Welcome to Hurstville New Church!
One of the most common questions we get is "What is the New Church?" To start with, it is its own denomination that is based on the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg. If you've never heard of him, you're not alone. He was an 18th century genius, basically the Leonardo daVinci of Sweden. He was raised a Lutheran, but in his 50s had a spiritual awakening, realizing that much of what he knew to be true was in fact not true. Through the rest of his life he wrote 34 volumes of books detailing how God is to be understood, and standing against Biblical literalism to show that the Bible stories are in fact a metaphor or allegory for our life. While most of the events actually did happen, the Bible is written from the perspective of the author, which enables us to relate to the plight of the people involved.
However, what really separates the New Church from other religious groups is our understanding of God. We believe that there is only one God and He is known by many names to the religions of the world. All religions lead to God, but what makes Christianity special is the belief that Jesus was the human incarnation of the one true God. Swedenborg makes the point that believing in one God is essential to our lives, because if we split Him into a trinity of persons we come up with all kinds of errors about His true nature.
Take this for example: traditional Christianity says that Jesus had to come to Earth to appease an angry Father. The Father needed "justice" for the sins of humanity, and it was only Jesus' sacrifice that could bring it. By contrast, Swedenborg says that God loves all people, is never angry, and certainly does not need a blood sacrifice. More to the point though, if Jesus IS God, it shows that He came to us out of pure love, and not to satisfy the needs of an angry father. If we see God in this way, you'll find that is has a transforming effect on how you see the world around you.
Please take a look at the video below, or at our Media page to see a quick description of our weekly messages, and see if anything calls to you...or just click around through our site. Of course we'd love it if you attended one of our worship services, Bible studies or events! We'll do our best to make you feel right at home.
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