Christians among whom the Word is read constitute the breast of that grand
humanity. They are also at the center of all, with Roman Catholics round about
them. Around them are Muslims who acknowledge the Lord as a very great prophet
and as the Son of God. After them come Africans. And the outermost periphery
is composed of nations and peoples from Asia and the Indies. . . . All those who
are in that grand humanity also face toward the middle where the Christians are.
(Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 105; see also Last Judgment 48; De Verbo 17; True
Christianity 268)
In this passage, and others like it, good Christians appear to be described
as the best of the peoples in this world. Other passages, however, paint the
typical citizen of the European world much differently.
Many of the Gentiles, on seeing the way Christians live, find their teaching
abhorrent. This is clear also from the fact that nowhere else is the way people live
more despicable than in the Christian world. (Arcana Coelestia 916.3)
People outside of the Church, called gentiles, lead a far more upright life than
those inside the Church do, and they embrace far more readily that which true
faith teaches. This matter becomes clearer still from souls in the next life. [3] From
the so-called Christian world come the worst people of all, those in whom deadly
hatred of the neighbor and deadly hatred of the Lord prevail. More than anybody
else in the whole world they are adulterers. But this is not true of all other parts of
the world. (Ibid. 1032)
The vast majority of Christians today are inwardly either Arians or Socinians and
any adoration they pay to Christ as God is merely hypocritical. (True Christianity
852.111)
Passages like these assert that the average person of European descent is
less likely, not more likely, to be a genuinely kind and thoughtful lover of God
than the average Muslim, Jew, Asian or African. Specific statements drive this
home. For example:
More are saved from the gentiles than from Christians; as also the Lord said in Luke
13.28-30. (Arcana Coelestia 1059.2; also 2284.5, 2598.3)
A greater proportion [of people] from Africa, than from other regions of the earth, are
introduced into heaven. (Spiritual Experiences 453)
Muslims are really extremely surprised (at the behavior of Christians in the next
life), who themselves are easily taught, and allow themselves to be guided, and easily
receive the faith. (Spiritual Experiences 480; also Divine Providence 255
Although the Islamic practice of polygamy is condemned, other aspects
of that religion are praised. Less is said about the peoples of Asia, but what is
said is very positive. For example, about the Chinese, we read that “evil spirits
could not approach, because they were of a spiritual-celestial character.” (Last
Judgment (posthumous) 131; also 132; True Christianity 279; Arcana Coelestia
2596, 2602)
375