Personal Stories
Peter's Story
“Reading Swedenborg’s Writings for the first time felt like coming home…”
I am a child of India, born and raised in Kerala, the Land of many festivals. My upbringing, though conventional in some Indian senses, was very unconventional in others. Despite most of India being either Muslim or Hindu, I was brought up Catholic. It was a religious framework which inspired fear and devotion in equal measures. The threat of fire and brimstone hung over my childhood — there seemed to be a thin line between sinning and simply living. Yet at the same time, I was drawn to the rituals and mysteries of the Catholic faith.
I became a young person obsessed with religion, dreading hell as much as I aspired to heaven. One of my constant frustrations was the fact that I had no access to the Bible. In our society, the priest was the only source of spiritual understanding. We weren’t allowed to read the Bible in our homes lest we misinterpret the scripture. Of course, it is human nature that things which are off-limits become all the more alluring. Being denied access to the Word fed into my early hunger to learn more about God through the Bible. That desire stayed with me until I left school and went to a seminary to become a priest.
My training was hindered by one major obstacle. Despite trying to be a devote Catholic, I couldn’t accept the notion of the trinity. I thought about it long and hard and no matter which angle I came from, it didn’t make sense. I had an unshakable feeling that Jesus Christ and God must be essentially the same being. Yet the Catholics were adamant that there were three separate Divinities. This was the first significant schism in my relationship with Catholicism. From there, spider-web cracks began to spread across my Catholic identity until one day it gave way. I left the seminary in search of something that would resonate with my soul.
Next stop was the Trinitarian evangelical outreach ministry. I hoped to find something new and fresh. After a short time I discovered that their teachings were much like those of the Catholic Church. Disappointed, I left the circle of Trinitarians. Many years followed in which I floated from church to church looking for true Christianity. I believed that the kind of church I was looking for was out there; it was just a matter of finding it. I researched all the major strands of Christianity yet nothing felt quite right. One day, about five years ago, I was browsing on the internet and stumbled across the New Church website. Within moments of scanning the homepage, I had an intuitive feeling that this church was different.
I contacted New Church staff and was greeted with warmth and acceptance. Books were sent to me — Heaven and Hell, The Four Doctrines and Divine Providence. Reading Swedenborg’s Writings for the first time felt like coming home. I read things that I’d always known in my heart — they just had to be brought to the surface. The teachings involving freedom of choice were what really drew me in. All my life I’d been attached to religions which asserted themselves through guilt and fear. I was drawn to the New Church because it promotes intellectual and spiritual freedom. And yes, my conviction about God and Jesus Christ being one and the same was confirmed and supported by this church. It made sense!
From there, my path was both simple and complicated. It was simple in that I knew what I had to do: I needed to join the Swedenborgian church and learn more about its teachings — I had a dream of one day bringing the New Church to my fellow Indians. It was complicated in that I didn’t know how I was going to do it: being far away from any actual congregations, I had hardly any access to the church itself. Just when I felt like giving up, Providence led me to connect with the New Church in Sweden. After emails were exchanged and phone calls were made, I was invited to visit the congregation. I had never felt so valued by a church group in all my life. Being baptized into the New Church was a true re-birth for me. My life became fueled with purpose and light. I returned to India with more direction, a sharper understanding of the truth, and a much stronger faith.
Two years have passed. Our church has grown in beautiful ways. The circle which started with just my own little family now encompasses many others. Though we have opponents, we are proud to stand up for the New Church and its teachings. We are committed to spreading the Lord’s light and living in ways that support heaven on earth.