© 1995 Byron Belitsos
© 1995 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Let me venture a prophecy: The remaining years of this decade — of this millennium — will witness an upsurge of apocalyptical prophecy such as the planet has never before seen. Visions of apocalypse will become the coin of the realm in religious and political circles. The term “apocalypse” means a revealing, or “unveiling” of truth; the apocalyptical scenarios that will be widely disseminated in the late ’ 90 's will claim to unveil the secrets of the end-times, when suffering and even history itself comes to an end. As global political and ecological chaos worsens, such apocalyptical unveilings of the future will cascade across the land. A myriad of self-styled prophets — some posing as scientists, some as politicians, some as spiritual teachers — will arise to preach some mixture of planetary doom and salvation, with the action culminating around the year 2000. It is in this environment that Urantia Book activists may be challenged to present the book’s own prophecies of the the faith-challenge of the planetary journey to the days of Light and Life. (Regarding the Age of Light and Life, see Papers 52 and 55 in The Urantia Book.)
The varieties of end-times prophecies will be vast, extending across a broad spectrum. At one extreme will be what we might call “New Age” millenialism, offering an ecstatic apocalypse of the self; at the other, fundamentalist Christian millenialism, preaching a fiery apocalypse of history.
The varieties of end-times prophecies will be vast, extending across a broad spectrum. At one extreme will be what we might call “New Age” millenialism, offering an ecstatic apocalypse of the self; at the other, fundamentalist Christian millenialism, preaching a fiery apocalypse of history.
What shall we make of these new jeremiads of an “endtime?” Most of the end-time prophets around us — both false and true-will have at least two things in common. First, their prophecies are all to some degree sourced from the Bible itself. Second, they will manifest a universal human tendency seen in all cultures; humans everywhere have dreamt of putting an end to suffering and evil by inventing an end to time as we know it. Centuries ago St. Augustine wondered, “Time must have its conclusion in some state redeemed from present suffering, for who could bear such an eternity of suffering?”[1]
The Biblical roots will be easy to trace. Literal or figurative interpretations of prophetic passages in Daniel, Ezekiel, the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation, will hang everywhere in the air. The apocalyptical movement will include those who unconsciously pay homage to biblical prophetic traditions by using modern cultural spin-offs from these traditions. It will also include others who will use clever variations on or even inversions of the themes found in these ancient texts. Many of these prophecies can be traced to onesided selections from the many phases of Jesus’ own teaching about the Kingdom of God as presented in the New Testament. The Urantia Book itself updates and purifies the prophetic passages in the Bible, presenting visions of the future that could enter into the dialogue with apocalyptical thought.
One mark of apocalypticism is its impatience with evolution. It chafes at the presence of evil; it is intolerant of imperfection. As a result, it becomes presumptive about the course of evolution, rather than hopeful and patient.
It is more difficult to trace the universal human urge that underlies apocalypticism, but there are many clues. One mark of apocalypticism is its impatience with evolution. It chafes at the presence of evil; it is intolerant of imperfection. As a result, it becomes presumptive about the course of evolution, rather than hopeful and patient. It presupposes that God will act according to some human agenda of putting an end to evil and suffering. Further, it looks for and even demands signs to confirm this agenda; it even manufactures signs. Above all, it presumes to know how to read the “signs of the times” with exactitude. This leads apocalyptic prophets to go so far as to make firm predictions as to when deity is going to appear and put an end to evil and suffering.
Apocalypticism contains a certain pride of knowledgewhat we might call “pride of revelation.” Traditionally, apocalyptical prophets claim that it is possible to know when time will end; they believe they hold the secret of how evil will finally be vanquished upon the return of Christ. It is with such presumptuousness that apocalypticism shortcuts the challenges of faith.
As I see it, faith depends on our hope in the promises of God. [2] The Urantia Book promises us a DAY of personal perfection, our fusion with our Thought Adjuster, and a “DAY of the Lord” (to use the phraseology of the Bible, as in 1 Cor 1:8 or Phil 1:10), the sometime return of Michael to his birth planet.These promises always beckon us forward in hope. It is in this sense that faith and hope are interdependent. Genuine faith induces soul growth as we face an unknown future, energized with hope in the promises of God. And what are these promises? That some day all truth will be unveiled. And that some distant day, at the literal end of time, at the consummation of this universe age, the Supreme will emerge triumphant, at the great jubilee of his power-personalization, the DAY of the true apocalypse of this age.
But faith suffers when our sublime hope in the fulfillment of these promises becomes a presumptuous knowledge of a mythic “end-time” — the end of the trials of evolution. The interdependence of faith and hope is torn asunder. The challenge of free-will choice in the face of uncertainty — as well as the other “inevitabilities of evolutionary creature life” spoken about in the much-loved passage on UB 3:5.5 in The Urantia Book — is stolen from us. This is the danger of apocalyptical thinking to personal growth and to the orderly progress of the human community.
But faith suffers when our sublime hope in the fulfillment of these promises becomes a presumptuous knowledge of a mythic “end-time”-the end of the trials of evolution. The interdependence of faith and hope is torn asunder.
