Another Perspective on...
"Introducing the Urantia Book in Accord with its Teachings"
June 18, 1995
Dear Jeff:
This is a response to your recent tract, "Introducing The Urantia Book in Accord with its Teachings" published by International Urantia Association, copies of which were recently mailed to the members of the General Council of The Fellowship by Jacques LeCouturier.
The primary claim in your tract is that access to The Urantia Book should be limited and controlled. The case for your claim is constructed by presenting a typology of revelation which recognizes two types of epochal revelation, each of which has its own "proper velocity of propagation." You classify The Urantia Book according to this typology and on the basis of this classification, combined with observations of how individuals associated with past epochal revelations have responded to their unique challenges, you reach specific conclusions as to the manner in which we should be presenting the fifth epochal revelation to our day and generation.
On the surface your tract is somewhat misleading in that it attempts to create a value argument out of what is widely recognized as a policy position. Nevertheless, I will address your ideas within the field you have chosen. I will question the merits of your typology of revelation as well as the rationality of some of the inferences which you draw from it.
I will then attempt to present an alternate view of how we might proceed "in accord with its teachings." The instrumental nature of The Urantia Book (as related to personal religious experience) will be considered, followed by a review of how the nature of Supremacy conditions our undertaking.
Your typology (which provides the foundation for your entire claim) divides epochal revelation into categories of "spiritual-and-cultural" revelation and "specifically spiritual" revelation. I would like to question the rationality of this typology and the arbitrary manner in which you declare your criteria. With no preparation or justification you present your reader with the statement that, "One may classify epochal revelations in terms of the types of project they promote -- or avoid promoting."
A classification scheme which categorizes phenomena on the basis of their distant order effects seems ambiguous at best, lacking the clear definition necessary for the construction of a meaningful typology. This is like classifying weather phenomena on the basis of the type of agricultural activity they are likely to foster.
Classifying on the basis of what something might "avoid promoting" has no logical coherence. This is like classifying automobiles on the basis of the types of trees they don't hit.
In addition, your typology is derived from an observation of only four samples (out of the set of samples available in the universe), three of which are known to be highly anomalous. The bestowals of Melchizedek and Jesus were each so far out of the normal sequence of events that their utility for deriving generalities is very low. The Adamic mission was profoundly affected by the disaster of the Prince's regime. None of the last three epochal revelations are representative of a typical epochal revelation as described in Paper 52, "Planetary Mortal Epochs."
Your hastily generalized typology is then used as a basis for creating hypotheses with far-reaching implications -- nothing less than conclusions as to the manner in which we are to attempt to "manage" the fifth epochal revelation!!!
Along with your classification of previous revelations into "spiritual and cultural" and "specifically spiritual" you introduce the concept of "velocity of propagation" as a property inherent in each type of revelation which somehow indicates or determines the rate at which the revelation is to be spread.
The idea that revelation is imbued with constraining attributes seems ontologically inconsistent with the nature of revelation which we find revealed in The Urantia Book. It is not my purpose to discuss the nature of revelation here but I would like to look at your concept of "velocity of propagation" a little more closely.
Page 150 describes how it is we who control the differential presence of spirit in our lives and in our world -- it is we who create the resistance to the spread of revelation and to the tireless efforts of our spiritual benefactors to uplift our planet. Page 591 points out that, "The evolution of religious capacity of receptivity in the inhabitants of a world largely determines their rate of spiritual advancement and the extent of religious revelation." And on page 1008 we find that all revelation short of the attainment of the Universal Father is "practically adapted to local conditions in time and space."
Such statements indicate that the factors limiting any "velocity of propagation" are functions of the environment into which the revelation is being introduced. If this is indeed the case, we would do well to look at things we might be doing which are impeding the progress of the fifth epochal revelation. We might, at the same time, ask ourselves some penetrating questions about the wisdom of such humanly-imposed restrictions.
In our present circumstances the factors limiting the propagation of the revelation include the general ease of public access to the revelation, the willingness and ability of readers to introduce the revelation to others and the willingness that others have to read the revelation. And in this context I am equating "the revelation" with the book itself, as do the revelators on pages 2081 and 2090 as well as in the discussion on page 1008.
