We call ourselves The New Church. Our beliefs are based on the Bible as explained by Emanuel Swedenborg, who lived in the 1700's. We believe:
Below are a few of the more notable aspects of our faith. These are this author's own personal interpretations of New Church doctrines. While other members may agree substantially, each would say it in a different way.
What we need to be "saved" from is our own natural self-centeredness and laziness. God is not our adversary, but is totally dedicated to bringing all of humanity into a state of happiness and spiritual well-being (that's what "salvation" originally meant). But not all are saved, because some prefer to devote their lives to themselves and to worldly pleasure, and God does not force anybody to accept Him.
God is infinitely merciful, and is willing and able to save anybody who does not choose to reject Him. Each individual is predestined only to heaven, but God permits us to choose hell and all it represents, if we insist. (Hell is a lot less fun after death than it is in this world, but people create that for themselves -- it's not God's will for them to be miserable.)
Every religion has elements of the truth, and is capable of preparing people to choose the Lord's way after death. Those in this world who try to live by God's Word are unconsciously helping others in the world, including those who have no religion or a largely false religion. Some "gentiles" or "heathens" are very sincere and well-disposed, and find it easy to embrace the truth when they are instructed after they die.
Intellectual faith, alone, does not help at all. We need to submit our lives to God's truth as we see it, as completely as we can, so that He can make us "new creatures." That means, of course, trying to be unselfish and recognizing that everything good is from God -- any time we focus on our own "goodness" we slide backwards. The idea of "getting saved", as Christians often seem to express it, can be dangerous if the initial inspiration isn't followed by a life of sincere effort. God doesn't just mold us like passive clay; part of His gift to us is the opportunity to participate in our own renewal as if we were accomplishing it ourselves, but knowing that it is completely His doing.
For a detailed discussion of the relationship between faith and charity, you may want to read the book The True Christian Religion by Swedenborg.
The Bible contains many books in which every sentence, every word, contains internal meanings which are not obvious to the casual reader. These meanings are logical and functional: for example, fire corresponds to love, or to hatred in some cases; water corresponds to truth, by which our spirits are cleansed; sheep correspond to the innocence that God gives us, the part of us that is eager to follow our Shepherd; the number Twelve represents all the things of the church, by which God joins us to Himself: thus the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Apostles, the twelve gates to the Holy City, and the 144,000 who are to be saved.
This internal meaning is Christ's inner garment which the soldiers did not divide, though they parted His outer garments. This represents how the inner truth of God's word can not be harmed, though people may abuse, exploit and make jokes about the literal stories. This protects the truth from being abused in more harmful ways. It also protects us while we are in evil states, from truth which would destroy our ability to accept or reject God in freedom, or which would be more than we could bear at the moment.
It is this internal sense, containing infinite depths of truth about God, which makes the Bible sacred. It is also what makes the Laws of Moses relevant to our lives today, even though they seem to be only about rituals and hygiene. We can only see glimpses of these spiritual ideas, but some of them are extremely enlightening.
And when we, in this world, read the Bible, the Lord uses this to nourish angels in heaven. Although we can only vaguely understand some of the spiritual concepts, and the angels are not conscious of their connection to us, still they are inspired to think about the spiritual and Divine things in the internal sense of what we are reading. This, in turn, draws heaven closer to us, gives us a special feeling of peace (many people who read the Bible devotionally have experienced this), and supports our spiritual development.
For a detailed discussion of God's Word, its holiness, and its relevance to our daily lives, you may want to read the book The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture by Swedenborg.
When people die, they become conscious in the "spiritual world" shortly after their spirits (minds) are separated from their physical bodies. They then appear to themselves to be in a world like this one, in bodies as they had before, but in much more vivid and beautiful surroundings and in perfect health. This is the promised resurrection; they will never again return to their used-up natural bodies.
As they become accustomed to this new environment, the pretense and conflicts they acquired in this physical world begin to fall away, and their inner motives -- essentially good or evil -- begin to show themselves naturally. Their feelings show transparently in their faces and gestures, and they become unable to conceal their real character. They then seek out people like themselves:
The evil finally drop all their "hangups" and pretenses of good, lose themselves in insane sensual fantasies and delusions of grandeur, and cast themselves into hell where they spend forever "doing unto others" -- but not nearly as much as they'd like to. God rules hell as well as heaven, and limits how much they may harm each other. The resulting frustration is what the Bible calls hell fire, and gnashing of teeth.
The good are instructed, counseled, and led eventually to find their way to heaven. God has provided a "perfect fit" for their affections and talents, and they live forever in enthusiastic and inspired service to others, developing continually in wisdom and in their individual ways of expressing God's love. All of the angels of heaven are just regular people, who chose God's way freely while they were living in the physical world.
Heaven is a vast and perfect organism, in which each angel and each community of angels has a unique and important part to play, just like every cell and organ in the human body, from the interiors of the brain to the soles of the feet, from the lens of the eye to the bones and fingernails. The infinite variety and perfection of God's creation is mirrored in all the types of people who find their destiny in His Eternal Kingdom.
For a detailed description of the Life after Death, you may want to read the book Heaven and Hell by Swedenborg. (Click here to browse Heaven and Hell online.)
