Core Purpose and Summary of Beliefs
The core purpose of the Glenview New Church is to help people in Glenview and the surrounding areas grow closer to the Lord God Jesus Christ in His Second Coming (see The Second Coming of Christ, below).
The Glenview New Church carries out its core purpose by engaging people with teachings of the Lord’s Word in ways that promote a life of useful service as a primary way of honoring the Lord and the neighbor, strengthen marriage and family, foster personal and spiritual growth, and build a sense of community within which people are welcomed, cared for, and supported on their spiritual journey.
The Glenview New Church is part of a world-wide Christian denomination commonly referred to as the New Church. It is made up of a variety of people who share a belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible and in the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the one God of heaven and earth--the all-powerful Creator and Provider, and the approachable, loving, personal God who reaches out to all of us. He is intimately aware of the directions of our lives, and He works in countless ways to inspire our free response to all that He offers.
The Lord ensures that each of us has the freedom to choose what we want to believe and how we want to live. He gives us this ability, knowing full well that we can use our freedom to reject Him and to serve ourselves instead. Yet by means of this freedom we can turn to Him, see the wisdom in serving others as He asks, and experience the delight of doing so. Freedom of choice is the cornerstone of individual spiritual growth.
Spiritual rebirth is a process. Faith, and also living a life according to one's faith, are two parts of a dynamic journey of change and growth. People who are striving to improve their lives by cooperating with God will continue to grow forever.
The Lord's universal, spiritual church includes all people who live a good life according to their own religious beliefs. One teaching of the New Church says, "Every person is saved who acknowledges God and lives well." The Lord makes sure that all people have the opportunity to learn these two most basic principles of religion, and He does so through many churches in many nations. Yet He offers much more than these basics to humankind. The New Church is where you will find specific teachings about who the Lord is, what He is like, what He asks of us, and how He leads us.
The Bible is the Word of God and can be read on more than one level. There is a deeper, symbolic meaning to the stories in the Bible, which teaches individuals about their own spiritual lives. We call this deeper meaning the "internal sense" of the Word. The teachings of the New Church that describe this internal sense are drawn from the Bible and from the divinely inspired theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
The life after death is real and much more knowable than many people realize. The book Heaven and Hell by Emanuel Swedenborg has inspired people for over two centuries with its detailed descriptions of life after death. It teaches that death is merely a transition from the natural world to the spiritual world, where life continues for all people according to the patterns of thought, feeling, will, and life that they’ve developed during their lives on earth. Those who have cooperated with God in this life by striving to become better people, in keeping with universal principles of truth, find themselves in a heavenly way of life in the next. Those who have chosen to serve themselves above their neighbors and above God gravitate towards others like themselves and continue in this hellish way of life instead. People freely choose their own eternal destiny.
Love in marriage is a special gift from the Lord. When spiritual principles are applied both to one's own spiritual growth and to the marriage relationship, troubled times can be overcome and the marriage will grow in friendship, mutual support, and happiness. Genuine marriage does not end with death but continues to eternity.
The second coming of Christ does not mean the destruction of all of creation and a fierce judgment on humankind. The second coming is taking place right now - in a new understanding of who God is as revealed in the teachings of the New Church, and brought into being in our individual and collective lives. This coming of the Lord is the dawn of a new era of genuine Christianity.