At the ordination service this past Sunday, Rev. Andy Dibb, dean of the Academy of the New Church Theological School, gave a great sermon about the priesthood. Why are priests necessary? What can they do? What can they not do?
I really liked the readings he chose from Malachi 2, Matthew 10, and Divine Providence 154 and 171. And, in the sermon, I thought he did a good job of explaining the background information necessary for understanding why priests are needed.
Listen to the sermon, "The Salvation of Souls", online at the new New Church Audio web site or download it from there and listen to it on your MP3 player.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wayfarer's Chapel Appears in Sprint Commercial
The Wayfarer's Chapel (www.wayfarerschapel.org), which belongs to the Swedenborgian Church (swedenborg.org), was used in a Sprint commercial, "What if film crews ran the world?"
Web Sites for New Church Summer Camps
There are a bunch of New Church camps that happen during the summer. The new NewChurch.org has a Camps & Retreats page that has information about a lot of them and links to their various web sites.
The camps happening this summer include Laurel Family Camp (www.laurelcamp.org), Jacob's Creek Family Camp (www.geocities.com/jcfamilycamp/index.html), British Academy Summer School (www.newchurchuk.org/bass/bass.php), and several others.
This page only includes information about General Church camps. Is anyone aware of any information online about other New Church camps?
The camps happening this summer include Laurel Family Camp (www.laurelcamp.org), Jacob's Creek Family Camp (www.geocities.com/jcfamilycamp/index.html), British Academy Summer School (www.newchurchuk.org/bass/bass.php), and several others.
This page only includes information about General Church camps. Is anyone aware of any information online about other New Church camps?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Cool Stuff Having to Do with Arcana Coelestia
When Swedenborg published volume 1 of Arcana Coelestia it was listed in the Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer. This was the first advertisement for any book of the Writings. There's an online archive of the Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer or London Magazine, as it was later called. You can see the first listing of Arcana Coelestia here. I know that other advertisements and letters about Swedenborg and his works were also published in this magazine; let me know if you find any of them.
Volume 1 didn't sell well (see Spiritual Experiences 4422). So Swedenborg decided to publish volume 2 of it, chapter by chapter, in English and in Latin.
When the first chapter of volume 2 was published, Swedenborg's English publisher, John Lewis, wrote a fascinating letter about it to be published in the Daily Advertiser. You can read this letter on pp492-497 of Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg by R.L. Tafel, which can be found online in Google Book Search.
You can download a PDF of a scan of the 1750 English translation of chapter 16 of Arcana Coelestia—a 100dpi version (6MB). (This PDF was provided by the Lord's New Church (www.thelordsnewchurch.com). It is no longer available on their website so the link is to the file on their site using the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive. They have other Free Swedenborg Books Online on their web site, in English, Dutch, Croatian, and Latin.)
This translation was by John Marchant*, who later also translated Brief Exposition (you can find his translation of it here). It's fun to look at this translation to see how it was laid out and how the Latin was translated back then. Rev. Jonathan Rose, series editor of the New Century Edition and translator of True Christian Religion, told me that he thinks the translation is good—"lively and in real English."
* A note on page 249 of Scribe of Heaven says this about Marchant: "Marchant was an English writer and compiler of the mid-eighteenth century who wrote on current events and literary themes such as the Bible and Paradise Lost. His dates of birth and death were not available to the authors, though erroneously specified in Hyde 1906, page 731. In some cases his name is given as Merchant."
Volume 1 didn't sell well (see Spiritual Experiences 4422). So Swedenborg decided to publish volume 2 of it, chapter by chapter, in English and in Latin.
When the first chapter of volume 2 was published, Swedenborg's English publisher, John Lewis, wrote a fascinating letter about it to be published in the Daily Advertiser. You can read this letter on pp492-497 of Documents Concerning the Life and Character of Emanuel Swedenborg by R.L. Tafel, which can be found online in Google Book Search.
You can download a PDF of a scan of the 1750 English translation of chapter 16 of Arcana Coelestia—a 100dpi version (6MB). (This PDF was provided by the Lord's New Church (www.thelordsnewchurch.com). It is no longer available on their website so the link is to the file on their site using the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive. They have other Free Swedenborg Books Online on their web site, in English, Dutch, Croatian, and Latin.)
This translation was by John Marchant*, who later also translated Brief Exposition (you can find his translation of it here). It's fun to look at this translation to see how it was laid out and how the Latin was translated back then. Rev. Jonathan Rose, series editor of the New Century Edition and translator of True Christian Religion, told me that he thinks the translation is good—"lively and in real English."
* A note on page 249 of Scribe of Heaven says this about Marchant: "Marchant was an English writer and compiler of the mid-eighteenth century who wrote on current events and literary themes such as the Bible and Paradise Lost. His dates of birth and death were not available to the authors, though erroneously specified in Hyde 1906, page 731. In some cases his name is given as Merchant."
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
New New Church Audio Web Site
The new New Church Audio site (www.newchurchaudio.org) launched yesterday. Like the new Vineyard site it has a bunch of categories to pick from, right on the homepage. If you're just looking for sermons on a given topic, click the "Worship Services Only" check box on the search results page to filter out weddings, funerals etc.
There's a form on the upper left corner of the page to help you find recordings. You can now filter by topic and can also say that you want results recorded before or after a certain date, or between certain dates.
Some of the recordings now have descriptions (for example) and better cross linking so that when you're listening to one sermon it just takes one click to find more sermons by that minister or preached in that location.
Because the site is brand new there are a couple of things that still need to be ironed out.
There's a form on the upper left corner of the page to help you find recordings. You can now filter by topic and can also say that you want results recorded before or after a certain date, or between certain dates.
Some of the recordings now have descriptions (for example) and better cross linking so that when you're listening to one sermon it just takes one click to find more sermons by that minister or preached in that location.
Because the site is brand new there are a couple of things that still need to be ironed out.
- The "Request this event be made available for sale." link doesn't work.
- Though on the About page it says that many of the recordings are available for downloading, there is no obvious way to do this.
- Certain recordings are separated into separate tracks for hymns, lessons, and sermon (for example). Currently, clicking on a later track does not play that later track.
I also have 2 suggestions/hopes for the site (which they may be working on implementing or have chosen not to do).
- It would be awesome if it would be possible to download/subscribe to different sermon feeds (by minister or location) as podcasts.
- It would be cool if there were a "Share this sermon" link or button to make it easy for people to recommend a sermon to their friends by email or on Facebook.
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