Beginning with the revelations given to Swedenborg, the Lord began a spiritual movement or "church" called The New Jerusalem or The New Church. The New Jerusalem is a spiritual concept, meaning that is exists everywhere that the Lord is worshiped as one God, which can and does include people from almost every religion. Within The New Jerusalem, it doesn’t matter where you were born. What makes you a part of the new church is the charitable life you live by. With this church the Lord began a new paradigm, one that wouldn’t decay into the false idea of exceptionalism derived from birth.

For years I’d felt somewhat out of place among Christians, of many different sects. Although I was raised Christian, and I am one, I sometimes felt like they didn’t have the ability to think rationally. I would disagree with their rejection of certain ideas which were obviously true to me, such as the evidence for human evolution, the age of the universe, the test of true prophecy, the idolatry within rituals, and other things, but few people actually understood (or wanted to understand) my statements. If the ideas I shared didn’t fall in line with their doctrine, they were unwilling to examine my ideas and build an argument about what they believed beyond simply repeating what they were told. Often, in my conversations with them, they’d become so emotionally invested in their church doctrine that they would become upset if I questioned those doctrines. This happened even though my intent was always the truth, as if the more truth I spoke the more it aggravated them.