Plane Kindness

There are a lot of things, both selfish and unselfish, that go into the decision to be kind to someone. Today Coleman breaks down some of the ways that God nudges us towards being kind to others out of true heavenly love. -Editor.

Since becoming a pastor, I’ve spent a good deal of time in airplanes and airports. You might expect that spending all that time with tired, overcrowded, hurried individuals, I’d have seen a lot of the worst in people. But I’ve found the opposite to be true. Sure, I’ve run into some grumpy folks in my travels; but I’ve also seen travel bring out some of the best in people. On one flight I was on, there was a passenger who didn’t have the right credit card to pay for her meal, and the airline didn’t take cash. Seeing her trouble, the man next to her (a complete stranger as far as I could tell) handed the flight attendant his credit card instead, and when the woman took out cash to offer the man, he turned it down. Another time, when I was flying with my then-fiancée Anne, we both had middle seats in different parts of the plane; but when the man next to me found out we were engaged and not able to sit together, he gave up his aisle seat for Anne’s middle seat.

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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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How Can We Believe

Do you need physical evidence to support your faith, particularly faith in Jesus Christ? If not what is the foundation of your faith? Coleman writes about why faith in Jesus Christ is a crucial part of a relationship with God, and why physical evidence isn't as important as it can feel. -Editor.

Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed.” (John 20:29)

The gospel of John records Jesus speaking those words to “doubting Thomas,” who only believed when he was able to see the risen Lord for himself. Today, almost 2,000 years from that event, we are the ones who, if we are to believe, must do so without seeing, at least not with our physical eyes. Can we do that? Some things may seem fairly easy to believe: for example, that we ought to treat one another with respect, and even that there is an unseen force guiding the universe. But can we believe the specific and the miraculous: that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, and that He literally rose from the grave? The belief that the risen Lord is the living God is a vital one; Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have believed,” and stated even more strongly, “unless you believe that I am, you shall die in your sins” (John 8:24) – a teaching affirmed in the Doctrine of the New Church (e.g. in Arcana Coelestia 10083) ¹. If we want to have eternal life, we have to believe in the Lord. But what if we find ourselves besieged by doubts? How can we do anything about that? Can we force ourselves to believe? It can seem to be a hopeless situation, but the Lord gives us hope that we can believe. In Scripture and in the Doctrine of the New Church, He shows us how.

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Remembering the Lord's Life

Coleman offers a critique for organized followers of the New Church to consider. Perhaps we under-emphasize a key part of the gospel. We may be much better equipped to "take up the cross and follow" if we reflect more often on the Lord's work as He took up that cross and led. -Editor.

Go into any Baptist church this Sunday and I can virtually guarantee that you’ll hear about what the Lord did for you 2,000 years ago. In the New Church, we tend to focus much more on what the Lord does for us now. But I think we might be missing out. Because for whatever faults there might be in that Baptist church’s theology, there is one fundamental truth there that has immense power: the Lord Jesus Christ loved the world enough - loved you and me enough - that He willingly laid down His life to make our salvation possible.

And how much more powerful is that truth within the context of the truths revealed in the Heavenly Doctrine: that that Jesus is the only God, that there is no angry Father behind Him, but that He and the Father are totally and completely one, that He wants nothing more than to forgive us – and that the problem that separates us from Him is not His unwillingness to look on us, but that we have turned our backs on Him.

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How I View The Writings Part II

In part two, Coleman addresses what the Writings tell us about themselves. For reasons laid forth below, he takes them at their word. Find the first part here. -Editor.

2.) What do the Writings say about themselves?

Up to this point I’ve been focusing on what the Writings say about reading the Old and New Testaments, since that’s where they have the most to say about how to read revelation from God. But in coming to my current understanding, I also paid a lot of attention to what the Writings say about themselves – the ways they’re similar to the Old and New Testaments, but also the way they’re different.

First of all, as I mentioned, I reached a point in my life where I was convinced that the Writings were true, and I’d take Swedenborg’s word for it when he described what they were. And over and over again, I saw them claiming that they were directly from God. The most well-known passage on this is probably True Christian Religion 779:

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How I View The Writings Part I

In this essay, the first of two, Coleman shares principles for how one might approach the Writings most successfully. He advocates carrying an affirmative attitude toward what the Writings literally say, a watchful eye for weighing the larger messages in scripture against any apparently incongruent truths, and an openness to being found incorrect. -Editor.

In a lot of the discussions that happen on this website, a question arises: how should we read the Writings? I think it’s pretty clear from the discussions that the answer to this fundamental question affects everything else in the way we approach New Church teachings. This article is about my own understanding of the best way to read the Writings; I’m hoping it sparks discussion from lots of other points of view.

For starters: I assume the Writings are true. Why is that? Well, it’s a long story, which I shared in detail on an old blog. In summary, though, I got to the point where I said, “I see the truth in the these books, and it seems to be truer than any other truth I’ve seen before – so I will trust that what they say about themselves is true.” Part of that willingness to make the commitment came from teachings in the Writings themselves: that unless you commit to the truth and start living by it, you’ll never really see the truth in it. The more I live by the teachings of the Writings, especially about repentance, the more truth I see in them.

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