ACADEMY THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL              1996



Vol. CXVI          January, 1996           No. 1
New Church Life
     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

The Lord God Jesus Christ-A Sermon                     Grant R Schnarr      3
Report of the Bishop of the General Church                Peter M. Buss          10
Attendance at the Annual British Conference                Peter M. Buss      16
A Quest for a Model of Womanhood                     Tatsuya Nagashima      19
Are You a Spiritual Fisherman?                          Reuben P. Bell      27
A Chosen Passage (continued)                          Christina Steciuk      29
Report of the Secretary of the General Church                Donald C. Fitzpatrick 33
Beauty in Swedenborg's Latin Writings                     Jonathan S. Rose      38
Editorial Department
     A Wonderful Function of a Church (8)                               40
Communication
     Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A German Cousin                Tryn Clark           42
Announcements                                                   45

     PUBLISHED BY
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
Rev. Donald L. Rose, Editor
Mr. Neil M. Buss, Business Manager
     PRINTED BY FENCOR GRAPHICS, INC.
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SUBSCRIPTION: $16.00 TO ANY ADDRESS. SINGLE COPY $1.50
Second-class postage paid at Bryn Athyn, PA

February, 1996 No. 2


The Mouth of the Lord
     A Sermon on Isaiah 40:5                    Erik E. Sandstrom           51
The Word of God
     An Address to the Council of the Clergy (Part 1) Peter M. Buss           58
Beauty in Swedenborg's Latin Writings (4)           Jonathan S. Rose               71
A Chosen Passage                               Vera Kitzelman           74
Malchus's Ear                               E. Kent Rogers           75
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (Part 1)      Grant H. Odhner           77
Believing Is Seeing                               John H. Hotson           83
Editorial Department
     Dreams You Never Remember                                    85
     Lessons about the Human Face                                    86
Communication
     Scientific Method                          David and Hugh Lister      87
Announcements                                                   93

March 1996, No. 3


God of the Valleys
     A Sermon on I Kings 20:28                    Lawson M. Smith      99
A Chosen Passage                                    Kevin Gallagher      104
The Word of God (Part 2)                          Peter M. Buss      106
Ritual Perfected                                    Terry Schnarr      122
Beauty in Swedenborg's Latin Writings (5)                     Jonathan S. Rose      127
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (Part 2)           Grant H. Odhner      129
Editorial Department                         
     Luck                                                       138
Communication
     John Clowes                               Gordon Jacobs      139
Announcements                                                   141

April 1996, No. 4


Blessed Are the Peacemakers
A Sermon on Matthew 5:9                     Walter E. Orthwein      147
The Word of God (Conclusion)                          Peter M. Buss      154
The Botanist                                   David R Simons      160
Having a Loved One Yon the Other Side" (Part 3)           Grant H. Odhner      162
Ritual Perfected (Part 2)                          Terry Schnarr      165
The Mystery of the Maternal Human in the Sepulcher     Howard Roth           169
Editorial Pages
     Evangelization and Adult Baptisms in the Church                          174
     Luck (2)                                                  175
Communications
     Sunshine                                    Richard Linquist      176
     Women in the Ministry                          Helen Kennedy      177
     The Ten Commandments                          Warren David      180
     Surviving without Survivors?                Kay Hauck           181
Eldergarten 1996                                    Fred and Clare Hasen     184
Academy Schools Calendar 1996-1997                                    186
Announcements                                                   187

Vol. CXVI      May, 1996      No. 5
New Church Life
     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Obeying the Lord by Reaching Out                         Goran Appelgren           195
     A Sermon on Jonah 4:10, 11
Freedom of Choice                               Peter S. Rhodes           203
The Church as Bride, Wife, and Mother                Amanda Rogers-Petro      212
Beauty in Swedenborg's Latin Writings (6)               Jonathan S. Rose           221
At the Top of the Mountain                          Grant R Schnarr           223
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (Part 4)          Grant H. Odhner           226
Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women in the Clergy     Vera Goodenough Dyck      230
Editorial Department                                                                 
     Luck (3)                                                  231
          American Women Writers and Swedenborg                              232
Communications                                             
          Unpublished Works                          Warren David           233
     Eldergarten                               Fred and Clare Hasen      234
Maple Leaf Academy, "My Maple Experience"          Jen Kuhl               236
Announcements                                                   239

Vol. CXVI          June, 1996               No. 6
New Church Life
     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Soul-Body Interaction in Human Conception and Development     Reuben P. Bell      243
Life on the Moon                                    Alfred Acton           256
Freedom of Choice (Conclusion)                          Peter S. Rhodes      264
New Arcana Translation and Other Books in Sweden           Erik Sandstrom, Sr.      269
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (part 5)                Grant H. Odhner      273
Editorial Department
     Luck (4)                                                   277
     Unconscious Belief in Angels                                    278
Church News                                                       280
Announcements                                                   282
Information on General Church Places of Worship                               284

Vol. CXVI          July, 1996               No. 7


New Church Life
     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
     On Self-Esteem
     A Sermon on Psalm 51:17                          N. Bruce Rogers      291
Leadership, Women and Men                          Eric H. Carswell      299
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (part 6)                Grant H. Odhner      309
A Chosen Passage                                    Janis Post Cadkin      319
Sending Sons to the Academy                          Phillip R. Zuber      322
Report from the New Church at Boulder                                    325
Of George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis                     Richard R. Gladish      327
Editorial Department
     Luck (5)                                                   330
     Are Old People Happier?                                         331
Communication
     Commandments in Hebrew                          Leonard Fox           332
C. S. Lewis and New Church Life                                         333
Announcements                                                   334

Vol. CXVI          August, 1996               No. 8


New Church Life
     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Love Your Enemies
     A Sermon on Matt. 5:38, 3                          Peter M. Buss, Jr.      339
Ritual Perfected (Conclusion)                          Terry Schnarr      348
Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women in the Clergy           Vera Goodenough Dyck 354
Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (Part 7)                Grant H. Odhner      357
Report of the Editor of New Church Life                                    359
Friends of New Church Art Exhibit                          Mary S. Cooper      363
Review
     Twelve Gates to the City                          Helen Kennedy      365
Why Bother?                                        Michael D. Gladish     368
Letter to a Catholic Cousin                               Chris Clark           370
Editorial Department
     Why Not Teach the Internal Sense to Children?                          374
     Where Does This Path Lead?                                    376
     Cease from Anger and Forsake Wrath                               377
     Buddha of the North                                              377
New Web Site                                                   378
Communication
     A Special Prayer                               Lavender Ridgway      379
Church News (Toronto)                               Doris McDonald      380
Announcements                                                   381

September 1996, No. 9

Reading the Word
     A Sermon on John 4:13, 14
          Daniel W. Heinrichs          387

Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (Conclusion)
     Grant H. Odhner          393

Why Bother? (2)
     Michael D. Gladish          397

Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women in the Clergy
     Vera Goodenough Dyck          402

Review
     Connections II, Offerings from the New Church Womens' Symposium
          Naomi Gladish Smith          407

Laborers in the Harvest: The New Church and Evangelization
     Joel E. Brown          410

Editorial Department
     Cease from Anger and Forsake Wrath (2)          414
     Why Not Teach the Internal Sense to Children          415

Communications
     Self-esteem
          B. Tryn Clark          417
          Maureen Harrison Riley          418
          Julie Conaron          419
          Eric H. Carswell          420
     A Radio Cultivating Taste
          Peter S. Rhodes          421
     Shame Has Its Place
          Arne Bau-Madsen          423

Announcements          426

Charter Day Announcement          430

Vol. CXVI     October, 1996     No. 10

     New Church Life

     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS
     REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

Some Principles of Civil Government     Willard L. D. Heinrichs     435

Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women
     in the Clergy (Continued)     Vera Goodenough Dyck     438

Shun Evils; Don't Shunt Them     Erik E. Sandstrom     444

Sexual Abuse          446

Why Bother? (Part 3)     Michael D. Gladish     450

It's up to You     Raymond B. David     456

Report on "The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg"     Barry C. Halterman     461

The New Church in Nepal     E. Kent Rogers     464

Editorial Department
     Cease from Anger and Forsake Wrath (3)          466
Why Not Teach the Internal Sense to Children? (3)          466

Communications
     American Women Writers and Swedenborg     Gordon Jacobs     467
Self-esteem, Mediate Good, and the As-of-Self     Gael P. Coffin     468

Announcements          471

Information on General Church Places of Worship          473

Unknown Addresses          477

Vol. CXVI     November, 1996     No. 11

     New Church Life

     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS
     REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
     

Saying "No" to Evil Spirits, Saying "Yes" to the Lord
     and His Angels     Mark D. Pendleton     483

Having a Loved One "on the Other Side" (An Addendum)     Grant H. Odhner     501

Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women
     in the Clergy (Concluded)     Vera Goodenough Dyck     508

Why Bother? (Conclusion)     Michael D. Gladish     514

Review
     The Dream of an Absolute Language: Emanuel
Swedenborg and French Literary Culture     Robert W. Gladish     519

Editorial Department
     Cease from Anger and Forsake Wrath (4)          521
     Why Not Teach the Internal Sense to Children? (4)          522
     The Larsens Talk about Historic Influence          524

Announcements          526

Unknown Addresses          528

Vol. CXVI     December, 1996     No. 12

     New Church Life

     A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE TEACHINGS
     REVEALED THROUGH EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
     

A Sign to the Shepherds
     A Sermon on Luke 2:12     Ragnar Boyesen     531

Report of the Secretary of the General Church     Donald C. Fitzpatrick     535

Directory of the General Church          542

Local Schools Directory          552

Report of the Bishop of the General Church     Peter M. Buss     555

Editorial Department
     Why Not Teach the Internal Sense to Children? (5)          562
     Cease from Anger and Forsake Wrath (5)          563

Communications
     Teaching the Internal Sense     Dawn Barnitz Potts     564
     A Postscript     Vera Goodenough Dyck     567
     A View on Women Ministers     Rey W. Cooper     568

Announcements          569
is now accepting applications for Fall 1996 enrollment in
Graduate Level Studies in Theology
leading to a
Master's Degree in Religious Studies
(on-site or distance learning)
For application forms or further information contact
Dean Brian W. Keith
Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 USA
Phone (215) 938-2525
Fax (215) 938-2658
E-mail bwkeith @omni.voicenet.com
See article in the December New Church Life.
ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH GIRLS SCHOOL 1996

ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH GIRLS SCHOOL              1996

     Position Available for the 1996-97 School Year

     A full-time position in health and physical education in the Girls School is available. Applicants should have a master's degree in physical education or a bachelor's degree with requirement to attain a master's degree. Previous experience in teaching and coaching is desirable.
     Applicants should apply to Margaret Y. Gladish, Principal of the Girls School, Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009; phone (215) 947-4200. The deadline for applications is January 30, 1996. Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue       Editor       1996

     Fifty years ago this month this magazine began with an assembly address by Bishop George de Charms entitled "The Lord and the Spiritual Sun." In it he quoted Coronis 48: "It would be impossible for a person to acknowledge God and anything belonging to Him unless God had manifested Himself in a personal human form." It is interesting to see a similar theme in the sermon in this issue.
     Swedenborg called himself a spiritual fisherman. Dr. Reuben Bell concludes his article on this subject with reference to the new Master's Degree program. On that subject your attention is invited to the announcement on the inside front cover.
     In the Bishop's report there is also reference to this new program and to the establishment of a computer network throughout the Academy campus as well as a presence on the Internet. Following his regular report, the Bishop gives a specific report on his visit to the Conference in Britain last summer.
     A calendar of daily readings is now available. See the note by the Secretary on page 15. In the Secretary's report are the names of one hundred three members received into the General Church between July 1, 1994 and June 30, 1995. There is also a list of sixty-eight members who have entered the spiritual world during that time.
     We are now in the assembly year. The theme in June is "A New Church Culture." We look forward to the presence in June of people from different countries with their cultural perspectives. As a case in point we have a particularly interesting contribution from Mr. Tatsuya Nagashima beginning on page 19.

Academy College Registration - Applications for the fall 1996 term should be received by the college by March 1, 1996. Contact Mr. Brian Henderson at (215) 938-2511; fax 938-2568.

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LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST 1996

LORD GOD JESUS CHRIST       Rev. Grant R. SCHNARR       1996

     Our idea of God is the most important concept we can have. Our spiritual lives are based on this concept. Our spiritual destiny, including our home in the other world, is formed by our view of God. Every aspect of our eternal life revolves around our understanding and our relationship with our Maker.
     Developing a true and working concept of God, though, can be a challenge. We bring our own conceptions and misconceptions to this image. Historically, humans have perverted or destroyed the picture of God over and over again, and have used a twisted understanding of God and His will to do many twisted things. The Spanish Inquisition, Hitler, and others claimed to worship the Lord, and performed hurtful deeds in the name of the Lord. People can make up their own God to suit their own bias rather than worship the true God.
     Culture and the times can be biased against a true picture of God. For instance, God the judge might be popular at times, or the punisher, the warrior, or a remote and uncaring ruler. Or the opposite kind of God can be held up as an ideal: the ineffective, permissive, enabling, anything-goes God, weak and unable to lead or effect change in the world. The discussion of gender in relation to God is a good example of the struggle between cultural bias on every side of the issue and a struggle to understand revelation.
     In the past history of the Christian Church, truth has certainly taken precedence over good. The Writings tell us that a faith-alone world developed, where good did not count for much, if anything. A natural outcome was that the world became perceived as a male's world, and even as good was suppressed and put down as nothing, so were women treated the same. In a faith-alone culture, male attributes have been held up as an ideal, and it can be argued that even much of the feminist movement in the western world in the past quarter century has made the mistake of joining that illusion rather than dispersing it.

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This has caused deep wounds in many, and is not to be taken lightly or overlooked as an oddity. When love, perception, gentleness, and nurturing are looked upon as second-rate feelings, many of them to be shunned, those who excel in these areas receive the constant message that they are not good enough, that they do not count. From a truth-dominated culture a false concept of God is created, a static God firmly entrenched in a groundwork of rules seemingly unconnected to life. God becomes a judge whose favor limits the variety of the human race to those few who hold the correct set of ideas, and who punishes those who do not. God can seem to become a distant Father who is never home, or who arrives home on Sundays to lecture and scold, only to disappear again Monday morning. What would it be like to have nothing at all in common with this God and be told that this is the true God and that you must worship Him? Cultural bias affects not only our view of God, but our lives, and the wounds caused by false doctrines presenting false gods are real.
     And so it is that the Heavenly Doctrines come into the world to bring back the balance between truth and good, to honor both sexes in their own right, and to offer everyone with an open mind a visible image of God in a Divinely Human form for what is actually the first time in religious history. (Read TCR 787 and following.) The Writings call upon society to rethink the entire picture of religion, the entire concept of God. They present a radically different concept where love and wisdom both reign in the Divine and in life. The Writings say "no" to a truth-alone world, and firmly present the marriage of truth and good in use as the essence of perfection (see DLW 28-33).
     However, while acknowledging the wounds created by false doctrines of the past, how do we form a true picture of the Lord which reflects all of humanity without bias from past or present culture?

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How do we begin to heal the wounds that many have felt by cultural misconceptions of God, and at the same time not create more wounds by creating more misconceptions? We want to see God through our own eyes, but how do we do this without creating God with our own hands, in our own image?
     Wounds heal over time, and there is no quick solution, but there are answers to all of life's questions that can help heal. The Writings are called the leaves of the Tree of Life for the healing of the nations. Revelation from God is the source of healing if one will approach it and accept it. Revelation was given to guide us to an ever-growing understanding of the Lord. Revelation presents a picture of the Lord, a living picture, and through this window into eternity we can behold the face of our Creator and see our own face reflected therein.
     What does revelation teach us? More than we can learn in a lifetime. Truth from the Word is infinite, but we can take a few principles and apply them to begin to build a healthy and genuine concept of God.
     First, the Heavenly Doctrines teach us to look to our Maker from essence to person, and not from person to essence. This is an important teaching to help us approach our Maker. "Everyone who thinks of God from person only," the Writings say, "and not essence is thinking materially. For instance, a person who thinks of the neighbor from the form only and not the quality is thinking materially . . . . Think of God from essence, and from that of His person, and do not think of His person and from that of His essence. For to think of His essence from person is to think materially of the essence also; but to think of His person from essence is to think spiritually of His person" (AR 611:7).
     Thinking of God from person to essence is not helpful to us. Looking at the Lord's material body from a corporeal point of view and translating that into the essence of God is not helpful.

6


In modern terms, getting "hung up" on the physical form of the Lord while He was on earth, and allowing the physical form of the Lord to dictate how we think of the essence, is not helpful. An example of this would be statements that say the essence of God is male or female. That is thinking of God from person to essence. God is the I AM. While He is the origin of gender, God in essence is above gender. To attribute qualities of creation to the uncreated is like calling the potter "clay."
     But that does not mean that all attributes of what we call humanity are not from the Divine. Of course they are, and that is why every human being, whether white, yellow, black, male, female, disadvantaged, disabled or healthy and whole can approach and be conjoined with the Lord.
     But this is accomplished by approaching the Lord from essence to person. Through a recognition of the all-encompassing God, the all-loving, all-wise, ever-creating, ever-nurturing Force from whom all people and things come, we look to the Divine Human. We see these infinite and Divine qualities in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we do this, we allow the invisible God to be visible, as the Writings say, in the air or on the sea with His arms opened inviting us into His embrace (see TCR 787). This is how conjunction with God takes place, through the visible, tangible, lovable, approachable Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in His Word.
     But we are to worship Him as the Lord Jesus Christ and no other. To worship Divine attributes by any other name is to make God invisible. The Writings tell us: "As to His Divine Human the Lord is the Mediator, and no one can come to the Divine Being itself within the Lord, called the Father, except through the Son, that is, the Divine Human . . . . Thus the Lord as to His Divine Human is the actual joining together. And if people cannot do this in thought, how can they be joined to the Divine itself in love?" (AC 6804:4)
     The Writings go on to say, "He was pleased to take upon Himself human form, and thus to allow people to approach Him . . . .

7


It is this Human which is called the Son of God, and this it is which mediates. . . . This is why the Son of God, meaning the Human of God . . . is called the Savior, and on earth Jesus, which means salvation" (TCR 135:4).
     And so the Lord said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known the Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:6-7)
     The invisible soul of God is at once revealed and made manifest in His own Humanity, now revealed in His Word and proclaimed to us in the Heavenly Doctrines as the Lord God Jesus Christ.
     Can we see the essence of God within His person? Can we allow God to be both Divine and Human? The image of the Divine Human is a blessing to those who long to understand and be conjoined with the Lord. A newcomer to the church once said, "When I was young I heard about God, the great and powerful Almighty. He clapped His hands, the thunders roared. He batted His eyes, the lightning flashed. Boom! God? God scared me. But when I read in the Writings that this gentle shepherd named Jesus, who called Himself a lamb, who held the children, healed the sick, and taught so many loving things, that this man was God, well, that did it for me." The question might be asked, "What does it do for you?"
     The image of the Lord Jesus Christ as it appears in the Gospels and as it is explained in the Heavenly Doctrines is given to the human race to bring conjunction with the Divine, the true Divine, and with that, healing. Although it is no doubt difficult for some, because of real abuse of false doctrines in the past, approaching this image as presented in the Word will bring healing. This image when viewed from essence to person can be infilled with a variety of descriptions from the Word, which represent every aspect of humanity.

8


Jesus does bless the children, heal the sick, feed thousands of hungry mouths, cry for His people, and call each of us to arms of love and compassion. He says, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). He cries out to a church that has gone astray in faith alone. He says-and listen to His words-"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord' " (Matt. 23:37-39).
     Can we say these words? Can we see our Lord and Savior as all-encompassing, containing the source of all that is human and Divine? And can we worship Him as He has revealed Himself in His own Word? Then we will truly be able to see Him, and say with full hearts, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."
     What is the essential message of the New Church? Is it that God is inaccessible to some people for no fault of their own? Is the message that if you have a hard time picturing God that you should give up and go somewhere else? The answer is "No!" Is the message of the New Church that anything goes-you can make up your own God here, in any fashion you choose? The answer is "No!"
     The message of the New Church is clear in the Writings, preached by the lips of the apostles themselves, and held as a hope for all people everywhere, from whatever background or origin, so that they may be conjoined with their Creator. This message is for everyone, to be infilled by every individual in a way that she or he must, in order to see and feel what it means to them. The message is that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, and His Kingdom shall be forever and ever.

9


Blessed are they who come to the marriage supper of the Lamb (see TCR 791).
     The Lord promises us: "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to give to everyone according to his work" (Rev. 22:12). May our response be with open hearts and minds, and with joyful lips: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev. 22:20).

Lessons: Isaiah 42:1-9; John 14:1-11; AC 8705 MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS 1996

MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS       Rev. Peter M. Buss       1996

     It gives me great pleasure to make the following announcements, effective July 1, 1996.
     The Rev. David Lindrooth has accepted a call to become pastor of the Ivyland New Church. After four years as pastor of the Stockholm Society, David has spent two years in Tucson as assistant pastor to the Rev. Frank Rose. The growing society in Tucson will be without an assistant pastor for the time being. The pastor of Ivyland, the Rev. Robert Junge, has announced his retirement as pastor there to pursue new duties.
     The Rev. Peter Buss, Jr. has accepted a call to become assistant pastor of the Immanuel Church in Glenview. Peter has spent the last three years in Mitchellville, Maryland, as assistant pastor to the Rev. Jim Cooper of the Washington Society. Washington will be temporarily without an assistant pastor.
     Most of you will have heard that we now have regional pastors in several areas of the church. These two moves were superintended by the regional pastors-the Rev. Eric Carswell and the Rev. Brian Keith. It was they who met with the society committees and guided the process, Mr. Carswell in Glenview and Mr. Keith in Ivyland. I am grateful to both these men for their leadership in this process.
     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss,
          Executive Bishop

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REPORT OF THE BISHOP OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 1996

REPORT OF THE BISHOP OF THE GENERAL CHURCH              1996

     The 1994/5 year saw the establishment of a promising development in the history of the General Church. The Corporation of the General Church in South Africa was created, bringing all the members of the church in that country into a national organization which could plan for the future development of the church in that country. The bishop's representative in South Africa, the Rev. Geoffrey Childs, has provided leadership towards this goal over three years, and the successful birth of the corporation was a source of joy to many. Bishop and Mrs. King were the first signatories on the corporation's new rolls, followed by the Rev. Aaron Zungu, who is the senior pastor in the entire General Church.
     Apart from the Founders Assembly in Westville, South Africa, a number of special events were held in different parts of the church. There was the British Assembly in July, attended by 86 people, at which the Rev. Goran Appelgren was ordained into the second degree. The next day he left for his new post as pastor of the Stockholm Society and the Copenhagen Circle. In early October an evangelization seminar was held in Ivyland, Pennsylvania, at the beautiful new facility they have built. About 120 people were present. In early November most of the teachers, and ministers involved in elementary education, were in Mitchellville, Maryland, for an in-service with a focus on worshiping and learning about the Lord. Over the United States Thanksgiving weekend, Bryn Athyn hosted a most successful Marriage Symposium, attended by nearly 300 people, and in March it was host to the Women's Symposium, with a record attendance of 375. Some 60 people attended an Eldergarten in Boynton Beach, Florida. They were senior citizens who spent a week taking courses on doctrine, on life issues, and one on English literature.

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These unique events highlight the strength and the variety of interest which our members have in how the doctrines relate to different areas of life. They are an inspiration to those who attend.
     Most of you will know that the new Liturgy was introduced at the end of June. I have spoken of this in the pages of New Church Life before, so I will merely report here that in the first six months more than 4,000 copies have been sold. We are delighted at the response. Inevitably some people do not like certain aspects of the Liturgy, but they have been very gracious in allowing others to enjoy what they do not. This new Liturgy should serve well a wider cross-section of our church.
     I have reported elsewhere on my visits to Japan and Korea, and also the British Conference. These visits allowed Lisa and me to meet more than 250 people who love the Writings whom we had not met before-a wonderful experience!
     The Academy has served as an educational arm of the General Church, promoting the study of the doctrines and education in many different forms. True to its mission, it has recently decided to add two new dimensions to its uses. The first is the establishment of a computer network throughout the campus, and of a presence on the Internet, so that people at a distance from the Academy may be able to benefit from some of its offerings. This holds out great promise for the development and strengthening of the church. In time, courses may be offered world-wide. We can keep in better touch with our ex-students, and communicate with people anywhere in the world who are interested in the Writings and in what the Academy has to offer. The General Church is also establishing a presence on the Internet in cooperation with the Academy.
     The second development is the Academy's plan to offer, starting in 1996, a Master's Degree in Religious Studies, under the aegis of the Theological School. This degree is specifically for men and women who are not seeking ordination, and is quite separate from the Master of Divinity, which provides education looking to ordination.

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In a survey carried out only in North America, the response to this proposed program was most gratifying, with more than 200 expressing an interest in taking courses at some time. Our hope is that it will be offered through distance learning as well, and will therefore be available to people around the world. This will enable many people, for a variety of reasons, to study the doctrines at an advanced level-something which will greatly enhance the uses of our many church congregations as well as being of advantage to the individuals themselves.
     In the pages of New Church Life I have reported on the pastoral moves which took place in 1995. A full report appears also in The Bishop's Newsletter. Here I will mention only the following.
     The Rev. William Burke retired from the ministry after 14 years' service in Bryn Athyn and the Southeast District. Bill and Eleanor have become well known and well loved in many parts of the church. The story of their conversion to the New Church, their entry into the life of the church, and Bill's entry into the ministry is a heartwarming one. His dedication and his hard work, so ably supported by a wonderfully capable wife who was hostess, companion, Sunday school teacher and organist, among many other things, have endeared them to many people throughout the church. We wish them happiness in their retirement, and are grateful that Bill will continue to serve the group in Pensacola, Florida.
     The Rev. George McCurdy has worked as a teacher in the Academy of the New Church Secondary Schools for 16 years. In that time he served in many roles, including Principal of the Boys School, head of the Religion Department, and Chaplain of the Secondary Schools. Throughout his career he has enjoyed a warm relationship with the students, and his door has always been open for them. He has counseled and become friends with many of them, and enjoys the respect and affection of the student body.

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A generation of New Church young people has received a solid foundation in the doctrines of the New Church through his teaching, his chapel talks, and his personal instruction. He elected to take retirement as of June 30. We are delighted that he will continue to serve the Connecticut Circle of the General Church as their Visiting Pastor.
     The Rev. Grant Schnarr has moved to Bryn Athyn to assume the full-time directorship of the Office of Evangelization as of July 1. As the use of evangelization has grown, this has become a much-needed full-time position. We are fortunate to have Grant fill it. With remarkable and creative support from his wife Cathy, Grant served as founding pastor of the Chicago New Church for the last 12 years.
     The Rev. Louis Synnestvedt has asked for a leave of absence from the position of Acting Secretary of the General Church, effective July 1, 1995. We wish Lou and Aileen well in their effort to serve the church in new and creative ways, and are grateful that he has agreed to serve the church in a part-time pastoral capacity in the coming year. Mr. Donald C. Fitzpatrick, Jr. has accepted appointment as Acting Secretary of the General Church, effective July 1. We are fortunate indeed to have a man of his standing and caliber to undertake this work, and look forward very much to his tenure in this important use of the General Church.
     The Rev. Mark Carlson has asked for a leave of absence in order to allow him to teach part-time in the Academy and to pursue work in counseling. Mr. Carlson has been housemaster of the Academy Boys School dormitory for five years, and has taught in the Secondary Schools. He has a keen interest in counseling and is well qualified in this field. He wishes to pursue this goal, for he believes that he can make a significant contribution to the church through a combination of pastoral and counseling skills. Mark has served the church for 20 years as a teacher in the Academy and a pastor in Detroit, Kitchener, and the Bay Area in California.

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We wish him well in his new endeavors, and are grateful for his continued service as a teacher in the Academy Secondary Schools and College.
     Our church is a vibrant place. Many people put an amazing amount of energy into serving its uses in a multitude of ways. I have mentioned only a very few, and a dozen lists could be compiled of the special endeavors which were promoted during this last year. (One local item which comes to mind is that in late 1994 the Immanuel Church in Glenview finished a year-long celebration of its centenary in "the Park"-a series of four events which were inspiring, and reached out to embrace the surrounding community.) We are fortunate indeed to have members who serve us with such dedication, and who find joy in promoting the growth of the Lord's church in the hearts and minds of others.

     STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

     As Bishop of the General Church
     Episcopal visits - 27
     Worship and Ritual Committee meetings - 7
     Consistory meetings - 20
     Advisory Council meetings - 18
     Joint Committee meetings - 8
     Board and Corporation meetings - 7
     Bishop's Council meetings - 4
     Inaugurations into the priesthood - 1
     Ordinations into the second degree - 3
     Ivyland Evangelization Seminar
     Marriage Symposium in BA
     Tucson Evangelization Seminar
     Eldergarten
     Treasurers' meetings in Pittsburgh
     British Assembly
     British Summer School

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     As Chancellor of the Academy
     Theological School faculty meetings - 8
     Board and Corporation meetings - 8
     Academy evening
     College Chapel - 1
     Secondary School Chapel - 5

     Bryn Athyn Ministrations
     Private, public and festival - 18
     Teaching of religion to eighth grade (one term)
     Bryn Athyn Society meetings - 2
DAILY READING CALENDAR 1996 1996

DAILY READING CALENDAR 1996       Jr. Donald C. Fitzpatrick       1996

     It should be known that the Word on our earth, given through heaven by the Lord, is the union of heaven and the world, for which end there is a correspondence of all things in the letter of the Word with Divine things in heaven; and that the Word in its highest and inmost sense treats of the Lord, of His kingdom in the heavens and on the earths, and of love and faith from Him and in Him, therefore of life from Him and in Him. Such things are presented to the angels in heaven, from whatsoever earth they are, when the Word of our earth is read and preached.
     Earths in the Universe 119

     A calendar of daily readings from the Sacred Scriptures and the Writings is available upon request from the office of the Secretary of the General Church, P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.
     Donald C. Fitzpatrick, Jr.,
          Acting Secretary

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ATTENDANCE AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRITISH CONFERENCE 1996

ATTENDANCE AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRITISH CONFERENCE       Rev. PETER M. BUSS       1996

     July 1995

     Lisa and I were invited to attend the annual meeting of the General Conference of the New Church (the 188th meeting) in July. This is the oldest branch of the New Church in existence. It dates back to 1789 when the first meeting was held in Great East Cheap in London, attended by such notable figures as Robert Hindmarsh, and, apparently, the great poet William Blake and his wife Catherine.
     Some five years ago, Bishop King, Dan Goodenough and Chris Bown spent an afternoon at Conference, and Bishop King addressed the gathering. They stayed for the evening service. This is the first time, however, that the Bishop of the General Church has been invited to attend the entire conference.
     Friendship between our two bodies has been growing for many years. Good communication was established back in the 1960s, when the Rev. Erik Sandstrom Sr. and the Rev. Dennis Duckworth arranged for meetings between the ministers of each organization. At these meetings the ministers discussed, in a spirit of friendship, the differing views of the Writings and of various doctrines which each group had. Since then, the ministers of each body have routinely been invited to attend the clergy meetings of the other body. On June 19 there is a joint service between the London societies. Just this November the Rev. Brian Talbot kindly agreed to fill the pulpit at the Michael Church in London for Mr. Elphick.
     Lisa and I both have a background in England, she from her eight years as a teenager in London, and I from the fact that my grandparents on both sides came out of the British Conference, and my great-grandfather was a minister of the Conference. So we expected to be made welcome, but we felt quite overwhelmed by the friendliness and kindness of the people.

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The annual conference is attended by the ministers, by delegates from each society, and by some guests. The attendance appeared to be a little over one hundred. A feature of this conference was the provision made for young families to attend, with baby-sitting provided.
     The British Conference has about 35 societies and groups, with an average total attendance on any given Sunday of about 900 people. There are some small groups and others which average in the 60s or 70s. They are served by 13 ministers in Great Britain and one in New Zealand. (As a matter of interest, all the General Church members in New Zealand attend the Ellerslie church which is led by the Rev. Dick Keyworth, and strongly support its uses.) Inevitably the ministers in the United Kingdom do a lot of travelling in order to serve the smaller congregations.
     We arrived in Derbyshire the night before the meetings, and stayed with John and Jenny Sutton at the manse in Derby. John is pastor of the Derby congregation and will be the President of the Conference in 1996. His wife Jenny is the daughter of the Rev. Brian Kingslake, whose writings are well known in the General Church. Mr. Kingslake entered the spiritual world this year, and a special memorial resolution to this fine minister of the church, who has served in three continents, was read at the conference.
     The meetings themselves dealt with many of the issues that similar General Church meetings would consider. There were doctrinal talks and considerations of the future of the organization. Individuals made presentations on uses: I was particularly interested in a presentation on a course on raising children. This course is popular in Great Britain, and one of the women in the Conference has adapted it, using teachings from the Writings, for use in the church.
     The challenges of multiple uses compared to the limitations of human and financial resources are familiar to us.

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They are concerned (as we will be in a decade) that a strong group of ministers who have given decades of service to the Conference will be retiring over the next few years. I was invited to address the conference on issues of mutual cooperation. The editor of Lifeline, Mr. Patrick Johnson, kindly printed it in that magazine.
     On Wednesday evening, we all made the 25-mile trip to the Derby church for a special service of worship, in which we were joined by the congregation. There were perhaps 175 people in the beautiful church building (constructed, I am told, by the father of Mr. Keith Morley, a long-standing member of the Toronto Society of the General Church in Canada). An impromptu choir, which practiced during the meetings, sang some beautiful hymns composed by the Rev. Brian Kingslake.
     We came away from the meetings with a deep respect for the institution of the British Conference, and a warm feeling of friendship towards members we met. The ministers are remarkably dedicated men, each of them performing multiple tasks because there is simply too much to do. The strength of the laity was clearly evident in the remarkable number of duties they undertake, and the proficiency with which they perform them. The dedication which they feel to the New Church, and their commitment to the Writings as a revelation by the Lord of the spiritual sense of the Word, shone through all they did. I have invited their outgoing and incoming presidents, the Rev. Messrs. Norman Ryder and John Sutton, to be our guests at the General Assembly in 1996, and to give us a short program on the British Conference. We look forward to being able to return the hospitality they so kindly extended to us.

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QUEST FOR A MODEL OF WOMANHOOD 1996

QUEST FOR A MODEL OF WOMANHOOD       TATSUYA NAGASHIMA       1996

     In Terms of New Church Woman-Ministry

     As a reader of New Church Life for years, I find no article has ever given us more responses than Mary Alden's open letter in the July 1994 edition (22 responses up to August 1995). She excited us to look for the solutions in the Writings, and quite a few excellent articles were given us so far. The issue, however, gave me a chance to consider how it could be handled in the small New Church groups in Japan.
     One of a very few ministers among the New Church circle here in Japan is a woman, Rev. Kei Torita, ordained by the Convention Church. Our local New Church groups have three female core-persons who show prominent initiative and lay support. Among my relatives, my wife's sister and my oldest sister are Catholic nuns serving the people as professional religious workers, and my wife's deceased mother was a woman minister at a Pentecostal church. Bishop Buss, who visited Japan recently, was asked about the "woman-priest issue" by a young lady who had just been baptized by him. If no man in the increasing General Church wants to become a priest, we also may soon be hearing a voice from the female members requesting a woman minister.
     When I reread Mary Alden's open questions and checked some General Church ministers' responses in the subsequent NCL issues, I discovered that the would-be woman candidates for the priesthood were shut out by the adamant doctrinal architecture and left unaccepted. However; the greater parts of the ministers' "man-priest defense" is not in the defense of themselves, but of what the Writings say. The Writings are not products of men, but of the Lord upon whose Word our General Church stands.

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     I am sorry if I misinterpret Mary's questions, but honestly, I was given an impression that what matters to her is not so much the doctrines as a simple hunger for a professional career in the organized church, based upon a man/woman equality. If so, her hunger will never be satisfied, because the Writings teach the "irreplaceability" between man and woman (see CL 32, 33), while all her assertions are based upon "equality," which is nothing other than "replaceability" between them.
     Whereas the first important function of the organized church is to let people understand the heavenly doctrines from the Word, it is also important to help them with their spiritual growth by feeding the hungry and nurturing the thirsty. I wonder what the church could do for those who are unfortunately kept unsatisfied with the doctrines of their church during the process of their own regeneration. They are unsatisfied not because they are lazy or immoral, but because they are sincere, diligent and honest.
     So may I suggest something which may (or may not) alleviate seeming conflicts between the would-be woman candidates for the priesthood and the organized church, which must continue to stand on the genuine understanding of the Word of God?

     Magisterium vs. Ministerium

The Existence of Deaconesses

     All through long Biblical ages, the sacerdotal function was always played by men only (as already fully demonstrated by Rev. Stephen Cole's long series, especially p. 298), but they had women prophets before Christ, and women deacons after Him. In the primitive Christian churches, those called diakonos served the organized church. The Greek diakonos, from which the English "deacon" is derived, means a servant, a messenger, or a minister. They even had in Cenchrea a woman diakonos (or deaconess in English) whose name was Phoebe (see Romans 16:1).

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But throughout a long history of biblical ages, no woman was entitled sacerdos (priest), which is masculine in gender.

Ministerium in General

     If we distinguish the professional churchly works into two, the magisterium (priestly teaching office) and the ministerium (diaconal serving office), the church organization can accommodate professional career women into the latter. While the magisterium is exclusively occupied by the sacerdos, the man-priests, who preach sermons, administer the sacraments, give doctrinal classes and so on, the ministerium is shared by professional men and women who work for other functions of the church, such as liturgy and choir music, counseling, religious education, finance, donations, evangelism, publication and so on.
     If "woman priest" is prohibitive as a theological term, "woman minister" (or deaconess) might not be unacceptable. The word "minister" is used for those who serve the people (the Latin verb ministrare means "to serve").

Sermon-reading Ministry

     One of the open secrets of the rapid growth of the General Church in Japan is the translated sermons of General Church bishops and ministers. From Rev. Robert Junge's first visit with us in 1989 until Bishop Buss and Lisa's latest visit in August 1995, we have already had 84 people baptized by them. We have no resident ministers; only their annual visits, which are limited to a week or so, produced that effect. However, power for our growth comes from the printed sermons working in the readers' minds. Hearing them kindles their desires for baptism at the time of ministers' coming visits. In a family or a small group worship service, sermon reading is the most important role, which is often done by a woman. We have thousands of good sermons in the General Church Sound Recording Library and in the back numbers of NCL.

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These have a hidden power of inseminating the Word into hearing minds.
     I wonder if male priests' insemination power, which brought 84 people to their baptisms in only six years, could be replaced by woman ministers' preachings. The statistics shown in the monthly magazine circulated in the Convention churches says that the 2900 members in 1976 have decreased to 1500 (489 are inactive) in 1994, even though their ministers increased from 29 up to 35, which must include more woman ministers than before (see The Messenger, May 1995, p. 69).
     Although women cannot properly inseminate the Word, nothing might be wrong with those women reading sermons already written by priests, especially when they have no priests in their congregation. A deaconess chooses one from a large stock of different kinds of sermons and reads it before the congregation. She might be more able than a male priest to touch the hearing hearts with her voice and intonation. One noted linguist says, a man "reports" but a woman "rapports" (see Dr. D. Tannen, You Just Don't Understand).

Required Theological Investigation

     Theologically, we have to investigate on a deeper level how the man/woman irreplaceability (see CL 32, 33, 61, 175:1, 218) in the conjugial relation can be analogically applied to the functions of the organized church. We have the model of the heavenly conjugial partnership in the memorabilia (e.g. CL 42, 155b, 183, 208, 293, 316), but we have no model of heavenly church function. Since they have no priests in the celestial heaven (see HH 225), we must depend on our guessing how the church, in which they have the priestly office, functions with or without woman angels in the spiritual heaven. Do the conjugial partners work together all the time, or do they sometimes work separately? And if separately, can a she-angel ever play a role in the church independently from her he-angel?
     In any case, we have no clear-cut evidence that our heavenly doctrines exclude women from the ministerial offices in general.

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So my conclusion: Whereas the sacerdotal function of the church should be played by male priests only, the ministerial functions in general can be shared by both men and women.

     A Model of New Church Womanhood

No Spiritual without a Natural

     Children learn about the Heavenly Father through their physical fathers, and about heavenly love and mercy through their physical mothers. No children can learn anything spiritual without the natural. In the same way, no spiritual sense of the Word can be learned without first learning the natural sense of the Word. The present New Church ministry seems to have two kinds of difficulty in taking care of their members' spiritual growth.

The Eroded Home and Family. On one hand, the current age has quickly been losing a religious background for the moral code in common society. Being surrounded by so many premarital cohabitations, abortions, separations, divorces and child abuses, if not in close reality, on TV and other mass media, the children easily lose their real images of true fatherhood and motherhood. How can they know of the Heavenly Father and His love without knowing their physical parents' love and care? They lack the basic sense of reliability of loving and being loved. A boy should grow manly by his father's guidance, and a girl should grow womanly by her mother's. If not, how can they know of true "manhood" and "womanhood"?

Skipped Natural Sense of the Word. On the other hand, the New Church doctrines are a composite of high rationality and abstraction. Without being born and bred in a New Church family, a novice or a convert is faced by the overwhelming requirement of perusing the voluminous books of the Writings.

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He is often forced to skip the natural sense of the Word. Here we also encounter the lack of a natural basis. In Japan, for example, some New Church members, who are mostly converts from Buddhism, Shintoism and indifferentism, have never met with the Biblical stories in their life before. A lot of occultistic fantasies come out of their minds because they have no biblical images and messages before reading the Writings. Their memory knowledge is overwhelmed by the descriptions of the internal senses from the Writings without having the natural images of the Biblical stories behind them. They often overlook the natural sense of the Word, even without reading or knowing it. Without the natural, they can be much less rational.


Mental Distortions

     The above two difficulties, the lack of the natural basis both in human relations in daily life and in the understanding of the Word, force New Church people to go into peculiar mental distortions. They are compelled to skip the natural basis in understanding the doctrines. Sound experience of natural kinship and the sound consideration of the natural images of the Biblical stories are ignored, left out, or even eliminated. Instead, only clear but cold theoretical answers are proposed to them.
     As Mr. Cole insinuated in discussing "the erosion of the home" (NCL, p. 305), I am inclined to think that the woman/priest issue has a remote origin in the lack of the natural understanding of womanhood. Their hunger and thirst for the priesthood is based upon the false understanding of man/woman equality, which probably originated the demand for equal human dignity with a male human being. This idea expands to the abrogation of sexual differentiation, and finally to competition between the sexes in the same arenas and battlefields.
     Since all of us are somehow victimized by the erosion of natural home-making, nobody can blame those victims for their lack of natural understanding of manhood and womanhood.

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We are all living in the same eroded society in which the false idea of equality of man and woman urges us to compete with each other for a seeming better recognition of self-identity. But this competition will surely end up with miserable defeat on both sides, because the battle was kindled by hellish anger, and no one will win but hell.

Model of Womanhood

     My final suggestion is that we should have a New Church model of womanhood in order to visualize an idea of man/woman irreplaceability and indispensability. What pictorial image should we have for the womanly woman in the New Church?
     Human actions are often determined by following a living image or model which is held up clearly in one's mind. You shun evils not only because you know from the doctrines that you must shun evils, but because you want to follow a respected man or woman who shuns evils. The role model can help us, as far as we are on the natural level, although we theoretically know that all goods are from the Lord.
     We really wish we could listen, talk to and even touch the hands of those woman-angels in the third heaven whom Swedenborg once met and talked to. They would give us a living image of the womanly woman. If our would-be woman candidates once touched the sphere of those woman-angels, none of them would any longer have a desire to become priests, because their womanly spheres are by far more excellent, graceful, attractive, humble and innocent than those of the male priests who are invited to come to preach to them from the spiritual heaven below.
     Putting aside the Roman Catholic exaggeration and the traditional cultic tendency, I personally have an image of the womanly model in Mary, once the Lord's mother. She did not publicly preach, but she listened to Him and pondered in her heart (see Luke 2:19), and served Him with other women (see Matt. 27:55).

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Although a sword pierced through her own soul (see Luke 2:35), "all generations call [her] blessed" (Luke 1:48). Undoubtedly she is the woman who has been loved most through generations.
     Swedenborg himself saw Mary above his head (TCR 102-3, 827). That insinuates to my mind that her level of purification is higher than Swedenborg's. If not, why not? In the spaceless heaven, "above" means in a higher state. If we respect Swedenborg as the pipeline of the Lord's Second Advent, no wonder we may respect Mary as the physical vessel of the Lord's First Advent.
     No woman can represent New Church womanhood more adequately than Mary, who was the Lord's mother (see Canon 9:8). Actually, in almost all of her life she was totally immersed in the Lord's sphere of innocence, peace, love and wisdom. As the Scripture tells only a little about her, so the Writings tell a little. But when Swedenborg spoke of Mary, he used the word dignissimum, meaning a most important matter (see TCR 827).
ANGELS INACTION BEING TRANSLATED INTO DUTCH 1996

ANGELS INACTION BEING TRANSLATED INTO DUTCH              1996

     The title is Engelen in Aktie and the subtitle is Wat Swedenborg Hoorde en Zag. Mr. Hans Boming of Holland has begun the translation of this book by Dr. Robert Kirven. The first chapters have been published in the Dutch journal Swedenborgiana which is edited by Mr. Guus Janssens.
     The Swedenborg Foundation has sold many copies of the English version, and one hopes that it will also reach people in other languages.

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ARE YOU A SPIRITUAL FISHERMAN? 1996

ARE YOU A SPIRITUAL FISHERMAN?       Dr. REUBEN P. BELL       1996

     In Matthew 4:18, 19 and Mark 1:16, 17 we find the story of the fishermen who became disciples of Christ. As are many important factual episodes in the Gospels, this one is dealt with in the terse, unemotional style of a storyteller who is moving urgently along to the more important elements of the finish. The fact that Peter and Andrew, then James and John, simply dropped their nets and followed Jesus of Nazareth at His invitation to "Follow Me" is treated as any other element of the story. The enormity of the act on the part of these men is left to the reader's appreciation. But follow Him they did, without hesitation, from that moment forward.
     What Jesus actually said to the men was "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." This was of course a figure of speech tailored to the moment, but in a larger sense it was a metaphorical statement of such magnitude that it has become a part of the consciousness of all Christians. Fishers of men-what could be more compelling than this image as it has been applied over the centuries to the selfless labor of those who would be ministers in the church? It is an image that lives.
     But as is so often the case, Swedenborg brings an expanded meaning to this idea in an addendum to his Intercourse of the Soul and the Body, a remarkable little publication of 1769. The book is a treatment of the notion of spiritual influx into the natural body, but the last entry, n. 20, is apparently freestanding and appendant. It describes an encounter with a certain man1 who questions Swedenborg's transition from philosopher (or scientist, as the word implied in Swedenborg's day) to theologian. His reply is illuminating. He is a theologian, he says, because from his youth he has been a fisherman in the spiritual sense-a seeker of natural truths-in a similar manner to the disciples who were fishermen before their call.
     1 This was likely Friedrich Oetinger, German prelate and mystic, with whom Swedenborg often corresponded. See Alfred Acton, translator and editor, The Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1955, p. 629, for the letter that likely prompted this recollection.

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     He explains to his questioner that in the Word each idea represents a spiritual concept, beyond the obvious intent of the literal sense, and in this case "fisherman" represents "a person who hunts out and teaches natural truths." These comments are followed by an explanation that references to "water" in the Word mean things that are true on the natural level, and that "fish" means those who are involved in these truths. By this principle then, "fishermen" means people who hunt out and teach natural truths. As a seeker of these truths since youth, Swedenborg explains that it is only natural for his journey to culminate in the pursuit of spiritual truths as well as the natural, for "these latter are based on the former." "Besides," says his companion, "what Christian theologian is there who has not studied philosophy in his school days?"
     So in the Writings the idea of fishermen, or "fishers of men" as they are called in the New Testament story, is enlarged to include a new category of person. Just as the Word presents ideas on two planes simultaneously, the natural and the spiritual, so shall we come to appreciate a new kind of fisherman for our New Church to complement the well known figure of the priest. The scientist, scholar, layman or philosopher who is called to "Come, follow Me" may be called just as surely as the minister, but from a different place and in a different way. He or she is called to the pursuit of spiritual truths by systematically tracing the natural progression of knowledge to its source in the Lord-Creator of the universe, order itself. By following this call a different kind of fisherman is born, not to the duties of the chancel or the government of the church, but to "hunt out and teach truths" to any who will have them.
     At long last there is an answer to that call. It is the Master's Degree Program in the Theological School of the Academy of the New Church. Good things are happening in the Academy. Maybe they are for you. Are you a "fisher of men"?

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CHOSEN PASSAGE 1996

CHOSEN PASSAGE       Christina Steciuk       1996

     (Continued from the November issue)

     Next I ordered Heaven and Hell, which I absorbed with a child's purity of belief and an adult's recognition of wisdom, which suddenly, after half a lifetime of yearning, was pulsating before me in every single word. Following Heaven and Hell, Conjugial Love brought me to my knees in remorse, and humble, grateful surrender, as Mary Magdalene wiping the feet of Jesus with her tears.
     A year and a half ago, I began attending worship services at The Church of the New Jerusalem in Oak Arbor, Michigan. Our minister, Grant Odhner, led a reading discussion group to which I was invited and in which I participated eagerly. We read The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine and began the first volume of Apocalypse Explained. My delight in the reading was increased by sharing it with others in the group. Their honesty, sincerity and love of truth enabled me to express my thoughts openly, further allowing our Lord to work more deeply within us. Over the course of this period, I also attended two spiritual growth classes led by Karen Elder and spearheaded by Frank and Louise Rose of Tucson, Arizona.
     In late September, during a return of summer warmth, I attended a women's retreat organized by the women of the Glenview, Illinois Society. It was held at the Bert Hendersons' cottage on Lake Michigan in Palisades, Michigan. Thanks to the generosity of the Hendersons we had a lovely, wooded, rolling dune setting which opened onto the expanse of Lake Michigan. Louise Rose led the retreat, and I was excited to meet her after having benefitted from the spiritual growth classes which she and her husband had conceptualized, and for which they had provided useful materials. The topic of the retreat was trust, and although I found myself inwardly grumbling and resisting some of the group activities due to creeping suspicions, doubts and fears of interacting with others in a group and the inevitable hypocrisies which enter, I again found myself humbly aware of our Lord's strength which enters when we share ourselves in sincerity toward Him.

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I learned a valuable lesson. I learned to stretch-toward the Lord and away from gnawing falsities. I learned that when I follow in the Lord's teaching, He leads. Although afraid, when I open with sincerity before others who also turn to the teachings, we grow as Jesus loves us to grow.
     With this brief account of my participation in the New Church, I sense myself standing on the threshold of a yet unknown work for the second half of my life. I trust that its specific applications will continue to unfold. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my Ukrainian cultural heritage for safeguarding, during times of atrocious and relentless repressions, a tradition rich in love of Good, Truth and Freedom, and for implanting these within my heart. It is precisely all the things that I learned to love from the time that I was a child, all things good and true taught to me through the poignant, reverent and tender lyricism of Ukrainian song, the wisdom of ancient stories as well as more recent literature, the lovingly crafted work of hands and feet-arts which created practical as well as aesthetic reflections of the Lord's endlessly bountiful beauty. It is precisely all these things which enabled me to receive an intimacy with the Word, opened to me through the insights of Swedenborg.
     Since I love to translate Ukrainian literature into English, thereby offering the precious sap of my cultural roots to the leaves and fruits of my multinational relationships with others, my work must include being of service to both. With this in mind I am looking forward to partaking of the evangelization symposium presented by the New Church this February in Tucson. Within the next year or two I plan an extended trip to Ukraine. What I learn from my work there will further determine the shape my life and work will continue to take.
     Returning to the original purpose of this letter, I submit my chosen passage from the recently published new edition of a work on charity which Swedenborg worked on before his death and left unfinished. It was first published in 1873. A new, second re-editing of William Wunsch's translation by William Ross Woofenden entitled Charity has a passage which recently caused me to pause and reflect further.

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     At the beginning of the work Swedenborg outlines: "The first step in charity is to look to the Lord and to avoid evils for the reason that they are sins, which is done by repentance." Paragraph four begins: "As far as we take note of sins and know what they are, we can see them in ourselves, confess them before the Lord, and repent of them." Footnote 2 of this paragraph, referring to Swedenborg's original sketched-out manuscript, states: "A note in the left margin runs: 'Self-examination, if only of acts, it discovers little. Not enough. Why? If of thoughts and intentions, it discovers more. But if it scrutinizes what the man considers or does not consider to be sins, then it is revealing. For a man does whatever he makes allowable in himself. To make allowable is of the will, it is endeavor, and in spirit is done. It will be done in body when obstacles are removed. Machiavellists are illustrations.'"
     This was a revelation to me. In this brief scribbled note in the left margin, Swedenborg had penetrated right to the kernel. The Word teaches us that to do what the ten commandments tell us not to do is sin. The Writings explain that there is an interior spiritual meaning of what each commandment teaches in the literal sense, even that the truths of each commandment unfold to eternity. Since coming to the Writings, I have been trying to recognize the sins in my life. This passage helped me to understand what a crucial role our consideration of what constitutes sin has in our being able to do charity. It helped me to see that turning to the Lord to illuminate our self-examination of what we consider to be sin allows Him to regenerate us. I asked myself once again, "What do I consider to be sin in my life?" and uncovered a more precise answer.
Sin, in my life, is to not turn to the Lord in every moment, asking for, seeking to learn, His uses for me. Sin is not to use the mind that God has given me in order that I may learn and do what He wants me to do. A sin greater still is to know what I must do and not to do so. I pray to You, dearest Lord God, Jesus Christ, to lead me in every moment of my life, that every fibre of my being, from the most interior to the hairtips and fingernails, be in Your hands.
     To want this blessedness for myself and not to want it for the nation that raised me in Your love, as well as all nations, is perhaps the greatest sin.

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It's especially important for the nations of the world to know of each other's struggles and ills in order that we may join together and not permit evils to take hold, crippling our children. Therefore, I also pray to You for Ukraine. Perhaps my new-found friends in the Word, of the Church of the New Jerusalem, will bear witness with me to the suffering of my people, who have given their lives to the count of millions rather than give up their love for You, and who are now struggling through incredible difficulties for the survival of their newly independent country in order that they may re-establish their life in You once again in freedom. Only through true charity and brotherhood will the nations of this world break the hold of repression and lift all mankind in God's love.
     Christina Steciuk,
          Royal Oak, Michigan
NEW EDITORSHIP FOR THE NEW AGE IN AUSTRALIA 1996

NEW EDITORSHIP FOR THE NEW AGE IN AUSTRALIA              1996

     The New Age has been published monthly in Australia since 1887! For the past thirteen years the editor has been Rev. Bernard S. Willmott. It is clear that he has the love and respect of readers in Australia and other lands. He has served with a quiet humility but has always been clear about his belief. In his final editorial in the December issue he expresses devotion to "the revelation given to mankind by the Lord in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg: a revelation of Divine Truth that constitutes and embodies the Second Advent of the Lord."
     The new editor is Rev. Trevor Moffat. We wish him success in carrying on this historic publication.

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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM 1996

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM       Jr. Donald C. Fitzpatrick       1996

     Between July 1, 1994, and June 30, 1995, one hundred three members were received into the General Church.
     During the year, the Secretary's office received notice of the deaths of sixty-eight members.
     Seven members resigned during the year, and an additional four members were dropped from the roll.

     Membership July l, l994                               4530
     New members (Certs. 8444-8546)                          103
     Deceased                                             -68
     Resigned                                             -7
     Dropped from Roll                                        -4
                                                                                                                             4554

     NEW MEMBERS

     AUSTRALIA

New South Wales
Davis, Mark Robert
Liporoni, Cybelle Reis
Liporoni, Marco

     CANADA

     Ontario
Bellinger, Howard Dennis
Bellinger, Morven Mary Rennie
Bradfield, Sandra Bevan
Reid, John Wilbert
Schnarr, Dale Alan
Tait, Kelly Lynn

     ENGLAND
Crick, Mavis Beatrice

     GHANA
Ahedor, Emmanuel Kwasi
Amedi, Daniel Kofi
Amoako, Kwasi Ofosu
Asantewa, Mercy Afua
Asare, Ernest Henaku
Boadi, Daniel Kwasi
Boadu, John
Boahene, Agnes Owusu
Boahene, Comfort Kwabuah
Boahene, Daniel Owusu Kofi
Boahene, James Asante Kwadwo
Boahene, James Kwasi
Demanya, Philipin Ama
Fevlo, Emmanuel Quist
Fi, Kwaku
Ghattie, Prosper Yao
Mante, Charles Aboagye
Nyarkoah, Vida Akosua
Okerchiri, Hosea Harris Amenong
Okraku, Samuel Boafo
Sanny, Prank Ekow
Stephen, Ofori Darkwah
Tetteh, Gifty Awusi
Yeboah, Emmanuel Kofi

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     JAPAN
Noji, Hirobumi
Oga, Mutsuo

     KOREA
Shim, Chang Sik
Yoon, In Rye (Lee)

     NEW ZEALAND
Millar, David William
Millar, Mandy Toni

     REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

Natal
Bramley, Hazel Muriel
Browne, Edward James William
Cockerell, Brendon Donovan
Dlamini, Octavia
Field, Shaun John
Khumalo, Thobile Gerhude
Meltzer, Erich Anton
Meltzer, Vania Noel Frost
Merson-Davies, Stuart Ashby
Nsele, Priscilla Nomafu
Powell, Yvonne Jean Wynn
Zungu, Aaron B.

Transvaal
Mbedzi, Goodness
Modise, Nanah Mpolokeng
Schoeman, Deliswa
Sikhakhane, Lizzy

     UKRAINE
Rogovoy, Dmitriy Simeonovich

     UNITED STATES

Arizona
Coffin, Betty Lou Lucas
Coffin, Merritt Orville
Cooper, Amy Jo Small
Cooper, Dee Frances Fletcher
Cooper, Jeremy Scott
Cooper, Richard Hotchkiss
Odhner, Amanda Katherine
Ridlon, Dorothy Anna Schaefer
Ridlon, Herbert Lee

California
Myers, Erica L.
Thompson, Paul D.

Colorado
Ebert, Stephanie Jill Smith

Florida
Hunter, Larry Joel

Maryland
Kinsey, Beata Marie Sellner
Kinsey, Jeffrey Neal

Michigan
Eller, Melissa Elaine

New Jersey
Leese, Charles Craig

Oregon
Gallagher, Joy Willis

Pennsylvania
Austin, Kenneth James
Bell, Jill Dossey
Bell, Reuben Paul, Jr.
Brown, Joel Edward
Carter, Christopher Manson
Coffin, Glenn Alan
Coffin, Leigh Hyatt
Cronlund, Sharon Eileen
Cronlund, Sue Ellen Derr
Doman, Raymond Joseph
Dunlap, Bennet Rea
Dunlap, Kimball Costina

35



Elphick, Allison Jane
Frazier, Tabitha Hope
Heinrichs, Wade Reagan
Hummel, Joyce Diane
Jones, Amy J. Renn
Knight, Christopher Edward
Lee, Chol
Lindrooth, Brenda Rydstrom
Merrell, Willard Brian
Odhner, Gregory
Odhner, Mary Jane Rogers
Odhner, Susan Olson
Pitcairn, Kean
Rhodes, Natasha
Ritthaler, Kris
Smith, Danielle Patricia

     DEATHS

Abed, Khalil, April 10, 1995, Taylorville, IL. 86.
Aye, Helen L., December 8, 1994, Kittanning, PA. 73.
Bamford, Audrey Iris Edith Fraser, April 13, 1995, Westville, Natal, RSA. 86.
Bancroft, Edith D., February 8, 1995, Perkasie, PA. 88.
Best, Muriel Gertrude Morris, May 15, 1995, Bristol, England. 88.
Boericke, Janet Hall, November 13, 1994, Abington, PA. 77.
Briscoe, Irene Gwyneth, September 9, 1994, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. 101.
Brooks, Harold Jerome, May 4, 1995, Howey in the Hills, FL. 92.
Brown, Sheila Elizabeth, March 9, 1995, Abington, PA. 55.
Came, Donald Selkirk, February 7, 1995, Johannesburg, Gauteng, RSA. 69.
Chisholm, Stella M. Campbell, March 27, 1995, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 85.
Cooper, Elaine, October 12, 1994, Bryn Athyn, PA. 77.
Cooper, Joyce Kathleen, March 4, 1995, Bryn Athyn, PA. 81.
Cornell, Warren Rawson, January 27, 1994, West Chester, PA. 69. (Delayed report)
Cranch, Phyllis Schnarr, July 29, 1994, Bryn Athyn, PA. 80.
Crick, Mavis Beatrice, August 11, 1994, St. Leonards, E. Sussex, England. 95.
Cullen, Jessie Rose, January 9, 1995, Delaware. 97.
Curtis, Vivian Irma, September 29, 1994, Palm Harbor, FL. 89.
de Chazal, Malcolm Edmond, 1982, Mauritius. 80. (delayed report)
de Maine, Natalie Suzanne Carpenter, November 6, 1994, Bryn Athyn, PA. 83.
Edley, Vivien Douglas Ridgway, January 1, 1995, Durban, Natal, RSA. 84.
Evens, William Carl, July 29, 1994, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. 81.
Finkeldey, Anne Boggess, March 5, 1995, Bryn Athyn, PA. 84.

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Fish, Bertha Margaret Anderson, date and place unknown.
Gilbert, Billy Joe, March 1, 1995, Hesperia, CA. 70.
Gruber, Spence Walter, August 8, 1994, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 44.
Gunther, Marvin John, May 11, 1995, Bryn Athyn, PA. 66.
Gurney, Gail Davis, July 9, 1994, North Carolina. 50.
Hansen, Alfred V., December 11, 1994, Meadowbrook, PA. 88.
Heaton, George Bender, January 1, 1995, Meadowbrook, PA. 84.
Heldon, Ruth Fletcher, April 21, 1995, Sydney, NSW, Australia. 70.
Howard, Philip Henry, July 6, 1993, Indian Lake, NY. 65. (Delayed report)
Hussenet, Yvette Marcelle Vanderzvalmen, July 3, 1991, And?, France. 94. (Delayed report)
Lee, Edward Brown, Jr., February 10, 1995, Pittsburgh, PA. 82.
Lee, Harold Sidwell, January 23, 1995, Glenview, IL. 75.
Lindrooth, Ethel Rae Hutchinson, June 4, 1995, Bryn Athyn, PA. 88.
Lindsay, Alexander Heilman, May 9, 1995, Freeport, PA. 82.
Lindsay, Catherine Doering, February 4, 1995, Bryn Athyn, PA. 93.
Linguist, Mae Mathilda Soneson, June 4, 1995, Huntingdon Valley, PA. 86.
Mackenzie, Eugenia Matilda Provin, February 8, 1995, Prescott, AZ. 88.
McCardell, Edith Olivia Cook, December 24, 1994, Sarver, PA. 77.
McClarren, Marjorie Robinson, September 28, 1994, Meadowbrook, PA. 86.
Miller, Thomas Pelham, November 23, 1993, Bluff Park, AL. 54. (Delayed report)
Moore, Kathleen Alix Moubray, 1985, Shelsley, Beauchamp, Worcestershire, England. 88. (Delayed report)
Nilson, Gunnar Nathanael, July 19, 1994, St. Petersburg, FL. 72.
Nkabinde, Peter Petrus, July 5, 1994, Vosloorus, PWV, RSA. 92.
Peirce, Sumner Lloyd, August 11, 1994, Abington, PA. 73.
Pethard, Elizabeth, December 7, 1994, Upper Beeding, W. Sussex, England. 68.
Price, Marjory Hope Burnham, March 29, 1995, Glenview, IL. 88.
Redfoot, Wyneth Rouette Cranch, August 21, 1994, Union City, PA. 88.
Reuter, Norman Harold, October 23, 1994, Bryn Athyn, PA. 89.
Roberts, Daisy Margarite Worthington, April 23, 1995, Meadowbrook, PA. 92.
Roberts, William Martin, May 20, 1995, Warminster, PA. 90.
Rogers, Judith Glenn, January 10, 1995, Meadowbrook, PA. 77.
Rose, Anne Elizabeth Barnitz, November 13, 1994, Bryn Athyn PA. 42.
Scott, Mildred Ruth Bergstrom, February 27, 1995, San Juan, CA. 86.
Sheny, Peter William, April 10, 1995, Colchester, Essex, England. 63.

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Smith, Julia Pay, June 27, 1995, Warminster, PA. 68.
Smith, Randal Brackett, July 25 1994, Roslyn, PA. 86.
Smith, Susan Poole, July 2, 1994, Bryn Athyn, PA. 52.
Stebbing, Winifred Elsie Allen, March 25, 1994 Lanham, MD. 81.
Synnestvedt, Huard Ivan, December 1994, Salem, WV. 70.
Szymbra, Joan May Reynolds, July 7, 1994, Colchester, Essex, England. 62.
Thronsen, Helga Hansen, February 15, 1992, Oslo, Norway. 91. (Delayed report)
van Rij, Deryck, September 15, 1994, Pietermaritzburg, Natal, RSA. 57.
Wiedinger, Sarah Elizabeth Galbraith, July 26, 1994, Copley, OH. 87.
Wille, Gerhardt King, December 10, 1994, Meadowbrook, PA. 72.
Woolley, George, Jr., December 19, 1994, Warminster, PA. 82.

     RESIGNATIONS

McQueen, Tammy Greenawalt, November 18, 1994, Freeport, PA
Mitchell, Andrew C., July 20, 1994, Mitchellville, MD
Rogers, Donald K., Jr., February 3, 1995, Cartersville, GA
Show, Patricia B., November 28, 1994, Charleston, SC
Show, Richard P., November 28, 1994, Charleston, SC
Silverman, Raymond J., June 20, 1995, Huntingdon Valley, PA
Silverman, Starlet B., June 20, 1995, Huntingdon Valley, PA

     DROPPED FROM THE ROLL

Acton, Lisa Laufer, May 26, 1995, address unknown.
Petrovic, Cynthia Lovato, March 23, 1995, Pittsburgh, PA
Russell, Jeannette Humm, May 30, 1995, address unknown.
Smith, William D., November 11, 1994, Tucson area.

     Respectfully submitted,
          Donald C. Fitzpatrick, Jr.,
               Acting Secretary
CONTINUALLY PRAYING 1996

CONTINUALLY PRAYING              1996

     A person continually prays when he is in a life of charity, although not with the mouth yet with the heart; for that which is of the love is continually in the thought, even when he is unconscious of it.
     Apocalypse Explained 325

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BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS 1996

BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS       Rev. JONATHAN S. ROSE       1996

     THE THIRD IN A SERIES OF TIDBITS

     I have talked about the physical beauty of Swedenborg's first editions, and about the sheer size of his vocabulary. This month I have some further thoughts on vocabulary and translation. I want to show you how the same long Latinate words that create tedium in English are vivid and lively in the Latin.
     Just as some countries consist mainly of a single ethnic group while the United States comprises many, the Latin vocabulary is more exclusively Latin while the English language's vocabulary is enormous, due to its habit of eating foreign dictionaries. For example, as The History of English points out, to our own Anglo-Saxon word "kingly" we added "royal" and "regal" when English ate French and Latin respectively. But despite its cosmopolitan vocabulary, English is still at its heart an Angle-Saxon language. Its most frequently used words, its roots and stems with the deepest feeling and the greatest power, are the short, pithy Anglo-Saxon ones.
     As a result of the Protestant Reformation there was a drive to get the Bible into the vernacular languages, which led eventually to the abandonment of Latin as a learned language. When English was forced to take the communication payload that Latin had been carrying, it borrowed Latin vocabulary heavily and shamelessly. Therefore when translators of Swedenborg a couple of hundred years later went looking for an English equivalent for, say, the Latin word concupiscentia, they did not have far to look. That Latin word, like so many others, had found an English form: the cognate, "concupiscence" This must have struck them as a safe and effective equivalent in English.
     There is a great difference, though, between the effect of the word concupiscentia on Latin readers and the effect of the word "concupiscence" on English readers. To Latin readers concupiscentia is a rich, evocative word; they see the root-cup-, a root they would be very familiar with, meaning lust, longing, craving, desire; they see the intensifier con-, increasing their impression of the power of the lust; they see the inceptive suffix -sc- which denotes something that is growing.

39


From what they have learned and felt about the Latin language since childhood, then, they would get from this word a sense of "a strong and growing lust or craving." All the English readers get is a long word to look up in the dictionary. The Latin readers get something assembled out of the roots and sounds from the heart of their language; the English readers get something far removed from the Anglo-Saxon heart of theirs. The Latin readers feel at home with this word; the English readers feel alienated by it. Either we feel we are too ignorant or the text is too arcane for communication to take place.
     The standard English translations, with their preference for peripheral Latin loan words over Anglo-Saxon heart words, present the English reader with a relatively hollow and soulless vocabulary compared to that of the original.
FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART ASSEMBLY EXHIBITION 1996

FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART ASSEMBLY EXHIBITION              1996

     We had an announcement in the November issue (p. 519) about the art exhibition coming up this June (5th to 9th). If you are thinking of participating, write for an entry form and information to:

     Friends of New Church Art
     Helen L. Lee
     1015 Jefferson Heights Road
     Pittsburgh, PA 15235
     Phone (412) 373-0209

     The 1996 focused theme is "Lilies," which you may address if you wish. The show is open to all work that addresses and cites Swedenborgian concepts. Friends of New Church Art requests that you cite a specific quotation from Swedenborg.

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WONDERFUL FUNCTION OF A CHURCH 1996

WONDERFUL FUNCTION OF A CHURCH       Editor       1996

     The New Church society in Glenview, Illinois, is fostering a program on helping the hungry. We anticipate a report this year.
     The Bryn Athyn Society is embarking on a program called "Helping Hands."
     There is something satisfying about entering into a use that is tangible. One such use is providing a setting for blood donations. A church really does exist for the good of the world, but members of churches sometimes feel that their building may be regarded as an expendable piece of real estate that could better be used for something productive! However, during a blood drive, the people of the church have a sense of wholesome pride. They are providing a place, and they themselves with rolled-up sleeves and vivid donor badges feel they are useful and that they even look useful.
     The giving of blood may remind one of the use of the church the Writings mention. The church is compared to a heart, absolutely vital to the rest of the human race (see AC 637). This vital use is "quite unknown to anyone," and so we naturally crave uses that are undeniably helpful to others. And so we should.
     Have you been in discussions of church involvement in external uses? The discussions take place in larger and smaller congregations. It is also useful to consider that an individual is a "church" and that the questions apply to an individual.
     A key teaching is given in n. 40 of Coronis: "Religion is like a seed producing just and true desires." Religion inspires people toward moral external behavior and in responsible civil participation.

     Look at the volunteer workers in a hospital or in other helping enterprises. Does religion inspire this participation? So it should. An individual member of a church can choose what kind of useful service to pursue.

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But what about a group within a church? Some have frankly said that they wish to be seen as a church in some chosen endeavor. Some mention the saying in Matthew 5 to let your light shine that they may see your good works and "glorify your Father in heaven." Others might observe in the next chapter that when we do charitable deeds we should do so "in secret" or without ostentation.
     We will continue this subject in a later issue.
CAIRNWOOD VILLAGE-A LIVING EXPERIENCE 1996

CAIRNWOOD VILLAGE-A LIVING EXPERIENCE              1996

     Cairnwood Village was established under sponsorship of the General Church of the New Jerusalem fifteen years ago to serve as a home for New Church people of retirement age. Actually it has come to serve an even wider use. With its large meeting/dining room and ample kitchen facilities, it has developed into a warm and effective community center, with many church and social groups, doctrinal classes and other organizations gathering here. Its popular tri-weekly Cairnwood Village dinners are open to the entire Bryn Athyn community, resulting in much visiting among residents and friends and family.
     An unusual opportunity exists at this moment for a New Church member to acquire a single-bedroom apartment available for occupancy on January 1, 1996. For information give Khary Allen or Shirley Schoenberger a call at (215) 947-7705 or write to Cairnwood Village Admissions, P.O. Box 550, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.
     Cairnwood Village-come live with us.

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DIETRICH BONHOEFFER: A GERMAN COUSIN 1996

DIETRICH BONHOEFFER: A GERMAN COUSIN       Tryn Clark       1996

Dear Editor:
     The January 1986 New Church Life included a note from the editor about a connection found at the Swedenborg Foundation between the New Church and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It piqued my curiosity because this man is a modern Christian hero, spoken about frequently in sermons and in other public forums. I listened carefully in the past year during the 50th-anniversary observances of his murder, by Hitler's order, on April 9, 1945, wondering if I could discern in Bonhoeffer's life or words what this New Church connection might have been. One can see in his actions an extraordinary manifestation of his love for his fellow man. He spoke out against Hitler and was at odds with the German church in open and public ways as the Nazis rose to power. He was a leader in the "Confessing Church" who sent the Barmen Confession of 1934 and the Memorandum of 1936 to Hitler, declaring the Nazi government and policies against non-Aryans to be unjust and illegal. Bonhoeffer was a theologian who believed that we are called to be God's hands in the social/political arena as well as in the "religious gesture."
     In his writing, much of which comes to us as letters smuggled out of the military prison in Berlin, the clear, recurrent theme is his deep commitment to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, the living God, by bringing His kingdom to the earth. For Bonhoeffer this meant standing against Hitler and for the non-Aryan people in many acts of peaceful resistance: it meant smuggling Jews into Switzerland; it meant that he and his brothers, sister, brothers-in-law and uncles would make two attempts on Hitler's life (in 1943 and 1944), and that five of them would go to their deaths on the personal order of Hitler just days before the Allies entered Berlin.
     In reading his biographies and the material at the Swedenborg Foundation I learned of a charming and familiar connection with the New Church-he was a relative!

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Immanuel and Leonhardt Tafel were his great uncles. Immanuel led the growth of the church in Germany. Leonhardt and his sons Louis and Rudolph emigrated to the United States and contributed to the North American growth of the New Church and to the Academy movement. Dietrich's grandmother, Julie Tafel, was their niece, daughter of Friedrich Tafel. She is not identified by biographers as belonging to the New Church movement in Germany, but she lived in and near Berlin throughout her 96 years, and was a powerfully spiritual and socially active woman. The story is told of her crossing Nazi boycott lines to shop at a Jewish-owned establishment when she was 92 years of age.
     Julie Tafel had married into a family of scholars and clergy, doctors and councillors, people with a deep sense of obligation to serve the larger society. Her grandson Dietrich lived nearby or with her in the family household for 29 of his 36 years. "He preached a beautiful sermon at her funeral" (Tafel-Boericke notes, 1967). There is no doubt that he was deeply influenced by her and her values.
     Dietrich, after his year in New York at Union Theological Seminary (1930-31), went to work for the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship Through the Churches. The history of the Confessing Church and of his part in the resistance is well documented in published materials and is too lengthy to recount here.
     The Bonhoeffer material at the Swedenborg Foundation includes a memoriam written by Mrs. Irma Tafel-Boericke in 1967, a letter from Mr. Bonhoeffer dated December 12, 1932, and a letter to the Boerickes from Dietrich's twin sister Sabine in June 1946. Dietrich visited these cousins in 1930-31 at Wynnewood, Pennsylvania while he was a postgraduate exchange student at Union Seminary. Here is the excerpt from Mrs. Boericke's notes that alludes to their similarity in beliefs:

     Since he originally intended to be a pianist and have a concert career, he often played for us, many beautiful classical pieces.

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Later we would discuss at length our beliefs, and found to our surprise and pleasure that we seemed completely in accord in our outlook on life and religion, as he-two years later-also remarked in his letter to us. He came again for a weekend visit in the first weekend of Advent as he remembered in his letter . . . . When Dietrich was here in the winter of 1932 he accompanied us to church one Sunday when our pastor (at that time being the Rev. Charles H. Harvey) preached the sermon. He turned to me afterwards and said disappointed: "You can hear that kind of sermon anywhere." This happened to be a time when the Church was not actively bringing forward Swedenborg's teachings.

     The letter from Dietrich that she refers to was dated December 12, 1932. In it he said: "One could grow quite hopeless when one experiences, at one small spot, the great want that extends over the whole world. Then it is good, even though it will go against the grain, that Christmas comes again, and one feels the call anew, and not to be held back by the dark and hopelessness but instead to realize afresh of the Light that shines in the darkness, and from here on to live in a new way. And I am always glad that I do know [translator's emphasis] that in such thoughts, I and you are one."
     These are the only direct references found so far that illuminate his beliefs vis-a-vis Swedenborgianism. His theological works are quite inspiring, however, and never clearer than when he struggles with the felt mandate to act on his beliefs. His writing is most moving as he came closer to the inevitability of his martyrdom: "It is not the religious act that makes the
Christian, but participation in the suffering of God in the world. It is living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes, and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God. . . " (from Letters and Papers from Prison).
     Tryn Clark,
          New York, NY

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APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO THE ACADEMY GIRLS SCHOOL AND BOYS SCHOOL 1996

APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO THE ACADEMY GIRLS SCHOOL AND BOYS SCHOOL              1996




     Announcements






     Requests for application forms for admission of new students to the Academy Secondary Schools should be made by March 1, 1996. Letters should be addressed to Mrs. Robert Gladish, Principal of the Girls School, or Mr. T. Dudley Davis, Principal of the Boys School, The Academy of the New Church, Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Please include the student's name, parents' address, the class the student will be entering, the name and address of the school he or she is now attending, and whether the student will be a day or a dormitory student.
     Completed application forms should be forwarded to the Academy by May 1, 1996. All requests for financial aid should be submitted to the Business Manager, The Academy of the New Church, Box 711, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 by June 1, 1996. The earlier the request is submitted, the more likely we will be able to meet the need.
     Admission procedure is based on receipt of application, transcript, pastor's recommendation, health forms. The Academy will not discriminate against applicants and students on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

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Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue       Editor       1996


Vol. CXVI          February, 1996           No. 2

New Church Life

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     Fifty years ago this month this magazine began with an assembly address by Bishop George de Charms entitled "The Lord and the Spiritual Sun." In it he quoted Coronis 48: "It would be impossible for a person to acknowledge God and anything belonging to Him unless God had manifested Himself in a personal human form." It is interesting to see a similar theme in the sermon in this issue.
     Swedenborg called himself a spiritual fisherman. Dr. Reuben Bell concludes his article on this subject with reference to the new Master's Degree program. On that subject your attention is invited to the announcement on the inside front cover. In the Bishop's report there is also reference to this new program and to the establishment of a computer network throughout the Academy campus as well as a presence on the Internet. Following his regular report, the Bishop gives a specific report on his visit to the Conference in Britain last summer.
     A calendar of daily readings is now available. See the note by the Secretary on page 15. In the Secretary's report are the names of one hundred three members received into the General Church between July 1, 1994 and June 30, 1995. There is also a list of sixty-eight members who have entered the spiritual world during that time.
     We are now in the assembly year. The theme in June is "A New Church Culture." We look forward to the presence in June of people from different countries with their cultural perspectives. As a case in point we have a particularly interesting contribution from Mr. Tatsuya Nagashima beginning on page 19.

     Academy College Registration-Applications for the fall 1996 term should be received by the college by March 1, 1996. Contact Mr. Brian Henderson at (215) 938-2511; fax 938-2568.

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MOUTH OF THE LORD 1996

MOUTH OF THE LORD       Rev. ERIK E. SANDSTROM       1996

     "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it" (Isaiah 40:5).

     When the Lord God speaks, that is with us the Word of the Lord. We know that the Lord spoke both testaments. What else? Has the mouth of the Lord also spoken the Writings of the New Church? If so, the Writings themselves should say so. For the testaments testify of their Author, as the Lord said: "Search the Scriptures for . . . these are they which testify of Me" (John 5:39).
     If the Writings are the Word, they should also testify of their Author. So is the Lord their Author? We read: "I [Swedenborg] have not received anything whatever concerning the doctrines of the [New Church] from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word" (TCR 779). "No spirit has dared, nor has any angel wished, to tell me anything, still less to instruct me about what is in the Word, or . . . doctrine from the Word. I have been taught by the Lord alone, who was revealed to me" (DP 135).
     It is clear that the Lord dictated the Old Testament through the prophets as they said, "The Word of Jehovah came unto me, saying . . . "; and the New Testament through the Evangelist, but recalled later, as He said, "The Holy Spirit . . . will bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you" (John 14:26). And the Lord prophesied the Second Coming: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now . . . . When the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12, 13). And "Seal not the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand" (Rev. 22:10).
     There was clearly more to come. And now, in the Writings, more has come. If the Lord's spirit of truth has spoken the New Church Writings, then they should be able to explain the truth about their Author; they should "speak plainly of the Father" (John 16:25).

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Do they? Do they explain the words such as, "O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5)?
     Yes. The Lord's essence is Love, the Divine Itself, called Father; and for the "sake of human comprehension . . . this is distinguished into Divine good and truth . . . . The Divine truth is called Son" (AC 3704). However, this understanding was first stated around 450 A.D. in the Athanasian Creed which says: "As soul and body are one man, so God and Man are one Christ" (Lord 55). Just as our soul is embodied, so the Divine Love was embodied in the human, making one Christ. The Lord is God in person. It is as simple as that.
     Thus "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" was Christ's own soul talking, the Father seen at the time as a shining cloud (Matt. 17:5). And the words, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" came from the crucified body wracked by temptations when the soul seemed absent. So the Lord is one God, in both Person and Essence; Father and Son are soul and body in Christ. And the Holy Spirit? The Lord breathed on His disciples and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). It is the spirit of truth from the mouth of the Risen Lord.
     On earth the Lord spoke in parables, but in the Writings He speaks plainly of the Father. The parable "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58) means plainly that Jehovah was His soul (AC 10579:5). Thus the Old Testament "for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it" through angels, in the New Testament became the Lord Himself saying, "Verily, verily I say unto you." Those who heard Him said, "No man ever spoke like this man!" (John 7:46) But still, He spoke in parables.
     Now in the Writings He speaks plainly. But where is the Lord now? After His resurrection the Lord "became an essence by itself which fills the universal heaven, . . . the Divine Human" (AC 3061). He spoke the Writings to Swedenborg directly (see TCR 779, DP 135). For the risen Lord, we read, "is Doctrine Itself" (AC 5321).

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When He speaks out of heaven, His Doctrine is seen as a crystal city. The river in that city is knowledge of the internal sense of the Word.
     The Lord as Doctrine Itself now explains how He formerly revealed the Old Testament: it was spoken by Jehovah through angels: "The Lord spoke the Word through [angels] . . . whom He filled with His look, and thus inspired with the words which they dictated . . . so it was not influx but dictation. And as the words came forth directly from the Lord, each one was filled with the Divine and contains within it an internal sense [for angels], while men understand them in a natural sense. Thus has the Lord conjoined heaven and the world by means of the Word" (HH 254).
     This transflux used to flow through angels who dictated both Testaments:
?      First, events themselves happened under Providence, e.g. the Exodus (see AC 1675, 2523, 6025), or the spiritual eyes of the person were opened, e.g. Mary's seeing Gabriel (see AR 36).
?      Second, there was Divine inspiration and recollection. Angels later recalled to Moses and dictated the record of the Exodus. Or Mary "pondered all these things in her heart," and "a sword pierce[d] her heart [to reveal] the thoughts of many" (Luke 2:35). Mary's account was re-worded to Luke later by angelic dictation.
     The angel Gabriel was part of that transflux. But this "transflux ceased" with the glorification (AC 6371). There was no transflux through angels when the Lord revealed the Word's internal sense. Instead, the Divine Human-"our Father in the Heavens" (AC 6887:3)-spoke the Writings directly from His mouth. We are now told how the two testaments were written.
     There are two stages of revelation, the Writings say; which are to be most carefully distinguished" (AR 36; cf. Lord 52). "When the Word came . . . [they] were in the body and heard Jehovah speaking. The Word . . . was not revealed in a state of the spirit or in vision, but was dictated . . . by the Lord by a living voice."

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Thus no writing ever took place during vision, but only when it was over.
     In fact, no one could write the Word while in vision, because everything is ineffable until dictated (see De Verbo 4). That is why angelic dictation of both testaments, once written, has an internal sense for the angels and a literal sense for men, conjoining heaven and the church (see HH 254).
     However, the Writings of the New Church were not dictated by angels. We read, "No spirits dared, no angels wished" to say anything concerning the Word or doctrine (DP 235). It came "from the Lord alone while I read the Word" (TCR 779). "The Lord has manifested Himself [to me] in Person, and filled [me] with His spirit" (TCR 779, title). Since the transflux whereby angels dictate "has ceased" (AC 6771), angels can no longer dictate a spiritual sense within a literal sense.
     Swedenborg established this fact by actual experiment: "Retaining in my memory what I had spoken, when I returned into my natural state . . . I then wished to bring it forth . . . and describe it, but I could not; it was impossible . . . . There is no ratio" (De Verbo 4).
     That is when angelic language is used. By contrast, when the Lord speaks directly, nothing is beyond expression. We read on: ". . . yet they could be described even to their rational comprehension in terms of natural language . . . . There is not any Divine arcana which may not be perceived, and even expressed naturally" (De Verbo 6). "Spiritual truths can be comprehended just as well as natural ones" (Faith 3). "The doctrine itself. . . for the New Church . . . was revealed to me out of heaven; . . . to deliver it is the purpose of this book" (NJHD 7). So the ineffable could be-and was-written.
     It is therefore clear from the Writings that they are the Word which the Lord Himself has spoken out of heaven. Thus the Old Testament's "The mouth of the Lord has spoken it" (Isaiah 40:5) through the New Testament's "verily, verily I say to you" is fulfilled in "from the Lord alone while I read the Word" (TCR 779).

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When the Writings say so often, "The case herein is this," we can be sure it is the Lord Himself speaking.
     Thus all of the Writings, whether published or not, were inspired by the Lord, not by angelic dictation, since that mode of revelation had ceased. Since no angels dictated them, they are the living Word of the Divine Human Himself. Only heaven's language is ineffable, not its doctrine. The Lord who is Doctrine Itself put Heavenly Doctrine right into human terms-through Swedenborg, but only after visions ceased. The Lord can speak to us since He took His whole glorified body with Him.
     The Lord began this "plainly of the Father" revelation on the road to Emmaus and in Jerusalem, after His resurrection. He then ". . . beginning at Moses and all the prophets, . . . expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. . . . He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures" (Luke 24:27, 45). But although He spoke comprehensible doctrine, or the Spirit of Truth, even then "they could not bear it," and it was not recorded. Some seventeen centuries later, through Swedenborg's mind, the Lord finished revealing heavenly truths: what angels know in ineffable language has now been spoken directly and plainly by the Lord "our Father" "out of heaven."
     This second coming was prophesied as the New Jerusalem coming down "from God out of heaven." We read, "John was carried to the third heaven, and his sight opened, before whom . . . the Lord's New Church as to doctrine [appeared] in the form of a city" (AR 896). John's Holy City thus is the Heavenly Doctrine, published "in this book" (NJHD 7). And the river' of the water of life John saw flowing from the Lord's throne is "the Apocalypse now opened and explained as to its spiritual sense, where Divine truths in abundance are revealed by the Lord for those who will be in His New Church, which is the New Jerusalem" (AR 932).

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The city and the river include all the Writings published from 1749 to 1771.
     We are all invited to drink of that river: "Let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely." This means "to receive the truths from the Lord without any work of his own" (AR 956). The work has been done for us-all that exposition and writing of thirty volumes, twice (a copy for the printer)! All we have to do is to read or listen, and the understanding of the truth carries us along, self-evidently, without any work of our own.
     The New Church is a new dispensation; the Heavenly Doctrines are worded in rational terms to stand on their own, self-evidently. They shed new light on all areas of life. They reveal life after death. They show us how the church is to be established from pure and sound doctrine, which is understood and applied to life by the individual, who is a "particular church" (TCR 245). Since every area of worldly life has heavenly light shed on it, the Lord can now lead both angels and human beings together as a new heaven and a new church on earth. This use is served by the New Church, and the open-eyed cooperation between both worlds is meant by the angel's words to John: "I am your fellow servant . . . . Worship God." Amen.

Lessons: Isaiah 40:1-5; Rev. 22:6-10,17; NJHD 7, De Verbo 4, 6; TCR 245 (portions)

De Verbo 4

     The difference between the natural and the spiritual . . . is such that there is no ratio between them . . . . This it has been given me to know by much experience;. . . retaining in my memory what I had spoken to the angels when I returned into my natural state, I then wished to bring it forth . . . and describe it, but I could not; it was impossible; there were no expressions, nor even ideas of thought, by which I could express it; spiritual expressions [are] so remote from natural ideas and expressions that they did not approximate in the least . . . .

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De Verbo 6

     [However, although] I could not utter nor describe them by any spiritual or celestial expression, nevertheless they could be described even to their rational comprehension by words of natural language. There is not any Divine arcana which may not be perceived, and even expressed naturally.

New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 7

     The doctrine which is delivered in the following pages also is from heaven, because it is from the spiritual sense of the Word, and the spiritual sense of the Word is the same with the doctrine that is in heaven . . . . But I proceed to the doctrine itself, which is for the New Church, and which is called Heavenly Doctrine, because it was revealed to me out of heaven; to deliver this doctrine is the design of the present book.

True Christian Religion 245

     It is known that the church is in accordance with its doctrine, and that doctrine is from the Word; nevertheless it is not doctrine but soundness and purity of doctrine, consequently the understanding of the Word, that establishes the church. Neither is it doctrine, but a faith and life in accordance with doctrine that establishes and constitutes the special church in the individual man.
SO SECRET 1996

SO SECRET              1996

     The Divine Providence works so secretly that scarcely any one knows of its existence.
     Divine Providence 211

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WORD OF GOD 1996

WORD OF GOD       Rev. PETER M. BUSS       1996

     AN ADDRESS TO THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY

     Part 1 in a series

     This paper has two purposes. The most important one is to reassert the truth that the Writings are indeed the very Word of God. As an addendum I want to offer reflections on the nature of the unpublished works written after the time of Swedenborg's call.

     Part I: The Word of God

Introduction

     This subject has been covered many times in the history of the General Church. Bishop W. F. Pendleton, for example, wrote very clearly on the subject in the 1900 issue of New Church Life, parts of which will be quoted later.
     So why raise it again? Because there seems to be uncertainty about this subject in our church. Every great idea, every vital article of faith is asserted with excitement and insight by one generation, then becomes an accepted concept in the next. In succeeding generations there is the danger that it will become either a dogma to which little thought is given or an idea which will be questioned and reaffirmed, or thoughtlessly discarded.
     A principle of our church is that faith is a living, present thing. Each new generation of the church is invited-urged, in fact-to re-examine the faith of its parents, and to see it in the light of the Lord Himself.
     I decided to use NewSearch, the electronic search program for the Writings developed in the Academy, to go through the Writings and identify their own list of qualifications that make a work part of the Word of God, then to ask if the Writings qualify. I chose that approach because it seems that those who argue that the Writings should not be called "the Word" use a very narrow definition of that term, while the Writings present a very grand view of what constitutes the Word. The research has more than justified that impression.

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     Throughout this paper I will be saying things that seem to place the Writings on a higher level than the Old and New Testaments. By emphasizing their value I don't mean at all to undervalue the importance of our devotion to the first two segments of the Lord's Word. The Word is in its fullness, holiness and power in the letter. But there is a sense in which a previous writer in these pages is correct when he says, "The Writings are the Word in a higher or purer sense than the inspired portion of our Bible" (NCL 1892, p. 174).
     This paper will list sixteen "qualifications" for a work's being "the Word." Some are minor, but most of them are important. I have broken them into four general headings. As you read through the list, ask yourselves whether the Writings qualify according to their own testimony. At the end of Part I there will be a treatment of what the Writings themselves say.

The First Five Qualifications: General Ideas

(1) It speaks of the Lord throughout.


     By the way, one has to be careful not to use reverse logic in considering several of these "qualifications." This first one is an example. The Word speaks of the Lord throughout, but that doesn't mean that any book which does so is therefore the Word.
     This teaching is well known, and the first five passages of the Arcana Caelestia emphasize it, showing how the Old and New Testaments are Divine. The fact that the Word deals with the Lord and His kingdom is what gives it life (see AC 155, 1247, 1361). Since the Word is "Divine and not human," nothing can be treated of except the Lord and His kingdom (AC 1659).

(2) All things in it are from the Lord and about Him.

     This is a development of item (1). Because the Word is from the Lord, He is present in everything of it (see AC 4060).

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This passage is speaking of the Old and New Testaments, but must be a qualification for any Word of the Lord. So the Word is a set of mirrors of the Lord, "for He is the Word itself, as He Himself says" (Inv. 41).

(3) It was sent down from heaven to earth, and thus has an origin different from all other books.

     "The Word was sent down by the Lord through heaven to people, and therefore differs in origin" (AC 2310). This distinguishes it from all other writing (Ibid.; see also AC 4922, 937). "The Word in its first origin of all is wholly Divine" (AE 593). It may seem simple, but "because it descends from the Lord through heaven, it has infinite things in it" (AC 6620).
     "And I, John, saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven" (Rev. 21:2).

(4) It is not only true bur holy, from the presence of the Lord and from the marriage of good and truth in it.

     There are many teachings on this subject. The holiness of the Word is from the marriage of good and truth (see AC 5502). This marriage imparts a wondrous quality to the Word (see AE 1077). Its holiness also comes from the fact that it is the source of all life-"the beginning of the creation of God" (AR 200). The style of the Word is such that there is "holiness in every sentence, and in every word, and in some places in even the very letters" (SS 3; TCR 191). (I found this phrasing interesting, because it implies that in some places the actual words and letters are less important than in others. Is this true also of the Writings?)
     Qualification #4 seems to me to be particularly important. My great-grandfather, the Rev. J. F. Buss, insisted that the Writings were Divine, but he would not call them "the Word." He believed clearly in their authority, but would not read them as a lesson from the Word. In fact, he argued that the controversy in the General Church in the 1930s, and the subsequent split between the General Church and the Nova Hierosolyma church, were the inevitable outcomes of our using the wrong term for the Writings.

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     By contrast, I feel that his position, strong as it was, would result in the church's saying that the Writings are the Divine truth but failing to sense, to grasp with our hearts, their holiness! This is a challenge for the General Church. We are still tempted to emphasize their "trueness" while remaining less dedicated to teaching their holiness. If they are from the Lord, then they are the Divine truth clothing the infinite Divine good. This marriage makes them holy also. The Lord's presence is in them every time we open them.
     This incomplete awareness of the Divinity within the Writings seems at times to show in the way we handle the books themselves, in the way we speak of them, in the distinction we make between them and the Old and New Testaments. The Old and New Testaments are called "the Word," and people sometimes speak of "the Word and the Writings," as if the Writings were not the Word. A visitor from another branch of the church said he noticed that the Old and New Testaments are in a special place in each classroom, but the Writings are often stored among other books, without much reverence. Now we all know that study books are different from worship books, and we mustn't border on idolatry in handling the books of the Writings in a holy way. But at times we may go to the opposite extreme. Do our children feel that the Writings are holy as is the Word of the Old and New Testaments?
     The deeper question is: When we read them, do we believe, and thus teach ourselves to feel, that the Lord is in them, with His love as well as with His truth? The New Church will not be established until that sense of the immanence of our Lord in them is inculcated into each new generation. For, as we will see later, the life of the Word is not revealed to any. except those who have faith in it.

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(5) The Commandment of the Lord

     This one is self-evident (see AC 8360). Faith becomes spiritual only through obedience to the commandments of the Word, for the Lord is in them (see AC 8549, 8581, 9307 refs. et al).

Qualifications 6-9: The Word lives from the internal sense.

     This is the series which has led to a lot of debate in our church. All things in the Old and New Testaments correspond to heavenly things. The Word in heaven is the spiritual sense. Readers of the True Christian Religion chapter on the Sacred Scripture find that in that chapter the Writings seem to be speaking specifically of the Old and New Testaments. Legitimately they will ask, "How do the Writings fit these definitions? Are they a 'letter'? Are they the spiritual sense?"
     The church will go on debating this subject for decades, maybe more. For the purpose of this paper, I will answer a qualified "yes" to both of the above questions. More on that later. For the moment, let me present some teachings, and ask you to reflect on the fact that even as the Writings speak of "the Word" as being the Old and New Testaments in several of these passages, they as clearly identify "the Word" as being the many interior levels within the letter.

(6) Every iota has an internal meaning.

     Here the reference is to the Old and New Testaments. It seems like crude history, but it is not (see AC 855). The Word on earth was given to unite heaven and the world, and this for angels from all earths. The reason is that it was written by correspondences (see AC 9357; cf. AC 771).
     But suddenly the Writings are talking about "the Word" in heaven, and saying things like, "The internal sense is the Word of the Lord in the heavens" (AC 1887; 2094). Oh my! That doesn't fit the narrow definition of some, of the Word's being only that book which was written by correspondences. So what are the Writings if they are the internal sense?

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     They even go on to make it clear that this internal sense is for people on the earth. "When a person is in the truth, that is, in the internal sense, he can make one as to thought with those in heaven, even though somewhat obscurely" (AC 2094). "The internal sense is for the angels and at the same time for the people of the internal church. For the internal sense contains such things as the genuine doctrine of the church teaches" (AC 9209).

(7) The life of the Word is from its internal sense.

     Time and again the Writings speak of the internal sense as being the very life of the Word. "It is living because of the internal sense . . . . [When a person dies] he does not know what the Word is in the sense of the letter, but only what it is in its soul" (AC 1143). The internal sense appears only when the letter vanishes, for it is the "soul and life" of the Word (AC 1405). The series goes on to say that the letter is like the body, and the soul of a person appears only when his body dies! (see AC 1408). Again, the Word's "soul, that is, its life, is in its internals . . . and when these are regarded, it is the Word of the Lord, for in this case there is life itself in it" (AC 1964, emphasis added).
     The things in the letter of the Word are Divine too, provided the internal sense is regarded (see AC 9094). (For example, the story of Samson is not Divine by itself; it is Divine because it speaks in the internal sense about the Lord's power in human minds.) "The conjunction of the Lord with the external things of the Word is through its interior things" (AC 9380). If there is a separation, then there is no conjunction at all.
     The glory of the Word is from the internal sense because it treats of the Lord's kingdom in heaven and of he Lord Himself in its many internal senses (see AC 8443; also AC 9429, 9503).
     So the internal sense is the origin of the Old and New Testaments, "the life which is in the Word, and from which the Word had birth when it was sent down from heaven" (AC 1767).

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Apart from the "soul and body" image the Writings also compare the letter to garments, and the internal sense to the person himself (see SD 2445).
     There are different (but compatible) explanations of what is in the internal sense. I am attracted to the ones that indicate that the internal sense allows us to perceive the more interior thoughts and feelings of those we love and serve, so that we can be of greater use to them. Once a person was lifted up into heaven and he saw the internal sense, and could see deeply into Swedenborg's thoughts and affections, "and perceived in them more things than he could tell, such as causes, influxes, whence they came, and from whom, the ideas, and how they were mixed with earthly things . . . " AC 1769). It seems that the wisdom of the people in each successive heaven lies in their ability to be sensitive to ever deeper levels of thought and feeling with those they love. This is why the thoughts of the higher angels are incomprehensible to the lower angels-because they deal in nuances of which the natural heavens are quite unaware.
     So on earth, the Writings, by revealing the internal sense of the Word, have enabled us to enter more deeply into the states of those we love, showing greater sensitivity to those gentle emotions the Lord is seeking to create in them, and helping them through the negative feelings from which He is trying to lead them. A reason to love the Writings is that they unlock the secrets of mental life, and allow us to move closer to those we love, and to serve them on a deeper level.
     Because there is life in the Word, it gives life. "In the Word there is life itself, which flows into the minds of those who read it with reverence. Therefore the Lord calls Himself 'a fountain of water springing up into eternal life'" (AC 3424; cf. 2702). Once again, we find the term "the Word" here means the life within, as also in the following: "'I am the truth and the life.' He is also called 'the Life' because everything that lives lives from that life," speaking of the Divine truth in the heavens, or the Word-John 1 (AE 196).

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     But we need faith in the Word if it is to give such life. With those who do not believe in its holiness "it is then the letter only, with scarcely any life" (AC 1771; see also 2135). Truths don't shine through the Word unless there is faith that it is a truth "because the Lord has said so in the Word" (AC 6023).
     Apply this to the Writings also. If indeed they are wholly Divine, their effect on us will be minimal if we do not believe with whole hearts in that Divine origin. They reveal the spiritual sense of the Word, which is in the heavens and is "the Word itself."

(8) Open all the way to the Lord.