Note that the revelators clearly equate "the revelation" with the book itself rather than with any ideological derivative.
Each of the environments in which epochal revelations have appeared on our planet has been unique. It would seem that considerable care should be taken in generalizing about them. Consider the variation:
At the time of the Planetary Prince "The whole world was caught in the stalemate of tradition-bound mores . . . " No cyclonic transitions or sociological riptides here! Everything's pretty well locked in place.
When Adam and Eve arrived ". . . the tribes languished in the depths of savagery and moral stagnation . . . " Virtually no foundations were in place upon which they could build. A context of meaning and values had to be created before the work of this revelation could even begin. (We, on the other hand, have had two epochal revelations within the last 4,000 years which have worked to create a substantial cultural context within which we can proceed).
When Melchizedek arrived, "Revealed truth was threatened with extinction . . . " He came, it is said, with "a comprehensive plan for far-reaching world welfare." (852) He appeared in a pre-literate culture which required the careful training of messengers to safely propagate his message.
The environment had significantly changed on the planet by this point. The stimulus provided by Adamic genetics in addition to the partial successes of the Garden descendants had resulted in the evolution of multiple centers of civilization scattered around the planet. Each of these centers was developing in its own direction with no central coordination. At this point the option of guiding planetary cultural evolution through the establishment of a world administrative center coordinated with subordinate regional centers was no longer an option -- regional centers of civilization had begun evolving on their own. Planetary cultural evolution had crossed a significant threshold.
Now the social, political and economic interaction of these centers constitutes the primary arena of planetary development. This will continue to be the case until some time in the distant future when a convergence of developmental trends will occur. At that juncture, planetary cultural evolution will be able to proceed in an integrated manner. [Paper 52, "Planetary Mortal Epochs"]
At the time of Jesus, ". . . the world presented the most favorable condition for the Creator Son's bestowal that had ever previously prevailed or has since obtained. In the centuries just prior to these times Greek culture and the Greek language had spread over Occident and near Orient, and the Jews, being a Levantine race, in nature part Occidental and part Oriental, were eminently fitted to utilize such cultural and linguistic settings for the effective spread of a new religion to both East and West. These most favorable circumstances were further enhanced by the tolerant political rule of the Mediterranean world by the Romans . . . "
The most receptive environment yet to exist on the planet was flourishing. It was relatively stable and contained some well-developed conceptual foundations. It was still largely pre-literate, again requiring the training of messengers to assure the spread of the message.
In our day we find that, "[Western Civilization] is slowly disintegrating . . . " "During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transitions of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated: they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled; as never before in the world's history they need the consolation and stabilization of sound religion . . . " We are in ". . . the dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another . . . "
This is a very volatile situation characterized by radical change on all fronts. Stability and predictability no longer exist. Regional centers of civilization which have been evolving for thousands of years are becoming increasingly polarized along ideological lines of nationalism and religious fundamentalism.
The fifth epochal revelation is particularly unique in that all the previous revelations involved information imparted by a superhuman teacher (or teachers) to individuals who then had to understand it, memorize it, and then repeat it under varying circumstances in an effort to communicate it to others. The fifth epochal revelation, in the form of a book, can be replicated mechanically countless times with a printing press or transmitted electronically to any place on the planet in a matter of seconds. Each copy of the revelation will be a faithful reproduction of the original. This effective propagation of the complete revelation can be done by virtually anyone. No special training is needed.
"You who today enjoy the advantages of the art of printing little understand how difficult it was to perpetuate truth during these earlier times . . ."
Jeff, given the difficult circumstances under which the bearers of previous epochal revelations have labored to spread their messages, what sort of an accounting do you suppose the Master will require of those who live in a post-printing press world with rapidly expanding communication technologies, the ready availability of unprecedented amounts of historical and scientific data regarding religious, sociological and psychological phenomena on the planet, desktop access to comprehensive statistical summaries of the current status of a wide range of planetary affairs, a day's flight from virtually any place on the planet and a global population one third of which claims some allegiance to Jesus?
