Church of the Holy City

What Is the New Church?

What Is the New Church?
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
February 2, 2014

Isaiah 65:17-25 Revelation 21:1-16, 22-27 Psalm 135

Last Wednesday, January 29 was the birthday of Emanuel Swedenborg. I believe that it was the 326th birthday of this great man who was born in 1688. Swedenborg mastered nearly every discipline of learning in his day. He published massive books about philosophy, chemistry and metallurgy, human anatomy, psychology, and he even wrote poetry. In his fifties, Swedenborg began to experience spiritual visions and he saw into the spiritual world. The remarkable thing about Swedenborg’s visions is that he didn’t enter into a trance to see his visions. Rather, as he emphatically stated, he spoke with angels, demons, and spirits in a state of full wakefulness.
But Swedenborg wasn’t just a spiritual voyeur. He did more than merely see spirits and angels. He experienced a mode of enlightenment in which he learned about God and the nature of salvation that was very different from his inherited Lutheranism. He was raised in a thoroughly Lutheran home. His father was a Lutheran bishop who was a minister to the royal court of Sweden. For the majority of Swedenborg’s life, Swedenborg believed the tenets of the typical Lutheran Church of his day. But his visions, his dialogues with angels and spirits, and his enlightenment from God taught Swedenborg a new way of understanding spirituality.
Swedenborg published his new understanding of spirituality in a series of volumes. In the Standard Edition of Swedenborg’s theology, there are 30 volumes. There are interpretations of the Bible, there are volumes treating theological topics such as Divine Providence, or God’s Love and Wisdom, or Marriage, and his most popular book about Heaven and Hell.
Swedenborg makes a bold claim in his theological books. He claims that a new era in human history is dawning, which he called The New Church. This New Church was foretold in Revelation 21, which we heard this morning. Just what this New Church is, is a great question.
Way back at this church’s very beginning, a man named Robert Hindmarsh thought that the New Church was a new denomination. Accordingly, he applied for a dissenter’s license and with a small group, broke off from the national Church of England. The group then founded a new denomination, The Church of the New Jerusalem, in England in 1787. There were voices of opposition to this new denomination among readers of Swedenborg. One was an Anglican minister named Jeffrey Clowes. Rev. Clowes preached Swedenborgian ideas from the pulpit of his own church. He thought that the New Church foretold in Revelation and proclaimed by Swedenborg would happen as Swedenborg’s writings became absorbed into the greater world. He did not think that another denomination was what Swedenborg had intended. Another prominent voice was that of Henry James, Sr.—the father of William and Henry James. Henry James, Sr. thought that the New Church was a new world order, and not another denomination alongside other denominations.
In the anniversary of the birth of Emanuel Swedenborg, it makes sense to speculate about just what the New Church is. What did Swedenborg mean by the New Church foretold in Revelation?
One thing that Swedenborg said about the New Church is that the whole spiritual world was changed and reordered. He said that the Old Christian Church had reached its final days, when no truth remained in it. One example of this claim that no truth remained in the Old Christian Church is the idea of the trinity. Traditional Christianity asserts that God is a trinity of persons who have one essence. There are strong and weak formulations of this doctrine. Stated strongly, the trinity means that there are three persons. This idea, if it is believed without much thought or reflection, leads to the notion that there are three gods. I have heard Christian ministers tell me that many ordinary Christians do, in fact, believe in three gods. And I have heard a rabbi question whether Christianity could be considered one of the great monotheistic religions like Islam and Judaism. The New Church holds that God is only one Person. God the Father is as the soul in Jesus Christ, who is as the body. The Holy Spirit is the influence of God on humans and in the created world. There is essentially no trinity for the New Church.
Another example of traditional Christianity being bereft of truth is the idea of salvation by faith alone. This doctrine holds that if we believe that Jesus died for our sins, we are saved. It is our belief that saves us. Swedenborg states that the New Church teaches that good works and faith are both important. True belief about God, coupled with good actions flowing from love are what make a person angelic.
One final note about the New Church. The New Jerusalem as described in Revelation is said to be of equal height and breadth. Swedenborg interprets this to mean that love and truth will be of equal import in individuals of the New Church. And in the Arcana Coelestia n.1799, Swedenborg makes a plaintive plea for church unity. He says that if only belief in God and love for the neighbor are the primary things of religion, then all the churches of the world would be one.
