reader or seeker in any doubt.
I went to one Journey group some years ago, and have looked at some of
the other Journey booklets, and I had the same reaction that Mr. Waters had.
They are not accurate in the way the Writings were presented, and in some
cases were wrong in what the Writings teach. I haven’t seen any of the more
recent ones, but I felt that the ones I saw should have been far more carefully
edited.
Is this important? I think that if our church is going to be of any importance
to the world and to the single individuals who are trying to live a life of the
church, then it is absolutely necessary to have a clear acknowledgement of the
origin of the church’s authority. Is that authority from the Lord, or only from a
man, no matter how intelligent he was?
Joseph S. David
Franklin, Pennsylvania
We Follow the Lord Alone
To The Editors:
In his article, “Surely We Are Not Swedenborgians!”, the Rev. Gerald Waters
draws attention to the increasing use of terms that make it appear that
Swedenborg, not the Lord, was author of the Writings, and he invites views.
I agree with Gerald that there is an increasing tendency to use terms that
appear to attribute authorship of the Writings to Swedenborg and that these
terms undermine the Lord’s Divine Authority and have the potential to harm
the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth. It is upon this Divine
Authority of the Writings that the whole of the New Church is based.
If Swedenborg is thought to be the author, the Writings become another
set of books with views that we are free to accept or reject as we would those
of any other author. People are then free to reject anything in the Writings that
they do not like. On the contrary, if the Lord is acknowledged to be the Author
and we don’t like something that is written, we should feel bound to look into
our hearts and find what is lacking in our state of regeneration that is making
us wish to reject it.
As Gerald notes, the latest Journey Program, Living Gratefully, that I
also joined in, uses terms that lead to Swedenborg being considered to be the
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