© 1996 Janet Nielsen
© 1996 International Urantia Association (IUA)
Janet Nielsen
Portland, Oregon, USA
Of all the human virtues, loyalty is the keystone. Loyalty in human decision is a true indicator of spiritual integrity in an individual. Spiritual growth cannot take place without its presence. In the progression of personality, loyalty precedes even love. Cosmic morality is founded in the “interaction between liberty and loyalty” (UB 39:4.10). Jesus does not demand sacrifice from us, but he does require our loyalty.
Congratulations, fellow IUA members! Your presence on this roster is a testimony that your loyalties are sound and discerning. Your membership signifies that you wish to co-operate. To learn “how to plan with other and wiser beings.” That you wish to give credit where credit is due. Though there may not be material reward for your loyalty, in eternity, true liberty is the reward of true loyalty.During the past decade, all sincere readerbelievers of The URANTIA Book have had their faith and loyalties severely tested. We have been asked to participate in many dubious undertakings: outfitting bunkers to prepare for a worldwide catastrophe, listening to “channeled” pronouncements at Urantia study group meetings, even being asked to help finance the printing of unauthorized versions of The URANTIA Book, and assist in the overthrow of the URANTIA Foundation’s possession of the copyright of the revelation text and symbols.
Now, as never before, our beloved book and its legal protector, URANTIA Foundation, need loyal and stalwart advocates. Shortsighted and impatient individuals have cast our big book unprotected onto the open market despite all requests by the Foundation to refrain, at least until the legal appeals process is completed. In the rush to publish an unauthorized version, all rules of courtesy and propriety have been abandoned—certainly, in mailers I have received, there has been no acknowledgment of the essential custodial role that the URANTIA Foundation has played in the protection and publishing of the book since 1955 .
Many of us have dear friends who are involved in the “liberation” of The URANTIA Book, believing that the copyright has been inhibiting the spread of the revelation to a mass readership. But you and I are living proof to all that even a conservative dissemination policy did not stop us from discovering it, or keep it from finding us!
I personally am deeply grateful for the efforts of the Foundation to keep the text of The URANTIA Book inviolate. How unseemly for those who have gained so much benefit from those pages to ignore the very entity that brought the book to light. But this is a rude and ungrateful world, and even among readers of The URANTIA Book, loyalty is at a premium.
You and all IUA members are acting as a sea wall against the degradation of the revelation by the same tide of impatience and disloyalty that spawned the Caligastia rebellion and the Adamic default. We cannot keep others from choosing the Caligastia teaching of unbridled personal liberty, but surely we can remain steadfast and true to the great revelation with which we have been entrusted.
There are many salient quotes listed in the Concordance under “loyalty.” After reading these, can there be any doubt that combined with love, loyalty is the glue of the universe?
What is loyalty? It is the fruit of an intelligent appreciation of universe brotherhood; one could not take so much and give nothing. As you ascend the personality scale, first you learn to be loyal, then to love, then to be filial, and then may you be free; but not until you are a finaliter, not until you have attained perfection of loyalty, can you self-realize finality of liberty. UB 39:4.11
Is loyalty-devotion to highest duty-desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default. UB 3:5.12