Why Evangelical Community Churches Aren’t What They Appear To Be
February 27, 2025
For many years before coming to the New Church, I was an Evangelical. I attended a church called Foursquare, and later, for several years, South Mountain Community Church, or SMCC.
There were many things I appreciated, and still appreciate, about Evangelical community churches like SMCC, especially the music. I also valued the fact that, among Protestant churches, community churches often placed less emphasis on denominational exceptionalism and more on a shared Christian life that crossed institutional boundaries. For that reason, even after I became part of the New Church, I considered attending SMCC from time to time, largely for the music and sense of community.
I ultimately chose not to do so. As will become clear below, while community churches tend to teach fewer overt doctrinal errors, serious fallacies remain present, only expressed in more subtle and carefully worded forms.
It became important for me to guard my time and attention. Rather than continuing to invest energy in Old Church systems grounded in the Nicene Creed, however appealing certain aspects might be, I chose to direct those hours toward the New Church as a spiritual reality. This reflected not a rejection of Christianity, but a recognition that the doctrines and life of the New Church are from heaven in a way the others are not, and thus warranted my fuller commitment and care.
If you’re curious what those fallacies are, I did a quick summary of them here: Examining Ideas Most Christians Misunderstand.
After coming to these realizations, I took a moment to look again at SMCC’s Statement of Beliefs page to see whether there were as many problems as I suspected. I already knew there were serious issues with Protestant churches broadly, as Swedenborg often pointed out in his writings, and it didn’t take long to confirm the same pattern here. The problems were present, though carefully concealed behind subtle language and strategic turns of phrase. Seeing this, I decided that these issues needed to be brought into the open and examined plainly. In earlier articles, for example, I have pointed out many of the subtle deceptions advanced by the presidency and founders of the Mormon Church. What became clear, however, was that Evangelicals were teaching comparable falsities, and these too required exposure. With further investigation, it became evident that their proposed doctrinal solutions are not meaningfully better than Mormonism’s in this respect, despite claims that they offer a viable alternative for those leaving the LDS Church in Utah or elsewhere. This is a shrewd pretense. Many who grow disenchanted with Mormonism because of its masking of truth turn to SMCC believing they have found clarity, yet in reality they are merely jumping from one frying pan into another.
You’re now likely wondering how and why that is, and so below is my analysis, and I’ll reveal the reasons why Evangelical churches aren’t in alignment with the Lord’s doctrine any more than Catholics, Mormons, Protestants broadly, or any of the Old Churches. I’ve split up each of their belief statements into its own section; each section begins with an Evangelical statement of belief by SMCC, and then follows with a response and with quotes by Swedenborg, who speaks from the Lord. These make for a good review so that you’re able to catch on to the phrasing that they use, and my hope in writing this article is so that you can see through these turns of phrase, realize the problems underneath of them, and not fall prey to them.
So let’s take a look and figure out how and why I’ve made these statements:
Evangelical Belief:
We believe the Bible to be inspired and infallible, and as such, the supreme authority in faith and life.
Response:
Protestants rightly believe that the Bible is inspired by God — not merely as a collection of human writings, but as something sacred and authoritative. However, what is often not explored is how the Bible is inspired. Is its authority derived from the literal words on the page, or from a deeper divine truth within those words?
Swedenborg taught that while the literal text of Scripture is vitally important, its true power and infallibility reside in its inner or spiritual meaning, the meaning that speaks directly of the Lord and His kingdom. The literal sense, although holy, is written in correspondences, a divine symbolic language that encodes higher truths.
Many sincere Christians are unaware that much of Scripture, especially in its earliest chapters (like Genesis 1–11), was never intended to be taken as literal history. Rather, these passages serve as parables or symbolic stories; containers for profound spiritual realities. When such stories are interpreted as literal fact without understanding their symbolic depth, the meaning is often distorted and reduced to confusion and even falsity. But when they are read with the Lord’s help and with a desire for divine truth, their holiness shines through clearly.
The Bible is only infallible in its inner sense, not in its literal sense.
As Swedenborg wrote:
The study of correspondences that yields the Word’s spiritual meaning has been revealed today because now the divine truths of the church are coming forward into the light. These truths are what the Word’s spiritual meaning consists of. When these truths are in us, the Word’s literal meaning cannot be perverted. The Word’s literal meaning is capable of being bent this way and that, but if it is bent in the direction of falsity, its inner holiness is destroyed, and so is its outer holiness. If it is bent in the direction of truth, it stays holy.
From this point on, the spiritual meaning of the Word will be given only to people who have genuine truths from the Lord. The reason for this is that none of us can see the spiritual meaning except with the help of the Lord alone, provided we have divine truths from him. The Word’s spiritual meaning deals solely with the Lord and his kingdom. The spiritual meaning is the one with which his angels engage in heaven. It is his divine truth there.
This does not mean the literal Word is unimportant; quite the opposite. The literal sense is the foundation and container of the inner meaning. But its perfection lies in its use as a vessel for divine truth, not in a superficial reading of the words. For example, many Christian doctrines today are constructed upon isolated literal statements, often strung together to support inherited theological systems, without consideration for the Word’s deeper coherence and unified spiritual message.
The dogmas of the Christian churches of today have been constructed not from the Word but under a self-serving mindset; as a result they consist of falsities. These dogmas have also been supported by certain statements in the Word. Therefore in the Lord’s divine providence the Word was taken away from the Roman Catholic laity; and although the Word was opened up for Protestants, they closed it by their widespread assertion that the intellect has to be held under obedience to their faith.
