book review
Spiritual Law:
The Essence of Swedenborg’s
Divine Providence
By Joanna V. Hill
Published by Rock Point Press
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Reviewed by Roslyn Taylor
A longer version appeared in The Messenger, October 2014. Reprinted with permission.
A
s I skimmed the Contents page of Joanna Hill’s latest book, which offers
“the essence of Swedenborg’s Divine Providence,” her paraphrase of
the five Spiritual Laws drew me in right away. They were direct and clear,
promising a discussion that would be accessible to the reader from the very
beginning. The rest of the book certainly lives up
to that promise.
Besides clarifying the author’s purpose for
distilling Swedenborg’s theological text for today’s
spiritual seeker, the author’s preface sets up two
tensions. Is this book about Divine governance
of our physical world, or is it about spiritual
transformation? By the end of the preface,
the reader is also feeling the tension between
Swedenborg’s “old fashioned” ideas and his “new
view of Christianity.”
As I moved into the body of the work, I found
myself getting out a traditional translation of
79