© 2004 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Volume 14, Number 1, Fall-Winter, 2004
- The Challenge (part 1), Kenneth T. Glasziou
- Actualizing a New Organizational Paradigm, Richard Omura
- Prayer and Worship — As We Should Understand It, Jean Barr
- Poison, Parables, and Paradise, Stephen Zendt
- Jesus and the Cross, Richard I. Bain
- Religion in Transition
- The Joy of Living in a New Age
- Are We Starting a New Religion?
- Should a Urantia Church be Formed?
¶ The Spiritual Fellowship
The Spiritual Fellowship is a Religious Organization Whose Mission is to Bring the Spiritual Teachings of the Urantia Papers to All People.
We believe that the Fifth Epochal Revelation will enculturate the grass roots of society through new religious organizations and help lay the foundation for an interfaith movement that will eventually involve all of the religions of the world. The history of religion shows that spiritual value systems are always established and promoted by some kind of religious organization. We invite you to join us in this pioneering effort to establish new religious organizations that have the potential to bring a spiritual transformation to our world.
¶ Guiding Principles
An Appropriate Symbolism and Socioreligious Expression of the Fifth Epochal Revelation Should: [1]
- 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 those interested in initiating a new religious organization based on the teachings of the Urantia Papers should be to create a polity with maximum flexibility, function with both small groups or larger congregations, utilize lay leadership and/or ordained clergy, exhibit cross-cultural adaptability, and express broad theological inclusiveness.
Such a religious organization 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.”[2]
¶ The Spiritual Fellowship Journal
Editor
Merlyn Cox
Associate Editor
Meredith J. Sprunger
Editorial Consultants
>Richard Bain
Larry & Joan Mullins
Nancy Long
The Spiritual Fellowship Journal is an ecumenical publication published twice yearly by The Spiritual Fellowship. Its purpose is to support the larger Urantia Community, especially as it seeks to interface with the cultures and religious institutions of our world. It also seeks to address issues of special concern in the establishment of new religious institutions with roots in the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
Subscription donations, changes of address, articles and editorial correspondence should be sent to:
The Spiritual Fellowship Journal
P. O. Box 9118
Fort Wayne, IN 46809
merlyncox@earthlink.net
MJSprunger@aol.com
Suggested annual donation — $10.
¶ Content
Editorials and Commentary
- Transitions
A look at the history of The Spiritual Fellowship Journal and how its purpose has evolved-and continues to evolve. - Religion in Transition
Leading Christian theologians, such as Bishop John Shelby Spong, recognize the need for the reconstruction of religious thought as we continue to move out of a pre-scientific era. - The Joy of Living on the Edge
Meredith Sprunger writes about the joy of living in a time of freedom for creative activity, enjoying the subtle shaping of future realities, and of anticipating the advent of a new age. - Are We Starting a New Religion?
Merlyn Cox looks at the difficulties of such a statement in light of the many uses of the word “religion” in our language, and affirmations of The Urantia Book. - Should a Urantia Church be Formed?
Sue Tennant sees an “invisible” worldwide network of sharing and cooperation of those in the Urantia community, but not the formation of a visible Urantia Church.
Articles
- Prayer and Worship As We Should Understand It.
Jean Barr examines prayer and worship, and how they are related in The Urantia Book. - The Challenge.
In the first of a two part series, Ken Glasziou explores the relation of quantum physics with current mind theory, and correlates this with insights of The Urantia Book. - Jesus and the Cross.
Richard Bain looks at the historic doctrine of the Atonement as it is expressed in the movie “The Passion,” and compares it to the teachings of The Urantia Book. - Actualizing a New Organizational Paradigm.
Richard Omura gives proposals for avoiding the pitfalls of new religious organizations emerging from the Urantia Community. - Poison, Parables, and Paradise
Steven Zendt examines some of the spiritual poisons of our contemporary culture and how Jesus’ parables can help to transform them.
¶ Notes
See UB 87:7.6-10 ↩︎
Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, Paulist Press, New York, 1977, p. 237. ↩︎