The tragedy is that without access to the Word’s spiritual meaning — and without the freedom to examine the Word intelligently — people remain stuck in surface-level understandings that often contradict both reason and deeper revelation.
Swedenborg taught that the Word’s spiritual meaning is not merely a mystical alternative; it is the true meaning that angels in heaven perceive. It’s not given arbitrarily, but only to those who are in truths from the Lord and who seek them with sincerity.
From this point on, the spiritual meaning of the Word will be given only to people who have genuine truths from the Lord. The reason for this is that none of us can see the spiritual meaning except with the help of the Lord alone, provided we have divine truths from him. The Word’s spiritual meaning deals solely with the Lord and his kingdom. The spiritual meaning is the one with which his angels engage in heaven. It is his divine truth there.
Evangelical Belief:
We believe that there is one God, eternally existing in three persons — Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit.
Response:
This is false because it says, “eternally existing in three persons.” At first glance, this sounds like a clear affirmation of monotheism. But upon closer examination, it conceals a serious contradiction. If God is one, how can He simultaneously be three distinct persons? The doctrine of the Trinity as it’s commonly taught divides God into parts that cannot truly be reconciled with the idea of divine oneness.
This is where a great confusion enters in. The truth is simple: God is not three persons. He is one person — the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not a third of the Godhead, but the whole. In Him are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as a unity, not a trinity of individuals.
As the Lord said:
Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
The Father is the soul, the Son is the body, and the Holy Spirit is the presence or influence going forth. All three are perfectly united in the one Divine Human — Jesus Christ. This is not just a poetic or symbolic idea. It is the reality of God’s nature. The Lord is the visible God, and in Him dwells the fullness of the Divine.
Most Christian churches today base their doctrines on the Council of Nicaea, a fourth-century gathering of bishops that produced the first ecumenical creed of the Christian Church and formally defined God as three co-eternal divine persons. In trying to defend the Church from heresies, especially from a group known as the Arians, the Nicene bishops created a doctrine that became a heresy itself and has led countless people away from the true understanding of God. By asserting three co-eternal persons, it effectively introduced three gods, even while insisting there was only one.
By Swedenborg:
The Council of Nicaea introduced the idea of three divine persons from eternity for the reason that it had not properly examined the Word and had therefore found no other protection against the Arians.
Already by the third century a concept like this was becoming prevalent among Christians, as the Arians were on the rise. To salvage divinity for the Lord, the Council of Nicaea made up “the eternally begotten Son of God.”
Although it was a fiction, this concept did succeed at the time in elevating the Lord’s human nature to something divine; and it still works for many even today. It does not work, however, for those who see the hypostatic union as a union of two separate entities, one of whom is superior to the other.
This misunderstanding has been the root of many harmful doctrines that followed, such as salvation by faith alone, predestination, and the idea that God’s mercy operates independently of repentance and spiritual change. These errors stem from a deeper error — the idea of a divided God.
This faith of the modern-day church has given birth to horrifying offspring in the past, and is producing more such offspring now… From the earliest centuries of Christianity until now, heresies have been leaping forth from a single source: the body of teaching based on the idea that there are three gods.
The truth is far simpler. The Father is not someone separate from the Son. The Holy Spirit is not a third being apart from them. These names describe the essential aspects of one Lord: His divine soul, His divine body, and His divine operation. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one God of heaven and earth.
Those who say they worship the Father while denying the Lord’s divinity are, in reality, worshiping a concept that does not exist. Swedenborg explained that most Christians today are inwardly either Arians or Socinians — the first denying that Jesus is God, and the second acknowledging Him only as a man and turning their attention to a distant, abstract “Father.”
The vast majority of Christians today are inwardly either Arians or Socinians and that any adoration they pay to Christ as God is merely hypocritical.
Only the Lord Jesus Christ is God. Not a part of God, not one third of a divine council, but God in person — the Divine Human in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).
Evangelical Belief:
We believe that Jesus Christ, by offering Himself on the cross, paid the penalty of man’s sin, and all who receive Him by faith are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God.
Response:
This is what is termed Penal Substitution Theory, and it is wrong, because Jesus didn’t pay the penalty for our sins; rather, his death on the cross made a way for our salvation because of the internal battles he fought and won against hell.
As people read this, their jaws might drop to the floor as they think, “What! Jesus didn’t pay for my sins?” because they’ve heard this repeated over and over again so often in their culture.
But no, Jesus did not pay for your sins; rather, he paved a way for them to be forgiven. He “carried them,” which means he confronted the worst of hell, and won, and by doing this he opened the way back to heaven, making it possible.
This mean you have to actually repent and change your life rather than simply think that it magically happened because you became a Christian. It also means that when you sin there are still consequences. Repentance doesn’t happen until sin actually ceases.
There is a huge difference between these two concepts.
As Swedenborg explained, it is unjust for someone innocent to pay the sins for someone guilty. God doesn’t operate that way, and claiming that he does, is only fueling the fire of the atheists and agnostics, many of whom are able to understand that this false doctrine is inconsistent and goes against human morality.
Penal Substitution Theory is false.
Instead, take up these true interpretations for the reasoning behind the Lord’s death and resurrection:
Paving the Way for Forgiveness Through Spiritual Influence: In this understanding, the Lord’s death and resurrection are seen as acts of supreme love, spiritual, and moral example, which inspire humanity to repentance and transformation. His suffering can be understood as demonstrating the depth of his love and the seriousness of sin, motivating people to turn back to him, and this is what it means to “bear our sins” (1 Peter 2:24). By “dying for us” (Romans 5:8) he made a way for human beings to be forgiven as they are moved to repentance and spiritual renewal.
