© 2001 Les Jamieson
© 2001 The Urantia Book Fellowship
| Show Us A Miracle! | Volume 3, Number 1, 2001 (Summer) — Index | Ethical Eugenics: A Modest Proposal For The 21st Century |
For many years I wanted to find a way to contribute to fostering greater understanding between religions. When Peter Laurence, a long time reader, led me to the Interfaith Council of New York, I found their all-inclusive, community-based focus very refreshing. The Interfaith Council invites participation from all religions and faiths and creates programs designed to facilitate dialogue and interaction between them, and I was accepted as a representative of the local Urantia Book community, even though they had no idea of what the book was about.
In the spring of 1999, a few of us from The Urantia Book community attended a Council event called “Interfaith Vision for the New Millennium,” which included a panel of speakers representing Judaism, the Bahai’s, Christianity, Wicca, and Islam; and we felt a strong desire to have our own place on that panel. Shortly thereafter, the Council began planning a series of meetings where either an invited speaker or a Council member is asked to present their spiritual tradition. When my offer to give a presentation by The Urantia Book community was accepted, our society’s outreach committee agreed that rather than presenting a standard overview of the book, it might be more attractive and stimulating to an interfaith audience to present a topic that everyone could relate to, but base it on the book’s teachings. We had observed that many groups within the interfaith movement are still very entrenched in the culture of their religious traditions. They exhibit the “tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion.” (UB 99:6.3) The huge reverence for tradition greatly overshadows the long known fact that the spirit essence of all religions is the manifestation of one God, one universal source that should serve to unite us all. Recognizing the need to help further the concept of our universality amidst diversity, we decided to present the topic of “Universal Religion: A World Perspective.”
After six weeks of research, I had found such an incredible wealth of powerful, profound information on this topic, such a richness of quality material that could guide the world to true spiritual progress, spiritual freedom and resolution of religious conflicts, that it quickly became a challenge to streamline it into an hour presentation. Several members of our outreach committee, Gary Deinstadt, Carol Schindler and Al Lockett agreed to join me to make it a panel presentation, and Robin and Helene Jorgensen, Nick Curto and Phil Schiffman met with us to listen and critique our efforts.
Since our audience would consist of people unfamiliar with The Urantia Book, a fairly detailed introduction was in order to give a very brief overview of the book and our community. We had to state our purpose, saying that The Urantia Book has important information stated in a unique way that can contribute to the realization of harmony among the world’s religions. This is a goal we are still struggling to reach after centuries of serious conflicts and therefore calls for new insights. We needed to state that our concept of Universal Religion had to do with unity in spirit, not a blending, of diverse traditions. This was important due to the attichment of people’s historical identification mentioned earlier. We needed to state that we’re not a “new religion,” but have people from very diverse backgrounds that actually constitute an interfaith body who are studen of a book of knowledge. We have no hierarchy and doctrinal requirements. This reassured people that we weren’t proselytizing but presenting concepts, which is important in a world where people are wary of attempts to convert them. We needed to explain upfront that although The Urantia Book is not a recognized Christian document, our presentation contained several teachings of Jesus with which people would be unfamiliar.
It became clear that The Urantia Book’s teachings on Cosmic Unity, which is essentially the pattern for all unity, was the perfect place to begin.
There is unity in the cosmic universe if you could only discern its workings in actuality. The real universe is friendly to every child of the eternal God. The real problem is: How can the finite mind of man achieve a logical, true, and corresponding unity of thought? Only conceiving that the quantitative fact. and the qualitative value have a common causation in the Paradise Father can have this universe-knowing state of mind. Such a conception of reality yields a broader insight into the purposeful unity of universe phenomena; it even reveals a spiritual goal of progressive personality achievement. And this is a concept of unity which can sense the unchanging background of a living universe of continually changing impersonal relations and evolving personal relationships (UB 133:5.8).
The I AM, the Trinity and vast collection of divine personalities comprise a celestial “government” which works with unity of purpose. The grand universe illustrates the vastness of God’s creation in which the pattern of cosmic unity functions with near perfection upon which we can reflect and draw great inspiration.
From there it followed that the fact of cosmic unity is experienced through each of us individually, which is a universal reality. Regardless of our culture and religious ideology, we all experience the Creator and all spiritual sustenance within our inner life that transforms our outer life.
There is a reality in religious experience that is proportional to the spiritual content, and such a reality is transcendent to reason, science, philosophy, wisdom, and all other human achievements. The convictions of such an experience are unassailable; the logic of religious living is incontrovertible; the certainty of such knowledge is superhuman; the satisfactions are superbly divine, the courage indomitable, the devotions unquestioning, the loyalties supreme, and the destinies final—eternal, ultimate, and universal (UB 103:9.12).
