When searching out paths to happiness, do people need to choose between Christianity and a more modern approach that locates the source of joy and consciousness within them? Ronnie doesn't think so. He finds the two knit seamlessly together in the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg and elaborates on those concepts below. -Editor

Many people these days are skeptical of God because they have been told that God is some guy who died on a cross 2000 years ago with a set of arbitrary rules that we must follow to get to a prize at the end of our lives. Many of us have found this picture lacking. Because of this, a different kind of salvation has been defined by many post-modern philosophies, self-help books, and even recovery programs. These philosophies have led people to look within and discover the process involved in being “saved.” Not the “saved” we were taught as children, but instead a process in which peace, joy, love, truth, and connection to Divinity could be found, not outside ourselves in the walls of a musty old building, but inside ourselves, a kingdom we were taught little about as children.