Pushing Hell Back Into Its Place: In this view, the Lord’s death carried the weight of sin, not by literally paying a debt, but by enduring the consequences of human brokenness and evil which had caused hell to grow to an enormous size in the World of Spirits, so much so that it was strangling heaven’s ability to reach people on earth. Through his resurrection, he triumphed over hell’s hold on earth, thus it remained possible for those who follow and choose him to receive forgiveness and eternal life.
By Swedenborg:
It is universal to the faith to believe that if the Lord had not come into the world not one mortal could have been saved. It is universal to the faith to believe that the Lord came into the world to separate hell from the human race, and that he accomplished this by repeatedly doing battle with hell and conquering it. In this way he gained control over it, put it back into the divine design, and made it obey him. It is universal to the faith to believe that he came into the world to glorify the human nature he took on in the world, that is, to unite it to its divine source. Having gained control over hell and having glorified his human nature, he keeps hell in its place, under obedience to him forever. Since neither of these achievements could have happened except by allowing his human nature to be tested, including even the ultimate test, the suffering on the cross, therefore he underwent that experience.
Isaiah 53:5–6 says, “with his stripes we are healed,” and elsewhere, where the words “bought,” “price,” (1 Corinthians 6:20) and “ransom” (1 Peter 1:18–19), or “redeeming by blood” (Revelation 5:9) are used, they are intended to be interpreted symbolically to indicate the points above. The reason for this is because the Word uses spiritual correspondences to represent heavenly truths, that weren’t intended to be interpreted literally in every instance.
Swedenborg explains this:
The teachings of faith of the modern-day church attribute to God qualities that are merely human: they say, for example, that God looked at the human race with anger; that he needed to be “reconciled” to us; that he was in fact reconciled through his love for his Son and through the Son’s intercession; that he needed to be appeased by seeing his Son’s wretched suffering, and this brought him back into a merciful attitude; that he assigns the Son’s justice to unjust people who beg him for it on the basis of their faith alone, and turns them from enemies into friends and from children of wrath into children of grace.
Surely everyone knows that God is compassion and mercy itself. He is absolute love and absolute goodness. These qualities constitute his underlying reality or essence. Surely, then, everyone sees the contradiction in saying that compassion itself or absolute goodness could look at the human race with anger, become our enemy, turn away from us, and lock us all into damnation and nevertheless continue to be his own divine essence, to be God. Attitudes and actions of that kind belong to a wicked person, not a virtuous one. They belong to an angel of hell, not an angel of heaven. It is horrendous to attribute them to God.
The fact that things like this have been taught is clear from direct statements made by many of the founders, the councils, and the churches as a whole, from the first centuries of Christianity right up to the present day.
It is also clear from indirect evidence. There are derivative teachings that must have come from thoughts like these as their source, the way effects come from a cause or bodily actions from a brain. For instance, the notion that God needed to be reconciled to us; that he was in fact reconciled through his love for his Son and through the Son’s intercession and mediation; that God needed to be appeased by seeing his Son’s final wretched suffering, and that this brought him back and more or less forced him to adopt a merciful attitude; that God went from being our enemy to being our friend and adopted us (“children of wrath” that we are) as children of grace.
There were theologians who assigned to God attributes that are merely human and unworthy of God. Their purpose in doing so was to preserve the integrity of the doctrine of justification, once it was established, and dress it up in some plausible fashion. They said that anger, revenge, damnation, and other things of the kind were traits possessed by God’s justice, and this is why such things are mentioned so many times in the Word and are (seemingly) attributed to God.
Mention of “the anger of God” in the Word actually refers to that which is evil in us. Because this evil goes against God it is called the anger of God. This expression does not mean that God is angry at us but that our own evil makes us angry at God. Because evil carries its own punishment with it (just as goodness carries its own reward), when evil brings punishment on us it looks as though God is punishing us.
This is the same, though, as criminals blaming the law for their own punishment, or our blaming the fire for burning us when we put our hand in it, or our blaming the drawn sword in the guard’s hand when we hurl ourselves onto the tip of it. This is the nature of God’s justice.
These are features of the Word’s literal meaning. They occur because the literal meaning is written in correspondences and in expressions of an appearance. These features do not appear in the Word’s spiritual meaning, however; in this meaning the truth stands forth in its own light.
I can attest that when angels hear anyone saying God was angry and locked the whole human race into damnation, or was reconciled from being our enemy through the Son as a second God born from the first God, they become like people who are about to vomit because their stomachs and internal organs have been violently heaved this way and that.
The angels say, “What more insane thing could anyone possibly say about God?”
How did it come about that theologians attributed merely human qualities to God? The underlying cause is that all spiritual perception and enlightenment come from the Lord alone. The Lord is the Word, or divine truth. He is the true light that enlightens everyone (John 1:1, 9). He says, “I have come into the world as a light so that anyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). This light and the awareness that is gained from it flow only into people who acknowledge the Lord as the God of heaven and earth and who turn to him alone. This light and awareness do not flow into people who think in terms of three gods, as has been happening since the early establishment of the Christian church. Because the idea of three gods is an earthly notion, the only light it receives is earthly. It is incapable of opening up to receive any inflow of spiritual light. This is why the only qualities people have seen in God have been earthly in nature.
For another thing, if theologians had realized the vast incongruity between their ideas and the true divine essence, and had removed these ideas from the teachings on justification, this would obviously have amounted to a complete abandonment of a Christianity that had always been centered on the worship of three gods. No alternative was available before the predetermined time for the new church, when fullness and restoration would come.