Those who have had a close, spiritually-rooted marriage while in this world will meet their mate again after death, and they will serve God together forever. The joys and pleasures of marriage in this world are only a faint shadow of how good it is in heaven. But no children are born in heaven, since the natural world is necessary for us as a foundation, to develop our spiritual identities.
Sincere people who have not entered this kind of marriage on earth will find, after death, that the Lord has been preparing a perfect match for them. He provides that they will meet, and they will recognize each other immediately. The "marriage" itself has really taken place during their earthly life, as they chose what kind of people they were going to become, and as they allowed God to lead them unwittingly towards their shared life in heaven.
Swedenborg wrote a comprehensive book on Married Love (also called "Conjugial Love"), about marriage in heaven, why marriage is a fundamental part of heaven, the evils that attack marriage, and some ways that healthy marriages can be supported.
God's creation is so vast, that He is caring personally for billions of people on countless planets throughout the universe. And heaven has room for all of them. They might not be what we would recognize as human, but they are human because they are capable of understanding and loving God: they also were created in His Image and Likeness. His only physical incarnation happened to be on our planet, but this provided benefits to all of His children.
Swedenborg described spirits he had been permitted to meet from other worlds, and their worship of God, in the little book Earths in the Universe.
We believe that Emanuel Swedenborg was chosen by the Lord as a revelator, by whom the above doctrines were to be given to the world. He was a brilliant and humble scientist and government administrator, who spent most of his life serving his fellow Swedes in various capacities and writing remarkably advanced scientific works. He was sort of a mix of Ben Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, in his own quiet and industrious way, and is regarded with considerable pride by the Swedes for his science and statesmanship.
Late in his life, he reported having had visions of the Lord, who introduced him to the spiritual world where he observed heaven, hell, and how people progressed to their final homes after death. This continued for several decades, while he continued an active and useful secular life. He did meticulous research into the Bible and published some 30 books clarifying and correcting Christian doctrines. Finally, he witnessed the "Last Judgement" in the spiritual world, where the Lord was revealing the same truths; false doctrines and teachers were overthrown, whole cities of evil spirits were exposed and they fled headlong into hell, and good spirits who had been trapped under their influence were restored to freedom.
These doctrines, Swedenborg claimed, *were* the Second Coming of Christ, as the Spirit of Truth, through the revelation of the Internal Sense of the Word. He said that God would build a renewed faith which was represented by the New Jerusalem of prophesy. But he himself shrunk away from any personal credit or organizational involvement, just calling himself another servant of the Lord.
In the Lord's Providence, since the events of Swedenborg's time, the world has moved to a more merciful view of God, and a more sincere and active kind of faith. The criticisms Swedenborg directed at the Christian churches of his time do not apply to most Christian churches today.
There are several international organizations, and many individuals and groups, that explicitly accept this set of doctrines. But in fact, many Christian scholars integrated Swedenborg's most important teachings into theirs during the 1800s, and God has worked to soften many hearts. Most Christians now focus their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. They acknowledge that we need to actively turn away from our own selfish and materialistic impulses and let the Lord lead in our lives.
God knows who is truly in His church; Swedenborgians have New Church baptisms and formal memberships, but don't presume to draw sharp lines as to who is "in" or "out". We have full-time ministers and many well-studied individuals, none of whom claims the authority to define the truth for others. We all respect and support those faiths that teach people to obey God and to love the neighbor.
There are about six main Swedenborgian churches worldwide, and they differ regarding the status they give Swedenborg's writings, relative to the Old and New Testaments. These churches are organized differently, and have different worship styles, but share publications and other types of support. None of them dictate doctrine to their members in absolute terms, because it is each person's responsibility to approach God according to their own conscience.
The language of this particular web page reflects the point of view of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, through one layman's eyes.
The doctrines revealed through Emanuel Swedenborg are so detailed and organized that they provide endless opportunity for study and interpretation of the Bible, which we usually refer to as The Word. Devotional reading of the Word (as any Christian knows) often brings inspiration and insight.
The several corporate New Church organizations train and support ministers, provide resources for local churches, translate and publish Swedenborg's books and a number of periodicals, and even run a New Church high school and college.
The Lord wants each of us to apply our best understanding of His Word to the issues that confront us. That way He can work freely through us, without being limited by the pressures that other people place on our beliefs.
So if you ask questions of New Church people, you can expect quite a bit of variety among the replies you'll receive. Also, you can expect longer responses than you asked for, because we avoid rigid, doctrinaire pronouncements.
One of the most important things we try to remember is that the Lord is infinitely merciful, and that His laws are intended to promote our happiness. While we need to be selective about the company we keep, and need to seek out people who support our efforts to grow in faith, it is not appropriate to judge another person's spiritual condition nor to insist that they must live by our own interpretation of God's spiritual laws.
Swedenborgians use the whole Bible, but give most of their attention to some books more than others.
These books of the Bible contain a continuous internal sense, beyond the truth revealed by God in their literal teachings:
This document is one layman's view of the doctrines of the New Church. If you would like to ask any questions about this summary or other New Church resources, click below. Please be sure to include your E-Mail address so that I can respond.
-- Victor Odhner, Phoenix AZ USA (vodhner@aztec.asu.edu)