© 1997 Merlyn Cox
© 1997 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
It is a curious thing. One of the ongoing struggles I face as a pastor of a church is to get people within its fellowship to believe in the Good News. The church is often viewed as a colony of faith in the midst of a sea of doubt and skepticism. But I keep asking myself, why is it so hard for people within the church community to really believe the great Good News we profess, that we are children of a Creator-Father, a Divine Parent who loves us with an infinite love, a love that casts out all fear?
I suppose one could answer, because we are all imperfect, and our lives are not impervious to doubt. We are all on a journey and none of us have reached the point of perfect assurance. True enough. But there is another aspect of the issue that I believe lies deeply imbedded in our culture. It has to do with a specific assumption about the nature of reality — namely, materialism. It is the underlying assumption, championed by so many scientists for so long that it has become almost synonymous with science, that the material world is what is real, and all else is artifact. Everything else is, by definition, mere psychological construct and speculation, with no basis in factual reality.
Despite the absurdity and self-contradiction of such a position — and arguing against the existence of free will and whether or not we are more than material is the ultimate absurdity and self contradiction-I’m convinced that vast numbers of church goers, if not the majority, have accepted this assumption. The result is a kind of philosophical and religious schizophrenia. We hold contradictory beliefs at the same time: namely, that God exists, but there can be no transcendent realities. So on the one hand we long for assurances that God talk is not all illusory, and on the other hand we believe that all such talk is by nature suspect. Since we can’t prove — scientifically — the basis of our faith, and wish not to be considered quaint and out of touch with current scientific wisdom, we reluctantly relegate all such matters to myth and metaphor.
Without going into the question of whether materialism really best represents science in the postmodern world, the residue of such an understanding is still dominant. So the church continues to limp along, tending to be either timid or fanatical in seeking to resolve the conflict.
What does this have to do with The Urantia Book community? For one thing, it represents the mindset of a vast number of people we are seeking to address, inside and outside of the church. Those we hope might be most open to such a revelation are often hostile, suspicious, or indifferent, in large part because of these assumptions. I doubt if there will be a general openess to the book until the current reigning philosophical-emperor that has been leading our parade (materialism) has been shown to have no clothes on. Only then can a more natural and widespread conversation take place about the infinite range of spiritual realities — and their material manifestations in the cosmos.
Until then we will often find ourselves arguing with Nicodemus, someone who knows the language, affirms the premise, but utterly misses the underlying fundamental realities. To him we can only bear witness to those realites, and patiently wait. We can, however, take heart in realizing the manner in which the message ultimately bore fruit in his life.