Talk:Swedenborgianism

Article: List of Christian denominations

At Talk:List of Christian denominations#Nontrinitarianism, I've asked about moving certain groups. You may wish to post a comment there.
--AuthorityTam (talk) 20:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Opinion

The section about non organized swedenborgianism currently reads: "The term may be used to refer to people inspired by some part of Swedenborgian philosophy or theology who take an eclectic approach to spiritual topics. They may blend "pure" Swedenborgian thought with ideas from other systems, including Jungian psychology, Spiritualism, and "traditional" Christianity. Such Swedenborgianism bears little resemblance to the ecclesiastical form usually referred to by the term." There is no reference for this and I consider it merely somebody's opinion. I totally disagree with this. What is "pure Swedenborgianism"? Pure Swedenborgianism as per the Swedenborg Scientific association http://www.thenewphilosophyonline.org/journal/article.php?page=1013&issue=103 is a follow up on the work of Jakob Boehme, who was an occultist and promoted occult theosophy. How can you thus allow a statement like this that somehow there is a "pure swedenborg" group which in it's roots is not related to these philosophies? I request for this section to be removed. (Redeeminglove (talk) 20:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC))

Christian Appologetics Mission is not a WP:RS

And putting in this anti-swedenborgian propaganda will be reverted with alacrity no matter what subject hedder you put on it. Honestly don't christians have better things to do with their time than finding inventive ways of discrediting each other's denominations? Simonm223 (talk) 21:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It is true that Swedenborg doesn't go down too well with mainstream Christianity, but such criticism will need to be referenced, and it will need to be based on actual mainstream authors. Citing criticism from randomly googled internet bible-thumpery such as "Matt, Ryan and Diane from Idaho" is not arguable. --dab (𒁳) 11:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all religion to me... Regardless, the thing that matters here is that sources for criticism be reliable and it's been well established that Christian Apologetics Mission is absolutely not a WP:RS for anything other than the Christian Apologetics Mission (where it is a primary source). Simonm223 (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Your approach is the correct encyclopedic form. People should learn to edit topics in which they have no vested emotional interest. An encyclopedia is for laying out the facts, not for winning or losing arguments. Of course, if you believe that 'religion is harmful to society', you also have emotional involvement, but not with Swedenborgianism in particular at least, and anyway you seem to be able to abstract from your ideological position when editing, so it's ok. --dab (𒁳) 10:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see Swedenborgianism as any more or less harmful than any other religion. Simonm223 (talk) 14:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Description of Protestantism

The subsection on Protestantism is not accurate. Many Unitarians, for instance, identified as Protestants, and did not believe in the Trinity or justification by faith alone. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 00:23, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

You must gain consensus for your edits, rather than remove information from Wikipedia that meets WP:V and WP:RS. The reference you removed is authored by a academic, Bryan D. Spinks, and published by a scholarly press, Routledge. I have reverted you per WP:BRD; rather than edit warring, you can discuss your edits here. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 03:20, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Please see my reply to THEZDRX below. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 20:29, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Hapless.Winter.Striping, what you removed is a reliable source and Swedenborgianism belongs to the Restorationist family of churches, not being Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. I object to your blanking of this material. THEZDRX _{(User) | (Contact)} 19:09, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

In reply to THEZDRX: there is no tetrachotomy of Christian denominations. It is exceedingly bizarre to think that there are four overarching families of Christian traditions, and that everything that does not fit cleanly within Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, or Protestantism must be Restorationist.

Moreover, the reliability of the source by Spinks on this point is doubtful for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Spinks's book is not a monograph about Swedenborgianism in particular. It is very specifically a survey of baptismal practices and theology across different post-Restoration Christian traditions. So, it is a bit strange to use as a source about the general character of Swedenborgianism within the history of Christianity. Secondly, the author, Spinks, is mostly a liturgical scholar. Spinks is not a specialist either in the history of Swedenborgianism, or in the history of Restorationist Christianity. So what he says ought, at the very least, to be treated with more caution than has been hitherto used here.