     "Knowledges from the Word are such that they are open from the Lord Himself; for the Word itself is from the Lord through heaven, and the Lord's life is in all things of the Word" (AC 1461). We will never be more than natural until we use the knowledges from the Word in our lives. This seems to be an obvious truth, but the Writings are making the distinction between natural truth-which good people all over the world can have-and spiritual truth, which comes to us only through faith in the Word. "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst" (John 4:13, 14).
     This connection between the Lord and the Word itself is a vital point in our consideration. The Word, we are told, descends from the Lord through heaven, and ascends up the same way! It is seen in every degree as to the quality of that degree, and in the Lord it is Divine (see AC 4279). "There is a continuous connection from the Lord through heaven down to a person by means of the Word" (AC 9430; cf. AR 959).
     So if there is this continuous connection between Divine revelation and the letter of the Old and New Testaments, where are the Writings? Are they off to the side somewhere, not part of that connection? That seems ludicrous. So what are they?

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Part of the chain between the infinite Divine wisdom in the Lord Himself and the sensual revelation of the Old Testament? If so, then surely they are as much a part of the Word of God as is any other portion of that wondrous descent. They are the Word as is the Word in the three heavens, and the Word of the Old and New Testaments.
     Of course, neither the Old and New Testaments nor the Writings are truths themselves; they contain truths within the knowledges which they teach (see AC 1469, 3365). It is the beautiful faith of the New Church that the Lord Himself is immediately present in these knowledges, not only with His light, but also with His love.

(9) The Word is written to serve both angels and people.

     Here is a qualification which relates more to the Old and New Testaments. The communication effected through correspondences effects this connection between angels and the people on earth (see AC 2176, 2310, 3507; AE 1024, 593; AR 959). "The conjunction and communication are instantaneous" (AE 1084). So "there is a continuous connection from the Lord through heaven down to people by means of the Word" (AC 9430).
     Even in this treatment, however, we find concepts that include the Writings. For example, there is a second reason why the Word unites angels with the people of earth. "The Word is Divine truth proceeding from the Lord. Therefore, they who are in this truth in respect to doctrine and life are in the Divine proceeding from the Lord, thus are conjoined with Him" (AC 9378). If the Writings are part of that outflowing Divine truth, they too are a conjunctive medium.
     In this vein we find the teaching about the many levels of the Word, and how they are all the Word! "The Word is with the angels of each heaven, but with a difference according to the degrees of their wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge, and although it differs in its sense in each heaven, still it is the same Word, because it is the Divine Itself which is in the Word from the Lord . . . " (AE 593, emphasis added).

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     Here we have a beginning of the more universal definition of what is the Word of God. Time and again we find this teaching-there is a Word on each level of heaven, and that it is quite different in form from the Word of the Old and New Testaments. One passage speaks of "four senses" of the Word, one for each of the three heavens and one for the world. (In this series, the one for the world is the Old and New Testaments.) (See AE 1066; cf. 593, 1024.)
     Yet "the Word" in heaven, which is read and from which is preaching, is not like the Word in the world. It is spiritual. When an angel reads it, he thinks he is reading the Word on earth, but there are no natural ideas in it (see De Verbo 30, 31, 35). "Its natural sense does not exist in heaven, but only the spiritual sense" (HH 259). Names of things on their earth don't pass into heaven from the Old and New Testaments (see SD 2356). It is written in an altogether spiritual style (see TCR 241).
     The death of the letter is essential, so that the angels can be in the spiritual sense (see SD 4343). Passages previously quoted seem to say the same of us.
     Note that all these passages are speaking of two things which the Writings share. First, they are a revelation which is based on the Old and New Testaments, but are above them, and they are called "the Word." Second, they reveal the spiritual nature of truth.
     Note the passage in Heaven and Hell on the Word in heaven. The angels have the Word and they read it as we do, and draw doctrinals and preach from it. "It is the same Word but its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter with us, does not exist in heaven but only the spiritual sense, which is its internal sense" (HH 259, emphasis added).
     So it is the same Word, but it is not the same Word? If we define "the Word" as being only what is in the letter, this passage makes no sense at all.

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     The Word "without the sense of the letter" is "the same Word"!
     Yet the interior quality of the Word has to come down to ultimates. So also the Writings are founded on the Old and New Testaments. "The Word without its ultimate sense, which is the sense of the letter, is not the Word" (De Verbo 25). This applies also to the Word in the heavens: it rests upon the Word read on the earth.
     To summarize: "The Word in ultimates is the sense of its letter, and the Word in its first is the Lord, and the Word in its interior things is its internal sense, which is perceived in the heavens" (AC 10044). All three are called the Word. Which description fits the Writings? Or do none of them?

Qualification 10: The Word is Doctrine.

     "To go out of the mouth of the Lord is to go out of the Word, for this the Lord spoke with His mouth; and as the Word is understood by doctrine, thence this also is signified" (AR 52).
     The Writings emphasize that the Word is doctrine in order to urge us to trust what He has said there. There are several series in the Arcana which emphasize this. We are tempted to decide for ourselves what is true. The trouble is that the rational faculty we have is not to be trusted, because it is equally a slave to the old will as a potential servant of the Word (see AC 1911, 1936, 1940). It was because of this most dangerous weakness of the spiritual church that the Lord gave a written Word, so that we can trust it and not ourselves (see AC 4903, 393, 128, 129, 2588).
     The evil of all churches has been to believe themselves and their senses, not "the Lord or the Word" (AC 231). From this has come not only falsities but "also evils of life" (AC 127, 6015). This is the fashioning of a graven image, so forbidden to the children of Israel (AC 8941).

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     It is a universal allure, which afflicts us in all sorts of subtle ways. We may think we are free of it, but complete trust in the Word is the only safe path. People think they can decide about Divine things from reason, but it is simply not possible, "because heavenly things cannot be seen with the eyes or conceived by the imagination" (AC 129, 1911, 1936, 2588, 6015, et al).
     This was a problem for even the best of people, but spiritual people no longer have perception, and their replacement-conscience-can sense only the generals of truth. They must have faith instead; they have to trust the Word (see AC 865, 2715).
     This point is made in so many ways. Reason can determine, the Writings say, that there is a God and that He should be worshiped, but who He is, and how He should be worshiped can be known only from the Word (see AC 3768, AE 112, AC 4538). "Wherefore the very first thing with the person of the church is to believe the Word" (AC 9222, emphasis added). Then there is a series about the principle which leads to all folly and insanity, and that which leads to all intelligence and wisdom (see especially AC 2568, 2584 and 2588). To put it simply, without the Word a person's spiritual mind would be empty (AE 112).
     The Word can be trusted. "There is no doctrinal thing, nor the smallest part of one, that is not from the Lord, because the Lord is doctrine itself. Hence it is that the Lord is called 'the Word' because 'the Word' is doctrine" (AC 3364). He is doctrine itself, "not only as to the supreme sense therein, but also as to the internal sense, and even as to the literal sense" (AC 3393). "As the Lord is the Word, He is also doctrine, for there is no other doctrine which is itself Divine" (AC 2533, 2589).
     Of course, the Writings add that those who do not have the Word are disadvantaged only for a time. Their willingness to learn establishes their connection with whatever is of the Word in their religion, and the Lord teaches them in the world to come (see AC 932, 3263, 3310, 3316, et al).

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     Sometimes this position-of trusting in the Word-has been called an authoritarian one. We are to trust the authority of the Word and not trust our rational ability as the arbiter of truth. Well, it is authoritarian. The point is that we don't have any alternative. We have to trust something if we are to make any decisions in life, and we trust either our own judgment or other people's judgment, or the Word. To trust the Word is to believe in a perfect God who reveals Divine truth from perfect love. To some that may seem naive. To us at times it seems naive. The Writings say, "Do it! That way lies happiness."
     A problem arises only when the leaders of the church take the authority of the Word and try to use it to bend people to their understanding, as if that were the Lord's Word. All great faiths have had this problem, and many of them have been brought down because of it. In the General Church we try as hard as we can to take that pressure away by having no written constitution, and not giving to any group of individuals the power to decide doctrine. The Writings are our constitution, and any person's interpretation is subject to what they say. The revelation of the Lord is now so clear that it is going to be very difficult for false prophets to deceive the elect for long. The truth is there. We just need to trust it.
     And here lies the problem. If the Writings are not the Word of God, then all these passages which say we need to trust the Word don't apply to them. We are freed from the feeling that in these books our Lord is talking to us, and we can trust Him, even when His teachings are hard for us to accept. It is this trust that our tender new will needs so desperately when the hells attack it, for it is the power of the Word that defends us.
     I believe very deeply that if we consider the Writings anything less than the Word, we will begin to pick away at them, questioning this or that unpalatable truth, assigning certain statements to Swedenborg's cultural bias, detecting in him the flaws of a dated European culture, holding that we are more advanced in our thinking now, and so on.

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They won't be hurt by this. The Lord protects His own. But our church will be weak, and churches which have an uncertain faith don't last long.
     "The Lord loves to impart [the knowledges of good and truth from the Word to people] . . . for in this way and in no other can He lead a person to Himself and save him" (AE 118; see 790, 780).
     When we do good from the Word we actually do it from the Lord, for "the Lord is in those things that a person has from the Word . . . " (AE 741:2).

     (To be continued)
BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS 1996

BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS       Rev. JONATHAN S. ROSE       1996

     THE FOURTH M A SERIES OF TIDBITS

     Swedenborg's Latin can be divided into two main styles of language. One is a didactic or teaching style, featuring mainly abstract nouns, much use of the verb "to be," and a tendency to go more than a couple of layers deep in subordinate clauses. The other is a poetic style that has nouns that are mainly concrete, verbs that imply action, and a tendency to link clauses and phrases together side by side rather than subordinate them. The poetic style appears in the narrative portions of memorable relations, in all description, and in the analogies found throughout the Writings but especially in True Christian Religion.
     The didactic style and content is what people usually focus on. The poetic style and content has been rather overlooked. For example, Potts' Concordance indexes the memorable relations and poetic analogies far less than it does the doctrinal concepts of the Writings. But the poetic style adds considerably to the beauty of the Writings.

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     Swedenborg was a poet of some achievement. In fact he started out as a poet. The first thing he published, at the age of twelve, was a poem in Swedish. He published poems from that age until he was 52 years old. The first three books he published were works of either highly poetic, mythological and allegorical prose, or out-and-out poetry. His volume of pure poetry, Ludus Heliconius, came out in two editions, one when he was 26 or 27 years old, and a second edition with many more poems when he was 28.
     Later, around the time of his spiritual awakening (1745), Swedenborg published The Worship and Love of God, another highly poetic, mythological and allegorical work. And at the end of his life he included more and more poetic material in the Writings, starting with the memorable relations in Apocalypse Revealed, and achieving in True Christian Religion a full one-to-one balance between poetic and didactic style and content.
     In later tidbits I plan to give examples of the poetic style of the Writings. For now I wish to give two little samples of the poetry Swedenborg wrote in his twenties. To fully appreciate it you need to understand that Latin poetry had little emphasis on rhyme but great emphasis on rhythm. Metrical rules assigned every syllable in the dictionary a certain quantity, depending sometimes on what came before or after it. So the poet's task was to arrange Latin words in such a way as to adhere perfectly to metrical rules and say something at the same time. All syllables were either short or long, a long (for the types of poetry Swedenborg wrote) being worth two shorts.
     The first sample I have chosen is written in elegiac couplets. It is Swedenborg's Latin adaptation of his father's Swedish poem on youth and old age, based on Ecclesiastes chapter 12. If you can, get someone who can scan Latin poetry to read this out loud to you. It is beautiful word poetry, an artful version of the customary Latin dance between the metrical downbeats and the natural accents of the words, being out of sync for most of the customary Latin dance between the metrical downbeats and the natural accents of the words, being out of sync for most of the line, then coming into sync at the end.

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     Nos fuimus pulvis, erimus post funera pulvis.
          Quod dederat repetit seque reposcit humus.
     Quot numero tellus peperite, tot et illa recondit.
          Sic eadem nutrix, mater et urna manet.     (Helander 3.99-102)


     We were once dust, we will be dust again after death.
     What the soil gave it seeks again and asks to have itself back.
     As many as the planet has given birth to, that many it also hides away.
     Thus the same earth remains our nourisher, mother, and burial urn.


     The other selection is a memorable line from a fable about Urania and Apollo. The muse Urania is lovesick for Apollo, and complains:


     Gaudia sint aliis, mihi sunt haec taedia vitae (Helander 10.9)


     Others may experience joy; I have this tedium of life.

     Swedenborg's poetry shows that by his twenties he was steeped in ancient Latin poetry and could imitate and allude to it well. He also had a good grasp of the metrical quantities of all Latin words. According to Hans Helander's new edition and first complete English translation of Swedenborg's Latin poetry (Ludus Heliconius and other Latin poems, Uppsala 1995), the young Swedenborg made just 16 metrical mistakes overall; that is, he used a syllable of the wrong length only once in every 1300 syllables.

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CHOSEN PASSAGE 1996

CHOSEN PASSAGE       Vera Kitzelman       1996

     Vera (Mrs. Burwood) Kitzelman is a long-standing, active member of the Glenview New Church. She is well known throughout the congregation, but is especially loved by the children. A strong believer in New Church education, she can be found helping out each week in the New Church pre-school, and in the office at the elementary school. In addition, she often spends part of Sunday morning teaching 1st through 3rd grade Sunday School.
     Vera is an avid reader of the Writings and a wonderful gardener. You should see her lawn in the spring!
     Vera Kitzelman's favorite passage from the Writings:


     When a man shuns evils as sins, he daily learns what a good work is, and the affection of doing good grows with him, and the affection of knowing truths for the sake of good; for so far as he knows truths, he can perform works more fully and more wisely, and thus his works become more truly good. Cease, therefore, from asking in thyself, "What are the good works that I must do, or what must I do to receive eternal life?" Only cease from evils as sins and look to the Lord, and the Lord will teach and lead you.
     Apocalypse Explained 979:2     

     
     [Photo of Vera Kitzelman]

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MALCHUS'S EAR 1996

MALCHUS'S EAR       E. KENT ROGERS       1996

     In January of 1995 I came upon an interesting observation while researching for my Academy College senior independent study on Jesus, John and Peter. The observation centered on Peter and the ear which he cut off from Malchus.
     In the gospel of John we read, "Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus" (John 18:10).
     In Arcana Coelestia 4654 we find that the outer ear of the Gorand Human is inhabited by those spirits who are in simple obedience but who mistrust the Divine Providence because they do not receive all that they pray for. Also, in Arcana Coelestia Peter is described as "a simple, ordinary spirit . . . " (AC 3750:2, emphasis added). And is it not a mistrust in Providence that drove Peter to draw and use his sword? It seems Peter attempted to cut himself off from his life source.
     I am fascinated by this observation because it shows so clearly the reality of "Judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge shall you be judged" (Matt. 7:1). It shows the unity of reality.
     It shows the unity of Peter and the high priest's servant, Malchus. What Peter did to Malchus, Peter did to himself. It shows the unity of Peter and ourselves. What is true for Peter is true for us. In the Apocalypse Explained we read: "'Peter' represented faith in both senses, namely faith from charity, and faith without charity; and faith without charity is faith of falsity. Moreover, those who are in faith without charity find a stumbling block in the Lord's suffering Himself to be crucified. . . " (740:11). The problem Peter had was that He loved the Lord as he understood Him. Like Peter, we sometimes love the Lord as we understand Him. In other words, sometimes we love our faith more than we love people, thus charity is lost and faith is false. In this way we, like Peter, raise our will's prudence over the Lord's Divine Wisdom and Providence.

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     It shows the unity of ourselves and others. We don't want what we believe in and love to be hurt or stolen. We may lash out at that which threatens our perceived God. But the true God says, "Permit even this" (Luke 22:51). But of course death, loss and pain are inevitable and purposeful parts of life. Growth requires change, which requires death. That Peter part of us that tries to resist pain would never allow us to grow if not for the Lord. In avoiding pain, we start serving pleasure and stop serving the true God; thereby we cut ourselves off from the life source. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.
     John, the beloved disciple, seldom speaks and is mentioned less often than Peter. But he represents the good of charity, which is the only place where the church can truly exist (see AE 9:5). Charity is the truest language and expression of truth. Charity sees past fear. Charity sees the good in all people. John was with the Lord even during the trial. That John part of us is willing to serve and love even in the face of extreme pain and ultimate loss. An act of charity embodies the whole point of truth in a brief moment. It is a beautiful and pure song of love itself for life itself. The John in us-charity-sees the unity of all people and creation, and is therefore merciful and gentle; it does not attack or give up on others; it does not hide from others in fear. For charity is that in us which knows and trusts the Lord, and sees the Lord in each and all things.
     Jesus prays for our unity, saying: "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one as You, Father, are in Me and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me" (John 17:20-23).

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 1

     Among the prayers and yearnings of married partners . . . is a wish to know the state of married partners after death. For men who have loved their wives wish to know-if their wives have died-whether it is well with them. So, too, wives who have loved their husbands. And they want to know whether they will meet again . . . . Because these are some of the things people would like answers to, they will be made known . . . (CL 45).

     From the time that we are small children we find delight in the idea of heaven and angels! A teacher in a New Church school once observed to me that her primary students seemed to take more delight in her unit on heaven than in her unit on Christmas!
     When we add to this "innate" delight of childhood an adult appreciation for human beings who have died or who have lost a loved one, our desire to know about that world grows. And our delight in it grows too if we let it!
     The Writings of the New Church were given in part so that we may know about the life after death. Its teachings restore faith (see HH 1). They do this by feeding our imaginations and deeper longings with information. They relate actual experience of the other world and offer overall principles that explain it. And both ring true.
     The purpose of this series of articles is to bring to mind some of the familiar and wonderful teachings about eternal life. More specifically, my effort is to help readers have a fuller and more living sense of their loved ones who are "on the other side." What are they doing? What is their life like?

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What is our connection with them?1
     1 For a more detailed treatment of the process of resuscitation, the first states, and other subjects that follow, see The Spiritual World by Hugo Lj. Odhner, Thy Kingdom Come by Frederick L. Schnarr, and the Writings themselves.

Resuscitation

     People who have had near-death experiences testify to how quickly any hint of pain and suffering passes once they leave their bodies. In a twinkling of an eye their whole perspective changes! Swedenborg confirms this. People who have just died are held in a state of peace, far removed from any anxiety of leaving loved ones, far from any distress regarding their final sickness, far from any unpleasant circumstances that may have surrounded their death. They are in the presence of the Lord and His closest angels.
     Normally people are brought into a state of consciousness gradually. This happens through the presence of a series of different kinds of angels, depending on the person. Swedenborg was allowed to experience this process of resuscitation. He describes it numerous times (see HH 445ff; AC 168ff; SE 1092ff). We're not going to go into it here except to note that only some people become "fully awake" through the resurrection process-people who are able to go directly to their own place in heaven or hell. Other people need to spend time in the world of spirits, a world that is intermediate between heaven and hell.2
     2 The spiritual world consists of three distinct places or states: heaven, the world of spirits, and hell (HH 421f; DLW 140). The nature and purpose of the world of spirits is one of the main topics in what follows.
     For people who need to go to the world of spirits, these first states serve as a sweet, dreamlike introduction to the afterlife. But then they "fall back asleep" (so it seems) and reawaken. They find themselves in a life much like the one in which they had been in this world. They may not even remember that they have died! (See HH 450e; AC 2119, 320; TCR 160:7, cf. n. 797; 5 Memorable Relations 4-7; SE 885, 1337.)

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They then pass through two phases there (three phases if they are heaven-bound).

The First State in the World of Spirits

     The purpose of this first state in the world of spirits is transition. Part of this transition is emotional. How would you feel if you suddenly found yourself in a new home, a new town among different people; if you had to find a new life and livelihood, a new sense of direction, establish new routines and new relationships, etc? This could be downright terrifying! How difficult this transition can be at first is suggested in a story Swedenborg relates. He met a spirit who had recently died. This spirit


     . . . when he became conscious that he was in the next life and that he no longer had any material possessions, such as a home, wealth, and the like, but was in another realm in which he had been divested of all he possessed in the world, he was greatly distressed, not knowing which way he was to go or where he was going to live (AC 318).


     This spirit was helped by angels who were very kind to him. And we may be confident that no one is allowed to remain in distress for long (unless this is somehow going to help the person in the long run). The transition is eased by kind and knowledgeable people. And, of course, in many cases these people are known to the newcomer-spouses, friends, or family members who had preceded them to the spiritual world. This must go a long way to making the transition less frightening.
     Another aspect of the transition has to do with the fact that the spiritual world is very different in many respects. People must be introduced to an awareness of these differences gradually; otherwise they would be terribly disoriented or frightened, or even lose a sense of who they are. To this end, we read:

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     A person's first state [in the world of spirits] . . . resembles his state in the world. For he is then likewise in externals, having a like face, like speech, and a like disposition, thus a like moral and civil life. And as a result, he is made aware that he is not still in the world only by giving attention to what he encounters, and from his having been told by angels when he was first resuscitated that he had become a spirit (HH 493, emphasis added).


     A person's first state is similar to life in this world only in some respects. Actually it is quite different. There are different people around (though they may assume some of the people are the same). Events unfold in a different way. People and objects come and go "miraculously." They are no longer in a world with set hours, set days and nights, set spatial distance, set direction. There is a much stronger link between their inner mental life and what is happening around them, between their attitude and events. Their bodies are younger (with people who had died past their prime), and they are free from disease. Their bodily processes spring from a different source. For example, hunger stems from a purely mental need, and is satisfied when that need is met.
     Amazingly, even though that world is so different, spirits automatically fall into sync with its laws; they do not reflect on the differences (see SE 4716, 5177). Newly arrived spirits could readily see some of these differences, if they only "gave attention" to what they encountered. But this giving attention is closely monitored by the Lord (see AC 320f; SE 1903f, 1939, 2031f, 2107). Spirits take notice only when they are ready to. For example, a man may follow a passion without restraint, in a way that is wholly out of character with the way he behaved in the world, or a woman may walk through a wall as her thoughts and her feet turn strongly toward some person or destination, yet they think nothing of it. By monitoring their awareness the Lord provides that people are eased into a realization of their new life in a way that is appropriate to them.

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     The spiritual world is very different in still other respects. Here we are accustomed to being able to hide our thoughts and control our speech and gestures. We are constrained to use natural tools of communication. Here we face limitations of space and time, opportunity and money. We also face limitations imposed by the society we happen to live in. Our race, class, height, looks, age, level of education and socio-economic status, our culture's accepted ideas and practices all impact on the way we see ourselves and behave.
     In the spiritual world most of these outer constraints change. And if the transition were not somewhat gradual, many people would not retain a sense of their own personal history and their own identity. So in the first state in the world of spirits people begin in an external condition similar to the one they knew in the world, and they change from there. The transition happens fairly quickly:


     The first state of a person after death continues with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year; but seldom with anyone beyond a year (HH 498).

The Second State

     During the second state people come into their real selves. They come to be on the outside what they are on the inside. Their exteriors then "correspond" to their interiors.
     In this second phase those who are inwardly good face a task: they must come to see, acknowledge, and give up any outer aspects of their character which are in conflict with their essential self. Consider our prejudices. Consider our characteristic responses when people or events go against us (anger, swearing, withdrawal, pouting). Or consider the selfish feelings or delights that we habitually escape to and indulge during our "down times." These attitudes, responses and habits can be very strong in us yet not be part of the inner character that we have let the Lord build in us. Yet an angel cannot bring these things into heaven!

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     At the root of these outer foibles there lie loves-evil loves-which we must see and give up. At the same time we must also give up falsities, that is, the false notions and false thinking that we have used to defend and favor our evils and to hide them. These evils and falsities are all external to our true self, yet with some people they have become quite ingrained. As spirits become willing to let go of these external evils and falsities, their outer person comes into full harmony with their inner person. Then they are ready for heaven.
     With those who are inwardly evil, the task is different: they must see and acknowledge that they have in fact chosen to live in hell. In addition, they must give up all outer pretense to being good. They must stop using true speech and behavior for selfish ends. As they do this, their "outer person" comes into full harmony with their "inner person," and they are ready to enter hell.
     This process of being stripped of the outer things that do not correspond to our inner characters is called "vastation."
     How long do people remain in this second state? We are not told directly, but we are given an idea of the total duration of people's stay in the world of spirits:
     The time of [spirits'] stay there is not fixed. Some merely enter it and are soon either taken into heaven or cast down into hell. Some remain only a few weeks, some several years, but not more than thirty (HH 426; cf. AR 866).
     As we saw before, the first phase in the world of spirits is quite short-days, a few months, rarely more than a year. The tasks of the third state are accomplished "in a short time" (HH 519). Judging from this it would seem that the second state is the longest period for most people.

The Third State

     Only good people enter this brief stage. But not all need to. It is for those who require further preparation for heaven.

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In this phase they receive final instruction and orientation to their future life and uses in heaven. I am not going to dwell on this phase, but there is a chapter on it in Heaven and Hell 512ff.
     In the next article we will consider the world of spirits. What is it like? What are some of the functions it serves in the grand scheme of things?

     (To be continued)
BELIEVING IS SEEING 1996

BELIEVING IS SEEING       Dr. JOHN H. HOTSON       1996

     No, I didn't get that backward. There is great truth in putting it in this way. For better or for worse, "I never would have seen it if I hadn't believed in it" sums up our real mental process. Thus only a "true believing" communist could "see" the late unlamented USSR as an emerging "worker's paradise." Only a "true believing" laissez-faire economist could "see" our world of multinational megacorps and banks as a "competitive market system."
     It is the same in spiritual matters. Only a person who believes in a loving God can "see" His handiwork everywhere in the world around us. An atheist sees only "blind chance, and ugliness, nature red in tooth and claw." This True Christian Religion number 12 expresses in words so vivid and poetic that my father, Clarence, translated it, and much of the rest of TCR, as verse.
     An extract:


That man who bears an elevated mind
By reason can conclude or find,
If willing, that there is a God indeed
And that this God is One: This vital creed

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Can be confirmed by numerous events
For as on a stage the world presents
A sacred pageant, planned in every part
So perfectly it veils the Author's art.
Yet through the veil the wise will ever see
Jehovah's being, power and unity.

Those who confirm themselves for Deity
In favor of the vitalizing power
Of God's Divine in every leaf and flower
Regard the miracles of life and growth
Conspicuous in living creatures, both
In animals from elephants to ants
And in the growth and history of plants.
How from a little seed thrown in the ground
A root goes forth and next a stem is found,
Then twig and branch, bud, leaf and flower each
In turn proceeds the apple, pear, or peach
Until at length new seeds are fully grown,
As though the very seed had well foreknown
The order of succession or the chain
Whereby it would renew itself again.

From facts like these about the animals
Of brute creation, he who would confess
And worship Nature will confirm himself
For Nature, while the man who would confess
And worship God confirms himself for God
By reason, from the same particulars:
For in such facts the Spiritual man
Sees spiritual things: the Natural man
Sees only natural; thus each sees
According to the bias of his mind;
But as for me, such facts have been to me
Like Angel witnesses to Heaven's truth,
Who prove that thus the Spiritual World
Inflows throughout the Natural from God.

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DREAMS YOU NEVER REMEMBER 1996

DREAMS YOU NEVER REMEMBER       Editor       1996

     In the societies and circles of the General Church there are a number of reading groups. They agree on a certain reading and then get together to discuss what they have read. At a recent weekly group the assignment was to read up on the subject of dreams in the Arcana Coelestia. There was a lot to talk about.
     We came to an intriguing conclusion, which we will mention in a moment. Dream researchers state that everyone dreams every night. When there is rapid eye movement, the sleeper is dreaming. If the sleeper is undisturbed, he or she will probably only remember the dream or dreams that occurred near morning. When we are asked, "Did you have any dreams last night?" the question really means, "Do you remember any of the dreams you had last night?" Most of the dreams we have are not recalled.
     Now, as we looked at the teachings, we saw that one purpose of dreams is simply to provide delight. Angels who have the prized task of providing dreams are people who in their lives had put a lot of effort into "making the lives of others delightful." They enjoy providing beautiful dreams, affecting us with "the enjoyable and delightful things" they see in our affections (AC 1977).
     It seemed probable to us that the more superficial dreams, not particularly delightful, are the ones we can remember. And we pondered on the possibility that many really delightful dreams never come to our waking consciousness. Is the work of the angels mentioned in our reading therefore wasted?
     In the discussion it was pointed out that we are influenced by angels also when we are awake, and we are not conscious of that. It was pointed out that it is "necessary" for people to have security in sleep, and that the continuation of the human race depends on this (see AC 959). A lady in the group made an observation that we all found satisfying.

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She pointed out that the early days and months of our infancy require much devoted attention. We are at that time the objects of the most loving care. No, we cannot remember it, but it was not wasted effort, for what we now are or are able to be is in part due to that beautiful experience of which we are not conscious.
     And so, you may remember nothing of beautiful dreams you had last night and a thousand nights before. But have they not played a significant part in providing the peace of mind and the equilibrium which you now enjoy?
LESSONS ABOUT THE HUMAN FACE 1996

LESSONS ABOUT THE HUMAN FACE       Editor       1996

     The General Church department of education has produced anew its set of lessons on the human face, the existing copies having sold out. They are for high school age and up. Each lesson is about three pages long. Among the titles are:

The Special Design of the Human Face
Noticing Types of People by Their Faces
Why Are No Two Alike?
Seeing the Lord as You Look at Someone's Face
The "Bread of Faces"
The "Noblest Organ of the Face"
The Sphere That Goes out from the Face
The Overwhelming Impact of an Angel's Face
The Face in the Mirror

     There are several striking quotations from the Writings used throughout these lessons. The first is AC 9306:

     The face is fashioned into an image of man's interior things, to the intent that those things which belong to the internal man may show themselves in the external; that those things consequently which are of the spiritual world may appear before the sight in the natural world, and thus may affect our neighbor. These are sold for $10.00 by the General Church Office of Education, Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

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SCIENTIFIC METHOD 1996

SCIENTIFIC METHOD       David (and Hugh) Lister       1996

Dear Editor:
     Science or scientific method can be understood as a way of establishing how things work. The more satisfactorily a theory explains a phenomenon, the more authority it has. A lot of the difficulty that science and religion have had with each other is about authority. Authority, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the right or the power to enforce obedience. It can be a book quotation considered as settling a question, or a declaration that may be cited in support of a statement.
     We have been reading Leon James' and Allen Bedford's discussion in New Church Life. The writings of Swedenborg explain the outer and inner meanings of the Bible and make it possible to link religion and science, if one uses religion in the sense of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:37, and science in the sense it has acquired over the last 100 years. I would like to tentatively suggest some aspects of these links as they have a bearing on whether we think there is duality between science and religion. I think as science leaves the old common sense or Newtonian way of seeing things and is able to explore the almost incomprehensible fields that can be expressed by mathematics, this duality will diminish.
     The problem which interests people who believe that the Bible is the Word of God is how to be sure that the meaning given to it by their interpretation bears the authority of God. When you read the Bible, how do you share God's viewpoint? It may be true for Him, but how do we make it true for ourselves? The first and great commandment is that we ought to love God with all our hearts, etc. You can obey a commandment only if you love what it commands you to do. Perfect obedience implies a perfect unity between the command and its object. "Love God," He says. In the perfect state the two words become interchangeable, because in that state God is Love.

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     In the physical world we know now that the behavior of atomic-sized particles such as electrons cannot be explained by the laws which seem to satisfactorily explain the world which we are accustomed to seeing and interpreting through Newtonian or common-sense spectacles. Electrons seem to behave differently when observed and when not observed. In much the same way, unregenerate people see life quite differently from the regenerate, and to the unregenerate the behavior of the regenerate seems inexplicable or foolish (see AC 5489:2). As one regenerates, there are changes of state when other laws may apply. I know a man who in a state of love saw the speckled carpet in a church suddenly start to flow and tremble as if it were a stream. We know from Swedenborg's description of the heavens that they reflect the spiritual state of the person. The observer seems to alter the appearance of things according to his or her state, which reminds us of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle when trying to guess what an electron will do.
     Swedenborg divides spiritual states or days into three categories, or perhaps better, degrees (Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and Wisdom 248):
     1.      Natural or sensual, where the person in that state does what the bodily senses tell him to do without question. A simple example is to eat a meal when hungry, or perform some other bodily function. But all human needs are necessarily qualified by other considerations. For example, it might be rude to eat before the guests arrive. Even in this simple example the possibilities of intellectual consideration are almost endless, depending on the degree of mind of the individual. Here we are just in a "bodily degree," and it's easy to distinguish the love from the object of the love, or be objective rather than subjective, as we say.
     2.      Intellectual, or perhaps better, spiritual (see DLW 237). Here the person, in Swedenborgian terms, does things out of consideration for his neighbor or for God, where there is definite difference between the subject and the object.

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Could one say there is faith in the will here as described in AC 5482? Simeon is still bound, and Joseph awaits the arrival of Benjamin. The neighbor contains some valuable quality, as does your estimate of God, but you perform your act of love without actually feeling very much like it. Things just have to be done, and for most of us, this I think is the most common state to be in. Here again the command is easily distinguishable from its object, but, say, after a really good time with friends, the objects of your affection or love become you, and you     they, in a much closer way than in the first instance, and their identity becomes a little uncertain, so to speak. The objects become subjective.
     3.      Celestial. This is a degree where a person's material, external state corresponds to his internal state. It ranges from the simplest insight that something or someone is lust the ticket," or good and true in some way, to the most ecstatic, mystical states where the common-sensical or the "Newtonian" laws of this world cease to have much meaning, where time ceases to exist in an "external moment," and where not one jot or tittle of this new kind of law can be changed without upsetting the situation's perfect symmetry and synchrony.
     In which state is science or the Word of God true? Obviously in all three, unless they are proved false. But when we are discussing religious or scientific matters, say, in a group, it is impractical to monitor the spiritual state of other "translators," as we may call them, and what meaning-natural, intellectual or celestial-they are attaching to the words. There is a huge uncertainty principle, as Heisenberg might say, which makes the interpretation of the world of phenomena, including the Bible, so difficult but also so fruitful, because they are both extremely easily interpreted in different ways, depending on each observer's state.

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     The Bible happens to be the book on which God Himself based His Human life, in which, being celestial, every jot and tittle of the law was perfectly fulfilled. The law in its written form was the Old Testament however it existed in His time in the local synagogues and temple at Jerusalem.
     To draw the parallel between the laws of Swedenborg (we might call them degrees of freedom to emphasize how statistical and Swedenborg language coincide here) and how the spiritual state in which we understand the Bible and other things influences our view of them, I would like to mention my understanding of one important feature of the new physics. There is the well known mathematical tool, the Lorentz transformation, which defines how length and breadth vary with an observer and an object's relative speed to each other and to the speed of light. It also draws together several other apparently incompatible scientific systems. In spiritual terms length and breadth correspond to good (see AC 1623, 3527, 9487, etc.) and truth (see AC 3434, 3901, 4482, etc.) and speed could be translated quickness, which in spiritual terms corresponds to certainty (see AC 5284 or HH 195), or the amount of good and truth seen in a thing. The principle, if not the mathematical formulation, of the Lorentz transformation can then be read in spiritual terms thus: The good and truth of any object, e.g. the Bible or another person, in the understanding or sight of the observer, is dependent on the amount of good and truth between the object and the observer, and in relation to the supreme good and truth of Jesus Christ.
     We know that heat and light in a vacuum diminish by the square of the distance from the source. A square means what is just and also what is perfect (see AC 10180). For each person, his or her distance from the Lord squares perfectly with his/her spiritual state, as it does on a material degree with an ordinary light source.
     As science becomes more exact or basic, it seems that the way the world truly works is human, and therefore the terms used to describe the physical world are the same as those we use to describe the spiritual one.

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Who knows but that one "day" we will know, as God "knew" Mary, the correspondence between the Lord's genetic makeup and His Divine Humanity.
     Apart from the Bible and the Writings many of the ideas of this communication come from a book called Physics and Philosophy by Werner Heisenberg, first published by Harper and Row in 1962, and now republished by Penguin (1990) ISBN 0-14-014660-1.
     David (and Hugh) Lister,
          Bramshill, England
APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO THE ACADEMY GIRLS SCHOOL AND BOYS SCHOOL 1996

APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION TO THE ACADEMY GIRLS SCHOOL AND BOYS SCHOOL              1996

     Requests for application forms for admission of new students to the Academy Secondary Schools should be made by March 1, 1996. Letters should be addressed to Mrs. Robert Gladish, Principal of the Girls School, or Mr. T. Dudley Davis, Principal of the Boys School, The Academy of the New Church, Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Please include the student's name, parents' address, the class the student will be entering, the name and address of the school he or she is now attending, and whether the student will be a day or a dormitory student.
     Completed application forms should be forwarded to the Academy by May 1, 1996. All requests for financial aid should be submitted to the Business Manager, The Academy of the New Church, Box 711, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 by June 1, 1996. Please note: The earlier the request is submitted the more likely we will be able to meet the need.
     Admission procedure is based on receipt of: 1. Application, 2. Transcript, 3. Pastor's recommendation, 4. Health forms.
     The Academy will not discriminate against applicants and students on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

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FREDERICK EMANUEL DOERING FUND AND CANADIAN SCHOLARSHIP FUND 1996

FREDERICK EMANUEL DOERING FUND AND CANADIAN SCHOLARSHIP FUND              1996

     Applications for assistance from the above funds for Canadian male or female students attending the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, for the school year 1996-97 should be received by one of the pastors listed below by the end of April if at all possible.
     Ideally, acceptance for admission to the Academy should precede application for financial aid, but because academic acceptance (including processing of transcripts from other schools, etc.) can take several months to complete, the Academy business office needs to get started on the financial arrangements before then. Grants are usually assigned in the spring; hence the early deadline.
     In addition, students from western Canada may be eligible for travel assistance and even for another special grant. The vision is that no Canadian student who really wants to attend the Academy should be barred from doing so for financial reasons.
     For more information, help or application forms write:

Rev. M. D. Gladish               Rev. G. G. Alden          Rev. M. K. Cowley
2 Lorraine Gardens               9013 - 8th Street          58 Chapel Hill Drive
Etobicoke, Ontario               Dawson Creek, B.C.     Kitchener, Ontario
M9B 424                    V1G 3N3               N2G 3W5

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ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH 1996

ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH              1996




     Announcements






     Secondary Schools

     1996 Summer Camp

     The 1996 ANC summer camp will be held on the campus of the Academy in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, from Sunday, July 7 until Saturday, July 13, 1996.
     The camp is open to boys and girls who will have completed eighth or ninth grade in May or June of 1996.
     Students will receive registration details after the first week in March. We try to send to every eligible student but sometimes miss someone. If you have not received the information form. by the second week in March or know someone who may need information, please contact the Camp Director, Cory B. Boyce. Call him at (215) 947-4200 or write Box 707, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

96


Testimony to the Invisible 1996

Testimony to the Invisible              1996

     ESSAYS ON SWEDENBORG

     Edited by James F. Lawrence

     "This collection of essays by well known authors explains the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on religion, psychology and literature.
     Contributors include award-winning authors Jorge Luis Borges and Czeslaw Milosz, metaphysician Colin Wilson, psychologist Wilson Van Dusen, poet Kathleen Raine, and historian Eugene Taylor who writes about Emerson's admiration for Swedenborg.
     In addition, Kei Torita translates excerpts from Swedenborugu, written by Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki, that explains his interest in Swedenborg's writings and his work of translating them into Japanese.
     As the insights of Emanuel Swedenborg can be appreciated by a variety of readers, so will this collection appeal to many: those interested in the history of ideas, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. It shows how relevant Swedenborg is today, just as he has been influential in the past."
     Published 1995 by
Chrysalis Books
Swedenborg Foundation
     Softcover U.S. $11.95 plus postage U.S. $1.25

     General Church Book Center                    Hours: Mon-Fri 9-12 or by
Box 743, Cairncrest                              appointment
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009                          Phone: (215) 947-3920

97


Notes out This Issue 1996

Notes out This Issue       Editor       1996



Vol. CXVI      March, 1996               No. 3
New Church Life

98


     Notice on the inside cover that a mailing is going out this month for the General Assembly in June.
     Are the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg to be thought of as "the Word"? We begin a series this month based on an address to the Council of the Clergy by Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss. The sermon in this issue fits in nicely with the beginning of this series.
     Another series beginning this month is on the subject of having a loved one "on the other side." Rev. Grant Odhner begins with a quotation from Conjugial Love 45: "These are some of the things people would like answers to." Yes, there are true answers to questions people do wonder about. Some of us have grown up with the impression that Swedenborg's attempts at poetry were rather poor. On what basis was that assumption made? We wonder. In this issue Dr. Jonathan Rose invites a closer look at the matter.
     We have just learned that John H. Hotson, author of the article on page 83, died on January 21st at the age of 66.
PRIMARY GRADE TEACHER WANTED 1996

PRIMARY GRADE TEACHER WANTED              1996

     The New Church elementary school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has an opening for a teacher in a multi-grade classroom for grades 1-3 beginning in September, 1996.
     Those with an interest in the distinctive goals of New Church education as they are applied in a currently small school setting are invited to apply to Rev. Nathan D. Gladish, Principal, at 299 Le Roi Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15208. For more information email to [email protected] or phone (412) 731-7421.

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GOD OF THE VALLEYS 1996

GOD OF THE VALLEYS       Rev. LAWSON M. SMITH       1996

     "And there came a man of God, and spoke to the King of Israel, and said, Thus says the Lord. Because the Syrians have said, The Lord is God of the mountains but He is not God of the valleys, therefore I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord" (I Kings 20:28).

     The Syrians' insolent claim that the Lord was God of the mountains but not God of the valleys represents a false persuasion that the hells often inject into our minds. This persuasion is the feeling that we cannot reform our external life. Either we don't see how the Writings apply to actual life, and religion seems to be something only for Sunday thoughts and good intentions, or when we do see the application, we don't seem to have willpower to live up to it. We go right on making the same mistakes, slipping back into the same selfish habits. Then the hells can insert the thought that externals aren't very important anyway as long as we mean well and our heart is in the right place. So we acknowledge that the Lord is God of the mountains, with authority over the higher parts of our minds, but we do not acknowledge Him to be God of the valleys, with the power to reform our lower, day-to-day thoughts, feelings and habits.
     By the New Church doctrine of life, the Lord leads us to cut down and destroy the influence of these falsities represented by the Syrian armies. The Writings show that we have to fight them first in the internal man, spiritually "in the mountains," and then in the external man, meant by the "valleys and plains."
     To see the difference between the internal and the external man or mind, we are taught to think of the private thoughts we have when alone, as compared with the more superficial thought that guides what we say and do in public. In the private thought of the internal man, we form our philosophy of life and our intentions. Here is where we can see what we really think about things we've done and said, and why we did them, apart from any public pressure.

100


In our private thoughts we can see ourselves as we really are.
     Some people never look into their private thoughts, either because they are simple people or because they are afraid and unused to taking a good look at themselves. The Writings say that for such people it is enough for them just to think, when an evil inclination comes along, "I shouldn't do that because it is against the Divine commandment," and then not do it (see HH 533, TCR 535-7). But most of us are able to explore ourselves and more fully cooperate with the Lord in our regeneration.
     Our private thoughts are the mountains and hills of our mind's geography. The true function of this part of our mind is to see how the spiritual things of heaven ought to govern the natural things of the world in our lives, while the lower part of our mind manages the day-to-day things themselves. The internal man is like a master, and the external man his faithful servant who runs the household according to his master's directions. The internal man is where the Lord forms a conscience in us, by which He leads us according to our knowledge of the Word. So the Psalm says, "I will lift up my eyes to the mountains, from whence comes my help" (121:1).
     The first step in regeneration is an act of the understanding. It is the reformation of the internal man. This is to see and acknowledge for ourselves that evil is evil and good is good, and to think that good ought to be chosen over evil (see TCR 587). Our natural will from birth is inclined to evils of all kinds, loving ourselves and the world more than the Lord and the neighbor. But the Lord enables us to raise our understanding into the light of heaven, so that we can see what we ought to will and do to be happy and content in this world, and to be blessed to eternity. From parents and teachers, sermons, books and conversations, and especially from our own reading and reflections on the Word, we learn how to be civil, moral, and spiritual. The first step is to come to understand what good and evil are, and to make up our minds to shun evil and do good. This determination forms a conscience in the internal man, the beginning of a new will (see TCR 588).

101



     So the first battle is fought in the mountains. Although the Lord is not merely a God of the mountains, and in the spiritual sense the war cannot end there, still our intentions have to be reformed first, and then by means of them our external lives can be reformed too. If we avoid an evil simply to look good in the eyes of the world, without ever taking an honest look at it ourselves and recognizing that it is evil in the Lord's eyes and shunning it as a sin, we are merely hiding it from other people. It is still there in our intentions, and it comes out openly after death when the social and civil pressure is off. The Lord cannot remove the love of the evil from us when we never reject it or admit that it's wrong. We become like an egg that is rotten on the inside but encased in a fine, white shell. Or we are like the Israelites farming the plains and valleys as a conquered, subservient nation, while the Syrians held the capital city and demanded tribute. This is why it is important at the times when we are examining ourselves, such as before the Holy Supper, to take an honest look at our intentions as well as what we've actually done, and try to imagine what we would do if no one would ever find out (see TCR 591-5).
     The young princes of the provinces led the army of the Israelites into the first battle. "Princes" in the Word represent the primary truths that govern our lives, which can bring comfort in temptation. Such truths give strength to our affections for the truth and for doing what is right (see AC 5044). For example, we know that the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings are the Lord's Word, the Divine doctrine of life. We know that we have to look to the Lord and shun the evils listed in the Ten Commandments as sins against Him. We know that we ought to do our daily work at home or on the job sincerely, justly and faithfully for the good of others. If we keep hold of these basic laws of life, we will usually be able to fight through the clouds of confusion and see our way. "So these young princes of the provinces came out of the city with the army which followed them. And each one killed his man; so the Syrians fled; and Israel pursued them; and Benhadad, the King of Syria, escaped on a horse with the cavalry" (I Kings 20:19, 20).

102



     So the army of Israel was victorious; but the prophet warned that, with the return of the year, the king of Syria would come up against Israel again. "The return of the year" signifies the return of a similar state, for evils are not conquered all at once but over a lifetime. The second battle was in the plains or valleys. The reformation of the lower mind is harder and takes longer than the reformation of the inner or higher mind (see AC 3469, NJHD 186:7). It's one thing to face up to the truth that, from religion we ought to change the way we think and act, and another to actually change, "For what is nearer to the world and to the body," we read, "cannot easily be compelled to yield obedience to the internal man, except over a considerable length of time, and through many new states into which a man must be introduced. These states are states of self- acknowledgment, and of the acknowledgment of the Lord, namely of one's own misery, and of the Lord's mercy, thus of humiliation by temptation combat" (AC 3469).
     The stiffened resistance of the will of the natural man, once it comes down to making an actual change, seems to be represented by the Syrians' taking the ineffectual kings away, and replacing them with military captains, commanders. The war begins again in earnest. We can picture how much more effective the vast numbers of Syrian horses, chariots and infantry would be down on the lowland plains and broad valleys instead of up among the hills. "Horses and chariots" in the negative sense represent the arguments and reasonings of a false understanding of the Word-excuses and justifications of evils. Our natural minds are full of so-called facts, full of the illusions of the senses. These facts can seem very real and compelling. Any fact or reasoning that favors the appetites of our love of self and our world we are inclined to call true (see AC 3321).
     So the Syrians came up, " . . . and the sons of Israel encamped before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the countryside" (I Kings 20:27). The Writings teach that the evils which we are allowed to see in ourselves are like the tip of an iceberg, being connected with myriads of other lusts.

103


It is not possible to change one thing in our character without affecting countless other things at the same time. The Lord seldom lets us glimpse the overwhelming odds against us, except to some extent in temptations. He then lets us see the real picture so that we may know from the heart that only the Lord can save us. The Lord sends word: "I will deliver all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord" (text, emphasis added).
     All that the Lord asks us to do in the fighting is to pick out one or two problems and work on them. The two flocks of kids represent innocence in the external man, such as when we compel ourselves not to do or meditate evils because the Lord has asked us not to. If we compel ourselves to remove some of the few evils that we see in our conscious life, the Lord can drive out the huge host of evils in the internal man, mostly unseen. Then at the same time, the Lord removes the desires and delights of evils from our conscious life. But He can do it only with our cooperation, when we fight as if of ourselves against evils that we are aware of, because otherwise we defend and protect them and don't want the Lord to remove them (see DP 100-128, the second law). Our good intentions have to conquer our natural inclinations and descend into actual life, or they die like a bird flying over a vast poisonous swamp, finding no safe place to come down and rest (see TCR 600).
     The Syrians, like many other peoples in the ancient world, did not acknowledge one omnipotent God who ruled all things Himself, but they thought of the many gods of the nations as local deities, whose power was limited to a certain area. We should not let ourselves slip into a similar feeling about the Lord, that He has power to help us and authority to direct our ways only in "the religious part of our lives." Our whole lives can and should be led by the Lord, by the ideals we see from His Word.
     The process of reformation and regeneration alternates between the internal and the external man. We get a sight of how we can improve our lives, and then we work to live up to it; and as we do, the Lord lets us see something more of the ideal.

104


We don't need to have a complete understanding before we start, nor a spotless life. The important thing is to be willing to face up to those few things we see clearly, and to be willing to look for a few things more. So when the Israelites bravely went out, " . . . they killed a hundred thousand foot soldiers of the Syrians in one day," because the Lord was fighting with them. When we look the evils with us in the face, and make the effort to resist them, the Lord always gives us victory and peace in the end. He gives us control of our external habits and thoughts, as well as of our intentions. The Lord becomes for us God of the valleys and God of the mountains. Amen.

Lessons: I Kings 20:1-30; John 13:1-17; TCR 587, 591 (headings only), 596
CHOSEN PASSAGE 1996

CHOSEN PASSAGE       Kevin Gallagher       1996

     I [Kevin Gallagher] love this passage because it helped me to understand that I cannot regenerate to a spiritual level of my own accord.


     . . . it follows that all lusts of evil exist in simultaneous order inwardly in the very evil which a person perceives in himself, this being in ultimates. This is why when a person renounces evil, he rejects its lusts at the same time, but still not from himself but from the Lord. A person can indeed of himself reject evil, but not its lusts; so when he wants to renounce evil by fighting against it, he will seek the Lord's help; for the Lord operates from inmosts to outmosts, entering through the soul of man and purifying him.
     Apocalypse Revealed 678

A Note from Rev. David C. Roth, pastor of The New Church at Boulder, Colorado: Kevin Gallagher called me one day this past spring in response to a newspaper ad our church was running.

105


We arranged to meet at a coffee shop in Boulder later that afternoon. I brought a knapsack full of different books of the Writings in case he was interested in one of them. He brought a friend along, but Kevin did most of the talking. We had an excellent conversation about the Writings and the theology of the New Church, which lasted a couple of hours. In that time I showed him some of the books I had with me and explained to him what they were about. He ended up taking five books with him, and his friend took one.
     It wasn't until September that Kevin was able to attend one of our services of worship. One day after church I was explaining to him that the internal sense of the Word is like the sun shining through the clouds. He said, "That's what Swedenborg's Writings have been for me!" Kevin rarely misses a service and has read many of Swedenborg's Writings in the time we have known each other. He can often be found by the book table looking through a volume that he hasn't read yet.
     On another note, Kevin has brought at least seven new people to visit our church since September.

     [Photo of Kevin Gallagher]

106


WORD OF GOD 1996

WORD OF GOD       Rev. PETER M. BUSS       1996

     AN ADDRESS TO THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY

     Part 2 in a Series


Qualifications 11 to 16: All Revelations of Divine Truth Are "The Word."

     What is the Writings' chief, almost universal, definition of "the Word"? In fact, there have been many revelations of "the Word of God," and any revelation of Divine truth out of His mouth is clearly dignified with that name. To say that because the Writings sometimes call the Old and New Testaments "the Word," therefore nothing else from the Lord can be so called, is like saying that women are human and therefore men can't be human because they are not women.

(11) The Word is all Divine truth.

     Because this is the most important aspect of this whole treatment, I will quote a few strong passages on the subject.
     "Divine truth is; all the Word of the Lord" (AC 3712). The natural is its literal sense, and its "rational" is "the interior spiritual of the Word" (Ibid.).
     "The Word is the Divine truth that proceeds from the Lord, and what proceeds from the Lord is the Lord Himself"1 (AC 9405). Do the Writings proceed from the Lord?
     1 Emphasis in the quotations has been added.
     "The Word is the Lord because the Word signifies all Divine truth, and all Divine truth proceeds from the Lord" (AE 392; 852). "Whether you say the Lord or Divine truth it is the same. That is why the Lord is called 'the Word,' for the Word is Divine truth" (AE 411; see HH 86, which speaks of how the Lord became in ultimates "the Word").

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     "All that proceeds from the Lord is in general called Divine truth, and with us in the world is called the Word" (AE 668).
     One passage warns against thinking too literally of the Word. "People did not know that by the Word is meant the Divine truth of the Divine good. The Lord is good itself and truth itself, and these are the Word which in the beginning was with God and was God" (DP 172; also Nine Questions 4). Here we have the Word equated with the Divine good also.
     "The words which God spoke are truths Divine, for the things which God speaks are nothing else than truths. From this also truth Divine is called 'the Word,' and 'the Word' is the Lord" (AC 8861). "The Word means the Divine truth which is in the Lord and from the Lord" (HH 137, AC 6880).
     I could go on and on, but the point is made. All the above passages make it clear that when Divine truth proceeds from the Lord, it should be called "the Word." That proceeding is full of the Lord's own truth and His own love.
     In summary: "Because the Divine Human is meant by the Word, all that truth also is meant which relates to Him, and is from Him, in His kingdom in the heavens, and in His church on the earth . . . Because truth is meant by 'the Word,' all revelation is meant, and thus also [note the "also"] the Word itself or the Holy Scripture" (AC 2894 ).

(12) The Lord Himself is the Word and has been from eternity.

     " . . .the Lord, who from eternity was the Word, and from whom all these things are . . . " (AC 3382; 3439; AE 594). One passage gives a history of the Word. It started with the Lord Himself being the Word to the Most Ancients, then it was revealed in the Ancient Word, and so on down (see AC 3432).
     "The Word signifies Divine truth or Divine wisdom, and the Lord is Divine truth itself or Divine wisdom itself" (Lord 1; see also AR 199).
     The Lord alone is in the Word. A person's quality is revealed in his "thought, speech and writing" (AR 200).

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So who is in the Writings?

(13) The Lord speaks the Word.

     In line with these more universal definitions, we find that everything which the Lord Himself speaks is "the Word." "What proceeds from the Lord is said to be 'out of the mouth,' although
it is not from the mouth, but is like light from the sun. The light therefrom is Divine truth" (AE 235).
     "What the Lord speaks is called the Word of God, and that is Divine truth" (AE 235; see also AR 52; HH 259; AC 9312, 1925; AE 473).
     "Elsewhere than in the Word the Lord does not reveal Himself; nor does He reveal Himself there except through the internal sense" (AE 36).
     "The Word of God, therefore, signifies in the genuine sense Divine truth, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself who spoke it. For He spoke from Himself or from His Divine, and what proceeds from Him is also Himself" (AE 392). These passages surely have application to the claims made by the Writings.

(14) The Word is the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human.

     This is clearly stated in AC 6947 and 2894. The point is that the Lord wills to show Himself as the visible God in whom is the invisible as the soul is in the body (see TCR 786, 787). He Himself wishes to stand forth to view. "I will show you plainly of the Father." Since His glorification, all truth proceeds from His Divine Human, manifesting to mortal beings His infinite love.
     This teaching seems to place the Writings in clear perspective. They are, surely, the revelation of the Divine Human of the Lord. Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament would reveal the Lord's Divine Human without the Writings. The Writings say who the Lord is, how He came to earth, and what He accomplished on earth. They reveal the Divine Human! And "since the Word was given, the Lord manifests Himself through that only, for the Word, which is Divine truth, is the Lord Himself in heaven and in the church" (AE 594).

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The acknowledgment of the Divine Human is what establishes the quality of this New Church, and makes it the crown of all the churches which have hitherto existed in the world (see TCR 786/7; also AE 759).

(15) The Word is reality itself thus the Divine truth, or Divine revelation.

     Two passages deal with what the term "the Word" means in the Hebrew language. It apparently means "something real." "And because nothing that exists in the universe is anything, that is, a real thing, unless it is from the Divine good by the Divine truth, therefore 'words' in the Hebrew language mean things also" (AC 5075). The passage goes on to say that nothing is real "unless it is from the Divine good by the Divine truth, that is, by the Word." The other passage adds that "from the Word all things real have their existence" (AC 5272).
     The Writings teach that the Divine truth is not just a set of words, which, having been spoken, are blown away in the wind. "The Divine truth is absolute reality, and such a reality that it is the source from which all things come into being and from which all things are kept in being; for what emanates from the Lord is absolute reality in the whole of creation. Such is the Divine truth, which is called 'the Word,' through which all things were created" (AC 6880; 5272; 5075; 6115).
     "All power is through the truth which proceeds from the Lord. This created all things . . . . By means of it all things in heaven and in hell are set in order; for it also is all order on the earth; all miracles were wrought by means of it" (AC 8200; cf. 9382; 9396).
     This description of the Word is as far above the notion of one book's being the Word as causes are from effects.

(18) Each and all things are inspired by the Lord.

     The Word could not otherwise be "the Word" (AC 1783; cf. 1770; 1870). It is said to be "inspired" because of the breathing of the Lord upon it (AC 9229).

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Some Comments on This Section

     Often the Writings say that the second advent is in the Word. I would ask us to inquire whether that means that it is in the Old and New Testaments as such, or that it means that the Lord, who is the Word itself, revealed Himself. At times it seems that it means the Old and New Testaments (see, for example, BE 78; Canons Prologue, AE 36). At other times it seems to be a statement of the deeper nature of the revelation. For it states that at the end of a church the Word is always opened! "The Lord is the Word. Therefore when the Word is opened the Lord appears" (AE 612, which refers to the White Horse, Heaven and Hell and the Last Judgment series on this subject). So the Word was "opened interiorly" at His first advent (AE 641; 948). That revelation-the New Testament-is not just an adjunct to or interpretation of the Old Testament. It too is the Word! By "opening the Word" at the end of a church is clearly meant to reveal the Divine truth.
     "The like has been done at the present time; for it has now pleased the Lord to reveal many arcana of heaven, especially [but apparently not solely] the internal or spiritual sense of the Word" (AE 641; almost identical words appear in AE 948).
     Note how strongly the Lord says that it was He Himself who did this. "In order that heaven may be opened it has pleased the Lord to reveal the spiritual sense of the Word, in which sense is the
Divine truth such as it is in heaven" (AE 950).
     This revelation allows us to see the Divine truth itself (but of course in accommodated form) much more deeply. "It is granted to the people of the New Church which is called the Holy Jerusalem to behold the Divine truths that are in the Word, not sensually but spiritually, that is, according to their essences; for this reason the internal sense of the Word, which is spiritual, and is solely for those who will be of that church, has been disclosed" (AR 759).
     In summary: "The Word is such as it is with us in the world because that Word is the Divine truth in the lowest of order, and contains a spiritual sense, which is the Divine truth such as it is in heaven" (AE 797; see also AE 1070).

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So the Word of the Old and New Testaments is simply "the Word in the lowest of order"-not the only Word.

So what do the Writings say about themselves?

     There is, after all, only one way to determine whether the Writings are the Word, and that is by looking at what they themselves say. Some people have (legitimately) been concerned because it has seemed to them that things would have been so much simpler had they said either, "These books are the holy Word of God," or "These books are not the holy Word of God; they are something else."
     They didn't do that. Have you noticed, however, that the Lord on earth never said, "I am the Lord Jesus Christ, the one God of heaven and earth?" Yet that is precisely who He is! Even after His glorification He seemed to say that He was not quite Divine: "Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father."
     And isn't it true that the Writings make it clear that the Christian Church should have known that He is the one God of heaven and earth? It was the failure of that church to see what was obvious-despite its not having been spoken-which meant that it failed to achieve its destiny.
     What the Writings say about themselves is really quite clear enough, even as what the Lord on earth said about Himself was quite clear enough, or it should have been.
     One thing we have to face: either Swedenborg told the truth or he was a seriously sick man or he was a consummate liar. If the last, we should pay no attention to him, for he is not to be trusted. If he suffered from delusions, the same applies. The trouble is, how could he possibly be deluded and have written what he did over 27 years?
     So what did he say?

The Writings come from the Lord Himself (see qualification 15).

     It seems necessary only to quote the well-known passages here.

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     "What has come from the Lord has been written. What has come from angels has not been written" (AE 1183).
     The books were "written from the beginning to the present day by the Lord through me . . . " (Ecc. Hist 3).

No spirit has dared nor has any angel wished to tell me anything, still less to instruct me about what is in the Word, or about any matter of doctrine from the Word. I have been taught by the Lord alone, who was revealed to me, and who has since constantly appeared before my eyes as the Sun in which He is, and He has enlightened me (p.135).

Wherefore, in order that the true Christian religion might be manifested, it was absolutely necessary that someone should be introduced into the spiritual world and derive from the mouth of the Lord genuine truths out Of the Word. The Lord cannot enlighten anyone with His light unless He is approached immediately and acknowledged as the God of heaven (Inv. 38).

It is not my work but the Lord's, who wished to reveal the nature of heaven and hell, and of people's life after death (SD 6101).

That the Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to this office, that He afterward opened the eyes of my spirit and thus introduced me into the spiritual world and granted me to see the heavens and the hells, and to talk with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for several years, I affirm in truth; as also that from the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word (TCR 779).

Everyone can see that the Apocalypse can by no means be explained but by the Lord alone. Wherefore it has pleased the Lord to open the sight of my spirit and to teach me. Do not believe, therefore, that I have taken anything therein from myself nor from any angel, but from the Lord alone (AR Pref).

     There are more.

The things which I learned from representations, visions, and discourses with spirits and angels were from the Lord alone . . . .

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Thus I have been instructed, consequently by no spirit, nor by any angel, but by the Lord alone, from whom is all truth and good (SD 1647).

Even those things which I have learned by means of evil spirits, I have learned from the Lord alone, though the spirits spoke (SD 4034).

As for myself, I have not been allowed to take anything from the mouth of any spirit, nor from the mouth of any angel, but from the mouth of the Lord alone (De Verbo 29; see also Invitation Preface VII and Coronis 18 and 20).

     Passages like these cover several other qualifications. What is from the Lord directly is surely the Divine truth, which is the Word, which in the beginning was with God and was God (qualification #11). The doctrine is from the Lord alone, and thus must be Divine Doctrine (qualification #10). What is from the Lord is Himself, the Word, from eternity (qualification #12). What proceeds from the Lord since His glorification is out of His Divine Human, and is His Divine Human (qualification #14). Swedenborg was inspired (qualification #16).

Truths open all the way to the Lord (see qualification #8).

Her doctrines are continuous truths laid open by the Lord by means of the Word (TCR 508). [I acknowledge that another interpretation can be placed on the word "continuous" in this passage.]

The Lord was continuously present with Swedenborg through the spiritual sense.

In order that the Lord might be continuously present with me He has unfolded to me the spiritual sense of His Word, wherein is Divine truth in its very light, and it is in this light that He is continually present. For His presence in the word is by means of the spiritual sense and in no other way (TCR 780).

The Writings were written by command of the Lord (qualifications #3, 13).

That our Savior visibly revealed Himself before me, and commanded me to do what I have done, and what I have still to do; and that thereupon He permitted me to come into communion with angels and spirits, I have declared before the whole of Christendom (Extracts from ES's Correspondence: Letter to the King, Doc 245, X: May 10, 1770).

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Now, by command of the Lord, who has been revealed to me, the following are to be published [4 Doctrines, LJ Cont., DP, DLW, and 2 others, not published as works, but omission explained] (Lord, preface).

The internal things of the Word are revealed at the end of a church, and this is what happened.

At the end of the church, when there is no faith because there is no charity, the interior things of the Word which are to serve the New Church for doctrine and life are disclosed. . . . The like is done at the present day. This church, which is called Christian, has at this day come to its end; therefore the arcana of heaven and the church have now been revealed by the Lord to serve as the doctrine of life and faith for the New Church (AE 670; see also AE 641; 948).

Now we come to the internal sense of the Word (qualifications 6-9).

     Swedenborg left no one in any doubt that the Lord Himself revealed the spiritual sense of the Word in the Writings, and that this revelation is the Divine truth itself such as has been revealed in the heavens.

The Lord has revealed to me its internal sense, which in its essence is spiritual, and which is within the external sense, which is natural, as the soul is in the body. That sense is the spiritual that gives life to the letter; consequently, that sense can bear witness to the Divinity and holiness of the Word, and convince even the natural person if he is willing to be convinced (TCR 192; SS 4).

     Note that this internal sense is to convince even the natural person. This is clearly speaking of what was revealed in the Writings, and comprehensible, here on earth, even to natural people.

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His appearance is in the Word, for the Lord is the Word, because He is Divine truth . . . . When the end of the church is, the Lord will open the spiritual sense of the Word, and thus the Divine truth, such as it is in itself (LJ 28).

     This passage says to me that the Writings are the Divine truth such as it is in itself! Can any revelation be that and be less than "the Word of God"?

The spiritual sense of the Word has been disclosed by the Lord through me . . . . This sense is the very sanctuary of the Word. The Lord is in this sense with His Divine, and in the natural sense with His Human. Not a single iota in this sense can be opened except by the Lord alone. This surpasses all the revelations that have hitherto been made since the creation of the world (Inv. 44; see also summary of Coronis, Miracles, IV).

     The Lord provides "that there shall always be on earth a church where the Word is read . . . . Lest the genuine understanding of the Word, and with it the church, should perish, it has pleased the Lord to reveal at this time the spiritual sense of the Word" (TCR 270, 271).
     So what are the Writings? These passages say that they are the spiritual sense of the Word, revealed in the language of this world. One passage calls them "a natural sense from the spiritual" (AE 1061). The implication is that they are a rational, clear exposition in the natural world of those truths which angels see spiritually.
     In this is fulfilled the promise: "And I, John, saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This too is why one of the works of the Writings is called The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. The truth that is spoken in heaven is brought down by the Lord into earthly, rational language, and revealed-by the Lord Himself. This is His Word. As Bishop W. F. Pendleton observed, "Those who hold that the Word is only in the letter are perilously near believing that the letter is itself the Word, and that the internal sense, or angelic Word, is not the Word itself" (NCL 1900, p. 115).

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The Dilemma: A Literal Sense or the Spiritual Sense?

     Some people have seemed to argue that the Writings can't be the Word, but instead they reveal "the internal sense of the Word." They use as their support the fact that often when the Writings speak of the Word they clearly have reference to the Word of the Old and New Testaments, as, for example, in the teaching that every iota has an internal meaning, or that the Word has to have an ultimate sense or it would not be the Word. Therefore it seems to them that the Old and New Testaments, because they are the Word in the lowest sense, and because they qualify as having a literal sense written in the imagery of this earth, and because the Writings often refer to them as being "the Word," are what the Writings always mean by the Word. Swedenborg's books must be something different.
     I hope that what has gone before shows that their opinion springs from holding a very narrow view of "the Word," one which the Writings do not hold! But to counter this argument we have been tempted to assert that the Writings too have a letter (as indeed in one sense they do). However, by trying to apply too literally to the Writings themselves those teachings which common sense says were addressed to the Old and New Testaments, we find ourselves in confusing by-ways of logic. For the Writings are not written in the language of earth, so trying to understand them by correspondences leads us into a circular form of thought, in which we explain their internal sense by means of the internal sense which they explain.
     Let me try to address a debate which has raged for some decades, in a rather summary form. Do the Writings have an internal sense? Yes, in a way they do, but not like that of the Old and New Testaments.
     It seems that the simple answer to this debate is the existence of two memories-and only two. The Old and New Testaments are written using the contents of the exterior memory, and the Writings use the interior memory. The interesting fact is that this higher memory is also used all the time in the world to come.

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     The general teaching is that the memory of material ideas serves "both naturals" (AC 5497). The Old Testament appeals in general to the sensual degree of the natural mind, and the New Testament to the imaginative degree. These are the two naturals, below the rational. However, "thought, which is above the imagination, requires for its objects things which are abstracted from material things" (AC 6814; cf. 4408). This is the realm of the Writings.
     I don't want to enter into a great debate about the obvious fact that at times the Old and New Testaments convey abstract truths. Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." This is a clear, rational statement-although note that He immediately reverted to images right after He said this. Nor is there an absence of images in the Writings, such as in the memorable relations. But again, it is abundantly clear from the Writings themselves that these are representative depictions. The Old and New Testaments are written in the language of earth; that is their overriding quality. The Writings use abstract ideas.
     The correspondences revealed in the Writings are between the earthly things of the lower memory, which was the basis on which the Old and New Testaments are written, and the abstract ideas of rational thought in the Writings. To take a simple example, a horse corresponds to the understanding. When we say that, there is an immediate jump from material to abstract ideas. There is not a corresponding jump from the Writings to the ideas of the angels in heaven! There can't be, because the angels also use the interior memory. When the angels think of a horse, they immediately think of the understanding, just as we do now that we have the Writings!
     It is in this sense that the Writings reveal the internal sense of that Word which is written in earthly images. In doing so they reveal the doctrine of heaven in the language of rational thought, a natural sense from the spiritual.
     But do they have an "internal sense"? Yes, if only you won't think of it as being revealed by the correspondence between earthly things and rational or abstract ideas. There is a correspondence between the general ideas of the Writings and the more particular ideas in the heavens, just as there is a correspondence between the ideas in the spiritual heaven and those in the celestial heaven.

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     It has never troubled me at all to say that when the Writings speak of what is represented by Shem, Ham and Japheth, they refer not only to churches that existed once upon a time, but also to the states of those churches in the individual human being. Nor do ministers of the General Church balk, I think, at the notion that what the Writings say about the states of the various church organizations have their counterpart in individual minds. But they also mean exactly what they say about those subjects. They are "literally true," for they are the revealed doctrine of genuine truth.

To be able to reveal the internal sense, Swedenborg had to be inspired differently.

     There is a difference between the inspiration of Swedenborg and that of the writers of the Old and New Testament books. The ancient writers obeyed a dictate within them, and they did so without a perception of what the things they were writing truly meant (see AC 7055; HH 254; AC 7056, 7058, 7004). The Lord used angels, whom He filled with His spirit, and they thought that they were Jehovah, and through them He spoke the Word. Therefore it was "not influx but dictation" (HH 254, AC 1925, AE 1228). The prophet heard a voice in the sense that it flowed "immediately into his understanding, and from that into words" (AE 8).
     At times they used their own initiative, especially the Apostles but even the prophets (see TCR 154, AC 6212). Certainly Matthew and Luke researched genealogical tables and spoke with others and looked up quotes from the Old Testament.
     The prophets saw things in the other world in a state of vision; Swedenborg did so in clear light. But neither of them wrote while in that state. The prophets returned to the body, and there Jehovah spoke the Word to them (see Lord 52; AR 36). Swedenborg saw clearly what was taking place in the spiritual world, and he understood the spiritual sense as easily as the angels did; but later, when he was to write, these things were "recalled to my memory by an angel and so described" (CL 73).

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Yet remember that "no angel wished to instruct me" (DP 135). What he wrote was in immediate light from the Lord.
     What is clear is that if Swedenborg was to write a revelation of rational truth, that truth had to pass through his understanding. He had to see it, not only as a set of ideas outside of himself, but with perception (see AC 7055). This accounts for the as-from-self which is so evident in all his work. This is illustrated by the following: "I have come to a determination to bring to light the entire doctrine of that church in its fullness. But as this is a work of some years, I have thought it advisable to draw up some sketch thereof" ( BE 1).
     Yet all the things which happened to him were of the Lord's direct leading. "It was of the Divine auspices of the Lord that I came to those houses, and that they then deliberated concerning these things, and that it took place as it is described" (AR 484). Hence he wrote things according to a plan. He refined his system. He indexed works most carefully. He crossed out many things written. For as the Lord enlightened him, the revelation was received in his rational mind. Had it not been so, the doctrine of heaven, in which is the Divine truth in its very light, could not have been revealed.

Conclusion of Part I

     Bishop W. F. Pendleton summarizes the case thus:

For the New Church the Word as it is in heaven descends into the world, but it no longer veils itself in figures, in representatives, in correspondences; it clothes itself in human language indeed, but in the language of science and philosophy, the language of the learned, the language of rational thought among men, but at the same time in language so chosen that it accommodates itself to the understanding of the simple. And in this descent, the Angelic Word lays itself bare, presents itself to be seen and heard by such men in the world as have eyes to see and ears to hear.

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This is the Angelic Word, the Divine Word, the Lord Himself appearing in great glory and power to establish a Church that is to endure forever. It is a new Word, in a new form, but it is at the same time the Word of all the ages, the Word as it is in heaven, that has always appeared to men, but appears now in its own heavenly splendor and glory, a form exciting wonder and astonishment where it is seen (NCL 1900, pp. 112, 122).

     He has another way of looking at it.

Still we have in the New Church this remarkable paradox, which has actually been asserted, that the Writings are a revelation from the Lord, but that they are not the Word, as if there could be a revelation from the Lord that is not His Word! . . . To say that the Writings are not the Word is to say too much; it is to say that they are not Divine truth, that they are not a Divine Revelation, that they are not from the Lord, and that the Lord is not present in them; and if this be true "we are of all men the most miserable" (pp. 116, 117, 174).

     I might add to that and say that if, considering what the Writings say about themselves, we nevertheless conclude that we should not call them "The Word," then they are also not:

1.      sent down from heaven to earth by the Lord-but they say they are.
2.      written by the Lord's command-but they say they are.
3.      directly from the Lord Himself-but they say they are.
4.      Divine truth-but they say they are.
5.      from the mouth of the Lord.
6.      inspired by the Lord.
7.      the doctrine of genuine truth.
8.      the internal sense, which is the very Word itself in the heavens-all of which they say they are.

     At times we are tempted to soft-pedal this faith. After all, it is a challenging thing to assert that the Lord Himself revealed His Word to an eighteenth-century revelator. We don't want to frighten people away.
     We need to be respectful of introductory states, and we should recognize that acknowledging the inspiration of the Writings is the very last step people will take as they join the church.

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But let us remember that the disciples did not spread the Christian Church by hiding the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Son of God. How well would Christianity have spread had they said that He was just a very clever and wonderful man-hoping to get the real point across later? They proclaimed with joy and wonder that God had come down to earth, and on the magnificence of that faith the Christian Church grew.
     The revelation of the Word of the Second Advent is the second most wonderful adventure story in all of history. Over twenty-seven years the Lord Himself reorganized the world of spirits and the natural heaven, and restored freedom to humankind by removing every false barrier to a vision of Himself as a Divinely Human, loving and wise God. He Himself appeared, little by little, in ever-increasing light, and now He stands to view for ages of ages. And He wills to gather together His elect on earth into this grand vision of His New Church. That is the faith we are privileged to proclaim to all the earth.

     (To be continued)
ASSEMBLY FIFTY YEARS AGO 1996

ASSEMBLY FIFTY YEARS AGO              1996

     The March issue of this magazine in 1946 carried the announcement of the 18th General Assembly to be held in Bryn Athyn in June of that year. Bryn Athyn looked to an influx of visitors from around the church. There were services in the Bryn Athyn cathedral during that assembly attended by more than 700 people.
     Just over 500 people from outside Bryn Athyn registered for the 1946 assembly, while over six hundred Bryn Athyn residents registered.

The 29th General Assembly-1,600 people registered for the Bryn Athyn assembly in June of 1984. More than 800 of-them were from outside Bryn Athyn. How many would you expect to register this year? Stay tuned.

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RITUAL PERFECTED 1996

RITUAL PERFECTED       Rev. TERRY SCHNARR       1996

     (Part 1)

     "'And my new name' signifies the worship of the Lord alone, with new things which were not in the former church" (AR 196).

     The General Church aims to embody heavenly principles in our organization so that heaven may be on the earth, so that the Holy City New Jerusalem may descend from God out of heaven. As our understanding of the Heavenly Doctrine grows we make changes and corrections in our practices, changes which we think will more clearly reflect our doctrinal understanding of heavenly life. The changes taking place in our worship and ritual are a sign that we are experiencing internal (doctrinal and affectional) changes.

Variety in worship of the Lord from the variety of good in different societies is not harmful but beneficial, for the perfection of heaven is from this variety . . . . Unity, that it may be perfect, must be formed from variety . . . . Perfection comes from variety even in heaven (HH 56, emphasis added here and elsewhere by the author).

     The New Church on earth (including the General Church) will also be perfected through its variety of worship "with new things which were not in the former church" (AR 196). Rituals are perfected as they are varied and various, alive and changing. Even the stairs and doors of heaven are alive and changing, "full of movement, as though they were alive, and constantly changing to reveal new beauty and symmetry. I have been told that these variations may follow each other perpetually, even to eternity, with a harmony forever new, with the succession of variations forming a harmony as well" (AC 1627).
     Similarly, our externals of ritual need to be fluid, alive, and changing as the internal states of each worshiping group change. The purpose of this article is to suggest principles of worship according to which a new form of order and organization may be considered, one which promotes the freedom of the people in the church to develop and practice new forms of worship, and one which provides support for an orderly progression and development of a variety of worship rituals in the church.

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     After speaking of the principles of worship, the discussion in this article will focus on how we might go about developing our rituals of worship so that they are alive and effectively serve the uses of worship prescribed in the Word.

     Principles of Worship

     There are at least eight principles of worship we can draw from the Heavenly Doctrines. These include: 1) genuine worship is internal; 2) external worship must be the effect of internal worship; 3) external worship must lead people to internal worship; 4) external worship must have variety; 5) unity in the church comes from internal worship; 6) the externals of worship must refer to the Lord; 7) external worship must include instruction; 8) the externals of worship must come from the Word.

     Genuine Worship Is Internal

     Genuine worship is living a life of love and charity (see AC 1618), a life of use (see AC 7083). External worship is dead without a life of charity and faith (see AR 154). External worship "derives its quality from internals" (AR 157). When a person's internals are humble, receiving and obeying the teachings of the Lord in a life of charity, then external worship is alive. For this reason, humility is said to be essential in all worship:

Humiliation and submission are essentials of worship, for worship without them is not worship . . . . The Lord flows solely into a humble and submissive heart, because such a heart has been fitted to receive (AC 8873).

     So also, love is said to be the essential of all worship, for love is what is received:

Love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor are . . . the essentials of all doctrine and worship (AC 2385:4).

     Since being humble and loving and living a life of use according to what the Lord teaches are how a person really worships the Lord, "worship of the Lord from charity can never differ, however the externals are varied" (AC 1083:3).

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     External Worship Must Be the Effect of Internal Worship

     External worship is the result, or "merely the effect" (AC 1618), of the internal worship of those people worshiping. The externals of worship are delightful to people when they are expressive of their own internals (see AC 8337:2). "The Divine truth coming down out of heaven produces gladness and the holiness of worship" (AE 502:4). "Worship itself is nothing but a certain activity coming forth from the celestial which is within" (AC 1561e).
     The internals of the people participating in any external form of worship or ritual need to be involved in the selection process of choosing the externals by which they will worship, so that the things of their internal man will then be "terminated in the externals" (AC 1083) of their own choosing. For their "interiors [will] accommodate the exteriors to themselves, and reject the things which do not agree with themselves" (AR 157).
     When worshipers are not involved in choosing and selecting appropriate external rituals for themselves, the externals are not likely to match with their internals, greatly decreasing the efficacy of the worship experience. "Through the interior things of worship the person of the church communicates with the heavens, to which the external serves as a plane upon which the interior things may subsist, as a house upon its foundation . . . . For the end of all worship is communication with heaven, and thereby the conjunction of the Lord with people" (AC 10436).
     Each individual receives the one single influx of affections from the Lord "in accordance with his own genius" (AC 1285:2), everyone being "distinctly his own affection" (DP 62). As a person reforms and regenerates, his internals change, requiring different forms of external rituals.
     Similarly, any group of worshipers is like a single person. Collectively they should be involved in determining the rituals by which they will worship, so that their internal affections will be involved in causing or producing externals into which their internals can be terminated.

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Furthermore, as a collective group their internals will grow and change, necessitating a living ritual, ever changing as an effect of the change of the participants' internals. The following teaching emphasizes the need for a living and changing ritual: "All worship in its beginning is natural, and afterwards by truths out of the Word, and by a life according to them, becomes spiritual" (AR 161).

     External Worship Must Lead People to Internal Worship

     People are led by means of externals to internals. There is a usefulness in dead worship, or purely external worship: " . . . dead worship, or worship which is only external, causes the Lord's presence but not conjunction; but external worship in which the interiors live causes both presence and conjunction" (AR 160).
     Bringing people into the presence of the Lord through the correspondences and representatives of external worship can introduce them to the Lord. "People for the most part are such that they do not know what the internal man is, and what belongs to the internal man, and therefore unless there were external worship, they would know nothing whatever of what is holy" (AC 1083:3). For some people external worship is a starting point for regeneration, a gate, a means of taking steps to get back on the right path. We read further:

Before he becomes a church, that is, before he has been regenerated, a person is in externals; and when he is being regenerated he is led from externals, nay, by means of externals, to internals . . .; and afterwards, when he has been regenerated, all things of the internal man are terminated in the externals (AC 1083).

     We see from the second and third principles of worship that on the one hand, rituals of worship are an ultimate expression of the internals of the worshipers. On the other hand, external rituals lead people into heavenly internals.
     For example, we are taught that "by external worship internal things are excited" (AC 1618).

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Musical instruments "actually excite these [internal] affections (AC 8337:2).
     We are also taught that "by means of external worship external things are kept in holiness, so that internal things can flow in" (AC 1618). By external worship a person "is prepared for receiving celestial things . . . and is gifted with states of holiness" (AC 1618) another example the external actions prescribed in the Word which correspond to the state of humility are rituals which on the one hand can lead to internal humility, and on the other hand are rituals into which people spontaneously fall as genuine expressions of their internal states (see AE 3206). These include the rituals of bowing the head, bending the knees, kneeling, and prostration (see AC 5323).
     The importance of making provision for prostration and other rituals such as shouting, weeping, wailing, and even kissing, in the development of our external forms of worship can be clearly seen in the Heavenly Doctrines:

Humiliation of heart produces kneeling, which is an external gesture of the body. Humiliation still greater and more internal produces prostration to the earth. Gladness of heart and joy of mind produce singing and joyful shouting. Sadness and internal mourning produce weeping and wailing. Conjunction from affection produces kissing (AC 4215:2; see also AC 2153, 4347, 5323, AE 77, EU 91).

     Since most people are external, rituals must be attractive to them if the church is to serve the Lord well by introducing people to what is holy and bringing them into His presence. "External people are moved to Divine worship only by external things, like miracles which forcibly strike the mind. Moreover, a miraculous faith was the first faith with those among whom a new church was to be established; and such a faith is also the first with all in the Christian world at this day, and this is why the miracles performed by the Lord were described, and are also now preached" (AE 815:9).

     (To be continued)

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BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS 1996

BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS       Rev. JONATHAN S. ROSE       1996

     THE FIFTH IN A SERIES OF TIDBITS

     I wrote last time about Swedenborg's starting out his publishing life as a poet. Next time I plan to give examples of poeticism in Swedenborg's theological works. First I want to make a point about the variety in the Writings from work to work.
     When you read the Writings in the original Latin first editions or their facsimiles, you realize how different each work is. Just as the four gospels have often been used to reconstruct one picture of the Lord's life but are actually more interesting and useful when taken each on its own terms, so it is with the different works of the Writings. Part of the beauty of reading the Writings in Latin is the experience of the differences between one work and another.     There are major differences in structure and approach. For example, Arcana Coelestia and Apocalypse Revealed are works of Biblical exposition, using abundant quotation from elsewhere in Scripture to confirm the meanings given. Arcana Coelestia's interchapter material was republished in five smaller volumes. Three of these-Heaven and Hell, The Last Judgment, and Earths in the Universe-draw heavily on Swedenborg's spiritual experiences. They and their two companion works, New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine and The White Horse, are overtly Christian, but not so full of Bible quotations. They are all, however, copiously cross-indexed to Arcana Coelestia so that they act as a kind of filter or topical index to that larger work.
     Apocalypse Revealed directly attacks existing Christianity. It even gives Protestant and Catholic doctrines in summary at the outset, and then mows them down.
     The so-called "Four Doctrines" are also heavy with Biblical quotations as their primary focus, restructuring the reader's thought about what the Bible has to say about the Lord, the Sacred Scripture, life and faith.
     Very different from the above are Divine Love and Wisdom and Divine Providence.

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Both of these works seem virtually to avoid Christian terminology and Biblical references. (For example, the table of Scriptural passages in the standard edition takes up forty pages for Apocalypse Revealed, but only one page for Divine Love and Wisdom. Jesus is mentioned by name over one hundred times in True Christian Religion and about the same amount in Apocalypse Revealed, but only twice in Divine Love and Wisdom and six times in Divine Providence.) These two works are almost exclusively philosophical in nature, reasoning from this point to that about God and His relationship to creation, humankind, and the events of our lives. By the time you finish reading it you have a head full of New Church ideas, but they crept in without as overtly Christian or Biblical an emphasis as other works.
     Conjugial Love is unique just by the nature of the subject matter. And True Christian Religion quotes the Bible very broadly, even from works that Swedenborg elsewhere says are not part of "the Word." In addition to Biblical passages and a direct attack on existing Christian dogmas, it uses a great deal of imagery to get its point across.
     Swedenborg shows in his list at the back of Conjugial Love that all these works are part of one revelation. But each work has its own use and its own application. And the works differ not only in structure, focus and approach, but also in language. As we indexed them for NeoSearch, even small works late in the process added heaps of new words or usages to the list. By their Latin as well as by their approaches, you might think that Divine Love and Wisdom and True Christian Religion were by two different authors. And to jump from those works to Swedenborg's unpublished Spiritual Experiences, the Latin is so radically different one has to retool just to get meaning from the sentences. Each book is a seemingly simple yet beautiful Latin work of art, whose language and structure convey essentially the same message in a refreshingly different way.

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 2
     
The World of Spirits and Its Communities

     Since many people after death spend a lot of time in the world of spirits, let's look more closely at what life there is like.
     It is important to realize that the world of spirits is a real world. It looks very much like this world. There are rivers, trees, fields, hills, valleys, cities, houses, roads.1 And it consists of "vast numbers" of people.2 They live in "innumerable" communities.3 We can picture webs of friendship and association, jobs and services, church groups. After people enter that world they seek out employments just as they did in this world. They must find some way to earn a living-they must eat!4 They also seek out recreations. They look for buddies to golf with, or join a bowling league, or find others who like to quilt.
     1 See Last Judgment Posthumous nos. 12, 314-323.
     2 Heaven and Hell n. 426
     3 Last Judgment Continued n. 57
     4 Apocalypse Revealed n. 153
     As with communities in heaven and hell, communities in the world of spirits are arranged according to all the differences of love.5 At first, people associate with others based on similarity of outer loves and not inner loves. They find themselves among spirits who fit in with their accustomed life in the world. These communities are based on earthly experience, on common knowledge, culture, time period, on shared relationships and forms of religion.6 But as spirits' internal characters begin to "surface" they begin to gravitate toward places where they find others who share deeper similarities.
     5 See Divine Love & Wisdom n. 140; Last Judgment Continued n. 57; Apocalypse Revealed n. 153:2.
     6 See Conjugial Love n. 273; Spiritual Experiences n. 2771; Arcana Coelestia n. 9972.

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Sojourning

     The communities in the world of spirits are different from those in heaven and hell in this respect: the people in heaven and hell are basically permanent residents of one community; in the world of spirits people are moving around and "finding themselves." At a given point their links with the community where they are residing may be based on apparent similarities, or partial similarities, or approximate similarities. But spirits are being led from community to community, "through a wide circle," progressing toward their final one.7 They travel, which in the spiritual world is always symbolic. Spirits travel when they are undergoing general changes of mental state.8 And the directions and the roads they choose indicate what is going on with them spiritually.9
     7 See Heaven and Hell n. 511; Spiritual Experiences nos. 5108, 5998; Apocalypse Explained n. 940
     8 See Spiritual Experiences n. 5646f.
     9 See Heaven and Hell n. 496.
     To say that spirits are led from place to place is not to say that they do not choose to move. Spirits exercise prudence in making decisions about when and where to go. They have reasons for doing what they do. In reality, though, they are led by their loves. As with us, this leading takes place by means of unseen "associates"-in their case, associates directly from heaven and hell.10 In this way, just like us, spirits are led by Providence. The Lord leads them from community to community, in a wide circuit, according to their affections. He leads them so that they deal with outer issues and progress to the deeper ones.11 He alone knows the route through which they can be prepared for their final home.
     10 See AC 1399; DLW 140; HH 294, 427; TCR 477. I say "unseen associates," but one of the benefits of the world of spirits is that angels are able to be present and lead in person more often, because people's eternal choice has already been established. Still, the moment-to-moment mental life inflows "unseen."
     11 See AC 7795.
     Though it probably varies a great deal, it seems likely that many spirits move gradually. While in a given town, among a given group, they become a part of its life.

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They take a job, form relationships, set up a home, find a church. (Curiously, one passage seems to suggest that the people's names change as they go from place to place, since the name is symbolic of the state of mind.12 Their looks and their health change as well, since they are coming into greater correspondence with their inner spirit.13) It is by entering into different communities and relationships that they learn about themselves and make progress. Through conversations and mutual activities, through experiencing conflicting beliefs and goals and efforts, judgments arise. They discover who they can and cannot live and work with. They discover who they are, what they really love and believe, what they need to do to move on to a place more suited to themselves.14
     12 See AE 676:2.
     13 Cf. Spiritual Experiences 5071 and HH 457.
     14 Louis Pendleton's books The Invisible Police and The Wedding Garment, fictional books based on the Writings' teachings, really bring to life these truths about the transition to heaven and hell. They have both been reprinted and are available through the General Church Book Center. See ad at the back of this issue.
     Of course, this is what happens with us through our life here. That is why it is entirely possible for people to move right to heaven or hell after they die. The difference is that in the world of spirits people can learn much more quickly and surely. Their basic ruling love has been established already. As they enter more and more into the state of their inner person, they become freed from many external pressures that they felt in the world. Family ties and old friendships no longer restrain them. They no longer worry about the law or social customs or what others might think. None of these things matter unless they feel them from inner conviction. And when this is the case, they want to feel those constraints. They love them!
     So as spirits enter the state of their inner person they lose many of their fears. They are bolder at being their real selves. In fact, they cannot help it! There is a new delight and freedom in this, especially for those who are good!15 They do what they want to do!

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They see right to the heart of issues. They are more perceptive and spontaneous. As they come into this state, good spirits are not as likely to be duped by evil or pressured by it. They "smell" it coming. And when they do something wrong, they are apt to find out more quickly.
     15 See HH 506.
     Imagine being in a room of people who are all that clear about who they are. You would discover pretty quickly whether you could work with that group! The law of cause and effect would be greatly heightened: when people spoke, others would let them know right away how they felt about it! This would certainly facilitate judgments! And when things worked well among people, how productive and satisfying it would be!
     Evil spirits have a hard time in this sojourn. Like good spirits they have moments of exhilaration when they act out their inner selves. But they also have to deal with the fact that they can no longer use positions of power in society to full advantage. Those who had "good jobs" in the world seek out similar roles. But increasingly they are unable to behave in a dignified, honorable way. They can no longer appear to care about the "uses" they are involved in, or the people they know. After a few selfish outbursts (in which they appear foolish and even insane) they are dismissed. This happens again and again as they move from community to community, until they are completely vastated of all pretenses to goodness.16
     16 The evil are alternately allowed to reenter their outer person, so that they can acknowledge what happened when they were allowed to be their inner self (see HH 506:3; AR 153-this last passage is the Writings' most complete description of how evil people find their homes in hell).
     So life in the world of spirits is a continuation of life here. Yet it is a more essential world: natural circumstances do not hide the real spirit within people or get in the way of its expressing itself.

Pivotal People

     There is something else going on with people in the world of spirits that we ought to reflect on.

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     We sometimes view the purpose of life in the natural world as being that we may make significant life-choices and be prepared here for the life of our choosing in heaven or hell. But there are other purposes too. We are here to serve in the development and blessing of those around us. We touch others in so many ways, directly and indirectly. And, though it's beyond our consciousness, we are here to serve as specific "foundations" for people in the world of spirits, heaven, and hell who depend on certain mental links with us here.17
     17 See LJ 9; SE 5608-5617.
     Similarly, we can view the main purpose of people's stay in the world of spirits as being their personal preparation for heaven or hell. But they are also there to serve "uses" for others, both for those around them and for those in heaven, hell, and the natural world. Recall the following teaching that gives the reasons why people die when they do:

     The life of every person is foreseen by the Lord, as to how long he will live, and in what manner. Therefore he is directed from earliest infancy with regard to a life to eternity. So the Lord's Providence begins from earliest infancy.
     The reasons why some die children, some youths, some adults, some old people, are [the following]: 1st, on account of usefulness to people in the world; 2nd, on account of usefulness, while he is [living] in the world, to spirits and angels: for a person is with spirits as to his interiors; and he is there as long as he is in the world, in which all things in the spiritual world terminate; 3rd, on account of the usefulness to himself [of his being] in the world, either that he may be regenerated or that he may be let into his evils lest they lie dormant and afterwards break out, which would result in his eternal ruin; 4th, therefore, on account of usefulness afterwards in the other life, after death, to eternity. For everyone who will be in heaven has his place in the Greatest Human, or, on the other hand, he has his place in hell: wherever forces fail they are balanced, and, of the Lord's Providence, people are brought to that place. In this way also, the Lord's kingdom is cared for, whose welfare is the universal [concern of] Providence.18
     18 See 5003

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     This teaching clearly shows that we do not exist for ourselves alone. Others' needs are a factor in when and where we live. People in the world of spirits are not there just for their own good; they are there also to serve as "associate spirits" to people in the world and as "foundations" for people in heaven and hell.19
     19 See DLW 140; AE 537:2; HH 600; AC 1399

The World of Spirits, a Link between Heaven and the World

     The uses of individuals in the world of spirits reflect the greater uses of that world.
     We depend on the world of spirits.20 It provides a vital link between the natural world on the one hand, and heaven and hell on the other. Our mental life comes through the world of spirits. It is adapted to us through the minds of the spirits there who are associated with us.
     20 See AC 2026:2
     We often think of our spiritual associates as angels and devils. This is an age-old idea. Actually, beings from heaven and hell are with us only indirectly. In Heaven and Hell we read:

     In order that a person may be in freedom, to the end that he may be reformed, he is conjoined in respect to his spirit both with heaven and with hell. For with every person there are spirits from hell and angels from heaven . . . . It must be understood that the conjunction of a person with heaven and with hell is not a direct conjunction with them, but a mediate conjunction by means of spirits who are in the world of spirits. These spirits, and none from hell itself or from heaven itself are with a person. By means of evil spirits in the world of spirits a human being in the world is conjoined with hell, and by means of good spirits there he is conjoined with heaven. Because of this the world of spirits is intermediate between heaven and hell, and in that world is equilibrium itself.21
     21 HH 599-600, emphasis added; cf. 246:2, 292; AR 552e; SE 3525.

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     Angels are indeed with us, but they are not normally aware of our conscious mental states (the level at which we experience our affections, thoughts and decisions). Angels are with our deeper, subconscious states. We will speak more of this later.22
     22 Note: a particular angel can be more directly associated with our conscious states by entering the world of spirits when the Lord wishes. Evil spirits can also be brought up from hell in order to serve special uses (see AC 5852, SE 5529). In these cases their mental states are reduced to the level of those in that world (cf. HH 35, 208, 246).
     Just as we depend on spirits in the world of spirits, so do those in heaven and hell. Every one of their affections and thoughts must find closure in natural things (in human words and actions, and in the physical things that we see, use, and invest meaning in). This closure into natural things takes place through our mental states. So angels and spirits from hell must be linked with us through the world of spirits.

The "Greater Human"* of the World of Spirits

     In order for the world of spirits to serve this go-between function it must be a complete world, a world that adequately "corresponds" to what exists in heaven and hell. In fact, this is the case.
     * Often referred to as the "Gorand Man."
     As we noted above, the world of spirits consists of innumerable communities arranged according to all the varieties of loves. As unique groupings of people who are moved by specific loves, these communities serve specific useful functions. These useful functions, taken together, relate to one another like the various parts within the human form-optical nerve to retina, liver to kidney, etc. In other words, the good communities of the world of spirits form a "Greater Human Being" that corresponds to the "Greatest Human Being" of heaven.23 (Its evil communities, of course, taken together form a "Greater Monster" that corresponds to hell.)
     23 See SE 3639, 1619.
     The world of spirits also corresponds to what is in the natural world. It can do this more closely than heaven or hell can for this reason: with people in the world of spirits there is still a mixture of good and evil.

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Though in a given community the spirits are either clearly good or evil "on the inside," they have not yet let go of "outside" traits that contradict. A good spirit there, for example, has inner ties with heaven (stronger ones than we enjoy, because he is in that clearer world). At the same time, he has ties with hell. Spirits share this similarity of state with us. This intermediate position makes them especially suited to linking us with heaven and hell.

What It Is Like Being an Associate Spirit

     Right now, as you are reading this article, you have no other sense than that you are doing what you wish and thinking what you wish. A fuller truth is that you chose to do what you are doing along with many others. The feelings that prompted you were shared. And as you have sat here, you have been sharing your every thought and response with others. At the same time, without being aware of it, you have been serving many spirits.
     With people who are serving in the world of spirits as associate spirits to us it is often no different. They are generally no more conscious of their role than we are of ours.24 As they go through their life of conflicts and judgments, as they move from society to society, from one mental state to the next, they are unwittingly a part of the inner drama of their associates' choices. They are linked with people on earth who are undergoing similar transitions, but in the context of a different world.
     24 See AC 5853-5864, 6198; HH 292.
     A good associate spirit is actually a representative of many angels and even communities of angels.25 An evil associate is a representative of many devils and communities of them. (The Writings sometimes refer to spirits who are serving as associates as "subject spirits" or sometimes "emissaries.") For the most part spirits who are serving have no awareness of whom they are representing.

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However, Swedenborg relates many experiences which suggest that spirits in the world of spirits who are being used as subjects can become conscious of their roles in relation to those "above" them, and can sometimes resist it or refuse to be used. In that world people can be much more aware of spiritual processes. There is a whole new dimension: the dimension of conscious psychic interaction! In this respect the life of spirits as associates can be quite different from our life "on the other end."
     25 See AC 5856, 5983ff.

Summing up and Looking Ahead

     So in addition to its offering a home for the personal development of spirits, there are some larger purposes to the world of spirits and to the life of spirits there: they serve as a vital life-link for people on the natural plane of existence. Next issue we will return to considering how individuals experience life in the world of spirits. Specifically, we will look at issues that affect how long a person stays there.

     (To be continued)
IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES 1996

IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES              1996

     We have just seen the latest issue of The New Philosophy (Vol XCVIII, Nos. 3 and 4). It is 140 pages long! The editor writes, "At this time when there is a growing sense that the peoples of the
world are part of a global community, it is fitting that this issue should reflect this with articles by authors from several countries-from France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States.
     "Mr. Tatsuya Nagashima provides us with an analysis of the meaning of 'nothingness' in Zen Buddhism, and compares it with aspects of Swedenborgian thought . . . . His paper was originally presented at a conference on Swedenborg in Moscow in November 1994."

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LUCK 1996

LUCK       Editor       1996

     A book published in 1995 has the briefest of titles: Luck. Studying that book has occasioned this editorial; otherwise the title might have been "Fortune" or "Chance" or something else. We will talk about the book itself another time. Let us get into some of the fascinating teachings of the Writings on this subject.
     When we approach the subject of fortune we come up against "things which entirely baffle research" (SD 4008). Not having any idea whence fortune comes, "some deny that there is such a thing" (AC 6493). People can take the position that the entity called fortune is an illusion of the mind. The Writings say, No, it is not an illusio mentis. You can't weigh it or measure it or demonstrate its existence, and yet its existence has always been part of human experience.
     Do we not see it in historical events? In wars and their outcomes we see surprising things. It has become part of our language to talk of the "fortunes of war." As the Writings say, "Successes and incidents in warfare brought to a favorable conclusion are in common language called the fortune of war" (DP 251). The battle is not to the strong, says the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, for time and "chance" come upon all (chapter 9, verse 11). Not that the outcome of a war can "prove" the existence of fortune. Even the man who in ceremony thanks God for the victory may in retrospect "ascribe the victory either to the prudence of the general or to some measure or incident in the course of the battle which had not been thought of, by which nevertheless the victory was decided" (DP 251).
     Fortune is not "proved," and yet it is sufficiently pervasive that people who observe and reflect acknowledge it. Those who have "reflected long on this subject" know this and confess it (AC 6494). "By their experience some people are fully persuaded that something called fortune is secretly at work, but they do not know what is the source of it" (AC 5179).

