© 1998 Meredith Sprunger
© 1998 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
In a response to the Fall Journal, we received a letter commenting on our “abandoning the effort to introduce leaders of the Christian Church to the teachings of The Urantia Book.” When we announced a shift in the direction of the Journal audience from mainline Christian ministers to Urantia Book readers in order to promote theological, philosophical, and polity discussions germane to an appropriate symbolism and socioreligious expression of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, we do not wish to imply that we are no longer interested in introducing Christian leaders to The Urantia Book.
We were merely observing that it is difficult for Christian ministers to seriously consider another spiritual paradigm. This is understandable. We will continue to introduce The Urantia Book to church members and ministers wherever there is interest. I continue to teach a Sunday School class, going on the fourth year, using papers from The Urantia Book. We publish Urantia Book quotations in the monthly news letter of the United Church of Christ we attend. All of the responses from the Sunday School class and the Tower Talk news letter we have received are positive, often quite enthusiastic.
What we are now attempting to do in the Journal is broaden and balance our outreach agenda and discussions. Over the years there will be all kinds of reactions to the Fifth Epochal Revelation. Many different religious groups will take origin from its teachings. Some of these groups we will admire and some we will find embarrassing. And there are some readers of The Urantia Book that think it is a great mistake for any kind of religious organization to be associated with the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
Peter Laurence, in the Fall issue of Mighty Messenger, points out various potential pitfalls of religious expressions and organizations. We should always keep these dangers in mind, but not be afraid of the varieties of socioreligious expressions that are inevitable in the future of the FifthEpochal Revelation. The policy of the Journal is to encourage and facilitate a discussion of all aspects of religious expression associated with the teachings of The Urantia Book. There are great positive potentials as well as many possible dangers stemming from a response to the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. We believe the best guard against these “pitfalls” is free and open discussion.