It is a wonder that the world’s religions have not allied themselves with this fact and have not devoted themselves to honoring the personal spiritual experiences of all with different theologies. The universality of every individual’s child-parent relationship with the Father (or Higher Intelligence if you’re Buddhist), should be an obvious guideline for the actualization of peace and harmony in our world through recognition of our common experience. If religions all led us to the experience of cosmic citizenship, arriving at this destination would have to point us to a realization of our universal aspects.
Religion effectually cures man’s sense of idealistic isolation or spiritual loneliness; it enfranchises the believer as a son of God, a citizen of a new and meaningful universe. Religion assures man that, in following the gleam of righteousness discernible in his soul, he is thereby identihing himself with the plan of the Infinite and the purpose of the Eternal. Such a liberated soul immediately begins to feel at home in this new universe, his universe (UB 101:10.7).
But instead, most people have aligned themselves with their traditional theology in which they receive their identity and some level of spiritual gratification in a way that is exclusionary to all who don’t share their beliefs. Humanity has stressed differences over commonality. The failure to recognize the universal fact of each individual’s experience of his or her connection with the Divine as a unifying force, has been an insurmountable obstacle to the realization of our inherent relatedness.
Jesus spoke,
And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fearful, and hesitant individuals who will prefer thus to secure their religious consolations, even though, in so casting their lot with the religions of authority, they compromise the sovereignty of personality, debase the dignity of self-respect, and utterly surrender the right to participate in that most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences: the personal quest for truth, the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal triumph of the actual realization of the victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in the supreme adventure of all human existence—man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him (UB 155:5.10).
Once we establish the universality of the individual experience, the focus inevitably must shift to the group dynamic. Since we are social beings, we are compelled to share our experience with others: that naturally develops into a group association. The religious cult is born to serve the social needs of the outworking of the individual’s spiritual drive. The Urantia Book tells us there is real value in the group experience and makes it clear that in its ideal and pure form, the religious organization is a desirable entity.
There is a real purpose in the socialization of religion. It is the purpose of group religious activities to dramatize the loyalties of religion; to magnify the lures of truth, beauty, and goodness; to foster the attractions of supreme values; to enhance the service of unselfish fellowship; to glorify the potentials of family life; to promote religious education; to provide wise counsel and spiritual guidance; and to encourage group worship. And all live religions encourage human friendship, conserve morality, promote neighborhood welfare, and facilitate the spread of the essential gospel of their respective messages of eternal salvation (UB 99:6.2).
However, from the dawn of civilization to the present, the religions have failed to live up to their teachings of brotherhood and the Golden Rule. They have been unable to successfully emphasize universal truths over theological differences. The Urantia Book has an abundance of passages which tell us of our misguided loyalty with brutal honesty which must be thoroughly examined if we are to ever fulfill the promise of becoming a loving, enlightened global family.
But as religion becomes institutionalized, its pouter for good is curtailed, while the possibilities for evil are greatly multi. plied. The dangers of formalized religion are: fixation of beliefs and crystallization of sentiments; accumulation of vested interests with increase of secularization; tendency to standardize and fossilize truth; diversion of religion from the service of God to the service of the church; inclination of leaders to become administrators instead of ministers; tendency to form sects and competitive divisions; establishment of oppressive ecclesiastical authority; creation of the aristocratic “chosen-people” attitude; fostering of false and exaggerated ideas of sacredness; the routinizing of religion and the petrification of worship; tendency to venerate the past while ignoring present demands; failure to make up-to-date interpretations of religion; entanglement with functions of secular institutions; it creates the evil discrimination of religious castes; it becomes an intolerant judge of orthodoxy; it fails to hold the interest of adventurous youth and gradually loses the saving message of the gospel of eternal salvation (UB 99:6.3).
The Urantia Book also tells us that no one religion could possibly have exclusive ownership of all truth, but that there is truth in each one that is to be valued and respected.
The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors’ living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals (UB 92:7.3).
Instead of promoting the pursuit of spiritual emancipation of the individual, our religious institutions have fallen into many practices unworthy of the representation of divine truth they were entrusted to convey to humanity. The Urantia Book speaks to this issue with great clarity on a very mature level. It requires strength of character and total devotion to improvement to absorb its critique of our religious institutions. We need only to look at the religious strife that has plagued our world throughout time to realize the accuracy of these statements.
