© 1992 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
| A Statistical Investigation Of Writing Styles In The Urantia Papers | Vol 13 No 2 100th Issue — Index | On The Early Christians |
by the Sunshine Coast Study Group
The rate of change in our present day society is so rapid as to negate almost any attempt to envision what the long-term future may hold. So let’s not get carried away with any concept of converting Urantia to a light and life planet within the next thousand years. Perhaps a first task should be to limit ourselves to trying to convert the potentially convertible. But where do we start?
Currently there are three groups among which teachings from The URANTIA Book have the potential to make headway. Firstly, there are all those people in dominantly Christian countries who have, for one reason or another, failed to become involved in any depth with the Christian churches. The ingrained thinking of these peoples is very much conditioned by 2000 years of Christian heritage.
A second is the followers of Islam, at least some of whom would subscribe to the concept of the fatherhood of a God who is love, and of the brotherhood of all men.
The third group is the one in which there is perhaps the greatest immediate potential, the congregations of the mainline Christian churches. Excepting for those with strong fundamentalist views, all that is really needed is a shift in emphasis of teaching rather than a radical reconstruction of theology. Relatively few practicing Christians would be able to write a thesis on doctrines such as atonement and transubstantiation. Many, possibly most, would not know what the terms really mean. However, The URANTIA Book teaches that a frontal attack upon erroneous beliefs or outmoded doctrines is not the way to go; the better way is to allow truth to do its own work in displacing error.
There are already signs that fundamentalism is waning among the mainline churches. The CatholicStudy Edition of the Good News Bible, first printed in 1979, carries scholarly essays on bible history that make it quite clear that their Roman Catholic authors do not pursue the fundamentalist notion that the bible is the infallible word of God. This is also recognized in a document of the Second Vatican Council on revelation (Dei Verbum #11) which acknowledges that the individual authors of biblical texts worked in full freedom under divine inspiration, each in accordance with their individual nature and character.
The demise of the 3rd Epochal Revelation and the limited success of the 4th should teach us something. Melchizedek had warned his followers to teach about the one God, the Father and Maker Of All and to preach a definite gospel concerning the truth of the reality of the Universal Father. The missionaries in Mesopotamia attempted too much, they preached a moral standard too high for the people and in one generation the Salem headquarters at Kish came to an end. (1043)
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom, the Fatherhood of God, our sonship with the Father, and the brotherhood of all men. He spoke of a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men. However his disciples were quite unable to give up their concepts of an earthly messianic kingdom. They converted Jesus’ death on the cross into a sacrificial act for the forgiveness of sins, a doctrine that brought enormous relief to the poor, the sick, and the unfortunate who believed that their lot was a punishment for sin. Later Christian doctrine failed to come to terms with an apparent contradiction between the perfect love and mercy of God and the perfect righteousness and justice of God; hence the atonement doctrine lives on to the present day. The URANTIA Book teaches that:
“The affectionate heavenly Father, whose spirit indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality — one of justice and one of mercy — neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father’s favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a father transcends God as a judge.” (UB 2:6.6)
The concept of a Father-God who is love and our sonship with the Father not only predicates the brotherhood of all men, but also has the potential to displace the atonement doctrine. Both of these concepts have scriptural backing in the New Testament. The Lord’s prayer begins with the words ‘Our Father’ and the concept that we are sons and children of the Father has backing in the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, in Paul’s letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Philippians, and in 1 John. The latter also tells us that God is love.
The gospels of the New Testament state that Jesus and the disciples went about the countryside preaching the gospel of the kingdom. This gospel could have had nothing in common with the post-resurrectional doctrines concerning salvation from sin through the cross. The original gospel is discoverable from teachings in the Sermon on the Mount and the parables that portray God as one who, far from condemning sinners, goes out to recover them and welcome their return with great joy. These are the familiar parables such as the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son, the last being one in which the father does not wait for the son to return and seek forgiveness but dashes out to welcome him home even prior to that forgiveness being requested. In none of these stories does Jesus hint that a sacrifice is necessary before his Father will forgive the sinner.
On still other occasions, the gospel stories tell that Jesus readily forgave sin to those who sought healing, but without any sacrificial offering being required. Thus there is adequate New Testament backing for the gospel of the kingdom as portrayed in The URANTIA Book.
The URANTIA Book has made little obvious headway in the churches over the past forty years. If its teachings are being incorporated into present day Christian teaching, it is being done without reference to the book itself. It is not consistent with the teachings of The URANTIA Book that its revelators would demand credit for such incorporation. If that is the most effective way of fulfilling one of the aspirations mentioned among its teachings, then so be it:
“The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological and religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must no longer be sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions!” (UB 196:1.2)
How can URANTIA Book readers hasten the process? It should already be apparent that the clergy, even those who know of its existence, are not going to announce the 5th Epochal Revelation from the rooftops. Considered reflection may lead to the conclusion that not even the Pope himself could do this without splitting the church asunder. The same careful reflection may also indicate that a better course of action would be slow evolution rather than destructive revolution. So how do we get the primary teachings of the gospel of the kingdom at the forefront of the main body of church dogma? First let’s consider what these teachings may be.
The experience of church-going URANTIA Book readers has already revealed that seeking to draw the attention of fellow church-goers to the book is not very fruitful. It is not easy to alter in adults, those ingrained habits of thinking already acquired in childhood. So can we start with the children? The answer to that is Eyes’, it can be done in normal religious instruction classes and Sunday Schools through the simple expedient of emphasizing the essential teachings of Jesus about the kingdom. Surely, though, the most rewarding way to promulgate these teachings throughout Christianity is by means of well written and illustrated children’s books. For the immediate future that is surely the most urgent need. If you have the necessary talents, The URANTIA Book bids you to use them.
“The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul.” (UB 2:7.10)
Because Jesus is its central figure, The URANTIA Book will be judged by its effect upon Christians; the behavior of Christians towards one another is likely to be the sole factor that can catalyse a transformation among non-Christians.
Perhaps the reference in The URANTIA Book to a second John the Baptist is figurative and really represents that group of individuals who will prepare the way for the book by first reviving the true gospel of the kingdom. The book itself sets us a very limited objective:
“The ultimate goal of human progress is the reverent recognition of the Fatherhood of God and the loving materialization of the brotherhood of man.” (UB 143:1.4)
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| A Statistical Investigation Of Writing Styles In The Urantia Papers | Vol 13 No 2 100th Issue — Index | On The Early Christians |