Evangelical Belief:
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
Response:
This can only be considered as the truth if it’s understood that the Holy Spirit is the Lord Jesus Christ working in others, and not a separate person.
By Swedenborg:
After death, everyone who turns to God is first taught by angels that the Holy Spirit is none other than the Lord and that ‘going forth’ and ‘emanating’ is nothing but enlightening and teaching by means of presence, a presence that depends on our acceptance of the Lord. So after death, many people leave behind the concept of the Holy Spirit that they had formed in the world and accept the idea that it is the Lord’s presence with us through angels and spirits, a presence from and by means of which people are enlightened and taught.
We can feel the influence of the Holy Spirit when angels and good spirits are near us, but those angels and good spirits are not the Lord Himself, but rather messengers operating in his name. This is an important distinction to understand, so that we look to the Lord directly, and not to angels, as our ultimate source and authority on celestial and spiritual life.
Swedenborg, for example, often spoke with angels, but he wrote that all inspiration that he received, even when speaking to them, originated in the Lord while he was reading the Word (True Christianity #779).
To do this ourselves, we have to spend time reading and studying the Word on our own, and sincerely ask the Lord in prayer to help us understand it, with dedication and genuine intention, and not merely attend church and listen to lectures.
It should be clarified that the Holy Spirit works within anyone of any religion who lives by the Lord’s commandments, those who acknowledge his character through the life they live, whether they acknowledge him with their lips or not. The Lord and the influence of his character on us is the Holy Spirit, and it influences both Christians and non-Christians alike. The Holy Spirit does not “enable us” to live a godly life unless we turn away from evils because we know they are sinful; because we don’t want to hurt the Lord or anyone else.
This is a partnership with the Lord whereby we do good as if on our own, with humility, acknowledging that all good comes from him, but that we must engage our will in the process.
Praising and worshiping God will not get us to heaven if our will is not actually engaged with him by way of the life we live throughout the week following Sunday worship.
By Swedenborg:
The Holy Spirit is the divine truth and also the divine action and effect that radiate from the one God, in whom the divine Trinity exists: the Lord God the Savior. The Holy Spirit really means the divine truth; therefore it also means the Word. In this sense, the Lord himself is in fact the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, because the church nowadays characterizes the Holy Spirit as the divine action (meaning that part of the Divine that actually justifies us), therefore the divine action is what we mean by “the Holy Spirit” in the discussion here. For another thing, divine action takes place through the divine truth that radiates from the Lord. Whatever radiates out has one and the same essence as the source it radiates from. Take for example someone’s soul, someone’s body, and someone’s effect: these three together share one essence. In us that essence is merely human. In the Lord there was a divine essence and also a human one. After the Lord’s glorification these two essences were as completely united as a cause is with its effect or an essence with its form. Therefore three essential components, called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are one in the Lord.
Evangelical Belief:
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost — those that are saved to the resurrection of eternal life and those that are lost to the resurrection of condemnation and eternal separation from God.
Response:
Although it isn’t explicitly mentioned in this belief statement, the subtext underlying it is based on the teachings of the Five Solas by the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther (which was occasionally taught by SMCC while I was attending). The Five Solas are: By Scripture Alone, By Grace Alone, By Glory to God Alone, By Faith Alone, and By Christ Alone. Summed up, what they essentially mean is that only Christians are saved and go to heaven.
Many Protestants believe they are The Chosen Ones in the sense that only they, who proclaim faith in Christianity with their mouths, church attendance, membership, and physical baptism, are saved, whereas all others are damned. But this is false; the truth is that people are saved who love the Lord and his loving character, who love their neighbors, and who live a life in accordance with his commandments, regardless of their religion.
Protestants often make statements such as “when I was saved,” or “he or she was saved” as if it was a single event in time, but only the Lord knows who will be saved, and salvation is a life-long process rather than an instant miracle.
Being saved requires spiritual baptism over the length of a person’s entire life, not merely physical baptism or a verbal profession of faith. The baptism ritual isn’t any more than a symbol and reminder of a person’s commitment to live a life of charity and faith, not a guarantee of salvation.
The above statement of belief about the resurrection also assumes that the resurrection means that they’ll receive a new physical body, rather than a substantial body. By “substantial body,” Swedenborg means a realistic body with substance and form, with all of the five senses (and perhaps more), and with even more powers from the Lord than our physical body has, but made from spiritual substance rather than physical matter. We all already have a spiritual body, but it’s covered over during mortal life with our material body. Once we shed our material body, our spiritual body becomes visible, and our material body becomes dust — we never get it back, nor would we want it back again because our substantial body is so much more perfect.
Swedenborg’s Response:
It is evident today that people believe in no other salvation than a momentary one from immediate mercy. This is clear from the fact that a spoken declaration of faith alone, together with a confident breath, and not at the same time charity (from which spoken faith becomes real, and a confident breath becomes sincere) is thought to accomplish the whole work of salvation.
For if cooperation is removed (which is actually through the exercise of charity by man as if by himself) the cooperation could only occur spontaneously as a result of his faith acting passively, which would make it a frivolous expression.
If that were the case, what more would be needed than this momentary and immediate cry: “Save me, O God, for the sake of your Son’s passion, who by his blood has washed me from my sins and sets me pure, just, and holy before your throne”?
And they suppose that this utterance of the lips has power even in the last hour of death, if not earlier, as the seed of justification.
Yet this momentary salvation from immediate mercy is like a flying fiery serpent in the Church today, and by it they abolish religion, they induce false security, and they lay the blame for damnation on the Lord.
See this explained in the work Divine Providence, §340, published at Amsterdam in the year 1764.