One good reason for being cautious is, thirdly (what should not come as a surprise) that the section of Spinks's book about Swedenborgianism is demonstrably inaccurate and misleading in numerous material particulars! Perhaps one reason that its breezy carelessness is not obvious to you is that the Wikipedia article on Swedenborgianism is itself highly incomplete and deficient, as it has been for a long time.

In brief, Spinks's taxonomy is not reflective of the scholarly consensus on this subject, for reasons that are clearly evident in the literature, which I will outline.

Here is just one misleading aspect of Spinks's summary: he writes that by the 1780s, discussion groups had begun in England and that "from these meetings in England, the visible New Church was founded".

That would lead one to believe that Swedenborgianism began, as a movement, in England which is not true. See, for instance, Harry Lenhammar's monograph on the history of Swedenborgianism in Sweden during the eighteenth century, and in particular its discussion of Swedenborgianism within the Diocese of Skara. Lenhammar's work is now well-enough known and accepted by other scholars that is it is being relied upon by historians, for example, of Swedish entomology, as here.

More particularly, Lenhammar's monograph (at great length) details the role of ministers of the eighteenth-century Church of Sweden in the formation of Swedenborgian Christianity, and of the part played by Swedenborgian discussion societies in eighteenth-century Sweden in the history of the institutional New Church. Spinks's monograph wholly omits to take notice of such Swedish developments. Perhaps if Spinks had been aware of them, then he would not have confusedly placed Swedenborgian Christianity under the heading of Restorationist Christianity, a term that (in this context) seems intended to refer to denominations that arose out of the Great Awakenings during the nineteenth century... which, as I hope I have now given you some sense, Swedenborgian Christianity clearly did not. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 20:22, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I meant to write, in the third paragraph of my post, "post-Reformation Christian traditions". Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 20:23, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

And I likewise meant to write "arose out of the Great Awakenings in the Anglophone world during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and perhaps more especially out of the Second Great Awakening". Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 20:26, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

It seems unproblematic to include in the body of the article that "Some scholars have written Swedenborgianism as part of Restorationist Christianity", even though I think that it does not reflect the scholarly consensus, and Spinks, however otherwise distinguished, is not a specialist in this area.

But it seems a bit extreme to place this classification in the first paragraph of the article. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 18:39, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I agree with User:ZDRX that the source meets WP:RS. User:Hapless.Winter.Striping misrepresented Bryan D. Spinks as simply an "Anglican priest" when he is a professor at Yale University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The text he authored is informative about the classification of Swedenborgianism as a Restorationist Church, as with other aspects about Christianity. Additionally, other sources also characterize Swedenborgianism that way. Earlier texts, such as New Church Independent and Monthly Review (authored by Woodbury Melcher Fernald) have noted:

But there are some non-essential things, founded chiefly upon Swedenborg's reasonings and statements, which many New Churchmen cannot subscribe to. There are multitudes, for instance, who do not believe in the strict eternity of the hells, as generally explained. I find them everywhere almost where I go. Even in the New Church ministry I have met the same element. I have had correspondence with such. There is a distinctive restorationist faith, more or less modified.

The more recent text Speaking the Unspeakable: Allen Ginsberg's Paradigm of Prophetic Poetry authored by Jonas Faust (and published by Brill Academic Press) describes Swedenborgians as "an esoteric, Restorationist Christian sect". The historian Bradley Alan Hart likewise includes Swedenborgians under the category of Restorationism in his work Restoring the Restoration, noting that Restorationism "encompassed a far more diverse array of movements, each with its own interpretation of the quest to restore primitive Christianity." Additionally, it is not "exceedingly bizarre to think that there are four overarching families of Christian traditions". Restorationism includes a number of unrelated churches that shared a similar impulse in their foundation, so it logically makes sense. Given the number of references that use this classification, it will be kept in this article. Anupam^Talk 22:10, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

Firstly, what is meant by the lowercase "restorationist" in earlier, primary sources is not the same as what is meant by the capitalized "Restorationist" in contemporary scholarship. Many Protestant denominations have "restorationist" elements, in this sense. Sixteenth-century Presbyterians characterized ecclesiastical government by classes (as opposed to Bishops) as being closer to the ecclesiological form of the early church. Does that make all Presbyterians "restorationists"? It would be bizzare to claim so.

