About Us
In the New Church (often called Swedenborgian), we worship the one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of heaven and earth and the Redeemer of the human race, in whom is the Divine Trinity. We teach that the Lord is Love itself and Life itself and that everyone is saved who has a genuine faith in Him. Having a genuine faith means believing in Him and living a live according to that belief. The life of religion, then, consists is not doing evil actions because that are the work of the devil and come from hell. Good actions must be done because they are the work of the Lord and come from Him. We perform these actions and they feel as though they originate in ourselves, but we believe that they really come from the Lord working in people and through people.
We learn about living the life of religion from the Lord’s Three-fold Word, consisting of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings for the New Church. The Writings for the New Church were written through Emanuel Swedenborg in the 18th century. Everything in the Old and New Testaments is a parable with a deeper meaning that teaches about how to live the life of religion leading to heaven. This life of religion is a life of service to the Lord and to the neighbor.
Those who life such a life in this world, after the death of the body choose to live in heaven, where they can continue to life a life of service. Those who choose to not live in such a fashion choose to enter into hell. Hell is not a punishment inflicted by the Lord, but is a way for the Lord to protect the free will of those who choose a life of evil. Our freedom is one of the most important things to the Lord; He would rather allow us to reject Him than to force us to love Him, even if it means we would not be as happy as we can be.
Some of the most important ideas to the New Church are the teachings surrounding the marriage of one man and one woman. As the husband and wife glow closer together and closer to the Lord, their lives become so intertwined as to be one life. Because of this, their marriage continues after the deaths of their bodies and they live as a married couple in heaven to eternity. Those who die in this world before they are married find a perfect spouse when they enter heaven. This is because marriage is the source of the greatest happiness that two people can experience.
