than on appeals to tradition and authority. They rejected doctrines such as the original sin or Trinity, arguing that they were irrational. Rational Dissenters believed that Christianity and faith could be dissected and evaluated using the newly emerging discipline of science, and that a stronger belief in God would be the result. Another significant dissenting tradition that emerged at the end of the 18th century is the Swedenborgian church, which continues today in several branches around the world. It originated in London in 1780. Beginning as groups reading Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), whose members were composed largely of Methodists, Baptists, and Anglicans, some of the Swedenborgian enthusiasts became disillusioned with the prospects for thorough Swedenborgian theological reform within their respective traditions. These left those churches to form the General Conference of the New Jerusalem, often called simply the New Church. Other Swedenborgian converts, such as Anglican Rev. John Clowes and Rev. Thomas Hartley, argued for remaining within existing traditions. Swedenborg himself did not call for a new organisation, but for profound theological reform for the existing churches. At the end of his life, he endured a rare Swedish heresy inquiry by the Swedish Lutheran Consistory. He died before it was concluded, and the Consistory shelved the inquiry without reaching a decision. Swedenborg's primary critiques of orthodox theology centred on the tri-personal constructions of the Trinity, the idea of salvation by faith alone, and the vicarious atonement. He revived an allegorical tradition of reading scripture, which he believed was composed in correspondences. He believed in a theory of symbolic values in the literal text, which could produce an inner sense wherein the individual could ascertain the new theology. Dissenting groups continuing today Baptists Congregationalists Presbyterians (majority in Scotland but classified as dissenters in England, see English Presbyterianism) other Reformed groups: e.g. United Reformed Church Quakers Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists Swedenborgians Anabaptists Nondenominational Protestants and others See also 17th century denominations in England Christian anarchism Dissenting academies Ecclesiastical separatism English Independents History of the Puritans in North America Freedom of religion Nonconformist Independent (religion) Recusancy Religion in the United Kingdom Separatists Notes References Fitzpatrick, Martin. "Heretical Religion and Radical Political Ideas in Late Eighteenth-Century England." The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century. Ed. Eckhart Hellmuth. Oxford: Oxford University Press; London: German Historical Institute, 1990. . Mullett, Charles F. "The Legal Position of English Protestant Dissenters, 1689–1767." Virginia