© 2017 Suzanne Kelly
© 2017 International Urantia Association (IUA)
| Journal — May 2017 — Content | Journal — May 2017 — Index | The Temple of Spiritual Brotherhood and the Greater Meaning of Study Groups |
Greetings Fellow Journal Readers,
Welcome to the digital age of 2017 and the new digital format for the Journal. Starting this year, we will be producing two issues of the Journal — one in May and one in November. If there is a conference, we might publish an additional issue with transcripts of the plenaries and presentations. If you wish to continue to receive a hard copy via regular mail, it can be arranged. (The copy would be a printout of the online version.) The new subscription cost for hard copies is $10 a year for two issues. As in everything, onward and upward.
In this May edition, we have two engaging articles for your enjoyment and edification. The first near and dear to the dissemination of the philosophies and teachings of The Urantia Book is The Temple of Spiritual Brotherhood and the Greater Meaning of Study Groups, by Charles Laurence Olivea. In his warm and colorful comparisons and analogies, Charles personalizes and engages the reader as he shows us how to
“…go beyond the role of being merely readers of the book; we are more in the role of students looking for Living Water and the Bread of Life. A student in this context may be defined as an attentive, systematic observer, who is engaged in mind and soul as a cosmic citizen growing with the Supreme.”
Charles tackles the nature and morontial significance of study groups, their structure and leadership, the repercussions of their achievement, and
“With God the Supreme, achievement is the prerequisite to status—one must do something as well as be something.” [UB 115:0.1] (Emphasis added)
The second article is The Hallelujah Aftermath by Neal Waldrup. It is a melodious interpretation of The Messiah by George Frideric Handel [1] and its lyrical comparison of texts within The Urantia Book
“Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”
In the Paper entitled, The Paradise Sons of God (i.e., Paper 21), a Perfector of Wisdom duplicates the phrase “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
On the other hand, this seems substantially more likely to be an implicit reference to the corresponding verse in the Christian scriptures (i.e., Revelation 19:16), rather than a citation from the Hallelujah chorus. Nonetheless, we should bear in mind that the implicitly political overtones of the phrase “the kingdom of God” gave the early Christians considerable trouble, as the Midwayer Commission points out in Paper 170.
Neal laboriously compares multiple references in The Urantia Book with passages from the Bible and Jesus’ work with his apostles. In his article, he touches upon the atonement doctrine, life after death and eternal damnation while carrying the undertone of the Hallelujah Aftermath all the way to the Last Judgement.
Happy and Enlightened Reading!
Suzanne Kelly
skelly@wtmi.ne
¶ References
| Journal — May 2017 — Content | Journal — May 2017 — Index | The Temple of Spiritual Brotherhood and the Greater Meaning of Study Groups |
¶ Notes
Composed in 1741, but first performed in 1742. ↩︎