The early warning signs of the approach of an apocalyptical era are upon us now. In fact, prophetic millenialism has been growing in intensity at least since the 1960’s. One key source was in the idealism of the political struggles of the '60’s, which had taken on a millennial turn by the late '70’s. In those days of its political disillusionment, the ’ 60 's generation translated its hopes for change into a transcendent version of its formerly this-worldly politics — the so-called New Age movement, with its near-obsession with dramatic inner transformation, sometimes joined with occasional outward millennial events such as the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. The rightist reaction to ’ 60 's liberalism and feminism also birthed its own native millennial vision. This took the form of apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism, of a kind and intensity not seen in America since the Millerite movement, which predicted the return of Christ in 1844.[3] It appears that these two forms of apocalypticism are about to achieve their final expression over the next few years.
In Judeo-Christian terms, the dream of the millennium is the fullest realization of the promises of God to the Hebrews — the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus. New Ageism and biblical fundamentalism emphasize very different phases of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom. Jesus’ concept of the kingdom was rich with varied meanings:
Jesus never gave a precise definition of the kingdom. At one time he would discourse on one phase of the kingdom, and at another time he would discuss a different aspect of the brotherhood of God’s reign in the hearts of men. In the course of this Sabbath afternoon’s sermon Jesus noted no less than five phases, or epochs, of the kingdom, and they were:
- The personal and inward experience of the spiritual life of the fellowship of the individual believer with God the Father.
- The enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers, the social aspects of the enhanced morals and quickened ethics resulting from the reign of God’s spirit in the hearts of individual believers.
- The supermortal brotherhood of invisible spiritual beings which prevails on earth and in heaven, the superhuman kingdom of God.
- The prospect of the more perfect fulfillment of the will of God, the advance toward the dawn of a new social order in connection with improved spiritual living — the next age of man.
- The kingdom in its fullness, the future spiritual age of light and life on earth.
Wherefore must we always examine the Master’s teaching to ascertain which of these five phases he may have reference to when he makes use of the term kingdom of heaven. By this process of gradually changing man’s will and thus affecting human decisions, Michael [Jesus] and his associates are likewise gradually but certainly changing the entire course of human evolution, social and otherwise. (UB 170:4.1-7)
What I am calling “New Ageism” emphasizes the sudden, impatient advent of the kingdom within. The teaching that “the Kingdom is within you” is the first and most important phase of the Kingdom teaching. But here we are speaking of an apocalyptical version, a narrow interpretation. This can come in the form of a Buddhistic annihilation of the ego as taught in some cults and communities in North America; or, more commonly, through a “one-eyed” spiritualism that reduces this powerful kingdom teaching to the ecstasy of finding “God within” and then keeping him there. The fundamentalist Christian reverses this “inside out” spiritualism of the New Age.
The Urantia Book clearly tells us that the early Christians, having lost sight of the crucial first phase of the Kingdom teaching, instead tragically set the Kingdom off into the future. This error is the root of much Christian apocalypticism of the past centuries as well as current fundamentalistic Christianity.
The Urantia Book clearly tells us that the early Christians, having lost sight of the crucial first phase of the Kingdom teaching, instead tragically set the Kingdom off into the future. This error is the root of much Christian apocalypticism of the past centuries as well as current fundamentalistic Christianity. Prophetic apocalypticism became so attractive [4], because the church itself taught that the kingdom was to be delivered at the end of this age, from “the outside in:”
When Jesus’ immediate followers recognized their partial failure to realize his ideal of the establishment of the kingdom in the hearts of men by the spirit’s domination and guidance of the individual believer, they set about to save his teaching from being wholly lost by substituting for the Master’sideal of the kingdom the gradual creation of a visible social organization, the Christian church. And when they had accomplished this program of substitution, in order to maintain consistency and to provide for the recognition of the Master’s teaching regarding the fact of the kingdom, they proceeded to set the kingdom off into the future. The church, just as soon as it was well established, began to teach that the kingdom was in reality to appear at the culmination of the Christian age, at the second coming of Christ.
In this manner the kingdom became the concept of an age, the idea of a future visitation, and the ideal of the final redemption of the saints of the Most High. (UB 170:5.14-15, emphasis added)
The key text of Christian apocalypticism, the book of Revelation, speaks of a “New Jerusalem” miraculously delivered from outside (and above) in a sequence of events culminating in the Battle of Armageddon and the millennial reign of Christ. But it makes almost no reference to Jesus’ crucial teachings of the “Kingdom within.”
In my view, each of these approaches outlined above are impatient shortcuts on the rocky road of evolution. The rhythm of evolution requires that we come to terms with the evil of time by the evolutionary techniques of faith and hope. To keep faith and hope in balance, each of the phases of the Kingdom teachings are necessary to realizing any one of its phases. We must neither overemphasize the goal (the “millennial reign” of Light and Life) nor the starting point (the “Kingdom within”) of this long journey. And this is another way of saying that the Fatherhood/Motherhood of God and the brotherhood/sisterhood of humankind are interdependent realities.
“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)
See Stephen O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millennial Rhetoric, (London: Oxford University Press, 1994), chapters 2 and 3. ↩︎
Here I follow in part the argument of the Protestant theologian Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (New York: Harper & Row, 1967) ↩︎
Ibid. p. 207-8. ↩︎
For histories of Christian apocalypticism see: Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992); and Michael J. St. Clair, Millenarian Movements in Historical Context (New York: Garland Press, 1992) ↩︎