Anyone trying to discern patterns in these epochal revelations should not overlook the apparent inverse relationship between strong central authority and the cultural complexity (stability) of the environment. We might even have grounds to conjecture that this pattern prevails on a normal planet as well (although this remains highly conjectural -- just because they don't tell us about a supportive infrastructure doesn't mean there isn't any). However, in Paper 52, "Planetary Mortal Epochs," we find that once civilization enters a stage of complex evolution following the Adamic mission, bestowals are undertaken by single persons -- the epochs of the Magisterial Sons and the Paradise bestowal Sons. Not until civilization reaches a relatively settled and advanced state do we find the administrative structure accompanying epochal revelation trending once again toward greater complexity. The Trinity Teacher Sons then come in groups. A Teacher Son is supported by seventy primary Sons, twelve secondary Sons and three of the highest and most experienced of the supreme order of Daynals. This corps stays on the planet long enough to effect the transition into the ages of Light and Life. (598)
I do not wish to ignore the lessons to be learned from these previous attempts to uplift the planet, but they are each so unique that the ability to "discover principles of epochal revelation management" remains a dubious undertaking. You imply that our task is to discover the rules and follow them. The assumption that such rules even exist is far more representative of post-enlightenment positivism than the nature of Supremacy which we find revealed in The Urantia Book.
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However flawed I think your typology might be, I would nevertheless like to reflect on some of the inferences you draw from it.
Secret Knowledge
I was particularly puzzled to see your advocacy of a gnostic approach to managing the revelation shown in your frequent references to "concealment and deferral," "keeping secrets," "following instructions" etc. These references were further augmented by your statement that ". . . the book is intended only for those who are already in the temple, spirit-born." Have you fully considered the implications of this stance? In this tract you implicitly advocate placing The Urantia Book into that category of gnostic texts available only to qualified initiates. I can find no justification for such a radical approach to spreading (or rather not spreading) the revelation.
The revelators comment on page 2081 in reference (I assume) to the Protestant Reformation that "it required a great power, a mighty influence, to free the thinking and living of the Western peoples from the withering grasp of a totalitarian ecclesiastical domination . . . " Are you supporting the re-creation of such a dominating and controlling power?
The passage to which you refer in section 1 of page 207 in your statement regarding "secrets" refers to the personal relationships between the Paradise Rulers and their creature beings and not to an ideological position created for purposes of managing revelation. I thought this was a careless misuse of the meaning of the text to serve your own argument.
How do you relate your views about restricting access to the text to such statements about Jesus as, "Jesus was very broad in his outlook . . . Always his invitation was, "Whosoever will, let him come." (1102) or "The invitation ever has been and always will be: Whosoever will, let him come and freely partake of the water of life." (1820) Can you imagine Jesus establishing criteria for determining who was qualified to hear him or his apostles talk about the Kingdom?
Special Instructions
In all of your references to "instructions" you fail to distinguish between instructions given to superhuman personalities bringing epochal revelation to the planet and the suggestions which they in turn offer to the human recipients of revelation. These are two very different levels of responsibility. It's interesting to find the revelators lamenting the fact that Melchizedek's messengers adhered so rigidly to his suggestions. (1077, 1050)
While I find a lot of suggestions, lists of things which need to be done and expressions of the revelator's hopes, nowhere in the book do I find anything which I might construe to be specific "instructions" in the sense that there's a particular plan (or leader, or organization, or ideology) which we're supposed to be following vis-a-vis the fifth epochal revelation.
Aggressive Promulgation of "Advanced Truth"
In many ways this appears to me as a "straw argument" -- I don't know anyone who is attempting to teach The Urantia Book. In the past, individuals who advocated unrestricted access to the text have been accused of wanting to "over teach," of being "in league with Caligastia," of engaging in the exercise of "unbridled personal liberty" -- but these are unwarranted ad hominem arguments which simply conceal the real issue and harden prejudices against meaningful dialog. After nearly thirty years of study, I certainly don't feel I understand the book well enough to teach it. But I do feel comfortable recommending it to someone who might be interested in exploring such things. And that's the general attitude I see amongst most of the readers I know.