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     The Writings state that what is called fortune is actually the operation of Divine Providence in outermost things. Concerning this we will speak more in a later issue.
JOHN CLOWES 1996

JOHN CLOWES       Gordon Jacobs       1996

Dear Editor:
     I was very pleased to see a tribute to that great man Rev. John Clowes in your November 1995 issue.
     In the introduction to his article, "The Story of John Clowes," Howard Roth quite rightly stated that he was truly a great teacher. But he was more than that-he was truly a great man.
     In one of his letters, John Clowes clearly stressed the importance of being both, and I am sure that he combined both qualities. In this letter he wrote: "It is a weighty duty, imposed upon the members of the Lord's New Church, to endeavour to guard each other, as much as possible, against the greatest of all dangers and delusions, the exaltation of speculative opinions, or articles of faith, above the real saving good of life, which is the good of heavenly love and charity." He went on to say: "It is not doctrine but the life of doctrine which effects conjunction with the Most High, and that of consequence the evangelical graces of humility, meekness, innocence, love, charity, obedience, etc., ought at all times to be exalted to pre-eminence above every scientific and intellectual attainment whatsoever."
     Of course, we are continually taught this in the Writings and in so many of our sermons, but I really do believe that Rev. John Clowes was a supreme example to all New Churchmen in this respect.

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So many of his letters seem to breathe those very qualities which he advocated, and I feel sure that the inspiration in what he wrote and taught came from the quality of his life.
     A few years after I discovered the Writings, I came across his published memoir to which is appended a selection of his letters, and I remember the impact which it made on me. May I add a postscript to Howard Roth's article by drawing attention to this "Memoir" and "Selection of Letters," as I think the book a must for anyone who wants to learn more of such a great man and to discover what peaks of New Churchmanship he reached. Unfortunately, would-be readers may find it hard to obtain. The edition I have was published in 1849, and I am not familiar with any reprint, although I do think it should be readily available to present-day readers. On the other hand, no doubt it can be borrowed from most New Church libraries.
     How better to assess John Clowes than to quote Thomas de Quincey's appreciation of him in the latter's "Autobiographical Sketches": "Holiest of men whom it has been my lot to meet-thirty-five years have passed and I have yet seen few even approaching to this venerable clergyman in paternal benignity, none certainly in childlike purity or apostolic holiness."
     Gordon Jacobs,
          Sutton Coldfield, England
ALL THE LORD'S WORDS, WORKS AND MIRACLES 1996

ALL THE LORD'S WORDS, WORKS AND MIRACLES              1996

     All the Lord's words and doings and miracles signify Divine celestial things, because the Lord spoke from the Divine, and did His works and miracles from the Divine.
     Apocalypse Explained 514:20

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TWO BOOKS THAT MENTION SWEDENBORG 1996

TWO BOOKS THAT MENTION SWEDENBORG              1996




     Announcements





     The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen makes the discovery of Swedenborg a key element in a complex story. The book has had highly favorable reviews. The one in Newsday says that the author "does not attend a Swedenborgian church, though in the course of writing the book he was influenced by the ideas of its founder, Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century Swedish religious thinker whose mystic visions promoted a revitalized Christianity."
     A more recent book is a murder mystery, and the setting is a Swedenborgian community. Although the name is changed, many of the details describe Bryn Athyn and its cathedral. The book is Murder among the Angels by Stefanie Matteson. This writer has produced a number of books that acquaint the reader with a place or subject while spinning a story. On page 3 we lead of " . . . Emanuel Swedenborg, to whom the Lord revealed his teachings in a series of visions. Swedenborg recorded these Visions in thirty volumes of theological works that became the foundation of a worldwide church called the Church of the New Jerusalem, or the New Church."

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Three All-time Favorite Books 1996

Three All-time Favorite Books       Louis Pendleton       1996

     Once Again Available

     THE WEDDING GARMENT

     This book is a presentation in story form of experiences encountered in the world of spirits in the first states after death. It has special appeal to children 14 years and older, and is a very good introduction to New Church concepts of life after death for adults interested in the New Church ($15.00)

     INVISIBLE POLICE

     This is a story of people awakening in the spiritual world after a ship wreck, wondering if they really have died, and going through different experiences according to their previous ideas about life after death. Here is a story about goodness and evil that will interest the reader who is anywhere from about 13 years on through adult. ($9.00)

     LOST PRINCE ALMON

     Here is an exciting short novel based loosely on the Biblical story of Jehoash in the second book of Kings. The young prince puts his faith in the Lord as he faces many challenges. This adventure story, having great appeal to children 11 to 14 years old, has just recently been reprinted by the General Church Office of Education, ($7.95)
     Please include postage U.S. $1.25 per copy

     General Church Book Center                    Hours: Mon-Fri 9-12 or by
Box 743, Cairncrest                              appointment
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009                         Phone: (215) 947-3920

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Notes out This Issue 1996

Notes out This Issue       Editor       1996


Vol. CXVI          April, 1996               No. 4
New Church Life

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     There have been discussions of the subject of "the Word" in which people used that phrase in a restricted sense. In this issue Bishop Buss invites us to look at the wider uses of that phrase. Last month he presented for consideration ten "qualifications" for something to be called "the Word." Now read in this issue of more such qualifications.
     Rev. Grant Odhner says in this issue, "Imagine being in a room of people who are clear about who they are. You would discover pretty quickly whether you could work with that group!" The emphasis in this second installment is the nature of life in the world of spirits. He says to you, the reader, "Right now, as you are reading this article, you have no other sense than that you are doing what you wish and thinking what you wish." But there is more to it than that!
One of the many mini-sessions at the assembly in June will be given by Rev. Terry Schnarr. He will talk about ritual, and the article in this issue serves as a good introduction. In 1992 he did a series in our pages called "Philosophy of Variety" (beginning in the July issue). He emphasizes the value of variety in ritual.
     When an assembly is held in Bryn Athyn, how many people have come in the past? See the note on page 121.
     The "chosen passage" in this issue comes from a man in Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is the location where an effort is being made to plant a New Church congregation.
     In his fifth short article Dr. Jonathan Rose refers to differences in the books of the Writings. He suggests that "by their Latin as well as by their approaches" you might think that two books of the Writings were by two different authors.

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BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS 1996

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS       Rev. WALTER E. ORTHWEIN       1996

     "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).

     The world needs peacemakers. As disciples of the Lord we should be instruments of His peace; and insofar as we truly serve His church, this is what we are, for His kingdom is a kingdom of peace.
     The first thing, of course, is at least not to sow seeds of strife; and how easy it is to sow such seeds! It often takes effort not to sow them-not to be an Ishmael, whose hand was against all, looking for trouble, not a peacemaker (see Genesis 16:12).
     It stands to reason that before we can make any positive contribution to the peace of the world around us we must overcome this natural tendency within ourselves. In this endeavor, the Ten Commandments are our strongest support. Just imagine what a much more peaceful world it would be if everyone kept the commandments-if there were no killing, stealing, adultery, lying, or coveting.
     "Oh that you had heeded My commandments!" the Lord said to Israel. "Then your peace would have been like a river . . . " (Isaiah 48:18).
     And in the New Church, we know the importance of observing these laws in the spiritual sense as well as the natural. We know how universally they apply in this sense. We want to refrain from gossip, for instance, lest we bear false witness, or steal others' good names, or even so harm their reputation as to make them wish they were dead!
     Then add to the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament the new commandment which the Lord gave during His life on earth-that we love one another as He has loved us-and what great peace there would be among men! (see Matt. 7:12).
     Certainly this would increase the peace in our homes.

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If husbands and wives, and parents and children, would seriously reflect upon how they could better love one another, and seek the Lord's help in this, how peaceful and happy our homes would be!
     If there is little peace in the world, it is because there is little peace in the hearts of men. Only the Lord can command peace, and He is present in human society insofar as He is present in the hearts and minds of those individuals who make up human society. So any consideration of how we might promote world peace must begin with how peace can be established in our own lives.
     How can we make peace with ourselves? First, we must recognize the only source of peace, that it is from the Lord through heaven. Perhaps we expect too much of this world. The world does not give peace-not the real, lasting peace of the soul that we most need. No change in worldly circumstances can bring us into a state of genuine peace. The essential thing is to acquire a treasure of peace in heaven-inner peace.
     Perhaps when the all-too-real problems of the world are pressing in on you, it seems like "pie in the sky" to talk about spiritual peace. But it is in times of trouble that the question of attaining spiritual peace is most crucial. This is because the answer to worldly problems is not worldly but spiritual. The worldly cares that disturb the mind from without or below can be counteracted only by the peace of heaven coming into the mind from within or above.
     It appears that the answer to natural problems must be found on that same plane, in some change in our natural condition; but this is only partly true. If you are having money problems, then more money will help, of course; or if you are having health problems, then a physical cure will certainly help. But in every problem there is a deeper aspect to consider, namely, the spiritual state associated with the natural circumstances.
     Financial problems are not just financial; the anxiety and negative emotions associated with that circumstance are what hurt the most.

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Similarly, the worst part of a physical ailment is often the despair and mental torment associated with it. Someone may be depressed over various circumstances, but the depression itself is a spiritual condition. And when people fight, there are always "reasons," but there are deeper, spiritual causes behind the external ones.
     In short, the cure for natural problems is not just natural. When the spirit is well, natural things tend to fall into place too; and in any case, they no longer matter so much.
     In this connection, consider this striking statement from the Writings. "That which acts inwardly prevails immeasurably over that which acts outwardly" (AC 6724:2). There is a wealth of wisdom in those few words! It is a very practical teaching. No external problem can destroy the peace of a mind which is acted upon from within by heaven.
     We don't want to underestimate the natural problems people face. They are real. We do undergo tribulation in this world. Upsets come. But although these things may disturb our minds from without, if we listen perhaps we will hear a still, small voice from within-the Lord's voice-bidding us to be calm.     
     The Lord's disciples were very afraid when the storm came up while they were out in their boat. But the Lord simply spoke to the sea: "'Peace, be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."
     It says He was asleep in the boat and they had to wake Him up, but they were the ones asleep. That is, they were unconscious of how great His power was, and how constant His love for them was. Really the storm helped them in that it led them to seek the Lord's help and to gain a new experience of His power.
     Surely there are times in our lives too when we need to hear the Lord say to us, as it were: "Peace, be still! Why are you so afraid? Have faith! Everything will be all right."
     Whether we are conscious of it or not, the Lord is present with us and speaking such words of peace and encouragement to us all the time.

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As it says in the Psalm: He never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:4). But it may be that we have been spiritually asleep and need to awaken to a new awareness of the Lord's presence and power. This is one of the uses the troubles of this world can serve-to lead us to seek and discover a new source of help and peace from within.
     The Lord's Word comes to us from within and from without. The written Word, which comes into our minds from without, has the power to open the mind to inspiration from within, from heaven. So the help the Word gives is not just in the words written on its pages, but in the new influx from heaven it opens up in our minds. That goodness and truth from heaven, or from the Lord through heaven, is what stills the storm. "For that which acts inwardly prevails immeasurably over that which acts outwardly."
     Peace is a gift from heaven. But for it to be received on the outer plane of life, the inner and outer parts of our being must be brought into harmony. This is what regeneration accomplishes. The Lord is the supreme Peacemaker. He makes peace between the spiritual and natural parts of our being, and through regeneration makes the natural willingly and gladly serve the spiritual.
     You can see what a fundamental change this brings about in a person's life. If the spiritual is most important, and the natural is looked upon only as the servant of the spiritual, then worldly problems are far less worrisome than if the natural is the most important thing.
     This order of things is accomplished by the Lord through regeneration by means of His Word. And since every teaching of the Word is an aid in regeneration, they all promote inner peace, and are thus "peacemakers," whether or not the letter of the Word seems to address the particular problem bothering us at the time.
     "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." They are called "the children of God" because they have been regenerated, or born anew of God.

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To be a peacemaker is to be born again and made new by the truth the Lord has revealed from heaven.
     Truth in the Word appears under many images: a rock, a sword, a seed, and others. But surely one of the most beautiful emblems of truth is the dew that sparkles on the grass at the dawn of a new day-pure, sweet, and shining in the morning light. The kind of truth signified by dew is called "the truth of peace" (AC 8455).
     One who is affected by this truth trusts the Lord, keeps the commandments, forgives, nurtures good will toward others, and practices charity. That person is a peacemaker. Everything he says and does is transformed by the truth residing in his mind; or we might say that that truth is "distilled" into everything he says and does, as the gentle dew blesses every blade of grass in the morning.
     But all of us, even though we are not fully regenerate yet, can be peacemakers, or engaged in the process of making peace. Here are three practical ideas on how we can work on this: First, focus your mind on the Lord and heaven, and the truths of the Word, and this will give a new direction to thoughts which may have been too bound up with the world and its cares. As the Lord says in Luke: " . . . men ought always to pray and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).     
     We can direct our thoughts, can direct them away from self and the world and toward the Lord and heaven. If we will seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, everything else will be added unto us, including the peace of heaven. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You" (Isaiah 26:3).
     Second, practice trustfulness, or trusting the Lord. "One who trusts the Lord," the Writings say, "unconsciously receives all things necessary" (SD 2536). We may not receive all the things we think are necessary; we may not be conscious of having received what we need, at least not immediately, but if we place our trust in the Lord, we will receive everything we really need, when and as we are prepared to receive it.

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     But how do you practice trustfulness? For one thing, of course, it is helpful to reflect upon the teachings of the Word concerning the Lord's Divine Providence. Then try to make every experience a kind of experiment in trust. You might even say to yourself: "I feel that I am at sea in a storm, but I am not just in a storm, I am in a boat, and the Lord is in the boat with me," the "boat" being especially the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, in which the Lord is with us.
     And we need to remind ourselves, or let the Lord remind us, to live in the present rather than lament the past or be anxious for the morrow. We do not and cannot know what might happen. What we can know is that the Lord is "in the boat" with us, no matter what happens.
     But here is the real secret of trust (and this is the third key to peace): it is love. In the True Christian Religion we read: ". . . love is not love without trust" (TCR 727e). Trust is a property of love, an essential ingredient of love. As love grows, trust grows and peace grows. If we learn to love the Lord our God above all things, the problem of trust will take care of itself, and we will know peace.
     Now it is true that we cannot make ourselves into more loving persons, any more than we can command ourselves to be more trusting; these things come to us as gifts. But we can turn to the Lord and ask for these gifts, confident that those who ask will receive, as He promised (see Matt. 21:22; Luke 11:9; John 14:24).
     Love and trust and peace will come to us as we are prepared to receive them. And again, if the question arises as to how we can be prepared to receive them, the Lord has given us the answer: "If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Here is the most basic, down-to-earth thing we can do to get on the path to peace: keep the commandments. Then the promise given in the Psalms will be fulfilled in us: "Great peace have those who love Your law" (Psalm 119:165).

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     All the truths which the Lord has revealed are for the sake of establishing peace on earth. In every commandment of the Word the Lord is saying to the storms of life, "Peace, be still!"
     We, His children, who hearken to His Word and receive the gift of peace in our hearts, may then share this gift with others, and so help increase the Lord's kingdom of peace on earth. For the Lord to have made peace with us is a great blessing, and it is a blessing that is multiplied again and again whenever we make peace with others.
     There goes forth from those in whom the peace of heaven has been established a sphere of peace which prevails immeasurably over any disturbance in the world-"peace that floweth as a river . . . " And because "influx is according to efflux," the more peace that flows from us to others, the deeper that river becomes.
     Thus there is no end to the truth contained in the Lord's words: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Amen.

Lessons: I Samuel 19:1-7; Mark 4:35-41; AC 8455 SUMMER CAMP IN THE NORTHWEST 1996

SUMMER CAMP IN THE NORTHWEST              1996

     All ages are cordially invited to Camp Winding Waters 1996 at Menucha, Oregon, running from August 21 through August 25. Our topic is "Relationships," and the presenters will be Prescott Rogers, Robin Childs and Erik Buss. The site for camp is a beautiful estate home perched on the bluffs overlooking the scenic Columbia River Gorge. Accommodations are very comfortable, the dining excellent. Contact Peggy Andrews for information and reservations-(503) 695-2534, or e-mail her at [email protected].

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WORD OF GOD 1996

WORD OF GOD       Rev. PETER M. BUSS       1996

     AN ADDRESS TO THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY

     Conclusion of the Series

     Part II: The Status of the Unpublished Works

     There have been those who have asserted that because Swedenborg did not publish those works which were published posthumously, they are not Divine. This concept has gained some acceptance in the church at large. People have argued that Swedenborg's not publishing them is a sign that they are not Divine, and that many of them are drafts of later published works. Swedenborg, they say, never intended them for the light of day.
     I find myself wanting to argue in the same vein against this position. For example, I might argue, what in the world was Swedenborg thinking when he painstakingly, over many months, wrote out the second draft of The Apocalypse Explained-preparing it for publication? If indeed the Lord was inspiring him, and he was in immediate light and direction from the Lord, was he so terribly mistaken that for months on end he thought these words were Divinely inspired, but found out he was wrong? Why, at the end of this second draft, would he write, "What has come from the Lord has been written, and what has come from angels has not been written" (AE 1183)? He wrote those words from the Lord in The Apocalypse Explained! How can we trust anything he says if he was that confused about what the Lord wanted him to do?
     Appealing as such arguments are, they lead to back-and-forth discussions of what Swedenborg was thinking. This is a modern form of "Biblical criticism." Either it is "lower criticism"-an examination of the texts themselves to determine whether they were written in an acceptable style-or "higher criticism"-an examination of the content of the texts to find out whether we can determine what Swedenborg intended.

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Thus people argue about the manner in which the drafts were written-in poor handwriting, etc., or about some of the topics, or some flawed logic in draft works.
     Surely the answer lies in what the Writings themselves say about the unpublished works. There can be no other criterion. For if what the Writings themselves say about the unpublished works is false, then the published works are false as well, because Swedenborg cannot be trusted.
     The following is a summary of the points made in the Writings themselves about the unpublished works, or about the topics in them.

     1.      "What has come from the Lord has been written; what has come from angels has not been written" (AE 1183). If anyone seriously suggests that the Apocalypse Explained is not from the Lord, then it is impossible for me to see what they make of this passage. Remember that Swedenborg was writing that second draft for publication.
     2.      The topics which Swedenborg treats of in the Diary were revealed to him by the Lord alone. "The things which I learned from representations, visions, and discourses with spirits and angels were from the Lord alone . . . . Thus I have been instructed; consequently by no spirit, nor by any angel, but by the Lord alone, from whom is all truth and good" (SD 1647).
     "Even those things which I have learned by means of evil spirits, I have learned from the Lord alone, though the spirits spoke" (SD 4034).

     Now some may argue that Swedenborg learned these things from the Lord alone, but that when he wrote drafts he was not led by the Lord alone. Or perhaps the draft was preparation for writing what came from the Lord alone. This invalidates what is said here-anything he learned from representations, visions, and discourses with spirits was so guided by the Lord that the Lord alone was teaching him.

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The language seems perfectly clear.

     3.      "I also assert that from the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word" (TCR 779).

     Do the items in the unpublished works pertain to the doctrine of the church? If so, surely we can't decide, on some personal supposition, that Swedenborg didn't include these things. He said, "anything whatever"! He didn't say, "anything that I decided to publish."

     4.      The Apocalypse Revealed, which is published, and which claims (also) to be revealed by the Lord alone (see the Preface), quotes one of the unpublished works in three separate places. The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture does so once. The work is a decidedly summary one, and it was not published-Summaries of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms.

     In SS 97, the Summary exposition of Ezekiel chapter 1 is quoted, and then it is said: "These summaries have even been compared with the Word in heaven, and are in conformity with it."
     In AR 859 (emphasis added): "But that these are signified . . . does not clearly appear there, except from the spiritual sense, which, because it has been disclosed to me, shall be opened, first what those signify which are contained in those two chapters" [Ezekiel 38 and 39]. It then quotes PP.
     In AR 707, the internal sense of chapters in Zechariah is quoted, and then it is said, "These are the contents of the three chapters, 12, 13, 14 . . . in the spiritual sense, disclosed because in them also the last state of the Old Church and the first state of the New Church are treated of."

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     So here we have two published works quoting the Prophets and Psalms, transcribing the summaries there and saying that they are the internal sense of the Word.
     But here is the "clincher." In AR 43, Zechariah Chapter 4 is quoted from Prophets and Psalms, slightly expanded, but the actual summary is included. The passage in AR continues: "This explanation of that chapter was given to me by the Lord through heaven."
     The Prophets and Psalms fall clearly into the list of works which Swedenborg himself did not publish. Yet he quotes from them, and says of part of them that they are the internal sense of the Word revealed to him by the Lord out of heaven-a term used also in the published works for this revelation. How, then, can we say that this work is not "from the Lord out of heaven"?
     The points made above leave me puzzled about how we can omit the teachings in the unpublished works from those things which the Lord Himself revealed to Swedenborg, and which therefore are from the Lord alone. Therefore I conclude that the testimony of the Writings themselves is that the unpublished works are to be regarded as part of the Word of the Lord's Second Advent.

Counterpoint

     Having said that, let's admit several objections. First, there is the one passage (TCR 779) which says that the Second Advent is by means of a man who could receive the doctrines from the Lord and publish them by the press, the implication being that he himself would do that. I acknowledge the thrust of that passage, but have to argue that, in the light of the other passages quoted above, we cannot argue that this is intended to exclude what Swedenborg personally did not publish. For in AE, Swedenborg says, "What has come from the Lord has been written," not "What has come from the Lord has been published by me in the press."

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     A second counterpoint is that common sense shows that several of the unpublished works were drafts of later works, and some (such as the Diary) were not intended for publication. We cannot avoid the fact that Swedenborg omitted some parts of draft works. Most notable to me is that he left out the "signs of charity" (which are described in The Doctrine of Charity) from the True Christian Religion treatment of that subject. Surely all kinds of worship are indeed signs of charity, but nevertheless the omission took place. Also, at times the arguments used to support ideas in the unpublished works are less clearly presented than when they found their way into a printed work.
     But the point is, does common sense, valuable as it is, determine what God has revealed? Surely what the revelation itself says is the determining factor; and the passages quoted above do not seem to leave room for excluding the unpublished works.
     Therefore it seems that reason and common sense can lead us to delve a little more deeply. What is the nature of the revelation? Is it elegance of phrasing that determines that it is the Word? (Note that the Writings call the Old Testament "simple"-AC 6620 and "crude history"-AC 855.) Is it infallibility-no errors of statement or fact? Hardly. The published works contain "errors." For example, were AC 6716 to have appeared in an unpublished work, would we have discounted it? For it says that "the Human-the external derived from the mother-would be made Divine," a statement which the Writings again and again say was not so. Because it is in the Arcana, we look more deeply into what is being said.
     It is the truth itself, not the elegance of phrasing (certainly not the clarity of penmanship), which the Lord revealed.
     So let us look at the contents of the unpublished works, not their form, for "nothing whatever" pertaining to the doctrine of the church came from Swedenborg, or any angel, but from the Lord alone.

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     Are there "fuzzy edges" around the revelation? Are the unpublished works less clear? Yes. Therefore we would expect to start a study with the published works. We are less inclined to pay close, analytical attention to the particular phrasing of a passage from the Diary. We will look instead at the idea itself, the truth that is being presented, for surely that is what the Lord intended to communicate.
     There is one final argument-from human intelligence, I admit. Those who argue that only the published works are from the Lord and thus are the Lord's Word had better be 100% sure of their stand. They cannot afford to be less than totally right, because otherwise they would be leading people to disregard truths which the Lord willed to reveal. But those who argue for the inclusion of the unpublished works-seen in the light of the more polished products-can afford to be wrong. After all, the unpublished works give a flavor, a series of insights into truths already revealed in the texts which Swedenborg printed. The ideas about use, about racism, about charity in individuals in The Doctrine of Charity are beautiful illustrations of the principles taught throughout the Writings. It seems to me one has to be very sure that they are not the Lord's work before relegating them to a "sort of" revelation. A "sort of" revelation is really no revelation at all.
     There is no need to resolve this problem. We don't want to force the church to establish a canon of the Writings, although the Writings themselves did declare a canon of the Old and New Testaments. But this addendum is written in the hope that people will ask the right question in looking at the unpublished works. What do the Writings themselves say about what is in them? On the basis of what I see them saying, it seems that we must regard the truth taught in them as the Lord's truth, but presented in a less polished form than in the published works.

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BOTANIST 1996

BOTANIST       Rev. DAVID R. SIMONS       1996

      [A famous botanist] heard that in the next life . . . flowers and trees were seen in that life also. At this he was astounded, and because botany had been the delight of his life he was burning with the desire to see whether what he had heard was true He was allowed to wander [through trees and flowerbeds] not only to see each thing growing there but also to pick it, hold it up to his eye and examine whether it was really what it appeared to be
     He spoke to me from there and said that he had never believed anything such as this, and that if people in the world were to hear of such things, they would regard them as absurdities [miracles].
     He went on to say that the flowers visible there were more abundant than those he had seen at any time in the world and were scarcely able to be appreciated by any worldly kind of discernment, and that each one sparkled with unimaginable brightness because it was the product of the light of heaven (AC 4529).

     The famous botanist that Swedenborg saw entering the spiritual world could not have been Carl von Linnaeus, the most famous Swedish botanist, since he did not die until 1778. (And the Arcana was completed in 1758.) It most probably was Sir Hans Sloane, noted elsewhere (DLW 344), who collected and classified some 800 species of plants.
     Note: here is Swedenborg, a great scientist in his own right, observing (a vital scientific activity) a fellow scientist's experience coming into the spiritual world and actively pursuing his delight-botany. One can almost feel Swedenborg's own exhilaration in witnessing the process.
     We reflect on our own situation. We can each "experience" things in the spiritual world because Swedenborg "saw and heard" them.

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We can, as it were, be there; because he witnessed, we can become witnesses of the new world of life and light. Such reflection makes this passage all the more real for us.
     And what did Sir Hans Sloane discover? That in the spiritual world there are botanical wonders as on earth and even more; that these flowers sparkled (glowed) expressed the wisdom and love of their Creator, although the botanist "was not yet able to perceive that the sparkling had a spiritual origin, namely that in every one there existed some measure of intelligence and wisdom . . . as the source of their sparkling" (AC 4529).
     Can we not do the same?
     "But these things are comparatively unimportant" (AC 4529:3). They are mere externals in which are internal things which relate to human wisdom and happiness. These wonders, along with all the marvels of heaven, "delight the minds of angels more than their eyes" (HH 185).
     Like the miracles done by the Lord on earth, the Memorable Relations show the power and love of the Lord-power to create an external world both on earth and in heaven in which life is expressed for the sake of man-for those who love flowers and trees and their spiritual counterparts: affections and thoughts from the Lord.
     The general truth in this passage is that the Lord wills to give every one of us the "delight of our lives."
     We can substitute other fields of learning and see the true satisfactions and delights of heaven. Suppose, for example, this individual had been a zoologist, a chemist, an architect, an artist, or a musician.
     One can see that the Heavenly Doctrines are open-ended, and can be "entered into" into eternity. We are free to amplify and expand our ideas of heaven-"the delights" of our lives!

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 3

     The last article in this series was about the world of spirits, that complete world that lies between heaven and hell. Many spirits after death go there for a time in order to be prepared for their final home in heaven or hell. They are also called there to serve as associate spirits to us. As our associates they link us with people in heaven and hell and also link people in heaven and hell with us.
     In this article we consider how long a person remains in the world of spirits. What factors affect this?

Length of Stay in the World of Spirits

     As we read in the first installment, people can spend a significant amount of time in the world of spirits-up to thirty years!1 Of course there is no set time in the spiritual world. But one thing does follow another and things do progress in a way that appears just like time.2 The difference is that this progression takes place according to people's states of mind. Time there is not based on the movement of physical objects (e.g. planets) through a fixed universe.
     1 Heaven and Hell 426; cf. Apocalypse Revealed 866
     2 HH 162f; True Christian Religion 29:1
     Undoubtedly there is a symbolic meaning to "thirty years." "Thirty" means a full state of preparation before a new phase of life.3 But I believe we are also given these figures so that we can get some grasp of the span of states that one can go through in that world. What kind of mental changes and growth take place for an adult in ten years? twenty years? thirty years?
     3 Arcana Coelestia 5335; cf. 7984:2, 8851. Joseph and David were both 30 when they began to rule; Jesus was 30 when He began His ministry.
     Some people spend little or no time in the world of spirits.4

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This is the case with infants.5 It is also the case with those who can be adequately prepared for heaven or hell in the world.6 From these teachings we may conclude that the time people spend in the world of spirits has to do with how good (or bad) they are. But on reflection this does not seem to follow of necessity.
     4 AC 317ff
     5 HH 332
     6 HH 491, 513
     Certainly when people receive heaven quickly, that can be due to a greater innocence and willingness to leave evil behind. But there are a number of factors. For example:
     
- How much access have they had to genuine truths?
- What conditions are people working from?
- There is the "variety factor."
- How does a person's spiritual path fit in with others'?
- We'll consider these one by one.

How much access have they had to genuine truths?

     People who have had clear truths, such as those within the church who have the Word and rightly understand it, are in a better position to be prepared for heaven or hell during their life on earth. But note: the choices that they make are not necessarily going to be better than others' choices. For example, as a person who has the doctrines of the New Church, I have wonderful tools for spiritual growth, but I may not want to become a celestial angel. Someone with far less truth may make that choice, even though it may take longer to achieve it.

What conditions are people working from?

     Some people have not been as severely burdened by forms of falsity (or by hereditary inclinations to favor them). These people are in a better position to accept truth in the other life. For example, many "Gentiles" are in this category.

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They have been hereditarily and environmentally removed from the perverted Christian Church.7 Yet someone who still has work to do after death (on account of barriers experienced in the world) may be choosing a deeper heaven.
     7 See AC 2595.
     The point is this: the spiritual path one travels-as it appears to us-does not necessarily indicate the quality of the choice one is making. We should not think of time spent in the world of spirits as a reflection of how good or bad a spirit is, any more than we should think of time spent in the natural world in this way. Rather, we might think in terms of the uses which that time is serving for the person.

The Variety Factor

     People are prepared for heaven in different ways on both sides of the grave. With some people regeneration may happen relatively quickly, with others more gradually. With some it may involve long periods with little growth and then sudden, rapid realization and change. The process may be more subtle for some, requiring complex changes and alternations, or perhaps a broader exposure to many different states of life. Certainly, from what the Writings often observe, when it comes to individual human beings and human circumstances, variety is the rule.8
     8 TCR 580; Cf. AC 2364

How does a person's spiritual path fit in with others'?

     We've mentioned that people in the world of spirits serve as associates to people on earth.9 This is another factor that affects how much time they spend there. The principles noted in Spiritual Experiences 5002f (quoted in the previous article) suggest that people may be called to the world of spirits "on account of their usefulness afterwards in the other life," "on account of their usefulness to people in the world," and to "balance forces."

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I think we can picture people living in that world for a long time, not merely because they are stubbornly holding onto their external evils, but because they are of special use there to the spirits around them, to spirits in hell, to angels, or to people here.10
     9 Spiritual Experiences 5529, 5361; cf. AC 6198e
     10 I would guess that as long as they are in the world of spirits there is some regenerative work for them to do there. When a spirit is completely vastated, it is difficult for that person to stay in that world. There are spiritual forces at work pulling him to his final home! This is certainly true of evil spirits (see AE 537:2; SE 5693f, 5529, 5361).
     Next month we'll consider what happens when loved ones meet after death.

     (To be continued)
RITUAL PERFECTED 1996

RITUAL PERFECTED       Rev. TERRY SCHNARR       1996

     (Part 2)

     External Worship Must Have Variety

     Variety in externals of worship is necessary if the church is to serve both regenerate and unregenerate people. Variety in the externals of worship is beneficial, not harmful (see AC 1153:2). In fact, variety in ritual adds to the perfection of the church, for in this way a variety of internals is given expression and a variety of external states is appealed to. We read this key passage in the Heavenly Doctrines:

Variety in worship of the Lord from the variety of good in different societies is not harmful, but beneficial, for the perfection of heaven is therefrom . . . .

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Perfection comes from variety even in heaven (HH 56).*
     * Emphasis in the quotations was added by the author.

     Heaven is perfected by the variety of worship in the different societies there, even as the church will be perfected by a variety of worship among its societies. We need to be willing to accept different externals when there is a different language: for example, saying the Lord's prayer in a different language. We need to be willing to accept different externals in different cultures: for example, different musical instruments and different songs. We also need to be willing to accept different externals where language and culture are the same, because the internals of one group or congregation will be different from those of another. Their external forms of worship will inevitably be various as a consequence.
     In order for this variety to exist in order, there must be something fixed and constant (see DP 190). What must be constant and fixed, in order for the variety to exist, is charity-the life of love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor. In other words, internal worship is the constant, while the externals of worship may be various.
     In addition to internal worship, these principles of worship are also things which must be constant and fixed, so that variety can exist in order. For example, on a natural level the place of worship should be constant, fixed, and preferably set apart "for the various acts of worship, preaching, instruction and devout meditation to be possible in it" (DP 190).

     Unity in the Church Comes from Internal Worship

     Contrary to our natural inclination to think that unity comes from a uniformity of worship forms, rituals and traditions, in speaking of worship the Heavenly Doctrines teach us: "unity, that it may be perfect, must be formed from variety" (HH 56).

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     If unity in the church came from internal worship, which is the life of charity or mutual love, "then would each person say, in whatever doctrine and in whatever external worship he might be, 'This is my brother; I see that he worships the Lord and is a good person'" (AC 2385:5).
     The unity comes from the one and only God, our Lord Jesus Christ, dwelling in the internals of each person. He unites those in whom He dwells because they have received from His indwelling a love for the neighbor, which is charity. They consider all others who love charity as brothers and sisters, respecting their chosen doctrinal beliefs and rituals because they are living lives of charity. This understanding and accepting attitude is beautifully described here:

When truth itself is received as a principle, and this is confirmed, as for example, that love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor are that on which hangs all the Law, and of which all the Prophets speak, and they are therefore the essentials of all doctrine and worship; . . . in such a case heresies would be dissipated, and one church would arise out of many, no matter how greatly the doctrinal and ritual matters that flowed from or led to it might differ. Such was the Ancient Church . . . . Among these the doctrinal and ritual matters differed, but still the church was one, because to them charity was the essential thing (AC 2385:4, 5).

     When internal worship exists, when there is charity in life, we need not be anxious about the unity, for "the church would be one if all had charity although they differed as to worship and doctrinal things (809, 1285, 1316, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 2982)" (AC 3451:4). The Lord unites the church by means of charity.

     The Externals of Worship Must Refer to the Lord

     "In the New Church the Lord alone is worshiped" (AR 196). The externals of worship must have reference to the Lord and regard Him (see AC 1083:2).

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"The end of all worship is communication with heaven, and thereby relating the Lord to people" (AC 10,436).
     The Lord is present in worship within love. We read: "In general all variations of external worship, as also of internal, arise according to the adoration of the Lord in the worship. This adoration is according to the love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor that exist there. For it is within love that the Lord is present, and thus within worship" (AC 1153).
     The Egyptians used the same knowledge of correspondences as the people of the Ancient Church. With the Egyptians it was evil and magic, while for the Ancient Church it was Divine worship because it was focused on the one God of heaven and earth (see AC 6917:2). Similarly, the altars and ritual sacrifices of the Canaanites were condemned because they were used in the worship of idols, while similar altars and ritual sacrifices used in the Jewish Church were acceptable because they were used in the worship of Jehovah (Ibid.).

     External Worship Must Include Instruction

     External worship needs to include instruction from the Word. By external worship "a person is thus imbued with knowledge" (AC 1618). "People for the most part are such that they do not know what the internal man is, and what belongs to the internal man, and therefore unless there were external worship, they would know nothing whatever of what is holy" (AC 1083:3).
ORDERING LESSONS ON THE HUMAN FACE 1996

ORDERING LESSONS ON THE HUMAN FACE              1996

     In the February issue we mentioned that the General Church Office of Education offers this set of lessons for $10.00. We failed to mention the cost of postage, and orders have continued to come in. If you are ordering, please add $1.75 U.S. postage.

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MYSTERY OF THE MATERNAL HUMAN IN THE SEPULCHER 1996

MYSTERY OF THE MATERNAL HUMAN IN THE SEPULCHER       HOWARD ROTH       1996

     As Retold from the Writings, the Swedenborg

     Concordance, and Many Collateral Works

     The Writings express many terms as appropriate to putting off the motherhood of Mary, the act of which was so successive and continual that at last Jesus was no longer her son, but the Son of God as to both conception and birth. The forms of the putting off vary; sometimes they imply active rejection, when the hereditary human is said to be "cast out." Sometimes Jesus "delivers Himself" from it. Sometimes in the natural man He "separates those things which are from Himself from those which are from the inherited maternal." The latter, when not good, "He expels by His Own power." With the Lord, "the prior forms, those from the motherhood, were completely blotted out and extirpated, and Divine ones were received in their place; hence He was no longer the Son of Mary" (AC 6872).
     The Lord's burial signifies the rejection of the residue from the mother. His rising again on the third day signifies the union of His Human with the Divine of the Father. By His death the Lord rejected all the human which was from the mother. "The Body of Christ, insofar as it was of the substance of the mother, was not life in itself, but was a recipient of life from the Divine in Him." "As Mary, His mother, afterwards represented the church, in this respect she is to be called His mother" (Canons 22). These extracts, which might be considered multiplied, and which we owe to the Swedenborg Concordance, are sufficient to indicate the distinct modes in which the "putting off" is expressed by Swedenborg when applied to the human which the Lord took from His mother, the virgin Mary. They all bear upon the great event which took place in the sepulcher, when the finite body of Jesus disappeared and His Divine Body arose, from no ancestry, but as Himself, the one Lord.

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     In His death He put off the material human and put on the essential paternity. In these matters, impossible to think of by unaided intellect and without guided interpretation, the Word Itself contains canons of truth which open ways to spiritual discernment. The Lord is the speaker: "Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father" (John 10:17, 18). The Lord's natural life was of the Lord's making. The Word, as it has been written, is the authority for this. Each detail of it is improbable because uncongenial, nay, impossible, to the natural man. By the text, the assertion is that the Lord was the owner of His life, and that the Father loved Him, that is, that the Divine Good of which He was the Son, namely, the Divine Truth, was the commanding influx by which the first human was put aside and the ultimate Human was assumed. When the Divine Good intervenes, and the adequate obedient truth is by it made Good or realized, some Divine end and purpose is gained; and the end here was the descent of God into a new dominion for man, into the Divine Natural Humanity. The incarnation was a direct act of Divine Wisdom from Divine Love, and Divine means or managements were made use of throughout. Use was the end or purpose. So an infirm humanity that could be tempted was assumed in birth, and God by the virgin became the Father also of this maternal human.
     In its life the Father lived, purifying the human, coming down into it as conscience and consideration come down into a regenerating mind to make in it a new birth. This process was incessant; by Divine volition and its intelligence, the frail human was retained to the end, and then died the death of nature. The Jews did not kill the maternal humanity, for no man took it from Jesus, but He laid it down of Himself. Not a bone of it was broken.

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It was committed whole to the sepulcher. End and purpose were supreme. It was a body of hereditary evil like everything born of human nature. Although Jesus had strong evil tendencies drawn from the Jewish race through Mary (see AC 1573), it was a body absolutely sinless as inhabited by Him. It could no longer be tempted, for in Him it had endured all the temptations of hell, and had taken away the sin of the world. It could not succumb to sin, for its Lord was one with the Father. Like a perfected servant, which has no raison d'etre, its day was ended. It succeeded to Divine use, and ceased to be.
     A man having a human father and mother dies and is buried, and in general his resurrection takes place after three days. His body also is put aside to be resolved into its elements. He has left the natural world. His corpse was the product of a finite male and female. It belongs to nature, which has a use for it. In the spiritual world, the maternal heredity is put off, and what is derived from the father is the soul, and now the spirit. The character remains and is immortal, and the strong and internal heredity of the father, translated upward from the world, is a fixed basis to the man forever, whether the male man or the female man. The difference then is that in the Lord the natural heredity from the mother was put off not in the spiritual but in the natural world, the Lord remaining.
     This is the putting on of the Divine Natural so incessantly spoken of in these pages. By His last temptation on the cross the Lord finally completed the subjugation of the hells. This was the last use He had for a material body, and therefore He withdrew from it while still in the world, which resulted in its complete annihilation in the sepulchre. In this process the Lord also completely put on the Divine Natural, which took the place of the finite material body, and which is the reason why Jesus could voice that marvelous thought, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see Me have." "He was not a spirit, but a new degree of the Godhead, taken upon Him for us men and for our salvation." He became the Creator of all that will exist henceforth distinctively in all universes.

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     He became the Redeemer and then the Savior!
     These things are crowning miracles, and the councils and choirs of the heavens will consider and celebrate them. To analyze them by the natural mind is first to render them invisible, and then to invite travesties from hell! But if they are accepted as they are written, and with the light of the Lord's Second Advent upon them then as mysteries of faith, they can now be entered upon and approached intellectually, and be so assented to in luminous correspondences with all that is high and great and good, that each limit of faculty becomes a glorious attestation of the Lord. We know that the finite body of Jesus was put off in the sepulchre, and that the Lord then became His Own Infinite Humanity in the natural degree. The process of the rejection we cannot know excepting by the grace of image and likeness.
     Faith is here first, the creditor of mystery, and then intellect comes, and the mystery itself, an inaccessible mountain, sends down living rivers of perception which satisfy the spirit and uplift the heart. It is an error to think that true mystery is a blur to the mind and a vagueness to its faculties. He is the master and accountant of all exactitude and point. For it is a light inaccessible, and for that reason it illuminates from afar, and makes day for universes.
     The two suns are examples of this. The living or spiritual sun, whose heat is Divine Love and its light Divine Wisdom, is a mystery of mysteries: ineffable, inscrutable, placed to appearance above the heavens lest the angels should be consumed by it, and yet this mystery makes everything in heaven self-evident and unmysterious to those to whom the definiteness can belong. It defines the very angels to themselves and to each other. It is the spirit of truth which guides into all truth.
     The dead sun of nature, the footstool of the upper sun in which Jehovah God resides, is also a mystery, and millions of miles away sends spring and summer, day and night to His planets, light radiant from its mystery of fire being the plainness of all things, consecrated in the eye, in observation, in natural reason, in all the beginnings of immortality.

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So without the mysteries of nature, without the powerful one inaccessible to finite thought, man would have no size objective to his animus; and without the mysteries of grace in the Word of God, the armies of heaven on white horses, namely a true intellect, clothed in fine linen white and clean, namely a pure understanding, would have no leader to follow as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
LORD'S RESURRECTION 1996

LORD'S RESURRECTION              1996

     The Lord's resurrection on the third morning (Mark 16:2,9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) embodies in the particular and the specific senses the truth that He rises daily, indeed every single moment, in the minds of regenerate persons.
     Arcana Coelestia 2405e MAPLE '96-"JOURNEYS" 1996

MAPLE '96-"JOURNEYS"              1996

     Friday, June 21st - Friday, June 28th

     Maple Leaf Academy is a week-long camp for teenagers held at Caribou Lodge in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. This year's classes, activities and worship services will be designed around the theme "Journeys." The Maple staff consists of New Church ministers and volunteers headed by Camp Director Rev. Michael Cowley. The camp is sponsored by the General Church in Canada. Anyone in high school having completed at least grade nine is eligible.
     For information or an application write or call: Maple Leaf Academy, c/o Sue Bellinger, 110 Chapel Hill Drive, RR #2, Kitchener, Ontario, N2G 3W5 Canada. Phone (519) 748-5386.
     Some reactions: "One of the most religiously enlightening experiences in my life." "It helps you find yourself, God, and true, meaningful friendships."

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EVANGELIZATION AND ADULT BAPTISMS IN THE CHURCH 1996

EVANGELIZATION AND ADULT BAPTISMS IN THE CHURCH       Editor       1996

     The work of evangelization is blooming these days. Just ask one of the more than 100 people who attended the February meetings in Tucson, Arizona.
     We want to say a word about adult baptisms in this context, without implying that a certain number of them is to the credit of some individual or group.
     Evangelization is the work of spreading the good news. We tend to look for measurements of the effectiveness of our work. We look at numbers-for example, the number of books or pamphlets given out or sold. We do not know to what extent the books are actually read. Still less do we know what is taken to heart. Remember what is said about preachers. They can bring the Word to the understanding of many, "but not to the heart of anyone" (DP 172). This is between the Lord and the individual.
     The number of members of an organization can be a figure with little significance. Let it be noted that when an individual is baptized into the faith of the New Church, that individual does not automatically become a member of an organization. Some do seek formal membership.
     When an individual is so baptized, it is a cause for rejoicing to that individual, and it often is an inspiration to the people in the area in which it takes place. The adult baptisms this magazine reported in 1995 came from quite a variety of locations. There were five dozen of them. Without taking credit or over-emphasis on numbers, those who love the use of evangelization take encouragement from these events.

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LUCK 1996

LUCK       Editor       1996

     "Who does not talk about fortune?" That is the way Divine Providence 212 begins. It is a key passage we will be quoting again.
     Nicholas Rescher's book entitled Luck has its origins in his presidential address to the American Philosophical Association. It was published in 1995 by Farrar Straus, Giroux, in New York.
     In the introduction to this 200-page book we read about the ancient regard for the goddess Fortuna. The Divine Providence number mentions this and notes that the ancients "built her a temple." About this "fortune" (which is Divine Providence in outmost things) Swedenborg was allowed to learn many things that he was not permitted to disclose. (That is a rare thing in the Writings. Their purpose is to make things known!)
     It is important to bear in mind that Divine Providence "hides itself." It is a law of Divine Providence that nothing of its operation should be evident to our perceptions or senses. Furthermore, when something happens in our lives, we have to be free to ascribe it to Divine Providence or not. And if we do not ascribe it to Providence, we can simply say it was "chance."
"The Divine Providence works invisibly and incomprehensibly in order that man may in freedom ascribe an event either to providence or to chance" (AC 5508).
     The passage just quoted is rendered by John Elliott as follows: "Divine Providence does its work out of sight and in ways beyond comprehension, for the reason that a person may be able in freedom to attribute that work either to providence or else to chance."
     Besides chance there is, of course, our own prudence as a possible cause of success. Some people "attribute to themselves all things that turn out beneficially for themselves, and ascribe everything else to luck or chance.

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Few ascribe them to God's providence" (AC 8717).
     One can choose to think of the elements of prudence and chance as outside the realm of Divine Providence. The wise man "ascribes the future to the Divine Providence and not to his own prudence. Even his prudence he ascribes to the Divine Providence" (Charity 167).
     The element we call luck is an inevitable part of human life, and that is one of the themes of Mr. Dresher's book. Swedenborg learned things about it that he was allowed to disclose. And we will speak of this another time.
SUNSHINE 1996

SUNSHINE       Richard Linquist       1996

Dear Editor:
     In the November 1919 issue of New Church Life, Rev. William Whitehead reflected on the laying of our cathedral's cornerstone a few years before on June 19, 1914.     
     "In a deep and reverential hush-broken only by the twittering notes of birds and the undertones of the woods nearby-the Bishop of the church uttered the solemn ritual words by which the cornerstone of a new sanctuary was laid. And as he spoke these words, the sun-which all day had remained behind a black and threatening sky-suddenly came forth and flooded the hill and the valley with a golden tide of light. Then all the worshipers with one voice broke into the song, 'Jerusalem, the Golden!'"
     Lerosh Pinnah are the two Hebrew words from Psalm 118 signifying "the head of the corner" which are carved into the cornerstone of our cathedral.

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"The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner" of our church. The acknowledgment and acceptance of the Lord as He has now been revealed is the cornerstone of our faith.
     Let us assemble this June in Bryn Athyn where, I believe, rays of spiritual sunshine will brighten and warm the cornerstones of our minds. The atmosphere will be filled with formal speeches and many informal conversations. Yes, we delight in expressing our views of truth, in seeking to define it in our own words. But there is great joy also in letting it outline and define us. We may come into a special awareness of the Lord within ourselves. As my former teacher and neighbor, Mr. Whitehead, wrote seventy-seven years ago, "Then all worshipers with one voice broke into the song, 'Jerusalem, the Golden!'" Let the distant echo of their singing inspire us to join them in praise: "With hymns of glad thanksgiving they throng the halls of light."
     Richard Linquist,
          Huntingdon Valley, PA
WOMEN IN THE MINISTRY 1996

WOMEN IN THE MINISTRY       Helen Kennedy       1996

Dear Editor:
     It's amazing to me that most of the discussion about whether or not women can be priests misses the deeper, needier realities of why some women are questioning a male-only priesthood. It's not the Lord's being represented by a man that is the problem, but what is done with it. For me it is the exclusion of the female mind in spiritual teaching within the church, the performance of sacred duties, and the development of the theology and philosophy of the church. I need to learn truth, but I also need to learn of love. Just as truth, and thought are to be examined, so emotions and feelings are to be examined, elucidated, explained and trained. Male spiritual instructors (priests) often approach the threshold of emotions, and then end the sermon. Again my inner mind and emotions are let down because, in the end, the minister only explains things as men do.

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It's like watching a football game and being able to see only one of the teams playing. The other is blocked out from the TV screen and the announcer makes no mention of it.
     As I see it, male representation forming the priesthood is only a way to get people started learning of the spiritual, just as teaching from a doctrinal basis is teaching about only one facet of the spirit. Swedenborg first experienced the spiritual, then wrote of it. From the books that constitute his Writings, the General Church then takes its doctrine.
     Stephen Gyllenhaal in his letter to NCL talks of his grandfather, one of the founding members of the General Church, as feeling "no woman needed to go to college. She [Stephen's mother] didn't condemn him for it; she went for two years anyway" (Oct. '94 issue). Further on he adds: "The idea that my daughter could be less of a minister than my son flies wildly in the face of my experience of the two of them." This brings out something very important when considering women. Many times women's perception and way of seeing spiritually has to be experienced first and explained later on. So my hope is that the institution of the General Church will no longer deny women because they don't fit into a criterion more suited for the male mind (doctrine), rather than the one suited for the female mind (experience). Swedenborg himself told a man, "Read my works and judge for yourself."
     HH 261 speaks of a type of writing used in the inmost or third heaven. Swedenborg says this is "where people are above all others involved in wisdom. Through these figures [the writing there] they present the affections from which thoughts flow." Then he adds: "This is why these writings enfold secrets that cannot be plumbed by thinking." If the heavenly affection or feeling is present, then the right kind of thinking will follow.
     Perhaps what is needed more than women going through a theological school designed for the male experience of spirituality is the sanctioning by the General Church of female spiritual instructors whose input is developed more along the ways of many women's experience of spirituality, i.e., application, perception, and the truth that flows from that; thus not to be a clone of the male mind but for both to move in a deeper spiritual direction.

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I am always heartened by the fact that the female angels didn't mince words with Swedenborg when they told him: "You know nothing at all concerning the inclinations and affections of your love, and yet it is these from which, and according to which, your understanding thinks" (CL 208). I say this not to be confrontive but to raise emotional awareness, and I realize this is in reference to conjugial love. But it applies to other states of emotion too, as there is a marriage of good and truth in everything.
     Sometimes I find in things involved with emotional growth that there is a lot of truth being spoken about our feelings, but not much explaining of our feelings in the light of the Writings. So with this letter I am not just criticizing the priests or the General Church, but I am interested in how the male and female minds are to come together more deeply about this issue. I do not know. But I do know that keeping the feminine out of the priesthood and its performance of the sacred functions of the church has been going on for a long time. Its extreme led to the intentional exclusion of women and the fostering of the doctrine of male celibacy in the priesthood in the first Christian Church (4th, 9th and 11th centuries, among others-A World without Women by David E. Noble, especially pp. 47, 93, 100, 124 and 132). The Writings effectively have done away with any and all arguments that ever could be raised for celibacy in the priesthood. As that was part of an old era, so we are witnesses to the unfolding of the internal sense of the Word ushering in a new era for the human race.     
     For me the profound teaching of the Writings on the marriage of good and truth, which is found nowhere else but in the Third Testament, requires a re-thinking of our church's approach toward our being an image of God while here on earth. "Male and female created He them" (Gen. 1:27).

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A continuation of practices used in the Jewish Church ("Melchizedek . . . was the priest of the Most High God"-Gen. 14:18), when the spiritual nature of humankind was at its lowest ebb, and continued into the first Christian Church, is not necessarily something that is to continue under the influence of the Lord's Second Coming. With the new heaven the Lord is creating, the spiritual nature of men and women is changing.
     To come from the Roman Catholic Church to the New Church as I did required me to give up my religion, my Catholic practices and traditions (which are still honored by my many brothers and sisters), and also the Catholic theology and philosophy I at one time believed. Many of these changes were not comfortable or easy to do. Whatever way the General Church chooses to go with this issue, I rest assured that the true church is the spiritual one and it will always have new things to teach me and everyone else.
     Helen Kennedy,
          Jenkintown, PA
TEN COMMANDMENTS 1996

TEN COMMANDMENTS       Warren David       1996

Dear Editor:
     When we hear the word "commandments" we mortals are apt to feel oppressed by what seems like dictation from above, like something forced on us against our will. But what would we feel if we were offered the opportunity to live in a community where everyone worshiped the one God, treated His name with respect, kept His special day holy, and loved Him and everyone else - a community where there was never any murder or adultery or theft or lying or coveting? Wouldn't we feel that we would be happy in that place?
     There actually is such a place. It is called heaven. Each angel there is a heaven on a small scale because each angel lives this way. The description of angelic life is given us by the Lord so that we may become angels ourselves.

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It consists of ten angelic attributes that we can learn and live, and they are called the Ten Commandments. Regarded from the angelic viewpoint they are not at all oppressive but descriptive of the life that angels live.
     Just out of interest I checked my Hebrew lexicon. "Lo" simply means "not." So a very literal translation of the text looks like "Not murder. Not adultery. Not stealing," etc. Thus these statements can look like commands to unregenerate earthly mortals but like descriptions to angels; for example, people on earth must not murder; angels do not murder.
     Warren David,
          Bryn Athyn, PA
SURVIVING WITHOUT SURVIVORS? 1996

SURVIVING WITHOUT SURVIVORS?       Kay Hauck       1996

Dear Editor:
     Survivors supports the spiritual growth of New Church people who have experienced marital failure. Its goal is to maintain a forum to share our personal stories as we struggle toward spiritual wholeness. We offer divorced, separated, and remarried people a place of mutual, unconditional acceptance within the church.
     One of the clear messages from the 1996 Evangelization Seminar in Tucson was that the New Church is for all who wish to grow spiritually. This is the vision that Survivors addresses. Because our church exists within a wider culture that is deeply impacted by divorce, separation, and remarriage, the stories published in Survivors represent a necessary perspective as we construct a contemporary New Church lifestyle.
     The promise of conjugial love is one of the church's most precious doctrines, and yet many people lack the tools to make it a reality. We live in a world in which separation, divorce, and remarriage are facts of life. In the effort to accommodate the vision of heavenly marriage for our times, the personal witness of people who have experienced marital dysfunction and are trying to apply the Word to their lives becomes a valuable resource for a growing church.
     Kay Hauck

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     SURVIVORS MAGAZINE

     If you are a divorced or separated person, you may feel cut off from the congregation by your experience. If you think your options as a participating member of the church have been limited, we invite you to reconsider.
     Seven years ago a small group of divorced, separated, and remarried people in the General Church began to build a support network. Our goal is to provide a place for mutual acceptance and encouragement as we journey toward spiritual wholeness.
     "Survivors" (more than 100 of them) live throughout the world and include both men and women, young and old. We welcome you.
     Our newsletter, Survivors, is published three times a year and sent free of charge to anyone who requests it. Interested parties can obtain a single copy by contacting one of the co-editors listed below.
     Survivors is not an official publication of the General Church, and is supported entirely by freewill contributions. We welcome donations to help pay for publication and postage.

Ruth C. Wyland                    Patricia G. Street
3426 Winchester Drive           412 Ramble Wood Circle
Huntingdon Valley PA 19006      Nashville, TN 37221

Kay N. Hauck
6603 N. Greenview
Chicago, IL 60626
e-mail:[email protected]

183


SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION ESSAY CONTEST 1996

SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION ESSAY CONTEST              1996

The Swedenborg Scientific Association is happy to announce its second essay contest. The purpose is to:
     - encourage use of Swedenborg's works in a relevant and substantial way on an issue of general academic interest;
     - recognize and thereby promote quality scholarship among full-time undergraduate and graduate students.
     All entering authors will receive:
     - a free two-year membership in the association and
     - the accompanying subscription to The New Philosophy.
     
Authors of winning essays will receive the following:
     - $100 certificate to be presented at the annual meeting of the SSA toward the purchase of SSA publications, and $100 cash.
     - Consideration of the prize essay for publication in The New Philosophy.

Qualified essays will be subject to the usual review and editorial procedures. If the essay is published, the author will in addition receive an honorarium of $100 cash.
     The contest is open to all college and university students currently taking courses. Undergraduate and graduate student essays will be judged separately, with one award being made in each category.
     The successful essay will explore some aspect of Swedenborg's work as found in any of his scientific, philosophical and theological writings, and will relate it to modern science or philosophy. The length of the essay will be not fewer than 2000 and not more than 4000 words (in English).
     Entries must be submitted by January 1, 1997 for inclusion in the 1997 contest. All entries will be judged by a committee of SSA board members and the editor of The New Philosophy. All decisions of this committee are final and not subject to review. No author may win the prize more than once in each category.
     All submitted essays become the property of the association and will not be returned to authors. The association reserves the right not to award prizes in the event that none of the contest entries is deemed by the awarding committee to be suitable.
     Send entries (marked Undergraduate or Graduate) to: SSA Award Essay, c/o E. E. Sandstrom, Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 USA.

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ELDERGARTEN 1996 1996

ELDERGARTEN 1996       Fred and Clare Hasen       1996

     What a privilege it was to be able to attend this delightful and very rewarding event in sunny Florida. It all began on Monday morning, January 22nd, when we gathered in the chapel of the comfortable and attractive Boynton Beach Society church. With the sun filtering through the windows high above the altar (a large granite stone which came from the county of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), we knelt before the open Word with the very realistic confidence that the Lord would lead us into a further understanding of His Divine truth as revealed in His Second Coming. Although there were those in attendance at these homey services whom we did not know, there were no strangers, as we were united in our purpose-to acknowledge and worship the one God of heaven and earth, our Lord Jesus Christ.
     We had a choice of attending three of the five courses being offered by the seven very qualified instructors, all of whom shared their knowledge with us in a very dedicated and enthusiastic manner, much to the delight of their students-students described by one of our instructors as a pleasure to address as we were there for one reason and that was doctrinal instruction.
     Rev. Geoffrey Howard entitled his course "How Are We Formed into Unique Individuals?" The purpose of the course was to counteract a certain attitude of mind which causes a person to believe he is incapable of changing his lot, and ending with the promise of the Lord that we do have the freedom to become a new person.
     Aubrey Cole Odhner addressed her subject of mythology as "Treasures from the Ancient Church," reviewing the original joy in the deeper meanings of myths and legends as they were understood in the early days of the Ancient Church. It was of interest to learn that some of the words such as "myth," which meant telling the truth, now have taken on an opposite meaning, as in the phrase "It is only a myth."

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     Rev. Walter Orthwein presented an in-depth study of chapters 12 to 15 of the Arcana Coelestia. He showed that the story of Abram and Lot is inwardly "our story." The Writings show how the story applies to states of the Lord's life in the world.
     An enjoyable study, "The Divine Providence Today," was offered by Rev. Alfred Acton. As we went through the five laws of Providence we were told that "our tree has fallen," or that our ruling love has been established. Our responsibility now is to repent of our sins, and the Lord will take care of our regeneration.
     A course primarily for us senior citizens was given by Rev. Derek Elphick: "Account-Ability Issues in Regeneration."     
     On Saturday evening we were treated to a banquet. We heard the status of five areas of the Southeast Region, including the Washington Society. Rev. Jim Cooper told us about the growth of Acton Park and their New Church school, now the third largest of the General Church schools.
     We wish to express our deep appreciation to Rev. Derek Elphick and the Boynton Beach Society for the many courtesies extended to us. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying experience. We are also grateful to Rev. Fred Schnarr and his staff for their many hours of work in making this event possible.
     The week came to a fitting close when 142 worshipers squeezed into the chapel on Sunday morning to witness a baptism performed by former pastor Rev. Dan Heinrichs, and to hear a most appropriate sermon, "Peace," delivered by Rev. Walter Orthwein. He challenged us to become peacemakers as we discover the delights of sharing our knowledge of the Writings with others.
     Fred and Clare Hasen

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ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, COLLEGE AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS CALENDAR 1996-1997 1996

ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, COLLEGE AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS CALENDAR 1996-1997              1996

     1996

Aug      25      Sun     Secondary Schools resident students arrive on campus
                    8:00 p.m.     Secondary Schools Parent-Teacher Forum meeting
          26      Mon     Secondary Schools orientation, registration for all students
          27      Tue      8:00 a.m.      Secondary Schools chapel and classes
          29      Thu     New College resident students arrive on campus by 8:00 p.m.
          30      Fri     New College students registration and classes begin
Sept      2      Mon     Labor Day College returning resident students arrive
           Secondary Schools holiday
          3      Tue      8:05 a.m.      Theological School classes begin
                    9:30-12:30      Registration of returning College students
                    7:30 p.m.      Cathedral worship service for students, faculty, parents, friends
          4      Wed      8:05 a.m.      Returning College students' classes begin
Oct      25      Fri      8:00 a.m.      Charter Day: Annual Meeting of ANC Corporation (Pitcairn Hall)
               10:30 a.m.      Service (Cathedral)
               9:00 p.m.      Dance (Society Building)
          26      Sat      7:00 p.m.     Banquet (Society Building)
Nov      22      Fri      12:20 p.m.      College and Theological School Thanksgiving Recess begins
          26      Tue      3:00 p.m.      Secondary Schools Thanksgiving vacation begins after School Pride
Dec      1      Sun     Resident students return in all schools
          2      Mon     Winter term begins in College and Theological School
          20      Fri      12:20 p.m.      College and Theological School Christmas recess begins
               4:00 p.m.      Secondary Schools first semester ends and Christmas vacation begins

     1997

Jan      5      Sun     College resident students return
          6      Mon     College and Theological School classes resume
          12      Sun      Secondary Schools resident students return
          13      Mon     Secondary Schools second semester classes begin
          20      Mon     Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: College and Theological School holiday;
                         Secondary Schools observance/classes
Feb      17      Mon     Presidents' Birthday: College and Theological Schools
      observance; Secondary Schools holiday
          28      Fri     Theol. School and Secondary Schools vacation begins after classes
Mar      1      Sat     College spring break begins after exams
          10      Mon     College and Theological School spring term begins
          16      Sun     Secondary Schools resident students return
          17      Mon     Secondary Schools classes resume
          28      Fri     Good Friday holiday for all schools
May      2      Fri      7:45 p.m.      Academy Evening
          3      Sat      11:15 a.m.      Semi-annual meeting of Academy Corporation (Pitcairn Hall)
          23      Fri     College exams end at noon
                    College Graduation Dinner and Dance
          24      Sat     College and Theological School Graduation
          26      Mon      Memorial Day Holiday
          30      Fri      8:30 p.m.      Secondary Schools Graduation Dance (Glencairn)
          31      Sat      10:00 a.m.      Secondary Schools Graduation

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CORRECTION 1996

CORRECTION              1996




     Announcements





     In the February issue we reported the baptism of Mr. A. Cacchione and did not spell his first name correctly. It is Alessandro.

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MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS 1996

MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS       Rev. Peter M. Buss       1996

     The Rev. Bjorn Boyesen retired from full-time service over fifteen years ago, and has in his retirement served the church in Scandinavia as Visiting Pastor to the Copenhagen Circle until 1993, and as Resident Pastor to the Jonkoping Circle until the present. He has asked to retire from this position in order to spend more time on translating the Writings into Swedish. Mr. Boyesen is 81. I want to express our warm appreciation to him for his special service in retirement to the New Church in Scandinavia.
     This retirement has placed an added burden on the Rev. Goran Appelgren, who is presently Pastor of the Stockholm Society and Visiting Pastor to Copenhagen. As a result, the boards of the three centers in Scandinavia sent me an urgent request for a second pastor in Scandinavia whenever a pastor could become available. I am pleased to announce that the Rev. Ragnar Boyesen, who is presently Pastor of the Kempton Society, has accepted a call to become the Pastor of the Jonkoping and Copenhagen Circles, and to be the Visiting Pastor to Norway. Mr. Boyesen is Norwegian-born, and believes there is potential for the development of the church in that country. Ragnar and Dorrit are deeply loved in Scandinavia from their many years in that region.
     The presence of two Scandinavian-born ministers in this region of the church gives great hope for its development into the future. Our warm wishes go to Ragnar and Dorrit and to those of their family who will be joining them in this special use.
     The Rev. Robert Junge has accepted a call to become the interim pastor of the Kempton Society for a period of up to three years. Mr. Junge had announced his retirement from the pastorate of the Ivyland New Church in order to consider another church growth opportunity. I want to express warm appreciation to him for responding to this call to serve the vital uses of the Kempton Society. His wise leadership, his pastoral ability, and his experience across the spectrum of the uses of the priesthood will be deeply appreciated by the members and friends of the Kempton Society.
     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss

191


Swedenborg 1996

Swedenborg              1996

Buddha
of the North
by D. T. Suzuki
translated by Andrew Bernstein
     East meets West in D.T. Suzuki's
book on Emanuel Swedenborg

     In English for the first time!

     D.T. Suzuki not only brought Zen to the West, he introduced Swedenborg and his writings to the Japanese. Translator of several of Swedenborg's books, Suzuki found many parallels between the Swedish mystic's spiritual insights and those of Buddhism, hence the name "Buddha of the North." This new translation contains two works by Suzuki on Swedenborg: one, a general introduction; the other, a more philosophical comparison with Buddhism. Zen scholar David Loy adds an insightful afterward discussing the dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg.

     AVAILABLE IN MAY 6 x 9, 168 pages, photographs ISBN 0-87785-184-0, $11.95 pb or ISBN 0-87785-185-9, $16.95 cloth

     Available from fine bookstores
or call (800) 355-2222 for orders or catalog requests.

Published by the Swedenborg Foundation , P.O. Box 543, West Chester, Pennsylvania 13381
     Testimony to           Twelve Gates      A Thoughtful Soul           BOXED SET
the Invisible           to the City           Reflections from                     Heaven & Hell
Essays on          Spiritual Views     Swedenborg               Divine Love &
Swedenborg          on the Journey     Edited by George F. Dole     Wisdom
Edited by James      from Thirty          Foreword by Huston          Divine Providence
Lawrence          Authors Edited     Smith using selections     New paperbacks now
Contributors           by Carol S. Lawson     from the writings of           in attractive slipcase.
include Jorge          Essays, short          Swedenborg, the editor     ISBN 0-87785-282-0
Luis Borges,          stories, poetry, and     presents an accessible     $39.95 paperbacks
D. T. Suzuki,          artwork explore     introduction to his
Czeslaw          the paths lead-     philosophy.
Milosz, and          ing to the City          ISBN 0-87785-148-4
Colin Wilson.          of God.          $11.95 paperback
ISBN 0-87785-149-2     ISBN 0-87785-226-x
$11.95 paperback     $12.95 paperback

192


NINETEENTH OF JUNE GIFTS 1996

NINETEENTH OF JUNE GIFTS              1996

     Groups and societies giving Nineteenth of June gifts should be sure to place their orders well in advance. This will be a very busy June for the Book Center, and we would appreciate having all June 19th orders shipped out in May.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996

GENERAL ASSEMBLY              1996

     The General Church Assembly will take place in Bryn Athyn, June 19, 1996. Please visit the General Church Book Center display area or stop in at Cairncrest while you are in town. This will be a good opportunity to purchase the new Liturgy or the Rogers translation of Married Love/Conjugial Love.

     General Church Book Center               Hours: Mon-Fri 9-12
Cairncrest                         or by appointment
Box 743                         Phone: (215) 947-3920
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009                              Fax: (215) 947-3078

193


Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996


Vol. CXVI      May, 1996      No. 5
New Church Life

194


     Mr. Howard Roth writes in this issue of the Lord's rising from the sepulcher. He suggests that if we try to analyze these miracles by the natural mind we will actually lose sight of them. "But if they are accepted as they are written, and with the light of the Lord's Second Advent upon them, then as mysteries of faith, they can now be entered upon and approached intellectually" and be assented to in luminous correspondences.
     Rev. Walter Orthwein's sermon evokes for us the emblem of "the dew that sparkles on the grass at the dawn of a new day-pure, sweet, and shining in the morning light." He talks of the Lord who comes to us as the true maker of peace.
     Some books of the Writings were not published by Swedenborg. What shall we say about their status? Back in the year 1913 Frank H. Rose of England wrote a letter to this publication which invited attention to this very question. The letter was published in the July issue, but we are not sure the question was really addressed. Now in 1996 Bishop Buss does address it in the conclusion of his series "The Word."
     Sir Hans Sloane, British physician and naturalist, was born in 1660 and died in 1753 at the age of 93. The date of his death is significant. Could he be the man in the striking drama of AC 4529? It seems very likely. See the article by Rev. David R. Simons.
     After death an individual stays for a longer or shorter time in the world of spirits. What factors would determine the length of that stay? That is the subject addressed by Rev. Grant Odhner this month.
     In a recent discussion Mr. Warren David commented that a piece of writing does not have to be long to be significant. His contribution in this issue covers less than a page, but see if the point does not remain with you.

195


OBEYING THE LORD BY REACHING OUT 1996

OBEYING THE LORD BY REACHING OUT       Rev. GORAN APPELGREN       1996

     "But the Lord said, 'You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow . . . . And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and [who] also [have] much livestock?'" (Jonah 4:10, 11)

     In these two last verses of the book of Jonah we see a strong tension. Jonah was concerned about a tiny little plant that had satisfied his needs for a short moment, while the Lord was concerned about the salvation of a whole city with its many inhabitants. Jonah reflects something narrow-minded, limited and selfish.
     This text carries a message to each one of us. What does religion mean to us? Is it something we reserve only for our private thoughts, or is it really a "thing of life" (Life 1) that affects the way we talk to and approach our fellow human beings?
     It carries a message also to us as members of a church organization that has been blessed with the revelation of the Lord's Second Coming.
     The Lord's words in the beginning of our story are, "Arise, go . . . and cry out!" (1:2) He does not say, "Sit back, hide and be silent!" But that is exactly what Jonah did! He wanted to flee "from the presence of the Lord" (1:3). He listened only after being thrown into the sea and then rescued by the great fish. The Lord said a second time, "Arise, go . . . and preach the message that I tell you!" (3:2) Jonah finally did so but only reluctantly. His message made the Ninevites turn away from evil and turn to God, but Jonah was agonized. Why would he react like that? He had done a great thing. He had preached to them. The words came from God, but through him something outstanding was accomplished, exactly what God wants for all mankind-salvation by turning away from evil.

196


But Jonah could not be happy. He was so upset that he even wanted to die.
     There is a tremendous tension between what the Lord wants for the Ninevites and what Jonah wants. Nineveh represents the Gentiles (see AE 401:36), who are without a clear understanding (see AC 1188) but who are willing to be led by genuine truths. Why would Jonah resent seeing those people being accepted by the Lord?
     The structure of our story is puzzling. Jonah's negativity is exposed both in the beginning and at the end, but in the middle part the picture is very different. The middle part is when Jonah is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. He then changes his attitude for a while and worships his God. After this dreadful experience he is cast upon the dry land.
     Two things are worth noticing here. One is that Jonah now did obey the Lord. Therefore, without this miraculous event no truth would have been preached to the Ninevites, and no salvation would have been brought to them. The city would have perished. Secondly, although Jonah eventually did preach to them, he again turned into the same unwilling servant as before this event.
     The difference between Jonah in the belly of the fish and Jonah before and after that is amazing. One might wonder whether or not he is the same person in both cases.
     The book of Jonah is prophetic, and when we read the Word we must look for transformations that take place under the surface of the story. In Matthew Jesus says, speaking to the Jews: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah . . . The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here" (Matt. 12:39, 41).
     When Jonah was thrown into the sea he was expecting to die. Only a miracle could save him from dying.

197


And a miracle happened Who else but the Lord God could have wrought such a miracle? It says in the story that "the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah" (1:17). The Lord's Providence guided the events.
     The Ninevites saw this as a miracle and a sign (see Luke 11:30). To them Jonah was a messenger from God, and they listened to the call for repentance (see Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32). So what the Lord wanted finally happened, and this because Jonah acted as the Lord's messenger.
     In the New Testament the Lord refers to this event in detail. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40).
     This helps us understand why Jonah was so different when he was in the belly of the fish. Both before and after being inside the fish Jonah was reluctant to serve his Lord. But in the belly he said, "I will look again toward Your holy temple; . . . and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple . . . . I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord" (2:4, 7, 9).
     Jesus makes a deliberate and striking comparison with this part of the Jonah story. He identifies the Son of Man with this Jonah, but not with the Jonah before and after the stay in the belly of the fish.
     Therefore, in the book of Jonah we have two representations, one good and one bad. The middle part represents the Lord and His temptations. The "belly" signifies "the hells where there are most direful falsities, with which the Lord was surrounded, consequently grievous temptations" (AE 622:9). All the things that Jonah said about how dreadful it was to be inside the fish do thus "prophetically describe the Lord's temptations against the hells" (AC 1691:5).
     A prophecy of the Lord's pains is heard when Jonah says: "Out of the belly of hell I cried, and You heard my voice" (2:2).

198


In these temptations the Lord conquered all the hells, and "by His own power He made Himself to come up, thus by His Divine" (AE 538:11). It was the Lord's victory over all the hells that restored spiritual order, and salvation was made possible for all people in all times.
     Once the Lord had come on earth and glorified His Human, the way was open to everyone to be conjoined with the Lord so far as he or she repents and turns to the Lord. This is why the message to Nineveh could come only after Jonah's experience in the deep of the sea inside the fish. Under the circumstances Jonah had to be thrown into the sea! The Lord had to undergo temptations and glorify His Human. The book of Jonah is a prophecy of how salvation will reach all of mankind after the Lord's subjugation of the hells.
     But we now have to look at the other representation of Jonah-the reluctant Jonah, the one who first did not want to go to Nineveh, and who hated the fact that the city had been saved. "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry" (4:1). He even asked the Lord to let him die. He could not stand seeing sinners turning away from sin and being received by the Lord, by the God of Jonah. This Jonah is certainly not a representation of the Lord. It could never be. Let us go back to the beginning of the story.
     When Jonah had fled "from the presence of the Lord," and when the storm had taken hold of the ship, Jonah finally had to tell the sailors who he was. And he said, "I am a Hebrew" (1:9). At this time in history the Lord's church on earth was with the Jewish people, that is, the Hebrews. So Jonah represents the Lord's chosen people and His church on earth, the church specific at that time.
     That the Lord did not directly address the people of Nineveh but sent a messenger to the Ninevites means that the light of the world comes from its center, which is the church specific. Through Jonah the Ninevites were to be enlightened. And when the Lord came on earth He came to the church specific at that time, the Jewish Church, and said that it should go to the people around it as a messenger.

199



     Both that He had to come to the church specific and that He would bring salvation to all of mankind are expressed in His last words to the disciples in the gospel according to Luke: "Thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46, 47).
     Despite His sufferings it was out of love that he said those words, for His love is "a love directed toward the whole human race, whom He wishes to save, making them blessed and happy forever, and to whom-insofar as they can receive it-He wishes to impart His Divine so that it becomes their own" (AC 4735:2). It was out of love that He commanded his disciples "to go out and make disciples of all the nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19, 20).
     The Lord wanted the whole world to receive the good news about His coming, His victory over death and salvation through Him.
     Knowing that such is the Lord's love and will, we find it difficult to understand why Jonah would resist going to the Gentiles, and why he would resent that the Lord spared the city from destruction (see 4:1). His agony was so strong that he would rather die than accept that others than the Jews to whom he belonged could be saved.
     When Jonah carries the representation of his people (see AE 401:36), he seems to be in complete opposition to the Lord's will for mankind. He seems to think grand things about himself and his people, and to despise, envy and hate all others.     
     Note what he did after seeing Nineveh repent and so escape from the disaster he had given warning about (see 3:10). After having been reproached by the Lord for being angry, he "went out of the city and . . . made himself a shelter, and sat under it in the shade" (4:5).

200



     If you are as human as I am, you may remember a time when you had such a distaste for something or somebody that your whole body was embedded in a thick layer of self-pity, relentlessness or vengeance. And at the time it felt totally justified. Such a state is miserable and comes from the self-love that we all have to face at times. The self-righteous feelings give us an awkward kind of shelter that cuts us off from others. That is what happened to Jonah. His self-love both cut him off from the happy people who had just found mercy and new life, and cut him off from his God.
     Not only on the personal level is this a miserable state. In this prophetic text it represents the pitiful state the Jewish Church had fallen into by the time of the Lord's coming, and in no wise did the Lord spare His criticism of the spiritual quality of that nation. He called them an "evil and adulterous generation," "the offspring of vipers," and bluntly told them that, "You are of your father the devil . . . and there is no truth in him . . . . He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God" (John 8:44, 47).
     The book of Jonah prophesied about the state and destiny of that nation at the time of the Lord's coming. Jonah's mean behavior therefore represents that "the Jewish nation . . . did not wish well to any but themselves, thus not to the Gentiles, but these they hated" (AE 401:36; cf. AC 9320:2, 4).
     "Goods and truths are altogether destroyed with that nation" (AC 4314:5). Therefore the Lord willed that others who wanted to be led by His truth should establish His church on earth. This wish is expressed in the last two verses of our story. It summarizes so clearly the difference between a human sectarian view on religion and, on the other hand, the Lord's end in view, which is a universal application of His truths.     
     The Ninevites were misled and in obscurity. They represent a Gentile state, which is a mind lacking in understanding but at the same time being in the good of charity (see AC 2280:6). This is expressed by the Words that they could not "discern between their right hand and their left" (4:11).

201


The good actions, meant by the right, had no guidance from true principles, meant by the left.
     A lack of understanding can be helped by genuine truths. Such truths come from the church specific. That is why the Lord wanted Jonah to preach to the Ninevites. "The Jewish nation had the Word, and was therefore able to teach those who were outside the church, and who were called Gentiles" (AE 401:36).
     But for these truths to be received, there has to be a willingness to accept them. In our story the willingness of the Ninevites is meant by the words in the last verse, where we hear that they also had "much livestock" (4:11).
     If we think of domestic animals and their submission and willingness to be of use to their masters, we can think of what they represent on the spiritual plane, namely, good affections. These good affections make it possible for the Lord to reach the hearts of men. When they hear His truth, they respond from good affections and turn away from evil and go to the Lord. This is what is prophesied in this story.
     What we see is therefore not only that the Gentiles respond to the truth but also that those who already have the truth don't want to teach it. When they see that the Lord receives people who in their sight are inferior, they become envious and resentful. But those who think they are chosen will learn a bitter lesson if they don't see what the Lord's will is. The Lord said to Jonah: "Should I not pity Nineveh . . . who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and have much livestock?" (4:11)
     The power of salvation from the Lord is for everybody. The truth from the Lord teaches people to "discern between the right hand and the left." The truth is meant to be spread around the world. If those who have been given the truth don't want to practice it-and spreading the truth is part of practicing it-then the Lord will raise up other people who are touched by love to the neighbor and who see a need to heal the sick.

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This happened at the Lord's first coming. He came to the Jews, but when they refused to come to the wedding feast, Jesus said: "Go into the highways and as many as you find, invite into the wedding" (Matt. 22:9). And His message became universal: "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12).
     In the beginning of Christianity there were a great many groups who professed belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, but some of them included beliefs that were not viable, so they remained small and disappeared in the back pages of history. Maybe they had a limited outlook just as Jonah did, and not the universal perspective that the Lord has for the whole human race.
     The book of Jonah is an inspiration to those who want to see the Lord's love for the whole human race, and who want to be part of His work of salvation by spreading the healing truths from Him. The book of Jonah is a threat to those who look on themselves as better or chosen, or as a selected group that only as an exception can accept to share their lives, their ideals, dreams and hopes with others outside their own group.
     After the Lord's Second Coming, the message of the book of Jonah is just as applicable as after His First Coming. The Lord wants salvation for the whole human race. The water of life that the Second Coming has revealed is for everybody. Therefore the Lord said to Jonah: "You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow . . . . And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and [who] also [have] much livestock?" (4:10, 11)Amen!

Lessons: Jonah 1-4 (parts); Matt. 12:38-42; AE 401:36

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FREEDOM OF CHOICE 1996

FREEDOM OF CHOICE       PETER S. RHODES       1996

     Once I went to church and heard a sermon about one distinctly different doctrine the New Church has that other people don't have. The minister pointed out that in the world a lot of people think that all humans are born evil since the fall of Adam. That is one position held: that we are born evil. Another position held by some people in the world is that humans are all born good and that it is only education or the environment that turns them bad even though they were born good.
     The minister stated that in the New Church we know that man is between good and evil. He is neither good nor evil; he is between them, but he can choose good or can choose evil. That caused me, right there in the middle of the sermon, to start to think about the actual nature of the freedom of choice.
     What does it mean to be free? I think that is a very important question. We hear all the time that the Lord gives you freedom. He died for your freedom. Freedom is a very big word.
     Years ago there was a little boy who came up to the swim club and said, "Hey, Mister, are you the diving coach?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Well, this is a public pool and I'm allowed on that diving board, right?" I said, "Yes, that is true." He said, "Well, I want to do a three-and-a-half and my Mom says I'm free to do anything I want to do. Is it okay if I do a three-and-a-half! Can I do a three-and-a-half?" I said, "I don't think so." He said, "Well, my mom said I'm free to do whatever I want, so I'm free to do a three-and-a-half and I don't think you're right." I said, "Well, you are certainly free to try to do a three-and-a-half. There's no one who is going to stop you."
     So, the kid gets up on the board and does a belly flop. Then he says, "Hey Mister, am I free to stop doing a belly flop?" and I said, "Well, I don't think so, but you're free to try." He said, "Well, I don't understand. My mom said I was free and you're saying I'm not." I explained to him, "You are free to start to learn how to do a three-and-a-half.

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If you would like to come up tomorrow, you are definitely free to do a hurdle any time you want. You are free to come here tomorrow if you want to, and you are also free not to come. And you are free to practice. All those things you can do, and you can choose to do them or not to do them. That is up to you."
     About five years later the little boy had grown a bit and he was doing the two-and-a-half on the low board. I could see it was a pretty good two-and-a-half. He was high up in the air, spinning well with good control. So I said to him, "Why don't you try a triple?" And he did. I looked at the triple and I could see it was a pretty good triple. I said, "Today is the day! You can go up on the high board. Today you are free to do a three-and-a-half!" And so he was. He did a three-and-a-half that day. He came down and said, "Hey, Mister, I want to do a gainer one-and-a-half with three and a half twists. Am I free to do that?" And I said, "Well, you are free to start with a hurdle." So he started.
     That is a certain kind of freedom. So I wondered when I heard the phrase, "Man is between good and evil." I heard the phrase, "When man in freedom chooses to do evil . . . " so forth and so on. In my mind I backed up, and said, "When man is in freedom and chooses . . . . " Those are words you can go through pretty fast, but the "when" is important, and the nature of that freedom is important, as is the nature of "choice."
     Now if you were really able to choose between good and evil, if you had that freedom and you chose evil, then I would think you might feel guilty. You might be embarrassed. You might feel shame. If you knew someone who was free to choose between good and evil and chose evil, you might judge that person. You might say, "That person made a bad choice," or even, "That person is a bad person." But to determine whether or not you are free to choose between good and evil, or to determine whether or not another person is free to choose between good and evil, has certain consequences.

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     I feel there is an implication in our church that you do stand between good and evil, and therefore if you have evil thoughts, have evil feelings, or observe yourself engaging in bad behavior, then you should be embarrassed, you should feel ashamed, and you are guilty. My experience growing up was that I did feel all those things because I had noticed the implication that man was free to choose between good and evil.
     Every one of us has a proprium and we are never going to change the proprium's inclination. We do not have to be ashamed or guilty or embarrassed about having a proprium, which is the part of us that inclines to evil of every kind. Without feeling guilty or ashamed we have to separate from it. Often I think people in the church think they can change their propriums. We can't. All you can do is to see the proprium for what it is, know that it is not you, and learn how to separate from the hells attached to it.
     Now if my diver, after his first belly flop, had said, "Gee, I'm really embarrassed, ashamed and humiliated," I would have answered, "Well, it's a waste of your time to feel that way, because you are a beginning diver. You will do belly flops. It is going to happen. You will fall off the board; occasionally you might even hit the board. All those things are going to happen. Shame, guilt and embarrassment will really interfere with your learning. It would be a very good idea if you just give them up and recognize that the process of learning how to do a three-and-a-half entails all those experiences that other people might call failures but which we call the means by which you learn. That is the process by which you learn."
     You might have observed within yourself whether or not you are free to choose love over contempt. Are you free to choose trust over jealousy? Are you free to choose contentment over anxiety? In my life I tried to change a lot of those things and I did a lot of belly flops. I used to feel ashamed and embarrassed about that. It was as if I were a failure. I now think that shame is one of the covers under which the hells operate.

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We have to take that cover off.
     If we don't have the freedom not to do belly flops, what kind of freedom do we have? I would say the first freedom you have is the freedom to see the nature of your proprium. You are free to observe that your proprium is selfish; it has contempt for others, it is angry, irritable, and self-centered. It is all those things and you are free to see that. You are also free to see that it lies, it justifies, it rationalizes, and it thinks things that are bad are good, and it thinks things that are false are true. It does all those things and you are free to see that. There is a part of you called the rational that is not the proprium. In one way, when we say man is between good and evil, it is not quite right because he doesn't stand between good and evil. Actually, he has good and evil inside himself. He isn't between them; he has both of them within him-good with the remains the Lord has implanted, and evil with the proprium. So he is free to see the nature of that proprium that is not himself but that he will experience. He is free to see the thoughts, have the feelings, have the sensations, and observe his behavior.
     Is he free not to have those thoughts? I don't think so. Is he free not to have those feelings? I don't think so. Is he free not to do those behaviors? You could say some behaviors he is free not to do, and other behaviors he may not be free not to do. To the phrase, "man is inclined to evils of every kind" I would like to add, "and he is addicted to a few." If you are addicted you don't have freedom. If you go to any twelve-step program the members will tell you, "I am powerless. I am not free." In relation to other evils is he free? I would say he or she has the appearance of freedom because sometimes he or she chooses to do what is good. How does one do that if one doesn't have freedom? It is because they didn't choose to do that good; the proprium chose to do it to protect its love for honor, reputation, and gain. It just looked as if they were choosing good but they didn't really choose between good and evil; they just chose a good behavior because it makes them look better or because the pay is better, or whatever.

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So there really isn't freedom there.
     How free were the Israelites to go worship their God? They weren't too free. How free was Jesus when He was born to go tell Herod that He was taking over? Not too free. So when Moses suddenly observed that he was not an Egyptian, was he free to leave? No. Was he free to wish to leave? Yes. Was he free to start bringing people together to talk about the process of escape? Yes, he was free to do that. Man is free to be in the process that leads to freedom.
     The first freedom is the ability to see the true nature of the proprium. That is a big ability. How can you see the nature of the proprium? Of course the first thing you have to do is learn the truth. I have to tell the kid who wants to do a three-and-a-half that the first thing he has to do is learn how to do a three-and-a-half. He has to get some information. Then he has to take that information and attempt to do it. And he is going to fail. Then he needs to get more information, attempt to do it again, learn from the failure, learn from other sources, attempt it again, and so on.
     The first freedom is to learn the nature of your proprium and that is why, I think, the Writings say that the new will begins in the understanding part of the rational. The new will is the mustard seed. It is very, very little. It does not start in the will; it starts in the understanding part of the rational. It wants to know the truth; it wills to understand. It says, "What am I doing wrong here that is causing me to belly flop? What should I be doing?" The new will in the understanding wants to know and to understand.
     When you observe the proprium and its nature, there is that part of you that from truth will say, "What is going on here?" There is a certain delight it can have in knowing the truth. It can even delight in the knowledge or truth that its proprium is a liar. I think you have had that experience. There is a certain excitement to suddenly see the true nature of your proprium. How can you be excited about a truth that shows you are in falsity?-because although you have the falsity of the proprium, you also have the truth about the falsity, and that can be exciting.

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There is a certain affection at that level.
     As the little new will in the rational observes the nature of the proprium and is learning truths, it learns these truths and gains more insight until at some point it starts not to believe what the proprium believes-not to believe the rationalizations, the justifications, the denials and all that. It starts to believe differently than the proprium. After that it starts to dislike what the proprium likes. The proprium has a delight in contempt, a delight in anger, jealousy, and self-righteousness. The new will starts to not like the fact that the proprium likes those negative things. Moses starts to dislike the way the Israelites are being treated. No one is treating him that way, no one is beating him up, but he doesn't like the way the Israelites are being treated. He gains a dislike for it. So now we are starting to move into the will part. Is Moses ready to leave Egypt? No. Are you ready to have freedom of choice in terms of what thoughts, what feelings, and even what behaviors you do? No, but something is starting to grow. The mustard seed is starting to grow. Jesus is now twelve or thirteen years old. He is starting to talk in the temple and have an interactive relationship.
     So the next step is that you start not only to disbelieve what the proprium believes and to dislike what it likes, but you start also to have an affection for what life would be like if the proprium were not ruling you. Now if you come home and you are angry with your husband or your wife, or short-tempered with your children, not only do you not like the way you are behaving-the way your proprium is behaving-but you start to see how your life might be if you were able to be with your family and accept them, and listen to them rather than coming from the anger. You start to get an inclination to what is called "the good of truth." And occasionally you will get borrowed states where you don't yell, you don't get upset, you don't get jealous, and you notice the goodness that fills that space.

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     Now you are starting to get some power, because the power to overcome evil is in the goodness, not in the truth. You start to have a longing for the good of truth. You want the life that is available if you could get out of Egypt, if you could get to the promised land. So now you are not just looking at what you want to leave, but you are looking toward where you want to be. Are you yet at that place where you can take on the freedom and do a three-and-a-half? Well, no, but you may be up to a double by now. Your two-and-a-half is still not so good. So what are those stages in the doctrines that we are talking about? I believe the first freedom is called repentance and is a change of thinking. Having a change in thinking is to see things differently. That is when you see the nature of your proprium. I am free to see the nature of my proprium, to see that it is not myself but that it has a certain nature. That is repentance.
     Then there is reformation. Reformation is a re-forming. What are you reforming? You start to form the feeling of who you are away from the proprium, which feels anger, contempt, jealousy, etc. You take your feeling of who you are out of that proprium and put it into the rational, the part that sees the proprium. You start to put the feeling of who you are into the delight in, and the longing for, truth. Then you start to put your feeling into the delight in and longing for good. That is a reforming. But you are not powerful enough to take it on yet entirely.
     The next step is regeneration. Regeneration is when you start to have life generated from that new will. The longing for goodness starts to be strong enough actually to stop the proprium-to have the thoughts but not think them, to have the feelings but not come from them or act from them, to choose to come from the new will. Now you have freedom. You have affection for the good and you choose the good. Now you can do your three-and-a-half.
     How long does that whole process take? You don't get that kind of freedom when you are eighteen just because your rational is open.

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It is a long process. With different evils it will be different lengths of time. With some evils it may be a very short time. That whole series could take place in a day in regard to some evil. We had a talk at the men's gathering about a man who instantly saw an addictive quality to his drinking. He immediately said, "No, I don't want that." He recognized his inclination and said "No." So the whole process was swift. Of course, we all know that there are other people for whom awareness in relation to alcohol takes a little longer, perhaps years. The man for whom it was swift may have to take a longer time in relation to something else. As to your ruling love, it will be a long process. Giving up the love of self, letting it die and be reborn, will be a very long process.
     My feeling is that it is really important, especially for young people in the church (and young can be any age from eighteen to seventy-five), to recognize that the kind of freedom spoken of does not exist in you initially, and cannot be given to you. So to have embarrassment, guilt, and shame in regard to having a proprium is a mistake. It keeps you isolated. It keeps you from talking to other people; it keeps you from working on the situation. Those feelings even keep you from looking at the proprium because you don't want to feel shame and embarrassment. So you pretend you don't have a proprium; you don't look at it; you don't want to work on observing it.
     If you can, let go of those feelings of embarrassment, guilt and shame and say, "No, I'm a beginning guy. I'm beginning scared. I'm a beginning spiritual person. Of course I have a proprium; I don't have to be embarrassed about that. And of course I am going to have feelings; and of course I'm going to have negative thoughts; and of course, in a lot of cases, they are going to take over, but that's all right. I plan to do a three-and-a-half and if it takes me five years I'll still do it, because I am freely choosing to be in the process. Being in the process means that by every thought of my proprium which is bad I will learn; from every feeling my proprium has that is negative I will learn; from every activity that it participates in that is in disorder, I am going to learn.

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I am going to take those experiences and accept that they are the means by which I will be learning! So I have nothing of which to be ashamed."
     Does that mean you don't feel remorse? No. You feel remorse, which is a feeling of pain about the fact that it is that way. But it is not embarrassment or shame; it is just a remorse that when I came home I wasn't able to contain my anger with my wife so we were at it again. I couldn't overtake my proprium this time. It's more powerful than I am. I am not going to be embarrassed about that, but is there remorse? Yes. I feel sorrow that it is that way.
     Do the Children of Israel have to feel embarrassed that they are still in Egypt? No. They can't be elsewhere at this stage. Is there remorse that they are there? Oh yes, they are sorry that they are there. Sorrow is part of the motivating factor to get them to leave, but not embarrassment, guilt or shame. We are all in this together. We are in the process and it is a good process. The Lord went through the process. He was open to evils of every kind. The temptation was continuous. He always had bad thoughts; he always had bad feelings; they were continually around Him. "My sin is ever before Me." I don't think He was embarrassed about them. He knew when He came down that He would have them. Well, we have them too.     
     The bottom line is What are we free to do? I say you are free to be in the process. You are free to choose to be in the process. You are also free to choose not to be in the process. If you choose not to learn the truths which will enable you to see the nature of your proprium, then you are free not to learn them. Are you free to see your proprium and to attribute it to yourself! Yes, you are free to do that. Are you free to justify the evil and the anger? Yes. You are also free to let those things go, and to willingly be in the process.

     (To be continued)

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CHURCH AS BRIDE, WIFE, AND MOTHER 1996

CHURCH AS BRIDE, WIFE, AND MOTHER       AMANDA ROGERS-PETRO       1996

     From a Presentation Given at the Women's Symposium

     This is a story. Really it is two parallel stories-the story of my intellectual search for the feminine aspect of God, the absence of which I felt like a wound in my psyche for years, and the story of my experience of the Divine feminine, which was profound and ongoing, although I did not recognize what I was experiencing.
     Both of these stories begin at my birth, perhaps earlier, but the part I want to share with you begins at my confirmation at age 18. I was truly in a bridal state at that time in my life. I was excited about the Writings. I felt their truth and power in a new way as I approached adulthood. I also had a strong sense of the Lord's humanity. He was a friend and comfort to me, as real as a tree or a rock, and always available.
     I was eager to be confirmed, and the small ceremony took place on a wonderfully stormy day with lightning and thunder. Maybe the weather forebode various crises of faith and emotional turmoil to come, but it seemed appropriate for the day. I felt electric, on fire with excitement about the New Church, and I looked forward to galloping off to college to spread the good news.
     There was only one aspect of the ceremony that bothered me. I had learned in school that in the commandment to honor our father and mother, "father" corresponds to the Lord and "mother" to the church. During the ceremony, the minister explained that by electing to be confirmed in the church I had chosen the Lord for my Father and the church for my Mother. I had no objections to having the Lord for a Father. I felt close to the Lord at that time. I spent a lot of time thinking about Him, praying to Him, and reading the Word. But the idea of the church as my mother bothered me. I was, and am, very close to my biological mother. She is one of my best friends, a nurturer, comforter and confidante. The church seemed to me to be a terribly inadequate replacement.
     And what was I imagining when I thought of this mother-church?

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A stone building, a set of rules, and a group of men in robes. A lovely building, to be sure; wise and just rules undoubtedly; good men, of course. But these were not what I wanted in a mother.
     In my mind I rejected the church as mother. I decided to keep my own mother and let the church continue in the role it had always played for me-teacher, ruler, law-giver.
     When I went away to school, I was exposed to new ideas, including feminist thought. For various reasons, including what appeared at the time to be a high level of cultural consensus in Bryn Athyn that the women's movement had been detrimental to family life, I had negative associations with the word "feminism." Because of these associations, I at first failed to recognize how beautiful, how righteous, and how doctrinally sound many of the ideas espoused by the feminist movement are. It was a man who opened my eyes to the truth available in feminism.
     My then boyfriend Karl was a gentle, funny person with a deep interest in peace and social justice. He believed that Christianity was only so much self-righteous talk if you didn't do something to make other people's lives better, as Christ did. He was taking a feminist theory class when we began dating, and often would ask me what I thought of the ideas. I usually side-stepped the conversation, sensing an area of conflict. Avoiding conflict was one of my main goals at that time. Karl, however, was becoming more and more enthusiastic about feminist theory, and continued to press me for my opinion. Finally I explained seriously that I disapproved of feminism because I didn't think women should try to be the same as men. Imagine my surprise when he told me this was not, as far as he could tell, what feminism was about. I was amazed, for in high school I had received the impression that the agenda of the feminists was to turn women into masculinized, cold, unmotherly beasts.
     And so I learned about "radical feminism" or "deep feminism." The old feminism had focused on gaining political and economic rights for women, and to that end had emphasized that women could measure up to men's standards, could do what men could do.

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It was an important step. Deep feminism suggests that society's values need to change to honor the feminine. In fact, a paradigm shift is required that will recognize traditionally feminine qualities such as cooperation, relational skills, emotion and intuition to be of equal importance as traditionally masculine qualities such as competition, reason, aggression, detachment and logic. I was stunned. Wasn't this just what the Writings taught? Wasn't this the doctrine of conjugial love being championed by the dreaded-feminists? Feminists seemed to be calling for a radical shift in consciousness and culture-a new heaven and a new earth!
     I began to reflect on my experience of the General Church in light of these concepts, and it seemed to me that the General Church was an organization that paid lip service to the feminine, and yet clearly honored the masculine over the feminine. The church seemed even to fear the feminine. Reasoned discussion, an intellectual approach to the Word, and a cool and contemplative style of worship were embraced. Expression of emotion appeared to be a source of discomfort. Decisions were made for the entire organization by men only. Priests were trained with no input from women about the female experience of truth. People in disorder were exposed to judgment rather than justice, which operates from love and knows that all are sinners, all worthy of love. I began to withdraw from the organized church in my heart and in body. The secular community of my school seemed to me to be more thoughtful, more tolerant, more compassionate, and more active in external charity than the community in which I had grown up.
     The exception for me was found in church camps, and I am very grateful to the Lord for leading me to these camps. Without them I might have left the church and all the wonderful things it has to offer. I attended camps and retreat weekends regularly, and there I felt fully alive in an atmosphere that honored the truths of the Word and truly valued the feminine. A concrete, and to me vitally important, example of the way the feminine is honored at these retreats is that women are allowed to participate in creating worship there.

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Equally important is the experiential approach to truth, which values and respects emotion, intuition, sharing and application. People are encouraged to share their life-experience of temptation, redemption, crucifixion, resurrection.
     At this time I began to wonder about God. Jesus Christ is God and obviously male. So where had women come from? Where had the feminine come from? Where had I come from? I did not want to stop believing in Jesus-indeed could not stop believing in the Man whom I had experienced as my friend and Father and Savior, but I wanted something else as well, something female. I developed a theory that since the body of God was the male Jesus, the feminine part of God must reside in the Divine soul-the creatrix. The "Father" of the trinity was actually the "mother." This was not very convincing even to me, yet it was better than a God who did not include the feminine.
     After college I went immediately to graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During that time I lived on a farm outside of town with two women who embodied the feminine in two very different ways. Sarah was in the same MFA Creative Writing program as I. Besides being an excellent poet, Sarah is a painter and collage artist, as well as a dancer who studied ballet for many years before moving to the more body-friendly modern dance. Amy, my other housemate, loves the earth and animals. She was always out in the garden or walking in the woods. We were all three vegetarians, pacifists, feminists, activists. In that household I lived and witnessed the incredible variety of feminine wisdom and experience. We called each other "sister," and loved and supported and annoyed each other like sisters.
     Our spiritual paths were quite different. It was an hour and a half trip to the nearest New Church congregation, and my contact with the church grew even more sparse during this time, though I still considered myself "New Church." Amy had been raised Catholic and was then attending Quaker meetings. Sarah had been raised Unitarian and was now vaguely "spiritual," making up her own rituals to express her spirituality. She did not believe in a personal God.

