© 1976 William S. Sadler, Jr.
© 1976 The Urantia Book Fellowship (formerly Urantia Brotherhood)
“What is the URANTIA Brotherhood? Another sect?” This question has been put to the writer of this report more than once. To this question, a negative answer has always been given, “No, the URANTIA Brotherhood is neither a church nor a sect. It is simply a social group which has a religious objective.”
There is a real place in modern civilization for a group of religious people who are “… willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign.” (UB 134:4.4). The modern world hardly needs another church, another sect. At the present time, we suffer from a plethora of churches and multiplication of sects.
But, if we are not a church, how then do we differ from a church? If we can clearly see how we differ, then perchance we can maintain such differences. And, if we can maintain these differences, then we may be able to preserve our organization as a distinctive Brotherhood; we may be able to avoid a possible evolution in the direction of a church.
Well, right on the face of it, there are three main differences between the Brotherhood and a typical church: We claim no spiritual sovereignty; we claim no exclusive path to salvation; we claim no ecclesiastical authority. So long as we do not claim these things we can hardly become a church.
But, even if we are not a church, even if we never become a church, is it also true that we are not a sect? A Urantian could be a sectarian religionist; he could be a religionist who is primarily dedicated to the propagation of The URANTIA Book. Would such a dedication, however, be a valid dedication — in the light of all we know? The writer submits that such a dedication is not valid as a primary dedication. Such an exaltation of a most worthy secondary dedication to primary status could well transform a religious Urantian into a sectarian Urantian — a Urantian who has allowed the importance of The URANTIA Book to take precedence over the importance of God.
How then can we, as Urantians, avoid not only churchification but also sectarianization? The writer believes that both of these unfortunate developments can be avoided if we are careful in distinguishing between means and ends. This is another way of saying that we should be careful not to confuse our secondary loyalties and our primary loyalties. The writer would accordingly submit for the careful consideration of the Brotherhood the following philosophy of action:
If we can clearly separate means and ends, if we can always subordinate means to the true end, then we shall continue for a very long time as a real Brotherhood. And we shall avoid becoming merely another church or another sect in the world of the twentieth century, a world which needs neither a new church nor a new sect.
—William S. Sadler, Jr.
(Note: William S. Sadler, Jr, was President of the URANTIA Brotherhood the first thee years of its existence, 1955 — 1957. This is an excerpt from his first report to the Triennial Delegate Assembly.)