: .
local public schools weren’t the best, so
when a Jesuit Catholic school with a fine
readings:
educational program happened to open
Here is a quotation that appears in
up in the area, Doug’s father enrolled
Doug’s last book, The Hidden Levels
him there – with the provision that
of the Mind: “(We need to realize
although Doug would attend the religion
that the mind that we use while living
classes he would not attend the Catholic
in this natural world) is made up of
religious services. On Sundays he went
both spiritual substances and earthly
to the Presbyterian Church.
substances. These latter substances fade
Doug emerged from this religious
away when we die, but the spiritual
mix as an agnostic – but not for long. It
substances do not. So when we become
was his future wife, Christine Brock, who
spirits or angels after death, the same
introduced him to the New Church. They
mind is still there in the form it had in
met at the University of Adelaide, where
the world.” (Divine Love and Wisdom
Christine was studying music education
257)
and Doug was studying French.
They met, “as if by chance” (as it says
in Conjugial Love 316.3) at a French Club
picnic. A visiting friend from France, a young man named Henri, brought
Christine to the picnic and introduced her to the club president, who happened
to be Doug Taylor. “That was the biggest mistake I ever made,” Henri said
some years later. For Doug and Christine, of course, it was providential. They
were married for 62 years, had five children and now 12 grandchildren.
Doug was mystified and put off by Christine’s religion at first, but she
gave him a book of the Writings to read, The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly
Doctrine. He stayed up all night reading it – and it changed his mind.
Then he went to Christine’s father, a New Church minister, to learn more
about the religion. In their discussion, Mr. Brock especially focused on the
doctrine of correspondences – and that was a real eye-opener. Doug loved it.
Several years later, Doug and Christine moved to Edinburgh where Doug
studied for his master’s degree in education. While teaching in Bristol, England,
for a year, he met the Rev. Frank Rose and became especially interested in New
Church education. So Doug and Christine and their growing family decided
to move to Bryn Athyn so he could become a New Church minister in the
General Church, with a focus on education.
Doug was ordained on the 19th of June, 1960. He first served the
congregation in Tucson, Arizona, for three years, then as pastor to the
Hurstville congregation in New South Wales, Australia, for 11 years. Then he
was called to be assistant pastor in Bryn Athyn, and four years later became the
f irst Director of Evangelization for the General Church.
There had previously been an “Extension Committee,” but Doug
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