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She was astounded that I would espouse myself to Christianity, a religion notorious for persecuting women during the so-called witch trials, that blamed women for sin, that saw women as either "pure"-that is, non-sexual virgins-or whores. On the other hand, I was unable to relate to what seemed like a meaningless, "made up" religion that requires nothing of its adherents.
     During our second year of school, Sarah became involved with a spiritual community called the Crazy Cloud Dharma Center. They sponsored sacred dances once a month, which I attended and loved. It felt so good to worship with my whole body instead of just my head. I became aware of how dead I had felt in my body during my years of passively sitting through worship in the General Church. I considered joining the community, but found myself dissatisfied with the vagueness of their teachings.
     I longed for the beautiful, crystal clarity of the New Church truths, while at the same time I desired the emotional, the mystical and the earthy in my spiritual experience. Were these incompatible? I feared they were.
     The year after I graduated, I worked as a teacher at the New Church school in Oak Arbor, an hour and a half drive from Ann Arbor. I loved my home at the farm so much that I was willing to suffer through the horrible commute rather than move closer. This year was important in many ways, one of which was my, connection with two women in the Oak Arbor Society, who again seemed to embody two aspects of the feminine. One is an artist and, musician, deeply devoted to creativity and use; the other is a massage therapist with a profound perception of how the spiritual plane manifests in the body. These women took me into their homes and hearts. When I was sick, they gave me homeopathic remedies. When I was sad or frustrated, they listened to me and hugged me. They served as examples of the truths of the Writings' lived in a passionate, feminine way. Through their example I began to see that it is possible to be a Swedenborgian while being truly alive as a woman. Between Oak Arbor and Ann Arbor, my life that year was full of the presence of strong, compassionate women of integrity.

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The importance and beauty of the feminine became more clear to me than ever.
     Meanwhile, my theory of the feminine soul of God was failing to satisfy me. It did not fit with any experience or teaching I knew of that something could have a feminine soul and a masculine body. My love for Jesus as God was deepening. His life, His work became more real to me, and increasingly a source of joy. Still, I felt there was something missing. I so badly wanted to have it both ways, to be a Christian with a Divine Mother.
     One day on the radio I heard an interview with two women who had co-authored a book called The Feminine Face of God I was struck by their reverence and humility, and deeply moved by the interview. They had drawn on the experiences and wisdom of all sorts of women from many different religions. Full of hope that my questions could be answered, I rushed to the store and bought the book.
     While the book was interesting and moving in many ways, it did not answer my questions. When I read it, it seemed to be saying that women had to free themselves from the dogmas of churches in order to find their true spirituality. What I was looking for was a way to include a feminine spirituality in the context of New Church doctrines, to expand my experience and understanding of the revealed truth. I lived with the nagging fear that this would never be possible, that I would never feel spiritually at home anywhere.
     Later that year I became involved in the non-denominational Full Bliss and Happiness Chanting Band, and I felt as if I were home. We sang chants to the Divine every Sunday evening for three hours. The joyful devotion the members exhibited in their lives and music was thrilling to me. It felt exactly right. They drummed and chanted to the Lord using many sacred names from many cultures, but primarily in Sanskrit using Hindu names.
     One of the consequences of this is that I learned little bit about Hindu mythology. One thing that fascinated me was that almost every Hindu god or goddess has a consort, often an apotheosized human. The Divine is always paired into male and female.

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The most beloved deity, Krishna, has a human consort, Radha. She is a created being, yet is worshiped as a goddess. In fact, she is Divine, because it is God in her that allows her to perfectly adore Krishna. Krishna reveres her and sings her praises.
     One Sunday evening, the leader of the group introduced a new chant to us. The words were "Radhe Radhe Radhe Govinda Jai," which simply means "Victory to Radha and Govinda (Krishna)." The next lines were sung in English. "Spirit and Nature dancing together. Victory to Spirit and victory to Nature." The music was ecstatic, the image so lovely. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle that had been worrying me for so long fell into place. I was filled with joy, the joy of the bride, for the love in me was responding to a new truth for the first time.
     I realized, all in an instant, that the Writings had contained the truth about the feminine aspect of God all along, had pointed to it, but because of my cultural expectations and indoctrination I had been unable to see it. The church is the bride, the wife, the mother. The church embodies the feminine Divine. In Hinduism, they refer to God operating on creation from outside as Father, or Pita. God operating through creation or in creation is called Mother, or Mata. Some Native American tribes call the earth Mother, as we do, and the sky Father. It all seemed to be pointing to the same beautiful truth.
     This is how I have come to understand the role of the feminine and masculine in the Divine. In the Soul or essence of God is a marriage of Divine Good and Divine Truth, or Divine Love and Wisdom. The first appearance of this is the spiritual sun. We experience a sun in two ways: seeing and feeling. We see the light, and because of the light we see other things, and we feel the heat. The truth is the light of the spiritual sun. We see it in our mind's eye; we understand it. But we can't see the heat, the love, although we would die without it. We feel it. The Lord on earth was and forever is the Word-Divine Good in the form of Divine Truth, just as all men are love in the form of wisdom. Because the form is truth, He is the visible God. We can see Him, and can understand the Word.

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The church is Divine Truth in the form of Good, just as all women are wisdom in the form of love. Because the form is good, we don't experience the Divine feminine by seeing. We experience it by feeling. We don't look to it and worship it outside ourselves. We allow it to operate inside of us.
     There is a lot of evidence that ancient peoples believed in and worshiped a goddess. The archeological evidence suggests that these goddess-worshipping societies were peaceful and egalitarian.
     The Writings tell us that more celestial people think of God as inside themselves. Perhaps the ancient people worshipped God in a female form because they were primarily attuned to God within, rather than God outside of creation.
     I'm not suggesting we start worshipping a goddess. The Lord came to us as Jesus in the flesh, and this is a beautiful gift of love, one that I treasure. I worship Him as the one true God of heaven and earth. What thrills me is that I have found the feminine face of God in the church. I have experienced the Divine feminine in my life.
     So what is the church? A building? A set of rules? A group of men in robes? The word "church" is used in many different ways in the Writings. It can mean an organization; it can mean a single regenerate person or a group of people; or it can mean heaven. It can also mean the Lord's kingdom-everything. We are told that the church is the Divine Natural. The Writings say that "mother," in its highest sense, means Divine truth. Obviously the church that is the Divine feminine is not a building or a minister or a particular person or a particular group. It is the Divine truth taking form in good in creation, especially in human beings who choose freely to allow the Divine truth to operate in their lives.
     Looking back, I realize I have over and over experienced the truth of the church as bride, wife and mother. Every time I have felt the leap of joy when a new truth suddenly becomes my own and illuminates my life with new glory, it is the bride in me. Every time I incorporate such a truth into my life and act from it, it is the wife in me.

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And when I turn to other created beings to share that joy, or love, or insight-when I give away what I have received as a mother receives seed from her husband and gives new life to another being-it is the mother in me. All the wonderful people in my life who help me through hard times, who love me and support me, who listen and advise, are my church, my mother, as the Lord is my Father.
     Perhaps the most beautiful thing of all to me is that the Lord allows us to feel the joy of the bride and the wife and the mother responding to Him as if it is our own. Just as our own will and understanding become conjoined as we regenerate, our souls, our humble lives, are the place where the Divine marriage takes place. It is an unfathomable privilege and pleasure, one we can never be worthy of, and yet we are chosen for it. "And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come! And let her who hears say, Come! And let her who is thirsty come and drink freely of the water of life!"
ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH DEVELOPMENT OFFICE 1996

ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH DEVELOPMENT OFFICE              1996

     Position Available

     The Academy is looking for a full-time Development Officer to be responsible for fund raising, planned giving, alumni relations and related functions. Applicants should have a bachelor's degree in business administration or similar educational background, computer literacy, and work experience in fund raising, marketing or similar activities.
     For further information contact President Daniel W. Goodenough, Box 711, The Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009 USA; phone-(215) 938-2579; fax (215) 938-2616. The deadline for applications is May 20, and all applications will be held in strict confidence.
     The Academy does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, or national or ethnic origin.
Chicago Billboard 1996

Chicago Billboard              1996

     The Chicago Billboard: Next month we will print a report (with photograph) of a project in Chicago advertising Swedenborg.

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BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS 1996

BEAUTY IN SWEDENBORG'S LATIN WRITINGS       Rev. JONATHAN S. ROSE       1996

     THE SIXTH IN A SERIES OF TIDBITS

     Swedenborg, as I have said, started out his publishing life as a poet. This poetic side remained with him right through to the end of the theological period. The Writings throughout show a balance of abstract reasoning and concrete imagery. But earlier on, this imagery mainly takes either a Biblical form or the form of general statements about the afterlife.
     Fairly late in the game, however, two poetic features start to appear more and more frequently: analogies and memorable relations. Both of these are colorful and poetic in nature, and their connection to the doctrinal thread is not always logically obvious. They both use diction and grammatical styles that are ordinarily used in poetry rather than prose.
     Analogies begin to surface in Divine Providence, and its last paragraph seems to be the first memorable relation, there introduced with an apology: "Excuse the addition of what follows to fill up the paper that is left." The next published work is Apocalypse Revealed, which has a memorable relation after every chapter. In cover letters that Swedenborg sent out with the work, he recommends that the memorable relations be read first, a change from the apologetic attitude at the end of Divine Providence. Conjugial Love then begins with a slew of memorable relations, and has an average of two after every chapter. And True Christian Religion has again roughly two memorable relations for every chapter. In addition, True Christian Religion is unique for its inclusion of a great number of analogies, an average of one on every page, included in the doctrinal text itself. Word for word, Scott Frazier and I have estimated that TCR is just over half imagery.
     Sometimes the shift from the doctrinal to the poetic is striking in the Latin. For example, after a detailed list of popular doctrines in Swedenborg's time relating to the angry Father being appeased by the Son, Swedenborg suddenly shifts gears into a beautiful Poetic phrase: "These and similar phrases ring through our churches today, reechoing from the walls like the echoes in woodlands and filling the ears of all listeners" (TCR 132, translated by John Chadwick).

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The image is made doubly concrete and more poetic through the analogy to echoes in woodlands.
     The poetic elements in the Writings lend an attractive and mysterious air. As very few memorable relations announce how their images relate to the chapters they grace, likewise much of TCR's imagery is provocative. For instance, a person who is inwardly a devil but outwardly an angel is said to have an inward state "like a knot of snakes in a pit" (TCR 361, Chadwick); and people in faith separate from charity are no more able to assemble rational thought than someone lying in bed "in the grip of a nightmare" (TCR 367:7, Chadwick).
     For further examples and discussion of poetry in the Writings, see my article entitled "Boundaries, Looks and Style: Overlooked Aspects of Faithful Translation" in Studia Swedenborgiana, vol. 8.4 (May 1994) pp. 48-64. Also see my article entitled "Similes in Emanuel Swedenborg's Vera Christiana Religio (1771)," in Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Hafniensis (Binghamton, New York, 1994) 869-874, or contact me for a copy.
     To the above could be added hundreds of strange and colorful images such as apes riding backwards on horses, a bed of accursed dust, someone wedged in a chimney with the fire still going, a bald man quickly replacing his turban, someone mistaking a scorpion for an injured bird and being fatally smitten, a seagull being sucked underwater by its beak stuck in a whale's back, frantic bats caught in linens left on the line overnight to dry, and statues with hinged mouths through which Satan speaks. Poetic imagery adds greatly to the beauty and sense of mystery in Swedenborg's works.
LAUREL FAMILY CAMPS 1996

LAUREL FAMILY CAMPS              1996

     LAUREL FAMILY CAMPS: The weeks for this year's camps are: July 2 1st-27th, July 2 8th-August 3 rd, August 4th-10th. For registration contact Robert and Susan Andrews, 1720 Bryers Rd., Hatboro, PA 19040.

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AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN 1996

AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN       Rev. Grant R. SCHNARR       1996

     In February the General Church Evangelization Committee hosted an evangelization seminar in Tucson. Close to 120 people attended, including a large group of students from the Academy of the New Church College, representatives from 21 New Church congregations around the world, including Australia and England, and also delegates from the General Church, General Conference, Nova Hierosolyma, The General Convention, the New Church in Australia, and the Swedenborg Foundation, as well as the Academy of the New Church. The seminar, which was coordinated by Theresa McQueen of Glenview with her able staff, consisted of five major presentations and many workshops on a variety of different subjects on evangelization. It was so successful that we hope to have another one within two years, probably in the Midwestern United States. Much could be said about the seminar, but for me one of the highlights was having delegates from every New Church organization working together for a common cause. It is with this in mind that I share the following story and photo.
     In the late afternoon on the second day of the evangelization seminar, Eric Allison of the Convention, David Friend of the British Conference, Ray Silverman of the Lord's New Church, and I of the General Church, took a walk together up into the nearby mountains of Tucson. Each of us is in charge of evangelization for our respective church organization. On the way up the mountain we got to know each other a bit better, learning about each other's families, church work, and hobbies. We found we had much in common besides sharing a common love for spreading the Writings. We noted that this was no doubt an historic meeting of the four of us, and how appropriate it was that we were gathering "at the top of the mountain" to share our love and ideas for missionary work.
     Halfway up the mountain, I asked if the group would stop for a photo.

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I lined up my three fellow travelers beside each other, facing the mountain. Immediately behind them was a cliff which fell into a gigantic ravine. The background was perfect for a photo of the four of us, as long as no one stepped backward, accidentally plunging to his death and putting a damper on the whole affair. My camera had a timer built into it so I could get into the photo if I hurried. I actually placed the camera in a bush in front of us, lined it up so it was facing the right way, and pushed the automatic timer. I then turned and ran back to get in line with my friends at the side of the cliff. I took two quick steps toward the three men, but on the third step my foot caught on a rock and I went flying toward my compatriots (who were lined up like bowling ball pins preparing for a strike). My shoulder plunged into David Friend who then himself was plunged backward toward the abyss below. As he fell backward we reached out and caught him, saving him from quite a fall and a sudden promotion to "higher uses."
     After we brushed ourselves off and David accepted my apology, we laughed at what might have been printed in the paper the next day: "General Church Wipes out British Conference." Needless to say, the photo didn't work out.
     We soon found ourselves at the top of the mountain, sitting on a rock, watching the sunset and sharing our hearts about this work. We shared our hopes, our challenges, our pain and our joy in working for the church in evangelization. We took a few more pictures of the four of us, this time with a little more space behind us. Then we said a prayer for each other, and began to collect ourselves for the journey homeward. Just before beginning that journey we paused, and put our heads together one more time, and in the sunset, on the top of that mountain, we prayed for the growth and health of the church. As we prayed I think we all recognized that we come from different views of the Writings, perspectives on life, and church traditions. We stand in different places, but on the same ground. We work in the same fields and for the same purposes.

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As we stood arm in arm, heads together in prayer, I couldn't help but think that this was an incredibly special moment for the Lord's church on earth, and that the Lord was smiling down on us.
     As the sun disappeared over a distant mountain range in the west, we headed back down our mountain path to the desert below. I knew that soon we would return to our separate homes and continue the work we had set out to do. But I felt a new joy in my heart. Perhaps it wasn't exactly like what Martin Luther King felt when he said, "I have been to the mountain top and have seen the promised land." It wasn't quite that dramatic. But I was thankful to have discovered some very good friends and brothers in a common cause, and for a very brief moment on the top of that mountain, at least for us, the church of the Lord was one.
     "If all had charity, the church would be one, even though they differ in matters of doctrine and informs of worship" (AC 2913).

     [Photo of From left to right: Grant R. Schnarr of the General Church, David Friend of the British Conference, Ray Silverman of the Lord's New Church, and Erik Allison of the General Convention.]

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 4

     Loved Ones Meet

     The Writings for the New Church assure us that loved ones do "indeed meet when they first come into the other life."1 Something in each of us can find reasons to worry that this may not happen for us! This worry is sometimes stoked by the following teachings:
          1 AC 3815
     Those who have passed from the world of spirits into heaven or hell no longer see or know each other unless they have a like disposition from a like love.2
          2 HH 427
     A father does not recognize a son or a daughter, nor a brother a brother or sister, nor even a husband a wife, unless they have been in a similar good.3
          3 AC 3815
     Once people leave behind the outer elements that are not consistent with their true character, they are quite changed. They don't even look the same. Nevertheless, if necessary, angels and evil spirits can return to the world of spirits to meet people who are arriving from the world. They simply reenter a more external state.4 (We can reenter an external state because we lose nothing when we pass on to heaven or hell. What the Lord has "put to sleep" can be taken on again in an instant at His bidding.) Presumably this also applies to spirits who have moved on to their second state. Like angels, they can return to the first state.
          4 See AC 114; SE 1331f; cf. HH 427; AC 1636.
     Nothing should shake our confidence that "all who have been friends and acquaintances in the life of the body, especially wives and husbands, and also brothers and sisters, meet and converse together, whenever they so desire" in the world of spirits after death.5

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If we so desire, it will happen!
          5 HH 427, emphasis added

In fact, even if we don't so desire, it is still likely to happen! We will probably meet with everyone who has significantly impacted our lives. We do need to "come to grips" with our past notions of love and friendship, with our past attitudes and behavior, so far as these affect our present ability to experience our heaven (or hell). Our attitudes and concepts regarding love tend to be inseparably tied to the significant relationships, both good and bad, that we have experienced. Given the profound impact that parents have on children, it is probable that parents and children often meet.6 For the same reason, "virtually everyone" meets his or her spouse after death.7
          6 See CL 406
          7 De Conjugio 50
     The following headings from the chapter "The State of Married Partners after Death" in the book Conjugial Love give us a summary of what typically happens with married partners:

     After death two married partners, for the most part, meet, recognize each other, associate together, and for some time live together. This takes place in the first state, that is, while they are in externals as in the world. But then successively, as they put off their externals and come into their internals, they perceive the nature of the love and inclination which they had for each other, and hence whether they can live together or not.
     If they can live together, they remain married partners; but if they cannot, they separate, sometimes the man from the wife, sometimes the wife from the man, and sometimes each from the other.
     Then a suitable wife is given to the man, and likewise a suitable husband to the woman.
     This [entering a new marriage] is the case-with those who go to heaven; not so with those who go to hell.8
          8 CL 48a, 48b, 49, 50, 53

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     Partners meet in the first state of the world of spirits, the state of externals. There are a number of reasons for this. In the first place, those who are spiritually incompatible would not recognize each other if they were to meet in a state of their interiors. In the second place, husbands would find it difficult to recognize their wives. For even when they meet in the first state, we read, "husbands rarely know their wives, but wives readily know their husbands. The reason is that women have an interior perception of love, and men only an exterior perception."9 Further, in every greeting there is a progression from externals to internals. We meet on the plane of "the weather" and "what we've been doing." And gradually a context is formed from which we can move to deeper exchanges.
          9 CL 48a; cf. SE 4688.

     Getting Reacquainted

     Without a doubt the first state in the world of spirits is full of delights. Not only are friends reunited, but there is the excitement of sharing on the part of the greeter and of discovery on the part of the newcomer. It sounds like a holiday:

Their friends tell [newcomers] about the state of eternal life, and take them about to various places and into various companies, and sometimes into cities, and into gardens and parks. They take them mostly to magnificent places, since such places delight the external [states] in which they are.10     
          10 HH 495

     Once loved ones have met, they can begin to know each other in a clearer way than ever before. Their inner characters "come out." Their essential similarities or dissimilarities become apparent. Those who are compatible experience an indescribable new fullness and depth to their relationships, which promises eternal growth together.
     Though it undoubtedly varies tremendously, the process of meeting, getting reacquainted, sorting through issues, and discovering the real nature of the loves that bind them together must often take time.

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Conjugial Love 48a and 48b (quoted just above) say partners "associate together, and for some time live together"; they perceive the nature of their love and inclination toward each other "successively, as they put off their externals and come into their internals" (emphasis added).
     We should count on the fact that we will have enough time with our earthly partner to explore our love with a sense of freedom. And if we discover that a relationship is not conjugial, we will leave it feeling satisfied that we have seen this for ourselves; we will feel a sense of closure. This will be the case even if we have had several partners on earth; we will live with each in turn.11 (If the reality of going from one to another relationship sounds distasteful, recall that the Lord determines the order of these experiences. And, specifically, recall that He has a wonderful way of selectively suppressing our awareness of things by granting or withholding reflection.12
          11 CL 48a
          12 Cf. AC 320f; SE 1903f, 1939, 2031f, 2107.

     (To be continued)
IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES 1996

IN OUR CONTEMPORARIES              1996

     An excellent quarterly publication is appearing in England. It is called Outlook. Everything about it is high quality: the color photographs, the layout and the printed material. It is published quarterly by the General Conference of the New Church. The editor, G. Roland Smith, seems to make sure that each article is a polished piece, of interest to people outside the New Church as well as in.

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PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY 1996

PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY       VERA GOODENOUGH DYCK       1996

      (This is the first page of a thirty-page paper. While we are making a shortened version for future publication, you may wish to obtain a copy of the full text. Contact Vera G. Dyck, 146 Lilac Lane, Chalfont, PA 18914; phone (215) 996-6673.)

     Introduction: A Plea for Full Dialogue

     A few weeks ago I caught the tail end of a radio interview with a scholar of current religions. She said that there is much less conflict and hostility between different denominations and religions today than there has been in the past. The conflict these days, she said, is not between Presbyterians and Methodists, or Protestants and Catholics, or even Christians and Jews. It is between "conservatives" and "liberals" within nearly every religious organization. It is between A) those who believe that the words of either a sacred text, pope, or council are the exclusive source of religious authority and can be properly understood in only one way ("conservatives"), and B) those who believe that the words of the text, pope or council interface with the experience of individuals striving to find relevance in them, and are therefore interpreted in a variety of legitimate ways ("liberals"). According to her, a "conservative" Catholic is likely to feel more in common with a "conservative" Methodist or Episcopalian than with a "liberal" Catholic, and a "liberal" Jew will feel more in common with a "liberal" Congregationalist than with a "conservative" Jew.
     I was struck by these observations because I have noticed that this conservative and liberal split is present in our organization as well as other religions in the world today. I believe that inside our organization we have a common authority but strikingly different approaches to that authority. More than anything else, the recent discussion in this publication about women in the clergy has driven the fact of this division home to me. And more than anything else has, this issue raises what has become my question about our organization. Can we bridge this division? Does our organizational structure accommodate different approaches to the same religious authority?

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LUCK 1996

LUCK       Editor       1996

     One of the best loved passages in Arcana Coelestia is the one about care for the morrow, n. 8478. At the end of this passage we are told about people who are scarcely willing to allow any mention of "providence." "Instead they put every single thing down to prudence; and what they do not put down to prudence they put down to fortune or to chance. Some put it down to fate, which they do not ascribe to the Divine but to natural forces. They call those people simple who do not attribute all things to themselves or to natural forces."
     Thinking from our own "natural man," what do we tend to think makes things happen? Well, there are those natural forces spoken of above which we might call in a word "nature." There is nature, and then there is our own wit, our own cleverness. We could sum that up in the word "prudence."
     We think sometimes from our natural man, and we sometimes talk that way. "Who in his reasoning, when he speaks from the natural or external man, does not speak in favor of one's own prudence and in favor of nature? And who in his reasoning, when he speaks from the spiritual or internal man, does not speak in favor of the Divine providence and of God?" (DP 213)
     Note the context of the above saying. It immediately follows the famous passage about fortune in trifling games. It is the final paragraph of a chapter in Divine Providence about prudence. The way it ends is so striking. "But to the natural man I say, Pray, write two books, one in favor of one's own prudence, the other in favor of nature, and fill them with arguments plausible, probable, likely and in your judgment valid; and then give them into the hand of any angel; and I know that the angel will write underneath these few words, 'They are all appearances and fallacies.'" End of chapter!

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AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AND SWEDENBORG 1996

AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AND SWEDENBORG       Editor       1996

     The Ideas in Uncle Tom's Cabin

     Note the following quotation from the NWSA Journal (National Women's Studies Association) Fall, 1995.
     Swedenborg's influence on nineteenth-century ideas was extraordinary. It is well known that he provided major Romantic and Transcendentalist concepts. Not so well known is the enormous impact he had on nineteenth-century American women writers.
     What attracted these women writers? Josephine Donovan offers an answer:
     I theorize that the main attraction of Swedenborgianism for these women was that it provided a feminized theological alternative to Calvinism . . . . Swedenborgianism was a cheerful, optimistic creed that emphasized the importance of love, friendship, and good works as means to salvation . . . .
     The article from which we are quoting is entitled "A Source for Stowe's Ideas on Race in Uncle Tom 's Cabin." Ms. Donovan writes, "The source of Stowe's vision of a utopian Christian Africa appears to have been Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg."
     Ms. Donovan refers to statements in the Spiritual Diary about revelation in Africa, and in a footnote she writes, "J. Durban Odhner, a contemporary Swedenborgian, believes the modern Ituri Pygmies of Zaire are the tribe Swedenborg described."
     Among the writers noted as influenced by Swedenborg are Lydia Child, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Sarah Orne Jewett.

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UNPUBLISHED WORKS 1996

UNPUBLISHED WORKS       Warren David       1996

Dear Editor:
     I have just read the latest installment of "The Word of God" by Rt. Rev. Peter Buss. I appreciate it greatly. May I be so bold as to suggest a couple of thoughts I have had on the status of the unpublished writings?
     While reading Apocalypse Explained I was struck by the occurrence in some places of direct address to the reader, which is an indirect indication of intention to publish.
     I have thought for some time that Swedenborg's mission as servant of the Lord was to record what he heard and saw. The Lord is actually in charge of the publication-the making public-of the truths of the second coming. In the beginning it was necessary that Swedenborg see the revelation through to the printed volume stage, but later the Lord allowed others to put the books into printed form while Swedenborg concentrated his effort on continued recording, which was his primary use.
     After Swedenborg's death some of his manuscripts were lost by people that did not understand their value, but the Lord by that time had provided enough dedicated believers to continue the work of publishing, and today we are blessed with the posthumous works. The Lord has also provided translators who have helped publication by making the truth available in many languages, and has provided institutions dedicated to printing and distributing books.
     Our missionary efforts today are still part of the Lord's work of publishing the revelations given to us. The Lord does not need our approval of the way He reveals Himself; He only asks for our participation. If the Lord wished to have revelations given the stamp of approval that printing appears to give, He would have provided printing for Moses and the prophets, and would have provided Swedenborg with a computer.

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     For my part I thank the Lord for coming again, and completely trust His management of the continuing publishing effort.
     Warren David,
          Bryn Athyn, PA
ELDERGARTEN 1996

ELDERGARTEN       Fred and Clare Hasen       1996

Dear Editor:
     With regard to our report on Eldergarten in the April issue of New Church Life, your shortened version left the "meat" out of many of the parts of the report. For example:
     1.      Rev. Messrs. Dan Heinrichs and Fred Schnarr both prepared stimulating lectures and were not mentioned.
     2.      Rev. Jim Cooper's statement that all potential students attend the New Church school in the Washington Society.
     3.      Perhaps in Providence several brief discussions took place as to our concern and disappointment with the direction which the General Church has taken. The compromises granted because of the requests by the younger generations have aroused fears that the General Church is on a course similar to one taken by other Christian churches which have lost their distinctiveness and influence. Some frank and basic opinions were expressed, not in a negative way but in a positive manner, generated by a genuine love for the General Church and in an atmosphere of charity.
     Such discussions did not in any way detract from the enjoyment of the Eldergarten. In fact, it added to the usefulness of such a gathering. It was quite obvious that this issue was on the minds of most of us, and the fact that it came out in the open was a relief, as the concerns were growing within us for a considerable period of time.
     4.      We feel most of us got more out of this week than we would have at any assembly. This group of people is still a large part of the General Church, and cherish it as a means of being called by the Lord into His New Church.

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What other church activity is so popular that it cannot accommodate all those who wish to participate?
          Fred and Clare Hasen,
          Kitchener, Ont., Canada
1996 COLLEGE SUMMER SCHOOL 1996

1996 COLLEGE SUMMER SCHOOL              1996

     June 10-28, 1996

     Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

     The Theological School and the College of the Academy of the New Church announce a wonderful and exciting sequel to the 1996 Assembly of the General Church: three-credit courses in Arcana Study, Patterns of Russian Spiritual Growth, Teaching the Multi-grade Classroom and Counseling Psychology, plus a medley of short courses in religion, science, literature, communication, history, and meditation. Please register as soon as possible to help insure that the course you want will have adequate enrollment.
     Undergraduate or graduate credit available. Auditors welcome.
     Tuition for a three-credit course will be $423.00 (auditors $150.00).
Short courses are $50.00 each.
     Further information and registration forms available from:
     Robert D. Merrell
P.O. Box 576
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009
Phone: (215) 947-4123

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MAPLE LEAF ACADEMY 1996

MAPLE LEAF ACADEMY              1996

     Friday, June 21st - Friday, June 28th, 1996

     The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.
     Maple is a week-long camp for teenagers held at Caribou Lodge in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. This year's classes, activities, and worship services will be designed around the theme "Journeys." The Maple staff consists of New Church ministers and volunteers, headed by Camp Director Rev. Michael Cowley. The camp is sponsored by the General Church in Canada. Anyone in high school having completed at least grade nine is eligible.
     For information or a registration form, write or call: Maple Leaf Academy, do Sue Bellinger, 110 Chapel Hill Drive, RR #2, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 3W5; phone (519) 748-5386.

     [Photo of Maple Leaf Academy]

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MY MAPLE EXPERIENCE 1996

MY MAPLE EXPERIENCE       JEN KUHL       1996

     "Religion is of life, and the life of religion is to do good." It seems so simple and obvious, but each year that I attended Maple this truth became successively clearer in my mind. Religion is not merely a weekly event. It is a daily renewal and commitment to live a good life. The activities at Maple are aimed at bringing religion into everyday life. The day begins and ends with worship, and in between there are sessions led by ministers, outdoor games and activities, and time to just be with friends. Another important thing I have learned at Maple is the value of healthy communication. Along with the fact that there are sessions for learning about healthy communication, I have noticed that people are eager to immediately put these concepts into action in their friendships. There is an atmosphere of safety and peacefulness which allows for people to build strong relationships and to look at their lives in a new and refreshing perspective.
     I attended Maple three times in high school, and this June I will be a staff member for the second time. By helping to plan for this year's camp I have been able to see that Maple truly provides a place that supports the spiritual growth of teenagers in the New Church. With the theme of "Journeys" we will explore some of the stories in the Word that involve journeys and relate them to our own spiritual journeys. There is great power in hearing about another person's life and sharing some of your own experiences. Maple is a chance for the campers to reflect on where they have been, where they are, and where they are going. As staff, our hope is to provide a space of freedom in which the love from the Lord can flow into the hearts and minds of the campers.
     Maple continues to be a spiritually powerful experience for those who attend. Here are some comments from last year's campers.

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     "There was a sense of security which I have almost never experienced before. My life seemed much more peaceful than usual."
     "Maple was a religious camp tempered with the right amount of freedom and fun. I loved it and plan to be back next year."
     "Worship was really powerful."
     "I love where the camp is situated. I think that it is wonderful to be near to nature. I think if you're going to have a summer camp, it has to be near nature."
     "Classes were good and informative."
     "It was cool to be with a bunch of people who really wanted to learn."
     "I found the experience very enlightening and helpful. I was starting to stray away from the Lord in the last six months, and this camp helped me become closer to Him again."
     "I learned a lot about myself."
ASSEMBLY 1996

ASSEMBLY              1996

     -      Imagine: Church members from every continent gathered together in one place for five days of worship and celebration.
     -      Imagine: Stimulating speakers, interactive mini-sessions, group discussions, and a variety of worship services.
     -      Imagine: Open houses, band parties, old-fashioned hoedowns, pageants, theatrical presentations, sports, and a festival of music.
     -      Imagine: Your spirits soar at evenings at the Bryn Athyn cathedral, bathed in soft light and adorned by great music.

     Don't just imagine! All this and more awaits you at the 32nd General Assembly in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, June 5-9. Register now and take part!

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Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue       Editor       1996




     Announcements





Vol. CXVI          June, 1996               No. 6
New Church Life


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     Well, the assembly is just around the corner. See the note on page 238, and if you are registered, congratulations!
     "If you are as human as I am, you may remember a time when you had such a distaste for something or somebody . . . " In his sermon Rev. Goran Appelgren reminds us of the self-pity of Jonah. The theme of reaching out fits well with the presentation by Rev. Grant Schnarr in this issue. We have a further writeup on the Tucson evangelization event by Teresa McQueen, which we hope to publish in the June issue.
     The book by Peter Rhodes called Aim has had a brisk circulation, as have tapes of some of his lectures. One such lecture has been typed out from a tape, and most of it appears in this issue.
     Among the summer camps in the General Church, the biggest is still the Laurel Family Camp, which is actually three camps in a row. The theme this summer is "Belonging." A note from the organizers says, "We will look at how we belong to ourselves, each other, the world-wide community, and the Lord." For the dates and registration information see page 222.
In this month's installment of Grant Odhner's in-depth study the subject is the meeting of loved ones. Next month the subject will be "Parting."
     Next month we will speak of the Angel Festival Atlanta '96, which is being organized by Candace Frazee for July 2nd-6th.
BOOKSEARCH 1996

BOOKSEARCH              1996

     Wanted: For a project to republish John Clowes' commentaries on the four Gospels, the following or preferably more recent editions of: Matthew, 4th edition (1868, London); Mark, 2nd edition (1983, Australia); Luke, 2nd edition (1852, London); John, 3rd edition (1853, London). Your help would be greatly appreciated. Please call the Swedenborg Association at (215) 938-7664.

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SOUL-BODY INTERACTION IN HUMAN CONCEPTION AND DEVELOPMENT: 1996

SOUL-BODY INTERACTION IN HUMAN CONCEPTION AND DEVELOPMENT:       Dr. REUBEN P. BELL       1996

     The Clothing of the Inmost in the Image of Heaven

Introduction

     The doctrines of the New Church deal at some length with practical explanations for mystical phenomena. This is not to say that they claim to offer the last word on these matters, but only that they offer the prospect that these are understandable, that they are within the realm of human reason, and are therefore appropriate to rational investigation. This is a principal element of the New Christian Era. No longer must we wait until the "sweet by and by" to "enter with the understanding into the mysteries of faith."
     One such mystical phenomenon is the series of events that establishes the soul-body relationship in humans. We are told that the soul and body are ordered in the human as they were in the Lord Himself in the world (see AC 10125; AE 309), and the Writings tell us much about the precise functional relationship of these two human essentials. So by paying close attention to these teachings we can aspire to better understand our own human condition with respect to our souls and our bodies, and the nature of the Lord as well. People have sought the truth in this matter since the earliest times, and a few have seen some clear aspects of it. But in this era we have been given more light. To know the Lord better is to serve Him more perfectly. We have now been given this opportunity.

Philosophical Prescience

     Emanuel Swedenborg was a product of the Age of Reason, where ancient philosophical deductions were being commingled with new, empirical ideas. In his mind these traditions intersected, but to these was added a third, most singular source of inspiration: the revelation of spiritual truths to bring these others into focus.

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It is not surprising then to find certain prescient elements of the soul-body interaction of the Writings in the philosophers of Swedenborg's experience. Their presence d need not be problematic, subsumed as they are within the transcendent context of Swedenborg's revelation.          
     Two essential principles of the soul are: 1) its propagative and formative role in the weaving of the body-its ability to provide the human form for the material substance of the natural body, and 2) its identity as the male contribution at conception (see AC 1815, TCR 103). These principles are stated and restated in the Writings as features basic to the soul-body interaction. They do not appear de novo in the Writings, however, but may be found in philosophical ideas of the Greeks and in all those who borrowed from them, extending into Swedenborg's era. Swedenborg's classical education most certainly would have immersed him in this tradition.
     Aristotle speaks for this tradition in calling the semen "the active, productive factor; while the residue of fluid in the female is that which is acted upon and receives a form."

Does the semen become an actual part of the embryo in the sense that it mingles with the material supplied by the female, or does it contribute nothing of a material sort but only its power (dynamis) and motion (kin?is)? The latter alternative seems to be the right one, supported by reasoning and by factual experience alike.1
     1 Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, Book I, Chapters 21-22, in Smith, J. A., and Ross, W.D., ed., The Works of Aristotle, Volume V, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1912. (See also Book II, Chapter 20:4.)


     This idea of the soul as organizer of form rests on the Platonic definition of soul as immortal (and by inference also Divine) because it is always in motion. It is "that which moves itself"2 and is therefore more motion than matter.

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This is the entity that survives death because it does not "mingle with the material," as stated above. To summarize the Greek position on the activity of the soul, Aristotle says,
     2 Plato, Phaedrus, 245c, in Taylor, A.E., Plato, the Man and His Work, Meridian Books, World Publishing Company, New York, 1963, p. 806

It seems evident, then, that nothing need really pass out of the male in the process of generation; or at any rate that what passes out contributes to the embryo not as a physical constituent but as that which imparts motion (kin?sis) and form (eidos), analogously to the way in which a cure is effected by the medical art.3
          3 Aristotle, op. cit.

     From the Greeks, then, comes a soul that is active (pure motion itself), imparts form to the material substance of the body, and survives the body after death. Its "substance" is not mingled with the body's "matter," and although intimately involved with the body, is always separate from it as a function of its essential composition. We do not see this idea change much up to Swedenborg's day, although certain mystical philosophers would expand and enhance this view along the way.
     One such mystic was Paracelsus, whose work predated Swedenborg by only two hundred years or so. His writings echo the operative soul of Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, but they embellish this with a notion of a natural basis for the spiritual body's form. In describing the events of conception and the development which follows, Paracelsus tells us that

. . .the son is created from the limbus-the father-but he is shaped, built, and endowed with his complexions in the matrix [the mother] . . . just as the first man was created in the macrocosm, the Great World.4
     4Paracelsus, Die drei Biicher des Opus Paramirum, in Jacobi, Jolande, ed., Paracelsus, Selected Writings, Bollingen Series XXVIII, Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 23

     This formative agent, called here the limbus, is later explained as "the primordial matter which contains all creatures in germ, just as a man is contained in the limbus of his parents."5

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Less well-defined than the limbus to emerge in the Writings, here nonetheless is the same idea in germ-a natural basis for the spiritual body's form.
          5 Ibid.
          
     The notions, then, of an immaterial male organizing force forming the body in the (material) matrix of the female womb, and of some terrestrial abstraction linking the spiritual body with the natural, were not altogether new ideas in Swedenborg's day. But neither were they clearly defined, universally accepted truths nor well-established facts, especially when measured against the skeptical empirical standards of the Age of Reason. What we find in Swedenborg's revelation is not only a much clearer image of the relationship of soul to body and the role of the spiritual body's limbus, but also the certitude of having these things explained from experience and not the a priori reasoning of the philosophers who had gone before. Swedenborg learned of these and other things from his experiences in the spiritual world and was instructed by the Lord Himself in their significance (see AC 5, 1634; HH 1; AE 1183; SS 13). Thus was the new era begun in which we are free to learn ever more concerning the nature of the soul-body interaction. What follows is a discussion of what Swedenborg learned of these things, as revealed in the Writings for the New Church.

Swedenborg's Soul-Body System Generally Considered

     Having had a cursory look at the philosophical background from which Swedenborg emerged, we now discuss his own findings on the soul and its operation in the formation of the embryo. Although our goal is to carefully examine his theological Writings in this respect, we must first consider the ideas he brought with him into his revelatory period. The disparity between the ideas of these two periods of Swedenborg's life is often overstated; many do not consider his "pre-theological" ideas worthy of the attention of one who claims the Writings as revelation.

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But the roots of several principal doctrines can nonetheless be found in the pre-theological corpus, some in remarkably finished form. And in order to properly consider the theological truths of the Writings, we must reconcile these ideological roots.6 Revelation is truth revealed, and we find it revealed in all manner of sources, from the obscure to the sublime.
     6 Pell, Reuben P., A Source Analysis of Emanuel Swedenborg's Philosophical and Theological Ideas, unpublished manuscript. This is a lengthy discussion of the problem of pre-theological origins for some of Swedenborg's major theological doctrines.
     
     Swedenborg the scientist had a remarkably clear understanding of the anatomy and histology of the male and female generative organs. By induction,7 he was able to come fairly close to understanding their physiology as well. From study and induction, then, he formulated an idea of how the soul or "first substance" was transported from its origin in the "cortical glands" of the cerebral cortex through "simple fibers" into "nervous fibers," then blood vessels, and delivered finally to the seminiferous tubules of the testes, where this "first substance" was packaged into animated "little eels." These he believed would ultimately separate into a humor of "true seminal globules," to be delivered via the semen to the ovary and its waiting ovule where conception could occur.8 Most importantly, this soul, which is substantial and possesses form, can originate only in the male, which alone has the anatomical machinery to accomplish this feat. Concerning the increase of the fetus after the soul has done its work of unition, "All the rest is from the mother. "9
     7 Induction. Swedenborg's term for his own method of inductive reasoning in which he would synthesize known facts into new levels of knowledge about a particular system.
     8(Swedenborg, Emanuel, The Animal Kingdom, Parts IV and V: The Organs of Generation and the Formation of the Foetus, Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1955, nn. 163-176.
     9 Ibid., nn. 306, 358

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     In another of his scientific works, Swedenborg details the formative power of the soul in ordering the development of the fetus from a "first living point."10 But despite his successes at formulating a mechanism for the origin and disposition of the soul at conception and at speculating on the soul's formative ability in development, the process by which it is installed in the embryo-the key to soul-body association-continued to elude him. Knowledge of whether this is "infused into the rudiment from the first moment of conception or whether it is put in afterwards-that is to say, whether it comes by ingrafting or by inspiration"11-would have to wait, we are told. This is always promised in works yet to come, but it never was to come to Swedenborg the scientist. The key was to await a spiritual vision of the causes of all these things, and when it did come, it was in the service of a radically new agenda.
     10 Swedenborg, Emanuel, The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, 2nd Ed., Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1955, Chapter III, Part I, Volume I: On the Formation of the Chick in the Egg, nn. 253-254
     11 Op. cit., Swedenborg, Generation, n. 354

The Soul-Body System from the Light of Revelation

1. A New Look at the Soul

     It was only after Swedenborg had seen into the spiritual world, had conversed with spirits and angels, and had finally come to appreciate the human form in the infinitely complex relationships of angels in community that he was able to describe the operation of the soul in the body in a new and illuminated way. It is only to be expected that this ability did not appear overnight from a single vision of universal enlightenment. What we find in the Writings are pieces of this great puzzle falling into place over time from various contexts and various spiritual sources. By the careful collection and assembly of these pieces (by our own process of induction), a new level of understanding of the soul-body system can be ours. Such is the potential of the New Revelation, allowing us as it does to enter "into the mysteries of the Word, which has been heretofore shut up; for the particular truths therein are so many mirrors of the Lord" (TCR 508:6).

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2. The Soul Defined

     Swedenborg's definition of the soul is not an easy thing to pin down, evolving as it did from his earliest scientific works to the maturity and illuminated clarity of the theological Writings. But we can safely say that the soul is the inmost-that highest and first receptacle of the Lord in man (see SD 2756; AC 2576, 2973, 9656, 9666; AE 313:4, Inv 13, 48). It is well above our consciousness, and is called a "higher spiritual substance" as compared to the "lower spiritual substance" of the mind (see ISB 8, HH 39). It is therefore substantial but not material (see DLW 257; Lord 35). The soul is the organic essence or spirit of the body which cannot die, and does not live of itself but receives life from the Lord (see AC 1594, 1999, 10725; CL 315). It is not the Divine but that which receives the Divine (see Word 6; D. Wis. II; ISB 8, 11), a receptacle of the Lord's life (see AC 3938).
     The soul is also characterized by its necessary association with a natural component which defines it and actualizes it even in its exclusively spiritual existence after death. This natural component, the limbus, is drawn from "the finest things of nature" to provide ultimation for the spiritual body (see DLW 257, 388; TCR 103).

3. Soul from the Father, Body from the Mother

     From antiquity, one of the most consistent teachings concerning the soul has been its origin in the male seed. Coupled with this is the belief that the body is derived from the mother. The Writings are consistent with these beliefs, and they offer an impressive number of references to underscore them. In well over fifty passages from many different contexts we are told that the soul originates from the inmost of the father (see AC 2005, 6716; CL 220), and is gathered and refined in his seed (see AC 5056) for unition with the ovum, where it is "clothed with a little bodily form" (AC 1815).

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The soul, therefore, is from the father's internal spiritual (see TCR 103), while the body, from the mother's external as existere, weaves the covering or "clothing" for this esse of life (AC 5041, 10125, 10738; NJHD 287). It is the womb that adds the material substance to contain and form the spiritual substance of the soul (see TCR 92, 103; CL 33; Ath 215). The soul is clearly the spirit in operation as a propagative force (see CL 183), while the womb supplies the natural materials and the sort of inertia these afford to engage this force in a reciprocal way (see Can. 22, 23). Thus are the soul and body one from the very beginning at conception. They are never commingled, but always intimately associated in the spiritual and physical unity of the human being (see Ath. 30:6).

4. Force and Form

     The next consideration is of the propagative force of the soul, documented above, with respect to its ability to weave the body into its intrinsically human form. To simply know this (as the ancients assumed it) is of little use unless we can form some idea of the mechanism by which it occurs. Once again, the Writings offer us some rational light on this important subject.
     First, we are told that contained in the seed is the propagation of the father, "his soul, in perfect human form" (CL 183). This first substance in germ is the form of all things of love and wisdom from God, "the inmost form of all forms of the entire body" (ibid.). And as the more external manifestation takes both essence and form from these inmosts, its natural shape or figure is analogous to them. Importantly, we must never overlook the fact that the soul "is not life, but the nearest receptacle of life from God," His dwelling-place (CL 315).
     It is essential to emphasize here that form in this context does not imply any extended three-dimensional construct, but suggests in an expanded sense that which gives something its nature or intrinsic character.

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We must learn to regard form thus, in order to escape the limitations of a definition tied to extension, for "the spirit has nothing in common with space" (TCR 103; CL 220). The soul's form is a reflection of the qualities and attributes that compose it, and these are in the human form.
     The propagative force which drives the soul to direct the formation of a body from the material substance of the womb is from the Lord the Creator. It is in fact a "continuation of creation; for creation cannot be from any other source than from Divine love, by Divine wisdom, in Divine use" (CL 183). This and all propagations are thus born of use, because love and wisdom without use are but ideas of abstract thought, which also after some tarrying pass away as the winds. But in use the two are brought together and make a one which is called real. Love cannot rest unless it is doing, for love is the active itself of life; nor can wisdom exist and subsist except from love and with it while it is doing; and doing is use (ibid.).
     So the propagation of the father's soul to his son or daughter in the material substance of the mother's womb is not new life but the continuation of life, flowing into a new body and a new soul in potential. The energy to drive it is the continuous force of creation, as the uses of love and wisdom descending inwardly into the body (see ibid.).

5. The New Soul Is Not Just a Part of the Parent Soul

     It is important to make a statement here about the soul of the offspring with respect to the father's original contribution to it. It is not enough to say that the soul is from the father; this does nothing to explain the nature of this "graft or offshoot" as it goes forth to its ultimation in the material substance of the womb. Nor does it imply any mechanism preventing the offspring from actually being the father as a simple extension or clone. The problem of individuation must be addressed if we are to fully appreciate the propagation of a new person from another.

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     It is clearly stated that this "graft or offshoot" of the father's soul is not a part of the father's soul coming to reside in the offspring (see CL 220). The implications of such a situation are both obvious and devastating, not only to the individuation of a single person, but for the whole human race as well. For if it is a part of the father, the offspring is necessarily an extension of him-essentially is himself, as mentioned above. To the individual this is tantamount to spiritual cloning; to the human race it is the pantheistic connection of Creator to Himself. Neither of these is consistent with what the New Church teaches concerning the most important of all the human attributes: our spiritual freedom.     
     The offshoot is not a part of the father's soul. It is his soul "in completeness, its form and potency transferred whole into the seed" (ibid.). This spells trouble unless we are free of the constraints of three-dimensional thinking, as discussed above. Note well that what is transferred whole is the form and potency of the father's soul-attributes substantial but beyond natural time and space. What comes across at conception is nothing material, nothing of the formed substance of the father's soul, for this belongs to him and describes his individuation. What we find in the seed that is the rudiment of a new soul is not the father, but "a distinct receptacle of life from which the father has withdrawn" (TCR 110:3, emphasis added). This is an essential distinction. This receptacle has in it a new soul in potential, and a human being in form, but is a very important discrete degree away-not yet ultimated in the material substance of the natural world. This will require the fabric of the mother's womb, and the external potency and form she brings to it as well. It is here that the soul weaves the body, but only after the father has withdrawn to allow this process to go forward in the order of creation.12

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It is at this point that potency and form are manifested in three dimensions and a new soul emerges, a human being in form. The work of this emergence is performed by the father's soul, but the maternal matter that responds gives it identity in space and time.
     12 There are fascinating parallels between this principle and the actual molecular events at fertilization, where the sperm cell sheds all its components upon entering the ovum, except the contents of its nucleus and a single tiny centriole.

6. The Problem of Hereditary Evil

     Having just described the mechanism by which a new soul can be a graft or offshoot of the father yet not actually be that father, we are at once confronted by another, related question. How, if there is such a necessary interval between the two, do the evils confirmed in the father make their way into the offspring as the hereditary evils common to all people at birth? Again, the problem of connection-at-a-distance must be addressed. The solution is related to the greater problem discussed above. We find that in its descent in the body, while the soul of the father "is becoming seed, it is covered over by such things as are of his natural love. From this springs hereditary evil" (CL 245). How is this imparted to the offspring without the pantheistic connection to the father discussed above? Elsewhere in the Writings we find an approach to this problem when we read:

No one ever suffers punishment in the other life on account of hereditary evil, because it is not his, and therefore he is not to blame for being of such a nature; but everyone suffers on account of the actual evil which is his own, and consequently for so much of the hereditary evil as he has appropriated to himself by actual life (AC 2308, cf. AC 966).

     The answer is not complicated: Hereditary evils are the father's in fullness, whereas they are in the seed only in potential.

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Just like the soul itself, as discussed above, hereditary evil is imparted to the offspring as the form and potency of the evils of the father. Its final form, however, is determined in the offspring only as it is ultimated-confirmed by appropriation into the person's life. Again we find a discrete degree of separation between that which is potential and that which is actual. And again we see the mechanism at work whereby we are left in freedom.

Conclusion

     The soul-body problem is a challenging topic for theological investigation. There are Christians who would call the problem insoluble and resign as useless (or even wicked) all efforts to this end. But in this New Christian Era we are blessed with a new Spirit of Truth working through the revelation of Emanuel Swedenborg in the Writings for the New Church. In these Writings we are given the tools, through his spiritual experience, to begin the work of solving major problems such as these.
     Why is this important? As stared at the beginning of this paper, to know the Lord better is to serve Him more perfectly. Our salvation is based on knowing the Lord. The opportunity to serve Him better is ours through the New Church and for all who seek more light. To better understand the relationship of life, soul, and body is to better understand the nature of the Lord Himself as well, because we know that He operates in a corresponding manner, as being (esse), becoming (fieri), and standing forth (existere) (see TCR 210).
     From antiquity it was believed that the soul of the offspring was imparted from the father, and the body added from the substance of the mother. Swedenborg's revelation is in general harmony with this belief, and this gives us cause to question the nature of revelation itself. But what we have in the Writings is truth confirmed from a man's experience in the spiritual world and systematically recorded for us to use.

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That certain ancient truths could have been similarly illuminated is not an impossibility, and in fact we are told that those of the Most Ancient Church enjoyed spiritual enlightenment we can only imagine. Truth seems to be where you find it.
     A rationale for the initial operation of the spiritual soul in the natural body of the mother has been proposed, based on a systematic reading of many references in the Writings concerning this interaction. A general doctrine emerges from this reading, telling us that the soul comes to the new person at conception in steps, in the order of creation, driven by the energy of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom descending. This new soul is from the father, but "in potency and form," not to take on an identity of its own until it has been ultimated-finited-and woven into the fabric of the material substances of the earth. This is the work of the womb, where the good of truth emerges in use, and the mother joins the father in the procreation of a heaven from the human race.

     BIBLIOGRAPHY

     Bell, Reuben P., A Source Analysis of Emanuel Swedenborg's Philosophical and Theological      Ideas, unpublished manuscript, Academy of the New Church College, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1995
Jacobi, Jolande, ed., Paracelsus, Selected Writings, Bollingen Series XXVIII, Princeton University Press, 1979
Smith, J.A., and Ross, W.D., ed., The Works of Aristotle, Volume V, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1912
Swedenborg, Emanuel, The Animal Kingdom, Parts IV and V: The Organs of Generation and the      Formation of the Foetus, Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1955
Swedenborg, Emanuel, The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, 2nd Ed., Swedenborg Scientific      Association, Bryn Athyn, PA, 1955
Taylor, A.E., Plato, the Man and His Work, Meridian Books, World Publishing Company, New York, 1963

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LIFE ON THE MOON 1996

LIFE ON THE MOON       Rev. ALFRED ACTON       1996

     Is there life on the moon? Could the Writings ever be wrong? How do New Church people who believe that religion must make sense resolve problems arising when science and revelation clash?
     As we know, Swedenborg reports seeing spirits from the moon. His sight of these spirits included about a five-minute span in his thirty years of experience in the other world. On the other hand, we have been to the moon and seen no observable life there. What is more, our best account from science is that there is no atmosphere on the moon, no water on the moon, no food on the moon, and so no life as we know it on the moon.
     Are these two statements, one from revelation and one from science, in contradiction? First note that Swedenborg himself, in the Principia, accepts the reality of life on other planets. Presumably he means the moon as well. But such life will necessarily vary as to form. The atmospheres around a planet which will necessarily be different on different planets will cause this variety. He concludes, "If, however, in these [other] earths we could suppose the existence of an animal kingdom of the same kind as our own, then we must also suppose it subject to the same contingencies, changes, modes and series, through which it must pass to arrive at the same perfection; but since we cannot presume that, in these respects, all other worlds are absolutely similar to our own, so we cannot presume them to be inhabited by a precisely similar race of living creatures" (Principia, vol. II, chapter III, "On the Diversities of Worlds," introductory remarks). In other words, Swedenborg never expected life as we know it to exist on any planet beyond our own, and this because of the nature of the atmospheres surrounding the planet.
     Swedenborg was also well aware that there was no atmosphere like ours on the moon. He knew there was no water or food as we know it there.

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Instead he postulates some other kind of atmosphere which would be distinct from the kinds of atmospheres we know, and so some very different life form. In the Spiritual Diary 1670, for example, Swedenborg reports that life on another moon is similar to life on our moon. These spirits have body forms which are so ethereal that they do not wish it to be said that they have a body. Swedenborg adds, "But whether they may not have been from one of the satellites of Jupiter, which, like [our] moon, are surrounded by a different kind of atmosphere, and thus that these spirits are a different kind of creatures in such a little world, and possessed of another kind of bodies, I am not sure, though they intimated to me something of the kind; for as I could not have an idea of any sort of men except such as live on earths surrounded by atmospheres, therefore, although ignorant of the positive fact, yet I would not decidedly reject the supposition, for corporeal forms are governed entirely by the state of the atmospheres, and many other things pertaining to the earths in which they dwell."
     At present both science and revelation say there is no life as we know it on the moon. In other words, both science and revelation agree in this fundamental observation. The difference is that revelation says that life other than life as we know it does exist there.
     Extra-terrestrial life, in the other world, appeared to Swedenborg as quite similar to life on our planet. A man from the moon was seen by Swedenborg wearing a little cap, a fairly distinctive ordinary Swedish type cap called a moppa. Another man from a distant planet in the starry heavens was seen wearing a felt cap. Sheep were seen on Jupiter, etc. Does such a vision necessarily imply felt or ordinary Swedish caps in outer space? I don't think so. When considering things seen in the other world we must use the rules of sight that apply there. We know that things are seen in that world as though they were made of material substance because that is the way things appear.

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Here on earth we develop an alphabet of time and space which allows us to see the things in the other world in a time-space contiguum. So, if this principle applies to extra-terrestrial life, the people seen by Swedenborg need not look the least bit like their physical frame as it appears on their own planet. "Little green men" could appear as earth people to us in the spiritual world. In fact, Swedenborg once saw people who looked like apes, but learned that when they lived on earth they did not look at all like apes. They were people living on islands with no religion (see SS 116).
     It is probable that what Swedenborg saw when viewing moon people was a correspondential representation of the loves which moon spirits had made their own in the contiguum of our time-space world. In other words, we don't need to look for felt caps or sheep in outer space, or people in bodies similar to our own, albeit rumbling from the abdomen, drinking water and eating food.
     Do science and revelation clash?
     As far as I can see, at least on the subject of moon people, there is no conflict between what the Writings say and what science says. Nor should there be such conflict. Both the evidence of our senses and the evidence of revelation must in some way agree. If they seem to disagree, several possibilities exist. Either our understanding of revelation is wrong, or our understanding of the scientific data is wrong, or our understanding of both is wrong. The data itself is not wrong. Only our interpretation of it can err. As New Church people we accept two foundations of truth: the physical world which God created and revelation which God authored (see SD 5709). (In this context I refer you to an article published in the New Philosophy entitled "Paradigms of Revelation." The article outlines various ways to look at the "facts" of revelation.)
     Should we then try to resolve the issue concerning life on the moon? If we do, I believe we must recognize that our data is very incomplete. Also if we make the effort, are we really trying to apologize for revelation, somehow believing that we must defend the Lord rather than the reverse?

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For my part, I prefer not to accept any particular theory which tries to resolve this issue both because of the incompleteness of our data and because of my own particular paradigm.
     However, it is interesting to note the different theories that have been put forth by New Church people at different times. I have collected ten such theories and I will list and discuss each in brief. Perhaps in reading them you may find one that rings true, but as I said, personally I prefer to wait and see.
     Here are the theories:
     A.      The Nobody's Home Theory. According to this theory people once lived on the moon but they all died out. This theory usually assumes that life as we know it was there. It posits that water and air were once there, and so sustained life. Problems with this theory include the fact that the moon is a younger body or at least a contemporary body with this planet. The theory assumes then an evolution of life and a loss of that life all prior in time to the beginnings of human life on this planet. Also science has demonstrated that the reason there are no atmospheres like ours on the moon is that as a body it is too small to exert a sufficient gravitational force to hold atmospheres. If size is the reason, could it ever have done so? The Writings further note in The Last Judgment 9 & 10 and the Apocalypse Explained 726:7 that spirits are around the planet of their origin. Should life on a planet die out, those spirits would be moved to another planet. Since Swedenborg, in describing his encounter with spirits from the moon, speaks of inhabitants on the moon apparently living in the present, it seems difficult to have those inhabitants really being inhabitants of another planet.
     B.      The Misidentification Theory. This theory accepts all that is said about the moon, but says that when angels told Swedenborg that the people were from our moon, they were wrong-it really was some other moon.

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The context of the passages concerning life on the moon seems to make a problem for this idea. For example, when Swedenborg, in the Diary 1670, talks about spirits from another moon, he simply says "like spirits on moon," with the context clearly identifying our moon. It is true that there is no definite article in the Latin, and that to the best of my knowledge Swedenborg never says "our" moon versus some other moon, however context seems to work against misidentification. Further problems with the misidentification theory involve a serious question about the nature of revelation. If angels informed Swedenborg wrongly in this matter, in what other areas were they wrong?
     C.      The Futuristic Theory. This theory states that since there is no time in heaven, people from the moon could have lived there after the time of Swedenborg. People from our earth or some other planet may some day inhabit the moon, and these people may be the people with whom Swedenborg spoke. The problem with this theory is that although there is no time and space as we normally think of them in the spiritual world, there is also no future. The future as such is infinite and uncreate, and people of the future are equally non-finite. No person exists until he has been born in time and space. To think of future people as already existing seems inconsistent with this general principle.
     D.      The Hollow Moon Theory. According to this theory the Writings imply that people are not living on the surface of the moon but inside the moon. Since there is no atmosphere on the moon, moon people must be below the surface where there can be support for life as we know it. Unfortunately, as far as I know, science seems to tell us that the moon is a solid globe, not hollow, which makes a problem for this theory.

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Also, it is a real stretch to assume the Latin "in" should be translated "inside" in this context. There is no evidence that Swedenborg would have intended any such meaning.
     E.      The Little People Theory. Moon people are extremely tiny, smaller than ants, and so, although they're there we just haven't seen them yet. A variation of this theory is the Hiding People Theory, which indicates that although people were on the moon when we got there, they hid from us and so we did not see them. Later, perhaps, we will. Both these theories would have problems in accounting for no evidence of life as we know it.
     F.      The Wrong Place Theory. This theory states that although life does exist on the moon, our knowledge of the surface of the moon is very scanty in that we landed in one particular place. Would we, if we landed in the Sahara Desert, find life forms? People are there but we have not discovered them yet. The answer to the question, "Would we know about life if we landed in the desert?" is, Yes. There is a great abundance of life as we know it in the desert. Life as we know it is not present in any of the materials that we brought back from the moon, which makes for a problem with this theory and the Little People Theory.
     G.      The Gaseous Men Theory. Following on the suggestion of Diary 1670 that people on another moon live in another kind of body, this theory states that people on our moon live in another kind of body, a body of gas, invisible to our sight. The problem with this theory is that in a world with very little gravitational pull; gas would have a still greater problem in staying together as a body than it would here on earth. We would need a new set of laws of physics if we were to postulate gaseous men. The Principia, noted above, suggests that such a new set of laws is untenable, but that doesn't rule out the theory.

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     H.      The Spiritual Sense Theory. This theory states that the facts of science in the Writings are not different from the facts of science in Genesis. They both use the ideas in the mind of a man to convey spiritual truth. They both are temporal and are not given as revelation. We must use the doctrine of representatives, significatives, and correspondences if we are to understand the truth given in these "stories" about moon people. This theory has no quarrel with the general truth given in Earths in the Universe concerning life elsewhere in the universe, any more than it would quarrel with the general theory of Genesis 1 that the Lord created heaven and earth. But it does not concern itself as to the details or particulars given in the book Earths in the Universe. The particulars can be wrong, although the general is clearly true. The theory explains the general statement of the Writings that planets exist for life by noting that many seeds on earth do not produce life even though they all have been created for life. Abundance insures the existence of life. Planets can be dead and still not contradict the general thesis that they exist for life. The problem with this theory is that if we begin rejecting "facts" of revelation, where do we stop? Are we not becoming the judge of truth instead of letting truth judge us? Should we reject the virgin birth? the existence of ether? What rules should apply to keep us from making revelation in our image instead of the reverse? (Again I refer you to my New Philosophy article.)
     I.      The Flat Earth Theory. This theory, following on the concept of "flatlands," postulates a two-dimensional world on the moon. Since people on the moon are living on a two-dimensional world, they are invisible to us three-dimensional people. This theory seems to contradict the necessity for time and space in creation.

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We must be fixed in time and space in order to live to eternity. Two dimensions do not "fix."
     J.      The Generals OK but Particulars Wrong Theory. As the name implies, this theory says that the general truth is right as long as it is not contradicted by science. This theory goes on to note that the particulars are wrong. Swedenborg's mind as a vehicle for these truths could well be faulty; after all, he was only a man and limited to 18th-century thought. His writings are his, not the Word of God, because they are his writings and not God's; they     can be as wrong as the writings of any other mortal. Of course he did have some very interesting insights into "spirituality" which can help us. The theory discards the concept of Divine Revelation in favor of human reason. Its eclectic nature in effect makes God in man's image, although in a very different fashion than the one described in the "Spiritual Sense" theory.
     I have already stated my own preference to "wait and see," but perhaps one of the theories above may have real appeal to the reader, or perhaps some reader will suggest yet another, more appealing theory. What to me is important is that we recognize both foundations of truth, and have the humility to accept the premise that it's our understanding of either or both sources which is in error.
RECEIVED FOR REVIEW 1996

RECEIVED FOR REVIEW              1996

     Out of This World by Brian Kingslake was first published in 1978. A 1996 edition has been printed in England by Seminar Books.
     Living with God by Paul Vickers has just been published by Seminar Books. Some of our readers will remember his book God-Talk and Man-Talk.

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FREEDOM OF CHOICE 1996

FREEDOM OF CHOICE       PETER S. RHODES       1996

     Conclusion

     I felt it was important to discuss this process. It is important to me because I have done a lot of counseling and have observed people who for years and years have been loving the doctrine and loving the church, but who for years and years have also carried unnecessary guilt, blame, shame, and embarrassment. Those feelings are just another way the hells have been with them, and it is time we took those hells off their backs; they have a big enough job without those feelings. It really came home to me when one of my son's friends came to me and said he was going away to college and he's never coming back. He is a very bright person and he likes it here. I asked him, "Why aren't you coming back?" He said, "I've put up with enough judgment. I can't take it any more." We shouldn't lose him. There should be no judgment. There should just be young people who understand they are in a beginning process and who are given encouragement about what it is like being in that process and how difficult it is.
     By way of an example, I also want to look at and discuss where I am in relation to a certain evil. It is time to vote soon and we have a lot of politicians on T.V. So I observed that I have a tremendous amount of contempt for some of them. A certain politician would get up, and with my having been raised a Republican, I would have total contempt for the person. And anger! I have a friend who was raised a Democrat and whenever my guy got up she would have the greatest contempt and hatred for him.
     I was doing belly flops all over the place. What was I doing wrong? What I observed was that I attribute intentional malice toward those politicians. I don't attribute to them that they just have a different point of view, or a different philosophy, or that they want different things. I attribute to them that they have a malicious intent to deceive, and to get money, and to ruin my life and even more.

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     So I said to myself, Well okay, if that is what I am attributing to them, let me try to attribute something else to them. One politician got up and I tried to attribute to him that he really wants the best for the country and that he really believes his philosophy will lead to the best. I noticed as I did this that my feelings of contempt and hate started to disappear. I also observed that my proprium didn't want me doing this new effort. It came up with things like, "It's not really true. You are just pretending." I noticed that my proprium did that because, of course, it wants to feel contemptuous.
     So I asked myself, Did I have any business attributing that malicious intent? Because the politicians might really have malicious intent. They could have it and wouldn't I be ignorant not to know that and be overlooking something that is important not to overlook? No, I don't think so.
     Here is why I don't think so. I am doing a class on adultery. There are five levels of adultery. The first level is acting out of ignorance and is very light. The second one is out of over-ruling lust and is fairly light because the person is out of control. The third level of adultery is out of soft allurements, which means you didn't have the idea; someone lured you into it. What are the heavy ones? The ones done from set purpose. They condemn.
     What I have been doing is imputing "set purpose" to those politicians. I have been doing that because if I impute set purpose, then I am justified in condemning them. Do I have any business condemning them? You don't have to look very far to find the Lord says, "Judge not that ye be not judged . . . " You don't have to look very far in the Writings before you find they say you have no business looking at anyone's intent; that is for the Lord alone to know. And you don't have to look very far before being told what you should do is attribute the best motives possible to people.

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We are to do that and let the Lord take care of their intent.
     I am in the beginning process in regard to this evil. In fact, I am trying not to feel embarrassed, guilty, and ashamed for having these contemptuous feelings toward politicians, but I also want to see and acknowledge that if I don't choose to be in the process, I will continue to justify those feelings as if they have some reality in the outside world that causes them rather than its being a spiritual question.
     Now quickly I want to remark that not attributing intent doesn't mean you overlook behavior. I am in the criminal justice system and I can attribute the best intent to a rapist but I am still going to put his body in jail. However, I am not going to justify in myself contempt, hate, and anger toward that person. I am going to attribute the best intent to him and I am going to put his body in jail. So I am not trying to say that you don't pay any attention to behavior, because you do.
     I want to say a few words about how detrimental it is to say negative things about another person. Let me share a story with you. A man had been saying bad things and slandering someone in the community. When he observed himself doing it and how detrimental and painful it was to the family, he realized it was a wrong thing to be doing. So he went to the person and said, "I really want to apologize. I feel bad, and I know I have done a lot of damage to you. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything at all?" The person said, "Well, there is something you can do. Take this down pillow and go to the cathedral on a windy day and empty all those feathers into the air." The man did it and came back and said, "I did it. Do you forgive me now?" The person said, "There is just one more thing I want you to do. Take this empty pillowcase and go get all those feathers back and put them in here."
     We could try the task of not saying a negative thing about another person for a day, or maybe even a week. They claim if you can't go a whole day without a drink you are an alcoholic. If you can't go a whole day without a cigarette, you are addicted to cigarettes.

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If you can't go a whole day without saying a negative thing about another person, guess what?
     If you give that task to someone or take it as a task for yourself, you will find you might make it a day without saying anything negative about a person. You might make it two days, but you will not make it a week. I think the proprium that doesn't make it through the week will say, "Don't pay any attention. It isn't worth trying. Just fall back asleep. It was an interesting thing to do but never mind; just go about your business." That is the shame, guilt and embarrassment talking.
     You won't be able to do a three-and-a-half. You won't be able not to say negative things about people some of the time. But stay awake! Observe the delight. Observe the pain it produces. Observe what you are doing, whether you are enhancing your own image in someone else's eyes, or whatever, because you are free to watch what is going on. And you are free to start not believing nor liking what the proprium believes and likes, and you are free to start to love the possibility of not only not saying negative things about people, but of eventually saying positive things about people and making their lives better. You are free to do that. It might take you five years. Is it worth doing a three-and-a-half! If you really want it, it is. But it is to be held lightly, because this is just the beginning of doing a three-and-a-half, this choosing to do it.
     You need to trust that good things are happening, that the process is working, even when you are in an evil state. I find it very useful for me to think of the 23rd Psalm. It starts off very nicely: "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul." It is so nice. "He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." Then it says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . . " Guess what? This isn't going to be a nice trip. It says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

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You will be surrounded by evil thoughts, by evil feelings, even by evil behavior, but it also says, "I will fear no evil." The evil will be there. I won't be free of evil but it says I will fear no evil, "for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." I will learn from those processes, because the truth will be with me. I'll be able to observe the evils. I'll be able to see the evils. "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies." That table means to me that from those experiences, He is going to feed me. He is going to nourish me. He is going to teach me. I am going to learn. "Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." I am going to have insights from these experiences that other people might call failures. I am going to get information and insights from them about my proprium and its nature. This is my feeding ground. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me." I like the word "follow." They aren't going to be in me; they are going to follow me all the days of my life. At the end of my life they will catch up! And then I will be with the Lord forever.
     There is no mistake here. You don't go from the nice green meadow and the calm water to dwelling in the house of the Lord forever-not without the middle part. You get the middle part too, and it should not be upsetting. That is the means by which the Lord is purifying you. I had the impression that the Writings were saying that if you behave yourself, you don't have to go through the valley of the shadow of death-that you can jump right from the land of Egypt to the promised land without any worshipping of the golden calf or wars with the Midianites, the Amalekites and the Jebusites. No, it doesn't work that way. Along the way we will worship the golden calf and we will get beaten up by the Midianites. We need not be upset by all that, but we do need to notice the means by which He is purifying us! And then? The Psalm ends: "And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

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NEW ARCANA TRANSLATION AND OTHER BOOKS IN SWEDEN 1996

NEW ARCANA TRANSLATION AND OTHER BOOKS IN SWEDEN       Rev. ERIK SANDSTROM       1996

     In recent years there has been something of a burst of new literature benefitting the New Church in Sweden and, to a lesser extent, the other northern countries as well. There are, in fact, five countries with a common linguistic stem: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland. As for Finland, however, this is only partly true, for only a (sizeable) minority speaks Swedish. Until the early 19th century, Sweden and Finland had been one country for hundreds of years. The native Finnish is a different language altogether. Icelandic is a bit difficult for the other northern countries to understand-I am sure the other way around applies as well-so that this more isolated northern country might benefit the least from some new translations into Swedish. However, thanks to Sveinn Olafsson, the people there are now getting some of the Writings, notably Heaven and Hell, in their own language.
     Still, the new translation of Arcana Caelestia, ably done by Ulf Fornander of Jonkoping, Sweden, with immediate impact on Swedish people with a wakening interest in the New Church as well as on our New Church people themselves, is bound to spread its influence also beyond Sweden's borders. By far the greatest number of the books of the Writings available in any of the northern languages are in Swedish. A complete set of an old Arcana translation is included in that number.
     But that set, apart from being very nearly out of print, is very much outdated. Moving forty years ago first to England then to USA, I brought Vol. I with me. It was printed in 1919, until now the latest available printing. But languages change, especially languages as spoken. This is peculiarly true of Swedish, more than, say, of English. Swedish grammar has changed, spelling has changed, new idiomatic expressions have turned up; indeed, even words that used to be slang have been incorporated into educated (?) language.

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The grammatical changes I referred to have chiefly come about by the spoken (more casual) language invading the written (more formal) language, apparently even working its way toward eradicating the difference. For example, When I was a boy or a young man (I am old now by ordinary reckoning) we always, in writing, inflected the verb to fit a plural noun or pronoun. Not so any more. All verb forms are now the same, whether first, second, or third person, or singular or plural. This is somewhat comparable to going from "he has-they have" to "he has-they has." Furthermore, the language itself is stilted (though accurate).
     A return now to the old spelling would meet with: "Where have you been?" And, worse, coming up with the old verb forms, or sundry other remnants of a bygone age, would produce merriment.
     New translations, therefore, are greatly needed. Most recently the Rev. Bjorn A. H. Boyesen has been working to meet this need: Gudomliga Forsynen (Divine Providence), 1981 (see New Church Life, 1982, pp. 219-220), and Himlen och Helvetet (Heaven and Hell, 1986; and he is at present working on oktenskapliga Korleken (Conjugial Love). And now Mr. Ulf Fornander enters the Scene with Arcana Caelestia Vol. I. And I should mention right away that my old friend tells me he has also completed Vols. II & III, except for "finecombing" the whole text. ("A year or two," he says, but adds that printing is very expensive over there.)
     For years the two gentlemen have been working closely together. When Mr. Boyesen was the translator, Mr. Fornander was the consultant, and when the latter was the translator, the roles were reversed. This has brought some obvious advantages, chiefly, perhaps, the similar rendering of difficult (conceptual) words.
     In his "Translator's Foreword" (following a fine foreword by the Rev. Olle Hjern) Mr. Fornander presents a most helpful 13-point list of term definitions.

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Some of these terms are identical to those that English translators confront, like proprium, apparentia, civilis. But in addition, their Swedish colleagues need to find suitable renderings for such words as affectio and even arcanum. Very great attention has been given to these problems; I think they have been admirably-perhaps even too well-resolved. In the case of proprium, for example, Mr. Fornander lists no fewer than seven renderings that he has made use of in the text, depending on which one he deems best suited to the context. My preference would be to select only one of these-one that would actually cover all needs, for example egenliv ("own life"). Otherwise the reader might be induced to think that the original varies from case to case.
     Mr. Fornander very consciously set two aims for his translation: accuracy and readability. Some years ago he wrote to me, "After all, I am translating the Word of the Lord." This attitude shows. Also, the style allows for an easy, smooth reading. At present I am giving a series of Arcana classes in Bryn Athyn, and my wife in her preparatory reading said she prefers the new Swedish translation to the standard ("green-book") English version (our marriage years include 20 in Sweden). Clearly, the translator is adopting the principle of succinctness. This enhances one's interest in reading. Nevertheless, I might on occasion have preferred an additional word or two to bring out an emphasis in the text. An example is in n. 419, where faith is contrasted with being what faith involves: sed esse talis sicut fides docet, est caeleste. Mr. Fornander gives (in equivalent English): " . . . but to be such as faith teaches is celestial." Better (?): "But to be such as faith teaches, that is celestial." (The "standard English" italicizes to be.) Apart from small points like that, however, I have found no reason to tamper with Mr. Fornander's rendering. His is an excellent translation.
     Let me briefly introduce the translator. After schooling, with Latin as one major, and after military service, he became for a few years a policeman on the beat, then studied law, became a lawyer, and rose to second in command in the police force of one of Sweden's major cities.

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Retiring about fifteen years ago, he resumed his studies of Latin for the sole purpose of making himself equipped to translate the Writings. A salute to him.     
     I should add that the new translation was produced by the same publishers (Skandinaviska Swedenborgs?llskapet and Proprius F?rlag) that had previously put out Mr. Boyesen's DP and HH, which allows for a uniform appearance of the three books-a very pleasing red cloth binding with a gold frame around the edge of the front cover. The dust jacket of the new Arcana is impressive. It was done by Bridget Swinton Hauptmann of Denmark, wife of the lay leader of our Copenhagen Society. In a large blue circle a radiant sun and seven stars are set, and underneath there is the first Hebrew word of the Old Testament (b'rieshiyth) artistically scripted: "In the beginning."
     Now as a postscript to the above review I would like to mention some other welcome literature that has graced the Swedish scene in recent years. First there were Dr. Inge Jonsson of the University of Stockholm and his wife Ritva. Ritva Jonsson, also a PhD., translated Worship and Love of God from the original, and her husband wrote a malor thesis on it (his doctoral thesis?) called Swedenborgs Skapelsedrama "Swedenborg's Drama of Creation." This was in 1961. Inge Jonsson has been associating with the Skandinaviska Swedenborgsollskapet (and is perhaps a member). More recently we got Memorabilier, "Memorable Relations," selected and translated by Carl-Goran Ekerwaid (unknown to the present writer), and the same year (1988) there appeared Swedenborgs Drombok (The Journal of Dreams), translation and commentary by Lars Bergquist, well known to many of us in Bryn Athyn. All these books were produced by "outside" publishing houses at no expense to the church.
     In addition, let me mention some non-translation pieces. In 1989 there appeared Carl Robsahm om Swedenborg, a testimony by one of Swedenborg's contemporaries, and in 1991 Olle Hjern published his useful booklet Swedenborg och hans v?nner i Goteborg (Swedenborg and His Friends in Gothenburg).

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Also to be chronicled is V?rldarnas Miite (The Meeting of Worlds), a prestigious periodical edited by Olle Hjern, and last but not least Nytt Ljus (New Light), which is a monthly typed missive given out by our own Goran Appelgren, with a brief doctrinal article or two and news in Swedish or Danish from our three centers in Stockholm, Jonkoping, and Copenhagen.
     I see fermentation in the church in my former homeland.
HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 5

Parting

     Partners, brothers, and friends who are incompatible come to realize this gradually. They are able to sort out all the strands of interpersonal history, with the confusion of outer and inner loves and dependencies that were woven into their relationship. In this way they are able to see the real bonds, the incompatibilities, and the new possibilities. Only then can they "move on" of their own free will.
     Normally, as inner incompatibilities begin to show themselves strongly, people freely separate. However, in some cases inwardly good people have let themselves become so tied to inwardly evil people that they have a difficult time letting go. This happens when they have blinded themselves to their friends' real characters and have chosen to love them regardless of it.

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It may be a misguided sense of loyalty or family pride, sentimentality, or addiction to the other's powers of persuasion and charm. Ultimately it is something evil in those good people (evil that is external with them) that prevents them from letting go. But eventually, through hard experiences, they do realize why they cling to unworthy friends and they let go. Then the Lord can lead them to heaven. This type of dysfunctional attraction is called "friendship of love," because where there ought to be no more than friendship (an external relationship) there is love (an internal bond).1
          1 See TCR 446ff; SE 4524, 2774; cf. CL 406f.
     Many separations that take place undoubtedly have an element of sadness to them. But they must also bring a tremendous sense of relief and hope too. Nor are they always unfriendly. Swedenborg tells of the following separation:

On [one] occasion I listened to two partners who one moment entertained a thought of eternity in respect to their marriage, and the next moment a thought of it as something temporary. The reason was that an internal dissimilarity existed between them. As long as they had the thought of eternity, they were happy together; but when they began to think of their marriage as something temporary, they said it was no longer a marriage, the wife declaring that she was no longer a wife but a mistress, and the husband that he was no longer a husband but a lecher. When their internal dissimilarity was revealed to them, therefore, the man left the woman and the woman left the man. Afterwards, however, because they each had an idea of eternity in respect to marriage, they were matched with partners of a character similar to their own.2
          2 CL 216:3

     This couple must have had many good times together. As the passage goes on to say, with a man and wife like this, if what is eternal "slips from their thought, they are disunited as to conjugial love though not at the same time as to friendship" (emphasis added). They had been friends and remained friends in parting.

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     It must be remembered that marriages based on inner similarities are a rare thing in our world.3 The Writings make it clear that marriage is more than just a relationship of friendship and respect; it is one in which there is a shared sense and vision-of the Lord, of the partners' intertwined relationship to Him, of their united response to Him. This is something far deeper and more wonderful than friendship! In any case, the Lord prepares good people, often through lovely marriages in the world, for partners who will be especially suited to them.
          3 See CL 274, 320.

Permanent Reunion

     However rare true married love may be today, we know that the Lord is doing everything in His power to make it happen. Since "rare" is a relative term, my guess is that the Lord is still able to bring many, many people together in eternal relationships. We have the beautiful promise that people who have lived in true married love are not separated by death but continue to dwell together in spirit. And when they meet again after both have died, they "reunite and love each other more tenderly than before."4
          4 CL 321
     I would also guess that many family members are reunited after death. Swedenborg once asks us:

What man who has loved his wife and his infants and children . . . does not say within himself when they are dying or have died that they are in God's hand, and that he will see them again after his own death, and will again be joined with them in a life of love and joy?5
          5 CL 28e

     Here he appeals to a common perception that we have and affirms it. Why would he do this, unless the perception were true? It sounds as though at one time in our earth's history families stayed together as a general rule.

276




I have heard from angels that people who used to live in very ancient times today in heaven continue to live household by household, family by family, "Id nation by nation, similarly to the way they had lived on earth, and that scarcely anyone is missing from any household.6
          6 CL 205

     While this has obviously not been as much the case in more recent ages, Swedenborg allows that family members at this day do dwell together in heaven "sometimes."7 Why not assume that it will happen, provided the love that exists between us (parent-child) is a mutual and compatible love for the Lord and His way? Our similar heritage-both natural and spiritual-certainly fends us in this direction.
          7 AC 2732

     In Conclusion to This Section

     We can be sure that resolution is brought to all earthly relationships. No matter how long we have been separated, if we cherish strong feeling toward others, we can count on spending some time with them! And there's no harm in trusting in our general perception that if we love someone, we will not only meet that person after death but will dwell together with him or her forever!

     (To be continued)
HEAVEN HEARS EVERY WHISPER 1996

HEAVEN HEARS EVERY WHISPER              1996

     This is the title of a book by Kelsey Tyler. A chapter is devoted to the story of Joy Gladish which appeared in brief form in Guideposts Magazine and in New Church Life in February 1995.

277


LUCK 1996

LUCK       Editor       1996

     The following is from n. 276 of New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. It is about fortuna, which has been translated as "luck" or "chance," but which is usually translated "fortune."

Fortune, which appears in the world wonderful in many circumstances, is an operation of the Divine Providence in the ultimate of order according to the quality of man's state; this may afford proof that the Divine Providence is in the most single of all things.

     There are three things the Writings say that fortune is not. It is not an illusion of the mind. It is not a sport of nature. It is not "a something without a cause." This is from DP 212, the passage which invites the reader to play with cards or dice to notice that fortune exists. it suggests that you ask people who do play a lot. From their extended experience they will testify that fortune is a reality.
     What about Swedenborg's experience? He was a keen observer, and over a period of many months he concentrated on the question of whether fortune exists. He could observe that when fortune was contrary, there was no way that prudence could succeed.
     "For a number of years I have carefully observed whether fortune is anything, and I have found that it is, and that prudence then availed nothing." His spiritual eyes being opened, he was able to see a visual representation of fortune. And the spirits with him could show him a game's outcome related to fortune. "From this it was given me to know that what people attribute to fortune, even in games, has its origin in the spiritual world; this is even more true with regard to the changing fortunes that befall a person during the course of his life. What is called fortune results from the entry of Providence into the last and lowest degrees of order, in which it manifests itself as fortune" (AC 6494).

278


UNCONSCIOUS BELIEF IN ANGELS 1996

UNCONSCIOUS BELIEF IN ANGELS       Editor       1996

     People in simple faith believe that they will live after death. A passage in the Arcana says that there is something deep within that faith of which they are unaware. "Unknown to them, there is hidden the belief that they will live there as men, will see angels, will speak with them, and will enjoy happiness" (AC 6053).
     Here is the way John Elliott renders this interesting passage. "The simple do not think at all about the soul in the way that the learned do but believe that they will be alive after death. Concealed within their simple faith, though they are not conscious of it, is the belief that they will live there as people, seeing the angels, talking to them, and being filled with joy."

***

     On March 30th there was a "Celebration of Angels" in Bryn Athyn, an event attended by more than a thousand people. It was so interesting to meet people so interested in angels. It was evident that some who entertained somewhat mistaken concepts were nevertheless open to the things said in the Writings. Statements from the Writings about angels were prominent in the wall decorations.
     An article in the Kiwanis magazine (Nov.-Dec. issue) states that there are thousands of angel artifacts. The organizer of the Bryn Athyn event, Sarah Headsten, invited vendors of such artifacts to bring their wares. The result was overwhelming. Dozens of vendors responded, and it was quite amazing to behold their displays.
     The same article in Kiwanis quotes author Eileen Freeman as saying, "intense interest in angels is enormous. It stretches from the U.S. to Japan, Europe, Latin America and other places-and the end of the boom is nowhere in sight . . . .

279


The pendulum currently is swinging away from materialism and toward spirituality." As it turned out, she was one of the speakers at the celebration of angels. Her book Touched by Angels was one of the many books on display.
     In Woman's Day Nov. 21, 1995 we read that many Americans "have begun to suspend their disbelief and accept the possibility-if not the certainty-of a world that exists beyond the one we can see, hear and reasonably explain." The article goes on to say, "Our willingness to believe in the spiritual realm-as exemplified by the astounding success of the angel books-is part and parcel of our revulsion with materialism as an answer to all the world's problems. The pendulum is swinging back from people wanting money and power to people seeking a spiritual way of life."
     Shouldn't there be an effort by New Church people to make the direct teachings about angels known to people who are interested?
     Two people who have done something about this are Sarah Headsten, whose angel celebration was such a success, and Candace Frazee of Los Angeles. Candace is the one who first started organizing angel festivals. She is now planning one in Atlanta this coming July. We congratulate her and commend the following invitation:



     ANGEL FESTIVAL ATLANTA 1996

     You are invited to the third Angel Festival, to be held July 2-6 at the Doubletree Hotel, 7 Concourse Parkway, Atlanta, Georgia. A program and further information are obtainable from Candace Frazee, Director, PO Box 273, Pasadena, CA 91102. Phone (818) 794-4458.

280


Church News 1996

Church News       Theresa McQueen       1996

     TUCSON '96

     A New Vision for Growth

     February 9-11, 1996

     Imagine what it would look like to bring together 120 people from all over the world, representing all age groups from college students to senior citizens, all congregation sizes, and from widely varying backgrounds. Imagine them in a beautiful city surrounded by a mountain range. Now just suppose that they all shared a common love for building the Lord's New Church on earth. Add to this picture twenty-three enthusiastic, prepared workshop presenters speaking to a variety of topics, and five main session presenters speaking from the doctrines, their experience, and their hearts. Stir in daily worship, good food, and a bit of hiking. You are beginning to get the flavor of Tucson '96.
     A primary goal in producing this seminar was to reflect in both the programming and the structure of the seminar a "new vision for growth." Key elements of this vision for growth can help any church be more successful at serving its present congregation and new people. Among these are: helping new people feel personally welcomed; helping new people find the church's programs and ideas accessible, resulting in a recognition of the obvious usefulness of its messages in their lives. Providing for the worship of the Lord with excellence is a beautiful way to bring about this end. Creation of a loving environment that is visitor-friendly not only serves the current membership but is also conducive to growth with new people. Offering warm worship and forums for sharing can help individuals feel the Lord's presence in their daily lives more closely and directly. Having a program structure that looks to serving both the members of the congregation and the surrounding community can set the stage for good service to the neighbor as well as for potential growth. These are some of the ideas we sought to model throughout the process of producing and running the seminar. We worked to create the best possible atmosphere and context for the sharing of ideas, information, and experiences of people throughout the church who are involved in evangelization. This was facilitated considerably by the friendly staff and congregation at Sunrise Chapel.
     The opening worship was given by Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss, who reminded us that truths are a precious gift from the Lord that we can share. There were five main presentations given by: Rev. Grant and Cathy Schnarr, a panel of lay speakers (Kay Hauck, Billy Baty, Jim deMaine, Candace Frazee), a panel of "church planters" (Rev. John Jin, Rev. David Roth, Rev. Erik Buss), Rev. Mike Gladish, and Rev. Frank and Louise Rose.

281


While there is not room to list all of the twenty-three workshops that were offered, here are some of the topics covered: "Selling the Church in Today's World"-Rev. Les Sheppard; "Music in the Church"-Chris Simons and Terry Schnarr; "How to Plant a Church"-Rev. Grant Schnarr, Rev. David Roth, and Rev. Erik Buss; "Getting the Word Out"-Tracy Wright; "The Pleasure and Pain of Being Involved in Church Growth"-Rev. Frank Rose; "Strategies for Overcoming Resistance to Growth"-Rev. Eric Allison; "New Fellowship"-Roxanne Junge; "The Swedenborgian Movement within the
Swedenborg Scene"-David Friend; "Implementing Healthy Change"-Rev. Eric Carswell.
     I was particularly struck by the stories shared during the "Sunrise Chapel Live" segment of the program. The chairs in the chapel were set up in the round. Many members of the Sunrise congregation took turns sitting in the center of the room sharing their stories. Some of the people had been with Sunrise for decades. They had been there through the tough times, and had been among those who helped build it into what it is today. Others had only, recently found the church. One man began attending Sunrise after Frank provided a funeral for his wife. He was treated so well, with such love and kindness, he continued to come back. Another woman who is losing the battle against cancer came briefly that evening from her sick bed to share with us how the teachings of the New Church were helping her face the end of her life in this world without fear.
     The true value of the New Church lies not only in the beauty and perfection of the truth found on the pages of the books of the Writings, but in how these truths can guide the lives of human beings, comfort us in trouble, heal our hearts, and bring us hope and joy. We had the opportunity to be reminded of the importance of this incredible gift from the Lord while we listened to the stories of these people.
     We hope that those who attended the seminar were fed well with ideas, love, hope, and the courage to continue to move forward. If you were unable to attend, perhaps we can offer you another opportunity some time in 1998.
     Theresa McQueen,
     Seminar Coordinator

Copies of the main presentations are available on video and audio tape through the General Church Office of Evangelization, Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

282


GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM PUBLIC WORSHIP AND DOCTRINAL CLASSES 1996

GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM PUBLIC WORSHIP AND DOCTRINAL CLASSES              1996




     Announcements






     (Please send any corrections to the editor.)

     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

     Alabama:
     Birmingham               
Dr. R. Shepard, 4537 Dolly Ridge Road, Birmingham, AL 35243. Phone: (205) 967-3442.
     Huntsville
Mrs. Anthony L. Sills, 1000 Hood Ave., Scottsboro, AL 35768. Phone: (205) 574-1617.
     Arizona:
     Phoenix
Rt. Rev. Louis B. King, visiting pastor; Contact: Lawson & Carol Cronlund, 5717 E. Justine Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85254. Phone: (602) 953-0478.
     Tucson
Rev. Frank S. Rose, 9233 B. Helen, Tucson, AZ 85715. Phone: (602) 721-1091.
     Arkansas:
     Little Rock
Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Holmes, 2695 Lane, Batesville, AR 72501. Phone: (501) 793-5135.
     California:
     Los Angeles               
Rev. John L. Odhner, 5022 Carolyn Way, La Crescenta, CA 91214. Phone: (818) 249-5031.     
     Orange County
Rev. Cedric King, resident pastor, 21332 Forest Meadow, El Toro, CA 92630. Phone: home (714) 586-5142; office (714) (904) 228-2276.
     Sacramento/Central California
Bertil Larsson, 8387 Montna Drive, Paradise, CA 95969. Phone: (916) 877-8252.
     San Diego               
Rev. Stephen D. Cole, 941 Ontario St., Escondido, CA 92025. Phone: home (619) 432-8495; office (619) 571-8599.
     San Francisco     
Mr. & Mrs. Philip C. Pendleton, 501 Portola Road, Box 8044, Portola Valley, CA 94028

285



     Colorado:
     Boulder
Rev. David C. Roth, 4215 N. Broadway, Boulder, CO 80304. Phone: (303) 404-6121.
     Colorado Springs
Mr. & Mrs. William Rienstra, P.O. Box 95, Simla, CO 80835. Phone: (719) 541-2375.
     Denver
Mrs. Joseph Orrico (Cecy), 4741 W. 102nd Ave., Westminster, CO 80030. Phone: (303) 466-9347.
     Connecticut:
     Bridgeport, Hartland, Shelton
Mr. & Mrs. James Tucker, 45 Honey Bee Lane, Shelton, CT 06484. Phone: (203) 929-6455.
     Delaware:
     Wilmington
Mrs. Justin Hyatt, 2008 Eden Road, N. Graylyn, Wilmington DE 19810. Phone: (302) 475-3694.
     District of Columbia: see Mitchellville, Maryland.
     Florida:
     Boynton Beach
Rev. Derek Elphick, 10621 El Clair Ranch Road, Boynton Beach, FL 33437. Phone: (407) 736-9866.
     Jacksonville
Kristi Helow, 6338 Christopher Creek Road W., Jacksonville, FL 32217-2472.
     Lake Helen
Mr. & Mrs. Brent Morris, 264 Kicklighter Road, Lake Helen, FL 32744. Phone: (904) 228-2276.
     Pensacola
Mr. & Mrs. John Peacock, 5238 Soundside Drive, Gulf Breeze, FL 32561. Phone: (904) 934-3691.
     Georgia:
     Americus
Mr. W. H. Eubanks, 516 U. S. 280 West, Americus, GA 31709. Phone: (912) 924-9221.
     Atlanta
Rev. C. Mark Perry, 2119 Seaman Circle, Chamblee, GA 30341. Phone: office (404) 458-9673.
     Idaho:
     Fruitland (Idaho-Oregon border)
Mr. Harold Rand, 1705 Whitley Drive, Fruitland, ID 83619. Phone: (208) 452-3181.
     Illinois:
     Chicago
Rev. Kurt Hy. Asplundh, 1334 W. Newport Ave., #2, Chicago, IL 60657. Phone: home (312) 472-0282; office (312) 525-7127.
     Decatur
Mr. John Aymer, 127 Cambridge, Decatur, IL 62562. Phone: (217) 875-3215.
     Glenview
Rev. Eric Carswell, 73 Park Drive, Glenview, IL 60025. Phone: (708) 724-0120.
     Indiana: see Ohio: Cincinnati.
     Kentucky: see Ohio: Cincinnati.
     Louisiana:
     Baton Rouge
Mr. Henry Bruser, Jr., 6050 Esplanade Ave., Baton Rouge, LA 70806. Phone: (504) 924-3098.
     Maine:
     Bath
Rev. Allison L Nicholson, HC 33 - Box 61N, Arrowsic, MH 04530. Phone: (207) 443-6410.
     Maryland:
     Baltimore
Rev. Willard L. D. Heinrichs, visiting minister, Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Phone: home (215) 947-5334; office (215) 938-2582.
     Mitchellville
Rev. James P. Cooper, 11910 Chantilly Lane, Mitchellville, MD 20721. Phone: home (301) 805-9460; office (301) 464-5602.
     Massachusetts:
     Boston
Rev. Geoffrey Howard, 17 Cakebread Drive, Sudbury, MA 01776. Phone: (508) 443-6531.
     Michigan
     Detroit
Rev. Grant Odhner, 395 Olivewood Ct., Rochester, MI 48306. Phone: (313) 652-7332.

286



     East Lansing
Lyle and Brenda Birchman, 14777 Cutler Rd., Portland, MI 48875.
     Minnesota:
     St. Paul
Karen Huseby, 4247 Centerville Rd., Vadnais Heights, MN 55127. Phone: (612) 429-5285.
     Missouri:
     Columbia
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Johnson, 1508 Glencairn Court, Columbia, MO 65203. Phone: (314) 442-3475.
     Kansas City
Mr. Glen Klippenstein, P. O. Box 457, Maysville, MO 64469. Phone: (816) 449-2167.
     New Jersey-New York:
     Ridgewood, NJ
Jay and Barbara Barry, 348 Marshall St., Ridgewood, NJ 07450. Phone: (201) 612-8146.
     New Mexico:
     Albuquerque
Mrs. Carolyn Harwell, 1375 Sara Rd., Rio Rancho, NM 87124. Phone: 505-896-0293.
     North Carolina:
     Charlotte
Rev. Fred Chapin, 6625 Rolling Ridge Dr., Charlotte, NC 28211. Phone: (704) 367-1930
     Ohio:
     Cincinnati
Rev. Patrick Rose, 785 Ashcroft Court, Cincinnati, OH 45240. Phone: (513) 825-7473.
     Cleveland
Mr. Alan Childs, 19680 Beachcliff Blvd., Rocky River, OH 44116. Phone: (216) 333-4413.
     Oklahoma:
     Oklahoma City
Mr. Robert Campbell, 13929 Sterlington, Edmond, OK 73013: Phone: (404) 478-4729.
     Oregon:
     Portland
Mr. and Mrs. Jim P. Andrews, Box 99, 1010 NB 3601, Corbett, OR 97019. Phone: (503) 695-2534.
     Oregon-Idaho Border: see Idaho, Fruitland.
     Pennsylvania:
     Bryn Athyn
Rev. Kurt Ho. Asplundh, Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Phone: (215) 947-6225.
     Elizabethtown
Mr. Meade Bierly, 523 Snyder Ave., Elizabethtown, PA 17022. Phone: (77) 367-3964.
     Erie
Mrs. Paul Murray, 5648 Zuck Road, Erie, PA 16506. Phone: (814) 833-0962.
     Freeport
Rev. Clark Echols, 100 Iron Bridge Road, Sarver, PA 16055. Phone: office (412) 353-2220.
     Hawley
Mr. Grant Genzlinger, 304 Maple Ave., Hawley, PA 18428. Phone: (717) 226-2993.
     Ivyland
The Ivyland New Church, 851 W. Bristol Road, Ivyland 18974. Pastor: Rev. Robert Junge. Phone: (215) 957-5965. Secretary: Mrs. K. Cronlund. (215) 598-3919.
     Kempton
Rev. Ragnar Boyesen, RD 2, Box 225-A, Kempton, PA 19529. Phone: home (215) 756-4462: office (215) 756-6140.
     Pittsburgh
Rev. Nathan D. Gladish, 299 Le Roi Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15208. Phone: church (412) 731-7421.
     South Carolina:
     Charleston area
Wilfred & Wendy Baker, 2030 Thornhill Drive, Summerville, SC 29485. Phone: (803) 851-1245
     South Dakota:
     Hot Springs
Linda Klippenstein, 604 S.W. River St. #A8, Hot Springs, SD 57747. Phone: (605) 745-6629.
     Texas:
     Mexia
Kaia Synnestvedet Holder, 1011 Clark, Mexia, TX 76667.

287



     Virginia:
     East Thetford
Bobbie and Charlie Hitchcock, RR 1, Box 218, E. Thetford, VT 05043.
     Richmond
Mr. Donald Johnson, 13161 Happy Hill Road, Chester, VA 23831. Phone: (804) 748-5757.
     Washington:
     Seattle
Rev. Erik J. Buss, 5409 154th Ave., Redmond, WA 98052. Phone: (206) 883-4327; office (206) 882-8500.
     Wisconsin:
     Madison
Mr. Warren Brown, 130 Greenbrier Drive, Sun Prairie, WI 53590. Phone: (608) 825-3002.

     OTHER THAN U.S.A.

     AUSTRALIA
     Sydney, N.S.W.
Rev. Arthur W. Schnarr, 26 Dudley Street, Penshurst, N.S.W. 2222. Phone: 61-02-9580-1589.
     Tamworth
See Rev. Arthur Schnarr under Sydney.
     BRAZIL
     Rio de Janeiro
Rev. Cristovao Rabelo Nobre, Rua General Alfredo Assuncao, 187, Cosmos, Rio de Janeiro R.J. 23058-540. Phone: 21-974-5746.
     CANADA
     Alberta
     Calgary
Mr. Thomas R. Fountain, 1115 Southglen Drive S.W., Calgary 13, Alberta T2W 0X2. Phone: 403-255-7283.
     Debolt
Ken & Lavina Scott, RR1, Crooked Creek, Alberta T0H 0Y0. Phone: 403-057-3625.
     Edmonton
Mrs. Wayne Anderson, 6703-9811 Street, Edmonton, Alberta T6E 3L9. Phone: 403-432-1499.
     British Columbia
     Dawson Creek
Rev. Glenn G. Alden, Dawson Creek Church, 9013 8th St., Dawson Creek, B.C., Canada V1G 3N3. Phone: home (604) 786-5297; office (604) 782-8035.
     Ontario
     Kitchener
Rev. Michael K. Cowley, 58 Chapel Hill Drive, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 3W5. Phone: office (519) 748-5802.
     Ottawa
Mr. and Mrs. Donald McMaster, 684 Fraser Ave., Ottawa, Ontario K2A 2R8. Phone: (613) 725-0394.
     Toronto
Rev. Michael Gladish, 279 Burnhamthorpe Rd., Islington, Ontario M9B 124. Phone: church (416) 239-3055.
     Quebec
     Montreal
Mr. Denis de Chazal, 17 Ballantyne Ave. So., Montreal West, Quebec H4X 2B1, phone: (514) 489-9861.
     DENMARK
     Copenhagen
Mr. Jorgen Hauptmann, Strandvejen 22, 4040 Jyllinge. Phone: 46 78 9968.
     ENGLAND
     Colchester
Rev. Christopher Bown, 2 Christ Church Court, Colchester, Essex C03 3AU. Phone: 011-44-206-575644.
     London
Rev. Frederick Elphick, 2111 Hayne Rd., Beckenham, Kent BR3 4JA. Phone: 011-44-1-658-6320.
     Manchester
Mrs. Neil Rowcliffe, "Woodside," 44 Camberley Drive, Bamford, Rochdale, Lancs. OL11 4AZ.
     Surrey
Mr. Nathan Morley, 27 Victoria Road, Southern View, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4DJ.