Secondly, can you really see nothing wrong with citing a monograph about Allen Ginsberg's poetry as an authority on a question in the history of theology? That makes no sense. It is not pertinent to the subject matter! I suspect, in fact, that considering the late date of publication (which postdates the addition of the "Restorationist" classification to Wikipedia) that in fact this erroneous datum on Wikipedia is the source for Faust's claim!

Thirdly, I noted Spinks's denominational affiliation because it seemed worthy of consideration in assessing the reliability of the source. You have still not offered a serious, specialized academic source in support of this classification. Why do you think this?

Fourthly, you have not addressed any of the specific issues about the accuracy of Spinks's characterisation to which I have already called attention.

Fifthly, it is pompous to say "Given the number of references that use this classification, it will be kept in this article." You do not seem interested in actually learning about this subject. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 22:14, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

When offered evidence that an academic publication has classified Swedenborgians as Restorationist, you claim that "this erroneous datum on Wikipedia is the source for Faust's claim". That is pure speculation, probably false, and has no credibility here. You cannot reject reliable sources by using WP:IDONTLIKETHAT as reasoning. Anupam^Talk 22:17, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

It is also difficult not to be a bit wary of your Bradley Alan Hart source, which also postdates the addition of the classification to the article on Wikipedia, and which is based upon a dissertation submitted to Liberty University! Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 22:24, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

You can make the case for including in the article that "Brian Spinks has claimed that the Swedenborgian churches should be understood as a part of Restorationist christianity", but the prominence of the classification's placement in the article's first paragraph is out of accord with Wikipedia:DUE Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Do you really think that a monograph about Alan Ginsburg's poetry is a good source for an article about Swedenborgianism? Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The fact that an academic publication has said it does not make it so. Moreover I merely said that I suspected it to be the source of the claim, not that it was.

I have outlined reasons to be sceptical of the original academic source cited, with which you have not engaged to the least degree whatever. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 22:20, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

No matter what you believe to be true, Hapless.Winter.Striping, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. The number of sources found by Anopam, and I know that there are probably more, strengthens the status quo for this article and the consensus to keep the referenced material in the article. Editors are not in the position to critique what are considered reliable, academic citations. THEZDRX _{(User) | (Contact)} 03:24, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

As you know, that phrase is no longer part of the core policy. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 10:59, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

See WP:DUE. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 11:00, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I notice that this is a particular hobby-horse of yours, Anupam, as you have clearly been front-loading the Restorationist classification in a number of articles, such as Catholic Apostolic Church. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 11:16, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

The Catholic Apostolic Church is obviously restorationist and Hart's paper is a good example of how the various restorationist groups reflect a common theme, which includes the Swedenborgians. There isn't a better classification in taxonomy for Swedenborgians than being restorationist. Besides that, Spinks is clearly reliable on this. Durziil89 (talk) 23:09, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Firstly, I agree that the Catholic Apostolic Church is restorationist. I did not dispute that. What I am wondering is this classification needs to be in the first paragraph of the article, and phrased as if it is unquestioned and authoritative.

Secondly, you, like the others, have not engaged with anything I have written about why it is questionable to take Spinks alone at his word on this, or why Hart's writing is possibly an instance of citogenesis.

