Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: After browsing through your Urantia website for an hour or so, I feel compelled to write that your organization is merely using highly philosophical, theological, and religious language to cover up what is essentially a liberal approach to Christianity, albeit combined with speculative cosmology about the existence of so-called intelligent cosmic beings.

I believe that you should stop using the historical and revelatory Christian faith to be your launching pad for speculative and fanciful spiritual theologising....say what you really believe...your evolutionary perspective is truly at odds with historical and evangelical Christianity.

...stop using the Name of Jesus, who is the King of kings, and Lord of Lords, and not some Christ Michael incarnate on this earth, to deceive people into believing that you are leading people to the truth. The Bible is very clear in this respect in 1 John 5:12:

"He who has the Son of God (the Second Person of the Trinity, who became both God and Man at his incarnation on this earth as in John 1:14) has the life ('zoe' in Greek); he does not have the Son of God does not have the life."

A: Thank you for your post to Truthbook.com... we always appreciate hearing from those who have discovered our website. I'll reply to your comments as I read down through your note.

You've judged a book by its cover. I'll give you the benefit for having browsed our site for an hour or so; we get many appraisals of what we're all about from people who've spent far less time than that before thinking they've got the full picture and can offer meaningful criticism.

First, we are "merely" nothing, especially not a liberal approach to Christianity. What we are is a website that promotes the teachings found in one specific book and we promote those teachings because, unlike the majority of our critics, individually, without coercion, with an inquiring and open mind, we have actually read the book and made an informed decision regarding its purpose and content and meaningfulness to our lives. Once having started down that path, eventually we may choose to look for like-minded people who have also read this marvelous and tremendous book â€“ that's how this and other Urantia websites were established.

We are not merely using highly philosophical, theological, and religious language; The Urantia Book portrays what are perhaps the highest philosophical, theological, and religious ideals ever expressed in English. To convey those concepts requires exceptional usage and you were at least aware of that aspect in what you read.

You've given us too much credit. No human or organization is responsible for the words of The Urantia Book. A human organization was responsible for getting the Urantia material printed of course but no human is connected with the material itself other than in 1955 being responsible for spelling and punctuation. Because you've spent an hour or so perusing a website rather than the months or so required to actually read the million and a half words of text of the greatest revelation disclosed to the world in over 2,000 years, there's no way you would have recognized that The Urantia Book contains the best in human thought magnified by the wisdom of far greater intelligence than humans exhibit. There is no way we can be responsible for ceasing, as you requested, to use the historical and revelatory Christian faith as a launching pad for speculative and fanciful spiritual theologizing; that's how it's portrayed by the words of the book. If you delve deeper into this material you will understand that The Urantia Book is not promoting any organized religion, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, or New Age.

You've suggested that we're perpetrating a dishonesty, not being open or declaring in plain language what we really believe. Maybe you can explain yourself better or give an example but that's not so at all; there's no way we could be more up-front in our opinion or the material we promote.

You are absolutely correct in saying that the evolutionary perspective of The Urantia book is truly at odds with historical and evangelical Christianity. We are not proponents of historical or evangelical Christianity nor do we portray ourselves to be. The Urantia Book is not a Christian document in the sense you're thinking of. The Urantia Book clearly teaches us the true nature and purpose of Jesus. Jesus does not belong to Christianity; it is supposed to be the other way around.

Your suggested prohibition against using the name of Jesus because The Urantia Book is not the Bible we've received before. I'll be perfectly clear: The Urantia Book is not the Bible. In stating that Jesus is not some Christ Michael incarnated on this earth you've objected to something for which you have no understanding. Obviously the Bible doesn't contain that information and so you reason that your objection is valid... what if Jesus was known as Michael before incarnating here? What if that was true? What if it is time for new wine to displace that in the old wine skins? How would you know? How will you know Truth? Certainly not by dismissing a book by its cover, or through a cursory glance.

As an example, in our exchange here, if this were 2,000 years ago, what you've essentially done is walked by a gathering at the roadside on your way to some destination and as you passed you've caught the turn of a phrase and the whisper of an unfamiliar idea. Continuing on your way you've mulled over what you heard with a bit of humor and condescension because it didn't correlate with the orthodoxy that you had accepted as Truth. You didn't know and didn't care to know that the speaker you passed by was Jesus; on a spiritual level your brief encounter was meaningless. This is fundamentally what has happened with this one hour critique.

I could give you some masterful quotes from The Urantia Book to back up my reply to you just as you've given some great quotes from the Bible, but I won't. Students of The Urantia Book love and appreciate the Bible for what it is. Most students of The Urantia Book come to have a more profound appreciation of the Bible than they ever had before encountering what you've just stumbled upon and are trying to dismiss.

We're willing to address well thought out and measured criticism regarding the teachings of this little-known book which proclaims itself to be the fifth epochal revelation of truth to the world; it comes to us in book form. Jesus was the fourth epochal revelation of truth to the world; he was a Son of God and the son of man. However, the teachings of The Urantia Book aren't totally devoted to religion or spirituality; those are but two of its numerous revelations. There is no way you, or anyone else can criticize what has been superficially gleaned; howver, reasoned criticism from an in-depth reading will be considered. Are you willing to look deeper? Are you willing to risk discovering truth that may surpass what you already possess?

