Jennifer Christian, age 16, of Montgomery, Ala., for her question:
WHAT IS THE SWEDENBORG SECT?
A Swedish scientist, philosopher and theologian named Emanuel Swedenborg is the founder of a small religious organization called the Swedenborgian or Swedenborg sect.
Born in Stockholm on January 29, 1688 (his real name was Emanuel Swedberg), he was educated at the University of Uppsala and from 1716 until 1747 he served as assessor for the Swedish mining board. At the Swedish Siege of Fredrikshald (now Halden), Norway, in 1718, during the Great Northern War., Swedenborg devised a method of transporting boats overland. He was ennobled for this accomplishment in 1719 and given a seat in the Swedish house of peers.
A man of unusual intellectual powers, Swedenborg made important contributions in his earliest writings to such fields as mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology.
Swedenborg's "Philosophical and Mineral Works" (1734) contain his views on the derivation of matter. His studies in physiology led him to attempt, in "Economy of the Animal Kingdom" (1741), an explanation of the relationship between matter and the human soul.
In 1745, after claiming to have experienced supernatural visions, Swedenborg turned to the study of theology. In "Heavenly Arcana" (1749 56 in eight volumes), the most notable of his theological works, he propounded a religious system based on an allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures according to instructions received, professedly, from God.
Swedenborg died in London on March 29, 1772.
Swedenborg's followers, known as Swedenborgians, accepted his theological writings as being divinely inspired. He never intended to found a new religious denomination, but in 1787 his disciples in England were organized as a separate sect by the British printer Robert Hindmarsh.
Today Swedenborgians in Great Britain number about 5,000 in 75 societies. In the United States Swedenborgians have two organizations: General Convention of New Jerusalem and General Church of the New Jerusalem.
According to the latest available statistics, the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States has 47 societies for its 2,800 members while the General Church of the New Jerusalem has 33 societies for its 2,100 members.
Swedenborg maintained that in 1757 the last judgment occurred in his presence, that the Christian Church as a spiritual entity came to an end, and that a new church, foretold as the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, was created by divine dispensation.
According to Swedenborg, the natural world derives its reality from the existence of God, whose divinity became human in Jesus Christ. The highest purpose is to achieve conjunction with God through love and wisdom.