288



     GHANA, WEST AFRICA
     Accra
Rev. William Ankra-Badu, Box 11305, Accra North.
     Asakraka, Nteso, Oframase
Rev. Martin K. Gyamfi, Box 10, Asakraka-Kwahu E/R.
     Medina, Tema
Rev. Simpson K. Darkwah, House No. AA3, Community 4, c/o Box 1483, Tema.
     HOLLAND
     The Hague
Mr. Ed Verschoor, V. Furstenburchstr, 6 3862 AW Nijkerk.
     JAPAN
For information about various church activities in Japan contact Mr. Tatsuya Nagashima, 30-2, Saijoh-Nishiotake, Yoshino-cho, Itano-gun, Tokoshima-ken, 771-14.
     KOREA
     Seoul
Rev. Dzin P. Kwak, Seoul Church of New Jerusalem, Ajoo B/D 2f, 1019-15 Daechi-dong, Kangnam-ku, Seoul, Korea 135-281. Phone: home 02-309-7305; church 02-555-1366.
     NEW ZEALAND
     Auckland
Mrs. H. Keal, 4 Derwent Cresc., Titirangi, Auckland 7, New Zealand. Phone: 09-817-8203.
     SOUTH AFRICA
     Cape Province
     Cape Town
Mrs. Sheila Brathwaite, 208B Silvermine Village, Private Bag #1, Noordhoek, 7985 R.S.A. Phone: 021-891424.
     Natal
Clermont and Enkumba
Rev. Ishborn Buthelezi, P. O. Box 150, Clernaville, Natal, 3602. Phone: 011-27-31-707-1526.
     Durban (Westville)
Rev. Lawson M. Smith, 8 Winslow Road, Westville 3630, Natal, Republic of South Africa. Phone: 011-27-31-2628113.
     Rev. Geoffrey S. Childs, 7 Sydney Drive, Westville, Natal, 3630. Phone: 27-31-262-8113.
     Empangeni and Impaphala
Rev. Chester Mcanyana, P. O. Box 770, Eshowe, Natal, 3815, Meerensee, Natal, 3901. Phone: 0351-32317.
     Eshowe/Richards Bay/Empangeni
Mrs. Marten Hiemstra, P. O. Box 10745, Meerensee, Natal, 3901. Phone: 0351-32317.
     Hambrook, Kwa Mashu and Umlazi
Rev. B. Alfred Mbatha, P. O. Box 27011, Kwa Mashu, Natal, 4360. Phone: 27-31-503-2356.
     Westville (see Durban)
     Alexandra Township
Rev. Albert Thabede, 140 Phase One, P. O. Bramley, Alexandra Twp., Transvaal, 2090. Phone: 011-27-11-443-3852.
     Balfour
Rev. Reuben Tshabalala, 1428 Zondi, P. O. Kwaxuma 1868, Soweto, Transvaal, 9140. Phone: 011-27-11-932-3528.
     Buccleuch
Rev. Andrew Dibb, P.O. Box 816, Kelvin 2054, Republic of South Africa, Phone: (011l) 804-2567.
     Diepkloof
Rev. Jacob M. Maseko, 8482, Zone 5, Pineville, Transvaal, 1808. Phone: 011-27-11-938-8314.
     SWEDEN
     (When dialing from abroad, leave out zero in parentheses.)
     Jonkoping
Contact Rev. Bjorn A.H. Boyesen, Bruksater, Satersfors 10, S-56691, Habo, Sweden. Phone: +46-(0)392-392-203 95.
     Stockholm
Rev. Goran R. Appelgren, Aladdinsvagen 27, 161 38 Bromma, Sweden. Phone/Fax: 011 +46-(0)8- 26 79 85.

     Note: Please send any corrections to the editor.

298


Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue       Editor       1996


Vol. CXVI          July, 1996               No. 7
New Church Life

290


     We go to press as the assembly is about to begin. We hope the contents of this interesting issue will win us new subscribers during this event.
     Rev. Erik Sandstrom, Sr. takes us to the New Church scene in Scandinavia. Theresa McQueen takes us to Arizona, and Alfred Acton-well, he takes us to the moon.
     Dr. Reuben Bell teaches at the college that is now to be called Bryn Athyn College of the New Church. We welcome his study of the human soul.
     An ambitious "Angel Festival" in Atlanta is scheduled just near the time of the Olympic Games (see page 279).
MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS 1996

MINISTERIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS              1996

     The Rev. Kenneth Alden has accepted a call to become Pastor of the Colchester Society in England effective July 1, 1996.
     For the last two years the Rev. John Jin has been working as the assistant to the pastor in Ivyland, and on spreading the church to predominantly Korean-speaking people in the U.S. His work has begun to bear fruit. With the warm support of the Director of Evangelization and the General Church Evangelization Committee, John will begin to give full-time attention to the development of a Korean-speaking New Church congregation in the greater Philadelphia area starting in July. For the moment he will continue to work out of Ivyland until a more permanent location is selected.

     Slip-case Set of Three Books of the Writings: The Swedenborg Foundation has issued a set of Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Wisdom, and Divine Providence. The cost of this handsome set is $39.95. The Foundation phone number is 1-800-355-3222.

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ON SELF-ESTEEM 1996

ON SELF-ESTEEM       Rev. N. BRUCE ROGERS       1996

     "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart-these, O God, You will not despise" (Psalm 51:17).

     It seems to be almost universally accepted that one must learn to love oneself before one can learn to love others. If you like and trust yourself, we are told, others will like and trust you. Self-acceptance and self-esteem are held to be worthy and desirable goals, even necessary to a healthy psychological outlook.
     This is a relatively new concept. Prior to some twenty or thirty years ago, the term "self-esteem" implied an exaggerated and inordinately favorable impression of oneself It indicated a pride in self that was socially undesirable-something to be avoided, not sought. And in the church we know that self-love, along with love of the world, is at the root of all evils.
     Where, then, is the truth? Perhaps some self-esteem is necessary, but not too much. The adolescent who feels unloved and unlovable, the woman who feels unattractive and plain, the man out of work who feels his talents rejected and unwanted, the senior citizen who feels useless and a burden-surely we would wish for them some improvement in their sense of self-worth. And yet, on the other hand, the braggart, the swaggerer, the conceited and arrogant person-do we not wish for them a lessening and even an eradication of their self-regard?
     On this subject the Word is not silent. It is addressed by all three testaments, for it is a matter directly affecting people's reformation and regeneration.
     In one of his last great speeches to the Israelites, Moses said:

Do not think in your heart . . . Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land . . . . It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations . . . .

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[F]or you are a stiff-necked people. . . . [F]rom the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord . . . . You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.1
          1 Deuteronomy 9:4-7, 24.


     This set one of the major themes of Israelite and Judaic religion, the need of the people to humble themselves before their God. So when Hannah, the mother of Samuel, prepared to return her son to the Lord to serve in His tabernacle, she prayed: "Talk no more so very proudly; let no arrogance come from your mouth."2
          2 I Samuel 2:3.
     The Psalms and Prophets likewise continued the theme of a need for humility in too many places to cite them. Here is but a sampling:


The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart-
These, O God, You will not despise.3
Though the Lord is on high,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the proud He knows from afar.4
The Lord lifts up the humble.5
He will beautify the humble with salvation.6
. . . [T]he day of the Lord of hosts
Shall come upon everything proud and lofty,
Upon everything lifted up-
And it shall be brought low.7
I will halt the arrogance of the proud.8

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For thus says the High and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
With him who has a contrite and humble spirit."9
. . . on this one will I look:
On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit."10
. . . What does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?11
Behold the proud;
His soul is not upright in him.12


For behold, the day is coming,
Burning like an oven,
And all the proud . . . will be stubble.13
     3 Psalm 51:17.
     4 Psalm 138:6.
     5 Psalm 147:6.
     6 Psalm 149:4.
     7 Isaiah 2:12.
     8 Isaiah 13:11.
     9 Isaiah 57:15.
     10 Isaiah 66:2.
     11 Micah 6:8.
     12 Habakkuk 2:4.
     13 Malachi 4:1.
     In His advent the Lord did not reinterpret this need for humility but reinforced it. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," He said, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . . . . Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."14 When a dispute arose among His disciples as to which of them would be greatest, He said, "He who is least among you will be great."15
          14 Matthew 5:3, 5. Cf. Psalm 37:11.
          15 Luke 9:46-48. See also Luke 22:24-26; Mark 9:33-35, 10:43-44; Matthew 20:26, 27.
     On another occasion, speaking to the multitudes and to His disciples concerning the scribes and Pharisees, the Lord said: "Do not do according to their works." For "all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.

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They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, 'Rabbi, Rabbi.' But you, do not be called 'Rabbi'; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren . . . . He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."16
          16 Matthew 23:3-12. Cf. Luke 14:7-11.
     To illustrate the uselessness and even danger of self-congratulation, the Lord told His disciples this parable:

Which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, "Come at once and sit down to eat"? But will he not rather say to him, "Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink"? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, "We are unprofitable servants. We have done [only] what was our duty to do."17
          17 Luke 17:7-10.


     Later He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus to himself, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess." And the tax collector, standing afar off, beat his breast, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.18
          18 Luke 18:9-14.


     Nowhere in the Old Testament or New Testament do we find any text to encourage a search for self-acceptance and self-esteem.

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Both testaments teach throughout a need for humility. Nor do the Heavenly Doctrines reinterpret this teaching. Rather they continue it and amplify it, making clear that humility is essential to the life of religion.
     The Lord cannot flow with His love and wisdom into a proud heart, we are told, because a proud heart is filled with self-love, and self-love resists-indeed, repels-the Divine.19 On the contrary, the Divine can flow only into a humble heart, because a humble heart is without self-love and is open to reception.20 Humility of heart is achieved when a person acknowledges that of himself he is nothing but evil and that all goodness is from the Lord.21 It is not achieved so long as a person is concerned with esteeming himself and appreciating his own goodness.22 Therefore one of the chief sins a person must learn to turn away from is pride of heart.23
          19 AC 8678:2, 9377:2; DLW 335.
          20 NJHD 129; AC 8678:2, 9348:8.
          21 AC 7640, 9377:1; NJHD 129.
          22 See AC 5929:2.
          23 AE 803:2.
     For the same reason the life of religion requires worship of the Lord, not for His sake but for our sake, because real worship entails humility.24 All true worship consists in adoration of the Lord in a state of humility, say the doctrines, in a person's acknowledgment that he has in him nothing living, nothing good.25 Humility is an essential ingredient in genuine worship, for in the measure that the heart is humbled, self-love and the evils springing from it cease, and charity and faith can then flow in from the Lord.26 People who are caught up in natural life and merely natural concerns do not understand this; indeed, on hearing it, they are affected with an aversion to it.27

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Yet it is not by accident that we kneel in prayer. Kneeling is a natural and instinctive expression of humility, which flows spontaneously from a humble heart.28
     24 AC 5957, 7550, 8263; DLW 335.
     25 AC 1153:2.
     26 AC 2327:2,3, 2423, 2715:2, 8271, 8873, 9377:1, 10646:3; NJHD 129; AE 291, 1210:1.
     27 AC 4459:4.
     28 AC 1999:1, 2153, 4215:2, 5323:1, 7596; AE 77, 463, 1206:1.
     It follows, too, that repentance requires humility. To repent one must first confess one's sins and from a humble heart pray for forgiveness.29 For repentance is attained solely through humility, through a confession of the heart that one is of himself nothing but evil and falsity.30 It is not attained through self-approbation.
          29 NJHD 161.
          30 AC 4779:8.
     Therefore temptations or trials are permitted by the Lord to subdue loves of self and the world and the aspirations attached to them in order that the person may be humbled and thus rendered fit to receive the life of heaven.31 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart," confessed David after his adultery with Bathsheba,32 and by a broken spirit and a broken heart are meant a state of temptation or trial and the humility of spirit and heart produced in consequence of it.33 Indeed, to quote the doctrine, "the temptations in which a person is victorious are attended by his believing all others more worthy than he, and that he is infernal rather than heavenly"; and unless he perseveres in this thought, the temptations or trials are allowed to recur "until he has been reduced to the sanity of believing that he has been deserving of nothing."34 For "people who are caught up in evils and falsities believe themselves high and above others, but those who are governed by goods and truths believe themselves lesser and below others."35
          31 AC 3318:4, 3469:2, 8873; NJHD 199.
          32 Psalm 51:17.
          33 AC 9818:5.
          34 AC 2273:2.
          35 AC 4599:6, citing Matthew 20:26, 27; Mark 10: 44.

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     The first goal of religion is not an affirmation of self but a rebirth of the spirit, or regeneration. Since this rebirth or regeneration is not possible without repentance, and repentance requires humility, therefore a person cannot be regenerated unless he humbles himself.36 So it is that "a person who is being regenerated is at last so far reduced by repeated alternations of desolation and sustenance that he no longer wills to be his own man or woman but the Lord's."37 He also compels himself to this, to a state of humility and submission;38 and as a result the regenerate person receives a new character, becoming, in the words of the doctrine, "mild, humble, simple, and contrite in heart."39
          36 AC 4347:3.
          37 AC 6138.
          38 AC 1947:2.
          39 AC 3318:4.
     None of this counsels a striving for self-esteem. People who have faith in the Lord are content with their lot, whatever their station in life. "They know that for those who trust in the Divine all things advance toward a happy state to eternity, and that whatever befalls them in time still is conducive to that."40 Whereas merely natural people reflect upon themselves and the world in all that they say and do, and are not content with their lot unless they gain the recognition and regard they desire, spiritual people in their humility are forgetful of self, focusing instead on the practice of good according to truths in the service of others.41 Genuine charity therefore springs from a humble heart.42 "For," we are told, "people who are in a state of charity are humble and desire to serve all," viewing themselves as no more than instruments of service.43 The greater the state of humility, the greater the state of love and charity.44
          40 AC 8478:3.
          41 AC 3913:3, 3994:1.
          42 AC 3417:3, 4956, 5732:2, 9039:3.
          43 AC 8313:4.
          44 AC 1153:2.

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     What then of the adolescent who feels unloved and unlovable, the woman who feels unattractive and plain, the man out of work who feels his talents rejected and unwanted, the senior citizen who feels useless and a burden-any who feel themselves without worth?
     It is a paradox that a sense of worthlessness results not from humility but from a preoccupation with self. The truly humble are not so concerned with self. They are content with their lot, looking for opportunities simply to be of service, however modest or unpretentious it may be people who have not attained such a state of humility do not know the peace and contentment it makes possible, and may well think that a sense of worthlessness stems from a failure to affirm one's self-worth. But striving to affirm one's self-worth only turns the mind to self and so aggravates the state, because it addresses the symptom without addressing the cause.
     Real happiness results from forgetfulness of self, because it frees the spirit from concern with self and opens up the heart to new opportunities and new delights. This is the final goal of religion, a happiness of heart that is possible only in a state of freedom from self, in a state of humility into which the Lord can flow with His love and His Divine gifts. "Peace I leave with you," said the Lord, "My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled."45 "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."46
          45 John 14:27.
          46 John 8:31, 32.
     The truth about self-esteem is that it is no substitute for humility.

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It is only into a humble heart that the Lord can flow with the life of His love and make a person blessed and happy.47 That is why the Lord teaches humility throughout the Scriptures-not for His own glory, but for the sake of the happiness of those whom He created and whom He loves with a love and wisdom surpassing that of any finite mind.48 So the Lord taught His disciples, saying, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."49 Amen.
     47 AC 1153:2, 1947:2, 3417:3.
     48 AC 3539:5, 7550.
     49 Matthew 16:24,25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 9:23-24; see also Matthew 10:37-39.

Lessons: Psalm 51:1-17; Matthew 23:1-12; Luke 18:9-17; AC 3994: 1, 3469:2, 2273:2 LEADERSHIP, WOMEN AND MEN 1996

LEADERSHIP, WOMEN AND MEN       Rev. ERIC H. CARSWELL       1996

     There has been continuing discussion throughout this century about the roles of women and men in leadership. In earlier years the issue was, "Is it appropriate for women to vote in political elections?" More recent discussions have dealt with the assumptions, expectations, and appropriate roles for men and women in our society at large. These discussions have taken place in the culture around us and among the women and men who are formally or informally part of the General Church. Articles in New Church Life and Theta Alpha Journal have addressed this issue from different perspectives and have referenced ideas from current books which contribute to the discussion.

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I look forward to further reading in Connections II, the record of the second Women's Symposium. It is daunting or virtually impossible to absorb all of these ideas and to keep abreast of all the developments that are taking place surrounding this topic.
     Related to this discussion, a book entitled Leading Women: How Church Women Can Avoid Leadership Traps and Negotiate the Gender Maze, Carol E. Becker (1996), recently caught my eye and has proved interesting reading. One of the key questions raised by this book is, "What is a leader supposed to do?" How do we answer this in the context of the church? Are some of our assumptions, attitudes and behaviors within the General Church substantially influenced by paternalistic (like a father's relationship to immature children) and/or authoritarian expectations of leadership? As a church dedicated to the idea that people are to live their lives in freedom according to their best understanding of what is true, we should shun both of these leadership styles as disorderly. If the adults of the church are to any significant degree passively accepting the decisions and views of its leaders, then we really aren't helping the Lord build His church in those people's hearts, minds, and lives.     
     On the basis of extensive interviews, Leading Women asserts that the mode of leadership preferred by many women is "relational, collaborative, process-oriented, informal, and problem-solving" in nature. This mode is used not only by women; men as well have recognized its value in accomplishing corporate or organizational goals. "Team-building" and "facilitation" are popular words in business literature and training seminars. This style of leadership places emphasis on the nature of the process by which something is accomplished rather than one task attainment or achievement of a pre-determined goal, and in doing so reflects the Lord's priorities in working with us. Its emphasis on collaboration and relationship can be seen as reflecting qualities that help form the greater human being the heavens comprise when seen as a whole.

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Each angel and each community of angels contributes uniquely to the quality and functioning of heaven as a whole. In the Lord's eyes, each angel is actually a center for all the rest of the heavens.

Mutual love in heaven consists in those there loving their neighbor more than themselves, and as a result the whole of heaven represents, so to speak, one human being; for by means of mutual love from the Lord all are associated together in that way. Consequently every manifestation of happiness possessed by all is communicated to each individual, and that possessed by each individual to all. The heavenly form produced by this is such that everyone is, so to speak, a kind of center point, thus the center of communications and therefore of manifestations of happiness from all (AC 2057:2).

     Both men and women can lead in a manner that emphasizes relationships, and they can do it for a number of reasons. They can do so because of merely natural good, such as an external charity that tries to be nice to everyone without judgment, or from a desire to avoid conflict, unhealthy or healthy. A person who is trying to achieve the perfection that arises from a variety of people working together under the Lord's guidance can also lead in this manner.

[U]nity, that it may be perfect, must be formed from variety. Every whole exists from various parts, since a whole without constituents is nothing; it has no form, and therefore no quality. But when a whole exists from various parts, and the various parts are in perfect form in which each relates itself like a congenial friend to another in series, then the quality is perfect (HH 56).

     One of the axioms asserted by the author of Leading Women deserves reflection. She states, "Leadership requires authority. Claiming authority presupposes power . . . ." What is the source of the authority of a leader in the General Church? Is it vested in the individual? I don't think we intend it to be. The kingdom, the power, and the glory are all properly the Lord's.

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A leader's authority should rest in ideas, values, and applications in which we recognize the Lord's presence. And we recognize this presence because we have seen a connection between the idea, value, or application and what the Lord has revealed in His Word-Old Testament, New Testament, and the Writings. The Lord was very clear to His disciples that those are greatest who are most willing to be servants (see Matt. 23:11). The concept of servanthood that He was presenting wasn't that we should be ordered around by others, but rather that, in all we do, we should work for everyone's long-term welfare. Neither men nor women are capable of this kind of servanthood early in their adult lives. It is a product of regeneration and that takes time.
     Something that I have observed and which is strongly supported by Becker's interviews is that even when a woman is leading in a relational and consensual way, if she comes across as strongly committed to a principle or established consensus, she can be seen as too aggressive and assertive, particularly by male observers. Even if she displays these characteristics less strongly or more rarely than her male peers, she seems to be held to a more restricted acceptable role.
     Consider the observation of the differences between the feminine and the masculine offered in Conjugial Love:

The intelligence of women is by nature modest, gracious, peaceable, compliant, soft and gentle, whereas the intelligence of men is by nature critical, rough, resistant, argumentative, and given to intemperance (CL 218).

     Some would say that leadership and this description of the intelligence of women are incompatible; others shake their heads at the thought of an organization run on the basis of masculine intelligence.
     At times it seems that even when she is claiming no personal authority or power, if a woman is not readily compliant to the wishes or views of a man, she is seen as unfeminine.

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We should be indignant over this false judgment. A particularly unflattering short story about a man whose relationships with women are seriously troubled reflects the spiritual stupidity of his mind-set with these words: "Tyler began to get angry at his wife's rigidity, at the particularly useless way in which she insisted that his life should be affected by her principles." In his adulterous relationship with another woman Tyler's attitude appears once more: "Meredith's voice was firm and authoritative, and Tyler felt again the irritation he'd felt before with his wife, more sharply this time. Who were these women who thought they could run his life?" ("Tyler and Brinna" by Sue Miller, Atlantic Monthly, May, 1985) Certainly both men and women can try to dominate others from a blind and foolish allegiance to certain ideas or values, but in the fictional excerpts cited above, an objective reader would say that the women had good reason to be holding the points of view that so irritated Tyler. People with attitudes similar to Tyler's are likely to be bothered by wise women in leadership positions and perhaps would respond differently to men.
     The double bind that women face in church leadership positions was stated to Becker this way by a clergy woman: "Men are graded on how well they do ministry the masculine way, and women are graded on how well they do it in the masculine way as long as they also remain feminine." Women who lead with behavior and approaches that are typically associated with men are criticized for being unfeminine, and those who lead in a more intuitive, relational, or consensual style can be criticized for being poor leaders.
     What are the qualities more typical of women's leadership? Referencing another author, Beeker states:

Sally Helgesen pictures women as weavers. It is not so much the goal reached that is the point of satisfaction for women in leadership, she points out. It is as much the connections and the process used to reach the goals. And in making connections, women weave a "web of inclusion" in the workplace.

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The point of authority in the web is the heart, not the head. In "emphasizing interrelationship, working to tighten them, building up strength, knitting loose ends into the fabric, it is a strategy that honors the feminine principles of inclusion, connection" and it "betrays the female's essential orientation towards process, her concern for the means used to achieve her ends." The creation of the web is guided by opportunity, proceeds by the use of intuition, and is characterized by a patience that comes from waiting to see what comes next (pp. 52, 53; quoting from Helgesen, The Feminine Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership, 1990).

     While Becker is clear and insightful in much of her prose, she can also fall prey to making assertions that are unanswerable without apparently incriminating oneself. For example:

The very fact that denominations still debate about whether women should be clergy, governing board members, or even Sunday schoolteachers and choir members is the most obvious example of the influence of the white male system of thinking on the participation of women in church life (pp. 80, 81).

     The health and openness of a dialogue would be equally closed by the opposite assertion: the very fact that a woman was questioning the status quo meant that she wasn't sufficiently feminine and/or "doctrinally sound." We would do better without either statement.
     One of Becker's points that would probably raise concerns for people familiar with the broad doctrine of the Writings is contained in the following:

Until the mid-1970s . . . the very nature of the theological enterprise was based on white male systems and ideas. Traditionally, theology has been derived systematically in the male style, by a very careful analysis of ideas, a construction, often in minute detail, of "what's right," and an assumption that the most important thing in one's faith is to know God or to think about God in the right way.

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This systematic process "begins with authoritative sources and works through to some kind of application supposedly allowing little room for human experience," as one clergywoman describes it. Certainly there's been no room for women's experience. And when women began constructing theology, they were at first most criticized for including their own experience in it (p. 82).

     The Writings indicate that trying to establish truth from natural experience, no matter what your gender, is a deadly pathway.

The evil of the Most Ancient Church which existed before the flood, as well as that of the Ancient Church after the flood, and also that of the Jewish Church, and subsequently the evil of the new church, or church of the Gentiles, after the coming of the Lord, and also that of the church of the present day, was and is that they do not believe the Lord or the Word, but themselves and their own senses. Hence there is no faith, and where there is no faith there is no love of the neighbor, consequently all is false and evil (AC 231, emphasis added).

     But there is another way of approaching the role of experience in recognizing what is true. We cannot understand anything apart from the framework of experience stored in our memory. That framework can be imaginatively rearranged and modified, but it still exerts an influence on our ideas at any particular point. Is it surprising to suggest that the framework of experience contained in a woman's memory is different from that in a man's? We are assured that "masculinity in the male is masculine in every part, even in the least part of his body, and also in every idea of his thought, and in every bit of his affection. So too with femininity in the female" (CL 33).
     It could be argued that the only way for women's voices to be heard as they need to be is to have women working in every role in which their sight of what is true and good might be of value. Particularly if leadership is viewed as a matter of a white-male hierarchy of power invested in leaders who too often act primarily from their own perspective, making women equal in this kind of power is the only way for women's voices to be heard.

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But, again, this idea of power in leadership is far from the model of a leader as servant that the Lord so clearly described to His disciples. He said:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant (Matt. 20:25, 26).

     I would prefer to separate the issue of leadership roles for women in the General Church from that of ordination. My present understanding of the body of doctrine in the Writings about what is essentially masculine and feminine is that the ordained priesthood is not the best place in which women can contribute. It is apparent that this conclusion is not shared by all who study the Writings.
     A basic definition of the masculine and feminine given in the Writings is: "Everyone, whether man or woman, possesses understanding and will; but with the man the understanding predominates, and with the woman the will predominates, and the character is determined by that which predominates" (HH 369). I would say that this is why the style of leadership that "weaves a web of inclusion" comes more naturally to women because they are less likely to get caught up in relatively unimportant intellectual issues or power concerns to which men can easily fall prey. Men more than women are prone to unconsciously discounting or not seeing relationship issues. The predominance of the understanding in the male has its pitfalls1 as does the predominance of the will in the female.
     1 I enjoy reading the syndicated humor columnist Dave Barry for his regular jabs at the way "guys" think and react. Any picture of a glorified masculine intelligence is well qualified by the amazing patterns of thought and reaction that he points out as being not uncommon among men.
     My understanding is that aspects of doctrinal development, of preaching, and even of pastoral counseling,2 would be more prone to problems of natural good3 when done by women early in their regeneration and more prone to problems of natural truth4 when done by men early in their regeneration.

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Both men and women can fall prey to either of these states of mind, and either of these, natural good or natural truth, creates significant problems when it is the basis upon which decisions are made. However, there is an important difference between them. Natural truth can lead to genuine truth and genuine good in a way that natural good cannot.5 So, as obnoxious as natural truth can be, the Lord can use it to lead us forward in our spiritual lives in a way that He cannot use natural good. (See Arcana Caelestia 3563:3, 3408, 3470, 7761.)
     2 I'm thinking here of the part of pastoral counseling that involves helping people recognize a true idea about their habits of thought and action, their marriages, or their parenting when the implications of this truth are painful.
     3 Responses to life coming from natural good can vary extremely. For example, it can lead someone to always "be nice" so as not to upset anybody; and at the other end of the spectrum natural good can result in such responses as ferocious verbal attacks by someone who feels his goals threatened by an innocent question.
     4 Responses to life from natural truth vary from the impotence of unending rationalization of the status quo or the continued need to "think about this some more before we make a decision" to the destructively judgmental quality of a person comparing everyone and everything to an infinitely perfect yardstick and finding they fall short of what is good and right.
     5 This does not mean that men are one step ahead of women in their regeneration. Both men and women are equally capable of learning the facts of truth. Both need to seek the Lord's help as they use their best understanding of the truth to correct the natural failings or evils to which their own mind-set particularly inclines them. It is just as hard for a man to regenerate as it is for a woman.     
     I acknowledge that many women in the church could produce more effective sermons than, say, young men fresh out of theological school, or that there are women who make New Church counselors vastly superior to many ordained priests. Arguments from "examples that have worked" can as easily lead to counter arguments from "examples that haven't worked" as to a consensus on what is true.

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While I don't see this as a black-and-white issue, I would like us to look for a better forum than the priesthood for women's leadership in the church. A legitimate question is, "Can we benefit from the leadership that women can bring to the church even if they are not ordained priests?" I believe we can. But it will require wise effort and change.
     I appreciate that there is value in some kind of church recognition, not unlike ordination, for women who serve in pastoral or ministry leadership roles that do not involve "preaching." What would that recognition look like? What background or qualifications would we expect a woman to have before it occurred? Would this formal recognition help matters or further confuse them? What do you think?
     Our church has benefitted and will continue to benefit from the leadership of both women and men who are trying to be led by the Lord in their service to those around them. But to the degree that we have false ideas about the proper role of leadership, and especially the kind of leadership that women are inclined to, to that degree we will fall short of the possibilities that the Lord offers as we try to bring His church into this world. May we examine our assumptions and habits as we reflect on the vision the church that the Lord has presented in His Word. In doing this we can better be open to see good and healthy paths into our future.
FEMALE INFLUENCE IN THE CHURCH 1996

FEMALE INFLUENCE IN THE CHURCH              1996

     One of the most popular tapes from the June assembly in Bryn Athyn was the Theta Alpha/Sons luncheon program, "Female Influence in the Church." The 31-page paper by Vera Dyck, "Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women in the Clergy," is available (see May issue p. 230). An edited version will appear in our pages; you may obtain the full paper immediately-phone (215) 997-6673.

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 6

Waiting in the World of Spirits

     We may wonder whether a spouse who has preceded us to the spiritual world will wait for us in the world of spirits or move on to heaven. One passage says that a partner who has died "waits for" the other.1 But waits where? Does "waiting" suggest not moving on? Must married partners who die wait for their spouses in the world of spirits, or can they progress to heaven and "wait" there?
          1 De Conjugio n. 50
     People's circumstances vary a great deal. For example, married partners who are not united in conjugial love are each freed by death to marry again. Spiritually there is nothing to stop them from moving on. On the other hand, intimate relationships do tend to leave "unfinished business." People who have a strong bond of associations (good or bad) may need to spend some time together when both have arrived. People who have been married several times may have a lot to work through with the several spouses, depending on the nature of the relationships. Might some kinds of unresolved interpersonal issues prevent spirits from moving on to heaven? Perhaps they could.
     In the case of those who are in an eternal marriage relationship, there are some good reasons why the Lord might want one partner to wait for his or her spouse in the world of spirits. First, the world of spirits is a place in which much spiritual progress can occur. There are states of struggle and realization that people can undergo in that world which they cannot undergo in this world. They can be taught much more fully than before. Spiritual influences can be seen more clearly. For example, spirits can be shown more graphically the source of their temptations (namely, their ties to other spirits).

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They can be led to see the nature and character of those around them more accurately. I suspect that for the most part they can experience quicker and surer response from the Lord, both to their backslidings and to their good efforts. In addition, the whole dimension of physical and worldly needs and cares is left behind. Life is lived more essentially, more spiritually.
     Regeneration is an individual matter. Generally, close relatives, friends, and married partners are a help to each other in this. These relationships can stimulate a lot of personal struggle and a lot of "overcoming." But sometimes people can add to each other's burdens or stand in each other's way or "insulate" each other from necessary change. Separation by death can enable both to learn and make progress. As long as a person has made his or her essential choices in the natural world, a great deal of refinement can take place in the world of spirits.
     Another good reason why one married partner might wait for his or her spouse in the world of spirits is so that they might progress together. People in the world of spirits are in a similar state to us in that their conscious minds are still between heaven and hell. They are still exercising a similar kind of choice. An important aspect to marriage is the fact that two people progress together. They develop mutually and are initiated together into new states of life.2 Doesn't it make sense that they should enter heaven together, to experience its newness and joy, to begin a life there together? Add to this that entering heaven corresponds to entering into the heavenly marriage-the fullest form of which is the marriage of husband and wife. Their home in heaven is a symbol of their united souls, minds, uses. Certainly there must be a power in a couple's taking up a residence/role/use in heaven together.
     2 See Conjugial Love nos. 322, 323; cf. 301.

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A Necessary Provision for Some

     There is a teaching that often disturbs people, which nevertheless should be mentioned. We are taught:

Virtually everyone who was married in the world either meets his wife after death, if she died first, or waits for her . . . . Those who are unable to wait for their married partner, whether male or female, consort meanwhile with another similar to themselves. But then he is granted to perceive that it is the same married partner whom he had in the world. But this relationship is dissolved, since there had not been a betrothal or wedding, when the true married partner arrives. For then from living together in the world he has no difficulty in recognizing his partner, and he who wishes remains with his own partner, as was said before.3
          3 De Conjugio nos. 50, 52

     First, note the importance of the Lord's granting the perception that the partner is their partner, and withholding any perception that would disturb the conjugial.
     Many of us do not like to think of the possibility that our spouse, whom we have loved deeply, is living with someone else. We may prefer to think that that person is remembering us and waiting for us, as we are for him or her. It may be hard for us to imagine that our partner could live with someone else, even if he supposed it to be us. How could this not (we may wonder) cause some kind of mental rift or damage?
     I think we must trust the Lord here! He knows what is necessary for each one of us. He knows what is necessary to protect our marriages and keep them alive and growing on the inside. There are many spiritual/psychological needs that are met only by living in a marriage relationship. The Lord has the wisdom to know when and how to provide these, while at the same time enabling partners to progress in their eternal relationships.
     There may well be a similarity between remarriage in this world and this sort of provision in the world of spirits.

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Some of the same needs are behind them, and some of the same protections of "the conjugial" are secretly at work.

Waiting in Heaven

     There are some good reasons why a person might wait for the spouse in the world of spirits. On the other hand, it seems entirely possible that the loved one who dies might move on to heaven and wait there. The married state is the norm in heaven. Husband and wife together make one complete human being, one "angel."4 But clearly some single people do live in heaven--for example, people who have been raised in heaven prior to marriage.5 Why couldn't other "single" women and men be useful in a community of heaven as they waited for their partners to arrive? Wouldn't each have a keen sense of the other's presence? Wouldn't they have a sense of acting with the other and from the other in spirit?
          4 CL nos. 177, 192; Apocalypse Explained n. 984
          5 We read in Heaven and Hell n. 411 that a young man goes to live in his new wife's society or, if they live in the same society, to her house. This seems to imply that they had been living in some society as single people. (Compare HH 514.)
     Some people are virtually ready for heaven when they leave the world. Surely mature partners who are well along in their own progress toward heaven when they part are already living in heaven as to their interiors.
     Of course, a good reason why any spirit might move on to heaven is that he or she might be more useful in heaven than in the world of spirits-to those there, to the spouse in the world, to others in the world. As an associate to people on earth, an angel resides with them not in their outer affections and thoughts but in their "ends," in their deeper loves and purposes.6 Though this position seems more removed in one sense, it is more intimate and powerful in another. Angels allow the Lord to use them more fully as instruments to touch us.

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What a noble use to be called to!
          6 See AC 5854, 6193.

Will My Partner "Move Beyond Me"?

     Quite a few people have expressed this concern to me over the years. They worry that their partner is so much "better" than they are that if that partner were to die, they would never "catch up" with them.
     Of course, no one can really know who his or her eternal partner is for sure. We may feel strongly that we are married to the "right one." That is fine! We may feel doubts or worries at times. But our feeling so doesn't make it so. The real nature of conjugial love can lie deeply concealed.7 However, we can know that the Lord is leading each of us to the partner with whom we will be best suited. He is taking care of us! We must have trust!
     7 CL 531. This passage is speaking of the state of love in each individual, but surely the same truth applies to the state of a couple's mutual love as well.
     We would do well to remember that our partner cannot move beyond us there any more than here. To "move" is to develop spiritually. Hopefully we are all progressing toward our eternal home, whether we are in the same world as our partner or in a different world. We "move" as we allow the Lord to regenerate us.
     Here is a thought that some might find interesting. There are actually a couple of "movements" involved here. If we are heaven-bound, our "internal" or inner person moves in heaven, and our "external" or outer person moves in the world of spirits. My understanding is that, once our basic character is established (which tends to be fairly early in adult life8), we already "have a foothold" in that community of heaven into which we will come more fully after death. (We may have footholds in other heavenly communities as well.)

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We are present there as to our inner person.
          8 See Spiritual Experiences 5167.
     Most of our spiritual work involves joining the loves we receive from that heavenly community with truths that we learn through living. This joining takes place as we resist evils that stand in the way. The mental work we are doing here takes place in our outer person. As we do this work, our outer person is moving through communities of minds in the world of spirits. Each successive community that we come into is in closer harmony with that community in heaven where our inner person is residing. In this way our inner person and outer person come into correspondence. This is how our eternal character is established.
     My guess is that eternal partners are in most cases residing spiritually in the same community of heaven, even while they are on earth. They may have a lot of work to do before this fact becomes established and apparent. As to their outer journeys they may be "travelling" through different communities in the world of spirits. But the destination is the same. And the inner harmony may be present, though not apparent. (In fact, a couple may be heading for the same heavenly home and not know each other at all in the world!)

To Summarize What We Have Said Thus Far

     So, we ask, Will my partner wait for me? Will he or she move beyond me? The answer: Death cannot really move anyone away from us or beyond us spiritually. Our spirits are not limited by space and time. The spirits of loved ones remain together. They walk together, stand together, and sit down together, provided each does his or her part.

     *******

     When loved ones have left us, something we all want to know is: Do they remember us? Do they think about us? Do they long to see us again? Do they know what is happening with us? We may wonder whether they can "read" our states of mind "from above" as is sometimes imagined.

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     Do they remember us and think about us? Of course our loved ones remember us and think of us! Can there be any doubt of this? How can love forget?
     There is a general teaching that sometimes makes people wonder whether loved ones who have crossed over do remember them. We are told that the natural memory becomes inactive after death as spirits: leave their first state in the world of spirits. Then people no longer relate to others on the basis of external contact and association, but on the basis of their own inner loves and inner character. To be sure, "the things in the natural memory are all retained" and can be "reproduced when the Lord so wills."9 But generally spirits work from their inner memory, the memory of things that have become a part of their life, things which touch them deeply. So it is true that after death, once we have left our first state we don't normally remember people unless our relationship is of the inner person. It must be a relationship based on mutual loves and compatibilities.10 Of course, we can always remember anyone we have known "when the Lord so wills" for some useful purpose.
           9 HH 461:3
          10 An internal relationship may not be restricted to those in the same heavenly society or even to those in the same level of heaven. Compare AR 875:1.
     We don't need our external memories to remember those we love! Even in the first state in the world of spirits (when newcomers retain outer characteristics from this life) spirits recognize friends "not only from their face and speech but also from the sphere of their life when they draw near."11 This suggests that when spirits and angels recollect loved ones who are still in the world, they do not so much bring to mind their faces or other external qualities; they bring to mind their inner life and its outpouring "atmosphere."

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This is what we love and remember.
          11 HH 494; cf. AC 10130:2-3, 5061
     So the answer is, Yes, those who love us do remember us!

Angels' and Spirits' Awareness of Our Mental States

     How aware of us are our loved ones on the other side? Do they know what we are thinking? Are they able to "tune in" to our specific mental states?
     We know that the four spirits from the world of spirits who are closely associated with us (two good and two evil) are not aware of us. This is a special job to which they are assigned by the Lord, and seems to depend on their not being too aware of us. We are assured that these "associate spirits"

. . . have no knowledge whatever that they are with a person, but when they are with him they believe that all things of his memory and thought are their own. Neither do they see the person, because nothing that is in our solar world falls into their sight.12
          12 HH 292 (cf. AC 1880, 6192; AE 1182:4).

     Two angels also serve as special associates to us. They work with us through our associates in the world of spirits,13 and are with us on the deepest level of our minds. We are told that "it is not known to the spirits with a person that they are with him, but only to the angels from the Lord."14 The angels know from the Lord that they are with us. Does this mean that they see us and work with us in some kind of pictorial way? Are they aware of us consciously? Or do they just know, when the Lord grants them reflection, that in tending their own states they are actually sharing states with people in the world of spirits and on earth and are helping them through their own responses?
          13 HH 600
          14 AC 5862. Angels have both the love and wisdom to respect our freedom, whereas spirits do not always. Cp AC 905.
     Frankly, I am a bit unsure about the nature of our angel associates' relationship to us.

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Being an angel-associate may be much more direct, conscious work on their part than I am imagining. Sometimes it sounds this way. Swedenborg speaks of angels watching over us, perceiving, seeing and observing our states and their changes and directions, and what the evil spirits with us are intending and attempting. He speaks of their leading our states, directing, bending, restraining moderating, tempering, insinuating, inspiring, calling forth things in our mind, and setting them in opposition to what the hells are introducing. He speaks of their governing the spirits with us,
removing the evil ones and their intentions, dispersing influxes, and observing hells that are opening with us that weren't open before and closing them so far as we allow.15
     15Sec AC 4122, 2796, 5980t5992; HH 391; Spiritual Experiences 3726, 4822.
     None of these things necessarily involves their "seeing" us in a personal, concrete way. Analogous things are said of the evil spirits who are with us. They notice and scent out our affections, attempt to destroy them, assault, attack, excite, pervert, inflame, insinuate, flatter, infect, snatch away, etc. They do this craftily, maliciously, clandestinely, deceitfully, silently, etc.16 And yet we are assured that these evil spirits are not directly aware of us.17
          16 E.g. 5977, 1820, 5992.
          17 AC 5862ff
     (Are angels perhaps more aware of our associates in the world of spirits? Maybe they work more consciously with them. It sometimes sounds this way. There is no doubt that angels sometimes enter the world of spirits and interact with spirits to teach them, monitor, defend, etc. But the same question arises: When working with our associates, are they generally interacting with them directly, "in person," or are they working mostly "in their own head," on their own plane? This is a big subject that I have not had time to explore.18)
          18 Cf AC 5983-5989, 5992, 6197, 6657:2, 7122e.

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     My present guess is that angels are aware of our states mostly by observing their own states. For example, when some evil suggestion comes to them, angels know it is not their own state but something which their lower associates (in the world of spirits and on earth) are dealing with. They explore that suggestion, see it clearly, understand where it comes from, and meet its challenge with the truth (which is so clear to them).19 We are affected by this so far as we are willing to be. We may experience it as insight into the evil in question or as determination to resist it, or perhaps as a bothersome thought in our fantasy-life.
     19 When angels become aware of evil states, they perceive them as "milder than they really are" (AC 5981).
     Sometimes we need to see things concretely. Young people certainly do. I wouldn't want to take away from anyone a working understanding of how angels help us, by making the relationship too abstract. It does no harm to think that angels are directly aware of us and gaze with personal concern into our lives and minds as into a crystal ball to help us. However, on general doctrinal grounds I am led to believe that angels are primarily conscious of living an active life on their own plane, associating with the people around them, being engaged in work and play in their own communities. They influence us chiefly by being in and acting from their own affections. More than anything else the angels help us by living fully and confidently in good affections and effectively resisting evil ones-in their own mental lives. This is what affects us positively from within.20
          20 Cf SE 206, 3525; AE 1166:3

So what about our loved ones' awareness of us?

     Clearly spirits and angels do bring to mind people with whom they share love. They think about us and sometimes feel very close to us in spirit. This seems proper and orderly.

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How else is mutual love fed and nurtured other than by remembering?
     More than this, I would guess that our loved ones have an actual impact on our states (and vice versa). For example, they might experience our struggles in a muted way in their own consciousness as an associate angel would. Or they might sense our happy moments. When they were experiencing states like these they would have a perception that what they were sensing had to do with us. They could then help us in our struggle or add to our joy through what they were able to do with that state. Their efforts and responses would be communicated to us, though we would generally feel them as our own.
     Finally, a question that many have: If our loved ones think of us and experience something of our states, do they feel the kind of loss and grief that we do? Do they miss us? Perhaps, in a measure. They are still human beings! Nevertheless, I simply can't imagine that they would experience the same kind of grief or longing that we do. They are living in a world that continually assures them of the fact that all who share love are present with one another, and that the Lord is caring for us all. Did He not bring them through the valley of the shadow of death?!

Note: We will take up the subject of "Spiritual Communication" in the next issue.
CHOSEN PASSAGE 1996

CHOSEN PASSAGE       JANIS POST CADKIN       1996

     Some Biographical Notes by Roxanne McQueen Junge: Janis first became interested in the teachings of the New Church when she, her husband, and their three young children moved to the Glenview area and enrolled one of their children in the New Church preschool. She was an enthusiastic participant in recent New Fellowship-a lay-led newcomers' group.

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When it was over Janis said, "I feel like I got the crumbs, and now I want the whole cookie!" In fact, Janis has just accepted a position in the New Church preschool where she will be teaching starting in the fall of 1996.
     Janis' beautiful smile and sparkling eyes can often be seen at the Glenview New Church functions as she pursues her goal: to get the whole cookie!
     Here is Janis' chosen passage and her comments about it:

Thinking and intending without doing, when there is opportunity, is like a flame enclosed in a container and which will go out; also like seed cast upon the sand, which fails to grow, and so perishes with its power of germination. But thinking and intending and from that doing is like a flame that gives heat and light all around, or like a seed in the ground that grows up into a tree or flower and continues to live. Everyone can know that intending and not doing, when there is opportunity, is not intending; also that loving and not doing good, when there is opportunity, is not loving, but mere thought that one intends and loves; and this is thought separate, which vanishes and is dissipated. Love and will constitute the soul itself of a deed or work, and give form to its body in the honest and just things that a person does (Heaven and Hell 475).

     This is something that I'm working on very hard right now, and while it looks pretty simple in theory, I find that in practicality, for me, it can be very difficult, especially when it comes to parenting. I'm always questioning my motives when I do or don't do something for my children. Many times (mostly, I hope) my intentions toward my children are good, but in terms of actually doing things, it gets much more fuzzy. If I don't step in to break up a fight, am I teaching them to work out their differences themselves, or am I just being lazy and trying to avoid being dragged into a conflict?

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If I do intercede in a disagreement, am I really trying to teach them conflict resolution or am I trying to show my power over them? And then, unfortunately, there are those times that I know I don't have the best of intentions and I really need the Lord's help to get me back on the right track.

     [Photo of JANIS POST CADKIN]
WEEKEND OF WELLNESS, JULY 14 & 15 1996

WEEKEND OF WELLNESS, JULY 14 & 15              1996

     In Bryn Athyn in the elementary school building there will be a program of wellness put on by an organization called "Twelve Gates." Contact Mr. Kent Rogers at (215) 947-7823. A brochure describing a wide variety of workshops is available.

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SENDING SONS TO THE ACADEMY 1996

SENDING SONS TO THE ACADEMY       PHILLIP R. ZUBER       1996

     It was late evening in early September 1969 when I bearded an airplane to Philadelphia. I would fly through the night to a place and destiny completely unknown-The Academy.
     I was 15-1/2 years old. I had never been outside of California. I attended large public schools. I had grown both rebellious and long hair.
     My parents never explained why I had to go. Two older brothers had gone. There was no sense questioning the decision. As the lights of the airplane darkened, I thought about the past summer-nearly every day spent at the beach, sometimes camping out, most often hitchhiking: a fairly freewheeling lifestyle.
     Now my hair was cut. Soon I would be wearing a tie to school every day. Polished shoes hardly seemed possible. As we taxied down the runway, I gave little thought to the fact that this was my first plane flight.
     As the plane lifted off the tarmac at LAX, I asked myself if this wasn't Apollo 15 and I was really going to another planet. Bryn Athyn, I thought, might as well be another planet.
     As the lights of Los Angeles twinkled below, I wondered what my parents were thinking. Relief-maybe. Sadness-possibly. Did they feel as lost as I did?
     I tossed and turned through the night. We landed in Philadelphia well after sunrise. At the time the airport was under construction. We deplaned directly onto the field. As I stepped onto the tarmac, I realized immediately that I had some huge adjustments to make. I walked into a typical mid-Atlantic late summer morning-steaming with humidity. I had never experienced humidity; it was a warm, wet slap in the face.
     I waited at the airport for hours. I finally figured out how to reach my brother by phone. He had forgotten to pick me up. I knew I was on my own.

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     Through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old, I quickly discovered that my plane had not gone to another planet; it had landed in a third-world country under an oppressive dictatorship. The adjustment was hard: hard on me, hard on the housemasters, and hard on my free time (with detention).
     I came to appreciate that there was an "underground." Understanding the "system" was the key to its mastery. The dorm became a melting pot of commiseration, friendship and conspiracy. Instruments of evasion were invented. A bike was donated for my use as a smoker. It was dubbed the "respirator" and was used to taxi us down in front of Benade Hall, across the Pike, down past the Cathedral toward the graveyard, a place of quiet contemplation.
     I survived, slowly adjusted and then, after many months, learned to enjoy my new life. I graduated in 1971. During those two years, it seemed as though the teachers, the administrators, and the housemasters became more understanding, more tolerant and more appreciative of us as persons.
     After five college semesters, I left to marry and carry my fortunes elsewhere. It would be most of a decade before I returned, and then only briefly. It was not out of spite, but my life had moved on.
     Twenty-five years later to the day from that flight into the night, I journeyed again to Bryn Athyn. This time the trip was far more painful. I was turning my son over to the Academy to the dorm and to whatever peer group he would find. Ironically, I found that profoundly more scary than the first plane flight.
     I did not want my son to be exposed to influences that would undermine so many years together. Yet I knew it was the best thing. He had sacrificed much by being in a small New Church school. In the big picture, the sacrifices may have been small compared to the loving teaching he received in the light of the Word. But for him, the isolation, the loneliness, and the lack of social interaction made for an enormous wound.

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     As I drove away that day, I re-lived that night in the airplane. Here I was sending my own son to the Academy. Why? I asked. The reasons were varied and complex but they all came down to one thing. Through the prism of time I came to realize that the value and strength of the Academy rests on two interwoven things, one known and one too often ignored. We know that the Academy draws its structure and support from the Word of the Lord. It gains its life and strength, however, through people. The people become the muscle of the Academy, empowering the Word.
     I knew that sending my son to a school founded on the Word or the doctrines would not be enough. If the people did not believe and teach those sacred principles, they would have no strength or importance. The people of the Academy would have to live the life they taught, even if it was manifested by simple morality, charity, kindness or understanding.
     As the landscape along Interstate 95 became a blur, I thought how it would be the people who surrounded by son at the Academy who would most greatly impact his life. Those "people" were not just his teachers and his housemasters, but his friends "in misery." They had to have some beliefs as well. It seemed so obvious that we each affect the other-either to raise the other up or to pull the other down.
     It is as if at the beginning of junior year the students get on a boat together. They do not perceive the gentle currents of change as they travel down river together. There are stewards on that ship cooperating with the Lord, the Captain of that ship. At the end of two years, will the ship return to the same port?
     I was sending my son to the Academy because I had faith in him and, more importantly, I had faith in the strength of those who would guide his ship. I owe much to my kind stewards.
     Ask your son if he has changed after his two years at the Academy and you will probably receive a sharp and inflexible rebuke. But he can see the currents. Some day he may face the same question of whether to send a son to the Academy.

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He will undoubtedly hark back to his stewards.
     As to those kind stewards of our children at the Academy, we owe them much.
REPORT FROM THE NEW CHURCH AT BOULDER 1996

REPORT FROM THE NEW CHURCH AT BOULDER              1996

     In July of 1994 David and Susan Roth moved to Boulder, Colorado, to begin the task of attempting to start a New Church society in Boulder. We began worship services on September 11th. Every other Sunday we would transform the Roths' home into a church. As the fall wore on it was amazing that we were able to squeeze the growing congregation (sometimes over forty people) into their tiny house. We also felt blessed that the weather on every Sunday that we met was warm and sunny. This was crucial in those first few weeks when we didn't know what to do with as many as twenty children we were fortunate to have with us.
     During those first months there was a lot of groundwork to be laid. We had to apply for legal non-profit status, form a corporation and a board of trustees, acquire the equipment necessary to set up an office, develop a Sunday School program and an order of service for worship that suited our needs and the needs of the people we hoped to reach, and plan for our future.
     With the strong interest that was being shown we knew it was time to search for a public place to worship. In December we found a wonderful, spacious, clean, well designed building right in the heart of Boulder. It is the West Boulder Senior Center and is situated right behind the public library. The building is a recreation center for senior citizens during the week, but on the weekends it sits empty (not any more).

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     With the discovery of our new building, on January 8th, 1995 we began meeting for worship every week, with 32 people in church for that first Sunday. Incidentally, on Sunday, January 14th, just over a year later, we had 63 people in our service. In those first few months in our new space we worked to get used to the building and to plan how we would care for visitors when they started coming. We now have a staffed book table, greeters, refreshments after church, a Sunday School program with many volunteers, and a drop-off nursery for the little ones.
     We began advertising our church in April-that is when things got exciting. Our monthly average attendance, that had been in the low 30's and high 20's for January through March, soared into the 50's in April. In April we had a total of 60 people visit our church for the first time. And we have steadily attracted visitors ever since, but not at that same rate. There are now 23 people who come to our church regularly or semi-regularly who never heard of Swedenborg and the New Church before April. And hundreds of copies of the Writings and pamphlets about the New Church have been given away or sold. To top it all off, w, had 94 people at church on Christmas eve and 80 on Easter Sunday. So there are interested people around.
     Our little church is slowly growing in many ways. For both new and lifetime followers of the New Church it takes time to develop a full picture of this new revelation. So we move forward one day at a time. One never knows what the Lord has in store. Yet we are hopeful and intend to work hard and consistently at reaching out with the message of the Lord's New Church. May the Lord continue to bless us.
Received for Review 1996

Received for Review              1996

     Received for Review: CONNECTIONS II, Offerings from the Women's Symposium of 1995.

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OF GEORGE MACDONALD AND C. S. LEWIS 1996

OF GEORGE MACDONALD AND C. S. LEWIS       RICHARD R. GLADISH       1996

     Of two semi-authoritative modern biographies (George MacDonald, Scotland's Beloved Storyteller and George Mac-Donald*), the first, an American effort, is earnest in correcting some of MacDonald's religious ideas, such as his doubtful attitude toward the vicarious atonement. The second, the work of an Oxford scholar, is somewhat more objective and has the backing of MacDonald descendants.
     * George MacDonald. Scotland's Beloved Storyteller by Michael R. Phillips, Bethany House Publishers, Minneapolis, Mn 55438, 1987, and George MacDonald by William Raeper, Lion Publishing plc Tring, Herts, England, 1987
     I entered the store in search of something else, when on the cover of a fairly fat book I saw a colored picture of full-bearded George MacDonald. On the soft cover were the printed words of a quotation: "I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master"-C. S. Lewis. For "master" in the British usage we can read "teacher."
     Some fourteen dollars lighter, I left the store with George MacDonald snugly under my arm. I got to reading the book of some 400 pages without much delay.
     I had read only one MacDonald book-At the Back of the North Wind (as a child)-but its semi-magical spell had stayed in my memory ever since. But I had read some quotations from him (made by C. S. Lewis) and I had some idea of his authorship, but by no means of its extense and influence!
     George MacDonald was born in 1824 in northern Scotland-a dour land, made more dour by its adherence to the harsh dogmas of Calvinism seated in Scotland by John Knox. He lived a life of remarkable literary accomplishment, but more than this, a life of great spiritual influence on his times, and indeed upon the entire western world and its beliefs.
     Upon working my way through MacDonald's biography, it gradually dawned upon me that the man had wrought-through his preaching, his 53 novels (!), his poems and prose fantasies, his lectures and short stories-the downfall of Calvin's stern doctrines and the harsh way of life based thereon.

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Over the nineteenth century, until his death in 1905, he had given to Europe-and the whole Christian world-a cheering vision of a gracious and loving Lord and Father who had created a world of beauty and delight for His children, who had largely failed to heed His charge to love one another and live according to His Word.
     When I first became aware of C. S. Lewis, it was from reading his "Screwtape Letters"-so clever, so true in several ways. Then I read of Lewis in the Atlantic Monthly of 1946, where he was called "the apostle to the Sceptics." Several of his ideas-such as the concept of good, religious people on other planets-gave me the notion that he must have been a reader of the Writings, and I innocently wrote to him to ask him about that.
     He replied that, yes, he had read a bit of Swedenborg, but the main source of his ideas was George MacDonald. Now my mother had said that George MacDonald was a reader of the Writings and practically a New Churchman. A number of New Church people had had that idea, and in fact there was a rumor that a New Church group had helped pay for his lecture tour of the United States in 1872.
     But in the two recent biographies of George MacDonald, dated 1987, it is stated that as a young man he had held a job at a castle in northern Scotland. His job was to examine and put in order a jumble of books in several languages. He had there encountered books by Boehme, Novalis, and yes, Swedenborg!
     Both authors state that MacDonald's experience in that library had an important and lasting effect on his mind and thought.
     "The image of the library is one that haunts MacDonald's fiction constantly . . . . In Lilith the library is a mysterious, mystical place, the beginning of adventure-and MacDonald, opening up his mind to new thoughts and ideas in the library at Thurso, must have similarly felt at the beginning of a spiritual adventure" (Raeper, p. 50).

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     But the main work, the great work of George MacDonald, was his constant and gentle attack upon the grim doctrine of Calvinism, which had wrapped Scotland and much of Europe in a fog of cruel harshness and falsity.
     Schools were conducted, and also churches and homes, under the grim conviction that God was a being of punishment and condemnation. Predestination (to hell) was preached as the lot of most people. In the public schools children were compelled to learn the shorter catechism of Calvin by heart with such statements as: "What doth every sin deserve?" with this answer: "Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to come."
     The schoolmaster wielded a tawse-a horse whip-which he curled about the bare legs of the pupils if they forgot (Phillips, p. 81).
     George MacDonald was raised in this atmosphere, but he struggled against it and came to believe, to preach and lecture and write stories that showed the evil of this way of life and belief. He came to see the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to show the true nature of God. George had had the good fortune to have a kindly and just father, and he saw the Lord in that image. And in the beauty of nature about him he saw the truth that the Creator must be gracious and loving.
     Just how much he got from Swedenborg it is hard to say.
     So my conclusion is that over the span of the 19th century this one man did a great work-he largely banished the concept of a harsh and pitiless God and eternal punishment, and gave the world an idea of the true loving Father of us all. So MacDonald's work may have been in part a preparation for the Second Coming through the Writings. For in Arcana 653 we read: "For so long as falsities prevail, a man never can receive the truths of faith, because the principles of falsity stand in the way.

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When he has thus been prepared to receive the truths of faith, then for the first time can celestial seeds be implanted in him, which are the seeds of charity. The seeds of charity can never be implanted in ground where falsities reign, but only where truths reign."
LUCK 1996

LUCK       Editor       1996

     Luck and Happiness

     The May issue of Scientific American has an article entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness." The May issue of the Reader's Digest has one entitled "Our Pursuit of Happiness." The writer in the latter says, "My dictionary defines happy as 'lucky' or 'fortunate,' but I think a better definition of happiness is 'the capacity for enjoyment.'"
     A passage in Divine Providence asks, "is one person more fortunate or happier than another?" How interesting it is to see how this passage appeals to the reader to show that money and status do not really make happiness, and now this is the scientific finding in the year 1996! Studies involving thousands of people show that levels of satisfaction "seem to have surprisingly little to do with favorable circumstances." According to extensive surveys, says Scientific American, the correlation between income and happiness is negligible and wealth is "a poor predictor of happiness."
     The findings are said to be surprising because at one level of our thinking we tend to equate favorable external circumstances with happiness.

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And yet something within us can respond to the truth of the matter, and our own observations about life can confirm it.
     Here is the way the passage continues:
     Is one person more fortunate or happier than another? Does a great man, or even a king or emperor, after a single year, regard the dignity as anything more than something common, which no longer exalts his heart with joy, but may even become worthless to him? Are such by virtue of their dignities in any greater degree of happiness than whose who are in less dignity, or even in the least, like farmers and even their servants? These when all goes well with them, and they are content with their lot, may have a greater measure of happiness (DP 250).

     ARE OLD PEOPLE HAPPIER?

     The above editorial alludes to an article in Scientific American about happiness. On Page 72 there is a graphic representation of the happiness of six different age groups, the youngest being ages 15-24 and the oldest being 65 and over. It is striking to observe that the satisfaction level is almost identical in each age group. Do you recall the phrase "every age has its delights"?
     The following lines are from AC 4063 which ought to be read in context. "And if one will consider, he may also know that every age has its delights, and that by these he is introduced by successive steps into those of the age next following; and that these delights had served the purpose of bringing him thereto, and finally to the delight of intelligence and wisdom in old age."

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COMMANDMENTS IN HEBREW 1996

COMMANDMENTS IN HEBREW       Rev. Leonard Fox       1996

Dear Editor:
     Just a brief linguistic note in response to Warren David's interesting letter on the Ten Commandments. While it is true that the Hebrew word [scanner unable to do Hebrew symbols] (lo) means "no" or "not," the verbal forms that follow this word in the Decalogue are in the second person singular ("thou") of the imperfect tense-the tense used for negative commands, so the translations we are familiar with are, in fact, literally correct. It is worth noting that Hebrew has two kinds of negative commands or prohibitive forms, one with [scanner unable to do Hebrew symbols] (lo) and one with [scanner unable to do Hebrew symbols] ('al). If one says [scanner unable to do Hebrew symbols] ('al tahmod), it means "do not covet right now"; in other words, it is an immediate prohibition; but [scanner unable to do Hebrew symbols] (lo' tahmod) means "never covet"-a permanent prohibition that transcends particular circumstances.
     This is another example of how the Word is not limited by time or space, but is applicable to all actual or potential spiritual states in an eternal now, and is understood by mortals and angels in accordance with their individual states, as we are taught in Apocalypse Explained:

. . . [T]here are in each commandment three interior senses, each sense for its own heaven, for there are three heavens. The first sense is the spiritual moral sense; this is for the first or lowest heaven; the second sense is the celestial spiritual sense, which is for the second or middle heaven; and the third sense is the Divine celestial, which is for the third or inmost heaven. There are thus three internal senses in every least particular of the Word. For from the Lord who is in things highest, the Word has been sent down in succession through the three heavens even to the earth, and thus has been accommodated to each heaven; and therefore the Word is with each heaven and almost with each angel in its own sense . . . .

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As the Word in its descent from the Lord has been accommodated to the three heavens, and the three heavens are joined together as inmosts are with ultimates through intermediates, so, too, are the three senses of the Word; which shows that the Word is given that by it there may be a conjunction of the heavens with each other, and also a conjunction of the heavens with the human race, for whom the sense of the letter is given, which is merely natural and thus the basis of the other three senses (1024:2,3).

     Rev. Leonard Fox,
          Charleston, SC
C. S. LEWIS and NEW CHURCH LIFE 1996

C. S. LEWIS and NEW CHURCH LIFE              1996

     In December of 1990 we had an editorial on the subject of C. S. Lewis and Swedenborg. In March of 1991 we had an informative letter on the subject from Rev. James Lawrence which showed Lewis' only direct reference to Swedenborg and pointed out areas of disagreement. In the same issue Mrs. Aubrey Odhner and Candace Frazee talked about "the MacDonald Connection." In April of that year we had a letter from Mr. Gordon Jacobs of England with further information. Mr. Jacobs quotes a letter in which Lewis compares Swedenborg to Rudolf Steiner.
     In June of 1991 we were pleased to print some little known letters under the heading, "C. S. Lewis Writes to R. R. Gladish." And now we are pleased to present from Mr. Gladish further material which will be highly interesting to readers of C. S. Lewis.
     It is interesting to note that people-were talking about a connection between George MacDonald and the Writings in our pages more than a hundred years ago! (See NCL 1883, p. 177 and 1884 p. 144.)

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Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996




     Announcements







Vol. CXVI          August, 1996               No. 8
New Church Life



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     The assembly has taken place and more than a thousand audio tapes were sold on the spot. Yes, the tapes were available almost immediately! A tape that sold especially well came from a "mini session" conducted by Mr. Peter Rhodes. Whether you attended the assembly or not you may wish to avail yourself of such tapes, which are being sold for $2.00 each from the Sound Recording Office at Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Add $1.00 for postage with any order.
     The sermon in this issue by Rev. Bruce Rogers has stimulated considerable discussion. We will not be surprised to have letters on this subject in the months ahead.
     The article by Rev. Eric Carswell puts one in mind of the fine program at the assembly during the Theta Alpha/Sons luncheon. There were hundreds of people there obviously enjoying this outstanding event. See the note on page 308.
     How many people have had the experience of sending a student to the Academy of the New Church? In this issue someone who has had that experience tells what it was like to be sent from California to a little town called Bryn Athyn.
     If your married partner is in the spiritual world, there are questions you may have. In this issue Rev. Grant Odhner addresses such questions rather fully.
     Are old people happier than younger people? There have been extensive studies related to this subject, and some are noted in Scientific American. See the editorials in this issue.

     Two Charming Pamphlets-Mr. Roland Smith has produced a booklet called The Strange Case of the Swedish Reporter. It is about Emanuel Swedenborg. Rev. Frank Rose has produced a pamphlet called Relax, It's Not the End of the World. It is about the coming millennium.

     Video of the Assembly Pageant. We expect to provide next month information on the video of the pageant directed by Miss Martha Gyllenhaal, which was seen at the assembly by some nine hundred people.

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LOVE YOUR ENEMIES 1996

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES       Jr. Rev. Peter M. Buss       1996

     We have a challenging section of the Word to focus on this morning. The words themselves are easy enough to understand, but the meaning-what the Lord is asking us to do-can easily elude us. We read from the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also (Matthew 5:38, 39).

     We can guess at the intended message: that the Lord wants us to respond to evil with something other than revenge or anger; but beyond that, questions arise. Are we really meant to let evil run its course? Do we have to put up with the abuse other people inflict upon us?
     Fortunately, answers have been given. The Writings for the New Church come to our rescue and explain that we do not need to take these words too literally. But there is an important message contained within which teaches us a great deal about how to respond to injustice when we are the victims.
     David and Saul. To begin thinking about the meaning we turn to the story of David and Saul (see 1 Samuel 26:5-12). Saul was jealous of David's success and wanted to kill him. Twice during David's extended flight he had the opportunity to kill Saul. We read about how David and Abishai came into the middle of Saul's camp one night and stood over Saul while he and the whole camp slept. Abishai, ever willing to please, asked David if he could take Saul's spear lying by his head and thrust it through him, for as he said, "God has delivered your enemy into your hand" (1 Samuel 26:8). But David would not let him, saying, "Who can stretch out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?" (1 Samuel 26:9) David had the motive, the opportunity, and even the justification (by most people's standards) to kill Saul.

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But he didn't because the Lord forbade it. He refused to repay evil with evil.
     Although he may have acted out of simple obedience (he may have wanted to kill Saul even though he didn't), we can admire his steadfast character-especially in the context of a nation whose rule was: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (see Exodus 21:23-25; Leviticus 24:17-20).
     Looking within. In the New Testament we hear the Lord asking people to go the next step. Instead of just resisting revenge, He asks us not to resist evil. We are to love our enemies-to turn the other cheek, The interior message is that we need to master more than our actions and speech; we also need to notice the emotions and feelings, our thoughts, intentions and attitudes which cause us to act in certain ways. These are things of the internal realm within our minds. In His request to "turn the other cheek" we are invited by the Lord to reflect on our reactions to evil when we see it-when we are the victims. Do we clench with anger and coil up-repay wrong for wrong? Or do we have the courage to resist that primal urge and hear the Lord asking us to be merciful instead of vengeful?
     The Urge to Seek Revenge. Like it or not, we are the center of our own universe. Although this does refer to our love of self, a love which the Lord wants us to work on, the main reason for bringing it up is that it speaks to our perspective in general. We know our own thoughts and intentions; we do not necessarily know those of other people. We feel the pain when someone says or does something cruel to us; we don't automatically perceive what's going on in the other person's mind.
     Because of this self-centered view, we have a natural and automatic surge of defensiveness when attacked. It takes an effort of will to rise above such an inclination, to think about the thoughts and feelings of someone else.
     Let me offer a couple of examples to give a context in which to think about this principle of overcoming our native perspective:

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     1)      If someone short-changes us at the checkout, it's easy to assume that that person is incompetent. It takes more effort to reflect that the person may have just made a mistake.
     2)      If someone lies to us knowingly, it's easy to insinuate all kinds of negative things about that person's spiritual character-maybe even say a few of them. It's harder to open ourselves up to think about the reasons the person lied and how best to deal with the situation.
     3)      If someone insensitively yells at us for something we didn't do, our natural tendency is to yell back to make sure he or she knows of the injustice. It takes more courage to explain the error calmly and to hold no ill will toward the person.
     The list could go on and on. These things happen all the time. Therefore we need the Lord's words of encouragement, reminding us to rise above our instinctive desire to repay injustice, and instead be moved to think about what's going on in other people's minds as we experience our own thoughts and emotions.
     "Turn the Other Cheek." I believe the Lord knows He's asking a lot of us in this regard. It is difficult to counter cruelty with mercy. He explains this by means of the very words He chose during His Sermon on the Mount. The things He asks there intentionally go against our common sense-beyond what we would reasonably expect the Lord to ask of us. Think about what it means to "turn the other cheek." A person slaps you in the face. Such an act is an affront to our selfhood. It is a way of cutting someone to the core-of provoking us to almost certain anger. Yet the Lord says in effect, "Let him slap you again."
     The rest of the requests are equally as alarming if we think about actually doing what the Lord says.

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If someone wants your clothes, He asks you to give them up. If someone needs to borrow money, He asks you to lend without expecting repayment. He commands us all to give any of our possessions to anyone who asks. The reason for this imagery is to make us aware that it is not easy to overcome our desire for revenge. It is not something we would tend to do if left to ourselves.
     There is a deeper reason, of course. It comes by means of the internal sense. A passage from Arcana Caelestia explains:

Who can fail to see that these words should not be taken literally? Who is going to turn his left cheek to one who has smacked him on the right cheek? Who is going to give his cloak to one who wishes to take away his tunic? Who is going to give what he has to all who ask for it? And who will not resist evil? But these words cannot be understood by anyone who does not know what the right cheek and the left, tunic and cloak, a mile, a loan, and all the rest are being used to mean. The subject in these verses is spiritual life or the life of faith, not natural life, which is the life of the world (AC 9049:5; cf. AE 556:8).

     Spiritual life is the key. Again the Lord is asking us to focus on what's going on in our minds-our intentions, affections, thoughts, attitudes. When someone insults us, what happens to our spiritual life? What causes us to react in a merciful or vengeful way? This is what comes out by means of the internal sense.
     Spiritual Associations. A major idea is contained within the Lord's introduction to His message: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'" (Matt. 5:38). This again is the law of retaliation. It is the exact opposite of the Golden Rule which the Lord spoke of later in the same address: "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them" (Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31). The truth contained within is that one is the law of heaven, while the other is the law of hell. In heaven, angels are motivated by mutual love or charity-they do to others as they want others to do to them (see AR 762).

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But devils in hell place themselves first, desiring to abuse and manipulate those around them. When it doesn't work, they break forth with acts of violence and cruelty. But the law of retaliation takes effect, and whatever they do to others comes crashing back on them in the form of punishments (Ibid.). By such means the Lord maintains some semblance of order in the hells.
     The power of such a teaching is that it opens up a reality never before known. In the lessons we read about our spiritual associations (see AC 4067). We are in the presence of spirits and angels right now. The spiritual world, the realm of the afterlife, is full of people who once lived on earth. The Lord uses them to lead us. Every single thing we think and feel is caused by our association with certain spirits. We are present with spirits who like to think and feel the same way we do, even though we are entirely unaware of it.
     The passage gave some examples. A covetous person is in association with covetous spirits; a person who loves himself pre-eminently is with those who share this self-pride; one who takes delight in revenge (an emotion particularly appropriate in this context) is among spirits who feed that desire. It also mentions that people who avoid such vices are in association with angels in heaven, and are thereby led by the Lord Himself.
     With this backdrop we can think again about our response to evil or insensitivity. When we react with anger or vengeance it is never from the Lord. When we repay anger with anger, violence with violence, then we are acting under the law of retaliation-the law that governs hell. The result is that we are in association with devils in hell, and as the passage from Arcana Caelestia explains:

[Man is] utterly under their control, so much so that he is not under his own jurisdiction but under theirs, even though he imagines from the delight he experiences, and so from the freedom he has, that he is in control of himself (AC 4067:3).

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     Only when we reflect on the fact that there's more going on than our own emotions and thoughts, that someone else is involved, that there may be reasons for his or her actions, do we open ourselves up to charity-to thoughts about how we would want to be treated if the roles were reversed. Then we are in association with angels of heaven and we are led by the Lord.
     This is an amazing new truth which gives us a totally new way of approaching our dealings with other people. Our goal is to be led by the Lord and His angels rather than to fall into the traps of hell.
     Specific Requests. With this backdrop of our connection with the spiritual world, we can look at a few of the phrases of the Lord's words and see clearly what the Lord is asking us to do.
     (1) "Do not resist an evil person," He says. What He means is "Don't repay evil with evil." Why? Because it will never help. All it does is bring us into association with the hells. Their desire is to hurt us and control us. If we respond to their influx, we suffer. We can think of anger as an example. It is a powerful emotion. We may derive some delusionary pleasure from "letting someone have it," but more often than not we end up feeling remorseful and guilty. It doesn't lead anywhere good.
     (2) Our goal, then, is to avoid such consequences. The first way to do so is "to turn the other cheek." A "cheek" represents an interior understanding of the truth (see AE 556:9; cf. AC 9049:6). When we truly understand the Lord's request to resist vengeful emotions, we will see that He is asking us to respond from a charitable perspective. "Striking the cheek" represents a desire to destroy (Ibid.). When someone steals from us or is cruel, the Lord asks us not to strike back-not to desire to destroy. Instead our goal is to respond from that interior understanding which is "the other cheek" from an interior affection of love toward the neighbor. This includes many of the other things the Lord asks.

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We are to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us (see Matt. 5:43).
     In this we see a tremendous challenge: to overcome that instinctive reaction and to act from a higher motive instead; to take influx from heaven rather than hell; to think about the other person-the one who is abusing us-from respect, as a person; to ask ourselves how the Lord would want us to respond. Once we've considered these things, then we can react. It may be with zeal, or with a desire to clarify the cause for the confrontation, or with a decision to remove ourselves from the situation. Whatever our response actually is, it will be from charity, and so from heaven.
     (3) Again, the Lord knows that is hard. It is our goal, but we may not always succeed. So the Lord offers a starting point in the next sentence: "If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also" (Matt. 5:40). A "cloak" represents an external understanding of the truth as opposed to the internal understanding represented by a "cheek" (see AE 556:9, AC 9049:6). What the Lord asks here is that we obey even if we don't feel like it. If we can't bring ourselves to respond to our "adversary" from a genuinely charitable attitude, then obedience is a place to begin. We may want to respond with anger or revenge, but the Lord asks us not to. It might be useful to think again of David and Saul. David had the opportunity to kill Saul, his enemy, but he did not because the Lord forbade it.
     (4) Still, such external obedience should not be our home base. It is just a starting point. The Lord wants us to work toward the goal of genuine mercy and forgiveness. He says so in the last phrase we'll look at today: "And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two" (Matt. 5:41). Going the extra mile represents our willingness to work toward the goal of charity.

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The more we resist our urge to repay wrong for wrong, the more the Lord will lead us toward control to such a degree that we feel nothing but affection for those in disorder. This doesn't mean we have to feel happy for them. But it does mean we feel concern, and respond with the idea of helping the situation rather than making it worse. If we do so, then we are on the road to experiencing love toward the neighbor as the angels of heaven do.
     Conclusion. The Lord asks us not to resist evil. In the internal sense He explains that evil has its own punishment (see AR 762). He asks that we avoid being affected by other people's wrongdoing to such a degree that we drop to their level of operation. All it does is cause us to receive influx from hell.
     Instead He says, "Love your enemies . . . . Do good to those who hate you" (Matt. 5:44). The overriding rule is to do to others as we would have them do to us. If we heed this rule and hold it up as our goal, then we will be "sons of the Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:45). In other words, the Lord will be leading us. He will protect us from harm, and evil will not have its intended effect on us. We won't respond with anger or vengeance because the source of our response will be heaven rather than hell. As the passage from Arcana Caelestia says:
     As he allows himself to be led to good which is more interior and more perfect, so he is conveyed [by the Lord] to more interior and more perfect angelic societies (AC 4067). Into these societies we will come after death if we make mutual love or charitable regard for others our rule of life. Amen.
     Lessons: Matt. 5:38-48; 1 Samuel 26:5-12; AC 4067:3

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     See the accompanying lesson on the next page.

     Arcana Caelestia 4067:3

     Moreover, the good in a person appears to him as what is simple or one, and yet is so manifold, and consists of things so various, that the person cannot possibly explore so much as its generals. It is the same with the evil in a person. Such as is the good in a person, such is the society of angels with him and such as is the evil in a person, such is the society of evil spirits with him. The person summons these societies to himself, that is, he places himself in a society of such spirits; for like is associated with like. For example: the person who is avaricious summons to himself societies of like spirits who are in the same cupidity. The person who loves himself in preference to others, and who despises others, summons those who are like himself. He who takes delight in revenge summons such as are in a like delight; and so in all other cases. These spirits communicate with hell, and the person is in the midst of them, and is altogether ruled by them, insomuch that he is not at his own disposal, but is at theirs, although from the delight and consequent freedom that he enjoys he supposes that he directs himself. But the person who is not avaricious, or who does not love himself in preference to others, nor despise others, and who does not take delight in revenge, is in a society of similar angels, and is led by the Lord by their means, and indeed by means of his freedom, to all the good and truth to which he suffers himself to be led; and in proportion as he suffers himself to be led to more interior and more perfect good, in the same proportion he is brought to more interior and perfect angelic societies. The changes of his state are nothing else than changes of societies. That this is the case is evident to me from the continuous experience of many years, whereby the fact has become as familiar to me as is that which has been familiar to a person from his infancy.

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RITUAL PERFECTED 1996

RITUAL PERFECTED       Rev. TERRY SCHNARR       1996

     (Concluded from the April issue)

     The Externals of Worship Must Come from the Word

     "All the goods and truths of worship should be from the Word" (AR 777). "Worship is prescribed in doctrine, and is performed according to it" (Lord 64, AR 81). External rituals must be taken from the Word and from the doctrine from the Word.
     Several reasons are given for this. Fundamentally, the reason is that the things of the Word correspond to internal or heavenly things, and finally to the Lord. "[This comes] from an origin in the spiritual world, and accordingly from the correspondence with things in the spiritual world of those things in the natural world which flow from order" (AC 8337:2).
     Worship from any other source is not worship. "That which is from the Word is alone serviceable for Divine worship, because it is in itself alive . . . . Worship truly Divine has its existence from those things which are of the Word, and in no case from those things which are of self-intelligence. Hence it is that by 'if you move a tool upon the altar you will profane it' is signified if you devise not from the Word but from self-intelligence such things as must be of Divine worship, there is no worship" (AC 8943).
     Not only the externals but also the internals of worship must come from the Word. In other words, the externals of worship need to be picked and chosen according to the Word as it exists in the internals of those people who are participating in the rituals, as it exists within them in their affections and in their understanding. "The quality of the worship is from the goods and truths of doctrine; for worship is nothing but an external act, in which there should be the internals which are of doctrine. Without these the worship is without its essence, life, and soul" (AR 777). Again, we read:

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The external things of the church are rituals; the internal things are doctrinal things, provided that these are not merely of memory-knowledge but also of life (AC 3270).

     Externals taken from the Word are natural vessels which either invite the presence of the Lord or, with those who are in internal worship, bring conjunction with the Lord through the doctrines and truths of the Word dwelling in the life of the worshiper. "Through the interior things of worship the person of the church communicates with the heavens, to which the external serves as a plane upon which the interior things may subsist, as a house upon its foundation, . . . for the end of all worship is communication with heaven, and thereby the conjunction of the Lord with people" (AC 10436). The Word is the only medium of conjunction with the heavens and the Lord (see SS 62ff).
     The importance of active participation in the external rituals of worship is emphasized in the following passage: "Worship itself is nothing but a certain activity coming forth from the celestial which is within [a person]. The celestial itself cannot possibly exist without activity. Worship is its first activity, for it puts itself forth in this way because it perceives joy in it. All the good of love and of charity is essential activity itself" (AC 1561e).
     We turn now to a discussion of application, specifically regarding variety in worship, the development of living rituals, and unity in the perfected church.

     Variety in Worship

     Promoting a variety of rituals in the societies of the church will increase the perfection of the church as a servant of the Lord. A greater variety of external forms will serve to lead and introduce a greater variety of people to the Lord and internal states of holiness, which will perfect the church.     
     A variety of rituals will also serve as means of providing more opportunity for expressing with joy and delight a greater variety of people's internal affections, thereby increasing their satisfaction with worship and strengthening the effectiveness of their worship experience.

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     We are taught in the Heavenly Doctrines that each person and each group has different internals. A variety of rituals enhances and cultivates those varieties for the perfection of the church. We read: "The case was the same in the first Ancient Church, for although there were many kinds of worship-some being internal and some external-as many in general as there were nations, and as many specifically as there were families in the nations, and as many in particular as there were people of the church, yet they all had . . . one doctrine, both in general and in particular. The doctrine is one when all are in mutual love or in charity. Mutual love and charity cause them all to be a one although they are diverse, for they make a one out of the varieties . . . . All people how many soever they may be, even myriads of myriads, if they are in charity or mutual love have one end, namely, the common good, the Lord's kingdom, and the Lord Himself. Varieties in matters of doctrine and of worship are like the varieties of the senses and of the viscera in a person which contribute to the perfection of the whole. For then, through charity, the Lord inflows and works in diverse ways in accordance with the genius of each one; and thus, both in general and in particular, disposes all into order, on earth as in heaven. And then the will of the Lord is done, as He Himself teaches, as in the heavens so also upon the earth" (AC 1285:3, emphasis added).

     Development of Ritual

     When we consider the principle that the externals of worship are the effect of internal worship, produced by internal worship, and come forth from internals, the consequent conclusion is that the internals of those who will be worshiping must be involved in the development of the rituals they will use. Externals of worship which do not correspond to the worshipers' internals are rejected (see AR 157)

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     The development of ritual therefore needs to take place at a local level where those worshiping are involved in selecting the externals of worship according to the principles of worship. The Lord, working through their internals, will then be able to lead them through their affections to choose externals which are ultimates expressive of their own particular internals.
     The doctrine of variety clearly demonstrates the necessity in the Lord's Providence that a variety of people, groups, and societies is created by the Lord to perform unique and distinct uses so that the church is perfected. A variety of externals is needed to attract, appeal to, and lead a variety of people. A variety of externals is needed so that the variety of internals existing in people will have appropriate ultimates.
     The role of a "Worship and Ritual Committee" could be to act as a data bank. Those involved could be organized to collect and receive copies of all the external forms of ritual which have been and are being used in local groups, including music. They could maintain a large loose-leaf "liturgy" containing copies of everything being used for worship in the church. They could print a copy of this information for distribution to each worshiping group, and send copies of all new and additional externals which are used.
     Each worshiping group should form a small worship committee, with constantly rotating membership. This committee could study the Word and the rituals of other groups to choose forms of worship and music in accordance with the principles of worship which they feel would be effective rituals for their group. They could put what they choose in their local loose-leaf book of worship, take out of their book of worship what they are no longer using, and insert what they will use. This could be done perhaps on a semi-annual or annual basis. The Lord will be leading and guiding them through their internals, their affections and doctrinal understanding.

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As the months and years go by, the membership on this committee would change; the external forms of worship in that group would gradually change as well. When they develop new rituals from the Word they could send a copy to the centralized "Worship and Ritual Committee," which in turn would send copies to all the worshiping groups to consider for use in their worship.
     This or some other process of encouraging the development of new rituals is needed in the church in order to provide for freedom and for an orderly development of various forms of worship in the church, helping to perfect the church. Each society is different and has collectively its own unique affections and understanding of doctrine and consequently its own unique collection of internals. Each society therefore needs to be directly involved in selecting its own externals of worship so that the Lord, guiding their internals by His Holy Spirit within them, can lead them to choose rituals which will be most effective for that society at that time.
     In this way our rituals will be alive, developing, and changing to meet the needs, the internal states, of the local worshipers. We will be bound by no book other than the Word of the Lord. The rituals of the church will be free to develop and change with the internal states of the worshiping group.

     Unity in a Perfected Church

     We are taught that the New Church is to be like the Ancient Church and the primitive Christian Church in internals, that is, as to charity, so that the varieties of doctrines and worship are of only secondary importance (see AC 1083, 4772). We are taught that it was the councils of the Christian Church, particularly the Council of Nicea, which destroyed that church through the love of dominion. Their effort was, in part, to preserve unity in the church by man-made control over the development of doctrine and the externals of worship. However, no such control, dominion, or authority was needed to preserve unity in the Ancient Church or in the primitive Christian Church because the church was unified through charity, the internal of worship. So let it be in the New Church!

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     We need not fear the loss of unity in the church because of a variety of rituals so long as we are in charity. "The church would be one if all had charity although they differed as to worship and doctrinal things (809, 1285, 1316, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 2982)" (AC 3451:4).
     "The Ancient Church did not differ one whit from the Christian Church as to internals but only as to externals. Worship of the Lord from charity can never differ, howsoever externals are varied" (AC 1083:3). The externals and internals were varied because the loves of the people were various: "In general, all the varieties of external, as also of internal, worship are according to the adoration of the Lord in the worship" (AC 1153).
     The internals and the externals of the Ancient Church were varied, but it was still one church (see AC 1285:2, 3; 2385:4, 5). We are taught that it was then like heaven on earth and could be so now: "Such was the Ancient Church . . . . Among these the doctrinal and ritual matters differed, but still the church was one because to them charity was the essential thing. Then was there the Lord's kingdom on earth as in the heavens, for such is heaven (684, 690). If it were so now, all would be governed by the Lord as one man" (AC 2385:5).
     Our attitude toward the external worship of others needs to be the same as the attitude of the ancients toward each other, as described in the following two passages: "They looked upon worship not from doctrinal matters which pertain to faith, but from charity which pertains to life" (AC 1799:5).
     "Then would each person say, in whatever doctrine and in whatever outward worship he might be, 'This is my brother; I see that he worships the Lord, and is a good person'" (AC 2385:5).

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PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY 1996

PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY       VERA GOODENOUGH DYCK       1996

     (Continued from the May issue)

     I believe that there is more than one legitimate way to approach even revelation. I feel that I could be in a church that included people with many different approaches to our common revelation. I realize that not everyone shares this position, and I see in our church-wide dialogue an incredible effort to reach unanimity on issues of interpretation and application, such as
the women-in-the-clergy question.
     The fact is that as an organization we are very far from unanimity on this question. What do we do about that? Do we put all our energy into trying to attain unanimity? Or do we keep talking to each other and in the meantime accept that we do not agree and adapt our structure to accommodate differences of opinion and interpretation?
     As you can probably guess, I am making a serious plug for the latter. Why? Because I am a "liberal" and I want to stay in this church. As I see it, the alternatives to accepting differences are: a) feeling squeezed out of the church by others' intolerance of my approach, or b) waiting patiently for something (unanimity) that I don't hold as an essential value and am therefore not especially willing to knock myself out waiting for.
     I do not claim that my premises are exactly the same as those of "conservatives" in this church. I do claim to understand and appreciate those premises. I was raised and educated on them for the first twenty-two years of my life. I am grateful for aspects of them. And I care about this church. I feel I understand where it is coming from, and I want to support it and see it survive and grow. I also feel I understand many of those who have not found a permanent home in this church, and would like to help them, and myself, do so.

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     The woman interviewed on the program (mentioned in the May issue) had edited a book whose intent was to open a dialogue between "conservatives" and "liberals" in her church. She has abandoned her original goal. She feels that her book, although having other uses, has been a failure as an invitation to dialogue. Why? Because the two sides cannot find enough common ground to trust and listen to each other. This article has something of a similar purpose. My hope is that there is enough trust in our common ground (our mutual belief in the Heavenly Doctrines, Old and New Testaments as the Word of the Lord) that we can have a real dialogue.
     In my view, a full dialogue on this topic would include a back-and-forth discussion of specific passages, teachings, derived doctrines, and opinions. This dialogue would include ministers' discussions with each other, ministers' discussions with lay members, and lay members' with each other. This dialogue would involve looking at passages and ideas in the context of life and experiences. Many changes have been taking place in our various church societies and in the theological school over the past few decades. Some of these changes affect the role of women in our church and its leadership. Some of these changes affect the training of our ministers and the expectations we have of them. Some people are enthusiastic about these changes. Some people are troubled by them. And yet very little of this has been mentioned in printed exchanges so far.     
     One of the unfortunate results of this is that it gives to many the impression that our doctrinal discourse on the topic of women in the ministry is not connected to what we do about it as a church. As a result, some people may be dismayed that the church appears to stray from the ideals discussed in print. On the other hand, some people may be relieved that doctrinal interpretations with which they disagree are not solely responsible for determining what happens in their societies. My hope is that in expanding the dialogue, we will make more connections between our doctrinal discourse and what we are doing in our societies, with allowance for diversity of views and practices. My hope is that whether we agree with each other or not, we can feel confident that members of the church are striving to be guided in church life and uses by revelation.

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Perhaps it was a lack of commitment to doing in her church which caused the woman on the radio program to abandon hope for a real dialogue. The teachings of the Writings about the importance of use and charity are a blessing that can help us overcome such a barrier to a full dialogue. My prayer is that our shared commitment to doing the Lord's will can help us to listen openly to differing views on what the Lord's will is for us. Perhaps all may find some peace in the knowledge that even those that disagree are seeking guidance from the Word.

Absence of clear teachings not adequately acknowledged

     Is it clearly stated in the Writings that the priesthood must be male if it is to do its work effectively? If the Writings do not clearly state that the priesthood be male, then this idea-even if the whole clergy or the whole church agrees, and no matter how strongly it is articulated-is a doctrine derived from the Word by human beings. To date I am unaware of any direct teaching stating this, and so I conclude that it is a derived doctrine.
     A derived doctrine is a sincere effort to find an answer that is based on the Lord's truth. It may be partly true, or mostly true, or true in many ways. It may be accurate in some situations, in some cultures, or to some generations, and yet not be universally true. It cannot be universally, infallibly true in the way that directly stated doctrines are. Because by its very nature a derived doctrine is fallible, I hope we remember that it cannot be the whole or final answer in the way that direct teachings are. We should keep searching for a more full and accurate understanding of it (see AC 6047).

     (To be continued)

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Part 7

Spiritual Communication

     Many of us have read about or have known people who have seen waking visions of loved ones who have died. Others have had vivid dreams in which they have seen and communicated with them. Others have felt an out-of-the-ordinary strong sense of a loved one's presence with them.
     I don't believe the Writings specifically mention this phenomenon, but there are a number of teachings which suggest that it is entirely possible. We know that as to the inner person, good people are "in the midst of angels of heaven, and [are] sometimes even visible to the angels."1 Also, our sincere, heartfelt thoughts are sometimes heard by angels as speaking or as cries.2 Again, we are told that we can be seen in heaven when we are thinking deeply from our inner person, "abstractly from the body." The angels can easily tell us from others when this happens; we go about "meditating and in silence, not looking at others, and apparently not seeing them.3 This usually does not last long because we are easily drawn back into our outer person by its demands and concerns.4 Elsewhere we are told that as soon as any angel speaks to us, we vanish.5 Swedenborg writes later, in seeming contradiction to this:
           1 DLW 252; cf. AE 751; DP 296:6.
          2 AC 6624, 9202; SE 4821f
          3 HH 438
          4 DLW 252
          5 HH 438

It has frequently been granted me to see in societies [of the spiritual world] the spirits of people still living-some in angelic and some in infernal societies-and also to converse with them for days; and I have wondered how the person himself while still living in the body could be wholly ignorant of this.6
          6 TCR 14e (emphasis added)

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     Why didn't these people vanish when Swedenborg addressed them? Was he allowed to do something exceptional in these cases for the sake of learning and teaching? In any case, these passages show us that the mechanism for contact between people in the two worlds is there. Undoubtedly, for relatively brief moments the Lord sometimes grants this vision to be mutual between loved ones. He opens our spiritual eyes and adapts our loved one's state to our more external state.7 Who can doubt that this occurs when the Lord so permits or wills? And though we should not expect such experiences or regard them as the only guarantees that our relationship is eternal, we can imagine the great uses they serve for some people.
          7Cf. HH 246, 252, 255; AE 1182:4; DLW 257:2; Invitation 52.
     More often (I've been told) these kinds of incidents happen soon after a loved one's departure to the other world. We can see why the use might be greater then in offering comfort and assurance. Also it is possible that as spirits move further from their first state in the world of spirits (in which they still have active ties to their external memories), they have less inclination to contact and interfere with people in the world.
     Open communication with the other world is relatively rare at this day (certainly in our culture). Since the fall our focus has become very world-centered. And many dangers and disorders associated with such communication have arisen. But the human race may hopefully look forward to a day when a fuller association between the worlds is restored. We are taught:

A human being was created so that while living on earth among people he might at the same time also live in heaven among angels, and vice versa. This is so that heaven and earth might be together and act as one, and so that people might know what is in heaven, and angels what is in the world. Also so that when people depart this life, they might pass from the Lord's kingdom on earth to His kingdom in the heavens, not as into another kingdom, but as into the same one in which they had been when they lived in the body.8
          8 AC 1880 (emphasis added); cf. 69; 1111 246:2; SE 2541f.

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     People of the Most Ancient Church, who were heavenly people, used to commune with their loved ones frequently: "They talked with angels of heaven as with their friends, and angels of heaven talked with them as with their friends."9 Surely it is the Lord's will that we be able to do so again.
     (To be continued)
           9 HH 252; cf. AC 8118, 125.
REPORT OF THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE FOR 1995 1996

REPORT OF THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE FOR 1995       Editor       1996

     Here are some selections, month by month, from the hundreds of pages of material we published in 1995.
     January's issue began with a sermon on "snow." That was the issue with the historic article by Verna Brown about the Founders Assembly in South Africa. It gave the church a feel for a newness of endeavor in that land. The same issue had photographs of Bishop L. B. King together with his wife and friends in a visit to New Church people in Ghana, West Africa.     
     The February issue began with the following words. "What is the most important thing we have to do during our life on this earth?" That was the opening line of a sermon by Rev. Kurt Horigan Asplundh. It was the issue in which we read the memorial address for Rev. Norman Reuter. Rev. Thomas Kline wrote: "We think of Beth and Norman together now.

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The team is back in full operation again-Norman and Beth continuing in the growth of the Lord's New Church." He spoke of Mr. Reuter as a "pioneer" in more than one way. It is fitting that in the same issue John Davidson told us about "Circuit Riders," his subtitle being, "They brought the Word to the frontier. And they still do." This evoked a response from Mary Waelchli Griffin in a later issue.
     That issue included a very long editorial. The editor tries to get editorials down to about a page. The one called "Rivalry Between Women and Men" was well over three pages and was followed by monthly editorials in four subsequent issues endeavoring to bring out teachings of the Writings that apply to this subject which seems to be on the minds of a number of people.
     The text of the sermon in March included the phrase "they neither marry nor are given in marriage." There seems to be a recurrent need for addressing this Scriptural saying. One notices in that issue that the report on New Church education was slightly longer than the report on evangelization. Also in March, Rev. E. Sandstrom, Sr. describes the Peterkin summer camp. It is useful to note that the various summer camps are part of the doctrinal life of the church. Far from being merely recreation and social life, the camps are often the scenes of significant doctrinal presentation. March carries the official announcement by Rev. Alfred Acton of the Rogers translation of De Amore Conjugialis.
     The Easter sermon in the April issue was by Rev. Eric Carswell. That issue began a series by Dr. Leon James of the University of Hawaii. "Do the Writings contain Scientific Revelations?" This reviewed things written in New Philosophy as well as NCL.
     The May issue began a series by Rev. Stephen Cole entitled "Gender and the Representation of the Lord." Originally a major presentation to the Council of the Clergy, this series went all the way to the July issue.

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     Of particular value in the May issue was a comprehensive study of Islam in which a student could see what studies have been made in the past as well as benefit from this fresh exploration of the subject by Rev. E. E. Sandstrom.
     A striking and unusual sermon began the June issue. It was about spiritual gravity. That issue had a somewhat controversial article called "Polarization, Paradigm Shift and the General Church." In the same issue a letter promoted peace and harmony. Its title was "Voices Solo and Harmony.
     "The New English Liturgy" was the cover story of the July issue. The Bishop introduced this long awaited volume. Also on the cover were the words, "Articles on Gender." Those writing on this subject included Stephen Cole, Douglas Taylor, Kenneth Stroh, and Michael David.
     The August issue had more contributors than usual. Rev. Leonard Fox did us the service of summarizing in just over a page the New Church material that had been appearing in a Russian magazine, but which virtually none of us could read! There was a photograph of an Atlanta couple new to the church, which began a series of "chosen passages." We had letters in that issue about "paradigm shifts."
     "How the Lord Can Lead Us" was the title of the sermon by Brian Keith in the September issue. And with that issue we began to pay attention to the coming assembly, the Bishop's announcement appearing on page 393. The commencement address by Bruce Henderson was called "New Church Education: The Call to Disciples." There were two letters that month Under the title "Women in the Priesthood."
     The Bishop described his trip to Japan in the October issue, while in the same issue his son Peter had a sermon on being useful and his other son, Erik, began a major series called "The Cycle of Life."
     A thoughtful three-page letter from Winyss Shepard was titled "Formal Worship and Paradigms.
     The November issue began a popular series by Dr. Jonathan Rose called "Beauty in Swedenborg's Latin Writings."

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Appearing each month thereafter, these short pieces were informative and stimulating. The issue began with an article by Michael Ferry of South Africa on the subject of the Divine call. The news section in that issue was from Colchester, England.
     The December issue began with a sermon entitled "Glory to God in the Highest." It included a memorial to Rev. Jos? Lopes de Figueiredo of Brazil, and it contained the directories of schools and of the church as a whole. As usual the December issue ended with a full index of the things we published in 1995, surely an interesting year.
     Seventy-seven people wrote for New Church Life in 1995: fifty-two laity (19 women and 33 men) and 25 clergy.

     How New Church Life pages were used in 1995:
     (The following figures are not as precise as they have been in recent years, but they give a general picture.)
          Articles           250
          Sermons           54
          Reports           11
          Communications      52
          Announcements      43
          Church News      20
          Reviews           21
          Editorials      31
          Memorials           8
          Directories      24
          Miscellaneous      35
     Comparing these rough figures with those for 1994, one notices that there were only half as many pages of "communications" in 1995, while there were about a hundred more pages of articles.

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The figures for the year 1994 appear in the April 1995 issue on page 180.
     Our circulation count was 1586.
          Donald L. Rose, Editor
FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART EXHIBIT 1996

FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART EXHIBIT       Mary S. Cooper       1996

     The art exhibit at the recent assembly in Bryn Athyn contained twenty-one works of artists from many parts of the world, including Australia, England, New Zealand, Norway, and South Africa, as well as the U. S. and Canada. Some well known artists in the church were represented and there were many other notable works as well. The suggested theme for the exhibit was "Lilies," and several lovely renditions of that theme were submitted. All the works were illustrative of concepts from the Writings, in keeping with the purpose of the Friends of New Church Art organization.
     This organization was formed in 1980 to promote the visual arts "as an essential means of expressing the new vision of religion contained in Emanuel Swedenborg's theological works." Its goal is to "develop and document distinctly New Church art forms, and build up a collection of such works." The organization was spearheaded by Helen Lindsay Lee after a suggestion many years earlier by the late Bishop Alfred Acton, and Mrs. Lee and others have worked hard to promote its uses these sixteen years.
     This latest exhibit was the fifth assembly exhibit sponsored by Friends of New Church Art. Special recognition was ,warded to the following artists: Bernice Sandstrom for her diorama, "A Wedding in Heaven"; Anne York for her work entitled "Water," representing the many aspects of the correspondence of water; H. M. Ridgway for her watercolor, "The Sparkling Flowers of Heaven"; Heather Allais for her painted and embroidered wall hanging, "The Spiritual Ephod"; and to students Lindsay Lee and John Lee for their "Installation," using what was in the room to be a representation.

