© 1992 Meredith Sprunger
© 1992 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Recently I listened to Dr. Anson Shupe of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne give a lecture on “The Future of American Religion.” Dr. Shupe listed five major trends: (1) Increasing Religious Pluralism, (2) Numerical Decline of Membership in the Major Mainline Denominations and Continued Growth of More Conservative Denominations, (3) A continuation of Cult Scares, (4) The New Christian Right, and (5) An Increased Emphasis on, and Sensitivity to, Religious Influence in Physical/Mental Healing.
Dr. Shupe commented on the tremendous alterations taking place in the religious topography of the nation in recent years. There are more Moslems in the United States than Episcopalians or Pentecostals and as many Mormons as Jews. Mainline denominations are losing membership through a low birth rate and a failure to retain their children as adult members. More than 40% of the members of many mainline denominations are over 55 years of age. While the traditionally dominant denominations are losing cultural influence, the New Christian Right has become an accepted part of the Republican Party and conservative politics.
The 18th century Age of Enlightenment with the emergence of biological germ theory in medicine relegated religion to a peripheral role in health care. Now it is being recognized that the brain, the mind, and the body work together as a unit. There is hard scientific evidence that our thoughts and emotions effect our physiological condition. Our psychological-spiritual attitudes can harm or heal. This realization is shifting the emphasis in religion from theological constructs to the experiential realities of faith. courage. confidence, dedication, and love.
One does not need prophetic insight to see that this widespread unsettled condition in the economic, social, political, and religious institutions of our world is laying the foundations for major changes in our culture. But we are not very good at seeing the true watersheds in human affairs. They are usually not revealed in the headlines of the daily news. Daniel J. Boorstin in a U.S. News & World Report article (4/22/91) entitled,“History’s Hidden Turning Points,” states that the key factors in these major transitions are usually discovered only in retrospective historical analysis. Boorstin also observes that authentic turning points have centuries-old roots and are slow in unfolding.
This, it appears, is a description of the age long religious evolution which is taking place. Both the transition from polytheism to monotheism and the pilgrimage from perceiving a God of wrath to experiencing a God of love has taken eons of time and is still in process. The life and teachings of Jesus is a unique milestone in this odyssey. Early Christianity mixed Jesus’ Advent and mission with the mystery religions of that era and developed a religion about Jesus. The Middle Ages added unsavory institutional appendages to religion. The Protestant Reformation attempted to bring us back to the Bible as the basis of religious authority and open the way for a first hand, personal relationship with God. These are important milestones in religious development, but a clearer view of spiritual reality is desperately needed.
The current religious unrest and spiritual searching portends a major turning point in our religious history. I believe the next spiritual reformation will bring us back to the religion of Jesus and a universal view of the Fatherhood of God and the kinship of all humanity. It is my conviction that some day historical reflection will reveal that the coming of The Urantia Book was the revelatory breakthrough which brought about the spiritual reformation of the 21 st century.