© 2000 Lynn E. Rhoderick
© 2000 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| God's Unfathomable Love | Fall 2000 — Index | Significant Books: Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller |
When I was drafted into the military back during the Korean War, I tried to live up to my Boy Scout oath of doing my best to serve God and country. I soon learned that Boy Scouts aren’t too welcome in the military. That’s because the only way you can keep most soldiers content and their morale high is to let them leave their morals at home. I came to the conclusion that the “Pollyanna” type of religion I’d been taught in my home town wasn’t too practical in the military.
When I got home from Korea and decided to become a preacher, I soon found that people didn’t want to hear about the real world. So I decided to become a public school teacher. By the time I graduated from Wayland Baptist College in Plainview, Texas in 1955, I was a full blown agnostic and self-proclaimed deist. By 1963, marriage and fatherhood had led me to conclude that my philosophy was empty. A hunger for a more fulfilling theology led me into the Mormon Church. After more than a decade of study in their theology, I was ready to look elsewhere. In 1976 a friend introduced me to The Urantia Book.
My adventure into the teachings of this book brought both challenge and adversity. Within its pages I found answers to the inconsistent dogmas of Biblical fundamentalism. Even while encountering devastating personal experience, the Jesus I found in The Urantia Book taught me how to overcome barriers of faith and how to love my Heavenly Father. Within the decade after embracing the Fifth Epochal Revelation, I was excommunicated from the Mormon Church and my wife of thirty-one years asked for a divorce.
I believe The Urantia Book has caused the barriers of faith between God and myself to crumble for the following reasons:
Teach all believers that those who enter the Kingdom are not thereby rendered immune to the accidents of time or to the ordinary catastrophes of nature. Believing the gospel will not prevent getting into trouble, but it will insure that you shall be unafraid when trouble does overtake you. If you dare to believe in me and wholeheartedly proceed to follow after me, you shall most certainly by so doing enter upon the sure pathway to trouble. I do not promise to deliver you from the waters of adversity, but I do promise to go with you through all of them. (UB 159:3.13)
Recently, a friend gave me a copy of Dr. James Dobson’s book, When God Doesn’t Make Sense. I think it might lay important foundations to help Christians discover the Fifth Epochal Revelation. My only regret is that this book was unavailable in 1955 when I entered Wayland Baptist College. It might have helped me become a successful minister. The thesis of Dr. Dobson’s book is that many sincere Christians are being misled and deceived by “fast food religion” designed to solve all human problems. Dr. Dobson believes in the “adversity principle.” He proclaims that all individuals make spiritual progress only by courageously embracing the trials of life.
The central concern in my “trials of life” is in finding an effective means of disseminating the Fifth Epochal Revelation. I regret that the injunction to the Education Committee in the Brotherhood/Fellowship Constitution to “find, prepare, train, and ordain teachers of The Urantia Book” was removed, and that the Brotherhood School started by Dr. Sadler was terminated. In 1984 I decided to become a public teacher of The Urantia Book. I have taught several courses on the book at our community college, and some students have started their own study groups.
Have my efforts earned me the right to call myself an “ordained teacher of The Urantia Book? ” If so, then why don’t I possess the qualifications necessary to teach others to become self-ordained? Why aren’t more of us doing this? I would appreciate hearing from anyone agreeing or disagreeing with my position. Send communications to: 101 Birch Ct., Grants. NM 87020.
Lynn Rhoderick is a long time student of The Urantia Book. Lynn retired in 1994 after teaching thirty-six years in public schools.
| God's Unfathomable Love | Fall 2000 — Index | Significant Books: Finding Darwin’s God by Kenneth R. Miller |