I fail to understand your concern about "over teaching" and "premature presentation of advanced truth." Do you equate making books freely available with "over teaching?" Is placing an advanced physics text in a bookstore or telling someone about it the same as "over teaching" physics?
Not everyone who picks up the physics text will immediately understand the molecular processes of nuclear fission. Likewise, not everyone who picks up The Urantia Book will immediately "take a stroll through Dalamatia or the Garden of Eden." I suspect that a lot of them will simply see a rather formidable looking book from the religious fringes in which they have no interest.
You refer your reader to something you term "policies of gradualism" which you apparently derive from section 6 beginning on page 749. What I read here is that "these supermen knew better than to rob mankind of these few advances by the confusion and dismay which always result when enlightened and superior beings undertake to uplift the backward races by over teaching and over enlightenment." To interpret this as an indication of a generalized "policy of gradualism" meant to guide our efforts, struck me as an inexcusable misuse of the meaning of the text. In addition, since I don't know any "enlightened and superior beings undertaking to uplift the backward races" I fail to understand how this statement is supposed to serve as a guiding principle in our present situation.
Your section 3 on "Implications for introducing . . . " continues the exposition of a gnostic approach to spreading the book. What about the parable of the sower? You seem to fear "rejection and conflict" but is this really anything more than some of the seed falling amongst weeds or upon the hard ground where it cannot germinate? Is it inappropriate to view books as the seeds which we are privileged to sow? This parable tells us that much of the seed will not bear fruit. Doesn't this make it all the more necessary to sow widely that a reasonable harvest might be assured?
I can't imagine the early carriers of Jesus' message, including Jesus himself or the apostles, using the avoidance of "rejection and conflict" as a criterion for guiding their ministry. My reading of the Jesus papers leads me to believe that Jesus specifically led his followers through situations of rejection and conflict that they might be strengthened to resist fear and cowardice after he had gone.
One of the beauties of the way in which this revelation has been provided is that we don't need to develop an hierarchy of teachers, a central controlling bureaucracy, training centers, or a sophisticated set of standards for deciding who is qualified to read the book -- we simply need committed seed sowers with access to a supply of seeds. This revelation can be effectively spread by individuals who have no special training at all.
You state that, ". . . overemphasizing the book rather than the realities it discloses unwittingly fosters a religion about The Urantia Book." You then relate this to the statement on page 2086 concerning the religion about Jesus as opposed to the religion of Jesus. This is a false analogy. What is there inherent in the act of recommending a book to someone that poses a danger of becoming a religion?
On one hand we have individuals telling other individuals about the existence of a book and working to make that book widely available to whomever might be interested. On the other hand we have individuals proclaiming that a popular teacher of religious truths who claimed to be the Son of God was crucified for the sins of the world and rose again from the dead on the third day. I don't see the way in which these two situations are similar and I fail to see how the former has the same potential for precipitating a religious movement as does the latter.
The decision about whether or not to share the book with someone strikes me as a simple moral choice -- will it help them or will it confuse them? Where do issues of "over teaching" or "over enlightenment" enter in? I fail to see the relevance of your expressed concern.
If you are truly concerned that "overemphasizing the book" might precipitate a religion about the book, you might be on the lookout for groups who develop their social identity on the basis of apocryphal stories about the origin of the book, the special relationship between the origin of the book and the purpose of the group, the special relationships between members of the group and the revelators of the book, the necessity of protecting the book from "outsiders" -- classic cult attitudes which operate to make a fetish of the book itself.
Development of Ideology
I know that for many years you have been concerned with what you term a "gospel movement" and the need for its development. However, this is a personal ideological position which you have developed as a result of your study of the book. Many other readers have arrived at very different views on this matter.
Do you feel it is responsible to derive an ideology from a limited subset of what is a complex and highly integrated set of ideas, and then elevate that ideology to a position of primacy over the whole? (Imagine what a different world this would be if Karl Marx had embraced the entirety of Hegel's work rather than only that portion which animated his own ideological predispositions!)
In stating that ". . . on the river of truth, the gospel is the ice-breaker, The Urantia Book is the cargo ship that follows it. . . " you are making a rather bold statement about the necessity of revelation following in the wake of ideology. Nowhere do I find anything suggesting that we are to construct an ideological vehicle to prepare the way for the revelation.
