© 1996 Ken Glasziou
© 1996 The Brotherhood of Man Library
Having attended the Anglican (Episcopalian) Church on a regular basis for more than sixty years, it came as a bit of a shock to my system when I fell out with the local minister over him labelling the airmen of Bomber Command in World War 2 as war criminals. As 75% of Australian airmen who served in Britain with Bomber Command were killed in ensuring that our minister had the right to free speech, and a goodly number were friends with whom I served, I felt some need to help him get his facts right. However, this gentleman was not interested and things went from bad to worse, culminating in me ceasing to be a church member. Five years later, this minister was moved elsewhere, and I felt able to return to the fold. I will not defend my attitudes and actions as, in retrospect, they were somewhat immature.
However, the five-year absence of contact with a Christian group on a regular basis seems to have presented me with the opportunity to make some kind of re-assessment of both the differences and the relative merits of mainline Christianity and various Urantia Book reader groups with whom I am reasonably familiar.
In the early days of Christianity, the Romans in particular were fond of vilifying Christians as being participants in disgusting rites and orgies, including the cannibalistic consumption of human flesh and the drinking of human blood. Most of this type of vilification emanated from political leaders in need of scape-goats to blame for some disaster for which they themselves were responsible. The origin of the rumor about eating human flesh and drinking human blood was, of course, the bread and wine ceremony given to the apostles as the Remembrance Supper.
The Urantia Book tells us that when passing around the wine cup, Jesus said, “Take this cup, all of you, and drink of it. This shall be the cup of my remembrance. . . This shall be to you the emblem of the bestowal. . . ” Then he took some bread, broke it in pieces, and passed it around, saying, “Take this bread of remembrance and eat. I have told you that I am the bread of life. And this bread of life is the united life of the Father and the Son in one gift. The word of the Father, as revealed in the Son, is indeed the bread of life.” He concluded by saying, “And as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. . . ” (UB 179:5.1-9) The Biblical version runs that after handing out the bread, Jesus said: “Take, eat, this is my body.” And after handing out the wine, he said, “This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many.”
The transubstantiation doctrine by which the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus came later, and is still current in Roman Catholicism, though rejected by most Protestants. And despite what they might say, I have yet to meet a Catholic who (in my opinion) truly believed the bread he ate or the wine he drank at mass was real flesh or real blood rather than symbolic flesh and blood. My contact with church-going Christians also leads me to conclude that few delve deeply enough into dogmatic theology for them to give thought to any connection between a God who is both the Father-God of the “Our Father who is in heaven. . . ” prayer and also a God who would not forgive the sins of men except that his son took those sins upon himself by dying on the cross. Many believe fervently that a ransom had to be paid in order for their sins to be forgiven and that Jesus paid that price on the cross, but they give no thought to the question of who received the ransom and why, nor what kind of a God would demand such a ransom. The Father-God in whom they believe really is the God that John describes as “love” in the well-known biblical verse, “God is love.” And this God who is perfect love comes out totally unscathed in the forgiveness of sin transaction mainly because few Christians give any thought to the inconsistency in a blood sacrifice having to be offered to him.
Too late I came to Thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, yea, too late I came to love thee. And, behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.
St. Augustine
Thou hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathom’d, no man knows,
I see from far Thy beauteous light,
Inly I sigh for Thy repose;
My heart is pain’d, nor can it be
At rest, till it finds rest in Thee.
John Wesley
The opinions of some Urantia Book readers about what Christians really believe (as contrasted with what they are said to believe, or what can be found in some theological doctrines, or even the Bible itself) seems often to be closer to what the Romans falsely believed about those early Christians whom, because of their nasty natures, they happily threw to the lions .
So what is it about mainline Christianity that many Urantia Book readers want to shun? Alternatively, what are the deficiencies in mainline (or even fundamentalist) Christian teaching that are such that we should, “refrain from all efforts to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation,” but rather that we should be doing our best to, “labor only to put something into these hungry souls. . . ” and so, “let the great and living truths of the kingdom. . . drive out all serious error.” (UB 141:6.2)
In actuality, I can find very little that is wrong with mainline Christianity that has any need for reformation as it is practiced at the grass roots level. Speaking as a dedicated Urantia Book reader and believer, I find that the vast majority of people I associate with at my local church, or any of the many churches I have attended for communal worship over almost seventy years, are people whose fundamental beliefs are exactly the same as my own. Basically these are epitomised in the first and great commandment to love God above all else and, secondly, to love my neighbor as myself—both also fundamentals of the Jewish belief system. Christianity differs from Juda-ism in that Jesus modified both commandments, firstly by the revelation of his own life as illustrative of the real nature of God, and secondly by requiring Christians “to love one another as I have loved you.” Few mainline Christians give much thought to the God of the Old Testament, the God of Juda-ism. Despite some apparent inconsistencies, their model for what God is really like has, as its source, the life and teachings of Jesus.
If I was pressed to criticize some feature of mainline Christianity, it would be the hierarchical structure of their organizations that divides the congregation into two sections, a professional ordained leadership and a led laity. Whatever the pro’s and con’s may have been in days gone by, the way the churches are presently structured is such that more often than not, attempts are made to turn the clock back rather than to accommodate a rapidly changing world society. Though this attitude is justified wherever society deviates from that which is in accord with the nature of the heavenly Father as revealed in the life of Jesus, in many instances the primary motives are more concerned with sectional interests.
