1830s – “more forthrightly than any American before him” – that Swedenborg
was commissioned to convey the doctrines of the New Church by the Lord,
and that the doctrines “are to be received with the Lord’s authority.”
New Church education was one of the Academy strategies, but it had
many supporters throughout the 19th century, with 10 schools founded in the
1830s and ‘40s, and 52 schools having some connection with the New Church
before the founding of the Academy in 1874. But there was strong opposition.
Mr. Worcester not only opposed New Church education but claimed it was
contrary to the teachings of the Writings.
At the time, in Jeremy’s view, the strategies of Convention were based on
an optimistic view of the state of the Christian world and the expectation that
it would respond to a gently accommodated vision of the New Church. So they
practiced vigorous evangelization, fostered warm relations with other church
bodies, restated teachings from the Writings in terms acceptable to the public,
ignored teachings that they saw as out of step with society, and maintained a
congregational form of church government, with leadership in the hands of
the people according to democratic principles.
The early leaders of the Academy were less optimistic about the culture,
seeing it as being in steep decline. Their strategies for success in this
environment included:
1. The reliance on the Writings as the Word
2. A recognition that the Christian Church has come to an end
3. A rigorous, scholarly approach to doctrine
4. New Church education
5. Distinctive New Church social life
6. A modified democratic structure, which invited lay participation in all
decision-making, but which reserved doctrinal decision for the clergy
7. A governance structure within the clergy that would promote strong
central leadership and unity, referred to as “three degrees of the
priesthood”
Day Two continued to contrast the Convention and Academy strategies,
with more detail, plus quotes from early Church and Academy leaders on their
own foundational convictions.
In the latter half of the 19th century the conflict over these two opposite
ways of looking at what the Church should do grew more pronounced. By the
1870s, according to the Rev. Carl Th. Odhner: “The defenders of the faith drew
nearer together, and began to look for means for combined and more effective
resistance against the spirit of destruction which had invaded the Church.”
That is when William Henry Benade, Frank Ballou, Walter Childs and
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