Thank you for your edifying website. I shall be pleased if you could find the time to let me know what the New Church teaches about free will.

Dear xxxx
There are lots about freedom in the teachings for the New Church. Below are three passage from the book The New Jerusalem And Its Heavenly Doctrine. I hope they answers some of you question.

141. ON FREEDOM
All freedom is a matter of loving, for what a person loves, that he does freely. Consequently all freedom is a matter of the will, for what a person loves that he also wills. And because loving and willing make a persons life, so too does freedom. From this it can be established what freedom is, namely a matter of loving and willing, and so a matter of how a person lives. That is why what a person does by free choice seems to him as if it were done of his own self.

142. Doing evil by free choice looks like freedom, but it is slavery, because that freedom comes of self-love and love of the world, and these loves are from hell. Such freedom is after death actually turned into slavery, for a person who indulged in such freedom then becomes in hell a lowly slave.
But doing good by free choice is real freedom, because it comes of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, and these loves are from heaven. This freedom also lasts after death, and then becomes true freedom; for a person who enjoys such freedom becomes in heaven as it were a son of the house. This the Lord teaches in these words:
Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. A slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. If the son makes you free, you will be truly free. John 8:34-36.

If Jesus is God then how could he die?

Dear xxxxx
Well, WE die, but in reality we continue to live as complete human beings in the spiritual world. We take everything with us when we die EXCEPT our physical body - our spirit lives on in complete human form.
The difference with the Lord is that He left nothing behind in the tomb because by that time He had become completely divine.
So while it is true that Jesus is God and that the trinity is within Him, the new Church teaches that this was not always the case. When He was born, His soul was divine - He had no human father. But He had a human mother so that He could live in this world and gradually become one with the divine within Him – a Man who became God. That is why He said after the resurrection that all power had been given to Him in heaven and on earth. Now, He is visible to our minds eye.
There is much more but I hope this helps...
Blessings,
Fred

What happens to people who never have a chance to hear about Jesus? Will God condemn a person who has never heard about Him?

Thank you for your enquiry!
The short answer is NO!
We believe that Jesus IS God and that the trinity is within Him like soul, body and activity in a human being.
He is Love itself and could never condemn anyone. So people who try to lead good lives, keep the ten commandments because God so commands, go to heaven.
With good wishes,
Fred

Your church seems to have a strong spiritual message. Can I find the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg online?

If you go to Links section you will find a link to www.HeavenlyDoctrine.org. On that website you can read and search the Heavenly Doctrine. These are the books written by Swedenborg which form our teaching.

This is a question from the recent Doctrine of Faith readings: If there is such a thing as faith alone, can you also have charity alone? (Charity here meaning the love of your neighbour)

Good question! Here’s one answer from the Writings

‘Charity is essentially spiritual affection, but charity alone is natural…’ ( Apocalypse Explained 232)

One way to illustrate this is a twig from a fruit tree. If you keep it in water, the buds will open and you’ll have leaves. But obviously, it won’t bear fruit. Why? Because it’s separated from the tree. It may look the same, but by itself it can do nothing

In the same way, faith separated from love of our neighbour cannot produce any real good.

It’s no more possible for faith or charity alone to save than for a husband or wife to have a baby without their partner.

For more on this, have a look at Charity Alone? under London/sermons.

Meanwhile, here is an extract from True Christian Religion paragraph 377: ...Moreover in the Word husband and father signify in the spiritual sense the good of charity, and wife and mother the truth of faith. This again makes clear that neither charity alone nor faith alone can produce good works, as neither the husband alone nor the wife alone can produce offspring.

What does the New Church believe about the need to go to church on Sunday?

In the writings for the New Church it says about the Sabbath:
...that day became a day for instruction in Divine matters, and also a day of rest from work, for meditation about matters conducive to salvation and everlasting life, and a day for love towards the neighbour. (True Christian Religion 301 Emanuel Swedenborg)

If or when you attend a New Church service, you will find that there is a lot of emphasis on instruction. It is because we believe that instruction is an important part of the Sabbath. I suspect that you could stay home and read for yourself, and in that way get instruction about Divine matters. However if we stay home we can easily get taken up with other things and end up neglecting the instruction. Therefore it is highly advisable to go to church.

Going to church also has the added benefit of bringing us into contact with other believes, to worship with them and share friendship with them, all of which are very useful for our spiritual life.

Why is it so difficult to keep to New Year resolutions or self determined regular targets about improving life choices?

When we are working on our spiritual life we frequently need to be turning to the Lord. We do this in reading the Word, in meditation on what we have read and then prayer. We discover that when we isolate ourselves from the Lord we do tend to be selfish and will do things to primarily benefit ourselves. After such times we may well feel that we have failed or let ourselves down -again! The Lord allows us to experience these things because He knows that ultimately good will come from them. When we see that we have not kept to our previous good intentions we can develop our spiritual life choices by beginning to acknowledge our dependence on the Lord and how He must be within the good things and wise choices we make. So we will find it hard to keep the New Year Resolutions and targets we set ourselves. However we can use these difficulties to reflect more deeply on what our motives are behind them, pray for strength to try again and therefore experience our absolute need of the Lord to be with us in every part of our life. If you wish to see more about what the Lord tells us about these things there is a chapter on Repentance in the True Christian Religion. Paragraphs 523 and 539 in particular are worth reading and thinking about. To read these you can go to the section What Is The Heavenly Doctrine? on our Home Page.

How do you square the idea of the eternity of marriage with Matthew 22:30?

One answer is to point out that marriage in the sense the Sadducees understood it (they asked the question) does not exist in heaven.

For more on this go to the London section and look for Thoughts on Marriage in Heaven in the Sermon/Notes section.