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New Church Perspective
is an online magazine with essays and other content published weekly. Our features are from a variety of writers dealing with a variety of topics, all celebrating the understanding and application of New Church ideas. For a list of past features by category or title, visit our archive.

Friday
Jun202014

The New Jerusalem Part 1

Having marked the anniversary of the establishment of the New Church this week, today we share the first of a two part article looking at what the new Jerusalem is, what it means that it is Jerusalem, and what it means to be a part of the “the holy city, New Jerusalem.” -Editor.

Why Jerusalem? Have you ever wondered about that? Why not Bethel or Bethlehem? Maybe I should back up a bit.

We’re talking about the establishment of the New Church today (the actual anniversary was on the 19th). Often around June 19th we talk about stories from the book of Revelation because some of the elements in the stories are symbolic of the New Church. And at the end of the book, chapter 21 and 22—the last 2 chapters of the whole Bible—there’s this vision of a huge, golden, holy city, coming down from heaven.

Let’s read a little bit of the vision.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:1-2

Lots of different aspects of this city are described and the detail that caught my attention this time was Jerusalem. It’s called “the holy city, New Jerusalem.”

Why Jerusalem?

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Friday
Jun132014

Left Behind? 

Coleman manages to take boring sounding technical words like "eschatology" and explain them in everyday language. In this essay he looks at modern and historical ideas about the end times and helps us understand how the New Church perspective may fit within the common categories of thought on the subject. And just how does Nicholas Cage feature? -Editor

Will you be left behind at the rapture? If you live in North America—and quite possibly further afield—chances are you have at least a vague idea of what that question means. It calls to mind visions of a literal apocalypse, with the “saved” being taken up into the sky while the world descends into 7-year tribulation, at the end of which 144,000 more are saved and the world is destroyed. This is perhaps the most influential view of “end times” in modern western culture, popularized especially by Hal Lindsey in the 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth and in more recent years by the “Left Behind” series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins—soon to be a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage! (No, really.)

But what many people do not realize is that this particular theology of the end times—or to put it more formally, this “eschatology”—is less than two hundred years old, and has been popular for significantly less time than that.

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Friday
Jun062014

“Things fall apart”: Vastation, Profanation, and New Life

Everything has a cycle: new, growing, old, and dying. The seasons, the plants, and people. What about churches? What would that look like and what would that mean? Does it matter? This week Joel discusses these thought provoking questions. -Editor.

What is wrong with the world today? This is a question that people ask in every age because we live in an imperfect world. There are always challenges, natural and spiritual, which we face while we are living here. But in some ages the questions become more pressing, and even more particular. During wars and revolutions people wonder where all the hate comes from and what we are fighting over. What is worth dying for? During famines and natural disasters people wonder about how they will survive and why these tragedies bring out both the best and the worst in people. During the Vietnam War, the Great Depression, World War I, the French Revolution, and the Black Death, to name a few dire eras, people could no longer simply distract themselves with natural life, all that “getting and spending,” worldly pleasures and worldly joys. Something far more important comes to the surface in times of trial: existential questions, questions of basic meaning, questions, ultimately of life and death. And though we all wrestle with these deeper issues at times of personal tragedy, the death of a loved one, an illness, the loss of a job, it is during these collective times of tumult that the world itself seems to stop and ask collectively some very biblical questions: “How long O Lord will we suffer?” or “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” It is true that some people don’t frame the questions in biblical or theological language. But whether you address these questions to God or the universe or some wise old man, the deepest questions in life are all the same. Why this suffering? When will it end? What does it mean to be human?

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Friday
May302014

Weird V: Evil Spirits in Your Intestines 

There are some strange and far out passages and descriptions in Swedenborg's Writings. What are we to do with them - embrace them or keep them at arms' length? Todd looks at one of these teachings and offers a way we can use them in developing a fuller New Church outlook. -Editor

It's been a while since my last installment of “Weird.” The original idea behind them is this: perhaps the New Church isn't as weird as it should be. What would the church look like if we actually embraced some of the seemingly weirder teachings in the Heavenly Doctrines? What would happen if we put it on the line: the second coming has already happened, there are beings on other planets, and there are spirits with us that have a profound effect on our thoughts and emotions.

That last one is a biggie in my opinion. All through the Heavenly Doctrines we are told again and again how closely we are connected to other spirits, and how they profoundly influence us. Now I've been through most of the General Church's educational system, and while I heard plenty about the second coming, and occasionally a reference to other worldly beings, there were regrettably few references to the spirits that are with us. I'm starting to think that is because we're not wanting to be that weird.

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Friday
May232014

My Spiritual World 

Sometimes the stories in the Bible can feel inapplicable, and even when we have access to the inner meanings behind them they take work to relate to. Here Susan uses the teachings of the New Church to find the humour, interest, and applicability in the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. -Editor.

Emanuel Swedenborg explained that laughter is a spiritual (as opposed to celestial) indicator. Reading Arcana Coelestia made parts of the New Testament funny to me, so ‘celestial’ is not me. I will not find myself sitting at the popular kids’ table in the afterlife. I will be snickering along with the other yahoos in the second heaven (I hope).

Martha (Luke 10:38-42) represents the spiritual realm while her sister Mary represents the celestial. Technically, they are the spiritual and celestial of the natural, but I will leave out the details and concentrate on how endearingly hilarious Martha is.

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Friday
May162014

Meditate | To Acknowledge

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3: 5-6).

I love the reminder that my understanding of a situation is not the whole picture. So often, reality is much better than what my mind is thinking about it. For the past week, I kept opening the Bible to this passage in Proverbs, that when we acknowledge and trust in the Lord, He will direct our paths. At first glance this seems like an intellectual exercise

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