• Love and wisdom without action are only imaginary concepts. They become real when they are used
• Love has power only through wisdom
• When we live a life of love and kindness, our life is continual worship
• If we choose to reject goodness, we condemn ourselves. The Lord never judges anyone except from love, for God desires to raise all into heaven. For the Lord God is mercy and goodness and cannot possibly condemn anyone.
• After death, everyone enters into the hell or heaven in which he or she had predominantly chosen while on earth.
• The heart of innocence is the acknowledgment that all that is true and good comes from the Lord and that none of it originates in oneself. And so, innocence is a desire to be led by the Lord, not by self.
• Innocence is the essential element of love and goodness.
• All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good.
• The life leading to heaven is not one withdrawn from the world, but a life of good and truth active in the world.
• God is the marriage of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. Divine Love is made up of three things:
      To love others outside self;
      To desire to be one with the beloved;
      To make them happy from goodness.
  Love desires these things; Wisdom puts them into effect.
• The Lord’s Church is universal. All who live a good life according to their own religious beliefs and acknowledge the divinity of the Lord are members of it and have a place in heaven.
• When we love our neighbors as ourselves, we do not perceive delight in loving kindness except in its practice or in its use. Therefore, a life of loving kindness is a life of useful service.
• Worldly people experience bliss when they are rich and possess the world’s wealth. But when people become spiritual, they are in bliss when they possess an understanding of what is true and good, which becomes their treasure.

Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.- Matthew 6:19-21

Emanuel Swendenborg (1688-1772), grew up in the early “Age of Enlightenment.” A scientist, philosopher, and spiritual explorer, he is best known for his later writings in which he presents ideas both Christian and ecumenical, for a new spiritual era, i.e., “new church,” to be known as “The New Jerusalem.” In our church, we read, interpret, and apply the Bible as sacred scripture with literal and spiritual meaning for our lives; and, influenced by the writings of Swendenborg, practice our faith daily through love, wisely applied in useful service to God and neighbor.

Tenets of Swedenborgianism