—(my trans.) cf. Summary Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church §65
The false belief that you can be saved instantly by faith alone is symbolized by the dragon in the Book of Revelation.
It is an insane heresy to believe that only those born in the church are saved. People born outside the church are just as human as people born within it. They come from the same heavenly source. They are equally living and immortal souls. They have religions as well, religions that enable them to believe that God exists and that they should lead good lives; and all of them who do believe in God and lead good lives become spiritual on their own level and are saved, as already noted [326].
Someone could point out that they have not been baptized. But baptism saves only people who have been spiritually washed, that is, regenerated. Baptism serves as a symbol and reminder of this.
Someone could point out that they do not know the Lord, and that apart from the Lord there is no salvation. But no one is saved because of knowing about the Lord. We are saved because we live by his commandments. Further, the Lord is known to everyone who believes in God because the Lord is the God of heaven and earth, as he tells us in Matthew 28:18 and elsewhere.
Particularly, people outside the church have more of a concept of a personal God than Christians do; and people who have a concept of a personal God and lead good lives are accepted by the Lord. Unlike Christians, they believe in God as one in both person and essence. Further, they think about God as they lead their lives. They treat evils as sins against God; and people who do this are thinking about God as they lead their lives.
Christians get the commandments of their religion from the Word, but not many of them actually take any commandments of life from it.
Vatican II, from 1962 to 1965, attempted to correct many of the problems in the Catholic faith, and may have made some progress, but nonetheless didn’t oust, “the dragon,” which is the doctrine of faith alone, which still exists in the doctrines of all Christian churches today except for the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church.
Swedenborg lived and wrote his books in the 18th century, before the Second Vatican Council when Catholics were encouraged to read the Word for themselves, and also before Christianity spread more broadly across much of the world, but what he wrote still rings very true today and continues to be applicable to the modern Christian landscape. He wrote:
Catholics do not read it, and Protestants who believe in faith separated from charity pay no attention to what it says about life, only to what it says about faith. Yet the whole Word is nothing but a theology of life.
Christianity is found only in Europe. Islam and other non-Christian religions are found in Asia, the Indies, Africa, and America; and there are ten times as many people in these latter parts of the world as there are in the Christian part of the world — and relatively few of these latter people make their religion a matter of their lives. What could be more insane than to believe that these and only these individuals are saved, and that the others are damned, that heaven is ours by right of birth and not by conduct of life? That is why the Lord says, “I tell you that many will come from the east and from the west and will recline with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens, while the children of the kingdom will be thrown out” (Matthew 8:11-12).
It is a cruel heresy to believe that any member of the human race is damned by predestination. It is cruel, that is, to believe that the Lord, who is love itself and mercy itself, would allow such a vast number of people to be born for hell, or that so many millions would be born damned and doomed, that is, born devils and satans. It is cruel to believe that in his divine wisdom the Lord would not make sure that people who lead good lives and believe in God would not be cast into the flames and into eternal torment. After all, the Lord is the Creator and Savior of us all. He alone is leading us, and he does not want anyone to die; so it is cruel to believe and think that such a multitude of nations and people are by predestination being handed over to the devil as prey under the Lord’s own guidance and oversight.
Protestant Belief:
We believe in the spiritual unity of all believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, as He is understood from the Bible alone, regardless of denominational affiliation.
Response:
This isn’t good because of one nuanced, but essential distinction: it should say, “regardless of religious affiliation,” rather than “regardless of denominational affiliation.” The latter infers that only Christians are saved, but this isn’t true. Swedenborg wrote that all people (including non-Christians) who live a good life are united in heaven, albeit in different communities. And so a statement of belief that there is unity among a variety of cultures in heaven is only true insofar as it’s seen as universal. Gentiles (non-Christians) can be saved, too, who believe in God, insofar as they worship him in essence by living by the Ten Commandments, most of which they know intuitively. And, according to Swedenborg, many non-Christians do this better than so-called Christians, making it easier for them to enter heaven in the next life. The reason this is possible is because the essentials of the Word, which are love and charity, can influence and direct their lives even if they aren’t aware of the specifics of it, which they will be made aware of after death.
People who believe in the Lord’s true character, but don’t possess a copy of the Bible and read it, are still able to be united to him. The Bible does have an essential ability to unlock a unique link with heaven that would not otherwise be available to earth and heaven, and because of this, it’s incredibly important that people own and read it; because by doing so, heaven can more closely influence Christians and non-Christians by proxy via those who read it. That said, it doesn’t prevent them from being saved if they haven’t read it, and instead got the truths from it secondhand, so long as they live by them and later come to acknowledge them.
The phrase “Bible alone” also sounds like “faith alone,” which is problematic, because it’s a false doctrine to believe that salvation and justification is by faith alone (James 2:26). Swedenborg would, instead, say, “by the Lord alone,” or the “Word alone,” in order to emphasize the universality of spiritual vs literal truths.
To make a distinction between what is the Word and what is the Bible, although they’re similar, Protestants tend to focus first on the teachings of the Apostle Paul from his epistles in the latter portion of the New Testament, which are a part of the Bible as defined by the Catholic and Protestant biblical canon, and then only second on the Books of the Word, which are those which have an inner sense and focus on the Lord alone (See The New Jerusalem #266 for a list of the books about the Lord alone, known as the Word). This order is backwards. We can draw wisdom from Paul’s words, but we should only do so if we base them first on the Lord’s words, but many Protestants focus first on Paul’s words in order to subvert the Lord’s, of which, Swedenborg exposed in True Christianity. (For more about this subject, where I mention the Apostle Paul and old church Christianity, see my article, The Heavenly Role of Men and Women in Marriage, Church, and Society.)