A "Vanguard of Teachers"
Have you really stopped to consider the practical implications of your conclusion that "the fifth epochal revelation calls for a vanguard of teachers who adhere to the specifics of the spiritual mission of the gospel movement?" What a broad, sweeping claim! Have you considered the infrastructure that such a suggestion implies -- developing training institutions with administrative staffs and procedures, a philosophy of education and ministry, financing, development of access to situations in which teaching might be done, selection of students, development of standards? I find it difficult to make the connection between this amazing claim and the practical day-to-day realities of life in the real world.
Why are you advocating a procedure which was forced upon Melchizedek and Jesus because of the low rate of literacy in their environments? Today the planet is vastly more literate; we have communications technologies at our disposal undreamed of even a century ago. These technologies have radically changed the environment in which the spread of revelation takes place on our world. Not only is our environment unlike those confronted by any of the earlier propagators of truth, it is radically different from that which confronted the first readers of The Urantia Book in 1955.
Given the intellectual complexity and social volatility of the planetary situation, the availability of emerging communications technologies offers an unprecedented low-profile, low-overhead opportunity for the rapid spread of truth around the planet.
Being willing to be a servant implies the willingness to engage in low-glory menial tasks such as book distribution. As long as we insist on seeing ourselves as the chosen leaders of a lost world operating under divine mandates with an imperative to control the revelation and launch vanguards of teachers, we will fail to grasp the simplicity of the task confronting us -- the faithful publishing and effective distribution of books -- and thus fail to provide the ground support so desperately needed in order to catalyze the work of our unseen friends.
Your "Plan A": The Pressing Needs of Judeo-Christian Culture
I happen to share your ideological position that, given the present situation, the greatest hope for a rapid and effective assimilation of the fifth epochal revelation would be its successful diffusion into Judeo-Christian religious culture. But I don't know of a single Urantia Book reader, nearly a half century into this thing, who has the skill and insight effectively to initiate such an undertaking, nor am I convinced that such an effort would even be desirable. Rather is this diffusion most likely to occur when individuals already within these cultural groups discover the book and bring it to bear upon their varied beliefs and practices.
This can happen only when the book becomes more widely available. Both Rebecca and I have become increasingly involved in recent years in working in this direction. We have both had responsible leaders among the liberal Protestant clergy tell us that the book won't make any significant inroads into Christianity until it becomes more available. We have both been told that its present aura of secrecy and unavailability as well as the shadowiness of the publisher makes it very suspect as a gnostic or cult item and under such conditions serious clergy and theologians will not take the time necessary to discover its significance.
The conceptual foundations for understanding the "gospel," the incarnation and the entire range of Christological issues are under assault as never before in the history of Christianity. (At least this is true in the academic core of liberal Protestant and Catholic thought -- those domains which I assume are included within The Urantia Book's rubric of "thinking men and women of spiritual insight.")
The relativism of the post-modern context demands the authoritative restatement of the life and teachings of Jesus as found in The Urantia Book. Without the book, any proclamation of the "gospel" is just one more subjectively relative leaf blowing in the wind of the increasingly chilly post-modern autumn of Western Civilization.
Even the personal experience of Christians who know Jesus as an inner presence is under assault and desperately needs affirmation from an authoritative source. Reflected in the writings of many late century theologians is the fact that thinking Christians are desperate for a cosmology which integrates twentieth century observations of the universe with the presentation of Jesus as an incarnation of Deity. (This may be one of the most pressing needs of contemporary Christianity.)
The nature of the problem has been very clearly articulated by Karl Rahner in the introduction to his "Foundations of Christian Faith" as well as the essay appearing as volume nine, chapter seven of his "Theological Investigations." The problem has also been identified and clearly presented by other 20th century thinkers as diverse as Arnold Toynbee and Paul Tillich. The task confronting us (in relation to Christianity) is not so much one of re-proclaiming Jesus' message. It is more a matter of providing some clarification and supportive documentation. Again, this is a matter of making the book itself available rather than propagating an ideology.
