LaPorte New Church History

In 1842, Chicago had a population of about 8,000, and the city had no railroads. That same year, sixty miles away, New Church services started being held at the Court House in LaPorte, Indiana. There was no church building at that time.

Seventeen years later, in June, 1859, the LaPorte Society of the New Church was organized, and dedication of their new church took place in September. The LaPorte Herald newspaper stated that the services were delivered to "a crowded house." The cost of the lot and building was under $400.

Rev. Frank Gustafson, the seventh pastor, was here from 1908-1911, and during that time the church was stuccoed and remodeled, the basement Sunday School room built, modern heating and plumbing installed, and a pipe organ installed.

In 1916, the beautiful Tiffany-style stained-glass window at the center of the altar was donated by Mr. Emmet Scott and Mrs. Fannie Scott Rumely in memory of their mother, Mary Relief Niles Scott.

The historic New Church has the distinction of having the longest continuing worshiping congregation on its original site in LaPorte, Indiana.

Emanuel Swedenborg

Who is Swedenborg?

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) had a remarkable career as a scientist, astronomer, musician, craftsmen and statesman. In his later years he became a profound mystic and prolific theologian. The Swedenborgian Church was inspired by his vast theological writings, totaling over thirty volumes. Fifteen years after his death, a church denomination was formed in London and named after him; in the early 1800�s, the Swedenborgian Church in North America was organized, inspiring such people as John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), William Blake, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Frost, Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe, Judith Guest, William James, Carl Jung, Helen Keller, Abraham Lincoln, Van Morrison, Henry David Thoreau, and many others.

As a result of Swedenborg's own spiritual questionings and insights, we as a church today exist to encourage that same spirit of inquiry and personal growth, to respect differences in views, and to accept others who may have different traditions. Swedenborg shared in his theological writings a view of God as infinitely loving and at the very center of our beings, a view of life as a spiritual birth as we participate in our own creation, and a view of Scripture as a story of inner-life stages as we learn and grow. Swedenborg said, "All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good." He also felt that the sincerest form of worship is a useful life.