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     It should be noted that many remarkable works of New Church Art" are permanently on display in the Glencairn Museum. And of course Glencairn itself, as well as the magnificent Cathedral, so beautifully illuminated and enhanced with music during the assembly, are themselves such works of art.
     The kind of shows arranged by Friends of New Church Art can allow all kinds of artists to enter in freedom, and can be a forum for more permanent exhibits such as those in the Glencairn Museum. They are made possible by the support of some 35 contributors, some of whom are not even members of the New Church, and one of whom has become interested in the doctrines because of her participation. All these faithful supporters are gratefully acknowledged.
     It is hoped that the efforts of Friends of New Church Art and other entities will continue to promote the distinctive art that is so much a part of our New Church culture. "Art is an international language" (a comment made at the organization's discussion group at Glencairn). We hope that exhibits will continue to be featured at future assemblies, perhaps more prominently and attractively than was possible this time. They deserve our attention.
     For further information about membership and activities of Friends of New Church Art, please contact Mrs. Helen L. Lee, 1015 Jefferson Heights Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15235.
     Mary S. Cooper,
          Mitchellville, MD

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Twelve Gates to the City 1996

Twelve Gates to the City       Helen Kennedy       1996

     This edition of Chrysalis Reader follows the interesting format of essays, poems and artwork already established with its predecessor, "Gold from Aspirin." In an essay called "Twelve Gates to the City," the author seems to capture best the theme of all the writers. He says, "Citizens of the true city are people in touch with the Divine."
     It is true that the Lord wants to rest within, but before that, we let ourselves be distracted and lose our way. In the preface Joseph Campbell is quoted as saying, "It is indeed very little that we need! But lacking that, the adventure into the labyrinth is without hope." Perhaps direction is pointed out by Carol Lawson when she muses that the way through the labyrinth may be "the tungsten alloy of living out our own truths.
     Because people see truths differently, there is a need for twelve different gates to the heavenly city. In the essay "Transcending Destruction" the author relates his negative outlook for the future of the world and mankind, and says that this has led him to draw upon spiritual leaders who can help point the way. He chooses five: Hildegard, Meister Eckhart, Keats, Emerson and Rachel Carson. Why Rachel Carson? Walter Christie explains that while reading her, "we hardly realize we are in the presence of a mystic." Still doubting, I finally agreed when reading what Christie wrote about Carson's continual search for the spiritual in nature, exemplified by her question, "What is the meaning of so tiny . . . a being as the transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a sea lace-existing for some reason inscrutable to us-a reason that demands its presence by the trillions amid the rocks and weeds of the shore? The meaning haunts and ever eludes us, and in its very pursuit we approach the ultimate mystery of life itself."
     The essay "Magic Encounter" is excellently written and more than interesting.

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The author tells of her birth in India, then her scientist father's return to the United States where she, Jennifer Leonard, at seven years of age considers herself a refugee. The climate, the noise, and entering the first grade all caused this little girl to retreat into silence, feeling herself a failure. Hardship and disappointment followed as, desperately shy, Jennifer pretended to be able to read. "Magic Encounter" is a story of compassionate love on the part of a reading teacher who embodies all the loving qualities the angels must employ in doing their everyday work.
     "The Mountainside" is an allegory filled with wonderful images that are also startling. It's an essay about a broken-down motel and a community living on a mountain. When the author suddenly began explaining the symbolism, I realized the imagery worked well and I didn't need explanations. But some were good and hadn't occurred to me. The author says, "Time comes into being when we lodge ourselves in too small a place."
     The lengthy article about Hildegard of Bingen highlights her mystic nature. Having received a life-transforming vision in 1141 AD, she accepted the gift and used it to lead and inspire others. All the more interesting to me was the story of her life, including the details of two times when her actions created strong controversies, but she stood by "what she felt was right and absorb[ed] the consequences of her actions."
     "The Guide Who Listened" is the story of a woman' s crawling out of a lifetime of depression. Analysis, studies, and support groups failed her. But love listened to her in the form of a Catholic priest. He never interrupted and could help because he was genuine. "Father reawakened in me my love for books and the ability to find help through reading." Because of his help, over time the author, Loretta Juras, found love deepening in the ordinary things of her life.
     These examples show that "Twelve Gates to the City" brims with sensitive, intimate stories of emotional strengthening. Another important story is "A Frog on the Threshold"-please don't miss it.

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In "A Painting by Paul Gaugin, Seen in Winter" a woman longs to step through a painting into the lush valley where she will sleep on the cool earth for years, then wake to the sounds of the village.
     In "Tiene Fosforo?" William Honey walks on the beach in Puerto Rico at night with two friends. From the shadows emerges a man with a knife. Honey's intuition leads him to approach the man in a way that keeps his friends from knowing the danger. A reader can learn much from this sensitive and touching account of a human's using the resources in his mind rather than reacting with the panic that initially strikes. "Masks of the Spirit" by Stephen and Robin Larsen is especially interesting. It's a cloth made by interweaving myths and spirits and masks. Mankind has never been contented with a philosophy of this world only, preferring what Joseph Campbell says are "myths of immemorial imagination," and people "making a hell for themselves and their neighbors in the name of some violent god" rather than "accepting gracefully the bounty that the world offers." The authors try to make the essay revolve around an intellectual question regarding Swedenborg's "anticipating the morphology of the next psychospiritual transformation for humankind." Gratefully, Swedenborg's mental and spiritual abilities transcend this limitation. Six major truths from the Writings are presented that have the ability to alter people's view of the spiritual and, "if seriously shared by humanity," these truths offer to "transform the world into a semblance of heaven."
     At times life gives the appearance of constantly changing, but the things that firmly attach us to the Divine are, in a sense, what keep us from wandering in the labyrinth. Spilling over with essays about people finding their own thread to bring them through, Twelve Gates brings us to what is joyful in life-that people's inner lives are constantly brimming with good things.
     Helen Kennedy

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WHY BOTHER? 1996

WHY BOTHER?       Rev. MICHAEL D. GLADISH       1996

     Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway?

     A Presentation on Evangelization for

     "A New Vision for Growth" Seminar in Tucson, February 1996

     Like many of you I have a lot of theories. I've been to a lot of seminars over the years and I've tried a whole lot of different things. I've read in the Writings and heard all the arguments about the slow growth of the church, but it seems to me there is one line of thought that hasn't been pursued very much, and that's what I want mostly to talk about today. Originally I had hoped to present a tightly reasoned argument from the doctrines virtually compelling anyone with a shred of conscience to get on with this work. And I believe the arguments are all there in the Writings, but in the end I decided to do something a little different.
     Anyway, as I said in a sermon published in New Church Life back in 1984, "This church has a serious problem with missionary work." The problem is that we all know the Lord's mercy is so universal, so inclusive, that it reaches out and provides for the salvation of all people, no matter what their religion, provided only that they live in good according to their conscience (see AC 2589-2590). Simply put, this means that God's power is not limited by our performance (or lack of performance) as missionaries. And, fortunately for the three out of four people on earth who are not Christians and the 4,999,950,000 who are not New Church, it means that it is not necessary for someone to be baptized in order to be saved from hell.
     In the history of Christianity this is a new concept. Many churches have a desperate sense of mission to spread the gospel and baptize people who, they believe, will otherwise go to hell. Even those who are not so pessimistic (or so ambitious) still have a yearning to convert people whom they see as "lost" in some sense without their particular form of conviction about the Lord or their particular perspective on the Scriptures.

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     We have no such incentive. Of course we know that people's lives can be dramatically improved through the knowledge and application of the Heavenly Doc trines, and this should motivate us to reach out, but we cannot claim to offer something people must have in order to be saved. Indeed, the Lord has explained to us that it is sufficient for salvation if only a few people in the whole world know and respond to his Word (see SS 104).
     One of the things I would like to discuss today is my conviction that the main reason we need to reach out to others has far less to do with the needs of others than it has to do with our own needs. This may sound incredibly selfish, but remember, the Lard has to work with incredibly selfish people every day.
     Another thing we need to review is the end purpose of our outreach, and especially of church growth: aside from the personal and organizational benefits that we may get from this work, what are we really trying to achieve, and why? What is the vision? What is the point?
     Finally, an important part of what I would like to share is a sort of paradigm for evangelization and church growth based on the story of creation understood in the spiritual sense.

     (To be continued)
FROM A NEW BOOK 1996

FROM A NEW BOOK              1996

     "People wake and say, 'I like things as they are. I hope no-one makes waves to-day.' The real attitude should be, 'I wonder what opportunity God is going to give me to change something to-day for the better.' He certainly is going to provide such an opportunity whether we recognize it or not" (Paul Vickers in Living with God).

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LETTER TO A CATHOLIC COUSIN 1996

LETTER TO A CATHOLIC COUSIN       Chris Clark       1996

     (This letter was written to a young cousin who had asked the question "What do you believe and how did you come to believe it?" in order to complete an assignment for her Apologetics class at St. Williams Academy in Los Altos, California. The author, Christopher Clark, is a Professor of Educational Psychology at Michigan State University.)

Dear Theresa,
     Your question "What do you believe and how did you come to believe it?" is a challenging one to answer. Think of this letter as a "response" to your request rather than a complete answer.
     The central doctrines of my faith are consistent with those of Roman Catholicism and modern Christianity: God is one; God is a person; Christ is Divine; the Bible is Divinely inspired revelation; Christ lived and died to set us free; evil is real; heaven and hell are real; each person is endowed with a free will, and our actions, good and bad, can have eternal consequences; Divine Providence governs the universe at the broadest level and even in the most minute particulars, working continuously to bring the greatest possible good out of what humans freely choose to do.
     I believe that children are born in a state of innocence, and that infants reflect the unadulterated love of God. But we humans are hereditarily inclined to evils of every kind, and thus, like the Children of Israel during the Exodus, we need the laws, commandments, and the social and religious teachings, revelations, and support to shun evils as sins and to repent, reform our lives and wills, and begin to act from love rather than from selfish motives. This is the purpose of life on earth: for each man and woman to form his or her own character through a lifetime of free choices, such that the mature and fully human person becomes one who acts from love and a desire to be of genuine use to the neighbor.

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As a Dutch theologian said: "We are not human in order to become Christians; we are Christians in order to become human."
     I joined the Swedenborgian church (technically, The General Church of the New Jerusalem, or The New Church) in 1973 after ten years of learning about the religion from my wife Tryn, who was born and raised Swedenborgian. So you see, my transition from the Roman Catholicism, in which I was raised, to membership in the New Church was a gradual process. I've said to other Catholic and former Catholic friends that I don't feel that I've rejected the Catholic Church and her teachings so much as graduated to a new level of understanding of the life of religion. Where Catholicism tells me that there is a heaven and a hell, the New Church shows me in detail what life in heaven and hell is like. Where Catholicism tells me to shun evils as sins and to repent, the New Church shows me how sins corrode and distort the human spirit, and how repentance and regeneration work as life-long psychological and spiritual developmental processes. Where mainline Christian churches teach that Christ is "divine," became incarnate, lived, died, and rose from the dead to save the human race, the New Church teaches me how this great work was accomplished simultaneously and continually in our natural world and in the spiritual world. In short, for me the teachings of the New Church add a layer of rational sense, insight, and understanding to many of the teachings of Catholicism that I accepted on faith or as mysteries during my thirty years as a Catholic.
     Like Catholicism, the New Church is a doctrinal church, by which I mean that the specifics of what members ought to believe are important to the church. The doctrines of the New Church are derived primarily from the thirty volumes of theological writings by the eighteenth-century scientist, theologian, and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. His theological writings have the status of a Divinely inspired exegesis of the continuous internal sense of the Old and New Testaments.

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Some of his writings also describe his experiences of being simultaneously conscious in this natural world and in the spiritual world. Swedenborg's writings and the doctrines of the New Church are described in the enclosed books and pamphlets (which you may keep).
     Emanuel Swedenborg did not establish a church as we use the term. He hoped that the new understanding of God and man, life and death, and heaven and hell reflected in his writings would infuse the Christian churches of the day and lead to a spiritually constructive revolution from within. His writings were rejected as heretical by the Swedish Lutheran Church hierarchy, but began to be used as sources for teaching and preaching by some clerics in England and later in America (beginning in Philadelphia) The Swedenborgian Church today has more than one international branch, including the General Church of the New Jerusalem, with its episcopal seat in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, and the Convention Church (Swedenborgian), about which I know very little but which I believe is smaller. The Convention Church has a theological school and church building on Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the writings of Swedenborg influenced early American scholars and men of letters including Emerson and Thoreau. The Swedenborg Foundation is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to publishing and distributing the writings of Swedenborg and collateral works such as those enclosed.
     As I said at the outset, this is but a sketch of what I believe, what my church teaches and how both came to be. As with every religion, the test of the quality of its teachings is in the living of them, individually and collectively. For me the teachings of the New Church are a continual challenge and a consolation. The challenge is to learn, to understand, and to act from these truths, and the consolation comes from the striving, from the sense that it all makes, and from the love of God that I feel when I am living a good life.

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My most dramatic testimonial about the power of my religion in my life has to do with how I am able to deal with and make sense of the death of my son Martin in 1979. Believing what I believed about children in heaven and about Divine Providence has helped me immeasurably with the grief and pain that accompany my loss. I've enclosed a copy of the lyrics of a song that I wrote, "Children in Heaven," that says it all.
     I hope that all of this is helpful to you in the short run for your Comparative Religions course and also in the longer run, as you locate and confirm what you believe about the "big questions" and how best to live into the "big answers."
     Love, (Cousin)
          Chris Clark
SPIRITUAL DIARY IN TRANSLATION 1996

SPIRITUAL DIARY IN TRANSLATION              1996

     In the annual report of the Swedenborg Society Rev. Gudmund Boolsen is congratulated for the translation and printing of the Spiritual Diary in Danish. It comes to eight volumes in this version. Some are not aware that this work also exists in Japanese and is one of the more popular books of Swedenborg in Japan. We have seen pages of the beginnings of a translation into French. French is one of the languages into which all of Swedenborg's published works have been translated (with the exception of the Spiritual Diary).

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WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN? 1996

WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN?       Editor       1996

     There are educators who say that we should not teach the internal sense of the Word to children. There are others who say that we should do so. We would like to invite an exploration of this subject.
     We have heard that there was once a high school student who was delighted to be introduced to the subject of algebra. When the concept became clear to him, he felt a mental awakening. He was particularly good at teaching concepts of algebra to his classmates who did not share his facility with the subject. They valued him for his ability to explain things as they did their homework. Some would even say they learned as much from him as from their teacher.
     This young man determined that in the summer he would teach algebra to his little brother. The brother was in fourth grade. What do you think the outcome was? We will return to that story.
     One of the important contributions made by Bishop George de Charms was in his focus upon the different states we pass through in our childhood years. His observation was that ministers and teachers easily fall into the mistaken idea that they can teach concepts which are really quite beyond the capacity of the children with whom they are dealing. To borrow a phrase from the Writings, that is "teaching without learning" (AC 2533:2).
     Unfortunately, when we are engaged in "teaching without learning" we can easily have the illusion that learning is taking place. The children are able to repeat back to us appropriate phrases, much to our delight. We are sure that the children are understanding internal things. But as de Charms says, "We should not make a mistake that they themselves make: of supposing that because they can repeat the formula, they have grown wise in spiritual ideas of the church.

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When they first begin to know there is an internal sense in the Word, they can take anything we happen to be studying at that time and say very quickly that it means good and truth."*
      * From a booklet of excerpts from Philosophy of New Church Education, p. 22.
     Sometimes we can be so excited about the beauty of the internal sense that we are eager to teach it to others. Indeed we may even think we can teach it to very young children! So taken are we with our subject that we don't really pay attention to the needs and capacities of children.
     We may teach with delight and enthusiasm. The children may respond to our enthusiasm, so much so that we take pride in having conveyed interior concepts to the very young. Bishop de Charms suggests that rather than help the mind of the child, we have introduced something inappropriate that is not good for the child's state. Are we succeeding or are we failing? This takes some real reflection, and we will be continuing with this subject. For now, back to the algebra student.
     Was it good that he undertook to teach his little brother? It turned out to be a significant thing for the little brother who had most of the time been perceived as only an annoyance to his older brother. He reveled in the direct patient attention of his sibling. A lot of good came out of this, and the fact that a child of that age cannot learn algebra is only a small part of the story.
     Do you blame the older brother for not understanding the limitations of an earlier age? Do you not commend him for his kindly attention? This is such a helpful thing to bear in mind when you look back on blunders you have made in education. You did it with sincerity and good will. And good did come out of it. But does that mean you cannot come to see it as an educational error? Can you learn from that error and make yourself a more effective minister or teacher?

     (To be continued)

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WHERE DOES THIS PATH LEAD? 1996

WHERE DOES THIS PATH LEAD?       Editor       1996

     Someone had a grand idea. It started with one of those very striking passages in Arcana Coelestia. The passage is about the broad way and the narrow way seen by certain spirits in the other world.

The broad road was planted with trees and flowers, and other such things as in outward appearance looked beautiful and delightful. But various types of snakes and serpents which they did not see had been concealed there. The narrow road was not adorned in the same way with trees and flower-beds for the eye to see but looked sad and dreary. Yet there were along that road young angel-children adorned most attractively among very lovely tree-gardens and flower-gardens, which those spirits however did not see (AC 3477).

     The passage continues.

They were asked at that point which road they wished to take. They said, "The broad one." But all of a sudden their eyes were opened and they saw the serpents along the broad road, but the angels along the narrow one. They were then again asked which road they wished to take. This time they were at a loss and remained silent. As long as their sight was opened they said that they wished to take the narrow road, but as long as it was closed they said that they wished to take the broad one.

     Although the passage is salutary for adult reflection, someone had the idea that it could be re-told for children and made into an illustrated booklet.
     Not only was the idea good-the execution was splendid. The story is retold by Vivienne Riley and edited by Carol Buss and Kimberly Simons. The beautiful colored art work is by Mary Cooper. One can buy it for $4.95 from the General Church Office of Education.

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     CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH

     The title of this editorial comes from the 37th Psalm (verse 8). What an unpopular theme. What? Give up our anger? At times we might feel that anger is a central element in our lives. Consider the prophet Jonah. If you experience or have experienced a lot of anger you can empathize with Jonah. Imagine the intrusion he felt when the question was put to him: "Is it right for you to be angry?"
     Jonah felt he certainly had the answer to that question. How human it is to justify the things that emerge in us. A passage in TCR cites the typical situation. Evil things emerge in an individual and what does he do? "He ingeniously covers them over with reasonings from fallacies to such an extent that he does not even know that evil is evil" (TCR 568:2).
     He doesn't even know that evil is evil. Jonah thought it was good for him to be angry. Some people say that anger is just one of the realities of life. Some books seem to make anger something to cherish and be proud of. Jonah defended and cherished his anger, and God put the question to him yet again. Was it right for him to be angry?
     There is something sick about his answer. "It is right for me to be angry, even to death!" (Jonah 4:9). The Writings indicate that he answered from an angry sickness (see AE 401:36). This is helpful in the reasonable question of whether we should blame another person for his anger. Maybe he has a lot to be angry about. Well, do you blame a person for being sick?
     When a question is asked twice, it is something to reflect about carefully. "Is it right for you to be angry?" We will take up this theme again.

     BUDDHA OF THE NORTH

     I am thoroughly impressed with a recent production of the Swedenborg Foundation. The title of the book is Swedenborg, Buddha of the North. The total piece is a publishing triumph.

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Here we have in 1996 a presentation on Swedenborg by D. T. Suzuki, an author whose writings have had a large international following. Getting the virtually unknown manuscript translated into English was a coup. Add to this the other material in the volume and we have a book of high appeal and value.

     SWEDENBORG AND FRENCH LITERARY CULTURE

     We have received for review a remarkable book. The full title is, The Dream of an Absolute Language, Emanuel Swedenborg and French Literary Culture. The author is Lynn R. Wilkinson of the University of Texas. It is published by State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246.
NEW WEB SITE 1996

NEW WEB SITE              1996

     WWW.Newchurch.org

     The General Church has launched a new web site for inquirers over the Internet. This site explains the basic teachings of the church, answers frequently asked questions about life, and allows the inquirer to read updated pamphlets and quotations from the Writings online. The site also has a book store, a map of congregations throughout the world, related links, a section on Swedenborg, and more. It is a wonderful mix of freshly written text with artwork, photos, and cutting-edge technology. Explore it yourself at http://www.newchurch.org, and tell your friends. It has been online for a few weeks, and we are already getting inquiries from newcomers!

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SPECIAL PRAYER 1996

SPECIAL PRAYER       Mrs. Lavender (Mrs. Rex) Ridgway       1996

Dear Editor:
     The prayer adapted from AE 1148 and submitted by John Sabol to New Church Life (December 1995, p. 569) is of course in constant use in the Lord's New Church which is Nova Hierosolyma, having been incorporated into their liturgy some fifty years ago.
     From the time I became aware of this lovely prayer, which was many years ago, I have always included it in my daily prayers alongside the Lord's Prayer (many times a day), and particularly when kneeling down prior to the commencement of a church service. To me the Lord's Prayer is my personal prayer to the Lord for redemption from my evils, and the prayer in AE 1148 is my prayer to the Lord acknowledging that He alone can redeem us from the evils that every one of us in the whole universe is responsible for, even though not every person is aware of this. I look upon praying for everyone in the universe as a form of charity.
     As I am a General Church member, I asked a senior General Church pastor while I was on a visit to Bryn Athyn some years ago if this wonderful prayer of redemption could be included in our Liturgy too. I was disappointed in his reply that the wording would have to be changed as, in his view, it was not in liturgical language. I hope that in time to come this prayer will become part of our General Church Liturgy, and in words as close as possible to the Lord's words in AE 1148.
     Lavender (Mrs. Rex) Ridgway
          Canberra, Australia

Note: See the prayer in the second office of the Liturgy (p. 20) and the "Notes on This Issue" on page 338.

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Church News 1996

Church News       Doris McDonald       1996

     TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA

     The Olivet Church is in a state of change, as is the church as a whole. Let me share with you some of the happenings here in Toronto since we last reported.
     Our head pastor, Rev. Michael Gladish, was elected in 1994 to be the Executive Vice President of the General Church in Canada, requiring him to travel across Canada several times a year to see to the needs of our isolated and sister societies. In order to be of assistance to the Executive Vice President, Rev. Barry Halterman was appointed and resides here with iris wife Anita and their two children. They are a welcome addition. When Barry is not involved in General Church work, we have the pleasure of hearing him preach occasionally.
     Rev. Wendel Barnett continues to concentrate on the needs of our young people as well as assisting in other areas. Our young people are the future of the church and society in general, and I would like to share with you what we have going for them here. For the past few years we have had a group called J.O.Y. (Junior Organization of Youth), which includes grades 6 to 8. They meet regularly under the capable leadership of Mrs. Gabriele Pulpan. They set up the altar for the alternative service once a month. They also make and serve refreshments following the traditional service on the first Sunday. It is a delight to see so many willing participants.
     We also have an active high school group-18 students who meet every Tuesday to discuss many topics and have a social time together. They hosted a successful Young Peoples' Weekend here for 42 high school students from six church centers.
     A beginning has been made for our singles group as well. It is a challenge to meet the needs of this very diversified group, but an effort is being made in this area.
     The Mothers' and Fathers' Networks continue to be very active groups-reading and discussing books related to helping them deal with the challenges of parenting today.
     As you can see, our three pastors are very busy. In addition to providing us with spiritual food, our ministers have also provided us with natural food on two occasions this past year: a pancake breakfast last Canadian Thanksgiving and a Valentine supper this past February 14 prior to the regular doctrinal class. Keep it up, pastors-we like it! You make a great team!
     Doris McDonald

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ORDINATIONS 1996

ORDINATIONS              1996



     Announcements
     Jin-At Ivyland, Pennsylvania, June 16, 1996, Yong Jin Jin into the second degree of the priesthood, Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss officiating.

     Schnarr-At Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, June 5, 1996, Philip Bradley Schnarr into the first degree of the priesthood, Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss officiating.
PLACES OF WORSHIP CORRECTIONS 1996

PLACES OF WORSHIP CORRECTIONS              1996

     Corrections for contact persons regarding Public Worship and Doctrinal Classes, as printed in June 1996 New Church Life, pp. 284-288 are listed below.

Colorado, Colorado Springs                Pennsylvania, Hawley
Mr./Mrs. William Rienstra                Mr. Grant Genzlinger
1005 Oak Ave.                              Settlers Inn, #25
Canon City, CO 81212                         4 Main Ave.
                                                  Hawley, PA 18428
Idaho, Fruitland                          (800) 833-8527
Delete Mr. Harold Rand (moved to AZ)     
                              Vermont, East Thetford
                                             Delete Bobbie and Charlie Hitchcock

Illinois, Decatur
Mr. John R. Aymer
321 E. Locust St.                         Quebec, Montreal, Canada
Decatur, IL 62521                          Mr. Denis de Chazal
                                                  29 Ballantyne Ave. S.
New Hampshire, Hanover                    Montreal West, Quebec               
Bobbie and Charlie Hitchcock               Canada HAX 2B1
63 E. Wheelock St.          
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 643-3469

     New Jersey, Ridgewood
Jay and Barbara Barry
474 S. Maple
Glen Rock, NJ 07452
(201) 445-3353
LORD'S TEMPTATIONS 1996

LORD'S TEMPTATIONS              1996

     An alert reader has called our attention to something on page 211 of the May issue. There is a quote from Psalm 51: "My sin is ever before me." The "m" in "me" was capitalized. The Psalms and prophets do portray the Lord's own temptations (Psalm 22 being the best known example). But although the Lord was continually attacked by the hells, He never sinned.
     When it is said that the Lord took our sins upon Himself, the meaning is that "by combats and victories of temptations He overcame the hells" (AC 1846). The Lord's life in the world involved continual combat with the hells "and continual victory" (AC 1690).

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CHARITY 1996

CHARITY              1996

     The Practice of Neighborliness

     The Swedenborg Foundation has republished this small posthumous work by Swedenborg. Using the translation by William F. Wunsch, this second edition has a new preface by editor William R. Woofenden, and is printed in a very readable new format.
     Charity is a doctrine we all need to review, and here is an edition we can feel comfortable giving to a friend or inquirer.
     Paperback U.S. $6.95 plus postage U.S. $1.25

     General Church Book Center                    Hours: Mon-Fri 9-12
Cairncrest                                    or by appointment
Box 743                                        Phone: (215) 947-3920
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009                              Fax: (215) 947-3078

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Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996



Vol. CXVI     September 1996     No. 9

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     Charter Day at the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn occurs this year on October 25th. See page 430.
     The final installment about having a loved one on the other side is the eighth in a series prepared by Rev. Grant Odhner.
     There are six letters in this issue, five of them on the subject of self-esteem. They are occasioned by the sermon published in the July issue.
     Joel E. Brown, who wrote the article on evangelization, is a student in the Theological School.
     One of the people who travelled thousands of miles to attend the June assembly wrote an account for her friends. She said that the most powerful worship experience for her was watching the assembly pageant on Saturday evening. See the announcement on page 431 about a video of that pageant.
     The large book Connections II is divided into forty sections. We thank Naomi Gladish Smith for her work of reviewing the book. We would comment that there are a number of fine books which may not be reviewed in our pages. We would encourage readers who might not feel up to a formal review to send in comments or recommendations about New Church books. One of the interesting new books is Living with God by Paul Vickers. Although it does not quote the Writings, it is thoroughly New Church.
     There is New Church reading to be recommended in various periodicals. There have been some particularly good articles in the magazine Arcana, a quarterly which relates New Church teachings to other beliefs. One issue has an article by Dr. Reuben Bell called "Swedenborg and Kabalah." Another issue shows surprising similarities between the beliefs of the Hopi Indians and the beliefs of the New Church.
     The Writings speak of the use of reading "books of instruction and piety." "In the course of a week most people spend quite a few hours reading secular literature in one form or another." This is from the sermon by Rev. Daniel Heinrichs in which we are exhorted not to forget the reading of the Word.

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READING THE WORD 1996

READING THE WORD       Rev. DANIEL W. HEINRICHS       1996

     "Jesus answered and said to her, 'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life'" (John 4:13, 14).
     Many people believe that spiritual things are beyond our comprehension. In fact, they are often taught this by their religious leaders. "You don't have to understand this," they are told; "it is a mystery of faith." According to this belief, people are not saved by knowing and understanding the laws of spiritual life and living according to them, but by believing that Jesus Christ died for their sins, and by observing certain religious rituals and ceremonies prescribed by the church.
     What does the Lord say about this? He says: "I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, `Seek Me in vain'; I, the Lord, speak righteousness; I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together . . . . They have no knowledge who carry the wood of their carved image and pray to a God who cannot save . . . . Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God and there is no other . . . . The Word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness and shall not return" (Isaiah 45:19-23).
     It is clearly stated in this passage that spiritual things are not incomprehensible mysteries-the Lord does not ask us to seek Him in vain. The Word has gone out of His mouth so that we may be saved by reading it and living according to its Divine teaching.
     In another place the Lord says: "Incline your ear and come to Me. Hear and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you" (Isaiah 55:3). In the Gospel He says: "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me . . . and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John 14:21).

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Again, He said: "If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31, 32). On another occasion the Lord said: "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7).
     Could anything be clearer than these statements asserting that living and knowing the truth of the Word is the basis of salvation? Nevertheless, the churches have propounded doctrines which are at variance with this essential truth, and have assured people salvation on terms of their own devising.
     We may well wonder how it is possible that people have allowed themselves to be so misled when the Word itself, which many of them read, is so clear and emphatic that the Lord's Word, and a life according to it, is the basis of salvation. However, if we reflect on the matter, the reason for this becomes apparent. People are looking for an easier way to get to heaven. The world abounds with religions which guarantee salvation to their adherents if they will submit unreservedly to their authority and to a church-prescribed way of life.
     These religions are constantly springing up, and in a short time many of them gain a considerable following. In contrast, the New Church is growing at a rate which to many seems distressingly slow. Why is this so? One of the reasons is that the New Church does not offer an easy way to heaven. We do not guarantee salvation to our members. The church teaches that a person's salvation is dependent on his faith in the Lord and a life according to His Word. A person is assured of salvation only if one diligently lives according to one's understanding of the Lord's Word. Becoming an angel is a life-long work.
     Just as the desire for an easy way to heaven inhibits the growth of the New Church as an organized body, so also does it inhibit the growth of the New Church within us as individuals. Our hereditary nature is such that we are reluctant to subordinate the loves of self and the world to love to the Lord and love to the neighbor.

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Yet we wish to taste the joys of heaven in the life hereafter. We have a tendency to interpret the teachings of the Word in such a way that we do not have to give up the hope of heaven nor the pursuit of our selfish ambitions and worldly pleasures.
     What does the Lord say to this kind of thinking? "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24). "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 16:24,25). That is the Lord's teaching. If we try to save the life of our proprium, the life of heaven within us is stifled and dies. On the other hand, if we are willing to subordinate the things of self and the world to the things of heaven, if we are willing to be instructed by the Lord in His Word and obey His teaching, then we receive eternal life.
     On one occasion the Lord put a question to the Jews. He asked: "What is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). And in the Heavenly Doctrine, He asks: "If in the life of the body a person destroys his soul does he not destroy it to eternity?" (AC 794).
     As we have said, the Lord has given us the Word in order that we may read it, reflect on its teachings, apply them to our lives and so be prepared for eternal life in heaven. The Word is the source of eternal life. There is no other! This is what the Lord meant when He said to the woman of Samaria: "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:13,14).
     If we desire spiritual life we must drink deeply from the fountain of living waters.

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We must go to the Word regularly- to the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Heavenly Doctrine-and fill our minds with its life-giving truths. These truths in our minds will become "a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (Ibid.).
     If the New Church is to be established within us and is to flourish in the world, we must be readers of the Word. The New Church should be a reading church. We have been blessed with an abundant fountain of spiritual truths-"living water" given for our salvation. We have been blessed with the opportunity to refresh our souls from the source of eternal life. If we do not do so, we are cutting ourselves off from the source of living waters that gives everlasting life.
     There is a variety of reasons why people do not read the Word, and perhaps especially the Writings. Some claim that they find the style difficult to follow. If its style were more fluent and its vocabulary simpler, then they would read them. In this connection, let us take note of the following teaching. It says that a merely natural person estimates the value of the Word by the style in which it is written, when yet the Word is written in the Divine style itself, with which no other style can be compared, however sublime and excellent it may seem. The Word is written in such a way that it contains within it Divine good conjoined with Divine truth. When a person reads the Word with a desire to see its truths and apply them to life, the Lord fills the will of the person with the goods of love and the person's understanding with the truths of wisdom. Thus the person is imbued with spiritual life. "But," we are told, "it must be clearly understood that those only have life from the Word who read it for the purpose of drawing from it Divine truths . . . and at the same time for the purpose of applying to the life the truths drawn therefrom" (TCR 191).
     The Lord assures us in this passage that if we approach the Word with a desire to see truths so that we may live according to them, then we will be gifted with understanding and spiritual life. If we allow ourselves to be deterred by the style, then we are regarding the Word from a purely natural point of view.

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We are depriving ourselves of a precious heritage. Consider this: If a person were to offer you a great fortune if you were to read a book and master its contents, would you not make every effort to do so no matter how difficult the style and vocabulary? How much more then should we make the effort to master the style and vocabulary of those books which are the source of eternal life!
     There are some who claim that they do not have enough time to read the Word. The pressing activities of natural life prevent them from so doing. They assert that when they are older and have more time, then they will settle down to reading the Word in earnest. In the meantime, attending church and occasional doctrinal classes will have to suffice.
     In this connection we would note a passage in the Word which points out that there are two ways of procuring the truths of faith: by means of doctrinal things and by means of the Word. When a person procures them only by means of doctrinal things, the person's faith is in those who have drawn them from the Word. Then the person confirms them in himself to be true because others have said so. I recall a New Church friend who would jokingly remark, when differing views were being expressed in a doctrinal discussion: "I agree with the Bishop." If, on the other hand, a person procures truths for himself from the Word and then confirms them in himself, he then believes them because they are from the Lord, and believes them from a faith given by the Lord (see AC 5402).
     If we would have eternal life, we should go directly to the source of life-the fountain of living waters-and drink there. To simply rely on instruction given by others is to limit ourselves to a natural, traditional faith.
     A certain man once said to the Lord: "`Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.' But Jesus said to him, `No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God'" (Luke 9:61,62).

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We see from these words of the Lord that there is spiritual danger in postponing the acceptance of spiritual responsibility when once it is clearly recognized, as also in accepting it only partially. We should not be half-hearted in regard to the things of spiritual life.
     There are some who do not find reading the Word a pleasure. This is to be expected. When one is just beginning to read the Word, one encounters many words, phrases and ideas that are not familiar. Generally speaking we do not enjoy what is unfamiliar. But a person who from conscience and a sense of duty reads a small portion of the Word every day will gradually build up a storehouse of truths into which the Lord can flow with love, and then a miracle will take place. Gradually, unbeknownst to that person, the power and beauty of Divine truth will create in him a love for the Divine truth of the Word. That which was done in the beginning from conscience and duty will become a never-ending source of delight and refreshment.
     In the course of a week most people spend quite a few hours reading secular literature in one form or another. But whoever drinks of these waters will thirst again-they cannot satisfy and refresh the human soul. The Word of the Lord is the only source of spiritual life. Surely, for the sake of our eternal well-being and for the sake of the prosperity of the Lord's church on earth, we should be willing to spend a few hours every week to drink of that water which will become in us a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
     The Lord issues this urgent invitation to mankind: "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear and your soul shall live" Isaiah 55:1-3). Amen.

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HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     Conclusion

Transfer of Delights

     Love is eternal and does not end with death. The loves that make our lives and join us with other like-minded people may have their delights cut off for a time, but those loves will find new delights through which to express themselves. Good loves cannot grieve and feel angry forever.
     For example, consider a married pair and the myriad delights involved in their relationship. When they are separated by death, new delights gradually take the place of those that depended on physical presence as they come to see their relationship in different terms. A widow takes delight in her husband's qualities in a new way. She's aware of his presence in some of the decisions she makes. A widower takes new pleasure in what his wife stood for in his life, and feels her influence in his thinking in a way he never had before. This wife and this husband feel delight when they sense that they are working with their partner, doing the things that their partner would have wished them to do.
     Love between people cannot be full without actual presence, without dwelling together in actual community. Still, we must believe that many useful things can take place during a separation. One useful thing may be that when the many delights connected with a relationship are disrupted by death and must find new forms, the underlying loves can become clarified. Less important delights (delights that spring from natural loves) are separated from deeper delights (delights that spring from spiritual loves). We are able to see the deeper source-loves in a new way as more stable and enduring. There is a sorting out that makes a new and more perfect reintegration possible.

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     There are similar mental dynamics involved in temptation: there is a disrupting or cessation of delights at the onset, an inner commotion and grief, a separation of different elements (higher and lower, good and bad), and then a reordering which brings about a clarification and renewal of the higher loves and their delights. (See AC 5881, 8352, 8370, 8413.) Might there not be something of temptation states involved in the grief process for some people?

Relationships Continue.

     When grief is muted by the transfer and re-establishment of our loves' deeper delights, we live anew. And our relationship with our loved one continues. The love won't be complete until there is a full reunion in the spiritual world, but in the meantime the relationship is still there!
     This is true in a special way of married partners. The following passage describes the link that exists between a husband and wife who enjoy a true marriage love.

Those who have lived together in true marriage love do not wish to marry again unless for reasons apart from marriage love. [They do not wish to remarry] due to the following causes: 1. Because they were united as to souls and thence as to minds. And this uniting, being spiritual, is an actual adjoining of the soul and mind of the one to the soul and mind of the other, which can never be dissolved. Such is the nature of spiritual conjunction . . . . 2. Because they were also united as to bodies . . . . 3. Because a sphere of love flows forth continually from the wife and a sphere of understanding from the man, and this perfects the bonds . . . . 4. Because married partners who are so united in marriage think and breathe what is eternal, and upon this idea is founded their eternal happiness. 5. It is by reason of the above recited causes that they are no more two but one human being, that is, one flesh. 6. Such a one cannot be rent by the death of either partner. This is clearly manifest before the eyesight of the spirit.

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7. To the above causes may be added this new fact: that these two are not separated by the death of the one, since the spirit of the deceased partner dwells continually with the spirit of the one not yet deceased, and this until the death of the latter, when they meet again and reunite and love each other more tenderly than before, because they are in a spiritual world. (CL 321)

     Married partners dwell together continually in spirit. Their spheres affect one another very powerfully and intimately. The very body of each has taken form in response to the other's spirit! So they carry not only each other's spirit with them, but also a physical form that is a receptive basis for their partner's spiritual influence.

Conclusion

     We just read that it is a "new fact" that husband and wife who tenderly love each other are not separated by death but continue to dwell together in spirit. This is one of many wonderful facts that we have touched on in this series of articles. How fortunate we are that the Lord has chosen to reveal these things. In the preface to Heaven and its Wonders and Hell, from Things Heard and Seen, Swedenborg wrote:

Today's church person knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life after death . . . . I have been allowed to be right with angels and to talk with them person to person. I have also been allowed to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years. So now, from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these things in the hope that ignorance may in this way be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the Lord's Coming. (HH 1)

     Why did He choose to reveal them? Because He wanted to "come to us" anew. He wanted us to know Him, to find blessing in being joined with Him through the truth.

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But the Lord doesn't reveal the truth just because He wants to. He reveals it because we want it too. The Lord responds to our prayers and yearnings, spoken and unspoken.
     And "among the prayers and yearnings of married partners," His servant Swedenborg noted, "is a wish to know the state of married partners after death." The passage continues:

Men who have loved their wives wish to know, if their wives have died, whether it is well with them. So, too, wives who have loved their husbands. And they want to know whether they will meet again . . . . Because these are some of the things people would like answers to, they will be made known. (CL 45)
Thank you, Lord!?
ANGEL AT MY SHOULDER 1996

ANGEL AT MY SHOULDER              1996

     Ten thousand copies of this book by Glennyce Eckersley are being printed in England. We hope to have more information about it before it is published in America.
DHARMA OF SWEDENBORG 1996

DHARMA OF SWEDENBORG              1996

     The Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies met at DePaul University in Chicago at the end of July. A session on July 29th was entitled "The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg." One of the two main speakers was Rev. Barry Halterman. Mr. Halterman was able to draw attention to the Writings of Swedenborg and to the book Swedenborg, Buddha of the North, published by the Swedenborg Foundation.

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WHY BOTHER or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway? 1996

WHY BOTHER or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway?       Rev. MICHAEL D. GLADISH       1996

     (Part 2)

Who Really Benefits?

     One of the things that has impressed me about the great commission as reported in Matthew and Mark is the context in which it was given. The way Matthew tells it, the eleven disciples had gone to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus was to meet them. "And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, `All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age'" (Matt. 28:17-20, emphasis added).
     Again in Mark we read, "Afterward He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, `Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned'" (Mark 16:14-16, emphasis added).
     Now why do you think the Lord answered doubt and disbelief with a command to go and teach all nations? It wasn't only that the nations needed to hear the message; it was because, as we all know, the best way to learn anything is to teach it to others. Of course the Lord wanted the good and truth of His love and wisdom to be known around the world, but a key to the timing of this command is that the Lord knew the disciples themselves had to share the good news in order to be strengthened in their own convictions.

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It's a simple concept, but it really works: you explain and you learn. You share and you grow.
     For example, I well remember the time in Los Angeles when I finally got a simple leaflet printed, got up my courage and started systematically knocking on doors in the community around the church, simply introducing myself and inviting people to attend the church. I can tell you, every day I did this I had to talk myself into it, and force myself to get out of the office onto the street. Often I would say a silent prayer: "Lord, don't let anyone be home today . . . . " But every day when I was finished I realized how important it had been, how much I had learned, and even how much I had enjoyed it (despite the rejection at some homes).
     And what did I learn? Well, first of all I was surprised how many people did actually engage me in conversation and ask serious questions. They were definitely not all apathetic as I thought they would be. And of course I found that I had to struggle to answer many of their questions because I found that I had come to take a lot of things for granted, things that I really needed to review. But the biggest shock of all came after my first venture out. I remember it was a Thursday morning and it was drizzling. I had all sorts of excuses ready for not going out. But I consoled myself, saying not many people would be home on a Thursday morning anyway, and I just had to make a start. So I went, and I actually had a few decent conversations with people at their doors. Then it happened: the very next Sunday morning as I was busily putting the final touches on my preparation, I peeked through the door near the vestry and there they were-two new women, one of whom I had just met on Thursday morning, and three children. They had come to check us out.
     I was panic-stricken. What have I written in my sermon? Will they understand it? Will it mean anything to them? Will I have to extemporize or edit the thing as I read?

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How will they relate to our ritual and songs? Will our members be nice to them? I think if there was a real turning point in my ministry, that was it. I suddenly saw everything through new eyes, and from that time began to think-or at least try to think-of the visitor in everything I wrote and said. And in doing this I learned, among other things, that church buzz words and jargon not only are difficult for newcomers, but often (because of unwarranted assumptions about our own understanding) obscure the real meaning of what we are trying to communicate with each other. I found, for instance, that it's usually better to explain or define something like "remains" or "proprium" in context than to rely on use of the term itself for meaning. After all, even among those who know them, different people have different ideas about what these words mean, and this is true of many terms and concepts we tend to take for granted (especially our old favorite, "conjugial love").
     But I digress. The point of these illustrations is to show how we learn and also how we clarify, consolidate and strengthen things we already know when we try to share them with others. So I ask now: Which of you hasn't gone home after a particularly frustrating experience of trying to introduce or explain something about the church, thinking, "Boy, I wish I'd said (this) instead of (that)," or "Whew! I sure made a mess of that one!" Hello!! This is a learning process!
     But let's take it a step further and look at the great commission more closely. In the literal sense the Lord said to "Go and make disciples of all the nations." There is a part of us that wants to respond to this-or at least believes that we should respond to it-literally and simply at face value, doing whatever it takes to convince all the people of the world to believe as we believe. And yet we know from the Writings: (first) that this isn't really necessary, and (second) that it's not even what the passage means in the spiritual sense. Now if we're going to use the spiritual sense to take refuge from contradictions or impossibilities where they exist in the literal sense, then we had better be prepared to take the consequences in the other passages that seem so clear without it!

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     Probably the biggest problem that has plagued religion since the beginning of time is the overemphasis on externals separated from internals, or in short, externalism. And don't we all know how much easier it is to focus on problems "out there" than it is to address problems "in here" where we have to change our attitudes and our ideas?
     If we are going to be effective missionaries for the New Church, we really have to know that the spiritual sense of the great commission is not about what we can do for other people; it is about what the Lord can do for us. There are two key words in the command, one that means "make disciples" and the other, the object of this work, "the nations." The specific passage in Matthew (28:19) as far as I can tell is not expounded except in relation to the names or titles of the Lord. But if you look up the significance of "nations" in the Writings, you will find that it refers to all the good that is in a person, or the good of life, or the opposite of these, namely, the evil, but in any case the affection that has to do with the will. In general it is the same word that is frequently translated "gentiles," having sometimes a positive and sometimes a negative meaning, and often used in the same context as the word for "people," which refers to truths. The word itself is ethnos, from which we get the word "ethnic," and it has to do with the particular qualities of life that spring from love. It is, for example, the same word that occurs in the prophecy about the male child "ruling all nations with a rod of iron" (Rev. 12:5), and the leaves of the tree of life being for "the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:2).
     The word that means "make disciples" also has an interesting etymology, being derived from a Greek form that emphasizes learning, learning by inquiry, understanding, perceiving and comprehending something. As you probably know, in the old King James it used to be translated as "teach": "Go and teach all nations . . . . "

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But the new translation gives a more accurate sense of it, putting the emphasis on the student himself or the learning process: "Go and make students, make learners, make understanders, make disciples . . . and so, by implication, followers."
     When you put the two words and concepts together, you have a beautiful marriage of good and truth, as you might expect in the Word. You start with an affection, most probably well intentioned but undisciplined "natural good," and you invite an understanding of the truth that can lead, form, guide, train and discipline that affection so that from being merely natural it can become spiritual.
     In summary, as we know from the Writings, disciples in the Word represent truths, and nations represent goods. To "make disciples" is to introduce the structure and discipline of truth. To "make disciples of all the nations" is to lead and form the affections according to the truths of the Word. All this is confirmed in the spiritual meaning of the phrase immediately following these words: "baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded . . . " (Matt. 28:19,20), where baptism as we know refers to the cleansing introduction of truth.
     So the great commission in the spiritual sense teaches us all to submit our affections to the government of thought from the Word; it teaches us all to subordinate the inclinations of our will to the principles of our understanding of doctrine; it teaches us all to regulate and control our natural loves according to the wisdom of the Lord so that we can grow in spiritual life and be saved. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" (Mark 8:36), or how can we "travel land and sea to win one proselyte" (Matt. 23:15) when we ourselves are children of hell? Or how can we look at the speck in our brother's eye without considering the plank in our own eye? (see Matt. 7:3)

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     None of these warnings is intended to deter us from sharing the revelation that the Lord has given us. But I think it is absolutely essential to know and understand that the great commission is much more than a command to do something to or for others. It is also a command to be and do something better within ourselves so that we actually have the capacity from the Lord to be and do something better for others.

     (To be continued)
PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY 1996

PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY       VERA GOODENOUGH DYCK       1996

     (Continued from the August issue)

     Searching for a more full and accurate understanding of an idea isn't a rejection of a past understanding. It can be thought of as a development of a teaching, an expansion into a new and present situation. Rev. Donald L. Rose wrote a paper for the Council of the Clergy in 1978 entitled "Derived Doctrine in the Church." In it he points out that one of the duties of Israelitish priests was to remove the ashes from the altar (see Lev. 6:9-13), and suggests that perhaps even today a function of a priest is to remove the ashes of the old.
     He notes that in discussing the Leviticus passages, AC 9723 says that "ashes" can be used in either a good or a bad sense. Sometimes ashes are what remain from what is done "by the fire of self-love," but when they are used in a good sense, they are still to be removed, not thrown disrespectfully away. They should be placed near the altar and then taken out and put in a clean place so that they do not "stand in the way of other things following" (p. 2).

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     I hear him saying that a particular derived doctrine might be sincerely based on some people's understanding of the Word and be true and useful enough in one culture or time period and yet still not be universally true. If the "fire of self-love" was part of the foundation for a policy, then there would be some falsity to root out. But people in the past-or in other cultures- were not bad or wrong for believing their derived doctrines, nor are we bad and wrong if we believe otherwise.
     In Mr. Rose's own words, "I would guess that if some of those men of old [founders of the Academy] were here today they would regard things that are taking place in the General Church today as contrary to the Word (e.g., women on councils . . . ). What I am suggesting here is that in this kind of situation it is not for us to say they were wrong and we are right (or to bemoan the thought that maybe they were right and we are wrong). Could we not say that they believed a certain way because they believed the Lord said so? It was the right kind of say-so faith. But for us to adopt their position without going to the Word anew and without concern for present need and uses would be the other kind of say-so faith. To speak differently from our predecessors should not disturb us. It is part of the spirit of the New Church to expect this" (p. 2).
     As a "liberal," I have been relieved to find that there are ministers I can go to who acknowledge that the Word doesn't have one clear, right answer to every question. This kind of minister might say while discussing derived doctrine, "I could give you my personal opinion (what I derived from related teachings, experience, and secular studies, based on my own assumptions) if you want it, but the Word does not actually say either way. It's between you and the Lord. You have many ways to learn of the Lord's will for you when written revelation doesn't have a direct answer." Such a minister could acknowledge this even on a topic such as women in the ministry, where personal opinions tend to be very strong.

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     This is the sort of priestly leadership spoken of in Mr. Rose's paper-leading people directly to the Word, and in the case where there was no clear teaching in written revelation, directly to the Lord for themselves, rather than to tradition or opinion. I feel it has not been adequately acknowledged by the priesthood, at least within this, the official publication of the General Church, that in the absence of direct teachings, our policies and beliefs-although hopefully influenced by related teachings-will be founded on what we like, what we are comfortable with, and what we believe-from sources besides revelation-to be right and good. In his original paper for the clergy, Rev. Stephen Cole did acknowledge the absence of clear teachings on the issue. Some ministers have put forward some interesting and helpful things on the Internet, including lists of passages that seem to support both sides of the debate. This has demonstrated the difficulty of getting a clear direction from written revelation alone, and I appreciate the leadership taken by the ministers on the Internet in facilitating an unbiased discussion.

Paradigm of Discussion Is "Doctrinal Proof."

     Still, the response of the General Church priesthood in this publication has been limited to those who oppose women in the priesthood. Does this reflect a consensus among the priesthood, or is it because the paradigm of discussion is "doctrinal proof"? It seems that those who are opposed to women in the priesthood believe that even in the absence of direct teachings, there is one right answer based solely on doctrine for every question. Those who are not opposed believe that there is no proof either way, so they don't present a doctrinal paper stating "their case." Their case is that there is no case either way, so they are silent. The current paradigm excludes them from the dialogue, however relevant and valuable their input might be.

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     As far as I know, the discussion of women in the clergy by the clergy has not expanded to include talking about the specific good or harm that might result-or has already resulted -by women in our organization who take on what has traditionally been considered "priestly work." What ministers have actually experienced, and how those experiences affect their thoughts on the subject, has gone unmentioned. Perhaps personal experience is perceived as potential interference with enlightenment, or at best, irrelevant. I understand that the clergy meetings strive to have truth from the Word alone as their source, but to ignore the interface between our understanding of the truth and the experiences of our lives strikes me as "reasoning about the fit of a hat which is never tried on, or about the fit of a shoe which no one wears." My sense is that in our organization we do not have a climate of safety for dissent unless one is "armed with passages." The burden of proof is on those who challenge the status quo. And if there is no "proof" to be had, those who see it differently have their hands tied.

Unacknowledged Assumptions Bias Interpretation of Revelation

     Have you ever tried to prove to fundamentalist Christians that Jesus is not a separate person from God the Father? It can't be done. There are four reasons for this: 1) The fundamentalists believe that they can and must be led by the Bible alone, even in the absence of direct Biblical statements and teachings. This is because they are convinced that they are able to go to their Scripture and, free of assumption and bias, "see the truth" that is there. 2) Their unacknowledged assumption is that the Father and the Son are separate people. 3) Several Scriptural passages, when looked at with this bias, seem to strongly support this assumption. 4) No Scriptural passage conclusively refutes it. Therefore, their assumption remains unshaken, and they are not open to other interpretations of those passages.

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     If Jesus had been quoted as saying, "I and My Father are one, in Person as well as in Spirit," they could not continue to believe in a trinity of persons and still claim faithfulness to the literal Bible. Since He was not thus quoted, nothing will convince them to really listen to an alternative. They assume, from culture-from convictions from those around them as they grew up, from the derived doctrine they were taught or found for themselves, and in some cases from a confirmation in life of the doctrine of faith alone-that Jesus is a separate person from God the Father. They do not acknowledge that their assumptions are a lens through which they interpret Scripture, and that therefore these assumptions continue to heavily influence their beliefs. The fact that a trinity of persons is nowhere directly stated doesn't shake their certainty that it is so. In their minds, the burden of proof rests with those who interpret Jesus' words otherwise. Only if they acknowledge that their biases can't help but influence how they read the Word, and therefore become willing to allow their lens to be enlightened from another source-inner perception that God is one flowing directly into their souls from the Lord; the Writings; other books that are spiritually helpful, or their experience of a personal relationship with the One-can they be freed from the trap they are in.
     It seems to me that a similar thing happens in the General Church when we discuss the question of women in the ministry. It seems that there are many in the church and its administration who can't seriously consider the possibility of women being priests for essentially the same four reasons listed above: 1) They believe that they can and must be led by the Writings, even in the absence of clear and direct teachings. They are convinced that they are able to approach the Writings with a clean slate, free of bias and assumption, and simply "see the truth" that is there. 2) They have an unacknowledged assumption that if priestly uses are to be done effectively they can be done only by men. 3) Several passages and teachings in the Writings, when looked at with this bias, seem to support this assumption. 4) No passage in the Writings unequivocally refutes it.

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Therefore, the assumption remains unshaken, and they are not truly open to alternative interpretations of the related teachings.
     If the Writings included a passage saying that "Women are fully capable of being priests and are in fact sorely needed in this capacity," no one would be able to continue believing otherwise and still claim faithfulness to the literal Writings. But they don't make this statement, and therefore there are many who seem unable or unwilling to seriously consider the possibility of an alternative interpretation. They assume, from culture -from the convictions of those around them as they grew up, both inside and outside of the General Church, from the derived doctrine they were taught or found for themselves-that women are not able to perform the uses of the priesthood effectively. If they do not acknowledge that their assumptions are a lens through which they view the Writings, their assumptions continue to heavily influence their beliefs. Turning derived doctrines that make sense to some into matters of faith for the whole church seems to me to be claiming undue authority for ideas that are not God's words.?
REVIEW 1996

REVIEW       Naomi Gladish Smith       1996

Connections II, Offerings from the New Church Women's Symposium, 1995, edited by Sarah J. Headsten and Kara Johns Tennis, 460 pages

     There are forty sections in this book, thirty-nine of which give some New Church women's views of life, the church, our culture, or what each has learned from her own experiences. (In the lone man's offering, Rev. Jonathan Rose addresses with humor and some elegant scholarship the charge that Swedenborg's Writings show a male bias.)

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     These articles give insight into the hearts and minds of many more women than those who wrote them, however, for though nine are speeches or presentations given at plenary sessions, the remaining thirty-one commentaries are accounts of workshops, and offer not only the leader's presentation but also the thoughts of many of the participants. Some of these offerings will make hard reading, for they are filled with pain and loss and the anger of those who have felt disenfranchised.
     Suzanne Bernhardt's keynote address set the tone by challenging those present to embrace "change, conflict, and each other." Ms. Bernhardt acknowledged that while the women do the latter readily, change is difficult for everyone, and conflict is something that makes most women uncomfortable. The idea of accepting conflict as a necessary part of growth is one that resonates throughout many of the presentations.
     The spectrum of emotions recorded in this volume can be sampled in statements of some of the participants in one of the workshops, "Women and the Priesthood." Among the group who met to discuss it, one woman was upset at what she had heard in an earlier session as "scornful laughter, jeering about descriptions of what we experience as mistakes men made in the past . . ." and warned, "We don't want to make fun of [men] or put them down. We're here to work with them." Another woman said, "I think this is a fabulous discussion and I'm so thankful we're doing this. It's wonderful, and I've loved hearing from people." And another states, "I look around and see a tremendous number of people in what I would call spiritual crisis in the church, and I see that as healthy because I think it brings change, but it's very painful . . . . I would really like to see counseling become a central ministry in the church."
     Accounts of workshops with an academic focus, such as "Surveying the Past: Women's Social and Literary History," "New Church Women's Decisions Regarding Premarital Sex," and "Teaching Women's and Gender Studies," vie for the reader's attention with personal accounts like "Relationships between Women: Disarming the Stereotypes, Breaking through the Barriers," "Music Healing-One Woman's Personal Journey Told Through Song," and "Women on the Fringe."

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The workshops "Becoming a Wisewoman" and "A Celebration of Mothers" are indeed a celebration of being a woman, while others like "Girls to Women in the Wilderness," "Prayer and Relationships," and "In His Holy Temple" examine the human condition rather than relating only to women.
     "Recognizing and Healing Spiritual Abuse of Children," "Women and the Priesthood," and "The One That Was Lost: Finding Our Way After Marital Failure" address difficult subjects with strength and sensitivity, while other workshops, such as "Marriage and Childbearing as a Healing Process" and "Picasso Woman: Juggling Motherhood and Career" focus on aspects of women's daily life. All are the thoughtful, honest narratives of thoughtful, honest women.
     There is a lot of risk-taking in these forty presentations, from the breathtakingly candid revelations of individual struggles to analyses of society's cultural bias and our own church history. There are statements in some of these articles that will probably disturb the reader of either sex, and some that may provoke sharp disagreement, but as stressed by the keynote speaker, conflict is not necessarily bad. It can be essential. These articles address matters that need to be examined, and we are fortunate that the Women's Symposium provided a forum of relative safety in which to do so. Connections II is a written record of three days in which New Church women took a hard look at their church, their society, and themselves. We are grateful to editors Headsten and Tennis for giving us a chance to find out what today's New Church women are thinking.
     Naomi Gladish Smith

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LABORERS IN THE HARVEST: THE NEW CHURCH AND EVANGELIZATION 1996

LABORERS IN THE HARVEST: THE NEW CHURCH AND EVANGELIZATION       JOEL E. BROWN       1996

     In Luke, chapter 10, the Lord says that the harvest is great but the laborers few. He says, "Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."
     Evangelization is commanded by the Lord in the New Testament (see Mark 16:15; Luke 7:1; Luke 9:60). He first sent out His twelve disciples, and later the seventy were sent out in pairs (see Luke 9:1-6; Luke 10:1-12). The word "evangelization" reveals the reason why: The Lord is the Word. To share the Word with people is to share His love and light, His good and truth. The word "evangelization" comes from the Greek word euaggelion, meaning good news. The good news was specifically the news of the Lord's birth, and is generally news of the Lord. The Old Testament, the New Testament and the Writings are all the Word of God in generals, particulars and singulars, and sharing any of these with people is sharing news of the Lord.
     In Apocalypse Revealed the Lord Himself reveals that there are many ways into the church: "`Having twelve gates' signifies there all knowledges of good and of truth through which man is introduced into the church." It is of note that this number indicates knowledges of good (boni) as well as of truth (veri). This seems to say that evangelization involves components of both good and truth. Perhaps the best form of evangelization is therefore sharing seeds of truth wrapped up with affection. Ultimately only the inner warmth of the person receiving the Lord interiorly will cause the seed to remain and grow, like the mustard seed, but as sowers we can not only choose good, fertile ground (see the parable of the sower, Matt. 13:3-9), but we can also sow well. I think this involves imparting what we know with affection.
     I know a man who came into the church through his wife.

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When he met her he liked what she had to say but he didn't know whether she in particular or the religion specifically was the cause of the light he saw. When he saw a whole society of people living this religion, then he was convinced that the religion itself was the right one. They have now been married over 25 years.
     The word "evangelization" is seldom used in the Writings. Apocalypse Revealed 839 reiterates the aforementioned gospel declaration: "Jesus commanded the disciples to preach and evangelize the kingdom of God" (Mark 16:15, Luke 7:1, Luke 9:60). " . . . in like manner to the seventy whom He sent forth" (Luke 10:9,11; Matt. 11:5; 16:27,28; Mark 8:35; et alia). To my knowledge there is not one thing commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament that we should not do. As it is said, "He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick" (Luke 9:2).
     The Lord's first four disciples-Andrew, Simon Peter, James and John, the sons of Zebedee-were all fishermen. He said He would make them fishers of men. Clearly seeds must be spread. And the Lord works through people. It takes people to print the books, to translate the Word, to teach people how to read. Nothing occurs outside of human agency; after all, life itself is passed on from man to man.
     The Greek word aggelos means "angel" or "messenger," demonstrating that angels are the Lord's messengers. As we are made more and more into angels, we will have more and more good tidings to deliver. In ancient Israel there were also prophets. The meaning of this word is not to "predict the future" but to "speak (phet) for (pro) God." A minister stands as a representative of God when he reads the Word in church. A mother and father stand as an image of the Lord when they raise their children. We all, as we live, serve each other as pictures of godliness in the truth we speak and the good we do.
     It seems that evangelization is something not just for the clergy but also for the laity.

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It involves living and sharing what we know and love of the Lord. We should remember the tendency of the prophet Jonah who did not wish to preach the gospel he knew because he would rather see Nineveh destroyed than saved (see Jonah 1-4). This is a use that we all can do and do well.
     Perhaps our mistake in evangelizing is in thinking that we must be militant in order to succeed, that is, in thinking that the only way to succeed is in being militant. It is true that there are falsities that must be battled against and evils that must be restrained, but we also do just as much to evangelize by loving, for our strength to love comes from the Lord. As a freshman friend of mine put it, "We should love them until they ask why."
     The work of evangelization and the establishment of the New Church on earth is probably a much longer endeavor than we would wish. It seems clear that our job is to cooperate with the Lord. In time-in the Lord's time-the church will spread and grow. As we raise our families in it, as we live it, as we share it with our friends and neighbors and countrymen, it will prosper. How to evangelize in regard to a church body, a church organization? We should support the teaching of the Word and the spreading of the truth wherever we can. We should support, whether directly or with spirit, New Church artists and New Church educators. We should declare from the rooftops that in living a good life and ever standing up for the truth, we are evangelizing. Maybe we should even pray.
     The lessons of the church and history are not depressing but rather uplifting. Though some Swedenborgians have demoted the authority of the Writings, they may yet be restored to their proper place and prosper. Though the Nova Hierosolyma has struggled and shrunk, it has many resources and it may yet spread. Though the General Church of the New Jerusalem, born out of a philosophic school and planted in an educational town, has faced trial in recent years, her feet are firmly planted on the doctrine and she may yet set her face toward the Sun.

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Whether there is a schism or a division, the Lord's New Church on earth, apart from these organizations, will prosper. It is His will and is foretold in His Word.
     Already we can see the world in preparation. Russia is starved for spiritual sustenance, and there are Russians among us seeking to learn. A cultural bridge has been opened with the immigration of many of them to the east coast of the United States. We have Koreans with us, and in Ghana and South Africa the church is strong. In America perhaps the many current self-help movements (men's movement, feminism, Alcoholics Anonymous, and others) and psychological inquiries are preparing people to receive the truth. In the whole world the "Third Revolution: The Information Age" now holds sway. And its computers and telecommunications may be the exact tool that allows the Word to spread almost instantly when the world is ready.
     Our best of all examples may be our best of all examples-Jesus. He came to share His love. He came to heal the broken-hearted, to give sight to the blind, to heal the deaf. Swedenborg believed. He says why: "I have seen, I have heard, I have felt" (AC 68). For the same reason, John on Patmos believed: "For I, John have seen and heard . . . " (Rev. 22:8). The Writings speak of the need for interior illustration. The best exterior representation of a loving heart is a loving face and loving voice. The Lord wept for Jerusalem, "the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her" (Matt. 23:37). He wept for us too. And He comforts us and tells us, "Go." For "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets" (Luke 6:22, 23).

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CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH 1996

CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH       Editor       1996

     In the world, anger may be regarded as a neutral thing or even as positive! In this respect we may compare it to the love of self. "In the world there is little reflection on the love of self" (HH 555). If we think only from the natural man or from books about psychology, we might regard the love of self as the generating force of our life. Notice what this passage goes on to say.
     The love of self "is believed in the world to be the very fire of life by which man is stimulated to seek employment and to perform uses." And then it is said, "For this reason, it is unknown in the world that love of self, regarded in itself, is the love that rules in hell and makes hell with man."
     It would be hard to explain this to someone who does not even believe in hell! If we go only by our own experience we have but the faintest grasp of the nature of the love of self. One of the purposes of Divine revelation is to show the nature of this love. One passage in the Writings describes the extremes to which it will go and then says, "This lies hidden in everyone who is in the love of self, though it is not manifest before the world . . . . The man who is in such love does not know that such insane and unbounded desire lies hidden within him" (NJHD 71).
     We noted last month that Jonah was twice asked whether it was right for him to be angry. He insisted that it was. The final verse in the book of Jonah is a calling to Jonah's attention the Lord's pity on the innocent. One of the phenomena of our age is terrorism. Whether it be in Japan or Ireland or the United States we see acts of terrorism using gas or explosives. So many people seem to be dedicated to an angry cause. If asked if they are right to be angry, they could justify it.
     For all the seeming justice of their anger, is there not an eloquent answer in the scenes of the suffering of the innocent?

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     Look at the after-effects of deliberate acts of anger. Do they not say to us, "Cease from anger and forsake wrath"?

     WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN? (2)

     The state of a child differs greatly from the state of an adult. The state of a young child differs greatly from the state of an older child. The difference is not simply one of vocabulary. "One who is still a child cannot begin to think from anything higher than the exterior natural, for he composes his ideas out of sensory impressions" (AC 5497).
     The child cannot think beyond its state. We are mistaken if we take this as a challenge and say to ourselves, "I will find a way to teach this concept to a child." As Bishop George de Charms put it, "Children are only able to visualize things concretely. For that reason the religious teaching of children must be concrete. It is a great mistake to attempt to impart to them abstract spiritual ideas. You always fail because they are not able to visualize them."*
     Suppose we say to ourselves, "Isn't it a pity that the child is unable to grasp this important concept?" Although we would not put it into so many words, we might sometimes have the feeling that it would be a better world if we could move children much more quickly from infancy to adult age. Some animals are able to fend for themselves within a few months of birth, so why can't we speed up the human maturing process?
     Of course a vital key to New Church education is to approach it not with the impatient agenda of a materialistic outlook, but with the realization that children belong to the Lord. "Man is many years in coming to maturity," says a passage in True Christian Religion. People were pondering differences between humans and beasts.

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They came to see "that it must inevitably be due to the Divine Wisdom that a man is a man and an animal an animal, and thus the imperfection in the birth of man becomes his perfection" (TCR 48:9).
     There is Divine purpose in the way the mind slowly forms. Each stage of development has purpose, and we might say that in the imperfection of a child's state there is perfection! Treat that state with a humble respect for its Divine purpose. Do not try to by-pass or accelerate early states.
     We spoke last month of the effort someone made to teach algebra to a young child. We mentioned the good side effects
     of this innocent effort. It is the part of wisdom to become aware of what is appropriate for a child's state. Otherwise we engage in teaching without learning or "casting seed upon a rock" (AC 2533).
     The concept of the internal sense of the Word is one of the exciting concepts of the New Church. An adult who has the delightful discovery of the internal sense might want to share this discovery with his children. If the stories of the Word are provided for children, should we teach them the internal sense? It is a grand question worthy of further exploration.*
     * This is from page 20 of a booklet of excerpts on educational philosophy by G. de Charms.
CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS 1996

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANGELS              1996

     This book should be available from the Swedenborg Foundation by the end of October. It consists for the most part of Memorable Relations from the Writings translated into modern English. The translators are Dr. Jonathan Rose and Dr. David Gladish; illustrations by Martha Gyllenhaal.

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SELF-ESTEEM 1996

SELF-ESTEEM       B. Tryn Clark       1996

Dear Editor:

     I am responding to N. Bruce Rogers' sermon about self-esteem and humility. I enjoyed his framing of the teachings about regeneration and humility. His references to self-esteem as this relates to the dangers of self-absorption, self-centeredness and arrogance were well elaborated. Some additional Scriptural teaching about the "proprium" and "remains" may help give a more complete picture of self-esteem as it relates to our spiritual combats. These teachings shed some light on what is involved in the formation of a self from which the individual is able to mount and sustain the effort it takes to combat the hells and arrive at a state of humility. There need to be in the individual such beliefs as: "I am competent; I can fight my life battles; I am worth saving; there is a good worth fighting for; the Lord loves me enough to fight for my salvation; I have experienced myself as a lovable and loving person at times, so I know it's possible for me to attain those states again." These are the kinds of states one can identify under the rubric of "self-esteem." And they are the kinds of thoughts and feelings that remain with us from our positive childhood relationships and learning experiences and successful encounters with life's challenges. Taken together they form our sense of ourself as an adult in the world.
     Arcana Coelestia 561 describes those experiences that build our "fullness of remains" which will sustain us later in combat, and which form the affective and cognitive structures of our self-representation, our experience of ourself, our self in relation to our value to others, our self-esteem:

[Remains are] not only the goods and truths that an individual has learned from the Lord's Word from infancy, and thus has impressed on his memory, but they are also all of the states derived from these, such as states of innocence from infancy, states of love from parents, brothers, teachers, friends, states of charity toward the neighbor, and also of pity for the poor and needy; in a word, all states of good and truth.

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Arcana 5335 emphasizes that these experiences are so essential that a person will fail in his or her spiritual combats without these things and their effects. Thus, "as a person cannot be regenerated, that is, admitted to the spiritual combats through which regeneration is effected, until he has received remains to the full, it was ordained that the Levites should not do any work in the tent of meeting until they had completed thirty years, which work or function is also called warfare."
     In the course of the struggle, we come to know that our good remains, and all new gifts of love and truth are just that, gifts from the Lord. However, in the early states we are fighting from our own experiential sense of ourselves as a good and able person, a person worth fighting for. In the Jacob story is described this phase of the struggle when motives are mixed but the struggle is begun that will lead to authentic humility.
     B. Tryn Clark
     New York, NY
SELF-ESTEEM 1996

SELF-ESTEEM              1996

Dear Editor:
     Rev. N. Bruce Rogers' sermon must have given new confidence to people, both young and old, who had come to believe that the New Church ideals were being threatened.
     We often read things in the Third Testament which are contrary to our will, but because we accept it as Divine authority we seek to change the will.
     The New Church organizations were started by people who adhered to these teachings. It would be dangerous to take different psychological theories (with a "shelf life" of a few years) and try to weld them to the revelation from the Lord. Anyone who felt that this could be done would have to think seriously about his position in the organization, for it obviously would not be honourable to use the many facilities and benefits of the society which are provided to support the New Church doctrines in order to promote ideas at variance with our beliefs.

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     It is interesting that the rise in deviancy in modern New Church society (for example, divorce, multiple "marriage," child abuse) has mirrored the acceptance and adoption of these psychological "fads" into our culture (surely another kind of adultery).
     Maureen Harrison Riley
     Rochdale, England
SELF-ESTEEM 1996

SELF-ESTEEM       Julie Conaron       1996

Dear Editor:
     I believe that the premise that one is either humble or has self-esteem is based on a fallacious idea of what true self-esteem is. There is a significant difference between believing that we are created by God and are worthy because He has made us (true self-esteem) and believing we are worthy in ourselves and therefore don't need Him (false self-esteem).
     Yes, of ourselves we are "evil from head to toe." But we aren't of ourselves; we have no existence whatsoever without God. He is constantly with us. If He seems distant, it is because we have moved. He has destined us to a life of heaven where we can fulfill a unique use which cannot be performed in quite the same way by anyone else. Does this give me self-esteem? Yes indeed, though not, I hope, in any arrogant or self-serving way. I feel a sense of awe and a feeling of real humility and love for Him and for the talents He gave me.
     Please, let us not have the form of humility currently practiced by the Shi'ite Muslims who on a regular basis beat themselves with chains for their sins. And let us not return to the form of humility preached 40-odd years ago that can lead to the use of alcohol and other addictive substances as a balm or crutch to alleviate the pain of feeling worthless and wrong.
     I fail to understand the reasoning that feeling worthless is actually feeling selfish. Despair is surely predicated of a sense of loathing of self. I agree that this feeling does not come from the Lord.

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Feelings of both despair and arrogance come from hell. They are just two of the many ways in which evil spirits can lead us away from the true belief that the Lord loves us unconditionally, that we are worthy because He made us, and that we are each and all of us unique members of the Gorand Man.
     Julie Conaron
     Huntingdon Valley, PA
SELF-ESTEEM 1996

SELF-ESTEEM       Rev. Eric H. Carswell       1996

Dear Editor:
     The sermon "On Self-esteem" by N. Bruce Rogers in the July issue presents some important doctrine on humility and on the dangers of self-pride, but I believe that there is a significant perspective on this subject that it did not address.
     The sermon focuses primarily on two possible perspectives: self-pride and humility. I would prefer to distinguish four possible perspectives:
     -     Self-pride from taking credit for what is the Lord's with us. (Bad)
     -     Discouragement about or hatred of oneself from a sense that there is nothing worthwhile in one's life, that is, that the Lord is quite absent from it. (Bad)
     -     Appreciation of the Lord's presence for good in one's life through remains, Divinely given or inspired gifts and talents, through truths learned from His Word, etc., and one's consequent capability of being useful in so many situations. (Good)
     -     Humility that arises from a sense that without the Lord's role in one's life, without His constant help, nothing would go right. (Good)
     The first two are obviously the tools of the hells and can keep one from being as useful as one could be. The second perspective may counterfeit genuine humility but can actually be as focused on self as the first, which the sermon notes in connection with people feeling "worthless." In all that one does from this second state of mind, the thought can be near the front of the individual's mind, "I am really no good at all."

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     The second two perspectives are strongly connected to sensing the Lord's presence and to a sense of gratitude. I think these are qualities that we want to be fostering in ourselves and others. Neither is likely to lead to apathy but rather to a strong desire to rid oneself of further obstacles to the Lord's greater presence (i.e., repentance).
     I believe that part of the implication of the statement "The New Church is the crown of all the churches because it is to worship a visible God" is that we are called to see His role for good in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. To the extent that we sense Him as universally distant or absent from our lives, He becomes an invisible God. Certainly in times of temptation, and continuously in certain parts of our will and understanding, we feel He is absent or distant. We also need to have times when we feel deep humility and gratitude that acknowledge how much He has helped us, and through this help has allowed us the happiness of heaven from being useful as from ourselves. I think we as a church could do better at helping people see the Lord as a God who is visible in their lives.
     Rev. Eric H. Carswell
     Glenview, IL
RADIO CULTIVATING TASTE 1996

RADIO CULTIVATING TASTE       Peter S. Rhodes       1996

Dear Editor:
     This is a story about self-esteem. What self should we esteem? People should not attribute good or evil to themselves. What self or which self? We know the proprium is inclined to evils of every kind. It is unlikely that this is the self to which we should not attribute evil.
     As a counselor I once had a radio come to my office. The radio was very depressed and embarrassed. When I asked why, it said that a few days before, while going through its stations, all of a sudden a vulgar, tasteless program had come on. The radio was shocked, and to make things even worse, this lascivious language came on when some friends were walking by and heard these embarrassing words.

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The radio since then had kept the volume so low you could hardly hear it. When questioned, the radio admitted that it had not produced nor written the show, and it even acknowledged that it had not manufactured its own radio self. It did, however, by the fourth session, start to be pleased and amazed at "itself" when it saw that it could receive and broadcast a whole variety of programs that would remain lost in the air without being received by a radio.
     It is true that, like a radio or TV, we are not to attribute the content of any show-either good or bad-to ourselves. We can highly esteem the fact that the Lord created us as amazing vessels capable of receiving influx. Unlike a radio, we were created by God so that we can listen and watch the programs that appear in front of us although we realize they are produced elsewhere and flow through us. Unlike machines, if we learn about and look to the Lord and start to prefer certain programs over others, in time we can become radios with good taste which are well worth listening to. As this slowly starts to occur, we have the opportunity to esteem our role in what we did not create and to refuse to allow the hells' efforts to turn our volume down so that we can receive well and play loudly.
     As Nelson Mandela says below, "make manifest the glory of God." This is the heavenly self created by God alone that all of us can esteem.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us.

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It's in everyone: and, as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela)
     Peter S. Rhodes
     Bryn Athyn, PA
SHAME HAS ITS PLACE 1996

SHAME HAS ITS PLACE       Rev. Arne Bau-Madsen       1996

Dear Editor:
     I read with interest the first installment of the article entitled "Freedom of Choice" by Peter S. Rhodes in the May issue of New Church Life. As I read along I came across some statements that caused me to stop and wonder and re-examine what I had read.
     We have, for example, the following on p. 205: "We do not have to be ashamed or guilty or embarrassed about having a proprium which is the part of us that inclines to evil of every kind. Without feeling guilty or ashamed we have to separate from it." And also: "I now think that shame is one of the covers under which the hells operate." And on p. 210: "So to have embarrassment, guilt, and shame in regard to having a proprium is a mistake." And further, on p. 211: "You feel remorse, which is a feeling of pain about the fact that it is that way. But it is not embarrassment or shame . . . . " And "Sorrow is part of the motivating factor . . . but not embarrassment, guilt or shame."
     It is true that we are not responsible for the fact that we have a proprium, or that it is the way it is. But this does not mean that such feelings as guilt, embarrassment and shame are not involved in our liberation from its dominion, as the above quotations really seem to suggest.
     We need only consider what is taught in HH 403: "To those that held the opinion that heavenly joy consists in living an idle life, . . . a perception was given of what such a life is, that they might become ashamed of the idea; and they saw that such a life is extremely sad."

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     Here, obviously, the sense of shame is an important part of the process of conversion, and not at all a cover under which the hells operate. That is also why this sense of shame is counted among the internal bonds or good affections in AC 4793:4, not to mention a large number of other passages clearly supporting this.
     There were also several statements on p. 209 that made me stop and take a second look. It is, for example, stated there that " . . . the power to overcome evil is in the goodness, not in the truth." The fact is that the power is neither in the goodness nor in the truth, but in the two conjoined. To see that this is so we may turn to the following teaching in TCR 87: "What good is apart from truth and what truth is apart from good can be seen clearly in man. All good in man has its seat in his will, and all truth in his understanding; and the will from its good can do nothing whatever except by means of the understanding; it cannot work, it cannot speak, it cannot feel; all of its virtue and power is by means of the understanding, consequently by means of truth" (see also AC 8200, AE 467).
     On the same page we also find the following definition: "I believe the first freedom is called repentance and is change of thinking." That is hardly in accordance with the definitions given in the Heavenly Doctrine, as for example in AC 8388-89: "To confess sins is to become thoroughly acquainted with evils, to see them in oneself, to acknowledge them, to regard oneself as guilty, and to condemn oneself on account of them. When this is done before God, it is to confess sins. To do repentance is, after one has thus confessed his sins and from a humble heart has made supplication for their forgiveness, to desist from them and to lead a new life according to the commands of faith." This definition clearly includes a lot more than mere change in thinking, however honest and sincere it may be.
     Another statement on this page also puzzled me: "You start to put the feeling of who you are into the delight in, and the longing for, truth.

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Then you start to put your feeling into the delight and longing for good. That is a reforming." It is my impression that the process of reformation-if that is what the writer is referring to-is not one characterized by a delight in or longing for good, but rather by self-compulsion, and often anxiety, pain and fear.
     In the second installment (NCL June 1996) I also came across a statement that I found somewhat misleading: "You don't have to look very far in the Writings before you find they say you have no business looking at anyone's intent; that is for the Lord alone to know."
     We certainly know that the angels regard not only the actions but also the intent of spirits and men: "Hence it is that from a man's deeds or works others judge of the thought of his will, which is called intention. This has been made known to me, that angels, from the mere deed or work of a man, perceive and see everything of the will and thought of the doer" (DLW 215). This is said not only about the angels but also about the wise in general: "For this reason the wise do not look at the works but at the life that is in the works, namely, at the intention. This is especially true of the angels who are with man . . . " (AE 185).
     Yes, it is something which we are all allowed to do, according to the following teaching: "Does not everyone know another from his works if he attends to them with reference to the end and purpose of his will, and the intention and reason from which they are done?" (TCR 96).
     The fact is, of course, that if we are to judge righteous judgment, as the Lord teaches us to do, then we must inevitably endeavor to look beyond the external acts and appearances.
     Rev. Arne Bau-Madsen
     Kempton, PA

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TUNNEL TO ETERNITY 1996

TUNNEL TO ETERNITY              1996




     Announcements






     This is the title of a self-published book by Leon S. Rhodes. The subtitle is "Swedenborgians Look beyond the Near Death Experience." The book packs a lot in its 95 pages. An appreciation by Dr. Kenneth Ring says, "Leon Rhodes has given us a beautiful gift in showing the greater spiritual world into which the NDE itself is just the briefest beginning glimpse."
     The August issue of the Territorial, an Arizona church newsletter, says that copies of this book have been "snatched up" speedily in Tucson and adds, "We get nothing but raves from people who have read it."
     For a copy of the book contact Mr. Rhodes at P.O. Box 23, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

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1996 CHARTER DAY 1996

              1996

     October 25th - 27th

     Come on Home!

     We extend a warm welcome to alumni, students, and friends of the Academy of the New Church to come on home, renew old memories, and forge new ones during the 119th anniversary celebration of the granting of the Academy Charter.
     When?     Friday through Sunday, October 25-27
     Where? On the campuses of the Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, PA
     What?     Cathedral procession and service, an alumni reception in your new Alumni Center, class reunions, girls' and boys' sporting events galore, breakfast at Cairnwood, the 3rd Annual Walk/Run, alumni sports contests, the President's Reception and Dance, club telegrams, a college band party, the Theta Alpha and Sons luncheons, the Gym Jam Sports Rally, tours of Glencairn and the John Pitcairn Archives, student and faculty forums, a stirring banquet program featuring alumni, a Sunday brunch-all planned for you to renew old friendships and forge new ones.
     A complete agenda will be mailed to all alumni and friends.
     Banquet tickets-$10.00 for adults and $5.00 for students may be purchased by contacting Mrs. David Roscoe at the Academy switchboard, by writing to the Academy of the New Church, P.O. Box 707, Benade Hall, Bryn Athyn, PA, or by calling (215) 947-4200. You may also purchase tickets at the Alumni Center located in the old library, or at the college office in Pendleton Hall. Please make checks payable to the "Academy of the New Church" and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope when appropriate.
     It's your celebration, so mark down "Charter Day" on your calendar now, and come on home!

431


Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996



432




433


October 1996

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     Civil leaders should be people "skilled in the law, wise, and who fear God" (NJHD 313). In the United States, elections are soon to take place, and Rev. Willard Heinrichs offers some thoughts on how we might take this teaching into consideration in choices that we make.
     Mr. Raymond B. David of California has heard in sermons and classes that it is the Lord who regenerates people. But he asks what our part is in the regenerative process. "What does the Lord expect of us?" He not only raises the question but he provides teachings that throw light on the answer (p. 456).
"There is perhaps a current trend in the New Church of dismissing evils as `not me,' . . . " See the two-page article by Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom called "Shun Evils; Don't Shunt Them."
     Four and a half pages of this issue are devoted to information on General Church places of worship. The information has been carefully updated, but note the plea on page 477 to send in any corrections you may have.
     Keeping track of addresses involves deliberate effort, and you can help in the matter of finding addresses. We are printing a number of names at the end of this issue and appreciate it when readers are able to help us keep track of the many names on our lists.
     Conversations with Angels will soon be published by the Swedenborg Foundation. It consists of Memorable Relations from the Writings. Most were translated by Dr. David Gladish, who died on July 10th. Here is what Ian Woofenden, his son-in-law, wrote about him: "Only Dave Gladish could write a tribute to Dave Gladish in just a few lines. He was an expert at making things short, simple and clear, with nothing extra, but with no shortage of meaning. This man was a pioneer in translating Swedenborg. He had a vision of people being able to read Swedenborg easily and understand the meaning. Let's carry on his vision and work by putting a high priority on supporting translations that common people can read and use."

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SOME PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT 1996

SOME PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT       Rev. WILLARD L. D. HEINRICHS       1996

     The teaching is clear that rulers over the people should be skilled in the law, wise and God-fearing, commandment-keeping people. But where shall we find people with such qualifications to govern us? When there are such people before us, how shall we recognize them in the confused political world of today?
     If we accept the literal teaching of the 33rd Psalm: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," we are not likely to endorse for civil government an avowed atheist. We may also regard with some misgivings a person who to our best knowledge pays no heed to religion and the Word of God in public and private life. This is especially the case if the person is involved in open breaches of one or more of the Ten Commandments. Such people cannot serve as appropriate examples to a nation which is to be God-fearing. Although the person may be skilled in the law, if cardinal moral precepts are ignored, he or she cannot be "truly" wise in the performance of the use. Genuine illustration or enlightenment in one's use, thus wisdom, comes only when use is performed from some spiritual motive and in a context of moral order. In the light of the Word and in the context of the many problems our planet faces in the present age, we may rightly wonder if there ever was such a thing as enlightened self-interest.
     Even if atheists, declared or otherwise, and people whose lives are openly scandalous were dropped from consideration in choosing our governors, the citizen still has a problem. Although we may know whether or not a person is skilled in the law, how shall we distinguish between the person who is truly wise and God-fearing and the hypocrite who merely pretends to be? This is never an easy question to resolve, but if we follow the Lord's teaching in the New Testament: "By their fruits you shall know them," we have an important key which, if used thoughtfully and carefully, can be of great assistance.

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If we will examine the means that a person has used in the past to obtain office, or to remain in office having already served as a civil administrator, and if we will reflect on the works that he has accomplished in office or in his prior life and reflect on these in the light of what the Word teaches about the moral virtues and true charity, we may in some cases be able to separate a worthy candidate from a hypocrite.
     In seeking office, does the candidate have his or her priorities straight? Does the person speak on behalf of the worthy interests of the country as a whole and then from this of the worthy interests of the citizens in their various constituent areas who are the neighbor in a lesser degree? Does the person call for an altruistic patriotism in the individual, a willingness to forego one's own immediate society's interests, if by so doing some greater use can be served to the neighbor in the higher degree-the country? Or on the other hand, does the candidate appeal primarily to selfish and parochial interests and make promises which if carried out would benefit only a few and might well be detrimental to the welfare of the nation as a whole?
     In general, does he act justly and honestly in his campaign, hold fast to his declared principles, courageously letting them be known when he is called upon to do so? Or does he conveniently forget those principles at times and deliberately misrepresent his past record while maliciously distorting his opponent's record? In regard to the latter activity, we might note a warning that the Lord issues to opportunistic politicians. "Wherefore, let all such take heed to themselves, as in order to achieve ends which they propose they make use of means that disturb societies and cause ill will and hatred between their members, and that too for the sake of promoting their own selfish views" (SD 1761, 1765), "or who, as the saying is, divide in order to rule . . . , thus placing prudence in the ill will, intestine strifes, and hatreds which they can kindle among others" (SD 1791, 1802).

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If in seeking office, candidates use political dishonesty and "prudence" of this character, can the citizen expect the fruits of justice and fair dealing from them when they are in office?
     In heaven those who govern are given illustration from the Lord in difficult decisions whereby they know how they should act. People in this world who are in something of genuine charity and in the love of their use also enjoy enlightenment in difficult decisions, although it is in lesser degree and does not give the individual the same measure of certainty. In selecting people for high office, should we not give preference to those who, more than others, in the policies they have enacted for the public or in those they advocate, demonstrate the wisest and most benevolent discernment in external good works?
     It is to be acknowledged, however, that in the world of today we may not find many ideal people to serve as our civil administrators. In most cases we must choose the best from a number of people who may fall well short of the ideal. Yet choose we must, and choose not for self-advantage but from rational reflection on the public good as it is outlined by the Lord in the doctrine of charity. We must try to select for our leaders those who more than others possess those essential qualities defined in the Word: skilled in the law, wise and Godfearing. If we do not choose, and choose on the basis of rational, Divinely revealed principles, we have ourselves to blame if, in the language of Scripture, our people become heathen whose counsel is brought to nothing, and whose devices are of no effect.
     Finally, when we do select our rulers on the basis of the essential qualities called for by the Lord, we must look within ourselves to see how our life measures up to these same qualities. If we expect them in our governors, we must seek to cultivate them in ourselves. How else can we have the judgment and counsel to recognize them in those who present themselves for positions in civil government?

438


PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY 1996

PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY       VERA GOODENOUGH DYCK       1996

     (Continued from the September issue)

Signals that we may be attributing greater authority than is appropriate to our derived doctrines

     In his paper on derived doctrine, Rev. Donald Rose lists several common tendencies that can serve as signals to us that we are straying from what the Lord's Word directly states and that we are falling into such a trap. He says that while we tend toward these things out of a desire to be safely led by the Lord alone, the truth is that they render us less safe since they attribute authority to ourselves.
     Reading his paper helped me to see clearly and specifically what has been so painful to me about reading many of the letters and papers that have been presented on the topic of women in the ministry. Several examples of what he describes came immediately to my mind. What I have done is quote some of the signals he describes in his paper. Then I quote in brackets what are to me examples of them, pulled out of articles and letters that have appeared in this publication or were presented at the clergy meetings. I recognize that all of these quotes have been lifted out of context, and their authors may feel I am misconstruing their meaning or intent. I want to stress that I am not criticizing the sincerity, good will, or even the ideas of the people who said these things. What I am criticizing is the language they have used to express their views, because this language seems to me to make inappropriate claims of authority. My purpose is not to say "Look here! You did it wrong! Shame on you!" but rather to say "Ouch! It feels really bad to hear it said like that with such authority. I feel hurt and angry about that statement. I feel as if you are using a revelation I love to say things it doesn't say. I feel robbed and sad.

439


I want this to be my church too, and I believe we share the essentials of belief. But please don't tell me I have to agree with all your derivations and assumptions to be in the same church as you."
      Predicting the Future ["The clergy will voluntarily continue to be all male-as long as the Writings are our source of instruction on the topic" (Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom, NCL, p. 211, Sept. 1994). "If our would-be women candidates once touched the sphere of those woman-angels, none of them would any longer have a desire to be priests . . . " (Tatsuya Nagashima, NCL, p. 19, Jan. 1996).] The angels state that they do not know things to come. This is an appropriate confession.
     Warnings of Danger ["If we begin to think that we should picture God as sometimes male and sometimes female, we risk dividing our idea of God and losing the vision of the one visible God, the Lord Jesus Christ. If we lose this, we lose all" (Rev. Stephen Cole, NCL, p. 197, May 1995). "To attribute femininity to the Divine Love . . . and masculinity to the Divine Wisdom . . . is to make God two seperate Beings . . . . In other words, it actually destroys the real Divine Marriage and returns us to the old heresy of (at least) two persons in God" (Rev. Douglas Taylor, NCL, p. 312, July 1995).] We sometimes have strong feelings of apprehension, and we speak about dangers with so much feeling it may sometimes seem that we are speaking from some kind of authority. There are specific warnings in the Writings, and these are the important ones. If we discern danger in some new thing, it is quite different from a warning in the Writings.
     Anticipating Perfection ["Since they have no priests in the celestial heaven (see HH 225), we must depend on our guessing how the church, in which they have the priestly office, functions with or without women angels in the spiritual heaven. Do the conjugial partners work together all the time, or do they sometimes work separately? And if separately, can a she-angel ever play a role in the church independently of her he-angel?" (Tatsuya Nagashima, NCL, p. 22, Jan. 1996).]

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Of course, if you would be content with only a perfect system you would not devise a system at all.
      Expecting a Special Mandate ["For those who do believe women should be priests, I would want to see specific places in the Writings where it says it would be allowable" (Mrs. Karen Jorgenson, NCL, p. 422, Sept. 1995).] The Writings describe a mode of thought which is as if one would attempt nothing unless he were put into action as one without a will (see AC 1712:3).
      Sometimes when religious leaders have made statements they have spoken loudly but carried a small stick, or rather they have made an extreme assertion without strong backing from revelation. ["The fact [is] that the Lord God is masculine . . . " (Mr. Taylor, NCL, p. 312, 313, July 1995). " . . . an internal core reality [is that] the Lord is only and always male" (Mr. Sandstrom, NCL, p. 414, Sept. 1994). " . . . truth plays the lead in defining a priest . . . . As long as the sight of truth is its core, the priesthood should be a male domain" (Rev. Erik Buss, p. 21, 22 of his clergy paper). "How the church operates has to . . . be objective" (Mr. Sandstrom, NCL, p. 411, Sept. 1994). "The priesthood is the only on-going office which is performatively self-conscious of representing the Lord" (Mr. Cole, NCL, p. 262, June 1995).] "In my opinion the principle would be many times more powerful if it directly stated things from the Writings . . . " (end quote of Mr. Rose's paper).

Let the Lord Speak for Himself.

     When no direct statement exists with which to drive a principle home, I believe we would do well to acknowledge that the principle is an opinion, or at best has been overstated and needs to be toned down if it is our desire to keep it in line with what is actually stated in the Word. I have given above several examples of what I consider predictions, warnings, expectations of perfection and mandate, and extreme assertions that stray from clear teachings and from these suggested guidelines of Mr. Rose.

441


These statements taken together seem to me to provide the basis of the argument against women in the clergy. To me they seem to be striking examples of a natural human tendency to derive doctrine in accordance with unconscious biases, such as a cultural bias against women in the ministry.
     I believe it will not be possible for our church's policies to be free of its cultural bias against women in the ministry, and to approach the question without being trapped by the above tendencies until there is a widespread acknowledgment that it is impossible to be led solely by revelation in the absence of direct teaching. However reassuring it would be to find a clear answer in revelation for what seems, in this day and age, to be an important question, it seems that there just isn't one.
     In all 60 pages of the papers given last year by the clergy on the topic, as well as all of the correspondence in this publication and others, not one direct teaching against women ministers has been presented. Since I don't know of anything else essential to His purposes that the Lord neglected to include in His revelation, I can't help thinking that if it had been essential to salvation of people or the purity of the church that women not share equally in the leadership of the church and the role of priesthood, He would have made certain that it was clearly stated. Or are the Writings not quite complete, and we need to hammer a few important points home in our own words to get across what the Lord was really trying to say?
     I am particularly concerned about the above-referenced statement that "Our clergy will continue to be voluntarily all male as long as the Writings are our source of instruction." To me it seems more true to say that as long as the Writings are our source of instruction, no one's derived doctrine will be set in stone as the one truly objective interpretation. Rather, differences in understanding on questions for which written revelation contains no direct answers will be expected and welcomed.

442




Objective Study?

     In order to truly "start from doctrine" in the way that Mr. Sandstrom says is necessary for objective study (NCL p. 412, Sept. 1994), people would have to enroll in theological school as babies before any elements of culture or experience or love were able to affect them. AC 2679 says that " . . . those who are being reformed . . . cannot do other than wander into this position and then into that, both in doctrine and in life. Thus they hold to that as being the truth which has been instilled into them since early childhood, or which is impressed on them by others, or which they think out for themselves, quite apart from the consideration that various affections of which they are not aware exist to mislead them."
     I understand this to mean that all of us-men and ministers included-are inevitably both deeply and subtly influenced by our culture, experiences and loves. Mr. Buss stated: "Science has long recognized that the perspective from which we view an occurrence changes our perception of what happens . . . . Our perspective on doctrinal issues also differs, depending on where we are standing. The teachings which we consider central to a subject will cause us to interpret other teachings in their light" (NCL p. 443, Oct. 1995). Is this not true of other ideas as well? We view teachings through the lens of other ideas, whether they are held consciously or unconsciously. As Mr. Buss noted, this is not necessarily a negative thing. It is just something to be aware of and consciously choose to the degree that we can.
     I have noticed that other ministers are these days also giving more recognition to the hidden influence of culture on people's interpretation of revelation. An example familiar to readers of this publication can be found in a sermon printed last year in NCL. In "The Ideal of Marriage to Eternity" the Rev. Douglas Taylor stated that " . . . false and twisted ideas . . . act like a pair of distorting spectacles before the eyes of many who read . . . [the Lord's New Testament teachings on marriage in heaven] in the Word . . . .

443


Such false assumptions distort the vision of many readers, causing them to see things that were never written" (p. 100, March, 1995). He noted that due to an "unwarranted assumption made unthinkingly for hundreds of years," the Christian Church has made a point of faith out of something that is not directly stated in the text of the Word (p. 100). Is there any reason to assume that this problem would never trouble our church?
     Since I generally think of male ministers as folks who are in most ways like regular folks, not so different from sincere leaders in the Christian Church, I do not believe it is possible for them to entirely leave behind all of their consciously and unconsciously held biases and assumptions when studying the Word. If they believe that they can and should, they may as a result be less objective than if they acknowledged to themselves and others that it is impossible for them to be entirely objective, and made an on-going effort to uncover their biases from culture and experience as well as affection. As Mr. Rose said in his 1978 paper "Derived Doctrine in the Church," "Humility is a great strength, because the Lord can flow in where there is humility. The church cannot be protected by the mere brilliance or competence of its leaders. If ever we think to find safety in a kind of infallibility, then we are not safe" (p. 6).
     (To be continued)
ACADEMY ENROLLMENTS 1996

ACADEMY ENROLLMENTS              1996

     In December we publish the directory of New Church schools and give enrollment figures. To fill this space we note that enrollment at the College of the Academy of the New Church is 114 this year. The enrollment in the secondary schools is 235 (106 girls and 129 boys).

444


SHUN EVILS; DON'T SHUNT THEM 1996

SHUN EVILS; DON'T SHUNT THEM       Rev. ERIK E. SANDSTROM       1996

     There is perhaps a current trend in the New Church of dismissing evils as "not me," based on the important teaching that all evils inflow: "If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth originate from the Lord, and all evils and falsity from hell, he would not appropriate good to himself and account it meritorious, nor would he appropriate evil to himself and account himself responsible for it" (DP 320).
     Two things of major importance for our spiritual lives: all good is from the Lord; all evil is from hell. However, it is not enough to recognize just the fact of this influx, not enough to just disassociate ourselves from the evil, since the following number goes on to say: "Those who are in the acknowledgment of these two things reflect only upon the evils in themselves, and so far as they shun them as sins and turn away from them, they cast them out from themselves to the hell from which they come" (DP 321:7, emphasis added).
     So recognizing that evils flow in is just the first step. The second is still to come: Either say, "I will not do this because it is a sin against the Lord," or the same words, substituting the "Word" for the "Lord." We hallow His name.
     Man's reflecting on the evils in himself is "the same thing as examining himself" (ibid.). By shunning them, "he then frees himself from hell and casts it behind him, and introduces himself into heaven, where he sees the Lord face to face" (ibid.).
     This is clearly the work of regeneration! We can all do it, and hopefully this is familiar territory to our readers. The whole process is put under a magnifying glass for us in the Writings:

That abstaining from evils for any reason whatever except from the Word does not purify the internal man is evident from the origin of evil works and from the origin of good works . . . . [S]o long as he does not abstain from these evils from spiritual faith, which is a belief that [evils] are infernal because they are contrary to the Divine Law, and thus contrary to the fear of God and to love of the neighbor, he is still interiorly unchaste and an adulterer (AE 803b:4, emphasis added).

445




     So let us by all means use DP 320 and 321 as the eye-opener on the origins of goods and evils; but let us be certain that we then take the second step and "shun evils as sins against the Lord" or "against His Word." Otherwise we merely "shunt" our evils around. This is clear:

He that abstains from adulteries from fear of the civil law and its punishments, . . . or even from natural goodness and consequent moral goodness, that is, as not being proper and honorable, and so on, and if for such reasons only he lives chastely, still he is interiorly unchaste and an adulterer. The same in all other cases (AE 803b:4).

     The Word and the Lord have to be involved in the shunning of evils. Because the Lord has so said in His Word is the effective reason. We cannot shun evils from our own power since this merely embraces the evils. Don't risk it. Instead, we need to strengthen ourselves: read the Word, memorize powerful quotes from Scripture explained in the doctrines, because the Word in the sense of the letter has all power against the hells. Quote the Lord's words in Luke 4:8, "Get behind Me, Satan" until he gets behind you. Above all, understand more of the doctrine of the Lord. Worship Him alone. Only He can overcome the evils in our lives.
ANGEL EVENTS 1996

ANGEL EVENTS              1996

     Our June editorial about belief in angels mentioned the work of Candace Frazee and Sarah Headsten in promoting events relating to interest in angels. In September the Oak Arbor Society in Michigan put on a series of three public lectures about angels. In Pittsburgh there was also a September angel event. Bryn Athyn is now looking to March 22nd as a date for an "angel celebration."