Within the domain of liberal Protestant theology and clergy I find the "gospel" to be thriving-- alive and well in the lives of many dedicated individuals. The crisis lies in the inability of these individuals to provide viable intellectual guidance or support to their students and congregations. The four gospels still provide an account of events from which the meanings and values of Jesus' bestowal are reflectively derived by thoughtful Christians worldwide. But the validity and integrity of these records has been under continual academic assault for well over a century now. Given this situation, with which you should be more than familiar, how can you advocate restricting access to the very text which has the power to revitalize the conceptual foundations of this critical component of Western Civilization?
And I have only spoken about the Christian sector here. A recent study done by Stanford University found that the number one concern of students in Jewish seminaries across North America was to discover ways of bringing a greater sense of spirituality into synagogue services. Our unseen friends can do a lot in terms of making the environment ready for the revelation but we have the task of seeing to it that the book is physically available. Given the above, I think that any justification for a policy of gnosticising the text and restricting access needs to be far more carefully developed than that which you offer in your tract. Neither do I see any justification for confusing the simple spread of the revelation with your desire to see a "gospel movement" (although I'm not quite sure what you mean by this term).
Reading The Urantia Book as a Religious Practice
One of the similarities which I see in the sequence of epochal revelations described in Paper 52, "Planetary Mortal Epochs," is that each one of them provides mechanisms for expanding access to Deity, opening up new avenues of approach and providing a more highly functional integration between evolving mortals and the agencies of celestial ministry -- none of them function to delimit scope, set boundaries or implement mechanisms for restricting access to the divine. And this continuous expansion of access and insight has been true of even the anomalous revelations which have appeared on our planet.
My primary reason for reading The Urantia Book is that, if approached in a prayerful or worshipful attitude, it facilitates my personal encounter with God. The act of thus reading the book becomes a symbolic approach to Deity, psychologically similar to any other symbolic ritual leading to encounter, such as making a pilgrimage to a holy place or participating in a remembrance supper. This is making neither a religion nor a fetish out of the book, but recognizing it as a potent tool for bringing the individual into closer contact with planetary founts of spiritual ministry. Here are a couple of quotations which express the religious nature of my experience as I read the book.
"Religion is the experiencing of divinity in the consciousness of a moral being of evolutionary origin; it represents true experience with eternal realities in time, the realization of spiritual satisfactions while yet in the flesh." (1104) This seems to happen to me when I prayerfully read the book!
"The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward . . . All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God." (1104) This seems to explain what happens to me when I worshipfully read the book!
"Religion lives and prospers . . . in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind." (1105) As I read this book prayerfully, I am constantly discovering new, spiritual meanings in facts! This book is an extremely valuable component of my personal religious experience!
Personal conversations with hundreds of readers over the years confirm that I am not alone in having this kind of experience with the text. The significance of this experience for my own personal growth is what keeps bringing me back to the text, day after day, year after year, decade after decade. It provides more useful sustenance than anything else I have encountered in my limited but not insignificant encounters with universe reality. It has helped me learn how to open the worship channel of spiritual communion and it helps me learn how to function more effectively in my social environment.
My experience with this text is so profound that I want to be sure that anyone else who might be interested in having such an experience has unrestricted access to it. It is the power of this symbolic act, the prayerful and worshipful reading of this text, which holds such great potential for facilitating the spiritual transformation of each individual as well as the social aggregations in which those individuals participate. It is as if a prayerful, worshipful reading of the text opens the gateway to the ministry of our unseen friends. Such reading creates an open channel through which their ministry can pour into each individual and from thence into the world. Many readers have experienced a similar phenomena in the social context of study groups.
Jesus' description of the Kingdom helps us to understand the nature of this experience and helps us gain insight into how we can effectively socialize it, consistent with the broadening horizons of the personal universe which this text reveals.
