Description

Many years ago, Rev. Prescott Rogers had a conversation that changed his life. He spoke with a professor who taught a course on systematic theology at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began his class by defining “systematic theology” as the disciplined study of a religion’s belief system to see how broad, how deep and how consistent or coherent it is. The most widely studied religions on this basis were Roman Catholicism in the West and Mahayana Buddhism in the East, but he expressed to Rev. Rogers that, to his knowledge, no other religion could be offered as a better example than the Heavenly Doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. One of the main reasons for this belief is that Swedenborg’s teachings transcend cultural understanding and practicing of religion and instead focus on the universal truths of being human.

For the past 18 years, Rev. Rogers has taught a course in the systematic nature of New Church doctrines to students new to the Bryn Athyn College Theological School. His new book, The Heavenly Doctrines As Systematic Theology, is based on this course which parallels the concepts in True Christian Religion, the last book written and published by Swedenborg:

“The faith of the new heaven and the new church. . . is first set forth in a universal and in a particular form, that it may serve as a preface set before the work that follows, also as a gate giving entrance to a temple, and as a summary. . . .” (True Christian Religion 1)

Like True Christian Religion, Rogers’s course and now book is presented as a gateway and as a summary—an entrance into doctrines for those not yet familiar with those of the New Church and as a summary for those who are familiar. First, he grounds students in the generals of doctrine. What follows is the particulars of the several doctrines. Hopefully, after reading the book, as with students taking the course, one can reflect on what they have learned and see the generals more clearly because they have understood the particulars, in the framework of the generals.

This is Rev. Rogers’s third book; his first two books are The Triune Word and A Companion to Divine Love and Wisdom.