WHAT IS "NEW" ABOUT THE
“NEW CHURCH”?
People often ask, "What is new about the
New Church?"
In terms of years marked by the calendar, it may seem that
the "New Church" is no longer new. Starting in the Cape it
has been present in South Africa since the 1820s.
Yet it still is new!
It is new in the freshness of religious and spiritual
insight and practicality when compared to traditional
Christianity theology . . . . in its openness to continual
renewal, as a church, rather than being directed by the
heavy weight of tradition . . . . as it reaches new
communities and different language groups here in South
Africa and in many countries overseas . . . . as it changes
people’s lives for good.
Our basic affirmations are simple:
- The Lord Jesus Christ
is the one living God.
- As one person the Lord
has three dimensions, which He called
“Father” and “Son” and
“Holy Spirit”. Created in His image, each of
us has three parts that make us one complete person
– soul, body and action. But we are not infinite
and alive like the Lord. Each of us is finite. We each
have boundaries and limits. We are alive, we move and we
have our being in the Lord.
- The Lord is present
with us, in every moment of our life, with His passionate
love, His profound wisdom and His pervasive power to help
each one of us.
- His Word enables us to
learn from Him what it is to be human, how to grow as a
person, how to recognise and love Him and others, how to
trust His life and reality.
- There are powerful and
very obvious statements of truth in the Word that are
meant for each of us. At the same time, every story in
the Word is a parable with a deeper, inner meaning about
our personal spiritual rebirth and growth.
- Because the Lord loves
the whole human family, He has provided that there are
truths present in every religion so people can find
eternal safety (or salvation). But the Word we have is
the crown of revelations because by it we know, most
directly, about the Lord and by it He can act, most
directly, upon us and our lives.
- As adults we are free
to choose – we have to choose, each for ourself
– what kind of person we really want to be forever.
This hopefully includes being "born again" – not in
a miraculous instant conversion – but in our
decisions and lives from day to day, with the Lord always
present helping.
- This new birth enables
us to learn to love deeply, to be intimate and trusting,
to be committed to forgiveness and reconciliation, to act
with justice and compassion, to make a difference by our
lives here on earth.
- "What God has joined
together" He will not separate. A marriage in which there
is true love, as a result of the new birth of the spirit
from the Lord, can continue forever, into eternity.
- We are born so that we
can live forever. "Death" is not our death as a person.
It is just the end of the physical body enabling us to
live in this natural world. We continue to live forever.
If we have said "yes!" to Life – "yes!" to the God
in whom we live, move and have our being – "yes!"
to living and helping others and not just living for
ourself – then our life will be peaceful, rewarding
and happy, forever.