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Contributed by Donnette Alfelt, printed in Winter Issue 2006 of Outreach Magazine

As a Cathedral guide, I am often asked how many Swedenborgians there are or how big the New Church is. This question is usually asked casually with little interest in the answer other than whether the membership numbers are enough to make it credible. I don’t give them numbers; I don’t even know the numbers. I respond instead with a relevant fact: there are more people who are influenced and inspired by the teachings of Swedenborg’s works than there are members of New Church organizations.

I first use the example of Helen Keller. She was never a member of any New Church organization, but she called the truths of the New Church "My Religion" and wrote a book about her discovery and embracing of the church doctrines.

If interested, I tell them other stories, such as the minister who used to visit the cathedral regularly. He used Swedenborg’s Writings as a basis for many of his sermons. It was clear that he found them inspiring and enlightening, and his Methodist congregation heard many "New Church" sermons perhaps never having heard of Swedenborg.

There are other stories. Years ago a man responded to an advertised angel symposium and was surprised when he arrived to find many quotes from Swedenborg’s works displayed. He didn’t know that he was in a New Church school building. He had been a reader of Swedenborg for many years but was unaware that a New Church congregation and school system existed only 20 miles from where he lived.

There is the couple who came across quotes from Swedenborg’s works about marriage and liked them enough to include them in their wedding ceremony. It was some time later that they learned of his other books and of a Swedenborgian church they later joined.

I know a woman whose first introduction to Swedenborg came when she read Helen Keller’s book, "Light in My Darkness." This led her to his theological writings and she is now working to bring to others the comfort and inspiration she found there.

The Swedenborg Foundation was established more than 150 years ago. Its mission is not to get church members, but "...to foster an informative, informed and increasingly broad engagement with the theological message disclosed by Emanuel Swedenborg." It has distributed thousands of books by and about Swedenborg’s theology. These books have affected the views of countless people not connected to any church.

The book Heaven and Hell has been translated from the original Latin into Arabic, Danish, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Swedish, Russian and Welsh as well as English. I believe this is in part responsible for the increase in the number of people who believe in the continuation of life after the death of the body.

We know Emerson, Blake, Robert Browning and other well–known thinkers and writers read Swedenborg. Elizabeth Barrett Browning said, "The only light that has been cast on the other life is found in Swedenborg’s philosophy." And Thomas Carlyle stated, "More truths are confessed in his writings than those of any other man." None of these people can be "counted" as members of the church, though they were affected by its teachings.

There are, of course, many others we are not aware of who have been influenced by the Writings and thousands who have never heard Swedenborg’s name who are influenced by the truths the Writings contain. New Church web sites and book sales reach people world wide who may never belong to a church but are touched and guided by what they read.

We know that the Lord is working in marvelous ways, through us and apart from us, to spread His Truth. We in the church are trying to do our part because we believe this new revelation holds great hope for this troubled world.