Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/7072

7072 The true church.... Sects.... Working of the spirit....

March 24, 1958: Book 75

The fact that so many schools of thought or faith exist and that people are usually admitted into them without their own will should make you humans think. The child’s will does not determine the faith it is ‘born into’, and therefore it is similarly not a persons own merit or own fault to be educated in a particular school of faith.... And if now either one church or the other would be the ‘only beatifying....’, if only one or the other would be right before God or pleasing to Him, then people who were born into other schools of thought could rightfully feel disadvantaged by God that the ‘true church’ was withheld from them due to their birth. But it is by no means the case that a human being can come to the truth without their own effort, and again it is completely unimportant into which school of thought he was born into.... Because every human being has to struggle for the light of truth himself. And it is equally certain that truth cannot be implanted through education unless the person has gathered the right foundation within himself on which the truth can take root in order to now become and to remain his possession. But this aforementioned fact should also make those people think who maintain their affiliation to a particular school of thought and deem themselves to be ‘living in truth’....

It is a presumptuous idea to believe to possess the privilege for the kingdom of heaven.... But many people have this presumptuous idea because all members of sects are utterly convinced to possess the exclusive truth.... And yet they have mostly taken on board what they in turn were taught by those who equally fanatically deemed themselves infallible. And none of them have spent any thought on how God Himself regards those who do not belong to their school of thought....

As long as a school of thought is only based on love for God and other people and Jesus Christ’s act of Salvation it can also produce true Christians to whom the light of truth will soon shine as well.... For if God’s commandments of love are fulfilled while believing in Jesus Christ the divine Redeemer, the human being is becoming active himself, and then he has voluntarily joined the ‘community of believers’, the church which Jesus Christ Himself founded on earth....

And every human being has to make this personal decision for himself,. or: the fundamental religion is the fulfilment of the commandments of love and as long as this is ignored the person stands outside the church of Christ, outside of the truth, in spite of belonging to a school of faith which pretends to be the ‘only true’ and ‘beatifying’ one.

No human being can acquire beatitude merely by belonging to a particular school of thought or through actions demanded by it.... Only truly unselfish love for other people and thereby also demonstrated love for God leads to beatitude, and this can be practised in every school of thought, which will then also lead to the knowledge of pure truth. However, as long as there are separate communities, as long as each one tries to win members for itself who have to prove their membership by accepting what they teach themselves.... as long as these members’ freedom of thought is restricted they are mere supporters but not living (24.03.1958) Christians who can consider themselves to belong to the church of Christ....

But as soon as a person becomes ‘alive’, which thus only requires the condition of a life of love, he also realises the extent of truth a school of thought can claim for itself. Then he will certainly be able to instruct his fellow human beings better than the leaders of the schools of thought but he will not be able to transfer his insight to his fellow human being either, instead his fellow human being has to fulfil the same conditions which will lead to the realisation of the pure truth: He first has to become a ‘living’ Christian through a life of love because this results in a strong faith, and then he also belongs to the church of Christ, which He Himself has built on the rock of faith.

It should make sense to every thinking human being that God will never depend a person’s beatitude on the school or community of faith he belongs to, since the simple fact that people are born into and attached to such communities without volition should make them think.... provided they still have enough faith to acknowledge a God and a purpose for the human being. For atheists such thoughts are not worth discussing anyway because they dismiss every school of faith. But to those who all too eagerly support their opinion and repeatedly try to prove their truth by quoting words from the scriptures which, however, they only interpret rationally, apply the words that only love alone activates the spirit within the human being. In that case, however, the spirit will also instruct them in accordance with the truth, and therefore misguided teachings will also be highlighted from which the person has to liberate himself if he wants to be a living Christian, a follower of the true ‘church of Christ’, which does not exhibit any other outward characteristics than just the working of the divine spirit....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna