© 1976 Richard F. Prince
© 1976 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
It is not clear to me that the entire concept of URANTIA Brotherhood school has as its genesis an externally expressed need to which we, the Brotherhood, are responding. Rather, it seems to me that we are starting with the proposition that since there is so much to learn in The URANTIA Book we must therefore need a school. The thrust of the workshop on education (which I confess I have received only second-handed) was to find out what, if any, needs there were which could be defined by those present, and then respond to them. That approach may not be the most fruitful in the long run, for several reasons.
I think it is important to remember that we are told over and over again in the book that religion cannot be taught, it must be lived. There seems to be little value in generating URANTIA Book scholars whose intellectual mastery of the book gets in the way of, or at least does not augment, their growth as loving sons of the Father. It should be borne in mind that one does not necessarily follow the other; that is, one may come to know The URANTIA Book intellectually without necessarily incorporating its values on a superconscious level. Ultimately our goal for the school should be not to have us master the book intellectually, but to love one another.
How, then, can we structure a school to achieve such an unusual goal as to love one another, when we realize that such a phenomenon must orcur on superconscious levels, and as such, be beyond our direct access? One way certainly would be to structure the school in such a way that at least it will not get in the way of our goal, and I fear that in our current direction we may be creating future problems for ourselves on just that level. Such a sad event seems possible in view of the fact that The URANTIA Book will continue to be read by an ever-increasing number of individuals from ever-widening circles of culture, education, religious and philosophical backgrounds. These groups will undoubtedly represent a wide spectrum of humanity with varying beliefs of their own, but with at least one belief in common: the validity of the claim of The URANTIA Book to be what it is. I feel reasonably sure that these groups will from time to time, be solid enough to band together and form schools, ashrams, churches, communes, and who knows what else in an attempt to promulgate their beliefs, which will include The URANTIA Book.
Faced with such apparent diversity, the Foundation and Brotherhood would seem to have two basic options. If we have our own school or schools which we sanction as officially representing the Foundation’s and Brotherhood’s views and policies, then there will come a time when someone out there will simply refuse to embrace all that we ask and then there will be two URANTIA Brotherhood schools, then three, then more and more. Suddenly we are on the same roller coaster Jesus followers found themselves on so quickly.
Alternatively, we could decide that a URANTIA Brotherhood school would exist whenever and wherever true believers in the revelatory message gather to study its teachings, and we could then offer our services to these truth seekers in whatever way they need them. Not every group will need every, or even any, of the things listed on the Needs and Goals Questionnaire I received, but I am sure that in time groups will exist which will need all that and more. Most importantly, however, by adopting a policy which allows the Brotherhood entry into virtually any entity which should occur in which the book is taught as all or part of their experience, it avoids the almost inevitable polarization which would occur when there exists a book to which anyone and everyone has access.
Events are moving fast in our world, and none of us can visualize how things will be three, five, or ten decades hence. Let us not, in our haste to spread the message of the book today, make a mistake which will be regretted for generations to come. If our goal ultimately is to love one another, it seems imperative that we begin with a structure which will bring us together, rather than keep us apart. I am sure that such an approach will be more difficult in the short term for those of us involved, particularly with groups whose lifestyles and values, save for The URANTIA Book, are widely divergent from our own. Nonetheless, such an approach is, as I interpret the teachings, the one we are called upon to take. Anything less seems to be both a source for divisiveness in the future and a failure now to live and act as we have been taught.
—Richard F. Prince