© 2001 Ken Glasziou
© 2001 The Brotherhood of Man Library
“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)
This quotation from UB 2:7.10 of The Urantia Book is obviously self-referential. We are expected to take from the Papers that which will advance the cause of the “kingdom” and present it in forms that are comprehensible to our brothers and sisters at all levels of human understanding.
During the last few days of his earthly bestowal, the Master gave us several instructions that, read in context, any ex-serviceman would recognize as authoritarian—orders to be obeyed, or else.
One of these military style orders was:
“You are not to attack the old ways.” (UB 178:1.16)
This was followed by:
“Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work.”
And just a little later,
“Remember always to love one another,”
“Do not strive with men, even with unbelievers.”
The exhortation given to us on UB 2:7.10 reveals that it is not The Urantia Book we need to get out to our brothers and sisters of the world. Rather, it is the message that the Papers contain. What is the crux of that message? Simply to love the God who dwells within us and to love one another.
A vast number of the world’s population are either illiterate or semi-illiterate. Most are too poor to ever be able to spend their money on a 2000-page book that, even if they could read it, they would not understand more than a small fraction of its content.
There are now well over a billion people on this earth who would call themselves Christians, and who have some kind of connection, however feeble, with a Christian church. A majority are reasonably literate. But for a very large percentage of these, their fear of authority, whether it be of God or of the church, is such that they will never in their lifetime take a chance on transferring their loyalty from a divinely dictated “God’s Bible” to any new revelation claiming to be superhuman in origin—and especially one that contradicts some of their cherished beliefs.
If we think that the authors of the Urantia Papers did not know these facts when they wrote the Papers, then we seriously underestimate their intelligence. Nevertheless, in many places, these authors have expressed their hope that the message they sought to convey will transform the church that bears the name of Jesus. Just one example is:
“Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. 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!” (UB 196:1.2)
One thing that is for absolute certain is that the church will not be transformed from outside. If the living Jesus is to be recovered it will need to be an inside job.
Imagine what the result could be if, over the course of this new century, more than one billion people could rediscover the real Jesus of the gospels and of the Urantia Papers!
How could the hope expressed by the revelators be achieved? Probably by many pathways, each contributing just a little.
One pathway now opening up appears to be that which ex-Urantia Foundation trustee, Dr. Jim Mills (now dec’d), brought to our attention.
Over the last ten to twenty years, theologians have discovered and expanded upon Whitehead’s major work, “Process and Reality. An essay in Cosmology.” (1929). What was particularly attractive about Whitehead’s work was his solution to the problem of a God who, in biblical literature, seemed to be both immanent in the world and transcendent of the world. Whitehead made his God dipolar, with one foot in each camp, and opened the way for a God who has a sensitive and caring relationship with the world.
The Internet has opened up new opportunities to Urantia Book readers with the necessary talents. There can be little doubt that Christians are open to a positive message about a loving and caring God who indwells all of his earthly children. But any condemnation of doctrines such as the atonement is likely to cause the door to shut tight.
If there was a way for The Urantia Book to get into the churches via the front door it would have happened by now. To make an inroad, it is the positive messages on the indwelling of the spirit of God, the concept of God as our loving Father, and the consequent relationship of ourselves as brothers and sisters in the universal family of God that have potential to make a difference.
The very mention of Urantia Book and revelation will, in almost all cases, be counter-productive. Remember always that Jesus said: “You are not to attack the old ways. . . Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work. . . Love one another. . . Do not strive with men, even with unbelievers. . . Be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.”
The potential of the message of the Papers to influence Christianity via process theology is indirect. Most of those who are interested are academic types. If they can be made aware that the Urantia Papers have many parallels with process theology and, in some cases are truly enlightening, then over the course of time there can be a flow-on through theological colleges and eventually to church congregations. Slow maybe—but we are instructed that slow evolution is far preferable to disruptive revolution.
An article on some of the parallels between process theology and the Urantia Papers follows.
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
A. N. Whitehead
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own joy.
Robert A. Heinlin
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
_Elliot
Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.
William James