new church life: september/october 2016
This leads me to the second reason for including them in this article. In
The Spiritual Diary/Spiritual Experiences the Lord, for our needed instruction
and enlightenment, has chosen to address these very unpleasant subjects or
issues quite directly, yet in cautious and delicate terms.
I do not propose to launch into an extended discussion of such a large
and complex subject as homosexual practices. This I have attempted to do in
several previous articles appearing in New
Church Life in 1993 and 2015. Still, by way
of illustrating how one “might” use The
Spiritual Diary/ Spiritual Experiences and
other works of the Heavenly Doctrine
not published in Swedenborg’s lifetime,
I will include the following excerpt from
an email exchange that I enjoyed with
one of my clergy brothers some years ago.
In that exchange there were the same two
delicate issues that I touched on for the
sake of illustration: homosexual practices
and the sexual abuse of children.
It is true that in the Heavenly
Doctrine there is not an abundance
of direct teaching on a subject such as
homosexual practices – some, but not a
whole lot. One finds that generally the
more direct teachings are reserved in
the works not published in Swedenborg’s
lifetime, perhaps being reserved there
for use in more private circumstances
when necessity calls for their exposure.
However, not infrequently, the observant
reader can, as it were, pick up the trail in a published work and then, if so
moved, follow it back into the unpublished works. The particular subject is
more openly and fully dealt with as one works back in this manner.
Take, for example, what the Lord says in Conjugial Love 54 about monks
and nuns being released from monasteries and convents after their death and
their entrance into the spiritual world. We find that various lots await them in
that life, some good, but some rather sad and horrible. In regard to the latter
it is noted that “those who have burned with impermissible/forbidden lust are
cast down.”
What might be involved here in these “impermissible” or “forbidden”
lusts? Well, let us see if we can obtain some help if we step back into an
unpublish ed work such as De Conjugio (On Marriage). There, in #s 55 –57, we
I would also assert that
a reflective student of
the Heavenly Doctrine
will notice that the
Lord, in His wonderful
accommodation to a
myriad different forms
of mind, has used what
might be termed a
whole smorgasbord of
approaches or formats
to present to us what He
would have us receive
in His Second Advent.
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