For a small group of readers to attempt to fabricate an air of authority for purposes of controlling and "managing" the reactions of their fellows to this revelation reveals a level of insight which is shallow and superficial at best. Trying to establish and enforce an ideology which is designed to inhibit, restrict and control the reaction to this text is as rational as attempting to control a nuclear explosion by detonating it in a paper bag. The interaction between the spirit indwelt inquiring mind and the fifth epochal revelation, confirmed in the experience of hundreds of readers, makes such a policy of restricted access to the text impossible of implementation. This is the most powerful force to be liberated on the planet since the Spirit of Truth. Can you imagine anyone having the audacity to attempt to control the functioning of the Spirit of Truth, trying to establish ideological constraints upon where it should and should not be allowed to function?
On page 966 the revelators acknowledge the difficulty we face in finding a new and satisfying symbolism. They state that, ". . . the new symbolism must not only be significant for the group but also meaningful to the individual. The forms of any serviceable symbolism must be those which the individual can carry out on his own initiative, and which he can also enjoy with his fellows. If the new cult could only be dynamic instead of static, it might really contribute something worthwhile to the progress of mankind, both temporal and spiritual." Prayerfully reading The Urantia Book provides just such a satisfying symbolic approach to Deity for many people!
The discussion of the appearance of a new cult continues with the comment that, "There must be the demand for devotion, the response of loyalty. Every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy symbolism, and its devotees would do well to prevent the crystallization of such a ritual into cramping, deforming, and stifling stereotyped ceremonials which can only handicap and retard all social, moral, and spiritual progress. No cult can survive if it retards moral growth and fails to foster spiritual progress. The cult is the skeletal structure around which grows the living and dynamic body of personal spiritual experience -- true religion." With The Urantia Book, the revelators have provided a masterfully conceived symbolism for the spiritual sustenance of humanity.
If you appreciate the catalytic role the text plays in religious growth, and if you appreciate the text's comments that the inevitable result of religious growth is a desire for service, and if you appreciate the way in which the desire to serve often results in an individual wanting to share that which is deemed to be of greatest value, perhaps you can then appreciate what a lost cause this ideology of restricted access really is. It is simply not consistent with the nature of the response the book itself says we can expect!
If you were to drive a truck containing an unlimited supply of food into a refugee camp full of starving people, would you seek out only the healthiest to feed while concealing the fact that help had arrived from the rest of them? Yes, it's nice to have a clean table cloth, a nicely set table and it's nice to let the wine have a chance to breathe. But these starving people are going to mob the truck for whatever morsel they can get. If you are afraid of being present while such an uncontrollable reaction occurs, you are in the wrong business.
If the past forty years of events within the readership are a reliable indicator, the real challenge before us would seem to be that of helping each other to effectively socialize this new experience. We need to help each other learn to adapt to the new psychological, social and spiritual realities encountered as a result of reading this text.
Reevaluating Ways of Introducing The Book "in Accord with its Teachings"
How, then, are we to responsibly spread the revelation "in accord with its teachings?" If we are going to answer this question, we will be required to make sure that any strategy we suggest is at least consistent with the concept of reality presented in the text.
Evolution of Supremacy -- Insight into Process
Each of the preceding epochal revelations provided humanity with additional tools for dealing with the planetary environment, tools to help us in our ascent from the bonds of biological and psychological determinism to a fuller understanding of techniques of navigating the in-process-of-being-revealed universe of personality, meanings and values. The Prince's regime provided education in a variety of domains. The Adamic regime provided new genes for everyone in addition to more education. Melchizedek highlighted the power of faith. Jesus empowered us by helping us to understand the personal nature of Deity and the immanently present reality of the Kingdom. He also provided the Spirit of Truth as a substantial bonus.
Each of these revelations, when assimilated by its recipients, provided additional empowerment for the tasks of personal and social evolution toward a greater degree of God-consciousness and adaptation to the trends of the cosmos. We might ask if there is any corollary with The Urantia Book -- anything here which can more effectively empower us to deal with our planetary situation. I think the answer is "Yes!" In addition to a comprehensive review of the nature of our origin, history and destiny, the book provides a revelation of the nature of Supremacy which should empower us to work more effectively within our environment.
The nature of Supremacy is very nicely captured in Whitehead's description of each new moment as "a creative advance into novelty." Note Jesus' final conclusions reached during his forty-day evaluation of how to proceed with his life -- he settled on loyalty to the Father's will, a technique which allows fresh empowerment within each new, novel moment. This is in sharp contrast to an ideology which presupposes that it knows the optimum configuration of future reality as well as the means of manipulating present reality in order to reach that optimum configuration.
