and the determination to base everything the Church did on it, gave the Church
a strong sense of self-identity, sharp focus and spiritual energy. This made the
General Church an unusually cohesive, powerful and successful organization.
The time has come for our church to rediscover and reconnect with its
roots. We need to summon the past to save the present.
(WEO)
blueprint for success?
This year’s Boynton Beach Retreat in January offered three excellent
presentations, ranging from unity and difference in the New Church to
strategies past and present for the General Church, and the cultural divide
between the West and the Middle East. A common theme was the need for
tolerance, understanding and charity in making a stronger church and a better
world. (See a summary of the presentations on page 140.)
The Rev. Jeremy Simons spoke about: Blueprint for Success: What is
our strategy for the future of the Church? Is it working? What has worked for
the Church since its founding more than 100 years ago faces a whole new
landscape and challenges.
Jeremy quoted this passage from the 1988 book by Colleen McDannell
and Bernhard Lang, Heaven, A History: “The modern heaven, exemplified by
the visions of Swedenborg . . . has become the minority perspective during
the 20th century. Rich and detailed accounts of the afterlife, accepted in the
19th century, are labeled as absurd, crude, materialistic or sheer nonsense. ‘No
reasonable person can hold such a belief any longer,’ stated a Dominican prior
in 1981.
“While Swedenborg perceived an ever-expanding religious universe,
his contemporary Immanuel Kant recognized only three ideas capable
of surviving the test of reason: freedom, God and immortality. For him,
Swedenborg’s visions failed. ‘As speculations consisting of nothing but air, they
had applicable weight only in the scale of hope.’ It was Kant’s perspective and
not Swedenborg