© 1997 Meredith Sprunger
© 1997 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Dr. Thomas W. Gillespie, President of Princeton Theological Seminary, gave a Convocation Address to the incoming class of seminary students in September of 1996 entitled, “Becoming Theologians.” Gillespie quoted from Donald Light’s book Becoming Psychiatrists: The Professional Transformation of Self [1] in which Light points out that the process of becoming a psychiatrist, theologian, or almost any other professional person is very difficult. Individuals in training feel anxiety and stress not only because there is a great deal to learn but because their sense of self is being shaken. Light observes that the student in training must go through five stages of “moral transition.” These stages are: (1) feeling different and being discredited, (2) experiencing moral confusion, (3) going through a period of numbness and exhaustion, (4) undergoing a moral transition, and (5) finally arriving at a stage of self-affirmation when the new frames of reference are internalized and integrated.
Most theological students discover that what they had learned at home and in their local churches is challenged and threatened. They feel that their faith is being undermined and taken away from them. In their moral and theological confusion they may question their decision to enter the ministry. The introduction to new and complex frames of reference, course after course, weighs down on the mind and the soul producing a sense of psychological-spiritual numbness and exhaustion. Those who have the courage and intellectual-spiritual toughness to struggle through these periods of ambiguity and doubt finally experience “the moment of truth” in which they recognize that their naive childhood faith is affirmed and transformed into a higher level of moral and theological understanding. Then they are free and inspired to internalize and integrate this higher level of self-affirmation.
This process of educational-theological transition continues throughout life for those who have the motivation and courage to grow spiritually. With the advent of The Urantia Book, our society faces the same stages of educational-theological transition in order to discover and adopt a new and inspiring paradigm of spiritual reality. At first it may appear to undermine our traditional theological frames of reference. As we are introduced to the complex spiritual cosmology of the universe, the enlarged view of Deity and Reality, we experience intellectual and spiritual confusion. At this point many people intimidated by fear and the immensity of the universe picture simply give up and take refuge in the traditional theological frames of reference. For those who have the courage to contemplate the enlarged vision of spiritual reality and experience the inspiring expanded revelation of the life and teachings of Jesus, “the moment of truth” takes place. They realize that their traditional theological beliefs are affirmed and expanded. Anew level of self-affirmation and identity is experienced and the new paradigm of spiritual reality becomes the dynamic center of their lives. Since such transitions are evolutionary in nature, it will take generations for the Fifth Epochal Revelation to work its transforming power in our world. For those who wish to be in the vanguard of the renaissance of religious institutions in our post-modern society, we would invite to involve themselves in this theological-spiritual transition.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1980. ↩︎