© 2000 Meredith Sprunger
© 2000 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
The Urantia Book’s expanded view of Deity and Reality, its new and inspiring picture of spiritual cosmology, and the enlarged presentation of the life and teachings of Jesus, will some day be a major factor in transforming our world.
How and when will this take place? The Urantia movement is awash with all kinds of speculation. The history of predicting the future, even by experts, is notoriously inaccurate. The history of past epochal revelations does provide some insights. All previous revelations have had difficulty establishing a foothold in their culture. They are characteristically opposed by the religious power structure at the time of their presentation. It is the creative and dynamic minority that carries their message throughout the world. And it requires centuries of evolutionary growth to establish a new spiritual paradigm.
As we survey the current status of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, we encounter numerous ambiguities. The United Midwayers, in presenting the Life and Teachings of Jesus, are obviously trying to inspire a transformation of Christianity, and secondarily, the other religions of the world. After almost fifty years of exposure, the power structure of Christianity exhibits little or no interest in The Urantia Book. As I recall, Dr. Sadler said they were told that for the first hundred years the Urantia Papers would be under the supervision of the angels of the churches. It will be interesting to observe any change in the interest of Christian leaders in the next fifty years.
Dr. Sadler and I used to discuss the type of religious organizations that would meet the criteria enumerated by the Brilliant Evening Star on UB 87:7.6-10. Dr. Sadler advanced the idea that the mysterious origin of the Fifth Epochal Revelation and its advanced picture of spiritual growth would supply the “masterful mystery” and the “worthful unattainable” aspects of such a religious institution. He laid the foundation for the development of such religious organizations by specifying the training of ordained teachers in the Brotherhood constitution. But the early members of the Brotherhood motivated by an aversion toward institutional religion soon eliminated the word “ordained” from the constitution.
The educational-fellowship organizations in the Urantia movement have largely lost their creative leadership and dynamic outreach mission in competitive, internal strife and the Urantia Foundation is still bogged down in lawsuit activity. There seems to be a sense of stagnation in the Urantia movement, while at the same time, there is an unprecedented search for spiritual relevance in our society.
Religious institutions are the central social organizations that are necessary to bring a new spiritual paradigm into our culture. But the power structure in the organizations of the Urantia movement are, by and large, prejudiced against sponsoring bona fide religious organizations. Sooner or later, probably independent of the official organizations, new religious organizations inspired by The Urantia Book will come into being. This will mark the beginning of the real enculturation of our society in the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. At the present time, the most hopeful aspect of outreach ministry is seen in the publication of The Urantia Book in other languages, and the posting of information about the Urantia Papers on the Internet.
Although we are in the infancy of the Urantia movement and have lost some of the enthusiasm and optimism of the Forum members when The Urantia Book was published, I am confident the Fifth Epochal Revelation will eventually be a major inspiration in transforming our planet-however, it will likely be a long and circuitous
The evil of the church was not its existence, but rather that it almost completely supplanted the Jesus concept of the kingdom. UB 170:5.7