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Church.
2. CATECHISM – For The New Christian Church meant by the New Jerusalem in
the Revelation based on the teachings of the Seer Emanuel Swedenborg. By John
Durban Odhner, 1996 (Copyright 1995 by John Durban Odhner) The Newell Press
In his Introduction, the author states that he has written the book because
of the increasing need for young people and newcomers to the Church to have
answers to questions about the Church and its doctrines. This book is divided
into 12 topics with more than 400 questions and answers, all with relevant
book references.
In my view, both these little books are excellent, with questions and
answers relevant to all ages, with answers short and to the point, and with each
answer referenced. The earlier book might well be out of print now unless it
was reprinted later. The second book, being a later publication, might still be
available. These two books are the most succinct, yet comprehensive, reviews
of the doctrines of the New Church that I know of.
Sample questions and answers:
Q: Is nature God?
A: No, it is from God, and He is in it by inflow.
Q: Why are human beings immortal?
A: Because they have the faculty of conjoining themselves with God through
faith and love and so of becoming the receptacle and dwelling place of Him
Who is inexhaustible and eternal.
Q: Who was Adam?
A: The first spiritual race of people, called the Most Ancient Church, who
lived a heavenly life on earth. By the ancient writers their time was called the
Golden or Saturnine Age, and the Age of Innocence, being represented by the
head of gold in the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar.
Q: How could God be in the world, when yet He is everywhere?
A: His Soul was the Infinite Divine Itself, which is omnipresent.
Q: What do we take with us into the other life?
A: Everything we have ever felt, thought and done, from the first to the last
moment of our life.
Q: What does the Holy Supper effect?
A: Conjunction with the Lord, and introduction into Heaven.
Q: Why does man remain man and woman a woman after death?
A: Because in the man the masculine dominates in the soul as well as the mind
and body, and so does the feminine in the woman.
Q: What is the New that has now been revealed?
A: All the truth contained in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church about
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