-Rev. Thom Muller
“Jesus, Save Us from Your followers!” That’s what a bumper sticker I once saw said. It made me chuckle in agreement.
When I think about the history of Christianity, I think of a history of taking the Lord’s name in vein. A history of people claiming the term “Christ-tian” while embodying beliefs and qualities which, to me, seem irreconcilable with the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This was the case way back, when the same state powers who crucified Jesus adopted his name and turned his message into a force for control, subjugation, Domination, and spiritual enslavement. And in my opinion it is still the case.
There are very good reasons why, to many open-minded, ethical, and critically thinking people, the term Christian has, at best, a bitter-sweet flavor. Yet underneath the often shameful history of institutionalized “Christendom”, there has always, from the very beginning on, been a mystical undercurrent (as is, by the way, the case in all major world religions), of people who deeply connected to the true inner teachings of the Christ. Call them Gnostics or mystics or heretics (and as we know, many of them did literally or figuratively get burned at the stake for their beliefs). Who were sincere and unapologetic about their experience of the Christ Within.
Within several branches of Christianity, the idea of “Restorationalism” has played a major role (the largest example is the Latter-day Saint movement). It is centered around the notion that there has been a “great apostasy” away from the original teachings of Jesus, thus requiring a radical restoration of what has been lost. Interestingly, many put Swedenborgianism in the “Restorationalist” category, it being neither Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, but this is a whole other can of theological worms which I will leave for a later time.
Swedenborg was sympathetic to the Restorationalist idea. He too believed that Christianity had, from an early age on, become profoundly corrupted and removed from the teachings of Jesus. In fact he believed that by the time the “early” theological foundations of what is now called “Christianity” were laid, such as the Council of Nicea, the focus had already become power, money, and dogmatism (the Council of Nicea, by the way, was not some kind of pious gathering of the faithful as it is often portrayed, but a council instituted by the Roman Empire to find a version of institutionalized “Christianity” which would lend itself to being a unified ideological arm of the empire (which is, of course, exactly what happened). This happened as early as the phenomenon of Christians beginning to give the words of Paul the same weight as those of Jesus, whom he never met.
The way I see it, from a Swedenborgian perspective, the “true church” HAS been restored and is being restored because it was never an institution or a religion or a creed to begin with. Swedenborg, like other mystics, believed that the “church” was an inner state. Sure, we can get together and support each other in our individual spiritual journeys, but ultimately, it is a private, intimate state.
Now, what is the means by which Christ’s “true church” can be restored within us? Is it some kind of label, some kind of identity? Some kind of theological concept, or the acceptance of some particular doctrinal view? Is it church membership or religious affiliation?
No. The sincerest way to devote ourselves to Christ Consciousness is by LIVING a life which devotes itself to, receives and manifests the QUALITIES that are embodied by the spiritual reality of Christ, namely unconditional love, compassion, peace-making, justice, and a genuine truth-seeking which dares to challenge the status quo, including the rigidity of organized religion and human power dynamics. Walking the path of God-realization by means of god-embodiment and being regenerated, as he calls it, growing into union with God.
In heaven, “loving the Lord” does not mean loving him for the image he projects but loving the good that comes from him. Loving the good is intending and doing it from love. –Heaven and Hell §15 (1)
To the mystics, God is not something to be believed in, a concept or a creed, but something to experience directly, as a spiritual reality. And since this spiritual reality, this Christ consciousness, is not limited to an idea or an image or a religion or a name, it is available to all people, regardless of their religious or cultural background. The inner church is truly universal.
“The extended community that is known as the church consists of all the people who have the church within them. The church takes hold in us when we are regenerated” –True Christianity §510 (2)
To me, these ideas have rescued Jesus. The mystics, I believe, have transmitted their accounts of True, inner Christianity, despite the best efforts of the religious establishment to confine God into dogmas, rules, images and power structures.
Swedenborg believed that the suffocating grip which organized religion has superimposed on the name “Jesus” would gradually wane with time. And that simultaneously, there would be a mystical awakening, an unprecedented realization of the Qualities of Christ-consciousness. A “New Church” which is not a new organization but a spiritual state of god-connectedness by means of active love to the neighbor. Let’s allow Jesus to rescue us from his followers.
(1) Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. Translated by George F. Dole. West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.
(2) Swedenborg, Emanuel. True Christianity. Translated by Jonathan S. Rose. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2010
Rev. Thom Muller is pastor at the Swedenborgian Society of the East Bay at Hillside, an Urban Sanctuary, in El Cerrito, CA, as well as senior editor of Our Daily Bread. His passions include the intersection of spirituality and psychology, interfaith theology, and the Western esoteric tradition. A native of Germany, Rev. Muller was ordained into the ministry of the Swedenborgian Church of North America in 2016, upon receiving his theological education at Bryn Athyn College and the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.