In the Christian world the doctrines are what distinguish the churches; and from them people call themselves Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, or the Reformed and the Evangelical, and by other names also. It is from what is doctrinal alone that they are so called; which would not be ay all, if they would make love to the Lord and love toward the neighbour the principal things of faith. The doctrines would then be only varieties of opinion respecting the mysteries of faith, which truly Christian persons would leave to everyone according to his or her conscience . . . Thus from all the differing churches there would become one Church; and all the dissensions which exist from doctrine alone would vanish; yea, the hatreds against one another would be dissipated in a moment, and the Lord’s kingdom would come upon the earth” (Arcana Coelestia n. 1799).
The irony in this statement is that much in Swedenborg is argument about doctrinal issues—the very thing that separates churches. I say this because there are some very positive movements today that seem to be bringing all the different religions together.
One such movement is the National Council of Churches of Christ, of which I am our denomination’s representative to the Faith and Order Convening Table. All the major Christian churches belong to the National Council of Churches of Christ. And there is such an air of acceptance and mutual love that we feel like one body.
Another movement is the Edmonton Interfaith Centre for Education and Action. In this organization we have not only Christians, but members of all the major world religions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and several different denominations of Christianity. We all feel connected in a loving relationship. Despite our different religions and different nationalities, we are one in a spirit of love, or what Swedenborg would call charity.
This kind of harmony would have been unthinkable only 100 years ago. True, the first Parliament of the World’s Religions was in 1893. But this was the very first time that religions of the world all gathered to celebrate their unique identity in a feeling of fellowship. It may well be that movements as I am describing are evidence that the New Church envisioned by Emanuel Swedenborg is happening in this world. Belief in God and love for each other are becoming controlling doctrines in many of the world’s religions.
But there are alarming things, too. Even as religions of the world are beginning to see each other as brothers and sisters, their numbers are dwindling. The National Council of Churches of Christ has just undergone a serious restructuring because they could no longer afford to continue as in the past. The reason for their inability to continue business as usual is because donations from their member churches have dwindled. And the reason for the fall in donations is because church membership has diminished severely. We are not the only denomination whose numbers have fallen since the sixties.
What does this mean? Is Christianity fading? Is society becoming less religious? Where is the New Church in all this? These are questions for us all to ponder in the years ahead and in our Annual General Meeting today. I have faith that the New Church foretold in Revelation is going to come, and is coming even now. But I am not sure that the New Church means the survival of the Christian religion as practiced now. There are many people I know who consider themselves spiritual but not religious. And there are many spiritual programs out there like AA, or Al-Anon that may suffice for religion.
One other thing Swedenborg said about the New Church. He said that the old false doctrines like the trinity or the doctrine of salvation by faith alone need to die out before the New Church can take hold and blossom. Perhaps that is what we are seeing today. Perhaps in the dwindling numbers of traditional Christianity we are seeing the old, bad doctrines fade away. Remember that this church was modelled after traditional Christianity, being one denomination among other denominations. Despite our progressive doctrines, maybe this organization is going the way of all major Christian denominations.
Perhaps the New Church is a new form of spirituality that we can’t see yet, or even imagine yet.

PRAYER

Lord, this morning we rejoice in your promise of a new church to descend on the earth. Your prophets have foretold such an event, and Swedenborg testifies to the same. Yet these are difficult times for your church on earth. We pray that you watch over us and our fellow Christians, and our brothers and sisters of every faith. Give us to find assurance that your new church will come to the earth. Give us eyes to see it in its new manifestations and in the power of the old ways made new. Console our hearts, Lord, when we look at the world and we see violence and sorrow in so many places. The unrest in our world can lead us to question the reality of your new church on earth. Give us hearts filled with hope and confidence in the words of your prophets and in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. May we celebrate and see the new church coming on the earth.

And Lord, we pray that you heal those who are suffering with illness. Lord, send your healing love to all who are in need.