© 1998 Ken Glasziou
© 1998 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| The Urantia Papers. The Revelators' Unenviable Task | Volume 5 - No. 4 — Index | The Urantia Book's Message has failed—or has it? |
To knowingly deprive future generations of the chance to know a God of love who is both our heavenly Father and the Father-God of Jesus of Nazareth—would that be a crime against humanity?
For that is close to what is happening throughout the world’s communities of Christians, virtually all of which are, in terms of congregation numbers, on a downhill slide terminating in a bottomless pit.
What are the reasons for this slide? One certainly is an out-of-date theology that is incompatible with what our children are taught during their school years—thus open to ridicule. And kids just hate being ridiculed!
A major stumbling block is the concept that Jesus died for our sins. This theme runs so strongly through a large proportion of the popular hymns of all denominations to the point that it amounts to brain washing.
Probably very few Christians ever give a thought to the implications this theme has for the actual nature of God. What kind of father would only forgive the sins of his family of children if they crucified his favorite son?
At the basis of this doctrine we find Paul and St Augustine, both of whom deduced that mankind is plagued by congenital sin, that God chooses who will and who will not be saved even before they are born, and that God has pre-knowledge of who will accept or reject grace when it is offered. For congenital sin, they placed the blame on Adam and his fall.
Hence if we follow the “saved by the blood of Christ” theme to its origins, to be consistent we have to subscribe to a belief in Adam and Eve as the first man and woman, and their fall from grace, an event that is supposed to have occurred just a few thousands of years ago!
It is a fact that most practicing Christians know almost nothing about these doctrines. However, they do love the “saved by the blood of Christ” bit, as they feel it digs them out of some rather deep holes.
To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
A.B. Alcott
Against a foe I can defend myself—but Heaven protect me from blundering friend.
D.W. Thompson
It is also a fact that many Christian priests and ministers no longer hold rigidly to such doctrines but go along with them for the sake of peace among their congregations.
These are the doctrines that are so open to attack by those materialist-minded school teachers so keen to demonstrate to their students the modernity and superiority of their thinking.
Adam and Eve means Genesis, and a creation story that is not only highly vulnerable but virtually indefensible. So while parents are brain washed on salvation through the blood of Christ, their children are being brain washed that religion is unscientific.
Both concepts are naive, they have no depth of background knowledge, and display both mental laziness and an appalling ignorance of reality.
But to try to challenge either party to serious thought and discussion means to come up against deeply held prejudice likely to turn discussion into senseless ranting upon highly emotive issues.
And so the ongoing decline and fall of Christianity perpetuates the decline and fall that started with the civilizations of Rome, the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and now Western civilization.
Can we lay the blame for this crime anywhere? I think the answer is no, for both the thinking and the knowledge of most Christians is too shallow to hold them responsible, and those who are knowledgeable are only banging their heads against a brick wall if they try to change what is.
So where are we Urantians? How is it that nearly fifty years after publication of the Urantia Papers, our new revelation can be sure of only a few thousand more or less dedicated readers? More importantly, why?
The answer appears to lies squarely with those who were there at the origins of the revelatory saga, and who, despite the protests of their celestial guides, turned the papers into something they were never meant to be—a “by proxy,” divinely-dictated revelation, a new God’s Bible. Take a look at Clyde Bedell’s Concordex and see the thinking of the early Urantia movement accurately reflected. Here we have a God-given revelation with all the answers, the advertising says, a book to revolutionize the world.
And of course it is and will, but how long will it be before we realize that the way by which its magnificent message has been broadcast to the world at large has failed dismally. Surely experience has now confirmed that the message cannot be sold to Christianity, and probably not to any other religion, if presented as another God-authenticated revelation?
Meredith Sprunger is by far our best qualified observer in this area, and states: “More than forty years experience in interfacing with the most progressive segment of mainline Christianity has taught me that anything purporting to be a new revelation is not within the boundaries of current theological-institutional respectability.” (Christian Fellowship Journal 8 (1) 23, 1998)
To even think that the revelators were unaware that such would be the case is to cast aspersions indicating naivety on their part. Yet the Papers leave no doubt that their content is meant to upgrade all religion! We are expected to find a way.
“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.” (UB 2:7.10)
“The kingdom of God is within you” was probably the greatest pronouncement Jesus ever made, next to the declaration that his Father is a living and loving spirit. (UB 195:10.4)
In this section, we are told to take the message of the Papers and present it an acceptable way to all manner of men.
A disquieting fact is that many Urantia Book readers convey an antagonistic attitude to Christianity and the churches, along with a “don’t care” attitude that Christians are not accepting The Urantia Book.
But Paper 196 says: “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.” Obviously the revelators do care.
When a commercial firm goes bankrupt it either disappears or else someone else comes along, dismisses the old management, and starts anew. And if they fail, the cycle might restart until someone gets it right, and the firm prospers. Otherwise death is assured.
So what new tack can we try with our precious Urantia Book?
Can we get away from a fundamentalist-style of thinking and simply market this book as an interesting and meaningful work on religion and theology?
To succeed, we would need to forget about celestial authorship and simply admit that the true origins of the text are unknown (which is the truth). As pointed out by Meredith Sprunger, the origin and authorship of a book is not a philosophical criterion of truth. Regardless of whether supermortals or human beings wrote the Urantia Book, it must still be evaluated by its truth content and not by authorship. (CFJ, 8 (1) 6)
Probably the names of authors would best be omitted from a table of contents, and perhaps could be added at the end of each Paper as, “attributed to a. . . ” But if the strange names of authors might be a hindrance to acceptance, then they should be omitted.
We must remember how Jesus told his opponents that it was not important that they believe in him but it was important that they believe in the Father-God about whom he taught.
We would then have to stand back, see what happens, and modify approaches accordingly. The aim of a new approach would be to get the book read because of the merit of its outstanding concepts and ideas, then leave it to new readers and the Spirit of Truth to figure what it means to themselves and for themselves.
Maybe the book needs a different name, perhaps “The Urantian Papers” or perhaps a neutral name like “A Philosophy of Religion.”
Thought also needs to be given to making Part 4 available as a “Life of Jesus” without the revelatory overtones. It could start at Section 1 of Paper 121 but be modified to substitute “Jesus” for “Michael” where appropriate.
If we could get Christians to be comfortable with having the Papers on their bookshelves, and particularly for clergy and academics to do so, a new start might be just around the corner.
| The Urantia Papers. The Revelators' Unenviable Task | Volume 5 - No. 4 — Index | The Urantia Book's Message has failed—or has it? |