The religions of authority can only divide men and set them in conscientious array against each other; the religion of the spirit will progressively draw men together and cause them to become understandingly sympathetic with one another. The religions of authority require of men uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in the present. state of the world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience—uniformity of destiny—making full allowance for diversity of belief. The religion of the spirit requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. The religion of the spirit does not demand. unihrmity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. The religions of authority crystallize into lifeless creeds; the religion of the spirit grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration (UB 155:6.9).
For the next section, with an interfaith audience, the school at Urmia was an essential area of information to include. It was truly amazing what was revealed by careful study of this information. Consider the following details: There were representatives from all known established religions, smaller religious cults, as well as independent teachers (of which Jesus was one). The school’s seventy-five teachers were required to live in cottages of twelve and switch to a different cottage every month. Any one who became contentious or tried to exert superiority was dismissed and replaced. All religions represented must believe in a supreme Deity. The teachers made great effort to emphasize the similarity of all religions. When you sum up these attributes, this school appeared to be brilliantly designed and could be considered an inspiration even by today’s standards.
What was even more striking was Jesus’ teaching on Divine Sovereignty. His words, which are probably even more pertinent today, give us the formula for peace between the religions in a few short sentences.
Religious peace—brotherhood—can never exist unless all religions are willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign…You cannot have equality among religions (religious liberty) without having religious wars unless all religions consent to the transfer of all religious sovereignty to some superhuman level, to God himself (UB 134:4.4-5).
It is of paramount importance to consider the fact that this concept of Divine Sovereignty has never been tried. What if the religious wars occurring in the Middle East, Indonesia, northern India, the Phillipines and wherever else, were to yield to God’s sovereignty? Since religious institutions are bent on survival and expansion just as nationalism drives countries and ethnic regions in similar fashion, it could be argued that the realization and acceptance of this concept of Divine Sovereignty is one of the most important events that could happen today.
Jesus went on to boldly state what would happen with certain inevitability if the religions fail in transferring their sovereignty to a divine source.
But the moment you lose sight of the spirit sovereignty of God the Father, some one religion will begin to assert its superiority over other religions; and then, instead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dissensions, recriminations, even religious wars, at least wars among religionists (UB 134:4.8, emphasis is mine).
To further define what needs to be done to attain peace, he states that even the notion of equality between different religions is insufficient.
Freewill beings who regard themselves as equals, unless they mutually acknowledge themselves as subject to some supersovereignty, some authority over and above themselves, sooner or later are tempted to try out their ability to gain power and authority over other persons and groups. The concept of equality never brings peace except in the mutual recognition of some overcontrolling influence of supersovereignty. (UB 134:4.9).
From here our presentation culminates in The Urantia Book’s teachings on modern times, declaring that for religion to remain relevant and effective in addressing the pressing problems our world faces, it has serious catching up to do to keep pace with the accelerated advancements in technology, science, and economics. When we add the issues of social upheaval that our entire civilization has gone through in the last hundred years, the continued threats of conflict, nuclear instability, poverty, and environmental sustainabiliry, the fact is that our religions are needed more than ever to guide all our institutions by the highest of principles, provide spiritual sustenance, and to insure spiritual progress.
Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of know!, edge are modifying civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will not settle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny.
Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments. (UB 99:1.1-2).
The Urantia Book tells us that although “the spirit of religion is eternal, the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised” (UB 99:1.6). Thorough examination of the book’s teachings qualify it as a powerful restatement that has transformative wisdom and guidance for our world today in which the voices for unity are still too faint to be heard and taken seriously. Our labors are needed to advance these invaluable concepts found in The Urantia Book towards the cause of spiritual progress, religious maturity and world peace.
It is imperative that as stewards of this revelation, we call for our organizations within the Urantia movement to comply with Jesus’ teachings at Urmia. If we can rely on Divine Sovereignty ourselves, we can become a community that will attract seekers of truth from all backgrounds to discover the revelation for them. Then we must clearly recognize the state of affairs of our religious institutions and do everything in our power, however small, to fulfill our role in our planet’s spiritual destiny by conveying the illuminating teachings contained in The Urantia Book which will someday guide us to a Universal Religion. The world waits.
To view the full collection of passages used in this presentation, visit www.urantia-nyc.org.
To learn more about readers involved in the inter-faith movement, and how you can participate, go to www.urantiabook.org/fef/frc.
Les has a background in music, graphics and web design. He serves as Vice President of the Urantia Society of Greater New York. He is on the board of The Interfaith Council of New York and The Temple of Understanding where he participates in multi-religious activities. He also serves as webmaster of these three organizations. Les has been reading The Urantia Book since 1973.
| Show Us A Miracle! | Volume 3, Number 1, 2001 (Summer) — Index | Ethical Eugenics: A Modest Proposal For The 21st Century |