By Swedenborg:
Nevertheless, all who do good from a religious motive, whether Christians or pagans, are accepted by the Lord and received after death; for the Lord said:
“I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” And He said: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me... Come, ye blessed... inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:31 and following verses).
To the above I will add this new fact. All who do good from a religious motive reject after death the doctrine of the present day Church concerning three divine persons existing from eternity, and also its faith as it applies to these three in their separate capacities. They turn to the Lord God the Savior, and with joy receive the doctrines of the New Church.
Arcana Caelestia, which translated means, “Heavenly Secrets,” is a compendium of several volumes containing doctrinal insights in heaven that instructs angels regarding the inner meaning of the Lord’s Word.
The Lord commissioned Swedenborg to write it down for us on earth, so that we can learn from it as well, for anyone and everyone with the wisdom to receive it.
Evangelical Belief:
We believe that baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality demonstrating that a person has a new life in Jesus Christ and the recognition of the living presence of the Holy Spirit.
Response:
Although this sounds correct, it isn’t because of where it says “that a person has a new life,” it should say “who has started a new life,” since, as was mentioned above, a baptism ceremony is only the first step towards regeneration, and yes, a sign of commitment, but not a guarantee of it, which is the idea that being saved is not as a single event, but a lifelong mission.
Mormons, for example, teach the idea of an “age of accountability,” placing baptism at eight years old. Some Baptists, Pentecostals, and non-denominational churches hold a similar view, even if they do not specify a fixed age, and for that reason reject infant baptism altogether. In either case, however, attaching a minimum age to baptism is misguided. The age at which a person is baptized, whether as an infant, a child, or an adult, merely marks when the external ritual takes place. What truly defines baptism is not a moment, but the whole of a person’s life. From birth through old age, spiritual baptism consists in truth lived in the natural body, a life that prepares the person for eternal life in the spiritual body.
Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of Water and the Spirit.
—John 3:5 (NIV)
Water means truth and Spirit means life (Apocalypse Revealed #50).
Reaching salvation is a life-long process.
In heaven, a baptized child is taught in truth, and his baptism depends on his choices as he matures.
Just imagine how beautiful baptisms are in heaven, as they are on earth, when the parents of new children who’ve arrived there truly understand this, and understand the truths of heaven, such that it’s all but guaranteed that they’ll choose the Lord, yet the choice is given to them freely.
When it’s understood that baptism is a symbol and a reminder, rather than a guarantee, it opens the mind of the child up to love from the Lord’s divine providence, because the child recognizes that he’s being granted free will. When a child knows he is free, he can walk without regret or remorse, and follow his guardians on towards the path to heaven without defensiveness.
Babies can be baptized because salvation doesn’t occur in an instant and a child may choose to accept it over the course of his entire life, and it’s his entire life that causes it to take effect.
Swedenborg also wrote that infant baptism does have a significance on earth because a child baptized on earth is marked in the spiritual world as a Christian, and this allows him to be recognized and led by guardian angels there. The sooner this can be recognized in the child, the sooner he’ll have the advantage of that mentorship from those angels. That said, on earth this is a holy marking for mentorship and not a guarantee of salvation.
The washing of a person’s spirit is meant by the washing of his body; and the internals of the church were represented by such external rituals as were practiced by the Israelite church. This is obvious from the Lord’s words in this passage:
The Pharisees and Scribes, seeing that His disciples ate bread with unwashed hands, found fault. For the Pharisees and all Jews do not eat unless they have washed their hands up to the fist; there are many other things they have accepted as a practice to be kept up, such as the washing of cups and pots, and of bronze vessels, and beds. The Lord said to them and to the crowd, Listen to me all of you and understand. There is nothing outside a person which can make him unclean if it enters into him; but it is what comes out that makes him unclean (Mark 7:1-4, 14-15; Matthew 15:2, 11, 17-20).
Also elsewhere:
Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but the inside is full of robbery and violence. You blind Pharisee, clean first the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside too may be clean (Matthew 23:25-26).
It is plain from these passages that the washing called baptism stands for spiritual washing, which is being purified from evils and falsities.
Although Pilate washed his hands after sentencing Jesus to death, he wasn’t clean.
Surely everyone of sound reason is capable of seeing that washing our face, hands, feet, and all our limbs — even washing our whole body in a bathtub — does no more than wash away dirt so that we look clean and properly human to others. Surely everyone can understand that there is no physical act of washing that can reach our spirit and cleanse it as well.
All criminals, robbers, and thieves have the ability to wash themselves until they gleam; but that washing does not wipe away the characteristics that make them criminals, robbers, and thieves.
The inner self flows into the outer self and produces the effects sought by the will and the intellect. The outer self does not flow into the inner self. A flow that goes inward is unnatural, because it goes against the divine design; a flow that goes outward is natural, because it follows the divine design.
Evangelical Belief:
We believe that our purpose for living is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.
Response:
This belief is the most clearly wrong out of all of them.
The purpose for living is to love the Lord and the neighbor with useful service. It isn’t merely to enjoy him, but rather to serve him and be his friend (John 15:15). By serving him and our neighbor, he gives us a gift of joy, but the reward isn’t the purpose, rather, love and service is.
I’ve noticed that Protestants use terms like “enjoying him forever,” rather than “serving him forever,” because the ideology of faith alone is that nobody can resist evils as if on their own. Thus, they think they simply need to sit back and enjoy, rather than act.
