© 1999 Meredith Sprunger
© 1999 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
The October, 1998 issue of Theology Today examines the growing conversation between science and theology. The tone is much different from the conflict waged between religion and science described by Andrew White’s classic book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). There is an increasing realization in both disciplines that there is a basic unity of knowledge, that all academic disciplines could learn from each other. This trend is seen in the thinking of Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead where scientific data is a major component of their philosophy and theology.
The conversation between science and theology is taking place on many different levels and in numerous places, such as the Vatican, the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at Berkeley. The lead article in the October issue of Theology Today is “The Universe as Theater for God’s Action” by Owen Gingerich. It sounds like the broad general theme of The Urantia Book. Patrick D. Miller, the editor of Theology Today, reports that the Center of Theological Inquiry has decided to follow up the essays in the October issue by "a serious engagement with the subject of eschatology as a topic for the discourse of science and theology.” (p. 303)
One can hardly imagine a more appropriate theme on which the Fifth Epochal Revelation has more extensive and appropriate information than on life after death and “ultimate or last things.” No other source in religious or theological literature has more extensive and rationally credible information on eschatology. For the last forty years I have been pointing out to mainline Christian leaders that The Urantia Book is insightfully contributing to the growing edge of issues in Christianity and is the best hope for a reformation and renaissance of the Christian faith.
It is regrettable that there has not been a serious attempt to examine the book by contemporary theologians. One wonders how long it will be before Christianity is upstepped by the Fifth Epochal Revelation? Historic observation suggests that it will take considerable time.
“Christianity exhibits a history of having originated out of the unintended transformation of the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. It further presents the history of having experienced Hellenization, paganization, secularization, institutionalization, intellectual deterioration, spiritual decadence, moral hibernation, threatened extinction, later rejuvenation, fragmentation, and more recent relative rehabilitation. Such a pedigree is indicative of inherent vitality and the possession of vast recuperative resources.” UB 195:4.4