If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I will ask the Father and he will give you another Helper who will stay with you forever. He is the spirit who reveals the truth about God.
(John 14:15-17; 14:26; 15:26)To show that you are his sons, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, the spirit that cries out ‘Abba, my Father’.
Paul in Galatians 4:6; see also Romans 8:14-16.
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
George Santayana, Soliloquies in England
I think it is probably correct to say that most of the problems of the Christian Church throughout the centuries have been due to power struggles between interest groups, and individuals within groups. As with the Romans, making scapegoats of the early Christian “cannibals” in order to achieve an unrelated purpose, so points of doctrine have been used throughout the ages as a cover for some other activity. This kind of thing is inevitable whenever ambitious, self-seeking men and women desire the “seats of honor at the banqueting tables and the chiefs seats in the synagogue.” And, of course, it has quite naturally spilled over into the Urantia movement—for that is the way we humans are. Can it be avoided? I think the answer is no, at least not for perhaps hundreds of years to come. It will only cease within groups when a sufficient proportion of members undertake to completely lead their lives in accordance with the direction of the spirit forces within themselves.
It is precisely at this point that I perceive an enormous potential difference between mainline Christianity and Urantia Book followers. Despite the existence of verses in the New Testament in the Gospel of John and in the Epistles of Paul that indicate the indwelling of both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son, the vast majority of Christians see God and Jesus as beings “out there” rather than being spirit forces within. That this is factuality has probably been worsened by the priesthood, and others, taking on the role of intercessor between man and God. Even Jesus statement that “whenever two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be in the midst of them,” though repeated weekly in many church services, still has little real meaning and, in any event, is a Jesus “over there in the corner somewhere” rather than a Jesus-within-me.
The emphasis that The Urantia Book places on the roles of the indwelling Thought Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth is, IMHO, the teaching that has the most potential to bring changes in the world. True, the cosmology of the book broadens our outlook on our roles and our purposes on this earth and, in doing so, brings meaning to what otherwise might be a fairly difficult existence. This knowledge can have a tremendously liberating effect for the individual but it is knowledge about “me and mine,” whereas our knowledge of the spirit forces within ourselves, if put into effect, really does have the power to change ourselves, our neighbor and, eventually, this rebellion-racked materialistic world of ours. A millennium from now, it may even land us at a new and higher stage of the journey towards light and life. (UB 99:1.1)
It is also my belief that even dedicated Urantia Book readers will not get far along the road of successfully turning over their lives to their Thought Adjusters until the fact is recognized that we Urantians are a primitive, backward example of humanity with a potential for spiritual advance that is far below any “normal” world. We need to accept the failure of the Adamic upgrading program as well as the effects of the Caligastia rebellion, and, in all humility, admit our inferiority, at least to ourseves. Then we need to accept advice given us in the book, such as:
“To ‘follow Jesus’ means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master’s life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.” (UB 196:1.3)
Knowledge of Jesus is knowledge of God, for a Creator Son is, to all intents and purposes, God to his universe, he is the vicegerant personalization of the Universal Father. (UB 33:1.4) In case anybody has any lingering doubt, in both the New Testament and The Urantia Book, Jesus is on record as stating, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” We Urantians are quite incapable of any form of logical processing that can provide us with true knowledge of the nature of God. Such knowledge can only come to us as through revelation. We are also on the bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder as far as spiritual capacity is concerned. I have no doubt that this is why we are being told that “that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it”—for to know Jesus is to know God.
Jesus’ teaching was wholly concerned about love and brotherhood. His teaching about God was about love and Fatherhood. His life was a revelation of the nature of the Father. How better a way to get to know God than to get to know Jesus?
Then we have the quite remarkable potential of the Spirit of Truth to help us. Despite living in daily contact with Jesus for about four years, the apostles made more spiritual progress in their first four weeks contact with the Spirit of Truth than in the whole of that four year period with Jesus. (2061) Can the Spirit of Truth do the same for us? Perhaps excluding John, I don’t think that the apostles and early disciples were conscious of their indwelling by their Thought Adjusters. Rather, they were intensely conscious of Jesus, and that was because the Spirit of Truth made them, and will make us, conscious of his presence. And since at that level, all spirit is one, consciousness of Jesus is consciousness of our Thought Adjuster.
The book tells us, “The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men.” (UB 195:10.1) How can that happen unless we perceive Jesus-within-us, through the mediation of the Spirit of Truth and our Thought Adjuster, as the focal point of both our material and spiritual lives?
Finding ways and means of teaching or demonstrating, that the essence of our religion is Jesus-within-us, and through him, God-within-us, seems to me to be the most important contribution Urantia Book readers could make for the advancement of Christianity. We have been instructed not to try to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation, but rather to put something into these hungry souls. That means we forget about attempting to rid them of their doctrinal errors. For putting something into these hungry souls, I can think of nothing more important for Christianity than the knowledge that true religion is entirely experiential, a personal one-on-one relationship between the individual and Jesus-within—a view that will eventually herald the end of the out-there God concept and restore him to the throne of our souls.
First Epistle of John
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love… No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us…
God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him… There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth outfear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love him, because he first loved us. And this commandment we have from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.