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SEXUAL ABUSE 1996

SEXUAL ABUSE              1996

     The church as a whole needs to face this difficult issue and accept the work ahead. The church also needs to increase its active role in abuse prevention and the work of healing the effects of abuse. Although it is a difficult subject to hear about and talk about, it is important work.
     The Bishop and Rev. Tom Kline have attended a series of meetings with women survivors of sexual abuse to discuss these issues. Bishop Buss has asked six ministers to advise him on ways in which we may be of use in addressing this issue. One of the proposals that came from these meetings was that the church express its desire for healing and offer its support for survivors. As a result, on April 28th a service of worship in the Bryn Athyn Cathedral was conducted by Bishop Buss, the Rev. Tom Kline and the Rev. Mark Carlson. This service was open to anyone who had been affected by the issue of sexual abuse. The purpose of the service was to consider this topic of abuse, to pray about it, and to ask for the Lord's healing. During this service the Rev. Mark Carlson gave the following talk:
     "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they were no more" (Matt 2:18).
     These words of the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled at the time of the Lord's birth when Herod sought to kill all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem. In fact, they are quoted verbatim in the New Testament as though to drive home the point. But what point? Surely not just that Herod had done this wicked thing, nor just that the words had been fulfilled. The point seldom recognized is that the Lord Himself, as a tiny child, was a survivor of the abuse of children. All His peers in Bethlehem were slaughtered in an attempt on His life. And even though He survived, who can say how well He was treated as a tiny child in a day when human life was regarded as cheap by most people? Surely children were even more defenseless in Ancient Israel than they are today.

447



     The Lord is no stranger to the issue of child abuse, whether it be emotional, physical, or sexual. And that is the issue we have gathered this evening in the Lord's presence to consider together, to pray about, and to ask for His healing.
     If nothing else is accomplished this evening, we are making a statement to the hells that the Lord's church, those He has gathered to Himself, will no longer stand by in silence and pretend that all the little ones are safe. We will no longer pretend that the hells are not in our midst, even within us at times, working to destroy from the earliest age the innocence and trust that are the very foundation of all human life-and therefore the foundation of the church.
     The psalmist, who inwardly speaks the Lord's thoughts and feelings He had when He was in the world, makes clear that our Father in heaven knows the meaning of betrayal of trust. As I read the words of the fifty-fifth Psalm, picture the deeper truth here-this is one of the Lord's inner thoughts while in the world: "It is not an enemy who abuses me; then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has magnified himself against Me; then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man My equal, My companion and My acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together and walked to the house of God in the throng" (Psalm 55:12-14).
     One of the great issues of those who have been abused as children, and indeed of those abused at any time of life, is the question, Where was the Lord? Why did He not protect me? Where was He? Why did He let it happen? These questions often develop into a life-long struggle to find and hold onto a sense of the Lord's presence and personal loving attention. To further compound the issue, the survivor of childhood abuse also tends to feel somehow responsible, guilty for not being able to stop the abuse, and deeply shamed that his or her body may have responded the way the Lord created it to respond to sexual touch.

448



     These questions, these feelings, these thoughts, together with the mysterious and confusing bodily memories, strike at the heart and soul of the child; they also strike at the heart and soul of marriage, and therefore abuse strikes again at the heart and soul of the Lord's New Church.
     I know well enough that mere words of reassurance or quotes from Scripture do little good in the face of the issues that childhood abuse present to the survivor. But perhaps hearing the Lord's words of warning to violators in His house, in this moment when the issue is being confronted by this congregation, may have new meaning to those who suffer.
     The significance of the first passage which follows may not be immediately apparent unless one remembers the reality that abuse of any kind often cuts a child off from his or her parents and renders the child an orphan, most especially and completely in the case of incest.
     "You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry out to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword . . . " (Exodus 22:22).
     "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea . . . . If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away . . . " (Matt. 18:6,8).
     " . . . because such men are violators of marriage and despisers of the female sex and thus spiritual robbers, it is plain that the Divine nemesis pursues them" (CL 504:3).
     In answer to the question of why the Lord lets such things happen, I can say only that it is the same reason He allows other atrocities to happen to people. Either we are free or we are not; there is no in-between. To take away the freedom of even one individual to do the worst of evil, and surely this evil is close to the worst if not the worst, would be to take away the freedom of all. We are free, and only in freedom can we learn to love each other and to love Him.

449



     I know in the midst of the pain of the wreckage of one's life such dry answers as this seldom if ever soothe the troubled soul. But that very inability to be consoled is the very issue here. And that inability to be consoled is not your fault, just as all the other issues that you as a survivor must face as a result of your abuse are not your fault. And most certainly the original abuse situation was not your fault! The Lord wants you to know that. You were at the time, either because of age or some inequality of power, unable to say no, unable to escape. And for that helplessness on your part, and on His, I know the Lord is deeply sorry.
     "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more." Surely childhood ends the moment a child is abused by a trusted adult. The child is no more, and that loss alone is a great robbery.
     Now listen carefully to the words that follow the Jeremiah passage about Rachel's weeping for her children. These are the Lord's words to all who have suffered childhood abuse: "Refrain your voice from your weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future that your children shall come back to their own border" (Jer. 31:16).
     There is hope in your future. Your children, your child, shall come back and be protected by the Lord with clear, firm, and appropriate boundaries.
     Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven. And He laid His hands upon them and departed from there" (Matt 19:14). Amen.

     * * * * * * *

     In this service, Bishop Buss spoke of the fact that the Lord is deeply sorry when abuse happens, that He weeps for the loss of all innocence.

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He explained that interior innocence is not destroyed by abuse, in accord with the teaching that "It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."
WHY BOTHER Or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway? 1996

WHY BOTHER Or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway?       Rev. MICHAEL D. GLADISH       1996

     (Part 3)
     
     We are born natural and we have to become spiritual. So in many different ways we have to begin our reformation working on external, natural things, things we can understand in our unregenerate states, things we can appreciate while we are still full of the loves of self and the world, and then slowly, ever so gently, the Lord can open our eyes to the great spiritual needs that are within us.
     If we love our own ideas, the way we understand things from the Word, and if we love the natural world with all its outward blessings, it stands to reason that the Lord will reach down to help us on that level by telling us to put our ideas to work, to do something positive for the world by teaching other people "the truth." In His wonderful Providence the Lord of course knows what is going to happen when we do this, and although He warns us, He does not discourage us from going ahead. Remember, this work has to be done! The Word has to be broadcast throughout the world for the sake of those, however few they may be, who could not be saved without it. And (as just discussed) we need to do it for the sake of our own growth in depth and understanding. But the fact is we are going to be rejected.

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As the Lord said,

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the gentiles . . . . Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name's sake . . . (Matt. 10:16-18, 21, 22).

     Okay, so when we are rejected, as I'm sure all of you in this room know from your own experience, we are faced immediately with a choice: we can either curse the darkness that closes in on us or we can do what the popular culture calls a "reality check," and see whether or not there might be something wrong with our understanding of the mission itself, the method of achieving it, the message, or our own motives. Personally, I am convinced that the more we curse the darkness, the more we say the world is not ready for the message of the Second Advent, the more we blame others for our lack of success, hiding behind barriers of specialized language and closed friendship networks, the more difficult we make the whole process of regeneration for ourselves and for others.
     On the other hand, the more we try to explain to others our understanding of spiritual things and listen to their responses, the more we will learn about ourselves, the real needs of our neighbors, the real meaning of the Heavenly Doctrines, and the best ways to communicate their goodness and truth.
     My understanding of the truth in the Writings has been enhanced by the process of facing a challenge, struggling with it, and seeing it more deeply than I had before.
     In the process I became increasingly aware that although the Writings are a "rational" revelation given in a relatively modern context, that context is still fixed and limited, as it is in every revelation, each one being an accommodation of the infinite truth to a specific place and time.

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Of course I believe that the Writings are true, but one effect of my efforts to present and explain them has been a growing sense of humility about exactly what they mean.
     Take for example certain teachings on marriage and relations between the sexes. Every time I have had to wrestle with questions of specific roles for men and women in order to explain or illustrate the teachings of the New Church to someone new, I have come away with new insights and often new questions that I realize I need to think about or study. As in other cases on many other topics, I have learned through this process to understand not only that simplistic answers aren't usually very helpful, but also that they can in fact be quite wrong, hurtful and even dangerous. This in turn, it seems to me, has led to a healthier sense of respect for other people and a more genuine acknowledgment of my own limited depth in the Writings than I had before, not to mention a growing appreciation of the complexity and beauty of the Lord's Divine Providence.
     In this connection, like you I'm sure, I have often wondered when I would ever know enough to be totally confident answering questions about the church. You know the old problem: you don't want to say something stupid or something that isn't quite right, or do something that might in any way mislead or turn somebody off the truths of the Writings. But I finally came to the conclusion that I would never be ready in that sense, because I would never have "all the answers." Instead I understood, as Doug Taylor used to say, that the very best I could do would be to speak from my heart about the things that matter to me, and that if I did so with the proper sense of humility and respect for the other person, I could at least represent the truth as a form of good and invite further dialogue or study as the need might arise.

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In short I took and still take great comfort in the Lord's words (omitted from the quotation a moment ago),

But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speaks, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matt. 10:19, 20).

     I also realized that no matter how insecure I was about the content of the thirty volumes, I was certain to know more about them than most anybody I would talk to outside the church. The great qualifier, then, was that I speak at the impulse of the Father, which we know is the Divine Love.

     So What Is the Vision?

     What Is the Point of Church Growth?

     The Writings are clear that the purpose of doctrinal things is not to teach people how to think but how to live, or, in the words of the Elliott translation, "not so much to guide their thought as to direct their lives" (AC 2982). This is a little like saying that the purpose of science is not simply to acquire knowledge but to improve the quality of life.
     To illustrate, a lot of things make sense when we know that the world is a sphere. Without that knowledge we are severely limited in what we can do. And it's not just a matter of navigation; through the years we have learned that industry, politics, communication, weather prediction, waste management, and a thousand other things are all affected. This knowledge is important.
     Similarly, the quality of life on earth is dramatically affected by a knowledge and understanding of microscopic things like germs, mold, viruses and bacteria. It is easy to forget that it is only in this century that we have really begun to understand things like the flu, consumption, malaria, polio, and cancer. Millions of people all over the world simply died of the flu in 1918. Now we think of it as a seasonal nuisance or at worst a mild threat to the elderly.

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     Useful knowledge can include an awareness of things that are helpful or dangerous, meaningful or stupid, delightful or sad. Just imagine what the world would be like today if we still thought crude oil was just an annoying black goo, or if we didn't understand electricity.
     The point is, the world can get by without any of this knowledge. The world can get by without any particular people even knowing what is good to eat or what is poisonous. Somewhere in the Lord's Providence there will always be a few who do know what is good for them, who do live according to that knowledge, and who will therefore perpetuate the race. The problem isn't the salvation of the world; it is the health and well-being of the individuals who may thrive or suffer, and ultimately live or die, according to the information they have and their understanding of it.
     With this in mind, we can see on a corresponding spiritual level how useful and important higher knowledge can be. A lot of things make sense, for example, when we know that the Word of the Old Testament has an internal sense. Likewise, the quality of our lives and the way we deal with mental and spiritual issues can be dramatically affected by our knowledge of the spiritual world, the doctrine of discrete degrees, the essential process of influx and the gradual development of the human mind. To give a few specific illustrations: Who today really understands the nature of the will, the proprium, or the as-of-self? Who knows the spiritual origin and purpose of marriage? Who can explain the relationship between good and evil spirits, or between spirits of any kind and people on the earth? In this day of fascination with angels, who even knows where angels come from or how they live? Who knows that heaven is not some sort of cosmic reward for good deeds done in the world, or that hell is not God's punishment for "too many" evil deeds?
     It's no wonder that people reject the truth and holiness of the Word when they can't get past its crude and contradictory appearance in the literal sense.

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And it's no wonder that people reject the idea of the Lord as God when they have no way of coming to grips with the concept of the Infinite in human form.
     The point is, given the knowledge that the Lord has put before us, clearly we have a responsibility to share it. Salvation is health, and health involves healing. Now of course we don't heal each other; not even doctors heal people; that is something only the Lord can do. But we can help by providing or improving the conditions for healing. And that is the outward purpose of evangelization. That is the purpose of the church. I guess I don't have to tell anybody in this group that when we see someone drowning, we have a responsibility to throw him a rope, or when we see someone sick and we have the medicine, we have a responsibility to share it.
     The word "church" comes from the Greek word meaning "called out," and refers to the call away from worldly concerns to the concerns of spiritual life. This call has two primary benefits: the personal relief that comes from following the Lord, and the opportunity to pool resources and help others feel that same relief. We all know that neither of these blessings comes easily, but (despite the abuses that occur in churches) we ought to recognize that the church is the only institution directly concerned with these uses, and we ought to recognize that the first use is a function of the second: influx is according to efflux. We are blessed spiritually as we respond to the call to serve others spiritually. (To be continued)
Dutch Publication Called Swedenborgiana 1996

Dutch Publication Called Swedenborgiana              1996

A Dutch Publication Called Swedenborgiana-The 16-page September issue has selections from the Writings translated into modern Dutch. There is a tribute to Rev. Christopher Bown, who made pastoral visits to Holland but is now teaching at ANC College. Books recommended in the issue include Tunnel to Eternity by Leon Rhodes.

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IT'S UP TO YOU 1996

IT'S UP TO YOU       RAYMOND B. DAVID       1996

     In the New Church I've often heard sermons or classes stress the truth that it is the Lord who regenerates people. We read in Arcana 874: "`The dove found no rest for the sole of its foot' describes the first state following temptation . . . . It is a state when people imagine that they themselves are the source of the good they do and of the truth they think. And because they are still in the greatest obscurity, the Lord lets them cling to that opinion. But as long as they cling to that opinion-which is false-no good deed they do nor any truth they think is the good or truth of faith . . . . To be the truth of faith all truth must include from the Lord the good of faith. Only then do they become good and truth."
     " . . . it is clear how regeneration is accomplished and what the regeneration of a spiritual man is. It is the separation of the understanding part of his mind from the will part by means of conscience, which is formed by the Lord in that understanding part. What is performed in this manner seemingly springs from his own will, but in fact it does so from the Lord" (AC 875).
     "The Lord alone regenerates a person, and neither person nor angel contributes thereto" (NJHD 185).
     So what is our part in the regenerative process? What does the Lord expect of us? What good thing shall we do that we may have eternal life? Are we to be simply automatons, having no influence over our eternal fate?
     "Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 18:31) "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20). In these two passages the Lord asks us to make a decision. He asks us not to die. And He asks us to open the door to Him. He asks us to take actions to avoid death, to accept Him. He makes it sound as if it's up to us to be saved, as if it's our own responsibility. Well, my friends, it is!

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     "'I will judge you each according to his ways,' declares the sovereign Lord. `Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone,' declares the sovereign Lord. `Repent and live!'" (Ezekiel 18:30-32)
     "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings! But you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate" (Matt. 23:37, 38).
     So evidently the Lord expects us to become willing to be regenerated. He does not compel us toward that state, but asks us to turn toward Him if we will. "If man could be reformed by compulsion, there would not be a person in the universe who would not be saved, for nothing would be more easy to the Lord than to compel people to fear Him, to worship Him, and even as it were to love Him . . . . But that which takes place under compulsion is not conjoined, thus is not appropriated. Therefore it is as far as it can be from the Lord to compel anyone" (AC 2881).
     "That to which a person is compelled is not his but belongs to him who compels him . . . . It sometimes appears as if people were compelled to good, as in temptations and spiritual combats . . . . It also appears as if a person were compelled to good when he compels himself to it, but it is one thing to compel oneself and another to be compelled. He who compels himself does so from freedom which is within. But to be compelled is not from freedom" (AC 4031).
     Okay, so how do we do that? How do we become willing? "He who would be saved must confess his sins and do the work of repentance." "To confess sins is to know evils, to see them in oneself, to acknowledge them, to make himself guilty, and to condemn himself on account of them.

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When this is done before God it is the confession of sins." "To do the work of repentance is to desist from sins after he has thus confessed them, and from a humble heart has made supplication for remission, and to live a new life according to the precepts of charity and faith" (NJHD 159-161).
     What sin do we find in ourselves? Aren't most of us pretty decent people? Don't we raise our families, attend church, do the work of our calling, give to the needy? Where is the sin?


     " . . . my friend, parents are the only source of inherited evil, not the evil itself which a man actually commits, but the inclination thereto. That is something anyone would acknowledge provided he applied his powers of reasoning to his experiences. Everyone knows that sons have by birth a general likeness to their parents, in their faces, their behavior, and their characters. And grandchildren and great-grandchildren also show the same resemblance to their grandfathers and great-grandfathers . . . . It follows from this that what a person has by birth is not real evils, but only a tendency to evils, being more or less prone to particular evils. No one therefore after death is judged on his hereditary evil, but the actual evils he has himself committed. This is obvious too from the following rule of the Lord: `The father shall not die on account of the son, and the son shall not die on account of the father; each shall die as the result of his own sin' (Deut. 24:16). This was proved to me in the spiritual world from the case of those who die as children; they merely have a tendency toward evils, that is to say, they want to but do not do them. For they are brought up under the Lord's guidance and are saved. This tendency and proneness to evils just mentioned, which is transmitted from parents to their children and descendants, can be broken down only by a person being born anew by the Lord's help, a process called regeneration. Without this not only does the tendency remain unbroken, but it is reinforced by a succession of parents, becoming more prone to evils, and eventually to every kind of evil . . . . Every evil if not removed remains with a person; and if a person remains in his evils he cannot be saved" (TCR 521, 522).

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     So these evils may not be open acts that we have done, but rather, secret attitudes deep within us. Usually we will not recognize the attitude until it comes forth in some action- perhaps a fit of anger, a temper tantrum that we didn't know we had in us. If we examine the action, we may come across the deeper attitude. This is self-examination. "Evils cannot be removed unless they appear. This does not mean that man must do evils in order that they may appear, but that he must examine himself, both deeds and thoughts . . . . It is to enable a person to examine himself that an understanding has been given him, and this is separated from his will so that he may know, understand, and acknowledge what is good and what is evil . . . . The person must see that he is [in hell], must wish to go out of it, and must try to do this of himself" (DP 278).
     "They who have compelled themselves against evil and falsity, although at first they supposed that this was from self or their own power but were afterward enlightened, . . . in the other life cannot be led by evil spirits but are among the happy. Hence it is evident that a man ought to compel himself to do what is good and to speak what is true. The heavenly proprium of a person is formed in the endeavor of his thought, and if he does not obtain it by compelling himself as it appears, he never can by not compelling himself . . . . In this freedom, when a man compels himself against evil and falsity, and to do what is good, there is heavenly love . . . . From the above it is evident that to compel oneself is not to be compelled, for from being compelled there never comes anything good, as is the case when a man is compelled by another man to do what is good. But the compelling of self is from a certain freedom which is unknown to the man, for there is never any compulsion from the Lord" (AC 1937:3, 6, 7).
     "There are certain spirits who during their lifetime, having heard that all good originates in the Lord and that man was unable from himself to do any good at all, had for these reasons held to a principle of not compelling themselves in anything and of remaining utterly passive, for they had supposed that any effort at all made by them was totally ineffectual.

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They had waited for immediate influx into the effort of their will and had not compelled themselves to do anything good. Indeed, when anything evil had crept in, since they did not feel from within any resistance to it, they had gone so far as to abandon themselves to it, imagining that it was permissible to do so. But those spirits are such that they do not possess so to speak any selfhood, and so do not possess any mind of their own, and are therefore among the more useless; they suffer themselves to be led as much by the evil as by the good, and they suffer much from the evil" (AC 1937:2).
     "When man is regenerate, he then for the first time comes into a state of freedom. Before this he was in a state of slavery. There is slavery when cupidities and falsities exercise command, and freedom when the affections of good and truth do so. How this is, man never perceives so long as he is in a state of slavery. He perceives for the first time when he comes into a state of freedom. While he is in a state of slavery, the man supposes that he is in a state of freedom, but it is diabolical spirits who are carrying him away. And this the man supposes to be the utmost freedom . . . . Man never comes into a state of freedom until he is regenerate and is led by the Lord through the love of good and truth. When he is in this state he is for the first time able to perceive and know what freedom is, because he then perceives what life is and what is the true delight of life and what happiness is . . . . When those who are in a state of freedom from the Lord see-and still more when they feel-the life of cupidities and falsities, they abhor it as do they who see hell open before their eyes . . . . The life of freedom consists solely in being led by the Lord" (AC 892).
     "The need for the individual to compel himself to do what is good, to obey what the Lord has commanded, and to speak truths . . . comprehends more secrets within itself than can be explained briefly" (AC 1937).

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     "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20). "Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezek. 18:31).
REPORT ON "THE DHARMA OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG" 1996

REPORT ON "THE DHARMA OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG"       Rev. BARRY C. HALTERMAN       1996

     This past summer a very interesting and important event took place at DePaul University in Chicago. Among the programs offered at the 1996 conference of The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies held there was a panel presentation titled "The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg."1 This session was described in the conference program directory as follows: "There are profound parallels between what Buddhism teaches and what Swedenborg wrote. (D.T. Suzuki translated four of Swedenborg's books and published his own study.) By pointing out some of these similarities, this presentation will show that Swedenborg's voice could be an important bridge between Christianity and Buddhism. Discussion will follow the presentation."
     1. "Dharma" is a Sanskrit word which means "teaching."
     David Loy, Ph.D., of Bunkyo University in Japan, organized and chaired the panel. Dr. Loy has published works on Zen Buddhist and postmodern philosophy and is a highly trained Zen Sensei (Master) practitioner.

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He also has a great interest in the Writings. His excellent and insightful article "The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Buddhist Perspective"2 formed the basis for the panel. The other two panelists were Roger Corless, Ph.D., Professor of Religion at Duke University and co-founder of The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and myself, M.A., M. Div., of the General Church (in Canada) and Executive Director of Information Swedenborg, Inc.
     2. This article was originally published in Arcana Magazine (Vol. II, no. 1, pp. 5-23). It was also published, in a slightly edited form, as an "afterword" in the new English translation of D. T. Suzuki's Swedenborg: Buddha of the North (West Chester, PA; Swedenborg Foundation, 1996), pp. 89-125.
     After introducing the topic and the panelists, Dr. Loy presented "A Buddhist Perspective," sharing some of his insights into key areas of resonance between the two religious traditions. He focused particularly on the concept of self, the love of self, the Divine, and the concept of evil and its relation to the concept of karma. Next I was called on to present "A Swedenborgian Perspective." I began by discussing Swedenborg's credentials as a Christian, and why his ideas of what is truly universal and essential about religion can lead to a new view of Christianity that can help serve as a bridge between traditional Christianity and Buddhism. I then spent the main portion of the talk describing my understanding of the links (and differences) between Swedenborg's holistic view of reality and the interdependent nature of all things (as presented especially in Divine Love and Wisdom) and some schools of Buddhism. Dr. Corless responded by giving his scholarly analysis of both presentations, pointing out that there was very much work to do in the academic analysis of the relationship between Swedenborg's philosophy and Buddhism, and this was an important and necessary first step.
     As expected, this conference brought together some of the world's most respected Buddhist and Christian leaders, scholars, activists, and spiritual teachers, including the Dalai Lama, the very popular exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet.

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Among the over 450 people attending the conference, eighteen chose to attend our presentation. (There were at least fifteen other presentations taking place at the same time as ours, including a presentation by the Dalai Lama's younger brother and some other "big names" in the field of inter-religious study and dialogue. My co-panelists mentioned that they knew of several other people who would have attended had there not been scheduling conflicts.) Most of those attending were definitely interested in what was presented, and several good questions were posed during the discussion period at the end. All of them left with a Swedenborg Foundation catalogue, and most of the books displayed at the session were sold. And there may be more chances for follow-up in the future as David Loy's paper, "The Dharma of Emanuel Swedenborg: A Buddhist Perspective," will be published early next year in Buddhist-Christian Studies, the annual journal of The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies.
     Overall it was an exciting and very useful event for presenting New Church ideas to an influential group of religious and educational leaders from around the world. My colleagues felt it was a good start, and that there would be more opportunities to develop things further in the future. I feel privileged to have been part of this historic event for the New Church.?
SURVEY ON WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG 1996

SURVEY ON WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG              1996

     The Official Guide to American Attitudes (New Strategist Publications, $89.95) shows that the percentage of people who perceive that adultery is wrong has actually increased. In 1974 73% of Americans said it is "always wrong" for a married person to have sexual relations with someone other than one's spouse. The percentage has gone up to 78%. Compare CL 478.

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NEW CHURCH IN NEPAL 1996

NEW CHURCH IN NEPAL       E. KENT ROGERS       1996

     A little over a month ago, just as the General Church assembly was winding down, I found myself in a meeting which has impacted and altered my actions-a meeting which, in truth, I had hoped to avoid because I had so many other things to do. But there I was, sitting across the table from the man Martha Gyllenhaal had wanted me to meet, Peter Areschoug, a Swede nearly 70 years old with long white hair. I strained to understand as he began to speak in shaky English about a Bengali tiger, a prince, a princess, two mice and the abandoned babies of Katmandu.
     When I realized he was telling me an allegorical tale, my ears opened and his good news began to plant itself. Now I would like to share that good news with you, but first a quote from True Christian Religion:

Charity and faith are merely fleeting mental abstractions unless, whenever possible, they are expressed in works, and exist together in them . . . . Everyone can see that charity and faith are not charity and faith as long as they are only in the head and mind and not in the body. They are then like . . . birds about to lay, which, having no nests, must drop their eggs in the air or on the branch of some tree, from which they would fall and be broken (TCR 375).

     Steps are right now being taken not only to teach the truth of the New Church to absolutely accepting young minds in Nepal, but to live out that truth in works. This is an effort to translate the Writings into a language that is more powerful than any other and which all people understand regardless of nationality-action. Some time ago, Peter Areschoug brought a woman, Renee Estelle, into the New Church, and Renee brought a passion for application into the New Church. Renee spends a lot of time in Nepal and regularly sees a poverty that most of the western world has a hard time imagining. The situation is atrocious.

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Several years ago she started a school in Nepal for the poor, which currently operates independent of her. She has now taken steps to start a New Church home in Nepal to save some of the hundreds of infants who are abandoned by their mothers and left on the trash heaps of Katmandu.
     All over this shrinking earth there are severe gashes in humanity, and from all over, people are working and succeeding to soothe these sores. But the salve which the New Church has to offer is a special salve that penetrates to the aching spirits within the aching bodies. There is poverty everywhere, but Nepal is the place for our work for two reasons. First, there is a great need in Nepal. Second, we have the tools to satisfy that need. Renee has governmental connections and knowledge of the laws in Nepal, and having already started a school there, she has the experience we need for this kind of work. The truths of the Writings are of the Living Waters which quench all thirst, and only we very, very few who have read the Writings are able to share their truths while living according to them in use. It is exciting to see this work unfolding in Nepal and to be a part of it.
     To have any meaning or value at all, an individual, a marriage, or a church must look outward and work for the good of the Lord and for the good of the neighbor. We give glory to God by serving each other. I rejoice because as this work in Nepal is slowly unfolding, I see the truth becoming alive and living in action, making real on earth the beauty of heaven which has been shown to us in the Word.
     Write or call for more information:


E. Kent Rogers
614 Murray Ave.
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
Phone: (215) 947-0219


Renee Estelle and Peter Areschoug
Fleminggatan 95 IV
S. 11245 Stockholm, Sweden
Phone: 08 650 73 10

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CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH 1996

CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH       Editor       1996

     It can seem that anger is just a fact of life, and that it is unrealistic to speak of ceasing from it. Consider the state of an unregenerate person. The person is selfish and may be compared to a fierce creature. Changing that creature into something beautiful is indeed a picture of impossibility.
     An evil person cannot be transformed into an angel in an instant. The Writings compare this to transforming a serpent into a lamb (see DP 338:7). No, you cannot change yourself, but the Lord's work over your lifetime is to change a fierce creature into a gentle and good one, to so change a selfish person that the person becomes "like a beautiful angel" (DP 296:2).
     One of the characteristics of an unregenerate person is a kind of anger, a rage against all things of faith (see TCR 593). Although that anger may be long entrenched, it typifies the things that the Lord does change as He takes away a heart of stone and grants to us a heart of flesh.
WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN? 1996

WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN?       Editor       1996

     In a way, children receive truth more directly than adults do.
     By instruction from parents and teachers a young one is imbued with goods and truths-"learns them with avidity and believes them in simplicity" (AC 5135:2). The child does not need and probably cannot understand the explanations we sometimes give. An explanation can actually have an obscuring effect.
     As one little example of a child's understanding, take the following from the chapter about garments in Heaven and Hell. "When I asked the angels where they got their garments, they said from the Lord, and that they receive them as gifts" (HH 181). Children can grasp this more readily than some adults.
     There are some things that the child is not ready to grasp.

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About the best example I know is the concept of a map. It seems so obvious to an adult that the lines on a piece of paper represent a place. Surely kindergartners or first grade children ought to grasp that but they do not. It is not a concept they are ready for, and the adult's seemingly brilliant efforts to make them grasp the concept of a map are actually less than brilliant. This is because the adult is forgetting the state of the child. We will return to this subject. Let us say something about stories.
     Children may not know the delight of recognition when we labor to explain concepts to them, but they do know the delight of a story. Because the Lord does know the state of children, He has provided that His Word should contain stories. And the stories do not simply entertain the children. They are a Divine means of bringing children and angels together. Arcana Coelestia 3690 is well known to New Church educators, and so it should be. When children are affected by the story, angels are affected by heavenly things within the story, and the delight of the angels flows into the children.

     (To be continued)
AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AND SWEDENBORG 1996

AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AND SWEDENBORG       Gordon Jacobs       1996

Dear Editor:

     With reference to your editorial in the May issue of New Church Life," I was interested to see Sarah Orne Jewett mentioned.
This is the first time that I have seen in a New Church publication a reference to Swedenborg's influence on her fiction, although outside the church there has been recognition of this by a few writers.

468



     I would especially draw readers' attention to a twenty-page article, "Jewett and Swedenborg" by Josephine Donovan, which appeared in December 1993 in American Literature, Vol. 65, Number 4, published by the Duke University Press.
     Incidentally, the article commences by quoting F. O. Matthiessen that the mid-nineteenth century might well be called the "Age of Swedenborg," although his influence extended beyond this period and affected a significant number of women writers. In addition to those listed in your editorial, Josephine Donovan includes Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Peabody and Julia Ward Howe. (Regarding the last, in a biography entitled Julia Ward Howe by Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott (Houghton Mifflin, 1925), we are informed that during a month at sea, Julia, in the long quiet mornings, read Divine Love and Wisdom.)
     Gordon Jacobs
     Sutton, England
SELF-ESTEEM, MEDIATE GOOD, AND THE AS-OF-SELF 1996

SELF-ESTEEM, MEDIATE GOOD, AND THE AS-OF-SELF       Gael P. Coffin       1996

Dear Editor:

     Having read Rev. Bruce Rogers' sermon "On Self-esteem," I would like to express my appreciation to him for reminding us so powerfully of a subject that our natural man would rather have us ignore: the need for humility. There are numerous references in the Word to the importance of humility "in order that the person may be humbled and thus rendered fit to receive the life of heaven." One of the numbers that Mr. Rogers cites rather gently is actually quite emphatic, saying that true worship consists in man's acknowledgment that "in himself there is nothing living, and nothing good, but that all within him is dead, yea, cadaverous" (AC 1153, emphasis added). Another describes the regenerate man as being in "annihilation of self, nay, in the loathing of self, and thus in absence from self" (AC 3994, emphasis added).

469




     To my knowledge the Writings do not speak directly to the subject of self-esteem. However, there are several wonderful numbers which may offer some clues (emphasis has been added):

. . . in heaven . . . [angels] are remitted into the delights of natural pleasures . . . . [T]hey are delights of conferring benefits in a large way, and consequently something of glory . . . . [T]hey are also the delights of magnificence in the embellishments of home and the ornaments of dress, and many other similar delights . . . . [W]ithout a tempering by means of such things the good of heavenly love becomes as it were dry, and afterward is loathed as a thing of no value . . . (AC 8487).

. . . he who is being regenerated believes at first that the good which he thinks and does is from himself, and that he also merits something; for he does not yet know, and if he knows he does not comprehend, that good can flow in from some other source, nor that it can be otherwise than that he should be recompensed, because he does it from himself. Unless at first he believed this, he would never do any good . . . (AC 4145).

The evil of the love of self is not, as is generally thought, that external elation which is called pride, but it is hatred against the neighbor, and thence a burning desire for revenge and delight in cruelty (AC 4750).

If anyone loves himself more than others, and from this love studies to excel others in moral and civic life, in memory-knowledges and doctrinal things, and to be exalted to dignities and wealth in pre-eminence to others, and yet acknowledges and adores God, performs kind offices to his neighbor from the heart, and does what is just and fair from conscience, the evil of this love of self is one with which good and truth can be mingled; for it is an evil that is man's own, and that is born hereditarily; and to take it away from him suddenly would be to extinguish the fire of this first life (AC 3993).

470




     What seems so wonderful about these numbers is that they attest to the Lord's mercy: that even while He gives us considerable instruction on the vital necessity for humility, He knows and accommodates to the fact that we are not born into good; that if we did not first do good for the sake of self we would never do good at all; that the fire of our first life (which we did not ask to be born into) would be extinguished if the evil of a certain love of self were taken away suddenly; that the evil of the love of self is hatred, not the elation of mind known as pride; and that even the angels must be permitted to indulge from time to time in certain natural loves which seem to be less than humble, such as giving large gifts with some sense of glory (love of self) and delighting in the magnificence of their homes and clothing (love of the world), lest the angels come to loathe the untempered good of heavenly love. The Lord wants us to reach a point in our lives where we do good feeling as if it were our own but knowing that it is His-what we have come to refer to as the as-of-self.
     I agree with Mr. Rogers that self-esteem is no substitute for humility. But perhaps it is a step along the way. Perhaps it is a mediate good which can lead to the as-of-self. Perhaps, to paraphrase a number cited above, if a person does not first believe that he has something of value to offer from himself, he will with difficulty come to believe that he has something of value to offer from the Lord. As adults we must certainly take to heart the teachings that Mr. Rogers cited, but I think we must also try to instill in children a sense of worth, a sense that they are valued and have something of value to offer others, even as we begin to gently teach them that the gifts they have are from the Lord and are to be used in the service of others. Timing is important; a small child can be reminded from time to time that the Lord has given him abilities so that he can make other people happy, but who would tell a little child, even a youngster, that everything within him is like a dead body?

471


There is plenty of time as they mature to instruct young people in the truths of revelation. Armed with these rational teachings they can, as they attain rationality, go out from an emotionally healthy base and do battle, little by little, with the loves of self and the world.
     The Lord wishes us to be happy to eternity; He also instructs us repeatedly, as demonstrated in Mr. Rogers' sermon, that heavenly happiness can flow only into a humble heart, and that a humble heart can be achieved only through repentance and temptation. The way, then, is a bit tricky, but the goal, I think, is happy humility.
     Gael P. Coffin
          Mitchellville, MD
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM PUBLIC WORSHIP AND DOCTRINAL CLASSES UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1996

GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM PUBLIC WORSHIP AND DOCTRINAL CLASSES UNITED STATES OF AMERICA              1996




     Announcements




Alabama:
Birmingham
Dr. R. Shepard, 4537 Dolly Ridge Road, Birmingham, AL 35243. Phone: (205) 967-3442.
Huntsville
Mrs. Anthony L. Sills, 1000 Hood Ave., Scottsboro, AL 35768. Phone: (205) 574-1617.
Arizona:
Phoenix
Rt. Rev. Louis B. King, visiting pastor;
Contact: Lawson & Carol Cronlund, 5717 E. Justine Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85254 Phone: (602) 953-0478.
Tucson
Rev. Frank S. Rose, 9233 E. Helen, Tucson, AZ 85715. Phone: (520) 721-1091.
Arkansas:
Little Rock
Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Holmes, 2695 Mark Lane, Batesville, AR 72501. Phone: (501) 793-5135.
California:
Los Angeles
Rev. John L. Odhner, 5022 Carolyn Way, La Crescenta, CA 91214. Phone: (818) 249-5031.
Orange County
Rev. Cedric King, resident pastor, 21332 Forest Meadow, El Toro, CA 92630. Phone: home (714) 586-5142; office (714) 951-5750.
Sacramento/Central California
Bertil Larsson, 8387 Montna Drive, Paradise, CA 95969. Phone: (916) 877-8252.
San Diego
Rev. Stephen D. Cole, 941 Ontario St., Escondido, CA 92025. Phone: home (619) 432-8495; office (619) 571-8599.
San Francisco
Mr. & Mrs. Philip C. Pendleton, 501 Portola Road, Box 8044, Portola Valley, CA 94028. Phone: (415) 424-4234.

Colorado:
Boulder
Rev. David C. Roth, 4215 N. Broadway, Boulder, CO 80304. Phone: (303) 443-9220.
Colorado Springs
Mr./Mrs. William Rienstra, 1005 Oak Ave., Canon City, CO 81212.
Connecticut:
Bridgeport, Hartford, Shelton
Mr. & Mrs. James Tucker, 45 Honey Bee Lane, Huntington, CT 06484. Phone: (203) 929-6455.
Delaware:
Wilmington
Mrs. Justin Hyatt, 2008 Eden Road, N. Graylin Crest, Wilmington DE 19810. Phone: (302) 475-3694.
District of Columbia: see Mitchellville, Maryland.
Florida:
Boynton Beach
Rev. Derek Elphick, 10621 El Clair Ranch Road, Boynton Beach, FL 33437. Phone: (407) 736-2843.
Jacksonville
Kristi Helow, 6338 Christopher Creek Road W., Jacksonville, FL 32217-2472.
Lake Helen
Mr. & Mrs. Brent Morris, 264 E. Kicklighter Road, Lake Helen, FL 32744. Phone: (904) 228-2276.
Pensacola
Mr. & Mrs. John Peacock, 5238 Soundside Drive, Gulf Breeze, FL 32561. Phone: (904) 934-3691.
Georgia:
Americus
Mr. W. Harold Eubanks, 516 U.S. 280 West, Americus, GA 31709. Phone: (912) 924-9221.
Atlanta
Rev. C. Mark Perry, 2119 Seaman Circle, Atlanta, GA 30341. Phone: office (770) 458-9673.

474




Illinois:
Chicago
Rev. Kurt Hy. Asplundh, 1334 W. Newport Ave. #2, Chicago, IL 60657. Phone: home (312) 472-0282; office (312) 525-7127.
Decatur
Mr. John Aymer, 1321 E. Locust St., Decatur, IL 62521.
Glenview
Rev. Eric Carswell, 73 Park Dr., Glenview, IL 60025. Phone: (847) 724-0120.
Indiana: see Ohio: Cincinnati.
Kentucky: see Ohio: Cincinnati.
Louisiana:
Baton Rouge
Mr. Henry Bruser, Jr., 6050 Esplanade Ave., Baton Rouge, LA 70806. Phone: (504) 924-3098.
Maine:
Bath
Rev. Allison L. Nicholson, HC 33 - Box 61N, Arrowsic, ME 04530. Phone: (207) 443-6410.
Maryland:
Baltimore
Rev. Willard L. D. Heinrichs, visiting minister, Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Phone: home (215) 947-5334; office (215) 938-2582.
Mitchellville
Rev. James P. Cooper, 11910 Chantilly Lane, Mitchellville, MD 20721. Phone: home (301) 805-9460; office (301) 464-5602.
Massachusetts:
Boston
Rev. Geoffrey Howard, 17 Cakebread Drive, Sudbury, MA 01776. Phone: (508) 443-6531.
Michigan:
Detroit
Rev. Grant Odhner, 395 Olivewood Ct., Rochester, MI 48306. Phone: (313) 652-7332.
East Lansing
Lyle & Brenda Birchman, 14777 Cutler Rd., Portland, MI 48875.

Minnesota:
St. Paul
Karen Huseby, 4247 Centerville Rd., Vadnais Heights, MN 55127. Phone: (612) 429-5289.
Missouri:
Columbia
Mr. & Mrs. Paul Johnson, 1508 Glencairn Court, Columbia, MO 65203. Phone: (314) 442-3475.
Kansas City
Mr. Glen Klippenstein, P. O. Box 457, Maysville, MO 64469-0457. Phone: (816) 449-2167.
New Hampshire
Hanover
Bobbie & Charlie Hitchcock, 63 E. Wheelock St., Hanover, NH 03755.
Phone: (603) 643-3469.
New Jersey-New York:
Ridgewood, NJ
Jay & Barbara Barry, 474 S. Maple, Glen Rock, NJ 07452. Phone: (201) 445-3353.
New Mexico:
Albuquerque
Mrs. Carolyn Harwell, 1375 Sara Rd., Rio Rancho, NM 87124. Phone: (505) 896-0293.
North Carolina:
Charlotte
Rev. Fred Chapin, 6625 Rolling Ridge Dr., Charlotte, NC 28211. Phone: (704) 367-1930.
Ohio:
Cincinnati
Rev. Patrick Rose, 785 Ashcroft Court, Cincinnati, OH 45240. Phone: (513) 825-7473.
Cleveland
Mr. Alan Childs, 19680 Beachcliff Blvd., Rocky River, OH 44116. Phone: (216) 333-4413.
Oklahoma:
Oklahoma City
Mr. Robert Campbell, 13929 Sterlington, Edmond, OK 73013. Phone:(405)478-4729.

475




Oregon:
Portland
Mr. & Mrs. Jim Andrews, Box 99, 1010 NE 365th Ave., Corbett, OR 97019. Phone: (503) 695-2534.
Pennsylvania:
Bryn Athyn
Rev. Thomas H. Kline, Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Phone: (215) 947-6225.
Elizabethtown
Mr. Meade Bierly, 523 Snyder Ave., Elizabethtown, PA 17022. Phone: (717) 367-3964.
Erie
Mrs. Paul Murray, 5648 Zuck Road, Erie, PA 16506. Phone: (814) 833-0962.
Freeport
Rev. Clark Echols, 100 Iron Bridge Road, Sarver, PA 16055. Phone: office (412) 353-2220.
Hatfield
Mr. Peter Sheedy, 1303 Clymer St., Hatfield, PA 19440. Phone: (215) 842-1461.
Hawley
Mr. Grant Genzlinger, Settlers Inn #25, 4 Main Ave., Hawley, PA 18428. Phone: (800) 833-8527.
Ivyland
The Ivyland New Church, 851 W. Bristol Road, Ivyland 18974. Pastor: Rev. David Lindrooth. Phone: (215) 957-5965. Secretary: Mrs. K. Cronlund. (215) 598-3919.
Kempton
Rev. Robert S. Junge, 8551 Junge Lane, RD #1, Kempton, PA 19529. Phone: office (610) 756-6140.
Pittsburgh
Rev. Nathan D. Gladish, 299 Le Roi Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15208. Phone: church (412) 731-7421.
South Carolina:
Charleston area
     Wilfred & Wendy Baker, 2030 Thornhill Drive, Summerville, SC 29485. Phone: (803) 851-1245.
South Dakota:
Hot Springs
Linda Klippenstein, 604 S. River St. #A8, Hot Springs, SD 57747. Phone: (605) 745-6629.
Virginia:
Richmond
Mr. Donald Johnson, 13161 Happy Hill Road, Chester, VA 23831. Phone: (804) 748-5757.
Washington:
Seattle
Rev. Erik J. Buss, 5409 154th Ave., Redmond, WA 98052. Phone: home (206) 883-4327; office (206) 882-8500.
Washington, DC: See Mitchellville, MD.
Wisconsin:
Madison
Mr. Warren Brown, 130 Greenbrier Drive, Sun Prairie, WI 53590. Phone: (608) 825-3002.

     OTHER THAN U.S.A.

     AUSTRALIA
Sydney, N.S.W.
Rev. Arthur W. Schnarr, 26 Dudley St., Penshurst, N.S.W. 2222. Phone: 61-02-9580-1589.
Tamworth, N.S.W.
See Rev. Arthur Schnarr under Sydney.
     BRAZIL
Rio de Janeiro
Rev. Cristovao Rabelo Nobre, Rua General Alfredo Assuncao, 187, Cosmos, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 23058-540. Phone: 55-21-409-6586.
     CANADA
Alberta
Calgary
Mr. Thomas R. Fountain, 1115 Southglen Drive S.W., Calgary, Alberta T2W 0X2. Phone: (403) 255-7283.
Debolt
Ken & Lavina Scott, RR 1, Crooked Creek, Alberta T0H 0Y0. Phone: (403) 957-3625.
Edmonton
Mrs. Wayne Anderson, 6703-98th Street, Edmonton, Alberta T6E 3L9. Phone: (403) 432-1499.

476




British Columbia
Dawson Creek
Rev. Glenn G. Alden, Dawson Creek Church, 9013 8th St., Dawson Creek, B.C. V1G 3N3. Phone: home (604) 843-7979; office (604) 782-8035.
Ontario
Kitchener
Rev. Michael D. Cowley, 58 Chapel Hill Drive, Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3W5. Phone: office (519) 748-5802.
Ottawa
Mr. & Mrs. Donald McMaster, 684 Fraser Ave., Ottawa, Ontario K2A 2R8. Phone: (613) 725-0394.
Toronto
Rev. Michael Gladish, 279 Burnhamthorpe Rd., Etobicoke, Ontario M9B 1Z4. Phone: church (416) 239-3055.
Quebec
Montreal
Mr. Denis de Chazal, 29 Ballantyne Ave. So., Montreal West, Quebec H4X 2B1. Phone: (514) 489-9861.

     DENMARK
Copenhagen
Mr. Jorgen Hauptmann, Strandvejen 22, 4040 Jyllinge. Phone: 46 78 9968.

     ENGLAND
Colchester
Rev. Kenneth J. Alden, 8 Stoneleigh Park, Lexden, Colchester, Essex CO3 5EY.
London
Rev. Frederick Elphick, 21B Hayne Rd., Beckenham, Kent BR3 4JA. Phone: 44-181-658-6320.
Manchester
Mrs. Neil Rowcliffe, "Woodside," 44 Camberley Drive, Bamford, Rochdale, Lancs. OL11 4AZ.
Surrey
Mr. Nathan Morley, 27 Victoria Road, Southern View, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4DJ.

     GHANA
Accra
Rev. William O. Ankra-Badu, Box 11305, Accra North.
Asakraka, Nteso, Oframase
Rev. Martin K. Gyamfi, Box 10, Asakraka-Kwahu E/R.
Madina, Tema
Rev. Simpson K. Darkwah, House No. AA3, Community 4, c/o Box 1483, Tema.
     HOLLAND
The Hague
Mr. Ed Verschoor, V. Furstenburchstr. 6, 3862 AW Nijkerk.
     JAPAN
For information about various church activities in Japan contact Mr. Tatsuya Nagashima, 30-2, Saijoh-Nishiotake, Yoshino-cho, Itano-gun, Tokoshima-ken, Japan 771-14.
     KOREA
Seoul
Rev. Dzin P. Kwak, Seoul Church of New Jerusalem, Ajoo B/D 2F, 1019-15 Daechi-dong, Kangnam-ku, Seoul 135-281. Phone: home 82-(0)2-658-7305; church 82-(0)2-555-1366.
     NEW ZEALAND
Auckland
Mrs. H. Keal, 4 Derwent Cresc., Titirangi, Auckland 7. Phone: 09-817-8203.
     SOUTH AFRICA
Gauteng
Alexandra Township
Rev. Albert Thabede, 140 Phase One, P. O. Bramley, Alexandra Twp. 2090.
Phone: 27-11-443-3852
Balfour
Rev. Reuben Tshabalala, P.O. Box 851, Kwaxuma, Soweto 1868. Phone: 27-11-932-3528.
Buccleuch
Rev. Andrew Dibb, P.O. Box 816, Kelvin 2054. Phone: 27-11-804-1145.

477



Diepkloof
Rev. Jacob M. Maseko, 8482 Zone 5, Pimville 1808. Phone: 27-11-938-8314.
KwaZulu-Natal
Clermont and Enkumba
Rev. Ishborn Buthelezi, P.O. Box 150, Clernaville 3602. Phone: 27-31-707-1526.
Durban (Westville)
Rev. Lawson M. Smith, 8 Winslow Road, Westville 3630. Phone: 27-31-825-351.
Rev. Geoffrey S. Childs, 7 Sydney Drive, Westville 3630. Phone: 27-31-262-8113.
Empangeni and Impaphala
Rev. Chester Mcanyana, P. O. Box 770, Eshowe 3815.
Eshowe/Richards Bay/Empangeni
Mrs. Marten Hiemstra, P. O. Box 10745, Meerensee 3901. Phone: 0351-32317.
Hambrook, Kwa Mashu and Umlazi
Rev. B. Alfred Mbatha, P.O. Box H602, Kwa Mashu 4360. Phone: 27-31-503-2365.
Westville (see Durban)
Western Cape
Cape Town
Mrs. Sheila Brathwaite, 208 Silvermine Village, Private Bag #1, Noordhoek, 7985. Phone: 27-21-7891424.
     SWEDEN
Jonkoping
Rev. Ragnar Boyesen, Oxelgatan 6, S-565 21 Mullso.
Stockholm
Rev. Goran R. Appelgren, Aladdinsvogen 27, S-161 38 Bromma.
Phone/Fax: 46-(0)8-26 79 85.

(When dialing from abroad, leave out zero in parentheses.)

Note: Please send any corrections to the editor.


     UNKNOWN ADDRESSES

Anyone who can supply information as to the whereabouts of the people listed below is asked to contact the Office of the Secretary, General Church of the New Jerusalem, P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Last known addresses from 1992-1995 are shown. Thank you.


Evelyn (Kramer) Anderson
     1330 South Lee St
                Americus GA 31709          
Walter Anderson
                702 - 5th Street
                    Secaucus NJ 07093          
Robin (Dailey) Beagle
           521 E Helen Street
               Tucson AZ 85705               
Florence (Kellejian) Beatty
      19041 NE 165th Pl
               Woodinville WA 98072          
Elna Birchholdt          
Bagsvaerd Mollevej 21
          DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
Athea Boucher
     c/o RR1 - Site 19 - Comp #31
     Enderby BC, Canada V0E 1V0

478



William Brimfield
               1915 Foster Street
                Evanston IL 60201          
Karen (Friesen) Bryan
Anna, Craig, Jared, Nakia, Tove
391 Glenway Ave
                Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R2G 1H5
Charles Burton
Florence (Bill) Burton
11130 NW 58th Ave
                Hialeah FL 33010
Robin (Yerxa) Carlisle
Christopher, Kimberly
               Houston TX 77052               
Nancy (Clipper) Carlson
           Chicago IL 60607               
Glen Carter
      15 Seaview Ave
     Ocean Grove NJ 07756          
Chol and Sun (Lee) Choe
Peter
2729 Griffith Park Blvd
               Los Angeles CA 90027          
Hye-won Choi                    
1875 Jenkintown Rd - #A-201
      Jenkintown PA 19046          
Sang and Esther (Lee) Chon
      Jennifer, Julia
612 E 80th Street
               Brooklyn NY 112363312
James Clarkson
1 Rowan Crescent
     Killearn, Scotland
Wayne & Suzanne (Siderio) Coffin
308 Marlbrook Lane
Lansdale PA 19446          
Arthur Conn
Jason Conn
119 Millbridge St
Pittsburgh PA 15210          
Dorothy (Laitner) Cunningham
     Detroit MI 48231               
Charles Custer
     837 W Wolfram #104
     Chicago IL 60657               
John Dailey
Mari Dailey
521 E Helen
     Tucson AZ 85705               
Kevin Davis
     301 N Main St - Lot 22
               O'Fallon IL 62269
Janique de Chazal          
12817 Bedford Cres
     Pierrefonds, Quebec Canada H9A 1C1
Christine (Meek) Dekam
           Talena
c/o Mrs Dean Meek
General Delivery          
Edson, Alberta, Canada T0E 0P0
Dan de La Hunt
     170 Allumbaugh - #144
      Boise ID 83704               
Marylu (Johnson) Dove
     Minneapolis MN 55440
William and Louise (Coil) Ehly
     1675 Livingston - #305
     St Paul MN 55118-5923
Clifford and Kathy Eichorst
      15200 NE 18th Ave
          Vancouver WA 98686-1415

479


     

John Evens
     Kitchener, Ont., Canada N2G 3W5
Duncan Fortin
      9351 Saunders Road
          Richmond, BC, Canada V7A 2B2
Brian and Angela (Wilson) Friesen
Site 1 - Comp 38
     Kamloops, BC, Canada V2C 6C3     
Wayne and Karen Friesen
          #107 - 3412 S Main St
          Penticton, BC, Canada V2A 5J6
Brett Gamble
      314-8 Fuller Drive
      Valley Cottage NY 10989     
Terry and Sokhom (Kan) Gavette
608 N Cliff - 107
Sioux Falls SD 57103          
Christopher Gimenez
          5500 SW 95th Ave
          Hollywood FL 33025
Donald and Nola (Vanderburg) Haskins
506 Sunset Court
     Mt Juliet TN 37122          
Peter Hedegaard
     Skulsmarkvej 22
Ingstrup, DK-9480 Lokken Gylland Denmark                    
Robin and Kelli (Lewis) Hendricks                    
1105 Beach Place
     Prince Rupert, BC, Canada
Dorothy (Drought) Hilldale
          14 Montfort Woods Rd
               Wappingers Falls NY 12590-3510
Rudolph and Lynell (Brown) Hilt
Forest
3514 Spruce Dr
                     Northampton PA 18067          
Rodney Howard
      Miami FL 33101               
Todd and Sharyl (Olsen) Huseby Deric, Ryan
2800 Lake Blvd
          N St Paul MN 55109
Stephen Jensen
AC1 F-3 B-16
P O Box 1151               
Fairfax SC 29827               
Doris Johnson
Thomas Johnson
Box 49
     Castalia OH 44824     
Fergus Joy                         
New York NY 10001          
Kit Junge
Nina Junge                    
11451 SE 326Th Pl
          Auburn WA 98002               
Susan Kaletta
109 Goranada Rd
      Carpentersville IL 60110     
Chikamasa and Chikako      (Takezawa) Kanamaru
No. 102, 4-28-20 Komatusima     
Miyaginoku, Sendaiai, Japan 022
Neva (Sparks) Kasimoff
     P O Box 622
     La Canada CA 91011

480


          

Elisabeth (Clark) Kaufman
          7000 Louisiana Blvd NE
               Albuquerque NM 87109-3978     
Mary (Sorter) Kellner
Bernadette, Mary
210 Spezia                         
Oxford MI 48051
Richard and Marilyn (Magalladora) La Roche
April
3 Woodland Ave
     Lisbon Falls ME 04252          
James and Pamela (Verrill) Lawrence
7361 E Calle Merida
     Tucson AZ 85710               
Marilyn (Dorsey) Lawrence
          244 Colonial Crest Dr
Lancaster PA 17601          
Barbro (Persson) Loven
     Claes, Conny
Arrendevagen 35, 1 tr
      S-175 46 Jarfalla, Sweden
Hetty (Engeltjes) Lupker
          Rietzangerlaan 4
               The Hague, Holland
Shirley Macdonell          
906-3360 Paul Anka Dr
               Ottawa, Ontario, Canada     K1V 9S2
Douglas and Julie (Eaton) Macgregor               
3805 Radiant Dr - #514
          Colorado Springs CO 80917-3943
Robert and Luella (Friesen) Mack
RR 1, Proton Station,
Ontario Canada N0C 1L0
Steven Mendoza
      Sunnyvale CA 94086          
Evan Mills     
CPO Box 4395
     Auckland 9, New Zealand
Bonnie (Wilkinson) Neufeld
     Dawson Creek, BC, Canada V1G
Jennifer (Croll) Ogilvie
               2 Grenadier Ct
                         Lincolnshire IL 60015          
Jonathon Pavlin
Scott Pavlin
385 W 18th St
     Holland MI 494233964          
Joan (Stoecklin) Pflucker
      1455 South Zang Street
               Lakewood CO 80228          
Blaine and Sally (Schrawder) Rhodes               
14 High Point Road East
Sewall's Point               
Jensen Beach FL 34957
Grace (Stewart) Ridgway
     % P. O. Box 69234, Bryanston
      2021 - Rep of S Africa
Charlotte Ross               
Chicago IL 60607               
Janet (Wiley) Shaw
                Columbus OH 43221          
Mary (Bergen) Shearer
               Box 35                         
Rosthern, Saskatchewan
Canada S0K 3R0          
Stella (Blickle) Shields
117 Woolmans Lane
Rancocas Woods - RD #2
Mt Holly NJ 08060



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Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996


New Church Life
November 1996, No. 11


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     Some readers do not find it ideal to read something that is cut up into installments over several issues. You will notice that the entire study by Rev. Mark Pendleton has been fit into this issue. We wish this were possible more often.
     In the series by Grant Odhner we made an error of omission which in this issue we endeavor to set right.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CATALOG 1996

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CATALOG              1996

     Infants to Seniors

The General Church Office of Education wants you to have a catalog of their materials. Why?

- We wish to serve your spiritual needs
- We list a variety of educational lessons, stimulating courses and studies, Sunday School materials, and video programs for young and old alike.
- Many of these items are not available through any other catalog or source.

If you are not our mailing list and would like to be, please write or phone:

General Church Office of Education
Cairncrest - P. O. Box 743
1100 Cathedral Road
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009-0743
(215) 947-4661 or 4539 - FAX (215) 947-3078

The catalog is free, and the benefits may change your life.

For this Christmas consider The Christmas Story, a beautifully illustrated book designed for toddlers, and The Story of Christmas, a slide-video suitable for the whole family, based on text from the New King James Bible.

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SAYING "NO" TO EVIL SPIRITS, SAYING "YES" TO THE LORD AND HIS ANGELS 1996

SAYING "NO" TO EVIL SPIRITS, SAYING "YES" TO THE LORD AND HIS ANGELS       Rev. MARK D. PENDLETON       1996

     Introduction

     This article outlines a series of ideas for noticing and rejecting evil and falsity that come into our minds from hell, and for accepting love and faith that come to us from the Lord through heaven. It is based on a collection of teachings from the Heavenly Doctrines which I've titled, "If A Person Only Believed, As Is Really True-Teachings on the Subject of Not Identifying with Good or Evil."
     Of course the Word for the New Church already gives an outline for how to reject evil and falsity and accept love and faith in their stead. It does so by describing the steps of repentance. The point of this article, however, is to highlight some of Swedenborg's own experiences with seeing and rejecting the one and accepting the other. Many of the references that are cited in this article, therefore, describe what Swedenborg himself saw, felt and did. Perhaps you will see overlaps between Swedenborg's efforts and the steps of repentance.
In preparing this article I have also included thoughts and reflections based on doctrine, as well as descriptions and stories of how some of the teachings have been put to practical use. Whenever I give a description or tell a story I do so with the permission of the person involved. I hope these added accounts will be useful.
     You will notice that most of the article is in outline format. When I began the project, my intention was simply to produce an outline of ideas. As I continued working, however, the different points expanded into full sentences and paragraphs. For simplicity I have decided to leave the article in its original format. I hope this will not interfere with the message of the text.

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     Outline

I.     Noticing what flows into our minds
     A.     Will
     B.     Understanding
     C.     Sensation
II.     Inquiring into the source of what flows in
III.     Consciously reflecting, "This is from evil spirits with me."
IV.     Allowing the Lord and His angels to play their parts in driving evil spirits away
V.     Addressing and dealing with evil spirits
     A. "No!"
VI.     Inviting the influence of the Lord and His angels to enter our minds
VII.     Acting on what flows in

     Expansion on These Ideas

I.     Noticing what flows into our minds
a.     Swedenborg paid attention to what flowed into his mind.
b.     Likewise, we can pay attention to what flows into our minds.
A. Will
c.     We can notice what flows into our will, such as feelings, affections, wants, intentions, desires, cravings, compulsive urges, lusts, etc.1
d.     We can give names to what flows in. For example:
1)     A feeling of fear, anxiety, guilt, sadness, depression, anger, bitterness, hatred, etc.
2)     An adulterous attraction or lust
3)     A craving for alcohol
4)     An impulse to deny the truth or become defensive
5)     An urge to control or dominate
6)     An intent to deceive or to get even
e.     Naming what flows into our minds allows us to take a first step toward making choices about it.

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This is part of what the Heavenly Doctrines refer to as "self-examination," and it often requires courage and honesty.
f.     When evil spirits came to Swedenborg, one of the things he was able to do was to see who they were.2 For us, we might be able to say something like this: "There's a spirit present with me who is filling me with anxiety," or "There's a spirit with me who is tickling me with an adulterous lust," or "There's a spirit present who is touching off hatred."
B. Understanding
g.     We can also notice what is present in the understanding part of our minds while we are experiencing a given feeling, desire, etc., in our will.3 We may notice thoughts, judgments, conclusions, underlying assumptions, expectations, or the like. Here are some examples:
1)     "You're not a good mom."
2)     "You're a failure."
3)     "The attraction that you feel for that married woman is only friendship attraction."
4)     "You don't need anyone to get by in life."
5)     "You didn't do anything wrong."
6)     "You have every right to be angry."
7)     "This isn't a power play that you're making. You're doing it because you care."
8)     "If she loved you she wouldn't do that."
9)     "They ought to treat you with more respect."
h.     Thoughts are related to feelings.
1)     A thought is a feeling which has taken form (or shape) in your mind. The teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines is that truth is "the form of good" and falsity is "the form of evil." This means that when you experience a feeling of depression, for example, that feeling will tend to form itself automatically into a thought like, "I'm no good" or "I'm a failure."

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At times when thoughts like these are going through your head, you may be clearly aware that they're there. On the other hand, if you're used to hearing these thoughts over and over again, you may not even be aware that they're present in your mind and causing you harm.
i.     Thoughts give power to feelings.
1)     The teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines is that good has power by means of truth and evil has power by means of falsity. In the above example, the thought "I'm no good" has an element of falsity in it that can give power to the feeling of depression. The thought is the means by which the feeling of depression can cause you harm. The more that thought repeats itself in your mind, and more importantly, the more you believe that thought, the more depressed you'll feel.
j.     Objectifying thoughts
1)     Some people find it helpful to write down the thoughts that go through their minds as a way of objectively seeing them. This helps prepare a person for deciding which thoughts she will entertain and which ones she will refute and then dismiss.
C. Sensation
k.     We can also pay attention to physical sensations as they relate to our states of mind.
1)     Swedenborg noticed that when evil spirits came to him, their presence would often register as a physical sensation in a specific part (or parts) of his body. Different spirits would be detected in different parts of his body. For example, Swedenborg once felt the lust for dominating over other people as a feeling of elation in his breast.4
2)     The same thing can happen for us. Sometimes we may notice a physical sensation which accompanies a feeling or thought that is flowing into our minds. A simple example would be a feeling of anxiety that registers in your stomach.

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If you discipline yourself to pay attention to your body sensations, it won't be long before a given sensation will signal to you that a certain feeling, thought or intention is coming in or that it has already entered your mind.5 In short, our bodies often give us clues for understanding our mental/emotional/spiritual state. The body and its sensations can be used as an early detection system.
3)     My guess is that someone will some day compile a list of the places in the human body where Swedenborg says different spirits attach themselves. Such a compilation might be useful as a tool for self-examination, for improved spiritual health, and coincidentally for improved physical health.
4)     Where do you feel the spirit of domination, or lust, or conceit, etc. registering in your body?

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If you are at a party with friends, for example, and you're about to give in to a compulsive urge, or if an adulterous attraction has entered your mind, are there any body sensations that can help alert you to what's going on?
l.     Conflict.6
1)     While we're spending time noticing what flows into our minds from the spiritual world, one of the things that we may also notice is a sense of conflict inside us.
2)     The sense of conflict may be small or it may be great. We may feel it as a pang of conscience, for example. We may feel it as some form of ambivalence, confusion, or emotional disturbance. Or we may feel it as a full-blown temptation.
3)     This sense of conflict is a positive sign! The Heavenly Doctrines say that a sense of conflict is a sign that spirits and angels are present with you and fighting for you!7

4)     The Heavenly Doctrines also define temptation (or spiritual conflict) as an attack on some good love that is present in a person's heart. If the love were not there, the evil spirits could not cause the temptation. A sense of conflict, therefore, is a sign that there is something good growing inside you.

II. Inquiring into the source of what flows in

a.     Through repeated experience, Swedenborg became increasingly aware of what flowed into his mind from the spiritual world.8 But he didn't stop there. He used his awareness as a basis for further discovery. He would think more deeply about what was entering his mind, and in doing so he would be able to perceive whether what was flowing in was from heaven or from hell.9 As soon as any evil entered into his will or any falsity into his thought, he would think more deeply and inquire into its source, and once he did that, the source would be disclosed to him.10 In fact, Swedenborg was able to detect the very spirits who were injecting the evil and falsity.11
b.     We can do the same thing. As we become more aware of feelings and thoughts that enter our minds, we can begin to inquire into their sources. We can ask the Lord which feelings and thoughts are from heaven and which are from hell. Another way of saying this is that we can begin to determine which ones are having a helpful (heavenly) effect and which ones are having a hurtful (hellish) effect. Once we're aware that something is from hell, we can think more deeply about it, and ultimately the Lord will allow us to detect the type of spirit that it is coming from (e.g., a spirit of conceit).
c.     It's interesting to note that when Swedenborg did the work of inquiring into the source of what flowed into his mind, he was enabled by the Lord to know not only who the evil spirits were who were injecting evil and falsity, but also what was happening, what they were trying to do, when they entered his mind, where they were from and how they did their work.

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In short, Swedenborg was able to know who, what, when, where, and how. Swedenborg was very aware. We can be too.12

III. Consciously reflecting, "This is from evil spirits with me."13

a.     I can't stress this point enough. The Heavenly Doctrines say that any destructive feeling or thought that you experience at a given moment isn't from you. You didn't create it, and in that sense you aren't at fault for its having come into your mind.14 This line of teaching goes on to say that if a person would only believe, as is really the case, that all evil and falsity are from hell and that all good and truth from heaven (and ultimately from the Lord), "then evil would not be appropriated to him, but good from the Lord would be appropriated to him; for the moment that evil flowed in, he would reflect that it was from the evil spirits with him, and as soon as he thought this, the angels would avert and reject it."15 That is a powerful teaching! And if you try using it at a time when some form of evil or falsity is presenting itself to your mind, you may notice an immediate sense of mental release or "breathing space" created, as angels "avert and reject" the evil or falsity. You see, when you consciously reflect that an evil is coming to you via evil spirits, you've begun the work of seeing the evil as separate from yourself. This allows the angels who are present in your mind to avert and reject the evil or falsity, and to put distance between you and it. The evil spirits-and more importantly, the evil itself-no longer have such a tight hold on you. In fact, consciously saying to yourself, "This is from evil spirits with me" is such a powerful and effective tool that when a person uses it, she may even feel a physical sense of release as well. She may notice, for example, that her body or a certain part of her body, or her breathing, becomes more relaxed.

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b.     It's interesting to note that Swedenborg was actually able to perceive the influx from the Lord which freed him from the influence of evil spirits.16 I believe it's possible for us to perceive this influx as well, perhaps even physically. We may feel it entering through our minds into our bodies as a feeling of warmth, or lightness, or energy or something else.
c.     Here is a description of how one man helps himself to remember that evil and falsity come to him through evil spirits. At times when he notices that evil or falsity has entered his mind, he tries to visualize an ugly evil spirit standing near him. He then reflects that the hellish influences he is experiencing are coming to him through that evil spirit. Remember that one of the things Swedenborg was able to do when spirits came to him was to see them.17 We may not actually get to see evil spirits in the vivid way that Swedenborg did, but we can use our imaginations to see them. Imagining an evil spirit standing next to us is a kind of seeing.
d.     At certain times when the man uses this visualizing technique, an image comes to mind in which he sees that the evil spirit has gotten so close to him that he (the evil spirit) has become attached to him-like a Siamese twin. In this case he tries to see the evil spirit being pulled or peeled away from him, and in that way separated from him.
e.     At times it is difficult for him to visualize an evil spirit being pulled away and separated from himself. (I suspect that at such times he may be firmly identified with the evil or falsity that the evil spirit has brought.) Sometimes he even notices a subtle wish on his part not to be separated from the evil spirit. This seems logical. After all, letting an evil spirit stay with us-and continuing to identify with the evil or falsity that he brings-carries a certain delight with it. Take, for example, the spirit of worry. There can be a certain delight that is associated with feeling worried.

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If nothing else it may be something that we have grown used to or become comfortable with. In this sense, worry can have a soothing quality to it despite the fact that it is having destructive effects.
f.     At times when it is difficult to visualize an evil spirit being pulled away and separated from himself, the man may try the following experiment: in his mind's eye he will pretend that he has moved outside his body and is now looking at himself and the evil spirit from an outsider's perspective. In other words, he tries to get outside himself and to see himself and the evil spirit from a third (or higher) perspective. It is as though he is watching a movie about himself and an evil spirit. In this way he is enabled to see the evil spirit as being separate from himself. Afterward, and still in his mind's eye, he allows himself to move back into his body, and at that point it is easy to continue seeing the evil spirit as separate from himself.

IV. Allowing the Lord and His angels to play their parts in driving evil spirits away18

a.     The truth is that the Lord alone fights for a person in times of spiritual struggle, and He does so by means of angels who are allied to that person.19
b.     Angels have tremendous power from the Lord over evil spirits. In one of his spiritual experiences, Swedenborg saw hundreds of evil spirits scattered by angels and cast down into hell.20 The angels were able to do this by means of willpower and a look. But angels have this power only so long as they remember that it comes from the Lord.21 As soon as an angel thinks that power originates in herself, she instantly becomes so weak that she can't resist even a single evil spirit. This is true for us too. We can't stand up to the influence of evil spirits without the Lord and His angels. As soon as we think we can, we lose.

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Experience bears this out.
c.     Part of letting the Lord and His angels play their parts involves praying to the Lord. The Heavenly Doctrines are clear that we can have power to shun the influence of evil spirits if-and only if-we look to the Lord as the source of power and implore Him for help.22 Without Him we can do nothing.
d.     Here is a familiar passage from Scripture that often comes to mind when I think about evil spirits being driven away from me by angels: "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."23 It's interesting to note that "Michael" symbolizes acknowledgment of the Lord's Divine Human.

V.      Addressing and Dealing with Evil Spirits

a. Swedenborg was able to speak with the spirits and angels who came to him, and on some occasions when he addressed evil spirits he spoke with surprising zeal and directness.24 But speaking with evil spirits wasn't the only way that Swedenborg dealt with them. There were other ways as well.
b.     The following is a list of examples from the Heavenly Doctrines of how Swedenborg addressed or dealt with evil spirits, or how he dealt with the false thoughts and evil affections that they injected into his mind. Interspersed among these examples are additional suggestions from the Word for how evil spirits, false thoughts, and evil affections can be addressed or otherwise dealt with. Within this list, the phrases which describe Swedenborg's own methods are marked by asterisks thus: (*)

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1) Speak with those from whom the evil or falsity is.25 (*)
2) Refute them.26 (*)
a) "Refute" means to prove wrong (or false) by argument or evidence.
b) In short, tell the truth.
c) One powerful teaching that bears on this says that "nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is. When he knows what the truth is, and knows it so well that it cannot be perverted, it cannot then be steeped in evil desires and have deadly effect."27
d) Another powerful teaching says that while the Lord was on earth and going through the struggles of temptation, He "strove anxiously with all His might so that the rational might be pure."28
3) Compel the evil spirits to withdraw.29 (*)
4) Compel them to take back their evil and falsity and keep them to themselves.30 (*)
a) This teaching makes me think of the phrase from Scripture, "Take what is yours and go your way."
5) Compel them to no longer infuse such things into your thinking.31 (*)
6) Reject what is from hell.32 (*)
7) Get furious (i.e., righteously angry) with the evil itself.33
a) Pour blame on it.34
b) Will to drive it out.35
c) Turn from it in horror for the reason it is a sin.36 (*)

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(1) When I think of something as being a sin, I think of it as being infernal and diabolical, and therefore contrary to the Lord and His Divine laws.37
d)     One teaching from the Heavenly Doctrines says that the Lord's combat against hell is such that if a person who is "in the Lord" merely "shows a threatening countenance, his enemy instantly shrinks back as if he felt a vulture on his breast striving to pierce him to the very heart."38
8)     Condemn the evil and send it with abhorrence (loathing) back to hell, making it face in that direction.39 (*)
9)     Jesus to Satan: "Get behind Me, Satan . . . . "40
10)     Swedenborg to a spirit who wanted to drag him and his angel guide into a forum against their wills: "We won't be pushed around . . . . "41 (*)
11)     Swedenborg to a "dragonist": "Go away, demon!"42 (*)
12)     The Lord's advice to us: "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.'"43
A. Say "No!" to evil spirits.
c.     I think that Swedenborg's methods for dealing with evil spirits gives us clues for how we may sometimes need to deal with them ourselves. It's true that the Lord alone fights for us in times of spiritual struggle. It's true that He does so in part by dispatching angels to our aid. But we have a part to play as well. We are the ones who ultimately have to decide whether we want the evil spirits to stay with us or not. At times we may need to make our choices known to them with zeal and directness, maybe even with fury.44
d.     This reminds me of an experience that happened to a man in Kempton, Pennsylvania a number of years ago.

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It began one morning when he noticed that evil spirits were getting into his head and trying to make their way from there into his heart. He doesn't remember exactly what the conflict was about, but he does remember that as the day wore on, he repeatedly addressed the evil spirits and told them to leave. But they kept coming back. They nagged at him, wore him down, and by the middle of the afternoon he was wrapped up in a pretty bad state of mind. Then it happened. He was driving along a stretch of route 143, and without warning or conscious intent he suddenly yelled: "Go to hell!!!" (As he told this story, the zeal with which he shouted those words resurfaced and brought tears to his eyes.) And here's the interesting thing about what happened to him that day: the moment he yelled at the evil spirits his entire mood changed-the evil spirits were gone. He looked out of his car window over the rolling farmlands of Kempton. Serenity embraced his mind. It was as though he were walking beside still waters. The change was so complete, in fact, that he forgot the entire day of turmoil. It was as though it had never happened. This time when the evil spirits went away they didn't return. What he learned that day is that when he tells evil spirits to go away, he must truly mean what he says.
e.     Thinking again of the Lord's advice to us, "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No,'" I can say that for myself the word "No!" has become the most powerful word in my vocabulary when it comes to addressing evil spirits.
f.     I am now thinking about the teaching on getting furious with evil (mentioned above), and about the teaching on showing a threatening countenance (also mentioned above). I am reminded of a friend who has put these ideas to work in the following way. At times when evil spirits have caught him in their whirlpool and started spiraling him downward, he has worked himself up emotionally against the evil and falsity, and he has actually put a furious expression on his face. At times he has tightened all of the muscles in his body, clenched his fists, and even growled at the evil.

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And the interesting thing is that every time he has needed this approach, thought to do it and followed through, it has worked. True to the teachings, whenever he has "gotten furious with the evil" and "shown a threatening countenance," his enemies have "instantly shrunk back." In fact, at certain times when evil spirits have had the upper hand with him, this has seemed to him to be the only way to co-operate with the Lord so that he might be brought up out of hell.
g.     Dealing with evil spirits in a direct and assertive way has proven useful for this person. In fact, when he first discovered its usefulness he did it quite often. As time has gone by, however, he has found that he doesn't need to use this method quite as much. Often it is enough for him simply to reflect, "This is from evil spirits with me." When he does this, a distance is created between himself and the evil spirits (as described above), and he is on his way to a more peaceful state of mind. Being aggressive with evil and falsity has for him become like a tool for specialized tasks. He now pulls that tool out of his bag and uses it at times when he needs it most.
h.     Notice that six of the examples of how Swedenborg dealt with evil spirits are taken from paragraph #290 of Divine Providence. Five of these six examples are contained in one sentence of that paragraph. The relevant part of that sentence reads as follows: " . . . I was . . . permitted to speak with those from whom [the evil or falsity] came, to refute them, and to compel them to withdraw, and thus to retract their evil and falsity and to keep them to themselves, and no longer to infuse any such thing into my thought." What's interesting here is that Swedenborg describes his ability to "compel" evil spirits to do his will after he has described speaking to them and refuting them. The order of events here suggests to me that one primary way that Swedenborg was able to "compel" evil spirits to do his will was by using the truth to refute them. It reminds me of the fact that truth is the sole weapon we have at our disposal for fighting against evil and falsity.

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(The basic teaching from the Heavenly Doctrines is that good defends itself by means of truth.) Telling (or saying) the truth is a crucial part of dealing with evil spirits and with the false thoughts and evil affections that they inject from hell.

VI. Inviting the Lord and His Angels to Enter Our Minds45

a.     After we've said "No" to evil spirits, we can invite heavenly affections, feelings, outlooks, thoughts, intentions, etc., to enter our minds from the Lord through His angels.46
b.     Sometimes we may need to go beyond inviting the Lord and His angels into our minds-we may actually need to urge them to come in. Remember that in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot had to urge the angels strongly before they would enter his house.47
c.     In this way we can be introduced into heaven, where we can see the Lord face to face.48
1)     A visually oriented person might try to picture the Lord and His angels drawing near. At other times he might actually be able to sense their presence, and this could bring comfort and hope.

VII. Acting on What Flows in

a.     It goes without saying that once we have said "No" to evil spirits and "Yes" to the Lord and His angels, it's good to follow through on the heavenly promptings that come to us. Putting love and faith into action is what life is all about.

     Additional Teachings and Reflections

     Swedenborg was led to write about his experiences in dealing with evil spirits.

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One of the helpful things that he reports is how often evil spirits came to him: "This has happened a thousand times," he writes, "and I have remained in this state now for many years, and I continue in it still . . . . "49 In another place he refers to the approach of evil spirits as a "daily experience."50 You see, Swedenborg was a human being like you and me. He experienced the influence of hell as often as you and I do. Teachings like these are comforting to me; they help remind me that I'm not alone in this kind of experience.
     Thinking further, we know that in our day-to-day lives there will likely be times when evil spirits enter our minds and get the better of us. The Heavenly Doctrines talk about moments of overpowering lust or passion, for example, which people can and do experience. States of overpowering passion can catch us off guard, often when we're weak or hurting in some way. An example of an overpowering lust might be when a parent loses her temper at her child.
At other times we may feel hell's influence as a sustained pull rather than as a momentary thing. Certain forms of depression, anger or worry might fall into this category. Such a sustained pull can run us down to the point of discouragement, and during our darkest states of mind we may think that it won't work to pray to the Lord and ask for His help. It won't work to speak to evil spirits in some of the zealous ways that Swedenborg did. The evil spirits appear to be too powerful. They've got us. They've won. But even when we're in states like this, the Heavenly Doctrines encourage us to resist, even if only a little bit. You see, the fact is that hell is never a match for the Lord's power. When a person makes even the slightest effort to choose against an onslaught of evil spirits, he can experience a shift or turnaround in his state of mind. Often this shift can be quite dramatic.

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     One paragraph from the Heavenly Doctrines which encourages us in this way is SD 4271m. The title of the paragraph is: "Concerning Changes of State, and that the Angels Ought to be in Good and Truth in Every State." The paragraph reads as follows: "I perceived a change of state in which I had been previously. It was of such a nature that it was delightful and pleasant to me. Afterwards, I was in a similar condition and not in delight and pleasantness, but yet there was influx into the remembered truth. That state had been one in which I was delighted; therefore I was sustained, and I fought against [an inclination to abandon the good and truth]. Hence it could be manifest to me how it is with the angels and their changes of state, and that in every state they could be kept in good and truth; and, although the same thing in another state seems to them undelightful and sad, still, from the remembrance that the thing is as has been stated, they suffer themselves to be kept in a state of good and truth. Hence also was it evident, how, when a person resists, or fights against evil and falsity only a little, he can be in a state opposite to them, and in delight and pleasantness. Wherefore, only the discernment of resistance, or its admission, is sometimes sufficient, and attests this" (emphasis added).
     What I understand this teaching to be saying is that when evil and falsity are flowing into our minds (perhaps overwhelming us), if we resist even a little bit, reflecting that these things are from evil spirits, calling on the Lord and His angels to drive them away, refuting the evil spirits and compelling them to withdraw, and inviting (even urging) the Lord and His angels to enter our minds, we might be surprised at the results.
     But it takes conscious choice to call on the Lord and His angels. It takes determination and willpower to speak to evil spirits, to prove them wrong, and to compel them to withdraw. Why? Because when we do these things we're actually saying goodbye to the evil spirits and the comfortable, soothing, and pleasant delights that they bring.

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I have often been fascinated by some of the inner resistance that I have felt to making choices and exercising my God-given power to make evil spirits go away.
     I have thought to share these teachings, reflections and stories with you because of the value they have had for me in my life. I find that they can be a help over and over again-as often as evil spirits come to me in a day's time. I hope they will be useful for you too.
     In closing, I would like to remind you of another beautiful verse from Scripture: "Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, `Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.'"51?

1 In addition to the numbers noted, general references on will and understanding are: AC 227, 5036:2, 6206, DP 290.
2 AC 751, AR 100
3 AC 150
4 DP 215:9
5 AC 197
6 General references on conflict are: AC 751, 761, 5036:2, AR 100.
7 AC 227
8 DP 290
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 DP 312:4
12 AC 751, 150, 5036:2, AR 100
13 AC 6206, DP 312:4, AC 10219, DP 321:7, HH 302
14 AC 233:2, 761, 4249
15 AC 6206, emphasis added
16 AR 100
17 AC 5036:2, AR 100
18 AR 100, AC 653, 6206
19 AC 653
20 HH 229
21 AC 230
22 DP 281:3, TCR 528, 68
23 Rev. 12:7-9
24 AC 5036:2, DP 290
25 DP 290
26 Ibid.
27 AC 794
28 AC 1914:2
29 DP 290
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 AC 1580, 1914:2
34 AC 1914:2
35 AC 1580
36 DP 283
37 D. Life 22
38 TCR 123:4
39 DP 283
40 Matt. 4:10
41 CL 79:7
42 TCR 388:2
43 Matt. 5:37
44 AC 1850, 1914:2
45 AC 2338, AR 100, DP 290
46 AC 2338, DP 290
47 Genesis 19:3
48 DP 321:7
49 DP 290, emphasis added
50 DP 312:4
51 Rev. 12:10-12 Title Unspecified 1996

Title Unspecified              1996


Conversations with Angels was recently published by the Swedenborg Foundation. The introduction concludes with this advice to the reader:
     Begin with an open mind. Read these "conversations with angels" and see whether they strike a responsive chord, whether they communicate truths that you have always felt within yourself, but could never express in words. Finally, follow Swedenborg's suggestion: "Reader, treasure this up within you, and after death, when you are living as a spirit, inquire whether this is true, and you will see (AE 984:3).

501


HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE" 1996

HAVING A LOVED ONE "ON THE OTHER SIDE"       Rev. Grant H. ODHNER       1996

     An Addendum

     We considered teachings about communication between loved ones who are in different worlds. We noted that "a human being was created so that while living on earth among people he might at the same time also live in heaven among angels, and vice versa."1 People once "talked with angels of heaven as with their friends, and angels of heaven talked with them as with their friends."2 And we expressed the hope that a fuller association between the worlds will be restored. Indeed, without a doubt the Lord is restoring it as the New Church gains strength in both worlds.
     1 AC 1880; cf. n. 69; HH 246:2; Spiritual Experiences 2541f
     2 HH 252; cf. AC 8118, 125.

Close in Spirit

     Even if we do not yet enjoy such open communication, it is important to realize that the spiritual world is very close to us. The Writings for the New Church-given to restore faith in the spiritual dimension to life-testify: "Heaven and hell are near to a person, in fact, in a person."3 "The spiritual world and natural world are so closely connected that they cannot by any means be separated."4 Communities of spirits and angels are actually "around a person, and hence touching the earth, because the spiritual world is not in space but is where there is a corresponding affection."5 So "the spiritual world is where a person is, and certainly not distant from him." Our minds are in that world "in the midst of spirits and angels."

502


Indeed, we "think from its light and love from its heat."6
     3 AC 8918
     4 TCR 118
     5 DLW 343e
     6 DLW 92; cf. AE 759:3.
     Think of that as you sit here reading! The spiritual light which you enjoy right now, the light of comprehension and understanding-the spiritual heat that is keeping you mentally alive, the heat of affection and interest that keeps you focused on this subject-that same spiritual heat and light are shining on the group of people who are sharing your mental state. Your heart right now is beating in correspondence with them. This connection is very intimate! Mentally, we are "breathing the same air" as the spirits and angels around us. Our loved ones on the other side are not far away!

The Pain of Temporary Separation

     We may believe these truths, yet how difficult it can be when we feel separated from those we love! Part of us feels a keen sense of loss, especially to begin with. It is understandable that we feel grief on losing someone we love. The Writings observe in regard to the love between married partners:

Within all love there is fear and grief: fear lest it perish, and grief if it does perish. There is a like fear and grief in married love . . . . From that love comes the blessedness of [the partners'] souls, the happiness of their minds, the delights of their bosoms, and the pleasure of their bodies.7
     7 CL 371

     The context here is the feeling that arises in partners when their marital happiness is threatened. Clearly, in absolute terms, death is not such a threat. Death cannot itself destroy a marriage relationship. Yet the Writings use similar language in speaking of the feelings stirred when a partner dies:

Within true marriage love there is a fear of its loss and grief after the loss. And this grief and fear are in the inmost regions of the mind.8
     8 CL 318:3

503




     The loss caused by death is temporary, but for a time it can seem compellingly final. The feeling of grief may stem in part from a temporary loss of faith and perspective. "When partners tenderly love each other, they think of their covenant as being eternal, and have no thought whatever concerning its end by death." This is a general attitude on the part of good people. However, we're told that "if they do think of this [its ending at death], they grieve."9 This suggests that it does sometimes happen. How can we avoid experiencing some kind of challenge to our belief in eternal life when a loved one dies? (In many cases it's probably more of a visceral challenge to our natural affections than a challenge to our considered beliefs.) Fortunately, the passage we've been quoting continues, " . . . at the thought of [their covenant] continuing after death they are revived by hope." Undoubtedly it can take a while for our general attitude to reassert itself. When it does, it brings with it a renewed sense of hope.
     9 CL 216:1,4; emphasis added
     These things are said of married partners, but it is similar with other kinds of loss, such as the loss of children, relatives, and friends. When we love anyone deeply and mutually, we intuitively think of our relationship as eternal. And, as we mentioned in an earlier article, we have good reason to believe that we will dwell together with close family members after death-friends too. But when we lose someone close, our general attitude about eternal life is tested. This is part of what lies behind grief.

The Dynamics of Loss

     Yet grief is much more than a matter of lost faith. There are "organic" reasons for the grief response. The Lord tells us in the Writings that love is our very life!10

504


And love is known and felt through its delights.11 When we lose someone dear to us, our love's delights are impacted. Our very life labors and suffers! The effect is grief.
     10 DLW 1
     11 TCR 569; DP 108, 195
     When our married partner dies, for example, many of the delights that we have enjoyed and grown accustomed to, countless delights which together have made up a huge part of our life, are temporarily cut off: the delights of living together, of friendship and trust, of mutual help and support, of dependable presence, of mutual recreation and shared values. Or when we lose a child certain delights are cut off: delights associated with our pleasure in that child and in our family as a unit, delights associated with our sense of parental responsibility, dedication, commitment. There are tacit delights associated with the whole family framework, and with all of the roles and jobs that our loved one filled in that framework-family clown, the one who picks up stray laundry, moderator, photo taker, bread winner, balancer of the check book. The tacit delights associated with many of these things are noticed only when those roles and jobs are no longer filled by that person.
     The investment we make in other human beings and the ways our lives become linked with theirs in complex interdependence bespeak our loves at work. Human relationships draw from loves on all levels of our minds-heavenly, spiritual, and natural loves. Our loves focus on relationships and "pour" themselves into relationships. So it's not just our loves but also our relationships that define who we are, what we are about, what we value. Our whole sense of self is tied up in them. It is not surprising that we feel such pain when the delights that sustain all of these loves are temporarily disrupted or cut off.
As an addendum to this section it is useful to note that grief can sometimes turn into anger. This is a normal response.

Anger occurs or is aroused when some person or some thing stands contrary to one's love.

505


Through one's love a link exists with a person or with some particular thing. When this link is broken, one becomes angry or wrathful, as though something from his life that gives him delight, and thus something of his own life, has been lost. This sadness is turned into grief, and the grief into anger.12
     12 AC 5034

All love is such that it breaks out into indignation and anger, indeed, into fury, when cut off from its delights. Wherefore if the love is touched, especially the ruling love, mental commotion results. And if the touch hurts, it is burning anger.13
     13 CL 358

     [Since the above was inadvertently omitted from Mr. Odhner's series, we are repeating some excerpts from the September issue to close his series properly.]

Transfer of Delights

     Love is eternal and does not end with death. The loves that make our lives and join us with other like-minded people may have their delights cut off for a time, but those loves will find new delights through which to express themselves. Good loves cannot grieve and feel angry forever.
     Love between people cannot be full without actual presence, without dwelling together in actual community. Still, we must believe that many useful things can take place during a separation. One useful thing may be that when the many delights connected with a relationship are disrupted by death and must find new forms, the underlying loves can become clarified. Less important delights (delights that spring from natural loves) are separated from deeper delights (delights that spring from spiritual loves).

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We are able to see the deeper source-loves in a new way as more stable and enduring. There is a sorting out that makes a new and more perfect reintegration possible.

Relationships Continue

     When grief is muted by the transfer and re-establishment of our loves' deeper delights, we live anew. And our relationship with our loved one continues. The love won't be complete until there is a full reunion in the spiritual world, but in the meantime the relationship is still there!

Those who have lived together in true marriage love do not wish to marry again unless for reasons apart from marriage love. [They do not wish to remarry] due to the following causes: 1. Because they were united as to souls and thence as to minds. And this uniting, being spiritual, is an actual adjoining of the soul and mind of the one to the soul and mind of the other, which can never be dissolved. Such is the nature of spiritual conjunction . . . . 2. Because they were also united as to bodies . . . . 3. Because a sphere of love flows forth continually from the wife and a sphere of understanding from the man, and this perfects the bonds . . . . 4. Because married partners who are so united in marriage think and breathe what is eternal, and upon this idea is founded their eternal happiness. 5. It is by reason of the above recited causes that they are no more two but one human being, that is, one flesh. 6. Such a one cannot be rent by the death of either partner. This is clearly manifest before the eyesight of the spirit. 7. To the above causes may be added this new fact: that these two are not separated by the death of the one, since the spirit of the deceased partner dwells continually with the spirit of the one not yet deceased, and this until the death of the latter, when they meet again and reunite and love each other more tenderly than before, because they are in a spiritual world.14
     14 CL 321

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Conclusion

     We just read that it is a "new fact" that husband and wife who tenderly love each other are not separated by death but continue to dwell together in spirit. This is one of many wonderful facts that we have touched on in this series of articles. How fortunate we are that the Lord has chosen to reveal these things.
     Why did He choose to reveal them? Because He wanted to "come to us" anew. He wanted us to know Him, to find blessing in being joined with Him through the truth. But the Lord doesn't just reveal the truth because He wants to. He reveals it because we want it too. The Lord responds to our prayers and yearnings, spoken and unspoken.
     And "among the prayers and yearnings of married partners," His servant Swedenborg noted, "is a wish to know the state of married partners after death." The passage continues:

Men who have loved their wives wish to know, if their wives have died, whether it is well with them. So, too, wives who have loved their husbands. And they want to know whether they will meet again . . . . Because these are some of the things people would like answers to, they will be made known (CL 45).

Thank you, Lord!

Note on the above series: The series began in the February issue in which Rev. Grant Odhner says, "The purpose of this series of articles is to bring to mind some of the familiar and wonderful teachings about eternal life. More specifically, my effort is to help readers have a fuller and more living sense of their loved ones who are 'on the other side.'"

508


PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY 1996

PARADIGM SHIFT AND THE ISSUE OF WOMEN IN THE CLERGY       VERA GOODENOUGH DYCK       1996

     (Concluded)

     The church is from living the limited truth we draw from the Word.
Sometimes it happens that two ministers do "doctrinal studies" to determine an answer to a question current in their societies, such as whether to admit unbaptized children in their schools, and come up with opposite conclusions. They lead their societies in opposite directions on the issue, believing that the Word is their guide and authority. Do we conclude that one minister's position must be right (truly objective), while the other one must be wrong (not objective)?
     Is there another way of looking at it? Is there a way to value a sincere search in the Word for relevant teachings which is not based on any unrealistic notion of total objectivity, especially regarding applications? As I see it, different people in different situations, with different loves and talents, are fed by the same Word in different ways. These different understandings help fill in the pieces of the big picture which only the Lord sees in entirety. In my view, the teaching that the church must be "from the Word" is not so much about striving to "objectively understand truth" as it is about striving above all to live and love whatever truth we, with all of our inevitable limitations and obstructions to understanding, are able to draw from the Word.
     I think that "getting pure, objective truth" apart from charity and real life just doesn't happen. And the impure, non-objective truth that we do get if we live it because we believe God teaches it to us is good enough for His purposes. AC 2679, quoted above, goes on to say that "although [the ideas] are for the most part erroneous, [they] . . . serve to promote growth . . . [and] reformation . . . . "

509


Similarly, AC 1043 says that everyone's conscience is based on some dogma which s/he supposes is true, and that many in every dogma are regenerated by the Lord. It seems that the important thing is not that we have the exactly right truth (which is impossible), but that we strive above all to live by the partial truth we have. Mr. Sandstrom quoted TCR 245 as saying that it is "the soundness and purity of doctrine" that establishes a church. What this passage says next, however, is that "neither is it doctrine, but a faith and a life in accordance with doctrine that establishes . . . the special church in the individual person."
     AC 7233 says that because those who are of the spiritual church have no perception, their doctrine is not that of Truth Divine itself. The passage goes on to state that with most people, "their doctrinal things being from the Word does not make them Divine truths, for from the sense of the letter of the Word any doctrinal thing whatever can be hatched." AC 1799 says that doctrinal things do not make a church internally, nor even externally. What makes a church "is a life according to doctrinals, all of which, provided they are true, look to charity as their fundamental" (see also AC 4844). AC 809 seems to me to say that if the end in view of a doctrine is charity, then it is a doctrine of the church. Otherwise, it is not.

Problem of depending on the clergy to get the "real truth" for us

     My belief is that it is people's individual work of going directly to the Word for themselves, with their specific problems, questions, and concerns in mind, with prayer for guidance as to understanding, and a deep desire to apply, that is of most importance in building a church. I suggest that inspiring, guiding and supporting this personal process is what "leading by means of the Word to the good of life" is about.
     Striving for "the one right answer," on the other hand, necessarily causes a desire for unanimity. This tends to evolve into a sort of unofficial orthodoxy, discouraging questions and personal study.

510


How unfortunate! Diversity and variety of views and interpretations among both laity and clergy do much to keep a church alive and healthy. Differences and debate inspire people to go to the Word to find out for themselves what they think is taught.

Several explanations of Jesus' gender have been drawn from and based on truths in the three-fold Word.

     Mr. Cole stated that "if we really believe in the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must acknowledge that the masculine form of the incarnation itself was a choice made by God" (NCL May 1995, p. 197). He gives his explanation of why the Lord made this choice, and seems to believe it is the only legitimate explanation. It is possible to see different reasons, implications and applications for this choice than Mr. Cole sees, as the referenced articles demonstrate.
     Several articles have been published here and elsewhere in the past year or so that give alternative explanations of why the Lord chose to come to earth in a male body, and address the question of whether this means that God is male and/or can be represented only by a male.1 Like Mr. Cole, the authors of these articles have no passages that "prove" that their point of view is true; like his, they are derivations based on doctrinal speculation. My feeling is that the other authors acknowledge the limitations of their views more than Mr. Cole does.
     1 See the Rev. Kurt Nemitz's article, "Is God Male?" in the Fall 1994 Theta Alpha Journal; Amanda Rogers-Petro's article last month, "The Church As Our Mother," soon to be published in its entirety in the proceedings from the recent New Church Women's Symposium, Connections; and Michael David's article, "The Female Side of God," published in NCL, July and August 1995.
     I agree that we would do well to apply the "affirmative principle" to the fact that God chose to come to earth in a male body. But since as far as I can tell the Lord nowhere directly explains this choice, our understanding of why this was so and what we ought to do about it is just that-our understanding.

511


And to apply the "affirmative principle" to any one person's understanding of the why's and therefore's is to elevate that person to the level of God. Maybe Mr. Cole is right and the Lord has been historically represented by men because only men can represent him. My point is that the Word does not directly say this. So maybe Mr. Cole is wrong. Or maybe Mr. Cole has one legitimate viewpoint among many. Greater tolerance of variety in understanding and application would strengthen the unity of our church on its essential doctrines (see AC 1285, 1288, 2982).

Ancient Church as a Model

     On page 1 of the preface to Mr. Cole's paper for the clergy he says, "On the one hand, perception needs to be valued and not undermined. On the other hand, there must also be some way to arbitrate when one person perceives things one way, and another person in another." That we must do something when people come up with different answers is apparently so obvious to him as not to require explanation or reference.
     It is not so obvious to me. I don't know that those in the ancient church had this same assumption. I have seen no indication that they felt a need to arbitrate between those who perceived the details of faith differently. Finding the "one right answer" was not something they assumed had to be done. What they had instead, as I understand it, was a church structured to allow for diversity and variety of doctrine and worship, with unity on the essential doctrines of love to the Lord and to the neighbor.
     Can we model our church after the Ancient Church with its tolerance and flexibility? Can we give up our desire for consensus and unanimity, and declaration by some of what is true for all? Can we stay united on our essential doctrines, and change and expand our structure to allow for real variety and differences on the non-essentials?

512




Gender of the Clergy an Essential Doctrine?

     Are there some who believe that the gender of the clergy is in itself an essential doctrine of our church, something unity of opinion is necessary for? Is it essential that we all agree about this, or can we have a church where some people believe in and want and have women ministers, and some people do not? Is the gender of the ministry up there with the unity of God in Jesus Christ, and charity toward the neighbor? Since the Writings do not clearly state the case either way, it is pretty difficult to make a case that this is an essential doctrine which the health of the church depends upon.
     There may well be people who would leave the church if women were ordained, and if the focus of the priesthood shifted away from "getting the right answers (pure truths) and teaching them to the people," and toward supporting people in getting for themselves, and living, personal answers from the Word. There are certainly people who have left the church because it has not ordained women, it has said that women cannot represent God, and its priesthood has had primarily a truth orientation and focus. I expect there to be many more in the years to come if the structure of the church doesn't expand to allow for variety of needs and beliefs. Some will be outraged and want to quit if women are ordained; many are outraged and leaving (or not joining) because they aren't.
     And yet as far as I can tell, it is not an essential doctrine of the church either way. If our structure allowed for variety of understanding on this matter, we could disagree with each other peaceably. As long as the assumed paradigm is one in which there is one right answer, too many people on both sides of the argument feel they are in a position of either a) winning the argument and successfully convincing others of the rightness of their view, or b) leaving or fading from the church. In the new paradigm, perhaps we would recognize the turmoil and pain around this issue as the struggle of a birth rather than a battle.2
     2 In his paper on derived doctrine, Mr. Rose notes that the ashes should " . . . be removed, not thrown disrespectfully away. They should be placed near the altar and then taken out and put in a clean place so that they do not `stand in the way of things following'" (p. 2). If we could get beyond the idea that there is one right way to do things, it would be easier to place the ashes near the altar and put them respectfully away rather than tossing them in the garbage. Even the idea that there is one right way to do things needs to be placed respectfully near the altar! Those of us who see ourselves as thinking in the new paradigm need to continually remember to put away our swords and get out our midwifery supplies instead. If there are ways in which this paper has felt like sword-wielding to anyone, I am really sorry. I welcome correspondence and conversation with anyone who wants to tell me what it felt like to read it. I tried not to use a sword, but if people feel cut by what I said, who am I to say I didn't?

513



     I challenge the members of the church to weather this storm together. I ask that as an organization we recognize differences and disagreements not as problems to be overcome but as indications that we are a healthy group of free individuals. I request that allowances in our organization be made for these differences and disagreements, both ideologically and structurally. I submit the idea that the Lord will be better able to lead us both to heaven and to a more ideal world through the freedom and rationality implanted in us for this purpose than through any form of coercion and restriction placed upon each other. I ask the members of the church to be clear about what is essential and what isn't, to be honest about what is directly taught and what is interpretation, and to remember that if charity is ruling, differences in doctrine and worship do not divide.

