Life and the Church of the Lord

My reading this week includes revisiting Wilson Van Dusen's book, The Country of Spirit: Selected Writings. This book presents a "depthful view of Emmanuel Swedenborg and spiritual practices" by a renowned author and mystic. I'm mindful that the World Council of Churches calls us to celebrate a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity later this month (Jan. 18-25, 2009). Here's a quote from Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia (8152) which touches what I've come to believe about the true Body of Christ (more on my journey in a future post). I've gender-inclusified it.

Swedenborg:
It is plain that the church of the Lord is not here, nor there, but that it is everywhere, both within those kingdoms where the church is, and outside of them, where people live according to the precepts of charity. Hence it is that the church of the Lord is scattered through the whole world, and yet it is one. For when Life makes the church (and not doctrine separate from Life), then the church is One; but when doctrine makes the church, then there are many.

I'm intensely grateful for my new home church -- the Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois, and for all it does to support a Christian faith which is in this spirit. Later this winter I'll be doing some blogging on the kind of battle scars that I and others carry from many years invested in the doctrine battles of the divided church.