Swedenborg’s response on this point is a bit more nuanced than the others, so I’ve included it in its own section:
What People Actually Do In Heaven
In Swedenborg’s book, True Christian Religion, he related this story:
I once saw an angel flying under the eastern heaven holding a trumpet to his mouth with his hand, and sounding a blast towards the north, the west and the south. He was wearing a cloak which trailed behind him as he flew. He wore a sash studded with rubies and sapphires so that it flamed and shone. He flew head first, and alighted gently on the ground near where I was. On landing he walked upright on his feet, going in different directions, and then on seeing me came towards me. I was in the spirit, and in that state was standing on a hill in the southern quarter.
When he was near, I spoke to him and asked: “What is happening now? I heard the sound of your trumpet, and saw you come down through the air.”
“I have been sent,” the angel replied, “to summon the most famous for their learning, the most perceptive minds and the names most renowned for wisdom, who come from Christian lands and are in this region, to meet together on this hill, where you are now standing, and to speak their minds, stating what, when in the world, they had thought, understood and regarded as wisdom on the subject of heavenly joy and everlasting happiness.”
“The reason for my mission is that some new arrivals from the world, who have been admitted to our heavenly community in the east, have reported that not a single person in the whole of Christendom knows what heavenly joy and everlasting happiness are, and so what heaven is.
My brethren and colleagues were very surprised at this and told me to go down, make proclamation and summon the wisest people in the world of spirits, the place where all mortals are first gathered together on leaving the natural world, so that we can be informed by a number of voices, whether it is true that Christians are in such dense darkness and deep ignorance about the life to come.” “Wait a little while,” he said, “and you will see the groups of wise men arriving here; the Lord will prepare a hall for their meeting.”
This angel and Swedenborg then observe other angels teaching groups of people who just arrived at the World of Spirits after death what heaven is and what it isn’t. The new arrivals were placed into several earth-like conditions according to their conceptions of heaven, so that they’d be able to experience what they thought heaven was.
From one of the retellings:
There was a spacious building in which people of this sort were gathered; it contained more than fifty rooms, different ones being allocated to each of the various topics of conversation… After this the angel guide came back to the building to address those who had formed a strong conviction that heavenly joy and everlasting happiness were a perpetual glorification of God, and a festival lasting for ever. This was because in the world they had believed that then they would see God, and because life in heaven as the result of worshipping God is called “a perpetual Sabbath.”
“Follow me,” the angel told them, “and I shall take you where you can experience your idea of joy.” He took them into a small town, in the middle of which there was a church, and all the houses were called sacred buildings. They saw in the town crowds coming from every corner of the surrounding country, and amongst them a number of priests. These received and greeted the new arrivals, and taking them by the hand brought them to the doors of the church, and from there to some buildings around it, and introduced them to the constant worship of God. They told them that this town was a forecourt leading to heaven, and its church was the entrance to a magnificent, vast church in heaven, where the angels glorify God with prayers and praises for ever. “The rules here and also there,” they said, “are that people must first enter the church and spend three days and three nights there. After this initiation they must go into the houses of the town, which are all sacred buildings dedicated by us; and then moving from one to another, they must join the congregations there in prayer, shouts of praise and the repetition of sermons. But above all you must be careful not to think to yourselves or say to companions anything but what is holy, pious and religious.”
After this the angel took his party into the church, which was packed full with many who had held high rank in the world as well as many ordinary people. There were guards at the doors to prevent anyone leaving before spending his three days there. “Today,” said the angel, “is the second day since these people came in; look carefully at them, and you will see how they glorify God.”
When they looked, they saw that most were asleep, and those who were awake could not stop yawning. As the result of constantly keeping their thoughts raised to God, and never allowing them to drop back to the body, some appeared to themselves and so also to others as if they were faces shut off from the body. Some were wild-eyed from constantly withdrawing their eyes. In short, all were depressed at heart and weary in spirit from boredom. They turned their backs on the pulpit and shouted: “Our ears are stunned, put an end to your sermons; we cannot hear your voice any longer and the sound of it is beginning to become hateful.” Then they got up, rushed in a body to the doors, broke them open and by pressure on the guards drove them out of the way.
On seeing this the priests followed them and coming close beside them kept teaching them amid prayers and sighs. “Keep the festival,” they said, “glorify God, sanctify yourselves. In this forecourt to heaven we shall initiate you into the everlasting glorification of God in the magnificent, vast church which is in heaven, and so you will enjoy everlasting happiness.” But they were unable to grasp this and hardly heard it, because two days of keeping their thoughts raised and removed from domestic and everyday matters had dulled their minds. But when they tried to snatch themselves away, the priests caught hold of their arms and their clothes too, pressing them to enter the buildings where sermons were being delivered. All to no avail; the people cried, “Leave us alone; we feel in our bodies as if we are fainting.”
As soon as this was said, four men were seen, dressed in white robes and mitres. One of them had been an archbishop in the world and the other three had been bishops; all had now become angels. They called the priests together to address them. “We have seen you,” they said, “from heaven with this flock of yours, and what sort of pastors you are. You are driving them mad.
You do not know what glorifying God means; it means bringing forth the fruits of love, that is, faithfully, honestly and painstakingly doing the work demanded by one’s occupation. For this is a part of loving God and loving the neighbor; it is the bond which holds a community together, and it is the good it performs. By this God is glorified, as well as by worship at fixed times.
Have you not read the Lord’s words:
In this is my Father glorified, by your bringing forth much fruit and becoming my disciples, (John 15:8).
You priests can devote yourselves to worship and glorification, because this is your duty, and it brings you honor, glory and reward. Still you could no more, than they, devote yourselves to that glorification, if honor, glory and reward did not attend upon your duty.”