514


WHY BOTHER? Or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway? 1996

WHY BOTHER? Or Isn't the Lord Looking after Everyone Anyway?       Rev. MICHAEL D. GLADISH       1996

     (Conclusion)

How can we proceed to serve others spiritually?

     One model for the process of reaching out to others is that of the creation story, as explained in the spiritual sense. I like this because it builds on the story of personal regeneration, which as I have said is what I think this whole business is about anyway. I also like Doug Taylor's comparison of newcomers' states with the states represented by the seven churches in Revelation, and Bob Junge's comparison with the seven stages of introduction into the life after death. There are some parallels here, as you might expect. But there's something fundamental and beautifully simple about the creation analogy.

The Days of Creation in General

     The six days of creation and the seventh of rest follow in order: first there is light, which corresponds to the general awareness of the Spirit of Truth. Then there is a firmament and separation of waters above from waters below, corresponding to the distinction in the human mind between spiritual and natural truths. On the third day there is dry land, followed immediately by the "tender herb" and other vegetation, corresponding to the first tender manifestations of charity taking form in our lives. Then the cycle begins again with light: on the fourth day the sun, moon and stars appear, representing the acknowledgment of the Lord Himself in love, faith and a variety of sparkling insights. These give us our sense of direction in life. On the fifth day birds are created to fill the waters above the firmament, and fish to fill the waters below: these are images of the thoughts in the understanding above and the knowledges in the memory below.

515


Finally people are created with the animals, representing the presence of a truly spiritual will and all its affections. The seventh day is the day of rest.
     Reducing this to the simplest possible form, we could say that in the progress of our regeneration there is (1) a recognition of truth (2) on both the natural and spiritual planes of life, (3) so that we begin to act according to it. But it is not enough to do this of or from ourselves; (4) we must come to see clearly the Lord's full part in it, (5) so that He can give us a living understanding (6) and a new will. Then (7) there is peace.
     Now just as an individual goes through these seven stages, it seems to me the whole body of the church will do so if it is following the pattern of regeneration. As a group we will be conscious of the Light of Truth. We will see the distinction between natural and spiritual truths in the church, not confusing them but noting the place of each. We will try as if of ourselves to act according to these truths, but then we will acknowledge that the Lord alone can give focused light and direction to His church. So the knowledges and thoughts of the understanding of truth will be filled with life and multiplied, and we will have a new corporate will for what is heavenly on earth. Therefore the church will be a place of genuine spiritual rest.

Now let's see how this pattern might apply to the process and progress of evangelization.

     Day 1

     If the first state of individual regeneration is one of light, then the first stage of reaching out must be to let that light shine. And the idea is "to let the light so shine before men that they may see good works and glorify our Father in heaven" (Matt 5:16).
     Notice that at first the light is general, and the source is not identified. The important thing is not who or what gets the credit, but to let the light shine, to share, perhaps most of all through a meaningful, purposeful way of life, that there is a God, that He is one, and that He can inspire and enlighten us in all that we do.

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     Day 2

     In the second state there is a recognition of two levels of truth, thus really two levels of life, the natural and the spiritual, the internal and the external. It is surprising how many people don't naturally get this. But they need to be taught, and the New Church provides the teaching that can do the job. In many cases it can help people come to grips with a true idea of self-examination for the first time in their lives. And of course it puts the hardships of natural life in perspective, along with many other issues, from creation itself to life after death.

     Day 3

     On the third day of creation dry land appears and plants begin to grow. The plants, the first living things, represent the first will and effort to practice charity toward the neighbor. Whereas the emphasis before was on the truth and sharing the truth, now it seems to be on doing what is good.
But notice, at this stage there is still a lot of self in the doing of such good, including hope of various rewards: basically we want other people to think and live as we do, and on an organizational level we want more members, more helpers, more money, and so on. This is why life on the third day is still inanimate. But hey, it's progress, and a very pleasant step in the right direction.

     Day 4

     The fourth stage of regeneration brings a real focus on the Lord in love, faith and insights about Him. It comes particularly after we make our first efforts to live a charitable life, because then we learn how much we really need the Lord in order to succeed. At this point I would expect an introduction to worship and deeper study of the Word to play a prominent role in our outreach as we work together with our newcomers to see more clearly how the Lord is God and how He leads us, and how we can co-operate with Him.

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Sharing this, too, will become a matter of experience, not just telling people what we think or believe.

     Day 5

     Perhaps it goes without saying that the farther we progress in our outreach, the more we depend on the Lord Himself to do the creative work. Things become very complex in later stages, although correspondingly more delightful and full of life. The creation of the birds and fish on the fifth day pictures this. We continue to work hard at learning the teachings of the Word, but only the Lord can bring them to life for us, causing them to move freely in our memories and thoughts-darting, soaring, gliding, nesting and multiplying.
So it is in outreach: things are never still or stagnant; new thoughts and new ideas are constantly generated as one discovery leads to another in our efforts to share the wisdom given to us.

     Day 6

     But the purpose of the church, of course, is not intellectual. The purpose of all the development so far is the establishment of a new will of spiritual love from the Lord. This is the sixth stage, and just as it is the culmination of a long process with each one of us, so it will be the result of a lot of cooperative effort and growth.
     When we reach this level of evangelization we will be amazed, I'm sure, at the depth and quality of what is revealed to us. Here we will find that the Lord inspires us with a whole new attitude about ourselves and our place in the universe, so that we are no longer telling people about the church but we are attracting people to the church by the pure spirit of our worship and love.

518


There will be an exuberance about our whole experience of life and a wonderful feeling of celebration in it, all amplified and reinforced by the fruitfulness and blessing that comes with the expression of genuine charity as we now know it.
     At this point we will not reach out to others for our own sakes; nothing will be farther from our minds. We will reach out because we love them and we know from our own group experience what a wonderfully happy spiritual life they can find in the church.
     Does this seem incredible? If so maybe we need to review the Lord's teaching that "with men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible" (Mark 10:27). True, the doctrines say that few people make it to this sixth state of regeneration, and perhaps few churches do. But this should not stop us from pursuing the dream; after all, it is the Lord's plan and He is constantly working on it. So as we co-operate with Him He can respond by providing the spiritually healthy, growing church that we all want, and that increasingly reflects this happy state.

     Day 7

     Then, finally, we can enjoy true rest in the kingdom of heaven on earth. At last, missionary work is no longer a chore but a spontaneous and easy outpouring of affection from a fellowship at peace with the Lord. It is hardly necessary to say more about this, and we probably wouldn't believe it anyway; the joys of heaven, the doctrines teach, are after all "ineffable," that is, too wonderful for words.?
OBLIGED BY CONSCIENCE 1996

OBLIGED BY CONSCIENCE              1996

     "I am obliged by my conscience to manifest these things, for what is the use of knowing unless what is known to one be also known to others?" (Interaction of Soul and Body 18)

519


REVIEW 1996

REVIEW       Robert W. Gladish       1996

The Dream of an Absolute Language: Emanuel Swedenborg and French Literary Culture by Lynn R. Wilkinson, State University of New York Press, 1996

     To say that this study of Swedenborg's influence on French literary figures is likely to be of marginal interest to most readers of the Life should by no means be construed as a negative comment on the scholarly soundness of the work. Nor does it deny that the book has very considerable value for students of linguistic, intellectual, and social history of nineteenth-century France. The scope and nature of the study, however, would suggest that its virtues are apt to be difficult for the casual reader to extract.
     To begin with, the examples and excerpts from the French sources are not translated-and the book contains a lot of them. Then the focus of the work is on the way that French authors-and mainly two of them: Balzac and Baudelaire-used the French word "correspondances." Both of these writers very manifestly connected the term with Swedenborg, but their interest in the concept of language and the relationship between words and what they symbolize had very little to do with theology. That is, while we would recognize what is universal in the nature of correspondence, its primary value for us is as a key to understanding Scripture. That was not a concern of Balzac or Baudelaire.
     What also becomes abundantly clear in this book is that neither Balzac nor Baudelaire had much direct contact with books of the Writings. Baudelaire may have promenaded about the Parisian boulevards with a volume of the Writings tucked under his arm, but that was part of his cultivated public image of the dandy, someone concerned to flaunt intellectual and esthetic pretensions. As Wilkinson puts it:

French interpretations of Swedenborgianism . . . are highly eccentric and almost always inaccurate, but like Mesmerism, they are closely bound up with revolutionary politics, and are most often called into service by the marginal or disenfranchised to justify their claims to participation both in politics and in contemporary print culture (11).

520




In the case of Balzac, she even goes so far as to say that his "understanding of Swedenborgian doctrines appears to have been very general, and it was marked by a fundamental divergence from the original" (214).
     The main value of the book-for this reader anyway-is its full documentation and analysis of all the places in which Balzac, Baudelaire, and some more minor figures made reference to Swedenborg or to doctrines derived (or purportedly derived) from the Writings. Also it traces most effectively the various shades and nuances of meaning that "correspondences" came to have for those who found the term "a nostalgic evocation of a kind of pre-revolutionary paradise in which human beings lived in a natural order" (13).
     Finally, the study details the various "isms"-Mesmerism, Fourierism, spiritualism-with which Swedenborg's name and the ideas from his works became intertwined in nineteenth-century France. And it offers sound and insightful reasons for the appeal that Swedenborg's name and ideas (inaccurate as some of the latter may have been) came to have for those seeking new ways of regarding themselves and their world. Those who have been following the New Philosophy's serial publication of Karl-Erik Sjodon's Swedenborg in France, however, will have gained much of the background and information that Wilkinson presents here, and are likely to have got it in a context more accessible to them and more congruent with their interests.
     Robert W. Gladish

521


CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH 1996

CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH       Editor       1996

     There was an article in the Boston Globe Magazine called "Make Use of Your Anger." It is reprinted in the September Reader's Digest. Questions are posed such as: "Is it better for your health to vent anger or to put a lid on it?" And then there is this wonderful phrase: "New research is providing some answers." The security of your job and your social standing may be helped by paying attention to the new findings.
     "Two decades ago it was decided that stifling anger is dangerous and expressing anger is good. In pop psychology the primal scream held sway: get it all out and you'll feel a whole lot better. Then researchers began to see connections between psychological traits and heart disease, and the appeal of emotionalism began to fade." "Management experts" also had input on the subject. "Expressing anger in the workplace usually brings negative reactions."
     We have mentioned the saying, "New research is providing some answers." Speaking of new research, an outstanding series of articles on anger was written by Rev. John Odhner that many found especially helpful. His first article posed the question: "Do good people get angry?" It went on to explore passages in the Writings about what is called "zeal." After quoting some passages he comments, "Since zeal can be an intense, even violent feeling, I sometimes call it 'healthy anger.'"
     It is important to bear in mind that healthy zeal can look just like anger. Our present series is undertaken partly as a reaction to the notion that "If I feel it, it must be good" and the reliance on pop psychology pronouncements about anger without consideration of the teaching of the Word.
     There are spiritual considerations quite apart from what anger may do to your physical health and the harmony of your work with others. If there is a hell and if we can be affected by the sphere of hell, then there is a field of personal spiritual "research" that has its own kind of importance.

522


Anger is one of the ingredients of hell. Swedenborg once found that his tranquility of mind was threatened by evil spirits who constantly try to impose their own anger on others (see SD 2342, 2343). These take satisfaction in turning our peace into wrath.
     The invitation in Psalm 37:8 is to return us to the rest and tranquility of heavenly life. "Cease from anger and forsake wrath."
     The series on anger by John Odhner was printed in this magazine in 1989.
"The old man must be put off in order that the new may be put on." This is something that is known in the church (AC 5651). How is it known? It is known because it appears in the Bible. The two main places where the "old man" is mentioned are Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4. Colossians 3 (verse 8) lists the things that must be put off, the first two being anger and wrath.
Ephesians 4 has that memorable saying, "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." This is a good book for the church and a good saying for the people of the church. Put off the old man and put on the new man. "Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil-speaking be put way from you, with all malice."
WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN? 1996

WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN?       Editor       1996

     What should we teach children in religion class? Some have made generalizations such as: Teach the Old Testament in early elementary school; teach the Gospels in late elementary school and high school; teach the Writings in college. There have been good points made in support of such a plan. However, others have shown it to be inadequate. We will quote here from some discussion in New Church Teacher eleven years ago. At that time we were looking to further development of religion curricula.

523



     Here are a few points that were made: Considering the teaching that stories are for the sake of children "we might be tempted to teach only the historicals of the Word to little children, and primarily the historicals of the Old Testament. That would be an imbalance, for the Writings teach that little children are in a state of love that exceeds that of adults, and because of this state they can and should learn the truths of love. Such truths are indeed in the Old Testament, but they are more obviously in the New Testament and in the Writings."
     "Where do we find teachings which feed the state of love with our children? In the New Testament and the Writings in abundance."
     Furthermore, the Writings lament that some think little about eternal life from infancy (see AC 8981). Our curriculum should include planned presentations on the subject of eternal life.
     We can teach the New Testament and the Writings "in a manner accommodated to the sensuous mind. That is how the Writings tell us that little children are taught in heaven (see AC 2299).
     "We can teach them first and foremost about Jesus Christ, that He is God and that He is a God of love. Then we teach them the Old Testament stories . . . . Our children are complex beings. Their spiritual needs will be met only by a curriculum which seeks to understand as many of their states as possible . . . . Most of them common sense recognizes once the Word declares them. Every one of them is satisfied by something which the Lord has revealed. The more we explore the harmony between these teachings, the better we will help them to grow up in the knowledge-and, we hope in the sphere-of the New Christianity."
     The above quotations are taken from New Church Teacher, October, 1985.
     This subject will be continued.

524


LARSENS TALK ABOUT HISTORIC INFLUENCE 1996

LARSENS TALK ABOUT HISTORIC INFLUENCE              1996

     The big red book published by the Swedenborg Foundation is entitled Swedenborg: A Continuing Vision. On the spine is the name Larsen. Dr. Stephen Larsen and Dr. Robin Larsen have done a lot to make Swedenborg known.
They have lectured in Australia and the United States on the nature of Swedenborg's influence. Yes, people have listed authors and thinkers influenced by Swedenborg. The Larsens note that in their lecture and go on to say, "The thrust of the current thesis is, however, not just to trace Swedenborg's influence in a linear, causal way, but to treat Swedenborg himself as a necessary catalyst, himself a symbol, of the morphic or holistic movement of forces of our time." People can read this lecture in the book Twelve Gates to the City reviewed in our August issue. We offer some selections here.
     "The thought of Emanuel Swedenborg anticipated the work of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, particularly in the understanding of symbolic consciousness and an emerging attitude toward the spiritual life in today's global culture. Between the late eighteenth century, when Swedenborg's work began to be known, and the end of the twentieth, lies an incredible period of intellectual and technical growth that paved the way to the 'postmodern' world."
They allude to a major shift in the spiritual climate of "Western civilization." They refer to Rupert Sheldrake's concept of morphic or morphogenetic resonance. If individuals of a species learn a new behavior, the effect transfers to the entire species.
     Can this happen with humans as well as with animals? The world-transforming ideas that Swedenborg presented to the culture of his time have permeated Western thinking ever since. "Were they in fact a revelation from the divine itself, the spiritual sense of the holy 'Word,' accompanying the second coming of Christ in the spiritual world, through the servant of the Lord, Emanuel Swedenborg, as he averred?"

525



     Following Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle one can regard light as being made up of "photons" or one can just as easily look upon light as waves. "If one thinks theologically, Swedenborg's revelation is unquestionably divine in origin; otherwise how could it contain those luminous truths that have touched many generations, and reach our minds and hearts even today? If one thinks psychologically, how could it be otherwise than that Swedenborg's religiously imbued childhood influenced his mid-life recursion, and even that aspects of his father's theology are discernible in certain of his revealed spiritual 'doctrines'?"
     "Is it possible that Swedenborg's personal psychological journey into chaos and regeneration, death and rebirth, his biography itself, anticipates holographically the seeds of a new spiritual revelation, religious roots for a new church for the new millennium? . . .
     "We are going to argue nothing less than that Swedenborg, in his life and in his work, embodied an embryonic mythology of the new millennium, and by living it through, changed our morphogenetic field, thus anticipating the morphology of the next psycho-spiritual transformation for humankind."
SSA ESSAY CONTEST 1996

SSA ESSAY CONTEST              1996

     You are reminded of an essay contest which we advertised in the April issue (p. 183). The contest is open to all college and university students currently taking courses. The successful essay will explore some aspect of Swedenborg's work as found in any of his scientific, philosophical and theological writings and relate it to modern science or philosophy.
Entries must be submitted by January 1, 1997. For prizes and other details see the April issue or contact E. E. Sandstrom, Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

526


ORDINATION 1996

ORDINATION              1996




     Announcements
     Halterman-At Toronto, Ontario, Canada, September 8, 1996, Barry Childs Halterman into the second degree of the priesthood, Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss officiating.
UNKNOWN ADDRESSES 1996

UNKNOWN ADDRESSES              1996

     Anyone who can supply information as to the whereabouts of the people listed below is asked to contact the Office of the Secretary, General Church of the New Jerusalem, P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009. Last known addresses from 1992-1995 are shown. Thank you.


Jeffrey Bonser
2783A West Long Drive
Littleton, CO 80120

Ernest Coffin
USS Dixon 37
FPO San Francisco, CA 96648-2605

Stella (Blickle) Shields
     117 Woolmans Lane          
Rancocas Woods - RD#2          
Mt Holly NJ 08060
          
William Short
      Dawson Creek BC               
Canada     V1G
               
James and Shannon (Hibbard) Silvio
564 Deer Park Cir - #210
          Bartlett IL 60103
               
Marguerite (Izzard) Sinclair
      RR 4                         
Lindsay Ontario               
Canada     K9V 4R4
          
Jonna (Nielson) Sorensen
          Lyngbygardsvej 42
          DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
                         
          Elaine (Morris) St. Claire
           5500 SW 95th Ave
           Hollywood FL 33025
          
Dan and Alice (Staples) Vaughn
3123 E Terra Alta Blvd
               Tucson AZ 85716-4515          


Juli (Miller) Waddell
3414 E Glenn St - #H
Tucson AZ 85716-2267

Hildegard (Johnson) Waratuke
Douglas, Susan
7507 Wahl Rd - #15
                Vickery OH 43464
                         
Adina (Friesen) Watson
Jackie-Ellen
409 - 98th Ave
Dawson Creek BC Canada V1G 1S1

Sharon (Friesen) Webber
     Box 622, Beaumont, Alberta
      Canada     T0C 0H0
          
Nandine Weimer
Niels Weimer
     Keulsestraat 21
     8262 TT Kampen               
The Netherlands     
          
Maureen Weston               
3064 Foothill Drive
Thousand Oaks CA 91361

Grant and Norma (Johnson) Wilmoth
Jackson WY 83001     
          
Tammie Wilson               
105 N Park St
          Flagstaff AZ 86001-5362
          
In (Lee) Yoon
          Hakikdong Sindonga Apt 4     
cha 505 - Hakikdong Namku     
Inchon, Korea South

529


Notes on This Issue 1996

Notes on This Issue              1996


December
New Church Life 1996, No. 12

530


     "When the shepherds hurried toward Bethlehem they knew nothing of the wonderful anticipation of the angels who guided them in the darkness . . . . " Rev. Ragnar Boyesen's sermon views the Christmas event from both worlds and concludes on the subject of singing songs on earth and in heaven.
     The General Church is not the New Church. The Bishop in his report reminds us that it is but one organization that serves the Lord's church on earth (see p. 556). He recalls the June assembly attended by some 1,200 people. He says that approximately ten times that number of people are served by the General Church around the world. The actual membership of the General Church is 4,500. Note in the secretary's report that 72 names are no longer on the roll, as the people have lost contact (p. 539). Just over one hundred people joined the General Church last year, 38 of them in the United States and 38 in Ghana.
     As you look at the directory of schools you will see the names of one hundred people who teach in New Church schools. This does not include teachers at the Academy of the New Church. (They are listed in the Academy's journal.) In October most of those one hundred teachers were present at a two-day seminar of the Education Council. What an inspiration it was to sense the spirit of that fine group.
     Your attention is called to page 561 where a teaching position at the Academy College is advertised.
     Conversations with Angels-There are 100 Borders book stores in the USA. If one is near you, you might try ordering the book Conversations with Angels, advertised in this issue. The ISBN is 0-87785-177-8.

     New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine in Russian-We have heard of the publication in Moscow this year of a Russian version of The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine. We congratulate our Russian friends and look forward to seeing copies of this latest volume.

531


SIGN TO THE SHEPHERDS 1996

SIGN TO THE SHEPHERDS       Rev. RAGNAR BOYESEN       1996

     A CHRISTMAS SERMON

"And this will be a sign unto you: you will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger" (Luke 2:12).

     A manger was a most unusual place to find the King of the world. Equally unusual was the innocence of the shepherds who were willing to be led to their newborn Savior who was to be found in it. Their innocence was that quality of being willing to be led by the Lord, which could receive this glorious message.
When the Lord came into the world, He did not choose to clothe Himself in silk and splendor. Neither did He want to lie in a costly bed surrounded by the dignitaries of the world. Had He chosen to do this, He would not have had those correspondences around Him which, to the angels who attended this most unexpected coming, were significant in every detail.
     When the Lord chose to be born, He first lay in a manger because to the angels this was understood to mean instruction from the Word. The Lord would give His own doctrine to those who would follow Him. A manger is a feeding trough for mules and horses; wherefore angels could think of that new understanding of the Word which could become present among men simply because the Lord Himself was that Word which was to be the new spiritual food for mankind.
     Angels also thought of the lack of faith in the Jewish Church when Mary and Joseph had to find shelter in a stable and not at the inn. The stable was most likely a simple enclosure hewed out of a rock or hillside, which again is significant of the natural sense of the Word, which often is represented by hills or mountains. Even the name of the town, "Bethlehem" (house of bread), gave angels a chain of reflection on the nature of spiritual nourishment which was to come from the Lord through the Christian Church. Ephratah of old signified that state of charity which once had been in the Ancient Church, a state which would be renewed in the Lord Himself, since He was the only one to be born of the Divine Itself, through a virgin mother.

532


With the Divine Father in Him, He was the only one who had a conjunction of the internal good with the external good, since He alone was born a celestial-spiritual man. Since He alone was born the spiritual King, He had from His very birth a conjunction of truth and good in His natural. This is called the spiritual of the celestial, which is represented by Bethlehem where He was born, and which made the angels think of that wonderful presence of the Lord in all creation from the very beginning. The celestial presence in all mankind had been destroyed by people who chose themselves instead of the Lord, and in this way began to fabricate evils for themselves. The celestial of the Lord could not be present with those people, and a prophecy was made that in the future, One would be born into the world who would unite the celestial to the spiritual in Himself, and in this way reconcile that which had been destroyed in man (see AE 449:3).
     But when the shepherds hurried toward Bethlehem they knew nothing of the wonderful anticipation of the angels who guided them in the darkness of the night toward "the Dayspring from on high" which those angels had seen and comprehended in light. The shepherds, delighted at the wonderful message, hurried to Bethlehem to search for the sign, a baby lying in a manger.
     Most likely they did not have to go very far, because it was well understood that the inns were full, and that mangers existed in stables close to the inns. Did the shepherds go from stable to stable? Probably using their knowledge of Bethlehem, they were able to ask where people had been shown a stable for shelter.
     These shepherds were living representatives of that church which was to come, that church which would feed from the spiritual manger of the new evangel from the Lord. By affectionately being able to receive the doctrines from the Lord based on their remains they would be brought lasting spiritual nourishment.
     When the shepherds finally came to the Child, they found a Babe "wrapped in swaddling clothes."

533


This sign to the shepherds was understood by angels to mean those first truths of innocence and Divine love which come to everyone who early in life is given the stories of the Word so that he can understand and delight in them. A naked infant is understood to be someone lacking truths, and was understood by the angels to be the Jewish Church and the pagan world generally, for there were no doctrines of genuine truths anywhere. A spiritual night had fallen on the human race. Yet a star shone out of David.
     The Lord had come to feed all those who spiritually hungered for new truths, for that heavenly light which could show how the way to heaven could be walked and lived. The Ancient Church had nourished its hope on the primary truth to satisfy this hunger: the promise of the Divine Love for the salvation of mankind. Joy in the salvation of all people was to be shared by the Lord with the angels of the celestial heaven. Yet the hope of the salvation of all people became the distinguishing mark of Christianity.
     The truth of the salvation of mankind is even today the spiritual nourishment we must live by. The beginning of this hope is in the spiritual sign of the holy Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Our hope shall be that the Lord may be present in His simple accommodations of truth to be found in the Word so that we can be nourished to receive charity and a love of salvation. Dimly do we understand in childhood, yet perceptively we cherish what we learn about the Babe and His wondrous birth. The innocence of ignorance holds fast to the hope of the Lord at Christmas time, that He will come again to men, that He will send angels, that peace will be among men. These are the truths seen in darkness, yet cherished in innocence. These truths are our spiritual nourishment from the beginning, the bread of heaven that child and adult alike must partake of. We are to hunger for this nourishment with a spiritual hunger, a longing to be fed from the spiritual manger of the Word.
     If we, like the shepherds, come to Bethlehem, the Lord's "house of bread," we shall know that He is our longing, He is both the sign and the fulfillment of our spiritual life.

534


We cannot have spiritual life without this food from heaven. Even as we strive to tend our spiritual sheep, our innocence and willingness to be led by the Lord, we will long to be instructed from a genuine understanding of the Word, to glorify our Creator, and to show genuine peace and good will toward men. By being fed from the manger of the Word, we can sustain the love of truths, the love of acknowledging in gratitude that He alone can save and bring light to our spiritual darkness. We can rejoice with exceeding joy that we are permitted to share this blessed realization that everything which deeply moves us is a means of instruction and a bond to heaven and our fellow man.
     This was so well understood by the ancients that they expressed their gratefulness in song, perhaps like the angels who glorified the Lord the night He was born. "The songs of the Ancient Church, like those of the Jewish, were prophetic and treated of the Lord, especially of His advent into the world and of His liberation of the faithful from the assaults of the diabolical crew. The attendant angels were at the same time in glorification of the Lord, in consequence of which those who sang and those who heard the songs experienced heavenly gladness from the holiness and blessedness which flowed in from heaven, so that they seemed to themselves to be as it were taken up into heaven. Such an effect had the songs of the church among the ancients, and such an effect they might also have at this day, because the spiritual angels are especially affected by songs which relate to the Lord, His kingdom, and the church. For the ancients who were of the church derived a joy exceeding all joys from the thought of the Lord's advent, and of the salvation of the human race by Him" (AC 8261).
     Even we can sing in our age like the choir of angels which sang to the shepherds: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." Amen.

Readings: Luke 2:1-20, AE 706:12

535


ANNUAL REPORT 1996

ANNUAL REPORT       Jr. Donald C. Fitzpatrick       1996

     OF THE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH
     OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

     Between July 1, 1995, and June 30, 1996, one hundred three members were received into the General Church.
     During the year the Secretary's office received notice of the deaths of seventy-four members, plus one who had formerly been listed as Dropped from the Roll.
     Seven members resigned during the year, and an additional seventy-two members were dropped from the roll. The longer-than-usual list of members dropped from the roll resulted from efforts to reduce the number of names in the General Church database for which addresses have been unknown since before 1994.

Membership July 1, 1995     4554
New members (Certs. 8547-8649)     103
Deceased     -74
Resigned     -7
Dropped from Roll          -72
Membership June 30, 1996     4504


     NEW MEMBERS


     AUSTRALIA
New South Wales
Andrew, Peter Michael


     CANADA
Ontario
Bellinger, Susan Joyce
Kim, Chu-Young (John)
Kim, Eun-Kyoung (Elaine)
Kim, Eun-Sook (Eunice)
Kim, Gal-Yop (Caleb)
Kim, Mu-Hun (Daniel)
Kuhl, Gertrude Ellen
McDonald, Marlene Linda
Parker, Janet Susan
Yaneff, George
Yaneff, Yvett


     GHANA
Adika, Samuel Clu-Chey
Adotey, Dora Kosikour

536



Aggroh, Paul Kofi
Agyeiwaa, Grace
Akotey, Edward
Ampofo, Francis Obeng
Ankamah, Otchere Darko
Annan, Emmanuel Anane
Anochi, Emmanuel Dede
Anochi, Kwame Ansong
Ansah, Eshun
Appiah, George
Aryeetey, Albert Ralph Nii Aryee
Asieduah, Naomi
Awelinga, Alfred Yamba
Baidoo, Jereson Agyare
Boadu, Gladys Asare
Boateng, John Owusu
Boryor, Andrews Lamptey
Boryor, Christiana Segbenu
Dagbey, Melody Esi
Dzordzornyo, Victor
Eckerner, Eliphas Kwadwo
Frempomaa, Faustina
Gakpo, Augustine Atsu
Gakpo, Felicia Aku
Gidiglo, Robert S.
Hayford, Benjamin Ebo
Hayford, Mary Kwandaho
Kodjo, Ayi Segno
Kpevor, Grace Adzo
Kwateng, Abraham Resford Sintim
Nkrumah, Comfort Akua
Nyante, Simeon Akoto
Oforiwaa, Elizabeth
Owusu, George
Quarcoo, Jonathan Appiah
Yawa, Patience
     JAPAN
Ohta, Hiroshi
Yoneda, Hiroto
Yoneda, Keiko
     KOREA
Kim, Doyeon
Pan, Jae Won
Pan, Jae Yeon Park
     NEW ZEALAND
Darby, Kathryn Patricia
Keyworth, David Richard
     REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
Kwa Zulu-Natal
Andrew, Ross Stewart
Cacchione, Alessandro
Chili, Smanga Wonder
Jordan, Jessica Jane Roux
MacGill, Jane Ellen Clifforth
Gauteng
Serfontein, Dawid Jacobus
Stephens, Virginia Anita


     UNITED STATES
Alabama
Holloway, Herbert III

Arizona
Davis, Deborah Jean
Francis, Lois Ann
Hovis, Christy Ann Sooter
Hovis, Robert William
Odhner, Jason Anthony

Georgia
Widerstrom, Dianna Holland
Widerstrom, Jon Eric

Illinois
Abelkis, Kai Kestutis
Abelkis, Linda Fussell
Coffey, Charles Gorannis
Harer, Gloria Asplundh
Reynolds, Myriam Cecilia Goyes
Smith, Brannon Lee

537




Maine
Nicholson, Jennifer Lee Schwab
Stevens, Arlene Florence
Stevens, Simon LeRoy

New Jersey
Rhodes, Cynthia Lee Strahler

New York
Anokye, Charles Koranteng
Anokye, Wofa Twerefo Nyamekye

Oregon
Cairns, Jackie Willis

Pennsylvania
Crowther, Kenneth Seth
Darkwah, Rita Sarkodie
Grisin, Carole Lee
Hamvas, John Peter
Hamvas, Rachel M.
Howard, Lelia
King, Seth Pennington
Lorchak, Billie Ruth Harvey
Lorchak, Dion
Morey, Heather
Palagruto, Albert Rosario
Palagruto, Joan Simon
Pitcairn, Kris Kynett Heilman
Rogers, Edward Kent
Romo, Dorothy Bukowski
Romo, Elizabeth M.
Willis, Mary

     DEATHS

Abed, Khalil; 86; April 10, 1995; Taylorville, IL
Adams, Henry Knox; Age unknown; Date unknown; Place unknown
Allen, Donald Ellis; 84; March 21, 1996; Maysville, MO
Andreasson, Ingrid Elizabeth; Age unknown; Date unknown; Place unknown
Austin, Virginia Synnestvedt; 90; October 3, 1995; Meadowbrook, PA
Baldinger, Ingrid Elizabeth Bundsen; 89; March 18, 1989; Paradise, CA
Bergstedt, Linda Stroh; Age unknown; Date unknown; California?
Blair, Lucile Synnestvedt; 97; May 10, 1996; Sarver, PA
Boone, Helen Elvira Garrett; 82; November 22, 1995; Meadowbrook, PA
Bozarth, Gloria May Stroh; 71; October 24, 1995; Kalispell, MT
Brannon, William Henry; 76; August 10, 1995; Philadelphia, PA
Brettell, Laurel Patricia Stephenson; 60; April 7, 1996; Hurstville, NSW, Australia
Brickman, Florence Kintner Iungerich Schroeder; 83; June 26, 1996; Stockton, CA
Brickman, Robert; 91; April 23, 1996; Albuquerque, NM
Briscoe, Iris Osyth; 99; February 24, 1996; Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
Brown, Alice Mabel Landenberger; 77; March 1, 1996; Havre de Grace, MD
Buck, Sylvia Richardson; 55; July 16, 1995; Hawaii
Burnham, Elizabeth McKenna Horigan Grant; 99; June 12, 1996; Sarver, PA
Carter, Mabel Edith; 81; July 30, 1995; Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Davis, Charles Frederick; Age unknown; June 8, 1996; San Jos?, CA

538



Deal, Desmond Fuller; 80; September 10, 1996; Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal, RSA
de Figueiredo, Jose Lopes; 90; July 14, 1995; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
de Roure, Angelina Bastos; 84; November 30, 1995; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
de Roure, Gilto Bastos; 82; March 1, 1996; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Doering, Katherine Macbeth Boggess; 86; December 6, 1995; Tucson, AZ
Elmont, Raymond Albert; 71; September 6, 1995; Darby, PA
Fazio, Mary Phyllis Powell; 80; June 24, 1996; Bryn Athyn, PA
Fell, Fern Belle Fisher; 69; August 26, 1995; Philadelphia, PA
Fountain, Thomas Joseph; 87; January 9, 1996; Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
Fuller, Elizabeth Louise Pollock; 86; February 19, 1996; Charleston, SC
Gilbert, Billy Joe; 70; March 1, 1995; Hesperia, CA
Hawkins, Wilhelmina Maria Braam; 53; September 8, 1995; Billericay, Essex, England
Hazen, Harriete Annette Johnson; Age about 82; About 1988; Place unknown
Heilman, Phyllis Patricia Holm; 73; January 2, 1996; Glenview, IL
Hilldale, Robert Coffin, Jr.; About 64; 1976; Place unknown
Hilldale, Thomas Andrew; 68; 1994; Gettysburg, PA
Holm, Ragnhild Margareta Fornander; 59; May 16, 1996; New Brunswick, NJ
Hotson, John Hargrove; 65; January 21, 1996; Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Howell, Priscilla Jane Scalbom; 83; August 5, 1995; Madison, WI
Jean-Marie, Emily Jean Raymond; 88; June 25, 1995; Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
Keith, Helen Hallock; 81; June 17, 1996; Bryn Athyn, PA
Klein, Ralph Sidney; 86; October 24, 1995; Bryn Athyn, PA
Latta, Leigh Clark, Jr.; 74; March 22, 1996; Cincinnati, OH
Leisted, Agnete Anderson Ibso; 79; April 20, 1996; Allerod, Copenhagen,Denmark
Lesieur, Paulette Emilie Marcelle Cornier; 82; March 28, 1995; Pontarlier, France
Lyman, Greta Mae Arnold; 78; January 22, 1996; Tucson, AZ
McAleer, Hesper Viola Powell; 83; February 7, 1996; Abington, PA
McCauley, Floye Dean Brownlee Covey*; 75; November 1989; Mountain Home, AR
Morey, Gordon Charles; 69; June 6, 1996; Bryn Athyn, PA
Morgan, LeRoy Merton; 89; November 22, 1995; Elgin, IL
Mundy, Evelyn Alberta; Age unknown; Date unknown; Australia

539



Mundy, Rex Alfred; Age unknown; Date unknown; Australia
Murdoch, Olive Elizabeth Kitzelman; 86; November 8, 1995; Northbrook, IL
Nicolier, Marcel; 69; February 23, 1990; Beaune, France
Odhner, Beryl Cockerell; 83; January 5, 1996; Buckingham, PA
Olds, Saloma; 96; December 15, 1995; Morton Grove, IL
Pitcairn, Carolyn Kaylor Harris; 77; October 11, 1995; La Jolla, CA
Powell, Oliver Ivanhoe; 84; March 27, 1995; Watkinsville, GA
Pryke, Owen; 86; July 20, 1995; Colchester, Essex, England
Richards, Antoinette Lea; Age uknown; Date unknown; California
Rinehimer, Edgar Wilkins; 78; January 11, 1996; Parkton, MD
Rosenquist, Consuelo Seneca; 99; January 7, 1996; Huntingdon Valley, PA
Sawyer, Sylvia Mary Waters; 71; January 13, 1996; Colchester, Essex, England
Sevin, Paul; 85; June 3, 1996; Paris, France
Sherry, Peter William; 63; April 7, 1995; Clacton-on-sea, Essex, England
Smith, Joan Clarice Brock; 76; August 8, 1995; Warrington, PA
Sorensen, Jonna Vibeke Nielson; 85; May 20, 1996; Lyngby, Denmark
Stevens, Marvin Victor; 82; July 18, 1995; Glenview, IL
Synnestvedt, Katherine Riefstahl; 91; December 29, 1995; Bryn Athyn, PA
Vanover, Joan Phyllis Spencer; Age unknown; Date unknown; Place unknown
Walton, James Willard; 87; February 27, 1996; Warminster, PA
Waters, Mary Petronella; 84; June 20, 1996; Colchester, Essex, England
West, Dorothy Jane Blake; Age about 86; 1994; Place unknown
Whitney, Paul Ronald; Age unknown; Prior to November 1, 1995; Place unknown
Yoon, In Sun; 36; February 26, 1996; Seoul, Korea
* Formerly listed as Dropped from the Roll (1994 Report)                         
                                                                                                          RESIGNATIONS

Capetta, Rosemary Tucker; September 21, 1995; Upper Marlboro, MD
Cole, Leigh Goodwin Martz; May 1, 1996; Mitchellville, MD
Knechtel, Peter Robert; July 26, 1995; Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Macgill, Jane Ellen Clifforth; February 14, 1996; Kwa Zulu-Natal, RSA
Nakayama, Yoko Matsumoto; January 11, 1996; Tokyo, Japan
O'Donnell, Matthew Joseph; September 15, 1995; Hardwick, GA
Sharpsteen, Lois Jean Stewart; June 24, 1996; Huntingdon Valley, PA

     DROPPED FROM THE ROLL

Anderson, Mr. and Mrs. J. Roland (Joan Dennis); September 25, 1995; Florida?

540



Banfill, Mr. and Mrs. James D. (Marion Adeline Burg); March 11, 1996; Michigan
Banfill, Mr. and Mrs. Randy L. (Susan Kay Horton); March 11, 1996; Michigan
Blythe, Margaret Irene; March 11, 1996; England
Bouillet, Edward Eugene Sosthene; March 11, 1996; Tennessee
Brockman, Ronald Anthony; March 11, 1996; California
Brown, Robert Lawrence; March 11, 1996; California
Clarke, Gary J.; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Coffin, James Price, III; March 11, 1996; South Carolina
Dlamini, Mandlakayise Aaron; March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Dube, Danny Ross; March 11, 1996; Canada
Dumakude, Selena Biyela; March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Dumas, Richard Vincent; March 11, 1996; Minnesota
Ewald, Margaret Martha Klimas; March 11, 1996; California
Falconer, Edward L., Jr.; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Fox, Dorothy Ann Hall; March 11, 1996; Georgia
Gilbert, Mary Dolores; March 11, 1996; Kansas
Gorandfield, John Patrick, Jr.; March 11, 1996; Florida
Harrison, Olive Tilson; March 11, 1996; England
Harthill, Melva Alice Schelly; March 11, 1996; Washington
Hedegaard, John; March 11, 1996; Denmark
Herrick, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin R. (Dorothy Meachem Kennedy); September 25, 1995; Address unknown
Hodges, Jayne Ellen Campbell; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Hovland, Mr. and Mrs. Eric A. (Darlene Celia Graham); March 11, 1996; Canada
Hunt, Eirene Charlotte Gardiner; March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Jensen, Shirley Evelyn Mark Brown; March 11, 1996; California
Johansson, Mona Emma Idalia Nilsson; March 11, 1996; Sweden
Johnson, Jessie Marguerite Dormer; March 20, 1996; Minnesota
Kressman, Susan Charlotte Tillman; March 11, 1996; Tennessee
Kresz, Stanley Richard; July 27, 1995; Ohio?
Lantzy, Neil Sylvanus; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Lucas, Andre; March 11, 1996; France
Maseko, Patricia Shongile; March 11, 1996; New York
Massick, Joyce Allaire Puckey; March 11, 1996; Washington
McGinley, Elizabeth Mary Murray; March 11, 1996; Colorado
Miller, Glen White; March 11, 1996; Colorado

541



Mthalane, Mr. and Mrs. Cyril B. (Margaret Philisiwe Ntombela); March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Mthalane, Nancy Ngitheni Ngema; March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Munz, Mr. and Mrs. William A. (Sarah Victoria Reynolds); March 11, 1996; France
Ngema, Doris Sbongile; March 11, 1996; Republic of South Africa
Person, Larry David; March 11, 1996; Minnesota
Plan, Mr. and Mrs. Georges (Henriette Wetzig); March 11, 1996; France
Rasmussen, Frida Elise Hedegaard Christensen; March 11, 1996; Denmark
Reynolds, Robert Emanuel; March 11, 1996; Florida
Rich, Matthew; September 25, 1995; Florida
Rich, Michael; September 25, 1995; Address unknown
Robin, Dominique; March 11, 1996; France
Schaeffer, Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. (Mary Frances Straughan); March 11, 1996; Canada
Search, Mr. and Mrs. James C. (Marguerite Thorn); March 11, 1996; Michigan
Siegen-Smith, Phyllis Hilds Simpson; March 11, 1996; England
Smith, Jody Lou Pacacha; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. (Carol Ann Neumuth); March 14, 1996; New York
Spangenberg, Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. (Robyn Glenn); September 25, 1995; Address unknown
Steen, Joan Bea; March 11, 1996; Pennsylvania
Stocker, Judith Ann Black; March 11, 1996; Florida
Talley, William Gould; March 11, 1996; Florida
Taylor, Elizabeth Ann Schnarr; March 11, 1996; Canada
Walker, Marvin Wayne; March 11, 1996; California
Williams, Kenneth Leonard; March 11, 1996; California
Woudenberg, Ruth Sarah; March 20, 1996; Ohio

Respectfully submitted,
     Donald C. Fitzpatrick, Jr.
     Acting Secretary

542


DIRECTORY 1996

DIRECTORY       Various       1996

     GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM


     Officials
     Bishop:               Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss
     Bishops Emeriti:          Rt. Rev. Louis B. King
                         Rt. Rev. Willard D. Pendleton
     Acting Secretary:          Mr. Donald C. Fitzpatrick, Jr.


     Consistory
     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss
Rt. Rev. Louis B. King; Rev. Messrs. Alfred Acton, William O. Ankra-Badu, Kurt Ho. Asplundh, Christopher D. Bown, Eric H. Carswell, Geoffrey S. Childs, James P. Cooper, Michael D. Gladish, Daniel W. Goodenough, Daniel W. Heinrichs, Robert S. Junge, Brian W. Keith, Thomas L. Kline, B. Alfred Mbatha, Donald L. Rose, Frank S. Rose, Frederick L. Schnarr, Grant R. Schnarr, Philip B. Schnarr, and Lawson M. Smith

     "GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM"
     (A Corporation of Pennsylvania)
     Officers of the Corporation
     President:     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss
     Vice President:     Rt. Rev. Louis B. King
     Secretary:     Mr. E. Boyd Asplundh
     Treasurer:     Mr. Neil M. Buss
     Controller:     Mr. Ian K. Henderson

     BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE CORPORATION

Debra G. Accomazzo, Jill A. Brickman, Michael A. Brown, Barbara Tryn G. Clark, R. Andrew Damm, Nancy S. Dawson, B. Reade Genzlinger, Robert L. Glenn, Howard B. Gurney, Zenon Harantschuk, Glenn H. Heilman, Thelma P. Henderson, Justin K. Hyatt, John A. Kern, Michael C. Kloc, Debra M. Lermitte, Michael G. Lockhart, Paul C. P. Mayer, Roger S. Murdoch, Wayne Parker, Cameron C. Pitcairn, Duncan B. Pitcairn, Roger W. Schnarr, Lincoln F. Schoenberger, Kathy G. Schrock, Beryl C. Simonetti, John A. Snoep, James G. Uber, Kenneth L. York

Ex-officio Members:     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss
                    Rt. Rev. Louis B. King
                    Mr. Neil M. Buss
Honorary Life Member:     Rt. Rev. Willard D. Pendleton
     
     BISHOPS

Buss, Peter Martin. Ordained June 19, 1964; 2nd degree, May 16, 1965; 3rd degree, June 1, 1986. Continues to serve as Executive Bishop of the General Church, General Pastor of the General Church, Chancellor of the Academy of the New Church, President of the General Church in Canada, and President of the General Church International, Incorporated. Address: P.O. Box 711, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

King, Louis Blair. Ordained June 19, 1951; 2nd degree, April 19, 1953; 3rd degree, November 5, 1972. Retired. Bishop Emeritus of the General Church; Interim Pastor to Phoenix Society. Address: P.O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Pendleton, Willard Dandridge. Ordained June 18, 1933; 2nd degree, September 12, 1934; 3rd degree, June 19, 1946. Retired. Bishop Emeritus of the General Church, Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of the New Church. Address: P.O. Box 338, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

543




     PASTORS

Acton, Alfred. Ordained June 19, 1964; 2nd degree, October 30, 1966. Continues to serve as Professor in the Academy of the New Church College, Regional Pastor in the Southeast United States and Chairman of the General Church Translation Committee. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Alden, Glenn Graham. Ordained June 19, 1974; 2nd degree, June 6, 1976. Continues to serve as part-time Pastor of Dawson Creek and Visiting Pastor to Crooked Creek. Address: 9013 8th Street, Dawson Creek, B.C., Canada V1G 3N3.

Alden, Kenneth James. Ordained June 6, 1980; 2nd degree, May 16, 1982. As of July 1, 1996 Pastor of the Colchester Society. Address: 8 Stoneleigh Park, Lexden, Colchester, Essex, England C03 5FA.

Alden, Mark Edward. Ordained June 10, 1979; 2nd degree, May 17, 1981. Unassigned; presently working in the medical field. Address: P. O. Box 204, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Ankra-Badu, William Ofei. Ordained June 15, 1986; 2nd degree, March 1, 1992. Continues to serve as a Pastor of the Accra-Abelemkpe Group, Ghana, and Atwima-Koforidua Group. Address: P.O. Box 11305, Accra-North, Ghana, West Africa.     

Appelgren, Goran Reinhold. Ordained June 7, 1992; 2nd degree, July 3, 1994. Continues to serve as Resident Pastor of the Stockholm Society. Address: Aladdinsv?gen 27, S-167 61 Bromma, Sweden.

Asplundh, Kurt Horigan. Ordained June 19, 1960; 2nd degree, June 19, 1962. Retired. Address: P.O. Box 512, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Asplundh, Kurt Hyland. Ordained June 6, 1993; 2nd degree, April 30, 1995. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Chicago Society. Address: 1334 W. Newport Ave., #2, Chicago, IL 60657.

Barnett, Wendel Ryan. Ordained June 7, 1981; 2nd degree, June 20, 1982. Continues to serve as Assistant Pastor of the Olivet Society (Toronto) and Senior "Protestant" Chaplain 514 AMW McGuire AFB, New Jersey. Address: 134 Smithwood, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada M9B 4S4.

Bau-Madsen, Arne. Ordained June 6, 1976; 2nd degree, June 11, 1978. Continues to serve as Associate Pastor to Kempton, Visiting Pastor to Wilmington, Delaware and Wallenpaupack, Pennsylvania; translator. Address: Box 527, Rt. 1, Lenhartsville, PA 19534.

Bown, Christopher Duncan. Ordained June 18, 1978; 2nd degree, December 23, 1979. As of July 1, 1996 appointed as an instructor in the Academy of the New Church Theological School and in the graduate program for lay people and distance learning through the Internet; Visiting Pastor of the Connecticut Circle. Address: P. O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Boyesen, Bjorn Adolph Hildemar. Ordained June 19, 1939; 2nd degree, March 30, 1941. Retired; translator of the Writings from Latin to modern Swedish. Address: l Bruksoter, S?terfors 10, S-566 91, Habo, Sweden.

Boyesen, Ragnar. Ordained June 19, 1972; 2nd degree, June 17, 1973. As of July 1, 1996 Pastor of the Jonkoping and Copenhagen Circles. Address: Oxelgatan 6, S-565 21, Mullsjo, Sweden.

Burke, William Hanson. Ordained June 7, 1981; 2nd degree, August 13, 1983. Retired. Address: 755 Arbour Glenn Court, Lawrenceville, GA 30243.

Buss, Erik James. Ordained June 10, 1990; 2nd degree, September 13, 1992. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Cascade New Church, Seattle, Washington, and Visiting Pastor of the Northwest District. Address: 5409-154th Ave. NE, Redmond, WA 98052.

544




Buss, Peter Martin, Jr. Ordained June 6, 1993; 2nd degree, June 18, 1995. As of July 1, 1996 Assistant Pastor of the Immanuel Church. Address: 73A Park Drive, Glenview, IL 60025.

Buthelezi, Ishborn M. Ordained August 18, 1985; second degree, August 23, 1987. Recognized as a General Church minister, November 19, 1989. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Clermont Society, Enkumba Society and also Hambrook Society at times. Address: P.O. Box 150, Clernaville, Kwa Zulu-Natal, 3602, Rep. of South Africa.

Carlson, Mark Robert. Ordained June 10, 1973; 2nd degree, March 6, 1977. Address: P.O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Carswell, Eric Hugh. Ordained June 10, 1979; 2nd degree, February 22, 1981. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Glenview Society, President of the Midwestern Academy, and Regional Pastor of the Midwest United States. Address: 73 Park Drive, Glenview, IL 60025.

Chapin, Frederick Merle. Ordained June 15, 1986; 2nd degree, October 23, 1988. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Charlotte Circle. Address: 6625 Rolling Ridge Drive, Charlotte, NC 28211.

Childs, Geoffrey Stafford. Ordained June 19, 1952; 2nd degree, June 19, 1954. Retired; continues to serve as Bishop's Representative in South Africa and EVP of the General Church in South Africa Corporation. Address: 7 Sydney Drive, Westville, Kwa Zulu-Natal, 3630, Rep. of South Africa.

Childs, Robin Waelchli. Ordained June 6, 1984; 2nd degree, June 8, 1986. Continues to serve as a teacher of religion in the Academy Secondary Schools. Address: P. O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Clifford, William Harrison. Ordained June 6, 1976; 2nd degree, October 8, 1978. Resigned. Address: 1544 Giddings Ave. SE, Gorand Rapids, MI 49507-2223.

Cole, Robert Hudson Pendleton. Ordained June 16, 1963; 2nd degree, October 30, 1966. Retired. Address: P.O. Box 356, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Cole, Stephen Dandridge. Ordained June 19, 1977; 2nd degree, October 15, 1978. Continues to serve as Pastor of the San Diego Society and Visiting Pastor to the Albuquerque Circle. Address: 941 Ontario Street, Escondido, CA 92025.

Cooper, James Pendleton. Ordained June 13, 1982; 2nd degree, March 4, 1984. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Washington Society and Principal of the Washington New Church School. Address: 11910 Chantilly Lane, Mitchellville, MD 20721.     

Cowley, Michael Keith. Ordained June 13, 1982; 2nd degree, May 13, 1984. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Carmel Church Society, Kitchener, Canada. Address: 58 Chapel Hill Drive, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 3W5.

Cranch, Harold Covert. Ordained June 19, 1941; 2nd degree, October 15, 1942. Retired. Acting Pastor of the Sacramento Circle and assisting local pastors as needed. Address: 501 Porter Street, Glendale, CA 91205.

Darkwah, Simpson Kwasi. Ordained June 7, 1992; 2nd degree, August 28, 1994. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Tema, Ghana Circle and Visiting Pastor of the Madina Circle. Address: House #AA3 - Community 4, Box 1483, Tema, Ghana, West Africa.

de Padua, Mauro Santos. Ordained June 7, 1992; 2nd degree, June 12, 1994. Continues to serve as Assistant to the Pastor of the Glenview Society and traveling minister to the Midwestern District. Address: 74 Park Drive, Glenview, IL 60025.

Dibb, Andrew Malcolm Thomas. Ordained June 6, 1984; 2nd degree, May 18, 1986. Continues to serve as Pastor of the New Church Buccleuch, Pastor of the Cape Town Group, Dean of the South African Theological School. Address: P.O. Box 816, Kelvin, Gauteng, 2054, Rep. of South Africa.

545




Echols, John Clark, Jr. Ordained August 26, 1978; 2nd degree, March 30, 1980. Continues to serve as Pastor of The Sower's Chapel, Sarver, PA. Address: 980 Sarver Road, Sarver, PA 16055.

Elphick, Derek Peter. Ordained June 6, 1993; 2nd degree, May 22, 1994. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Boynton Beach Society also serving Melbourne, Bonita Springs and Pompano Beach. Address: 10621 El Clair Ranch Road, Boynton Beach, FL 33437.

Elphick, Frederick Charles. Ordained June 6, 1984; 2nd degree September 23, 1984. Continues to serve as Pastor of Michael Church, London, England, Visiting Pastor to the Surrey Circle. Address: 21B Hayne Road, Beckenham, Kent, England, BR3 4JA.

Gladish, Michael David. Ordained June 10, 1973; 2nd degree, June 30, 1974. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Olivet Church (Toronto), Principal of the Olivet Day School, and Executive Vice President of the General Church in Canada. Address: 2 Lorraine Gardens, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, M9B 4Z4.

Gladish, Nathan Donald. Ordained June 13, 1982; 2nd degree, November 6, 1983. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Pittsburgh New Church and Principal and Head Teacher of the Pittsburgh New Church School. Address: 299 Le Roi Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15208.

Goodenough, Daniel Webster. Ordained June 19, 1965; 2nd degree, December 10, 1967. Continues to serve as President of the Academy of the New Church. Address: P.O. Box 711, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Gyamfi, Martin Kofi. Ordained June 9, 1991; 2nd degree, August 28, 1994. Continues to serve as Resident Pastor for Asakraka-Kwahu Group and Visiting Pastor for Nteso and Oframase Groups. Address: The New Church, P. O. Box 10, Asakraka-Kwahu, E/R, Ghana, West Africa.

Halterman, Barry Childs. Ordained June 5, 1994; 2nd degree, September 8, 1996. Continues to serve as Assistant to the Executive Vice President of the General Church in Canada and Executive Director of Information Swedenborg, Inc. Address: 22 Clissold Road, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada M8Z 4T5.

Heilman, Andrew James. Ordained June 18, 1978; 2nd degree, March 8, 1981. Continues to serve as Assistant Pastor to the Kempton Society and teacher in the Kempton New Church School. Address: R.D. 2, Box 172, Kempton, PA 19529.

Heinrichs, Daniel Winthrop. Ordained June 19, 1957; 2nd degree, April 6, 1958. Retired. Address: 9115 Chrysanthemum Drive, Boynton Beach, FL 33437-1236.

Heinrichs, Willard Lewis Davenport. Ordained June 19, 1965; 2nd degree, January 26, 1969. Continues to serve as an instructor in the Academy of the New Church Theological School and College and a Visiting Pastor to the Baltimore Society. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Howard, Geoffrey Horace. Ordained June 19, 1961; 2nd degree, June 2, 1963. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Boston Society. Address: 17 Cakebread Drive, Sudbury, MA 01776.

Jin, Yong Jin. Ordained June 5, 1994; 2nd degree, June 16, 1996. As of July 1, 1996 Pastor to the Korean-speaking members of the Church in the greater Philadelphia area, and responsible for outreach to the Korean-speaking community in this area. Address. P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Junge, Kent. Ordained June 10, 1979; 2nd degree, June 24, 1981. Resigned.

546




Junge, Robert Schill. Ordained June 19, 1955; 2nd degree, August 11, 1957. As of July 1, 1996, became Pastor of the Kempton Society. Address: 8551 Junge Lane, RD 1, Kempton, PA 19529.

Keith, Brian Walter. Ordained June 6, 1976; 2nd degree, June 4, 1978. Continues to serve as Dean of the Academy of the New Church Theological School and Regional Pastor of the Northeast United States. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

King, Cedric. Ordained June 10, 1979; 2nd degree, November 27, 1980. Continues to serve as part-time Pastor of the El Toro New Church Circle, Visiting Pastor to the Bay Area Circle of the General Church and Marriage and Family Therapist in the Orange County area. Address: 21332 Forest Meadow, El Toro, CA 92630.

Kline, Thomas Leroy. Ordained June 10, 1973; 2nd degree, June 15, 1975. As of July 1, 1996 became Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Society. Address: P.O. Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Kwak, Dzin Pyung. Ordained June 12, 1988; 2nd degree, November 11, 1990. Continues to serve as a Pastor of the General Church in Korea (on special assignment). Address: #101-704, Jinlo Apt., B-2 block, Deangchon-dong, Kangseo-Ku, Seoul, Korea 157-031.

Larsen, Ottar Trosvik. Ordained June 19, 1974; 2nd degree, February 16, 1977. Resigned. Address: 2145 Country Club Drive, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.

Lindrooth, David Hutchinson. Ordained June 10, 1990; 2nd degree, April 19, 1992. As of July 1, 1996 Pastor of the Ivyland New Church. Address: 851 W. Bristol Road, Ivyland, PA 18974.

Maseko, Jacob. Ordained November 29, 1992; 2nd degree, September 18, 1994. Pastor of the Diepkloof Society. Address: P. O. Box 261, Pimville, Gauteng, 1808, Rep. of South Africa.

Mbatha, Bekuyise Alfred. Ordained June 27, 1971; 2nd degree, June 23, 1974. Recognized as a General Church minister November 26, 1989. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Kwa Mashu Society and Visiting Pastor to the Hambrook Society and Dondotha and Umlazi Groups. Address: H602, Kwa Mashu, Kwa Zulu-Natal, 4360, Rep. of South Africa.

Mcanyana, Chester. Ordained November 12, 1989; 2nd degree, September 25, 1994. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Impaphala Society and Visiting Pastor of the Empangeni Group. Address: P.O. Box 770, Eshowe, Kwa Zulu-Natal, 3815, Rep. of South Africa.

McCurdy, George Daniel. Ordained June 25, 1967; Recognized as a priest of the New Church in the second degree July 5, 1979; received into the priesthood of the General Church June 9, 1980. Retired; as of July 1, 1996, Visiting Pastor to the Hatfield Group. Address: P. O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Nemitz, Kurt Paul. Ordained June 16, 1963; 2nd degree, March 27, 1966. Unassigned. Address: 887 Middle Street, Bath, ME 04530.

Nicholson, Allison La Marr. Ordained September 9, 1979; 2nd degree, February 15, 1981. Retired. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Bath Society. Address: HC33, Box 61N, Arrowsic, ME 04530.

Nobre, Cristovao Rabelo. Ordained June 6, 1984; 2nd degree, August 25, 1985. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Rio de Janeiro Society and Campo Gorande Group. Address: Rua Lino Teixeira 109, Apt. 201, Rocha, Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil 20.970.

Odhner, Grant Hugo. Ordained June 7, 1981; 2nd degree, May 9, 1982. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Oak Arbor Society and Principal of the Oak Arbor Church School. Address: 395 Olivewood Court, Rochester, MI 48306.

Odhner, John Llewellyn. Ordained June 6, 1980; 2nd degree, November 22, 1981. Continues to serve as Pastor of the New Church at La Crescenta and Visiting Pastor to San Francisco Bay Area Circle. Address: 5022 Carolyn Way, La Crescenta, CA 91214.

547




Orthwein, Walter Edward, III. Ordained July 22, 1973; 2nd degree, June 12, 1977. Recognized as a priest of the General Church June 12, 1977. Continues to serve as Assistant Professor of religion, Academy of the New Church College and Theological School, and Visiting Pastor of the Central Pennsylvania Group. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Pendleton, Dandridge. Ordained June 19, 1952; 2nd degree, June 19, 1954. Retired. Address: P.O. Box 278, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Pendleton, Mark Dandridge. Ordained June 9, 1991; 2nd degree, May 29, 1994. Continues to serve as Assistant Pastor of the Oak Arbor Church and Visiting Pastor to the North Ohio Circle. Address: 4535 Oak Arbor Drive, Rochester, MI 48306.

Perry, Charles Mark. Ordained June 9, 1991; 2nd degree, June 19, 1993. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Atlanta Society. Address: 2119 Seaman Circle, Chamblee, GA 30341.

Riley, Norman Edward. Ordained June 14, 1950; 2nd degree June 20, 1951. Recognized as a priest of the General Church January, 1978. Retired. Address: 69 Harewood Road, Norden, Rochdale, Lancs., England, OL11 5TH.

Rogers, Prescott Andrew. Ordained January 26, 1986; 2nd degree, April 24, 1988. Continues to serve as an Assistant Professor of religion and education and Head of the Education Division in the Academy of the New Church College. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Rose, Donald Leslie. Ordained June 16, 1957; 2nd degree, June 23, 1963. Continues to serve as Editor of New Church Life and Assistant to the Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Society. Address: P.O. Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Rose, Frank Shirley. Ordained June 19, 1952; 2nd degree, August 2, 1953. Continues to serve as Pastor of Sunrise Chapel (Tucson) and Bishop's Representative for Western United States. Address: 9233 E. Helen Street, Tucson, AZ 85715.

Rose, Patrick Alan. Ordained June 19, 1975; 2nd degree, September 25, 1977. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Cincinnati Society, Visiting Pastor to South Ohio District, Indiana, Southern Ohio and Kentucky. Address: 785 Ashcroft Ct., Cincinnati, OH 45240.

Rose, Thomas Hartley. Ordained June 12, 1988; 2nd degree, May 21, 1989. Continues to serve as Bryn Athyn Church School Pastor. Address: P. O. Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Roth, David Christopher. Ordained June 9, 1991; 2nd degree, October 17, 1993. Continues to serve as Pastor of the New Church at Boulder, Colorado. Address: 4215 N. Broadway, Boulder, CO 80304.

Sandstrom, Erik. Ordained June 10, 1934; 2nd degree, August 4, 1935. Retired. Address: 3566 Post Road, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.

Sandstrom, Erik Emanuel. Ordained May 23, 1971; 2nd degree, May 21, 1972. As of July 1, 1996 Assistant Professor of religion in the Academy of the New Church College; Instructor in Theology Academy of the New Church Theological School; Head of Religion and Sacred Languages Division; Visiting Pastor to New Jersey Circle; Director of Evangelization for Academy of the New Church College; Director of Swedenborgiania. Box 740, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Schnarr, Arthur Willard, Jr. Ordained June 7, 1981; 2nd degree, June 19, 1983. Continues to serve as Resident Pastor of the Hurstville Society, and Visiting Pastor to Tamworth Circle. Address: 26 Dudley Street, Penshurst, NSW 2222, Australia.

Schnarr, Frederick Laurier. Ordained June 19, 1955; 2nd degree, May 12, 1957. Retired. Address: 3245 Paper Mill Road, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.

548




Schnarr, Grant Ronald. Ordained June 12, 1983; 2nd degree, October 7, 1984. Continues to serve as Director of Evangelization. Address: P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Simons, David Restyn. Ordained June 19, 1948; 2nd degree, June 19, 1950. Retired. Address: 561 Woodward Drive, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.

Simons, Jeremy Frederick. Ordained June 13, 1982; 2nd degree, July 31, 1983. As of July 1, 1996 Assistant Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Society. Address: P. O. Box 277, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Smith, Christopher Ronald Jack. Ordained June 19, 1969; 2nd degree, May 9, 1971. Continues to serve as a religion teacher in the Academy of the New Church Secondary Schools. Address: P.O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Smith, Lawson Merrell. Ordained June 10, 1979; 2nd degree, February 1, 1981. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Durban Society. Address: 8 Winslow Road, Westville, Kwa Zulu-Natal 3630, Republic of South Africa.

Stroh, Kenneth Oliver. Ordained June 19, 1948; 2nd degree, June 19, 1950. Retired. Address: P.O. Box 629, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Synnestvedt, Louis Daniel. Ordained June 6, 1980; 2nd degree, November 8, 1981. Serving part-time as Visiting Pastor to the Erie Circle. Address: RD 2, Box 227, Kempton, PA 19529.

Taylor, Douglas McLeod. Ordained June 19, 1960; 2nd degree, June 19, 1962. Retired. Address: 2704 Huntingdon Pike, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006.

Tshabalala, Njanyana Reuben. Ordained November 29, 1992; 2nd degree, September 18, 1994. Continues to serve as Pastor of the Balfour Society. Address: P. O. Box 851, Kwaxuma, Soweto, Gauteng, 1868, Rep. of South Africa.

Weiss, Jan Hugo. Ordained June 19, 1955; 2nd degree, May 12, 1957. Unassigned. President of New Church Outreach. Address: 2650 Del Vista Drive, Hacienda Heights, CA 91745.

Zungu, Aaron. Ordained August 21, 1938; 2nd degree, October 3, 1948. Recognized as a General Church minister November 25, 1989. Retired; still works on translation of the Writings into Zulu. Address: Box 408, Ntumeni, Kwa Zulu-Natal, 3830, Rep. of South Africa.

     MINISTERS

Anochi, Nicholas Wiredu. Ordained June 4, 1995. Continues to serve as a minister in Ghana, West Africa. Address: c/o Box 11305, Accra-North, Ghana, West Africa.

Barry, Eugene. Ordained June 15, 1986. Resigned. Address: 3086 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94114.

Fitzpatrick, Daniel. Ordained June 6, 1984. Unassigned. Address: 5845 Aurora Court, Lake Worth, FL 33643.

Rogers, N. Bruce. Ordained January 12, 1969. Continues to serve as General Church translator, Associate Professor of religion and Latin in the Academy of the New Church College. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Rose, Jonathan Searle. Ordained May 31, 1987. Continues to serve as a translator, instructor and chaplain at the Academy of the New Church College. Address: P.O. Box 717, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Schnarr, Philip B. Ordained June 5, 1996. As of July 1, 1996, Director of the Office of Education. Address: P. O. Box 743, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Schorran, Paul Edward. Ordained June 12, 1983. Unassigned. Address: RD 2, Box 14, Kempton, PA 19529.

549




Thabede, Ndaizane Albert. Ordained August 29, 1993. Continues to serve as Minister to the Alexandra Township Society. Address: 140 Phase One, Alexandra Township, P. O. Bramley, Gauteng, 2090, Rep. of South Africa.

     AUTHORIZED CANDIDATES

Bell, Reuben P. Address: P. O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.

Guerra, Vin?cius. Address: Rua Osvaldo Pereira Lira, 30 Campo Gorande - RJ, C.E.P. 23.070-060 Brazil.

Nzimande, Edward E. Address: 1701 - 31st Avenue, Clermont Township, P. O. Clernaville, Kwa Zulu-Natal 3602, Rep. of South Africa.

     ASSOCIATE MINISTERS

Nicolier, Alain. Ordained May 31, 1979; 2nd degree, September 16, 1984. Address: Bourguignon, Meursanges, 21200 Beaune, France.

Sheppard, Leslie Lawrence. Ordained June 7, 1992. Invited by the Brisbane New Church to take up a pastorate in the Association of the New Church in Australia, for whom he is working. This assignment was taken up with the full support of the Bishop of the General Church; President of the Australian Association of the New Church. Address: 3 Shadowood Street, Kenmore Hills, Brisbane, Queensland 4069, Australia.

     EVANGELIST

Eubanks, W. Harold. Address: 516 US 280 West, Americus, GA 31709.

     SOCIETIES AND CIRCLES

Society                    Pastor or Minister
Alexandra Township, R.S.A.     Rev. N. Albert Thabede
Atlanta, Georgia               Rev. C. Mark Perry
Balfour, R.S.A.               Rev. N. Reuben Tshabalala
Baltimore, Maryland          Rev. Willard L. D. Heinrichs
Bath, Maine                    Rev. Allison L. Nicholson
Boston, Massachusetts          Rev. Geoffrey H. Howard
Boynton Beach, Florida          Rev. Derek P. Elphick
Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania     Rev. Thomas L. Kline
                         Rev. Jeremy F. Simons, Assistant Pastor
                         Rev. Donald L. Rose, Assistant to Pastor
                         Rev. Thomas H. Rose, School Pastor
Buccleuch, R.S.A.               Rev. Andrew M. T. Dibb
Chicago, Illinois           Rev. Kurt Hy. Asplundh
Cincinnati, Ohio               Rev. Patrick A. Rose
Clermont, R.S.A.               Rev. Ishborn M. Buthelezi
Colchester, England          Rev. Kenneth J. Alden
Detroit, Michigan               Rev. Grant H. Odhner
(Oak Arbor Church)          Rev. Mark D. Pendleton, Assistant Pastor
Diepkloof, R.S.A.               Rev. Jacob Maseko
Durban, R.S.A.               Rev. Lawson M. Smith
Enkumba, R.S.A.               Rev. Ishborn M. Buthelezi
Freeport, Pennsylvania          Rev. J. Clark Echols, Jr.

550



Glenview, Illinois          Rev. Eric H. Carswell
                         Rev. Peter M. Buss, Jr., Assistant Pastor
                         Rev. Mauro S. de Padua, Assistant to Pastor
Hambrook, R.S.A.               Rev. B. Alfred Mbatha
Hurstville, Australia          Rev. Arthur W. Schnarr, Jr.
Impaphala, R.S A.               Rev. N. Chester Mcanyana
Ivyland, Pennsylvania          Rev. David H. Lindrooth
Kempton, Pennsylvania          Rev. Robert S. Junge
                         Rev. Andrew J. Heilman, Assistant Pastor
                              Rev. Arne Bau-Madsen, Associate Pastor
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada     Rev. Michael K. Cowley
(Carmel Church)     
Kwa Mashu, R.S.A.               Rev. B. Alfred Mbatha
La Crescenta, California     Rev. John L. Odhner
London, England
(Michael Church)               Rev. Frederick C. Elphick           
Phoenix, Arizona               Rt. Rev. Louis B. King
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania     Rev. Nathan D. Gladish          
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil          Rev. Cristovao R. Nobre
San Diego, California          Rev. Stephen D. Cole
Stockholm, Sweden               Rev. Goran R. Appelgren
Toronto, Ontario, Canada     Rev. Michael D. Gladish
(Olivet Church)               Rev. Wendel R. Barnett, Assistant Pastor
                         Rev. Barry C. Halterman, Assistant to Pastor
Tucson, Arizona               Rev. Frank S. Rose
Washington, D. C.               Rev. James P. Cooper

Circle                         Visiting Pastor or Minister
Albuquerque, New Mexico          Rev. Stephen D. Cole
Americus, Georgia               Rev. C. Mark Perry
                         W. Harold Eubanks, Evangelist
Auckland, New Zealand          Rev. Arthur W. Schnarr, Jr.
Charlotte, North Carolina     Rev. Fred M. Chapin
Connecticut                    Rev. Christopher D. Bown
Copenhagen, Denmark          Rev. Ragnar Boyesen
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas     
Dawson Creek, B. C., Canada     Rev. Glenn G. Alden
El Toro, California          Rev. Cedric King
Erie, Pennsylvania          Rev. Louis D. Synnestvedt
The Hague, Holland     
Jonkoping, Sweden               Rev. Ragnar Boyesen
Lake Helen, Florida          Rev. Derek P. Elphick
Madina, Ghana               Rev. S. Kwasi Darkwah
Manchester, England     
Montreal, Quebec, Canada     
North New Jersey/New York     Rev. Erik E. Sandstrom
North Ohio                    Rev. Mark D. Pendleton
Puget Sound, Washington
(Cascade New Church)          Rev. Erik J. Buss
Sacramento, California          Rev. Harold C. Cranch

551



St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota
San Francisco, California     Rev. John L. Odhner
South Ohio                    Rev. Patrick A. Rose
Surrey, England               Rev. Fred C. Elphick
Tamworth, Australia          Rev. Arthur W. Schnarr, Jr.
Tema, Ghana                    Rev. S. Kwasi Darkwah
Wallenpaupack, Pennsylvania     Rev. Arne Bau-Madsen

Note: Besides the General Church societies and circles there are groups in various geographical areas that receive occasional visits from a minister. This information is published in New Church Life periodically in "Information on General Church Places of Worship" (see June, 1996 issue).

     New Assignments for Ministers

     1996-1997

     All effective July 1, 1996

     The Rev. Kenneth Alden has accepted a call to become Pastor of the Colchester Society.

The Rev. Christopher Bown has accepted appointment as an instructor in the Academy of the New Church Theological School and in the graduate program for lay people and distance learning through the Internet, and Visiting Pastor of the Connecticut Circle.
The Rev. Peter Buss, Jr. has accepted a call to become assistant pastor of the Immanuel Church in Glenview.
The Rev. David Lindrooth has accepted a call to become pastor of the Ivyland New Church.
The Rev. Bjorn Boyesen retired from full-time service over 15 years ago, and has, in his retirement, served the church in Scandinavia as Visiting Pastor to the Copenhagen Circle until 1993, and as Resident Pastor to the Jonkoping Circle until the present. He has asked to retire from this position in order to spend more time on translating the Writings into Swedish.     
This retirement has placed an added burden on the Rev. Goran Appelgren, who is presently Pastor of the Stockholm Society and Visiting Pastor to Copenhagen. As a result the boards of the three centers in Scandinavia sent me an urgent request for a second pastor in Scandinavia whenever a pastor could become available. I am pleased to announce that the Rev. Ragnar Boyesen, who is presently Pastor of the Kempton Society, has accepted a call to become the Pastor of the Jonkoping and Copenhagen Circles, and to be the Visiting Pastor to Norway.
The Rev. Robert Junge has accepted a call to become the interim pastor of the Kempton Society for a period of up to three years.
     Rt. Rev. Peter M. Buss

552




     LOCAL SCHOOLS DIRECTORY 1996-97

Office of Education: Cairncrest, Bryn Athyn     General Church Schools Support System
Rev. Philip B. Schnarr     Director
Carol Buss     Assistant Director
*     Gretchen Keith     Resource Center Coordinator
*     Jill Rogers     Curriculum Coordinator; School Support
Bryn Athyn: Barbara Doering     Principal
*     Jill Rogers     Assistant to the Principal
Tom Rose     School Pastor
Kathy Orthwein      Kindergarten
Kit Rogers     Kindergarten
Beth Bochneak     Grade 1
Robin Morey     Grade 1
Candy Quintero     Grade 1
Claire Bostock     Grade 2
Lois McCurdy     Grade 2
Linda Kees     Grade 3
Kris Ritthaler     Grade 3
Judy Soneson     Grade 3
Melinda Friesen     Grade 4
Vanessa Heinrichs     Grade 4
Rosemary Wyncoll     Grade 4 Aide
Sheila Daum     Grade 5
Alix Smith     Grade 5
Heather Klein     Grade 6
Kim Simons     Grade 6
Carol Nash     Grade 7-Girls
Steven Irwin     Grade 7-Boys
Melodie Greer     Grade 7-Boys Aide
Gail Simons     Grade 8-Girls
Eyvind Boyesen     Grade 8-Boys
Reed Asplundh     Computers
Robert Eidse     Physical Education
No?l Klippenstein     Physical Education
Margit Irwin     Music
Dianna Synnestvedt     Art
Judith Smith     Librarian
*     Marion Gyllenhaal     Remedial & Support Uses
*     Fay Lindrooth     Remedial & Support Uses
*     Gretchen Glover     Kindergarten Aide
*     Amy Jones     Kindergarten Aide
*     Elizabeth Childs     Intermediate Aide
*     Janna Lindsay     Grade 5 Reading
*     Leanne Waters     Grade 8 Aide
*     Karen Harantschuk     Tutor
*     Evangeline Lindrooth     Tutor
*     Eileen Rogers     Tutor
*     Star Silverman     Tutor
*     Robin Trautmann     Tutor

553





Durban: (1996 school year - January 1 - December 31, 1996)
Rev. Lawson M. Smith     Headmaster, Religion
Sarah Berto     Grades 1-2
Anthea Pike (as of 7/23)     Grades 3-4
Jane Edmunds     Grades 5-7
*     Elizabeth Andrew (till 6/28)     Grades 3-7 Math, Art
*     Oonagh Chaning-Pearce     Afrikaans, Zulu

Glenview: Rev. Eric H. Carswell     Headmaster
Jeryl Fuller     Co-administrator; Grades 7-8
Rebekah Russell     Co-administrator; Grades 3-4
Laura Barger     Kindergarten, Music
Joanne Kiel     Grades 1-2
Phil Parker     Grades 5-6
*     Yvonne Alan     Grades 7-8
Gordon McClarren     Math, Science
*     Jennifer de P?dua     P.E.
*     Jennifer Overeem     Art
*     Connie Smith     Resource Center

Kempton: Rev. Robert Junge     Principal
Mark Wyncoll     Vice Principal; Grades 7-10
*     Claire Biermann     Kindergarten
*     Kathy Schrock     Grade 1
*     Heather King     Grade 2
Alex Rogers     Grades 3-4
Curtis McQueen     Grades 5-6
Eric Smith     Grades 7-10
*     Rev. Andrew Heilman     Religion, Science, Hebrew, Computer
*     Kate Pitcairn     Science, Latin

Kitchener: Julie Niall     Principal; Grades 7-8 Science & Math
Nina Riepert     Pre-K, K; Grades 7-8 Language Arts & Social Studies
Mary Jane Hill     Grades 1-3
Josephine Kuhl     Grades 4-6
*     Rev. Michael Cowley     Pastor, Scripture Study
*     Muriel Glebe     French

Oak Arbor: Rev. Grant H. Odhner     Principal
Liane Sandstrom (till 12/31)     Grades 1-3
Melissa Eller (as of 1/1)     Grades 1-3
Nathaniel Brock     Grades 4-5
*     Nancy Genzlinger     Grades 3-4 Language Arts
*     Rev. Mark Pendleton     Religion

Pittsburgh: Rev. Nathan D. Gladish     Pastor/Principal, Religion
Vivienne Riley     Grades 1-2
James Pafford     Grades 4&6
*     Jennifer Lindsay     Pre-kindergarten, Kindergarten

554




Toronto: Steve Krause     Principal, Grades 3-5
Natalie Lambertus     Grades 1-2
James Bellinger     Grade 7 & Misc.
*     Gillian Parker     Jr. & Sr. Kindergarten

Washington: Rev. James P. Cooper     Principal, Worship, Religion
Karen Hyatt     Kindergarten & Misc.
Kim Maxwell     Grades 1-2
Jean Allen     Grades 3-4
Dean Schroeder     Grades 5-6
Kathy Johns     Grades 7-8
Carole Waelchli     Grades 9-10

Midwestern Academy (MANC): Rev. Eric H. Carswell     Administrator, Religion
*     Yvonne Alan     Administrative Co-ordinator; Grades 9-10
*     Rev. Mauro de Padua     Chaplain, Religion

     * Major Part-time


     SCHOOL ENROLLMENTS 1996-1997

     The Academy
Theological School (Full-time)     9
Theological School Masters Program (Full-time)     3
College (Full-time)     113
Girls School          107
Boys School          126
          Total Academy     358


     Midwestern Academy
Grades 9 & 10 (Part-time)     8

     Society Schools
Bryn Athyn     366
Durban     40
Glenview     48
Kempton     76
Kitchener     34
Oak Arbor     18
Pittsburgh     18
Toronto     30
Washington      45
               Total Society Schools     675

Total Reported Enrollment in All Schools     1041

555


REPORT OF THE BISHOP OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 1996

REPORT OF THE BISHOP OF THE GENERAL CHURCH              1996

     1995/96

     The General Church has come a long way in the one hundred years of its existence. It has not grown dramatically, but it has increased slowly in numbers, year by year. Some congregations have come and gone. Others have flourished. Some new ones have grown up. Today there are approximately 12,000 people around the world who are served by the General Church, and more who receive services from it. We have good relations with nearly all other New Church organizations, and seek to serve them when we can. For example, many people from around the world take advantage of the education materials put out by the Office of Education, and they will be using the new General Church web site (http://www.newchurch.org/).
     In spiritual matters there is so much that lies before us. Do we have a clear picture of the Glorified Divine Human of the Lord? Have we allowed the revelation of His Divine Human to affect our consciousness so that we have a sense of His presence in His church? How much do we know about the miracles of the human mind which He has now revealed? Do we yet have a sense of the distinctive feminine and masculine so that we may advance towards a culture which honors both as the Lord Himself would have us honor them? We need progress in collateral works that look to life, helping people to see how the truths of the Second Advent can transfer to values and attitudes, and help us with the challenges of life. And so it goes on.
     These needs are good needs, and they will be with the world a thousand years from now. The Writings were given to us so that we can seek continuous improvement-in our church and in our own lives to eternity.
     In organizational matters too we need to take small incremental steps so that we can better serve the purposes of the New Church. To that end the Joint Committee of the General Church, consisting of some ministers and board members, has been working on planning for the central organization.

556


We know that the essential uses of the General Church are performed at the local congregational level, as people worship the Lord, learn from Him, and support each other in their efforts to live the life of religion. How can the central church support these uses and promote new uses in the church?
     We have looked at the following areas:

a.     Support for pastoral uses-worship, instruction, congregational life
b.     Education at all levels
c.     Evangelization
d.     Translation, especially of the Writings
e.     Support uses such as our official journal, publications, the secretary's office and our financial support services
f.     The development of the church in new countries
g.     New initiatives (most of which fall into one of the above categories).

     In each area we are trying to ask ourselves how we might be positioned to serve the uses of the New Church. The General Church is not the New Church; it is an organization which serves the Lord's church on earth.
     Our planning is far from over. The board and the clergy are receiving reports and much work needs to be done.

The General Assembly

     The 32nd General Assembly has come and gone, and by all accounts was a great success. Around 1,200 people were enrolled (the number is greater if you count those who were able to come to only a very few events). A variety of presentations was given by lay and priest speakers on the general theme of "Toward a New Church Culture." In addition, many other activities took place in which people with common interests from all over the church were able to share their insights with one another and receive support. I want to express very warm appreciation to the organizers of the assembly, and especially to Mr. Hyland Johns, Chairman of the committee, and Mr. Stephen Asplundh, Vice Chairman, for all they did to make the assembly such a success.

557




Some Special Visits

     I have reported already in the pages of New Church Life on the visits which Lisa and I were privileged to make to the annual meeting of the General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain, and to Japan. We also had the pleasure of a visit to Korea at the same time that we visited Japan, and enjoyed meeting the small but dedicated group of New Church members in Seoul, South Korea, under the leadership of the Rev. Dzin Kwak. It is truly inspiring to see the love which people around the world have for the church, and we returned from these visits humbled and deeply grateful for the work of the Lord's church in lands far distant from our largest church center. It is worth noting that at the assembly the Rev. and Mrs. Jon Jin hosted a dinner for 35 people of Japanese and Korean backgrounds to discuss the growth of the church in their two lands.
At the assembly we heard addresses by the incoming and outgoing presidents of the General Conference, the Rev. Messrs. Norman Ryder and John Sutton, on the work of the Conference in Great Britain and elsewhere.

Pastoral Moves-These are listed in the General Church Directory (see page 551).
     There are other changes in our circles. The Rev. Louis Synnestvedt is the Visiting Pastor to Erie, Pennsylvania, replacing the Rev. Kenneth Alden. The Rev. George McCurdy is a visiting minister to the new Hatfield Group. And the Rev. Stephen Cole has been for a year now the Visiting Pastor to the Albuquerque Circle.

Retirements

     We had two notable pastors retire. The Rev. Kurt Asplundh was ordained in 1960 and served as assistant and Pastor in Pittsburgh before coming to Bryn Athyn in 1972. Kurt served the Bryn Athyn Society for 24 years, first as Principal of the Bryn Athyn School, then Dean, and finally as its Pastor.

558


The leadership of our largest society requires many talents. Kurt was amazingly successful for more than two decades because his chief attributes are those of a good pastor. Kurt is thoroughly devoted to the doctrines and to the New Church. You could not find a man more clearly focused in his values and his priorities. Kurt thinks from doctrine, acts from principles drawn from the doctrine, and leads people to the Lord in His threefold Word. In addition, Kurt himself is a man of unquestioned integrity: "What you see is what you get." People have been able to trust his intentions and his word, and have felt comforted in the leadership of one who so clearly honors the truth. When one combines these qualities with pastoral skills, a calm demeanor, administrative ability and a ready humor, the "mix" makes an outstanding pastor. Then there is his wife Martha, with her own deep dedication to the Writings and her love for the church, and her talent as a hostess for parties, small and great. They both will be sorely missed, and we wish them a well-deserved happy retirement.
     The Rev. Fred Schnarr became a minister in 1955. Fred started as Pastor in the old Chicago Society, and then moved to Washington in 1958. Fred supervised the move of the congregation to Mitchellville, Maryland, and the founding of Acton Park. There he began a school, and this defined his unique contribution to the church. For 19 years he has been the acknowledged leader of New Church elementary education, and he has brought a fresh perspective to this use which is so vital to the health of our church. Fred is a visionary, but he is also a doer. He loves the goal of New Church education, and he has seen many new ways in which it can be promoted. He has the unique ability to convey his visions to others and to inspire them to work on them. Dreams are not enough. He sees all the potential obstacles to making the dreams come true, and he goes about eliminating them, one by one.
     Over the last two decades he led us to develop a new religion curriculum for our schools.

559


He brought the teachers and ministers together to study the doctrines, curricula, and educational practice, and injected a new sense of urgency into the work we are doing. His convictions, his common sense, his understanding of education in the light of the Lord's complete Word, and his persistence in pursuing a goal have been a rock to us all. He formed the Office of Education to support our various schools, and then branched out to support education in many areas-with our seniors (the budding "Eldergarten movement"), with our young people and with children the world over.
     We will miss Fred's vitality and his judgment, his wry humor, and his straight talk. We will miss particularly his sense of what New Church education is and what it can become. We hope we can thank him by carrying the vision to the next generation. And now and then we'll be asking his help-whether he is in the wilds of West Virginia, in Boynton Beach, Florida, or on his occasional visits to his new home near Bryn Athyn.
     Thank you, Kurt and Martha, and Fred and Edna (who is surely smiling on her husband from the other world as he moves on to new things). How fortunate we have been as a church organization to have such people to serve us.

Bryn Athyn Society

     The largest congregation of the New Church in the world began its new era under the pastorate of the Rev. Tom Kline on July 1, 1996. In preparation, there was a meeting of 60 to 70 people over three days in March, taking part in what was called "Future Search." It was an effort of many minds, representing people from different aspects of the Bryn Athyn Church, to work together to look towards the future uses of this congregation. The spirit of the meetings was remarkable-harmonious, yet open. I felt a lot of excitement as we explored possibilities for the next few years, and we felt the warmth and the competence of our new Bryn Athyn pastor. We look forward to the results of this work, and to the leadership of Mr. Kline as we approach the 21st century.

560



     Our church grows in small increments. So it is with our own spiritual growth-a tiny bit of progress is made, almost unnoticed. Sometimes it seems to go the other way, and we appear to be regressing. But if we are dedicated to the principles for which our church came into existence, the Lord's Providence is working within those tiny steps, guiding them with an unseen hand towards a goal which only He can see but which bodes well for His church and for us as individuals. May His hand be upon us as we work for His church, and may we trust His leading in the uses which we do.

STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

As Bishop of the General Church
Pastoral Visits - 20
General Assembly
Inauguration into priesthood - 1
Ordination into second degree - 1
Board and Corporation meetings - 4
Bishop's Council meetings - 4
Consistory meetings - 7
Joint Committee meetings - 8
Advisory Council meetings - 12
Treasurers' meetings
GCIC annual meeting
Council of Clergy meetings
British Conference
Evangelization Seminar in Tucson
As Chancellor of the Academy of the New Church
Board and Corporation meetings - 10
Theological School faculty meetings - 5
High School chapel - 10
College chapel - 1
Theological School class "Conversations on Marriage"

Bryn Athyn Ministrations
Services: public, private and festival - 19
Cairnwood Village Class - 1
Bryn Athyn Future Search meetings?

561


POSITION AVAILABLE 1996

POSITION AVAILABLE              1996

     The Academy of the New Church College is seeking applicants for a faculty position beginning in the 1997-98 academic year. The successful candidate will be responsible for teaching courses in the elementary education program as well as other subjects if appropriate. Other possible assignments may include supervising the student teaching component of the education program, academic leadership, serving as a liaison with Holy Family College, and some responsibilities in the General Church Office of Education.
     Applicants should possess a vision of New Church education and have experience teaching at the elementary level. A master's degree is preferred. The Academy will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, and nationality or ethnic origin.
     A r?sum? and letter of application should be mailed by January 17th, 1997 to: Dean Charles W. Lindsay, Academy of the New Church College, P.O. Box 717-Pendleton Hall, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009.
"BLUE SKY" SYMPOSIUM/WORKSHOP 1996

"BLUE SKY" SYMPOSIUM/WORKSHOP              1996

     How, realistically, can the teachings of the Writings be brought into the lives of the world's five billion inhabitants in the near future? Could membership in the organized New Church be expanded to a million or more within a decade? What might be involved in developing a "sophisticated" New Church approach to major social, economic and political issues of our day, which seems clearly needed for such growth? Following from the "What if We Started the Church from Scratch Today?" mini-symposium put on by Drs. Reuben Bell and Kurt Simons at the assembly, a larger-scale symposium or workshop is planned under their supervision, following the same "all bets are off," "blue sky" brainstorming approach. (Transcripts and handouts from the mini-session are available from the addresses below.) The gathering may be held in a particular geographic location or via the internet or newsletter or some combination of these, to allow involvement of anyone, regardless of location. If you are interested in (a) being on the planning committee, (b) participating, or (c) being on the update mailing list, send name and address to: Kurt Simons, 37 Haddington Road, Lutherville, MD 21093, or e-mail to [email protected]. (A "Blue Sky" web site and e-mail list will be established at some point to facilitate communication in planning.)

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WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN? 1996

WHY NOT TEACH THE INTERNAL SENSE TO CHILDREN?       Editor       1996

     The Memorable Relations and Children

     The "memorabilia" are called by different translators "experiences," "narrative accounts," "memorable occurrences" or simply "stories." We have a history of calling them "memorable relations." Rev. W. F. Pendleton some seventy years ago was recommending their use in teaching children. His Topics from the Writings has been treasured by generations of New Church people.
     The very first items in that collection have to do with the memorabilia. On the first page he says that these parts of the Writings are among the first things "to be imparted to children and the young."
     For many years parents and teachers have read chosen memorable relations to children, and have perhaps adjusted the language as they went along. We would like to tell you of some excellent translation work that has been done. Amena Pendleton Haines used three English translations (and the Latin) to come up with versions that she included in the book The Pomegranate with Seeds of Gold. A dozen years ago Lisa Hyatt Cooper translated several memorabilia for easy reading. The level at which she aimed was "difficult but possible" for sixth grade and "easy" for high school students. Most of the work she did was published in New Church Home around 1982 and 1983. After this came the work of Rev. John Odhner in translating the first memorable relations in Conjugial Love. This series was published under the title Heaven's Happiness. It is intended to be easy for a sixth-grade reader. It has served a number of uses and has even been translated into Chinese.
     Many of us have known these "stories" from the Writings since childhood. We recall the story of the woman whose face was so beautiful it dazzled Swedenborg.

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Here is the way that incident is rendered in a very recent publication: "I saw her face, and I didn't see her face! I saw it as beauty itself, and I didn't see it because this is beyond description. For a flaming brightness was in her face-the kind of light that angels in the third heaven have-and it dulled my vision so that I was somewhat dazzled." This is the rendering by the late David Gladish from page 83 of the new book Conversations with Angels.
CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH 1996

CEASE FROM ANGER AND FORSAKE WRATH       Editor       1996

     In the book of Revelation we read of a woman clothed with the sun and of a great red dragon who threatened her. The account ends with reference to the anger of that dragon against the woman. The Writings tell us here of anger against the New Church, and they also teach about pride and the way it leads to anger against those who believe differently from oneself (see AR 565).
     One should beware of the red dragon as it exists outside of us and threatens us, and also as it exists in us and threatens others. "Every evil conceals in itself anger against good, since it wills to extinguish the good and even to kill him in whom good is, if not as to the body, still they do as to the soul, and this certainly comes from anger and is accompanied by anger" (AE 693e). There is among some in the other world "a general anger against the Lord" (AC 357).
     The Writings affirm the warning in the Sermon on the Mount about anger against a brother "without a cause" or "rashly" (Life 73). One of the insights we are given about this anger is in Apocalypse Explained 746, which says that this applies when we "think ill of our neighbor."
     When we think well and intend well we will not be in touch with the influx of the wrong kind of anger. We may be zealous for good causes and zealous in the protection of something precious. Zeal is a good thing, even when it looks very much like anger.
     Here is one last thought as we close this series.

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The prophet Jonah insisted on justifying his anger. If we want to justify our anger, we might be inclined simply to change the label and call it zeal! But the Writings show that zeal and anger are not just two labels for the same thing. They are as different from each other as heaven is from hell. For those who do not believe in hell or influx therefrom, this may mean very little.
     The wrong kind of feeling is not only rough on the outside. Inwardly it is "anger, rage and cruelty," whereas good zeal is inwardly "charity, grace and mercy" (see TCR 155).
TEACHING THE INTERNAL SENSE 1996

TEACHING THE INTERNAL SENSE       Dawn Barnitz Potts       1996

Dear Editor:
     I would like to express an opinion concerning the articles previously written which take the position, "The Internal Sense should not be taught to children." I believe that if this position were followed, this direction of thought would pivot the church in the wrong direction.
     Concerning the matter of teaching the internal sense to children, I take the position that you can't really teach anybody "the internal sense."
     The internal sense, the Writings teach, is the Word in the heavens, and is from a perception of the Divine. The Divine Itself with man is a treasure which is covered. It does not appear in the sense of the letter. " . . . the sense of the letter covers the interior things of the Word" (SS 45). We are taught that the "things of the spiritual sense lie hidden and do not appear except to those who love truths because they are truths and do goods because they are goods" (TCR 244).
     Learning what various things correspond to is not learning the internal sense.

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The Writings do teach the correspondence of many things and of several books of the Old and New Testaments, and state repeatedly that "this is the internal sense." But should one think that by just reading and learning the words there he is in that internal sense? SS 56 teaches "The spiritual sense is not communicated to anyone except by the Lord alone; and He guards it as He guards heaven, for heaven is within it."
     The language of correspondence was not known in the Most Ancient Church as mere scientific facts as we study it today. In the Most Ancient Church their minds were open inwardly to the spiritual world, and they could see from perception the living Divine Life represented in everything. By not providing our children with truths from the Latin Word I believe we underestimate the children's and the Lord's capabilities.
     It is recognized in studies of childhood that children see the whole world as wonderfully totally alive: trees, fairies, and balloons and puppets. They see everything as if there is life within, in an innocence which closely images the perception of the ancient churches. They can also perceive so beautifully the things of the letter of all three testaments of the Word. They delight in dancing, hearing, acting, repeating, learning all things which are taught with holiness. If we do not teach the meaning of numbers and stars and mustard seeds and the meaning of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, etc., as living states in our own minds, we are depriving our children, making a circumference made of our own limited sight.
     For example, the affections which animals represent, when learned and discussed, are received with such perception. Just the question, "What do you think the Lord was expressing when he created a giraffe?" inspires an inward thought. Or for example, to tell a child when he is holding a bunny rabbit how this soft gentle thing was created from something soft and gentle in the Lord, and that when we love the Lord and are kind, this can be in our own mind something living, just as soft and gentle as the bunny.

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     To confine children's minds to the letter of the Old and New Testaments is not seeing the reality and wonders of the New Word. These knowledges revealed are the Divine Human with us, and they are not to be compared with learning other things. These truths open inward and to eternity. The letter of the Arcana Coelestia can become familiar. Imagine a generation of children brought up in all these heaven-filled truths.
     Of course there always must be some appropriate accommodation according to the child's age; however, it is a significant truth that children will develop an affection for that with which they become familiar.
     I don't think teaching truths from the Writings, the New Word, to children has anything in common with teaching a child advanced mathematics or whether a child can read a map or not. A map is a map; the Word is the presence of the Lord, containing living vessels which can be filled with His Love and Wisdom. The problem is our own lack of connection with the Arcana and our own lack of knowledge and study. Without seeing it from the heart we can't teach it from the heart. Dry words do not as easily open up affection, but it is our duty to try, and to lay a foundation of external truth to form a relationship in children's minds with the Lord from the knowledge of correspondence. If we turn to the Lord, light and life will come. Will it not be that by loving these new truths and creating an atmosphere in our life out of them that our minds will open to an influx from the new heaven, and our minds will progress toward that celestial state to which the Lord longs to bring us?
     If we are to cultivate a ground in which the New Church is to flourish, the Arcana Coelestia must become a living entity in it, a holy presence in the minds of the people of the church. This cannot happen if its teachings are withheld from the children of the church, for becoming familiar with the new scientifics provides a basis for the light of that first day of creation.
     The light of the first day is to see "that the good and true are something higher" (AC 20).

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This apparently simple truth is the first key given to us to the interiors of the Word, for without our turning to the Lord every day in this acknowledgment, continually looking to something higher than our own thinking, no new internal light can be given.
     Dawn Barnitz Potts
          Merion, Pennsylvania
POSTSCRIPT 1996

POSTSCRIPT       Vera Goodenough Dyck       1996

Dear Editor:
     The sources that I referenced in my paper "Paradigm Shift and the Issue of Women in the Clergy" are letters, articles and papers that have all appeared previously in this publication, with the exception of a 1978 clergy paper by Rev. Donald L. Rose entitled "Derived Doctrine in the Church." This paper can be obtained by requesting it directly from him. Other clergy papers, such as those by Rev. Erik Buss and Rev. Stephen Cole, appeared in abbreviated form in New Church Life, and can be obtained in their entirety by contacting their authors. Sometimes you may find that your local pastor has copies of some of these papers. The lack of general availability of clergy papers is one thing that makes an open dialogue on these topics cumbersome.
     For anyone who is interested in reading more of my 30-page paper, please contact either myself (146 Lilac Lane, Chalfont, PA 18914) or Amy Childs (P.O. Box 707, Bryn Athyn, PA 19009), and we will be pleased to send you the paper in its entirety.
     Errata: On page 440 (Oct. 1996) the quote in the middle paragraph by Mr. Sandstrom should have read as follows: "How the church operates has to come from the Word and be objective" (emphasis mine).
     On the same page, the quote in the top paragraph should have been referenced to Mrs. Karen Hyatt, not Jorgenson.
     My apologies to Mr. Sandstrom and Mrs. Hyatt for the errors.
     Vera Goodenough Dyck

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VIEW ON WOMEN MINISTERS 1996

VIEW ON WOMEN MINISTERS       Rey W. Cooper       1996

Dear Editor:
     Having just finished Vera Dyck's article in the September NCL, I would like to take exception to her statement that there is no teaching in the Writings that says women should not be ministers. In the Spiritual Diary 5936 there is a short paragraph which describes what happens to women who preach, which says and emphasizes that "Woman belongs to the home; and she [becomes] of a different nature where [she engages in] preaching." To me this is a direct teaching that women should not be ministers. However, even if this is so, it does not mean that they are inferior but only that they are different. The number explains that woman's feminine nature is affectional and is harmed by concentration on intellectual preaching. Clearly there are many areas in which women are specifically gifted. Their affectional nature should be used to its greatest potential.
     Yes, I know that there are some who would exclude from the Writings what Swedenborg did not publish himself, and I accept that opinion for all those who want to believe it. However, I prefer for myself to believe his own words in AE 1183 where he says, "What has come from the Lord has been written; what has come from the angels has not." Of course it would be beneficial to read that whole number, because what should be believed should be not what is preferred but what makes the most sense, provided it is according to the Word.
     Most women are not likely to want to be ministers, I believe. What I offer here is only a matter of opinion, even though based on study.
     Rey W. Cooper
          Bryn Athyn, PA

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REPORTS FROM BRAZIL 1996

REPORTS FROM BRAZIL              1996




     Announcements





     The above announcements include reports which came from Brazil in the summer of 1995 but which did not reach our office until now.

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FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART 1996

FRIENDS OF NEW CHURCH ART       Helen Lindsay Lee       1996

Dear Editor:
     The Friends of New Church Art have now reproduced as a poster one of the entries at the Assembly '96 show. One of the works shown at the show stood out as perhaps being useful to the church and the artist in a new way.
     Popular today among old and young are posters, advertising in an artistic way something people love. The one entry titled "Truth, Water Is Life" by Anne York was suitable for this, the judges believed. Now you may judge.
     It is for sale at a most reasonable price of $18.00 plus mailing cost if mailing is required. The artist has received an award but does not benefit from this sale. The church and school book rooms do. Order or buy through these book rooms in Bryn Athyn.
     Thank you for your attention.
          Helen Lindsay Lee
               Pittsburgh, PA