use in a variety of specific works. I have simply transcribed their work into a database. There may be other sources of parallel passages I am unaware of and have not included. There may be books of the Writings for which no-one has yet researched parallel passages. I have not checked for the original accuracy of the parallels. If someone else says a passage is parallel, I have taken his word for it. Nor have I checked the accuracy of my typing. So, please pardon any errors.

Now all we need is for someone to incorporate this into one of the search engines.

Just going to sneak into the lowest heaven?

In class today we were talking about how people sometimes joke that they're just going to sneak into the lowest corner of the lowest heaven. Theolog Pearse Frazier made the good point that thinking this way involves thinking of heaven as a destination rather than as a state. He said that what we should think instead is "how can I live in a heavenly way today?"

Read Recent Comments on New Church Thought

I'm a little ridiculously excited to announce that I've added a Recent Comments gadget to New Church Thought. This means that you can now see what people have been saying recently. For example, in the last week, Chuck Ebert, who is in charge of HeavenlyDoctrines.org, commented on the search engine review with some details about the difference between the online and desktop versions of the STAIRS project; Alison Longstaff commented on "What to do when the New Church is Accused of Being a Cult" that perhaps people have a point when they accuse the General Church and Nova Hierosalyma of being a cult; and Kertus Jildes commented on the post about Curtis Childs' radio show that the show was the "Best thing to come out of the twenty-first century so far. Period."

So if you're interested in what's being said or want to join in the conversation, look for the Recent Comments gadget on the right-hand side of the blog.

A Belated Celebration of the Birth of New Church Thought

New Church Thought was born January 8th, 2008 and so is now over a year old and has passed 100 posts. I want to take this random day in March when I have some extra time to celebrate that and get some feedback on my blog.

When it was born I wrote,

The goal of New Church Thought is to collect good passages, good sermons, good articles, good posts, and good news, and to present them in short posts.

I explained it more in the welcome post. I think it all still applies. What I'm trying to figure out is whether I could accomplish this better by changing some things.

First, here are 2 changes I've made recently:

1. Recently I embedded some videos in my blog rather than just linking to them. I'm considering doing this with images as well.

2. I added two gadgets to the right side-bar so that you can now Follow and/or Subscribe to my blog. Please do! :)

Here are some changes I'm considering:

1. More posts and less detail. - My approach in a typical post has been to provide a short sentence about why I like something (it's interesting, fun, good, great, etc.) and then quote as much of it as I can to try to get you to read it yourself before I go past my 300 word limit (which I am breaking just this once). There are two ways I could change this:

a) If I spend less time looking through what I read or heard for the best parts to quote it would take me less time to post about it and so I would probably update my blog more frequently but the posts would be much shorter and less detailed. (e.g. “An interesting sermon by Rev. Louis King about how the infinite God can be present with us.”)

b) Instead of spending as much time as I do quoting things I could spend more time describing my response to them. (e.g. “I heard an interesting sermon by Rev. Louis King about how the infinite God can be present with us yesterday. I admit that my mind wandered off during it a couple of times—perhaps due to my state or perhaps because it lacked an obvious direction and progression. On the whole, though, I found it a good reminder of 2 basic truths: that I don't have to identify all the thoughts and feelings that I experience as myself and that the Lord is always present in my life, even when it's hard.”)

2. Remove my face from the header. - I can't decide whether to remove my face from the header or not. It looks a little goofy to me but I'm used to it by now and I can't think of a different image to put there.

3. Add a blog roll/other links. - Most blogs have a long list of other blogs and web sites on their sidebar. I'm thinking I'll add one of those but I'm worried that it might make things too cluttered.

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Please leave a comment if you have feedback on any of these or any other thoughts about what would improve New Church Thought or make it something that you would enjoy visiting regularly.

Thanks.

Malcolm

P.S.

Along with every other blogger in the world I would love to have more people comment and contribute to the blog so... please feel free to comment and let me know if you're interested in contributing. Want to share a cool passage that you just read? Want to comment on a good sermon you just heard? Want to ask a question that you haven't heard a good answer to yet? Email me and I'll post it for you. Or, if you're interested in contributing regularly, I'll probably offer to give you the ability to post for yourself.

New Web Site for the New Church in England

There's a new web site for the General Church congregations in the United Kingdom. Nice colors, innovative design, and information about British Academy Summer School.

Good Response to Claims that the Heavenly Doctrines are Anti-Semitic

Rev. Erik E. Sandström has a good response to claims that the Heavenly Doctrines are anti-semitic:

The Old and New Testaments are far more anti-semitic than the Heavenly Doctrines.

New General Church Vision Explained

Bishop Tom Kline describes "A Bold New Vision" for the General Church. Agree or disagree with it, it's good to have it clearly communicated.

Welcome to New Church Thought

The goal of New Church Thought is to collect good passages, good sermons, good articles, good posts, and good news, and to present them in short posts.

This will not be a journal of my own reflections but rather a regularly updated Instapundit.com-style collection of links to other people's thoughts.

From what I hear, a successful blog must be self-serving. If it becomes a chore to maintain it, you won't; if you enjoy maintaining it, you will. Therefore, New Church Thought will be a record of the New Church thought that I wanted to keep track of anyway. I just heard a good sermon about the still small voice. I just read a cool passage about terminology used in the Heavenly Doctrines. I just ran across an interesting blog post about enslavement. Right now I remember where to find those things; in a year, I won't. Therefore, I want an easy way to keep track of them. Therefore, New Church Thought.

I am not interested in this turning into a place for argument. However, “one tone does not produce any melody, still less harmony, so neither does one truth” (Arcana Coelestia 4197:7). I would love it if each thing I posted had a string of comments after it with links to other passages, articles, etc. that provide more New Church thoughts about the topic.

I mean what I say about short posts. Something may come up, but my current rule is that all posts will be shorter than 300 words. This means that I have to quote very sparingly. If something I quote seems interesting but not complete, follow the link and read the full thing.

Any feedback you have is much appreciated. Comment on this post or send me an email.

Thanks for reading!