a man who used Swedenborg’s teachings on the correspon-
dences of color and form to shape his spiritualized land-
scapes.
This convergence of psychology and Swedenborgianism
was an obvious strength for the development of the General
Convention in the nineteenth century. However, as psychol-
ogy became an independent, nonreligious discipline, what
had been a unique Swedenborgian contribution to American
culture became more widely available in a secularized form.
This affected the growth of the General Convention.
In the twentieth century, the General Convention of the
Church of the New Jerusalem became the Swedenborgian
Church of North America. It maintained its congregational
structure, with a president (elected for a three-year term, eli-
gible to serve one additional consecutive term), a vice presi-
dent, recording secretary, and treasurer. Those who serve in
the latter three offices are elected for one-year renewable
terms. Together, these officers, plus three ministers and six
laypeople, constitute the General Council that governs the
church. In addition there is a Council of Ministers that su-
pervises the pastoral and theological matters of the church.
The Swedenborgian Church of North America is
known as the liberal “branch” of the New Church in North
America. It is a member of the National Council of Church-
es, and it has attempted to meet the challenges of seculariza-
tion by adapting to the enlightened values of Western post-
modern society. It supports environmental causes and has
policies that welcome diversity and inclusiveness. The Swe-
denborgian Church of North America has ordained women
since 1975 and does not view a person’s sexual orientation
as an impediment to ordination.
In 1999 the Swedenborgian Church of North America
closed its theological school, the Swedenborgian School of
Religion in Newton, Massachusetts, and the property was
sold. In 2001 the Swedenborg School of Religion formed a
partnership with the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley,
California. The program, supervised by the Pacific School’s
Swedenborg House of Studies, offers a master of divinity de-
gree, as well as a certificate of theological studies in conjunc-
tion with the Pacific School. Distance education is a feature
of the program, and the holdings of the library have been in-
tegrated into the database of the Graduate Theological
Union in Berkley. This move has brought the theological ed-
ucation of the Swedenborgian Church of North America
under the umbrella of one of the most progressive Christian
theological schools in the United States.
Statistics for the Swedenborgian Church of North
America reported in their journal, The Messenger, for the year
2001 are as follows: the church had a total membership of
1,926, of which 1,431 were listed as active. They had 40
churches, 34 active ministers, and congregations in the Unit-
ed States, Canada, and Guyana.
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. The Gen-
eral Church of the New Jerusalem, unlike the British Confer-
ence and the Swedenborgian Church of North America, has
an episcopal form of church government. It was legally estab-
lished in 1897 after withdrawing from the General Conven-
tion in 1890. The principles of what was called the “Acade-
my Movement” within the General Convention led to the
schism and separation. The members of the Academy Move-
ment believed that the theological writings of Emanuel Swe-
denborg constituted the third testament of the Christian
Bible. That is, they believed that Swedenborg’s writings were
not merely divinely inspired revelation, but were, in fact, the
word of God. Like the Old Testament and the New Testa-
ment, they were the third part of the divine word. Just as the
sign on the cross calling Jesus “the king of the Jews” was writ-
ten in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, so, according to the Gener-
al Church of the New Jerusalem, the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek, and the
third and final testament was produced in Latin. Secondly,
they believed that the theological writings of Swedenborg
prescribed a hierarchical form of church government with
three degrees of the priesthood. And thirdly, they believed
in the necessity of educating children based on principles
drawn from these same theological works. Thus, even prior
to separation from the General Convention, they had estab-
lished schools from the primary grades through high school
and college, culminating in a theological school for the train-
ing of priests.
The schism was based on principle, but it also came
about as a result of the clash of strong personalities and polit-
ical maneuvering within the organization of the General
Convention of the Church of the New Jerusalem. Once sep-
arated from the convention, the dominance of Bishop Wil-
liam H. Benade (1816–1905) created new difficulties within
the fledging organization. Finally, the members of the Ad-
vent Church that Benade had formed withdrew from him
and established a new organization in 1897—the General
Church of the New Jerusalem. The scope of the organization
was international from its inception. Congregations in Cana-
da and Great Britain joined with those in the United States
in support of the principles of the Academy Movement.
These principles, developed by Benade, were maintained by
the new organization, but his autocratic style of leadership
was rejected. A group numbering 347 participated in the
move to withdraw from the General Convention. In 1900,
just three years after incorporation, the General Church of
the New Jerusalem had an international membership of 560.
Because it was founded on principle rather than propinquity
or nationality, it competed with both the American General
Convention and the British Conference for members.
The General Church of the New Jerusalem created an
organization in which theological and ecclesiastical matters
were separated from financial ones. The bishop was to super-
vise the spiritual life of the church but a lay board of directors
was to supervise it financially. Furthermore, instead of
adopting a binding constitution, the organization decided to
write a document titled “The Order and Organization of the8904 SWEDENBORGIANISM