What, exactly, is the common theme that the "Restorationist groups" share? Please explain, because at the Protestant Reformation many groups saw themselves as restoring Christianity to the Apostolic forms of worship. Many branches of Christianity have "Restorationist" themes. As I have detailed previously in this talk page, there are good reasons, described by specialist academic monographs (and Spinks's book is not a specialised academic monograph), to doubt that the classification is appropriate to Swedenborgianism.

As I have explained above, the term "Restorationist" carries with it chronological and geographical connotations that do not fit with the early history of Swedenborgianism. That should be apparent from the authoritative monograph about the development of Swedenborgianism in eighteenth-century Sweden, to which I have already alluded in this talk page numerous times.

When reference is made to "Restorationist groups", what is usually meant are groups exclusively in the Anglophone world that originated in the first half of the nineteenth century. Swedenborgianism differs in that it originated partly among the clergy of the Church of Sweden, in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

You write "There isn't a better classification in taxonomy for Swedenborgians than being restorationist." Why is it necessary to give it a taxonomy, rather than let it be its own thing?

Here, from the Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, is the chapter on Restorationist traditions in North America. You will observe both that there is absolutely no mention of Swedenborgianism anywhere in the chapter, and that the chapter says that Restorationist groups are generally considered to be those that emerged from the Stone-Campbell movement. Which Swedenborgianism emphatically did not!

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Oxford_History_of_Protestant_Dissent/iDPADgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22restorationist+groups%22%C2%A0&pg=PT254&printsec=frontcover Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

If you think Spinks's opinion should be included somewhere in the article, that's fine, but it is not reflective of a scholarly consensus, and WP:UNDUE therefore applies. It should not be in the first paragraph. If you search the literature, you will find almost no descriptions of the Swedenborgian churches as "Restorationist churches" apart from in Spinks's books, and from sources that are probably the result of citogenesis deriving from this page, ultimately by way of Spinks's books. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 23:51, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

Hapless.Winter.Striping, unlike most articles, the information isn't included in the first sentence of the article, but is included in the second sentence of the article. Swedenborgians are categorized within the Restorationist branch of Christianity because their foundational theology is built on the belief that traditional Christianity fell into a state of apostasy and that a complete restoration of the Church was required. Swedenborgians emerged in the time period when other Restorationist churches were founded, which was well after the Reformation. It isn't the Anglophone world that ties Restorationist denominations together, because La Luz del Mundo is Restorationist and was founded in 1926 during the Mexican Cristero War. Iglesia ni Cristo is Restorationist, but originated in the Philippines. Given the number of editors who have supported the status quo, we do have consensus to retain the taxonomic classification in the article. As a new editor, I would encourage you to improve Christianity-related articles elsewhere. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 02:45, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Anupam, I know that you might find this discussion tedious, and that I am a new editor, but I really would appreciate it if you would carefully listen to what I am saying. The classification may "logically make sense" to you, but it is not reflective of a scholarly consensus. And that is for many good reasons.

Firstly, as to prominence, you write that it is typical for this classification to go in the first sentence of articles, but that is not the case for either of the two "Restorationist churches" you have named in your own reply. I would also point out that the apparently infallible Spinks also characterises the Glasites as "Restorationist", but that the term "Restorationist" appears nowhere in the Wikipedia article on them. Nor do the Glasites appear in the Christianity sidebar.

Secondly, your contention about the "foundational theology" of Swedenborgianism is not really accurate.

Let's start with what you say about apostasy. For one thing, Swedenborgians did not teach that every person outside the formal New Church (which did not exist during Swedenborg's lifetime) had fallen into apostasy. The claim was rather that the old church had fallen into decay; and the new, universal church could include people living outside the formal parameters of the institutions of the Swedenborgians. And there was, accordingly, debate among early Swedenborgians about whether it was necessary to establish a new church organisation, or whether it would be sufficient to work within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, e.g. of the Church of Sweden. So, that is one difference with the other groups you are putting under the heading of "Restorationist churches".

