New Church (Swedenborgians)

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Cross of the Swedenborgians and the New Church
The Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

The New Church or Church of the New Jerusalem is a Christian denomination and refers to the faith of the Swedish natural philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Their followers are called Swedenborgians .

Swedenborg's contribution to the New Church

Swedenborg wanted to renew the Church and Christianity with his Bible interpretations and further writings . He describes a first church that was based on intuitive knowledge. In later churches the love of God and the capacity for knowledge have degenerated. With the loss of the true inner meaning of the word , the sacrificial cult and idolatry began. Later the inner knowledge was lost and only externalized laws and cults existed.

Swedenborg himself did not found a church, but only wrote renewed doctrine , which he regarded as the basis of a renewed church.

History of the New Church

During Swedenborg's lifetime, his followers came into conflict with the Lutheran Church of Sweden, which in 1769 reached a lawsuit to ban the production and distribution of Swedenborg's writings.

In 1788 the first public parish was formed in the London suburb of Great Eastcheap . In 1792 the Printing and Tract Society , the oldest Swedenborgian missionary association , was founded in Manchester . In 1810 the Swedenborg Society was founded in London to print and distribute Swedenborg's writings. Some works had already been translated from the Latin original into English. In 1821 the Missionary and Tract Society was founded, which published The Swedenborg Magazine . Mid-19th century was the New Church (Engl. New Church ) is present in all major cities of England and Scotland. Swedenborg's teaching was also spread in the British colonies. There the first church was planted in 1792 in Baltimore . In 1817 the General Convention of the New Jerusalem was founded in Philadelphia . The stricter direction of the General Church of the New Jerusalem separated from it in 1897 .

In Germany, the general assembly of the New Church in Germany and Switzerland was founded in 1848 . Its chairman was the philosophy professor Johann Friedrich Immanuel Tafel (1796–1863) from Tübingen . He was also the editor of the New Church magazine . In 1874, Dr. Leonhard Tafel the Swiss Confederation of the New Church . The congregation in Berlin was founded in 1900. Confessors in large parts of Germany were looked after from here . In 1922 the parishes of Berlin, Vienna and Bochum-Herne merged to form the German Federation of the New Church . The Berlin congregation was dissolved by the Gestapo on June 9, 1941 and was reunited on September 26, 1946 as the only congregation in Germany. In November 1952 the Swedenborg Society was founded in Zurich. In 1956 the New Church in Germany was newly entered in the register of associations.

The New Church is particularly widespread in Great Britain and the United States, as well as in South and West Africa. It experienced an important increase when the Zion Church in South Africa joined it in 1960. By 1980 it was estimated to have a total of around 60,000 members, including around 10,000 in the USA, 6,700 in Great Britain and around 11,000 in South and West Africa. In Cambridge, Massachusetts , the New Church has its own theological school. Most of the congregations in continental Europe are also subordinate to the American organization. The New Church has very few followers on the European continent. In Germany, the house in Berlin has been an event center since 1956. The individual members, who live all over the country, are looked after by the pastor through annual mission trips.

Teaching

The concept of emanation is fundamental . The first emanation of God is the spiritual sun, from whose warmth and light the natural world arose. In the natural world, the spiritual man is clad by a material body, but can unlock his soul to God in complete freedom of will and thus become identical with God. In the Fall , love for God became self-love. Nevertheless, the human being has full freedom to withstand the hereditary tendency towards evil and thus determines for himself whether he is good or bad. Therefore the New Church rejects the doctrine of original sin . In the churches the connection between man and God was more and more lost until Swedenborg had revealed the real, spiritual meaning of the word.

Swedenborg's works mostly consist of Bible commentaries that try to explain the spiritual meaning of the text of the Holy Scriptures. Accordingly, Christ is not a Son of God born from eternity, but in him the one God entered into the human, including the evil inclinations originating from Mary. The doctrine of the Trinity is thus an apostasy to a three-god faith. Jesus Christ is Lord, Creator, Redeemer and Regenerator at the same time. Justifying grace through the merit of Christ is considered an invention of Paul . Christ was also not risen with a material body, but in a natural-divine body and after his resurrection was never seen with earthly, but only with spiritual eyes. Man's rebirth is realized by the Lord through faith, love and man's own cooperation. This rebirth is possible for everyone, there is no divine predestination. Death is only the destruction of the bodily-material shell. The last judgment took place as early as 1757 when the Lord opened the spiritual meaning of the word to his spiritual servant Swedenborg. Thus the incorruptible New Church of the Lord according to Revelation 21 was founded. Heaven and hell are described in detail in Swedenborg, with the punishments of hell merely consisting in the fact that the orgies of the devils are contained by the angels who watch over them.

rite

The baptism is recognized as one, donated by the Lord Sacrament and is usually as infant baptism. The Lord's Supper is considered a spiritual meal that, depending on the worthiness of the communicant, brings about the most intimate union with the Lord. As a rule, after self-examination and penance, there are four sacrament services per year. In marriage practice, the spiritual nature of the marriage is particularly emphasized. The burial is celebrated as a resurrection celebration in which the soul of the deceased has found its home in the spiritual world.

literature

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