© 2023 Gaétan Charland
© 2023 Urantia Association of Quebec
Gaetan Charland
Sainte-Sophie
For many years, I have noticed that many readers confuse the Urantia Foundation with the Urantia Association. These erroneous perceptions have often contributed to a confusion that has had repercussions in several sectors of activity related to the two organizations. These are indeed two distinct entities, each with a very different but complementary mission. To add to this confusion, there was a dispute in 1989 between the Urantia Foundation and the Urantia Brotherhood association, which was at the time the entity devoted to the brotherhood of readers of the Urantia Book.
In this article, I will try to help you better understand the nature and mission of each of these entities. I will also explain where their complementarity and interdependence lie. In doing this exercise, I should give a bit of history on the origin of the Foundation and the Association, but not in depth as a historian would do.
Early in the history of The Urantia Book, Dr. Sadler was invited by the Revelators to create a small group called the “Contact Commission,” which consisted of five members. Dr. Sadler then created a group called the Forum, which over the years included up to five hundred members. This group, called the Forum, was tasked with studying the Papers and commenting on their contents. This period with the Forum allowed the Revelators to make adjustments to the texts of the Papers in order to make them more accessible to human understanding.
When The Urantia Book was finally ready for publication in 1955, the revelators informed the members of the contact commission to form two entities, one called Urantia Foundation and the other Urantia Brotherhood. The Foundation would have the purpose and mission of protecting the integrity of the text of The Urantia Book, publishing it and translating it into several languages. This mission, which is enshrined in the document entitled Declaration of Trustees, goes much further than simply protecting the text, its publication and translation into several languages. It also proposes to protect the concentric circles and the name Urantia as well as the copyrights of The Urantia Book and its translations.
When the forum was dissolved in 1955, its members formed the first fraternal association called Urantia Brotherhood. Its mission was to disseminate the teachings of The Urantia Book, to help create thousands of study groups and to see to the training of leaders and teachers.
The revelators had well informed the contact commission that the two entities had to be entirely independent of each other in order to avoid confusion as to the mission and goals of each. At first, the activities of the two entities, the Foundation and the Brotherhood, shared the same office space housed at 533 Diversey Parkway in Chicago. This arrangement was intended to facilitate the work of the Foundation and share human resources, but many activities that should have been reserved specifically for one or the other of these entities were confused. From this arrangement, several conflicts arose which caused the famous separation which to this day still creates confusion and saw the creation of two fraternal organizations, the Urantia Association and the Urantia Fellowship.
Enough history, let’s get back to the difference between Urantia Foundation and Urantia Association.
The Foundation must be seen as a corporate entity, a company managed by a board of directors whose members are called Trustees, there are currently nine and are elected for life. It is an autocratic institution which elects its own members chosen from among readers with significant experience in the Urantia movement. The Trustees are all governed in their mandate by the document entitled The Declaration of Trustees commonly called DOT. They can also elect Associate Trustees who do not have the right to vote and can serve on different committees, their terms are three years.
The goals as I mentioned above are:
- Protection of the text of the Urantia Book
- The translation of the Urantia Book
- The publication of the Urantia Book
- Protection of copyright of the Urantia Book and its translations
- The protection of the concentric circles and the name Urantia
- The promotion of education.
The Foundation has no members and is not a fraternal entity.
The Urantia Association is a fraternal organization whose mission is to encourage the study of The Urantia Book and to disseminate its teachings. It is not concerned with the publication or translation of the book. It is a democratic organization that elects its board of directors for a term that can range from two to four years. The Association includes members who wish to be involved in the mission of the Association.
The Association pursues its mission by following the directives issued in its regulations and also in the Publication Mandate, namely the creation of study groups and the training of leaders and teachers.
The two organizations, the Urantia Foundation and the Urantia Association are legally independent of each other, but are complementary in the sense that both need to cooperate so that the mission of the Urantia Book can continue on our planet. Both organizations are invested in education, in the dissemination of the Urantia Book and its teachings, and they also promote study groups. All of these activities are done in different ways by the two organizations and are governed by their internal regulations. Both collect donations to finance their activities, but only the fraternal association welcomes members.
I hope that these explanations will clear up the confusion that can arise from the presence of two separate organizations to carry out the mission of The Urantia Book. In summary, remember that the Urantia Foundation is a company that protects, translates, and sells the book. The Association is a fraternal entity that is exclusively concerned with the dissemination of The Urantia Book and its teachings.