For another thing, unlike the other "Restorationist churches", the Swedenborgians were not simply proposing a return to the structure, worship, or theology of the apostolic church. The New Church of Swedenborg's description was supposed to be something different, a new dispensation. Swedenborgianism therefore differs from Restorationism, or Christian primitivism, which usually aims to reconstruct the apostolic church from scriptural sources (or, in the case of Mormonism, from revelation). Swedenborg is more purely revelatory and forward-looking than any of these. The view of the Swedenborgians was that the old church had ended, and that a new church was beginning through a new disclosure.

Thirdly, as for your point about the chronology, what you are saying is not quite right either. The Restorationist churches are usually taken to have originated after the Second Great Awakening. (If, like Spinks, you opt to include the Glasites, or Methodists, then the chronology and geography of what is considered a "Restorationist church" changes.) But Swedenborgianism emerged before the Second Great Awakening had occurred, and it emerged outside North America. Furthermore, I would also point out that the organised Unitarian churches of the Anglophone world also originated around the same time as Swedenborgianism (the Essex Street Chapel having originated in 1787 in London, the same year in which the first Swedenborgian congregation formally began in London). But they are not categorised, by your own admission elsewhere, as "Restorationist churches".

Fourthly, for consensus, not much time has elapsed for people to read this talk page, and this is a complex question that deserves to be considered carefully.

Fifthly, I said that the classification was in the first paragraph, not in the first sentence.

Sixthly, neither you nor the other editors have responded to what I have said about how Spinks is making passing classification of Swedenborgianism in a broad survey specifically of baptismal practices. The book is not a study of Swedenborg, Swedenborgian ecclesiology, or the taxonomy of new religious movements. It seems a bit tenuous to ground this whole classification on a passing reference to Spinks, and to what seems to "make sense" to a few inexpert Wikipedia editors.

Seventhly, I reiterate that it is clear not only that scholars vary over the question of what the "Restorationist churches" are, exactly, but also that Spinks's judgement is not reflective of the scholarly consensus about the Swedenborgian churches, since there are very few (if any) other scholars of religion who refer to the Swedenborgian churches as Restorationist churches.

If you could find more sources by scholars of religion (especially whose work precedes Spinks's book, and especially scholars of Swedenborgianism) who refer to it as a "Restorationist church", rather than as a church with "restorationist" elements (shared by many denominations of Christianity that we would not call "Restorationist churches"), then I would be satisfied with your classification of the churches as Restorationist.

(And you should have made clear in this talk page from the beginning that it was your classification, following Spinks, not that of another editor.) Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 14:12, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Your point was that Restorationist Churches originated in the Anglophone world, but I provided two examples where this was not the case, e.g. La Luz del Mundo and Iglesia ni Cristo. Anyways, it appears that you moved the classification out of the first paragraph and reworded it slightly. As a compromise, I would be willing to accept your rewording as long as it is somewhere in the lede (I moved it to the last paragraph). Hopefully that is satisfactory to you. If not, per WP:BRD, I would restore it back to its original position and wording. Anupam^Talk 15:09, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, and on that point I was wrong, not having thought much about the later churches that have been characterised as "Restorationist". I am grateful to you for having pointed that out!

The compromise you have proposed would (with one change) certainly be satisfactory, and I have no objection to the placement where it is now. In particular, the only thing that does still concern me is the placement of the Restorationist classification in the infobox, and indeed at the very top of the infobox. Since the infobox is often the first thing readers look at, and a distillation of the article's contents, I worry about the potential for this to suggest to readers that this is the scholarly consensus view. I will be perfectly satisfied with the current form of the article if the classification could be removed from the infobox. (I don't know otherwise how to indicate that it is not a consensus view.)

Thank you for being very civil in this. Hapless.Winter.Striping (talk) 15:33, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

You're welcome! What I could agree to is to leave it in the infobox, but add a footnote noting that is the treatment of at least one scholar. Let me know if that works and I will add it in the article. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 15:59, 20 July 2026 (UTC)