© 2001 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Volume 11, Number 2, Fall & Winter, 2001
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The Spiritual Fellowship, Dr. Meredith Sprunger
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The Spiritual Fellowship — Why Now?, Sherilyn Henry
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The Family — Birthplace of Cosmic Citizenship, Paul Snider
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Identity in the Modern Renaissance, Dr. Bruce R. Jackson
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A Sincere “Spiritual Attitude” = “Positive Doing”, Nancy Bigelow
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The Turning Point — Part I, Arthur Nash
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The Religion Humankind Fears, Larry Mullins
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Real Life Outreach
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Forgotten Urantians
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Interface: A New Urgency?
¶ The Spiritual Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
A Journal Established to Promote Theological, Philosophical, and Polity Discussions Germane to An Appropriate Symbolism and Socioreligious Expression of the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
¶ Guiding Principles
(See UB 87:7.6-10 of the Urantia Papers)
An Appropriate Symbolism and Socioreligious Expression of the Fifth Epochal Revelation Should:
- Be based on the Fatherhood of God and the brother-sisterhood of humankind.
- Be the outgrowth of love.
- Foster sentiment, satisfy emotions, and promote loyalty.
- Facilitate spiritual progress through cosmic meanings, moral values, social development, and personal living.
- Provide supreme goals of living that are both temporal and eternal.
- Be based on the biologic, social, and religious significance of the family.
- Symbolize the permanent in the midst of unceasing change.
- Glorify that which respects and unifies the diversities of society.
- Promote higher meanings, beautiful relationships, and the highest values.
- Embody some masterful mystery and connote some worthful unattainable.
- Be meaningful and serviceable to both the individual and the group.
- Serve as the skeletal structure for dynamic personal experience.
¶ The Purpose of Religious Institutions is to:
- Dramatize the loyalties of spiritual experience.
- Magnify the lures of truth, beauty, and goodness-supreme values.
- Enhance the service of unselfish fellowship.
- Glorify the potentials of family life.
- Promote religious education.
- Provide wise counsel and spiritual guidance.
- Furnish and promote group worship.
- Encourage friendship, neighborhood welfare, and moral values.
- Spread the gospel of eternal salvation.
¶ Religious Institutions Should Avoid Dangers, Such As:
- Fixation of ritual and theology.
- Developing vested interests and secular involvement.
- Serving the institution instead of serving God and ministering to people.
- Forming competitive sects and developing a “chosen people” attitude.
- Developing authoritarianism, dogmatism, and false ideas of sacredness.
- Venerating the past while ignoring present needs and timely spiritual interpretations.
- Failing to hold the interest of youth and grow with the times.
- Losing sight of spiritual ministry and the saving message of salvation.
¶ Central Objective
The central objective of a group of people interested in initiating a new religious organization based on the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation should be to create a polity with maximum flexibility that would function with small groups or large congregations, utilize lay leadership and/or ordained clergy, have crosscultural adaptability, and broad theological inclusiveness.
Such an institution would be “a gathering of persons who have accepted a common purpose, and a common discipline to guide the pursuit of that purpose, to the end that each involved person reaches higher fulfillment as a person, through serving and being served by the common venture, than would be achieved alone or in a less committed relationship.” [1]
¶ The Spiritual Fellowship Journal
Founded by
Dr. Meredith Justin Sprunger
FALL & WINTER 2001
Volume 11, No.2
Editor
Larry Mullins
Associate Editor
Joan Batson Mullins
Editorial Consultants
Meredith Sprunger
Merlyn Cox
Merritt Horn
Eric Cosh
Rosey Liesky
Andre Radatus
Resource Consultants
David Biggs
David Kantor
Victor McGonegal
Ángel F. Sánchez-Escobar
The Spiritual Fellowship Journal is an ecumenical publication published twice yearly by the Religious Publications Division of Penumbra Press.
The publication is non-political and unaffiliated with any other organization. Unless otherwise noted, all material published in the Fellowship Journal is © Copyright 2001 by Penumbra Press, Boulder Co., and all rights are reserved.
Subscriptions, donations, changes of address, articles and editorial correspondence should be sent to:
PENUMBRA PRESS
The Spiritual Fellowship Journal BOX 11248
BOULDER, CO 80301
Suggested annual donation: . Please make checks payable to Penumbra Press.
¶ Content
Editorial
- “Invisible, Loving Human Forces”, William James
“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.” - Books of Significance
- The Art of Possibility — Rosamund Stone Zander
- Practicing His Presence — Frank Laubach
Articles
- The Spiritual Fellowship, Dr. Meredith Sprunger
“The worldwide mission of The Spiritual Fellowship is to teach, motivate, empower, and support all people in their growing relationship with God and to encourage their loving service to humankind.” - The Spiritual Fellowship — Why Now?, Sherilyn Henry
“Christ tells us: ”You are commissioned to preach this gospel of the kingdom… and you must not allow anything to divert your devotion to this one duty. Let all mankind benefit from the overflow of your loving spiritual ministry, enlightening intellectual communion, and uplifting social service; but none of these humanitarian labors, nor all of them, should be permitted to take the place of proclaiming the gospel.’ [1931] Isn’t it high time we start proclaiming the gospel?" - The Family — Birthplace of Cosmic Citizenship, Paul Snider
“We bring a child into the world. A simple and ordinary thing, but wonderfully complex. Whether we know it or not, we have now become engaged in the supreme responsibility of human existence.” - Identity in the Modern Renaissance, Dr. Bruce R. Jackson
“I believe that contained within the pages of The Urantia Book is the kernel that is needed to give the modern renaissance direction and focus: a complete description of ascendant life. No other single piece of information has the potential to change the human condition on a massive scale.” - A Sincere “Spiritual Attitude” = “Positive Doing”, Nancy Bigelow
“What do you say to a four or five year old who looks up into your eyes and asks: ”What does God look like?“ I think the worst possible response is: ”I don’t know," - The Turning Point — Part I, Arthur Nash
“ ‘Brother Nash, I want to ask you a question. In view of the exposition you have just given the class, do you believe that Mrs. d’Arcambal can be saved?’ The question hit me as would a blow planted squarely between the eyes. Up to that moment, possibly, I had never ventured on a really independent thought in the whole course of my life.” - The Religion that Humankind Fears, Larry Mullins
“The founding of The Spiritual Fellowship is a milestone in the Urantia Movement. It is the first clearly religious organization of any magnitude to be associated with the Urantia Papers.”
Features
- Mission Statement of The Spiritual Fellowship Journal
- Interface: A New Urgency?
- Forgotten Urantians — Don Deam
- Real Life Outreach
SPIRITUAL FELLOWSHIP JOURNAL
for Students & Believers in the Revelation of the Urantia Papers
“When the wind blows, you hear the rustle of the leaves, but you do not see the wind — whence it comes or whither it goes — and so it is with everyone born of the spirit. With the eyes of the flesh you can behold the manifestations of the spirit, but you cannot actually discern the spirit.” The Urantia Papers, UB 142:6.5
¶ Notes
Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, Paulist Press, New York, 1977, p. 237. ↩︎