Editorials
the birth, and perpetual rebirth, of the new church
The New Church was born in heaven on the 19th day of June, in the year
1770, when the disciples who had followed the Lord in this world were sent
throughout the spiritual world to preach the Gospel that: “THE LORD GOD
JESUS CHRIST REIGNS.” (True Christian Religion 791, capitals in the original)
A few years later, in 1787, the first New Church organization on earth was
formed in London by a group of men who had been reading Swedenborg’s
Writings.
And those of us who value the Academy so highly view its founding in
1876 as such a significant event as to amount to a new birth of the Church.
But the Church did not just begin in 1770 or 1787 or 1876 or any other date
on the calendar; it begins every moment. Its existence is a perpetual creation.
The creation of the Church follows the same pattern as the creation of
the universe: it is not out of nothing, but is a process of giving new form to
some prior substance. The “matter,” for instance, out of which earthly forms
are made, is itself formed out of energy. The supreme “prior substance” out
of which the whole universe was created is Divine love, formed by Divine
wisdom.
The old “Watchmaker” idea of God – that He made the universe and then
left it to run itself, as a watch continues to run after the watchmaker is finished
with it – is erroneous. Creation, and the Lord’s providential governance of it, is
a continuous, never-ending process. “Subsistence is a perpetual coming forth,
and consequently preservation in connection and form is perpetual creation.”
(Arcana Coelestia 4322)
It is the same regarding the Church: for it to continue to exist it must be
perpetually created, re-formed and renewed. But how is this accomplished,
and what is our part in it?
Looking at the word “reform,” we can see that it means “return to form.”
As individuals, the form we return to in our regeneration is the human form
that was impressed upon us in our first innocent state at birth. But when we
grow up and come into our own, and are repeatedly led astray by the loves of
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