new church life: march/april 2015
where God is – from the bloody horrors of the Old Testament to the real-life
tragedies we see every day.
Many a Christian, for instance, struggles with such biblical stories as God
commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, or Joshua to destroy every
man, woman and child in Ai. The persistent, crossroads-of-faith question –
from biblical tragedies to bone cancer in children – is: how do we reconcile
this pain with an all-loving, all-powerful God?
In the New Church we are blessed to have the internal sense to open our
understanding and to see the consistency of a loving, merciful God in every
aspect of the Word and in everything of life.
That is why there has always been a zeal in the Church to evangelize – to
spread the comfort of revealed truth and to counter all the doubt, skepticism
and even animosity that is out there. It is discouraging that progress has been
so slow.
But the Lord knows when people will be ready and has promised: “I have
yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. However,
when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will lead you into all truth.” (John
16:12,13)
One of the reasons the Lord came on earth is because the Word could be
written down here and preserved. The printing press made that possible and
the Bible continues to be the number-one best-seller in the world – every year.
Now technology is opening new opportunities to spread the revealed
Word – the Spirit of Truth – to seekers all over the world. Various websites
– from www.newchurch.org to www.heavenlydoctrines.org – offer pathways
for people seeking answers to religious questions, and the Office of Outreach
responds to thousands of inquiries every year. An impressive and ambitious
new website – www.newchristianbiblestudy.org – lets people anywhere in the
world reference any text in the Bible and see its explanation from the Writings.
This website recorded 20,000 visitors in a recent 30-day span. (See a report on
this website in Church News, page 196.)
All such efforts – including books, new videos on the Swedenborg
Foundation website (www.swedenborg.com), and live-streamed services – are
planting seeds that can help people not only understand what the Word is
saying and how it applies to our lives, but to understand God, free will and
providence: to understand what Stephen Fry obviously does not.
Whether those seeds fall in barren or fertile soil, the Lord is working with
everyone who is willing that they may know who He is, what He is, and where
He is – even and especially in times of sorrow and tragedy.
(BMH)
212