The New Church - Criticism and Censorship

Criticism and Censorship

Some Christians of other denominations have criticised the church's beliefs, due to the denial of a Holy Trinity of three persons and the denial of blood atonement. The New Church believes that there is one God in one person, Jesus Christ, and that his "blood" signifies the truth of the Holy Spirit which sanctifies a person. It is these two doctrines which cause some Christian theologians to classify the Church as a cult.

Others reject the teachings on the basis that Swedenborg claimed to have visions. Walter Martin, an Evangelical minister, quoted an authority that his spiritual experiences "were admittedly of such a character, that in an ordinary man they would have sufficed to qualify him for an asylum." However the same authority said that his theological writings were so systematic that "no one can reasonably say that Swedenborg was insane." The earliest and most well known example of this dual treatment comes from German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who was a contemporary of Swedenborg. Swedenborg was relatively unknown until 1759 when a fire broke out in Stockholm, Sweden, which threatened to burn down his house and all his writings. At the time Swedenborg was at a dinner in Gothenburg, 480 kilometres away. He suddenly turned pale and described to the guests exactly what was happening, until the fire was put out three houses down from his house. This was investigated by Kant who wrote Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, in which he criticized Swedenborg and knowledge derived from dreams and visions. In private letters Kant stated that he clothed his views in irony, and had great admiration for Swedenborg, but did not publicly admit it for fear of ridicule.

Some Christians misclassify Swedenborg as someone who channelled spirits, which they admit Swedenborg himself had warned against. As the teachings disagree with what they perceive as orthodox theology, they state that he received his information from evil spirits and that the revelation of the New Church is "the most antibiblical and anti-Christian material ever printed." Yet on the point of how to distinguish an evil spirit from an angel, they state that true angels must glorify Christ and the teaching must be based on scripture. Again, Swedenborg would agree, as he stated no evil spirit in hell can even utter the name of Jesus, as the name "Jesus" signifies salvation and those in the spiritual world must speak as they think. Unlike many spiritualists Swedenborg consistently elevates Jesus Christ as the God of heaven and earth, and all doctrines are derived from numerous scriptural references. Moreover, Swedenborg states that none of the teachings originated from any angel or spirit, and that the spiritual world was revealed to him so that humanity may know that there is life after death: "That the Lord manifested Himself before me His servant, and sent me to this office, and that He afterward opened the sight of my spirit, and so has admitted me into the spiritual world, and has granted to me to see the heavens and the hells, also to converse with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for many years, I testify in truth; likewise, that from the first day of that call I have not received any thing which pertains to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I read the Word."

In his day Swedenborg had distributed his books to many of the bishops of England, and to the nobility, but although considered well-written they did not think them valuable and instructed as many as they could not to read them. Censorship in the form of omission was claimed by Eric J. Sharpe in the evangelical biographies of Indian missionary Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889–1929). Singh was said to have a number of gifts, including healing and having visions. Although Singh claimed to have seen Emanuel Swedenborg in his visions, Sharpe discovered that all the evangelical biographies would omit this fact, due to the fact they considered the teachings of Swedenborg as unorthodox (see "Biographical Controversies" in Sadhu Sundar Singh). Censorship continues to this day as several Swedenborg websites on the internet are classified as a "malicious site" in web filtering software (see "Religious, anti-religious, and political censorship" in Content-control software).