A study of The Urantia Book takes nothing away from one's knowledge of and love for the Bible, or any other true religious text. There are religious authorities among all the major religious organizations who know, study, and are enthralled by what The Urantia Book discloses. Are you willing to at least dip a few toes in to test the water? You've termed yourself another truth lover; is your love for truth strong enough that you will follow wherever it may lead, whatever may be its apparent source?

There are 197 chapters in The Urantia Book. The first 5 lay the groundwork for an enhanced spiritual connection with God. My suggestion, if you're sincere about a meaningful criticism of The Urantia Book is that you begin by reading Paper 1 and continue on to Paper 5 and then write back from a more informed point of view. I'm not suggesting that you believe anything you read but I do request that you read with an open, inquiring, and critical mind. Take notes as you read if you wish and listen to the text read aloud as you read the words... then come back here and tell me if you've learned anything and what your informed criticism is. I'll be happy to give more attention to your opinion.

Best wishes, and may God be with you.

Labels: Bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, The Urantia Book, truth

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Why was Jesus was born into this world, Urantia, as a 'helpless babe'?

Q: What does it mean when we always read from The Urantia Book that Jesus was born into this world, Urantia, as a 'helpless babe'?

Is it because He was not accompanied by arch-angels and Melchizedeks to help propagate His teachings as Magisterial Son are helped?

Is it because He had to resort to the help of common fishermen and carpenters of His generation to help Him and not on other mighty bestowal Sons who could have upheld His message and teachings in high esteem having a perfect understanding of the kingdom of God themselves?

The brotherhood of men was entrusted to men whom, even after seeing the Morontia Jesus, still dared to entertain thoughts and ideas of a material kingdom. There was certainly going to be a distortion of the good news in the early days since the understanding of these devoted eleven men was not up to expected levels.
The kingdom of course would have been better understood and effectively propagated in the early days if there were other bestowed Divine Sons along with Jesus to help.

A: Jesus bestowed himself seven times in his universe, each time as a citizen of the realm into which he was bestowed. His bestowal on Urantia was certainly to provide a new revelation of the Father to the planet, but as well, it was a necessary thing that he be conceived and born as a normal human being, a "helpless babe," so that he could truly experience the life of that is lived by mortals such as us. If he had come accompanied by celestial helpers, his life would not have been the typical kind of life, and he could not have truly claimed his title of "son of man." No human being has at his or her disposal a vast army of celestial helpers at their instant command...Jesus expressly declined any celestial help. You can read about his bestowals HERE - and specifically about his seventh bestowal (on Urantia ) HERE. Both of these Papers are revealed knowledge that will help any student of Jesus to understand the amazing mission of the Son of God, son of man...when it was finished, Jesus could rightly claim sovereignty over his universe because he had earned that right. And we are the better for it.

Jesus' humanity has long been eclipsed as a result of the evidences of his divinity - the miracles, his dramatic death and resurrection, etc. He was both, but his humanity has never seemed quite as important as his Divinity. This is why The Urantia Book is so important - to show mankind how to live a life dedicated to the will of God, as Jesus' life was. He is truly "one of us." And we can relate to him because of that fact, and identify with him, as he really did live a fully human life.

This is one reason that the apostles may have had problems really getting some of what he said - he was so human, and such a good friend to them. You might imagine how they felt being told that they were in service to a divine Son of God.

(2:0.2) The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity.

This life of Jesus before his full consciousness of divinity comprises quite a lot of years, and is a very important study... how his entire life reflected his one-pointed search for the will of God in all things.

Would the kingdom have been "better understood and effectively propagated in the early days if there were other bestowed Divine Sons along with Jesus to help.?" I am sure it would have, but this was not what a normal human being would have as helpers. Jesus lived the real life of a real human being. And in spite of the fact that his simple message became garbled and confusing, the religion that HAS survived is yet a powerful force on the planet today:

(194:4.6) Christ was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming church. Jesus lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concept of God and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine that "God is the Father of the Lord Jesus" to be concerned with the old message that "God is the loving Father of all men," even of every single individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and unexampled good will did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the concept of Jesus' bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of mortal man. Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even that represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.

Thanks for this question!

Labels: apostles, bestowal, Christianity, Jesus, Jesus' humanity, son of man, The Urantia Book

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

What did Jesus teach his disciples about setting up churches?

Q: What did Jesus teach his disciples about setting up churches?

A: In the Urantia Book, we learn that Jesus' mission on Earth was one of revelation -revelation to mankind of the loving character of God, the goodness of God, and the love and mercy of God as spiritual Father. Jesus proclaimed the good news that man is a child of God, and the resultant truth that all men are brethren.