With these words the bishops ordered the guards on the doors to allow everyone to enter or leave. “For,” they said, “there is a vast number of people who are unable to imagine any joy in heaven other than constantly worshipping God, because they knew nothing about conditions in heaven.”
In heaven, people aren’t simply constantly praising and “enjoying,” as Evangelicals think; they’re being useful. They’re finding ways to serve the Lord, and each other. They praise as well, absolutely, but unless that’s their job it isn’t their primary purpose. We can stand and praise and say “thank you,” but if we aren’t actually doing the Lord’s will, are we actually thankful?
An Example of Contemporary Arguments for Faith Alone
If you have not encountered how arguments for faith alone are commonly framed today, a recent discussion by the YouTuber Ruslan Karaoglanov provides a representative example. What follows is not a personal critique, but an examination of the reasoning presented by him and his guest, Gavin Ortlund. The fact that such arguments remain widespread in the twenty-first century only reinforces how relevant Swedenborg’s warnings still are, even today. What he identified in the eighteenth century regarding false doctrines in Christianity has not significantly faded with time, even if the language has been “softened” to fit modern trends.
Early in the discussion, justification is treated as something complex and elusive, with those who disagree portrayed as failing to grasp its nuances. Yet the Lord speaks plainly on the matter. He does not describe justification as a technical mystery, but as a question of life and obedience:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
—Matthew 7:21–23
Ruslan acknowledges that Protestants and Catholics differ in how they speak about justification. Swedenborg, however, showed that in practice both arrive at the same conclusion, even if by different routes. Catholicism often veils faith alone doctrine through ritual and sacramental language, while Protestantism states it more directly and elevates it as a defining theological marker.
The Lord, by contrast, never grounds salvation in faith alone. He grounds it in love. When asked about the foundation of the Law and the Prophets, He did not point to faith, but to love:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
—Matthew 22:37–40
And again:
If you love me, keep my commandments.
—John 14:15
James makes the same point without qualification. Faith that does not come to life in works is dead:
You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
…
You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
…
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
—James 2:19–26
In the video, Ruslan states that “someone can get it wrong on the ‘mode’ of salvation and still be saved,” implying that works are ultimately optional. Ortlund responds that the issue becomes “really tricky” and “really nuanced.” Yet Scripture consistently presents salvation as something lived, not something navigated through mere verbal precision at the expense of the heart. Arguments over terminology tend to enter when belief is detached from charity, leading to denial of the Lord’s central teachings.
Swedenborg explains that this separation is what Scripture represents through images such as Philistia, the dragon in Revelation, and the two beasts:
People whose faith is divorced from charity are meant by the dragon in the Book of Revelation… That the religion of faith divorced from charity is meant and described in the book of Revelation by the dragon and its two beasts is something I have not only been told from heaven, but also shown to me in the world of spirits below heaven.
—Doctrine of the New Jerusalem about Faith #55, #56
Much of the discussion places Paul’s writings at the center, treating justification as a “first-rank” issue and interpreting the Lord’s words through that framework, rather than placing the Lord’s words first and then interpreting Paul through him. This leads to the doctrine of imputation, the idea that the Lord’s righteousness is transferred to a person apart from a transformed life. Swedenborg shows that this contradicts the Lord’s constant insistence on repentance as something lived, not merely declared.
At one point, Ruslan suggests that the disagreement is largely about terminology. But the issue is not linguistic. It concerns how a person repents, lives, and relates to the Lord. Statements about an “initial change” or a “declaration of repentance” cannot substitute for real amendment of life. Words alone do not change the heart. Swedenborg explained that Protestants push the faith alone message because it sells well, that is, it’s easy to sell to an audience. The faith alone message is, essentially, that coming to church, declaring one’s faith, and going through the rituals is enough for salvation, even if one’s life hasn’t meaningfully changed.
Ruslan criticizes Catholicism for lacking “assurance of salvation” and offers what appears to be a clearer alternative. Yet Scripture repeatedly affirms that judgment belongs to the Lord alone. When the Orthodox say “we do not know who is saved” that’s not evasive, but the truth. Claims about who “will be saved” ultimately exceed human knowledge. Love, however, draws attention away from the oneself and toward others, and in that state, anxiety about salvation fades. Faith alone keeps the focus inward. Love releases it. Salvation is not a status granted once, but a relationship lived over time, and nobody but the Lord knows who is saved.
Those who are “in Christ” are those who live in love, not those who merely assent. The Lord makes this distinction explicit:
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
—Matthew 12:50
Romans 8:1 is cited as a banner text:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
—Romans 8:1
But even Paul immediately qualifies this elsewhere:
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
—Romans 3:31
And all others are, in fact, considered to be “not sons of God”:
You are of your father the devil…
—John 8:44
Sonship, then, is indeed a spiritual condition grounded in reciprocation. The Lord never turns away, but people can and do reject him of their own free will.
Swedenborg teaches that spiritual anxiety arises from separation from the Lord and from unrepentant evils. Though painful, it is also an invitation to reformation. Protestant teachings often promise peace without but without the hard truth that repentance is essential, and that without it, verbal declarations of faith are nothing more than a palliative cure. They soothe symptoms while leaving the underlying infection unhealed. Faith alone operates in this way, offering reassurance without transformation.
True reformation requires humility and cooperation. Merit never belongs to the person, and the Lord works only where a person refrains from evils as if on his own:
It is the Lord’s will that there be reception on man’s part, and reception is possible only as man acts as of himself, though it is from the Lord.
—Apocalypse Explained #248 [3]
In short,
Faith alone says: “declare and be done.”
The Lord says: “love me, and keep my commandments.”