The life of Jesus clearly reveals the superiority of submission to the Father's will as contrasted with predetermined ideology as a method of advancing both individual and planetary progress.
Paper 99, "The Social Problems of Religion" makes quite clear the impotence of ideology in dealing with the present situation. The argument for ideology is based on an assumption that the dynamics of reality are far more amenable to positivistic methods of intervention and control than those of the personal universe we find revealed in The Urantia Book. Ideology assumes mechanism; The Urantia Book reveals living organism.
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Again we ask the question, "How should we approach the challenge of introducing The Urantia Book in accordance with the view of reality which it sets forth?"
A personal philosophy of seeking the Father's will in each decision is the only way I see of functioning creatively within Supremacy, consistent with the view of reality set forth in the book. The task will be accomplished as each individual makes his or her contribution to the process.
"Religionists must function in society . . . as individuals, not as groups, parties or institutions." (1087) Individuals thus oriented can create sequences of "particular occasions" (to use Whitehead's term) within the evolving Supreme through which our spiritual benefactors are able to apply their ministry directly toward planetary uplift. The inevitable interference and distortion created by human institutions is kept to a minimum.
From a process viewpoint, any attempt to apply institutional control through the enforcement of a particular ideology represents an illusory understanding of reality and is destined to fail. The rate of change characterizing process has accelerated to the point where institutional and ideological constructs increasingly fail to achieve their objectives. Reality constantly metamorphoses into novel configurations which were not foreseen when the institutional or ideological structures were developed.
When we have a growing number of individuals dedicated to seeking the Father's will, interacting in consultation and seeking group wisdom, we provide our spiritual benefactors with a growing, statistically predictable array of "particular occasions" which can be utilized for purposes of the revelation. As we work to bring about the social coordination of these individuals, we help to mitigate the extremes of ultra-individualism as well as the wild systemic fluctuations inherent in having a few self-selected individuals trying to control a dynamic system. The challenge here is to keep the task of social coordination from becoming one of ideological control.
This approach recognizes and attempts to harmonize with the locus of planetary spiritual ministry in the inner world of individuals and communities. The real frontiers become psychological and spiritual domains rather than the domains of institutions which attempt to achieve a spiritual objective by manipulating social processes. Considering the loss of the external ministry infrastructure which would have been provided by the Prince's staff and the Adamic regime, can we look at the last three epochal revelations (Melchizedek, Jesus and The Urantia Book) and postulate the fostering of an internal ministry infrastructure consistent with the nature of Supremacy?
Our challenges are increasingly psychological and spiritual as we seek to orient ourselves to service in this world of Supremacy. How do we more clearly perceive the Father's will? How do we more wisely discern the difference between genuine spiritual guidance and expressions of our own psychological processes and social needs? How do we effect the social coordination of readers from radically different backgrounds, perspectives and levels of education? These become the issues at the frontiers of growth and service.
Jesus revealed to us the way in which to operate creatively for the Father's purposes in an environment of increasingly complex, novel, and unpredictable process by living fully dedicated to the discovery and doing of the Father's will.
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Jeff, the position which this tract attempts to rationalize -- that access to the fifth epochal revelation needs to be limited and controlled -- seems highly untenable in a society whose very lifeblood has become the free flow of information. The only social expressions embodying the ideology which you are supporting as a "management tool" for the fifth epochal revelation are the most closed of cults and the darkest of oppressive dictatorships. Surely this is not the form of social expression which the revelators had in mind for the growing community of readers of The Urantia Book. And I'm sure it's not really your ideal either.
It is my opinion that finding the golden mean, the position of excellence in this matter of responding responsibly to the sudden appearance of an epochal revelation in our world, requires a constructive, open dialog within the community of discoverers of this revelation. Such a dialog should not have as its objective the formulation of policy but rather the development of a coherent, consistent, living and growing philosophical frame of reference within which we can each optimize our potentials for growth and service.
In the continuing adventure,
David Kantor