Jesus did not incarnate in order to establish a church, and he did not counsel his disciples to establish churches. His mission was to proclaim the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the hearts of mankind, and to free mankind from the bondage of churches of authority. He himself, a child of Jewish parents, raised in the churches and synagogues of his day, later was murdered for his refusal to conform to the authority of that very belief system in which he was raised. Jesus was not wholly opposed to churches; he worked with members of churches, and honored and encouraged church members, but, as the Urantia Book so well points out:

p1098:4(100:5.1) The world is filled with lost souls, not lost in the theologic sense but lost in the directional meaning, wandering about in confusion among the isms and cults of a frustrated philosophic era. Too few have learned how to install a philosophy of living in the place of religious authority. (The symbols of socialized religion are not to be despised as channels of growth, albeit the river bed is not the river.)
(Bolding of text is mine)

Jesus' message was one of spiritual liberation - liberation from set dogmas, creeds, and established tenets - into a new way of realizing and finding God, who, he taught, indwells every human mind. This new way of discovering God and recognizing Truth had nothing to do with setting up churches. Instead, it proclaimed that the Kingdom is within each of us, discoverable by each individual.
There was a church established, of course, and the following quote outlines for us how this occurred:

p1865:4(170:5.14) When Jesus' immediate followers recognized their partial failure to realize his ideal of the establishment of the kingdom in the hearts of men by the spirit's domination and guidance of the individual believer, they set about to save his teaching from being wholly lost by substituting for the Master's ideal of the kingdom the gradual creation of a visible social organization, the Christian church. And when they had accomplished this program of substitution, in order to maintain consistency and to provide for the recognition of the Master's teaching regarding the fact of the kingdom, they proceeded to set the kingdom off into the future. The church, just as soon as it was well established, began to teach that the kingdom was in reality to appear at the culmination of the Christian age, at the second coming of Christ.

This Christian church and its many offshoots, while good in many respects, still maintains many of the unfavorable aspects of all established churches, in that it demands a loyalty to dogma, to rules and regulations, that have little to do with the reality of the Kingdom as Jesus taught it. Jesus taught that the Kingdom is within - right now - and that one enters its gates simply by faith that one is, in fact, a child of God. No creedal pressure was brought to bear by Jesus on any of his followers. The new gospel of Jesus proclaimed that man is a child of God, and that faith is the only price of entry into the Father's kingdom. It is this very simplicity, I believe, that is sometimes very hard to grasp by human minds.

The idea of making a church that packages "the truth" for its followers is directly opposed to the actual teachings of Jesus. A church as a social organization, or as a place where believers can share their faith is a good idea, but churches as they are now operate on the planet, largely run counter to the idea of spiritual freedom, as Jesus taught it.

Consider this quote from The Urantia Book:
p1135:2(103:5.12) When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become "freethinkers." There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.

Labels: Christianity, churches, Jesus, kingdom of heaven, spiritual freedom, The Urantia Book

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Monday, October 08, 2007

Is Jesus The Son Of God? Did He Die For Our Sins?

Q: Do you believe that Jesus was the
son of God? Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross to save us from
our sins? If not, then this is not Christianity.

A: Yes, students of The Urantia Book do recognize that Jesus was the Son
of God as well as being the Son of Man. Which of these two
qualifications is more meaningful? Each of us is a son of God -- that was one of
Jesus' primary teachings, the value of the individual, and that while God
is no respecter of persons, we're each equally important to our Father
in heaven. Christianity tends to emphasize the teaching that Jesus was
a Son of God, neglecting the equally valuable realization that Jesus
was also a Son of Man and neglecting to emphasize that we too are sons of
God, not in the same sense that Jesus was but in a sense that is
equally as cherished and loved by God the father.

By Jesus taking on the role of Son of Man he acknowledged that he would
live a life in the flesh just as we mortals do. Although having a
pre-existent divine existence before becoming a mortal, he accepted status
as a mortal of the realm, was subject to the same vicissitudes of life
that mortals are subject to, lived life as we do. Jesus was human as
well as divine.

Students of The Urantia Book do not believe that Jesus died on the
cross to save us from our sins; we do not accept the Christian atonement
dogma that proposes that God required a human/divine sacrifice in order
to be appeased. We hold the Father in heaven in much higher regard than
such a primitive anthropomorphized opinion casts. As the Son of Man,
Jesus submitted to torture and a barbaric death, not because God willed
it but as a way of making the continuity of life after death undeniable.
Not only did he teach that death was not the end of existence, that in
his Father's house are many mansions where he has prepared a place for
us, but he manifested this teaching by returning from death. This, and
not that he died for sins, is the great gift Jesus has given to
humanity for all time that has been lost to much of Christian theology.

You concluded by saying "If not, then this is not Christianity."
Exactly. The Urantia Book is a new revelation of truth, not an amplification
of Christianity nor of any other religion on earth. The Urantia Book
does not claim to be Christian; it does claim to be Jesusonian â€” to be
an accurate restatement of Jesus' life and teachings devoid of
religious dogma.

Labels: atonement, Christianity, divinity, God, humanity, Jesus, the Cross, The Urantia Book