© 1992 Byron Belitsos
© 1992 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Concepts of Salvation: The Bible and The Urantia Book Compared | Fall 1992 — Index | Music, Missions, and Culture |
The Urantia Book is a profoundly religious document, yet many read it with little or no concern for its possible influence on the church. Many other readers are active in churches and synagogues, and have long speculated on how it may affect their organizations in the future. But consider another possibility: readers of The Urantia Book may one day be inspired to create a new religious institution.
“Every new revelation of truth…” says the The Urantia Book on UB 87:7.6 “…has given rise to a new cult, and even the restatement of the religion of Jesus must develop a new and appropriate symbolism”. The use of terms like “cult” and “symbolism” come as a surprise to late twentieth century believers. These terms, however, simply refer to an organization of religionists who have created an updated and compelling symbolism that stands for their religious aspirations.
This new institution will grow from the bottom up, for “a religious cult cannot be manufactured.” It is my view that The Urantia Book will inspire a new cultism that is able to meet deep human needs that are essential to spiritual progress, while avoiding the dangers of “institutionalism.”
At the most basic level we are told, the cult “must… foster sentiment, satisfy emotion, and promote loyalty”; indeed, even “modern men…crave mystery and venerate the unknown.” Beyond these, more advanced needs await satisfaction — both social and spiritual. These needs will also be met by the “enhanced symbolism” of the new cult. This higher symbolism will be “predicated on the concept of the Fatherhood of God and pregnant with the mighty ideal of the brotherhood of man” and must be “based on the biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the home.” [UB 87:7.8]
Religious institutions can and have retarded social progress. But the lack of a symbolism adequate for the needs of modern man, the lack of something “to belong to”, is a “regrettable” omission from the lives of many progressive modern believers, say the Book’s authors.
The fact that no religious organization has yet arisen among the reader/believers in The Urantia Book is puzzling, especially considering that cults grow naturally and unconsciously in religious soil. If I rightly interpret the crucial passages in the “Nature of Cultism” (pp 965-6), cult development is inevitable: “…every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy symbolism…”, and necessary: “The cult is the skeletal structure around which grows the living and dynamic body of personal spiritual experience-true religion.” UB 87:7.10
It would seem that a cult of the revelation, a new religious organization for readers of the The Urantia Book, will grow unless specifically thwarted.
Many of us have discovered The Urantia Book, and not finding an inspiring spiritual fellowship, drifted elsewhere to meet this craving, while still adhering to a belief in the primacy of The Urantia Book teachings.
At least this was the case with me. As a young seeker for truth, newly introduced to the Book, I faced this dilemma sometime in 1978. I had just moved to Boulder, Colorado, a town where a solid, devoted study group existed. This progressive town in the foot of the Rockies was also the capitol city of a well-organized, fast-growing Vajrayana Buddhist cult.
The Book and the study group deeply satisfied my intellectual curiosity, but I spent most of my time with the Tibetan Buddhist community, which offered a beautiful, compelling, profound, and updated cult and symbolism, with plenty of intriguing mysteries. The study group provided rational answers to the ultimate philosophical questions, (though Buddhist philosophy was a fair match at times), but the Buddhist “sangha” and its practical religious teachings went much further in meeting my emotional needs.
And the sangha even went on from there. Our Urantia Book passage says that the new cult must, like the olden ones, “…foster sentiment, satisfy emotion, and promote loyalty; but it must do more: It must facilitate spiritual progress, enhance cosmic meanings, augment moral values, encourage social development, and stimulate a high type of personal religious living.” [UB 87:7.7 My emphasis]. The Buddhist cult, at least temporarily, offered all of these qualities to me.
A similar list is given under “Institutional Religion” (UB 99:6.1), where the author outlines the purposes of group religious living. These should include “to glorify the potentials of family life,” “to encourage group worship,” “to provide wise counsel,” “to promote religious education,” “to spread…the essential gospel,” and seven other distinct activities.
None of these activities are certain to occur in the typical The Urantia Book study group — except religious education. Study alone cannot meet the criterion of a genuine religious group. Urantia Book study group environments all too often emphasize religious speculation, and some court with the danger of evolving into a “religion of the mind”, a passive and stagnant religion about the Book. On the positive side, study groups can become a preliminary step toward a religious organization or congregation.
What would a genuine religious institution based on The Urantia Book look like? At a minimum, it must apply and exemplify the Book’s teachings regarding religious groups. Its characteristics should include at least the following:
In my view, the growth of healthy religious organizations based on The Urantia Book is impossible without the first two elements in our list above: (1) the institutionalization of what I would call a spiritual group process and (2) the independence of the religious group from all other groups.
When religionists lack religious due process, there arises the specter of unresolvable conflicts — a condition that can jeopardize even the most straightforward activities. This is why Jesus very explicitly presents a spiritual grievance procedure in the “Sermon on Forgiveness” (UB 159:1.1), a passage that closely parallels Matthew 18 in the New Testament.
It amazes me how often we hear quoted the almost mystical passage concerning “when two or three are gathered together…”, and how little we hear quoted the practical and more challenging first part of the same sentence on the same page, in which Jesus refers to our legitimate right to “legislate regarding the conduct of the group.” Here he confers upon the religious group or congregation of believers the right to confront sin and evil according to its own discovery of group wisdom. Obviously, to carry out such a spiritual group process with justice and fairness, the religious group must be separate from all other groups. It must be immune to political pressure or secular concerns; it must stand in brilliant contrast to that secular world; indeed, it must create a “cult of mutual support” (UB 87:7.3) for golden rulers who may then be inspired to spread the gospel of Jesus to the whole world.
For those of us looking beyond the contemporary church, and who long for a spiritual fellowship and institutional process based on the high spiritual truths of The Urantia Book, a new form of religious organization may be an ideal solution. Call it a new cult, a congregation, a religious collective, or a religious institution, this organization, with its “new and appropriate symbolism”, may be the most important spiritual development of our times!
| Concepts of Salvation: The Bible and The Urantia Book Compared | Fall 1992 — Index | Music, Missions, and Culture |