Where have we come from and where are we going? Last week Joel looked back at some of the history of Bryn Athyn and the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Today he looks to the future—to what he sees we can do moving forward. -Editor.
So if the money has allowed Bryn Athyn to become what it is today, what is up with the rest of the world? The short answer, from what I can tell, is vastation as far as the eye can see. Vastation is the dying of the old to make way for the new. In the long term, it is actually a beautiful process. In the short term, it is always very painful. In this sense, it is exactly the same whether we talk about the collective states that society and churches go through, or the individual states that we go through in our own lives. When we are going through a temptation, vastation, or spiritual trial it is brutal. And the Writings tell us that these spiritual processes must run their course, even to despair. It is only later, looking back, when we can clearly see that old lower things in us needed to die in order that new higher things in us could be born. So in the big picture of the long term the world is also moving toward heat and light, love and enlightenment. But it cannot get there without going through pain and shadows.
There are numerous spiritual needs that the world has: clarity on sex and marriage, elucidation on salvation and the spiritual world, enlightenment on ethics and interrelationships between human beings. But saying that the New Church has spiritual truths to offer the world (which it does!!!) does not get us out of being everyday Christians. Once any church thinks it is special, what I call the “Chosen people syndrome,” then it is lost. What any Christian church needs in order to thrive is a focus on Jesus and his teachings—common charity: Do we go the extra mile, love our enemies, turn the other cheek? How much do we care about the naturally poor, not just the spiritually poor? Are we living the gospel life? Would we really sell all that we have and give it to the poor? Would we sell the Cathedral and give that money to the poor? Has the General Church become a comfortable country club? How much are we suffering for our faith (bearing our cross)?
Since their founding, Bryn Athyn and the General Church have always looked down on natural acts of charity (soup kitchens, orphanages, etc) as that “Protestant Social Gospel.” And while it is true that charity needs to be wise and discriminating, it is also true that it has always been easier for Bryn Athyn and the General Church to sit back behind their invisible walls, protected by the money from the outside world, and talk about helping people, as opposed to taking it to the streets. Don’t get me wrong. There are many kind, wonderful, loving, giving people associated with Bryn Athyn and the General Church. But over time too, it seems like the hierarchy and the politics, the power structure and the wealth have often seemed to be just as important as doctrine and charity. There are legitimate debates that can and should be had about how you help people. But if a church loses it first love, giving up all for the sake of the love of God and a tender fervent desire to share and care for our fellow human beings, then a church is no longer really a church. It then becomes a shadow of a real church, a hollow shell without an inner pulpy life, or, in Writings terms, a representation of a church as much as the real deal. At this point a sort of Kabuki theater seems to take over where people are going through certain motions and rituals, but something just seems off. The mojo is gone. The deep spirit is hidden. The power and the glory recede behind the clouds.
I think the short answer is people go wherever they want to go. According to the Writings, remnants come out of the old Church and become a new Church. The cycle of life repeats itself. According to the Writings though, the new Church is seldom if ever established with the old Church. The seeds and remnants usually find purchase in the ground of gentiles and their simple charity and desire to love God and help others.
A lot of this article has been a history lesson. I said I would talk about the New Church and money though and that is where I still want to end. The world today has not just tilted out of control spiritually, but also naturally. These are not quiet times: income inequality in the western world is approaching revolutionary levels, the planet is groaning as we hurt the environment, political institutions in the western world seem softly corrupt and inept, and the Islamic world is on fire.
I think the argument in Bryn Athyn, with the General Church and at the Academy, is that we have the money for a reason and that it is there to support valuable uses like New Church education. I can’t fault that thinking. But if we really were more aware and more exposed to the dire extreme need in the world, both naturally and spiritually, I don’t know if we could just sit back and be so incremental. How can you play golf while you know a baby is starving to death? How can you say I will get to that next year, when for some people there might not be a next year? When you grow up in the beauty and safety of Bryn Athyn you don’t know what it is like to grow up in the poverty and despair of parts of west and north Philly even though they are right down the road. When you grow up with so much spiritual truth that you get sick of hearing it all the time, you don’t know what it is like to grow up without almost any spiritual truth at all.
Where do we go from here? Wherever we want to. Wherever we are called to. Wherever we decide to go. If Jesus was here I think he would tell us all something very simple like, “go forth and serve.”
Joel is a native son of Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.