new church life: march/april 2015
As a social
organization, the
General Church
may be no better
or worse than any
other Christian
group. But as a
teaching body, it
has answers that
no one outside the
New Church has.
Christian Religion. But perhaps the chief
attraction was the description of the spiritual
world and testification to its reality. How
many people have not said or thought that
they would believe if only someone could
come back from the other world and bear
witness to it?
That is what the New Church, and
particularly the General Church, has to
offer: explanations that may be intellectually
satisfying.
The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture
distinguishes three kinds of people in the
church. The first are people who love the
truths of the Word and apply them to useful
life endeavors, and who are thus enlightened
by the Lord. Of them it is said:
The Word shines and is translucent with them
because every particular in the Word contains in it
a spiritual and celestial sense, and these senses exist
in the light of heaven. Consequently the Lord flows through these senses and
their light into the natural sense and its light in a person. As a result, the person
acknowledges truth from an inner perception, and so sees it in his thought, and
this whenever he is prompted by an affection for truth because it is true. (Sacred
Scripture 57,58)
These are the kind of people who are able to draw doctrine from the
Word. (Ibid. 59)
The second kind of people are ones who do not draw doctrine from the
Word themselves, but “first inquire whether the doctrine delivered by others
and accepted by the general body accords with the Word. And to whatever
accords they assent, and from whatever does not accord they dissent. ...” “But
this is the case only with people who are not distracted by worldly affairs and
have the sight to see.” (Ibid. 59)
All others, then, the third kind of people, “who live in some measure in
accordance with truths, can learn from them [i.e, the first two kinds].” (Ibid.)
This makes clear that not everyone in the Church is expected to be
expert in the Word or in doctrine drawn from it. If some people are drawn
to the Church by family or friends, or by the sense of community they find
in it, or because they like the rituals and music, it is enough, provided they
live in accordance with what truths they know and live good lives. People
who, in other words, “live according to the precepts of their religion and by a
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