Swedenborgian churches (General Church of the New Jerusalem; Swedenborgian Church of North America)
Swedenborgian churches (General Church of the New Jerusalem; Swedenborgian Church of North America) belongs to the Metaphysical, New Thought and Swedenborgian family of churches.
Governance: episcopal.
Swedenborgian churches (General Church of the New Jerusalem; Swedenborgian Church of North America) reports 72 congregations in the United States (RCMS 2020 (sum of 2 rows — our arithmetic), 2020).
General Church of the New Jerusalem 43 + Swedenborgian Church (General Convention) 29.
The churches of the New Jerusalem, reading Scripture through the visionary theology of Emanuel Swedenborg — with a cathedral in Pennsylvania and Johnny Appleseed in the family album.
Heritage
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish scientist and seer, published voluminous theological works he presented as opening the internal sense of Scripture; readers organized churches of the New Jerusalem after his death. In America this took two main forms: the General Convention, organized 1817, today the Swedenborgian Church of North America; and the General Church of the New Jerusalem, formed in 1897 and centered at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, where its cathedral stands. John Chapman — Johnny Appleseed — famously carried Swedenborgian tracts along with his apple trees.
Theological family
Swedenborgian teaching by self-description: one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is a trinity of Love, Wisdom and Power rather than of persons; Scripture as divinely inspired with an internal spiritual sense; salvation as a life of love and use in cooperation with the Lord; and heaven and hell as chosen states. Trinitarian bodies confess the Trinity otherwise; the difference is reported, not adjudicated.
Who decides what
Episcopal in the General Church, which is led by bishops from Bryn Athyn; the Swedenborgian Church of North America governs by convention with congregational weight. The two bodies are distinct and describe their differences themselves.
What a first-time visitor would find
Worship is liturgical and reverent — in Bryn Athyn Cathedral, richly so — with Scripture read and preached through its spiritual sense; congregations are typically small, learned and warm, with reading groups in Swedenborg's works alongside.
What it has always cared about
The spiritual sense of Scripture; usefulness — use is a load-bearing word in Swedenborgian vocabulary — as the form love takes; education, notably the Bryn Athyn schools and college; and the doctrine of heaven as a kingdom of uses.
Its gift to the wider church
Swedenborg's influence on American letters and spirituality ran far beyond these small churches — through Emerson, the Jameses and Helen Keller, who wrote a book about her Swedenborgian faith — and the churches keep that deep well tended for anyone who comes asking.
Commonly confused with
With Spiritualism, persistently, because Swedenborg reported converse with the spiritual world — but the churches firmly distinguish his commissioned sight from mediumship; and the two Swedenborgian bodies are confused with each other, which this record's figure spans.
Range of views inside it
The two bodies differ on the authority of Swedenborg's writings (the General Church holds them divinely authoritative; the Convention church holds them enlightened teaching) and on polity and culture; congregations vary accordingly.
A note from the mapmakers: This is a grouping record spanning two distinct bodies, and nothing here may be asserted of a specific congregation — least of all which body it belongs to. The count of 72 US congregations is our own arithmetic on RCMS 2020 rows: General Church of the New Jerusalem 43 plus Swedenborgian Church (General Convention) 29. Sentences drawn from this record yield to each body's own materials.
Sources: General Church of the New Jerusalem — beliefs (General Church of the New Jerusalem, Bryn Athyn PA) · Swedenborgian Church of North America — our faith (Swedenborgian Church of North America) · 2020 U.S. Religion Census (ASARB)
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