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Learning to Teach
Sooner or later Urantia Book readers are going to need to heed the calls put out by its revelators. One such is on page 43:
"The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness."
A high priority is assigned to bringing Christianity back from its present status of authoritarian religion to what it was always meant to be--a religion of the spirit centered on the relationship between the individual, the Spirit of Truth, and the Father Spirit within. This priority is emphasized in at least ten paragraphs in the Papers, such as:
"Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men…."(2084)
Those Urantia Book readers who have already taken this task seriously have learned a lot about what is unlikely to achieve much in the way of long term success.
One historian remarked that the amazing rapidity in which Pauline Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire was because of the incredible relief it brought to people suffering from overwhelming guilt and the fear of punishment for sin. Apparently this syndrome was endemic and particular so among the many followers of Mithraism.
Today it persists in the form of the atonement doctrine. It is held so strongly that few clergy will risk the close to hysterical reaction that they know would follow if they even cast doubt on that doctrine.
Almost all Christians who are strong on atonement make no connection between what it may say about a God who is love and a God who demands the death of his Son before he will forgive his earthly children for their sins. They live happily with the contradiction that God is perfect love and that Jesus demonstrated God's love by dying as a propitiation for our sins.
So what can Urantia Book readers do to aid Christians to recover a religion of the spirit? A good start is to take notice of what Jesus told us:
"And this was his (Jesus) method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed so to embellish and illuminate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error; (1455)
This instruction was later repeated to the apostle Simon:
"Jesus answered: "Simon, Simon, how many times have I instructed you to refrain from all efforts to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation? How often have I told you to labor only to put something into these hungry souls? Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error." (1592)
So telling Christians where they are wrong does not appear to find favor with Jesus and is best laid to rest for good.
Jesus gave us an alternative, "Let the Spirit of Truth do his own work." (1932)
Another failure is to approach Christians with a new revelation. Whereas it may work for a tiny minority, experience has shown it is not the way to go. There may be a multitude of reasons, prominent among them being that Christianity has been satiated with false messiahs, prophets, visionaries, and charismatic would-be leaders. And certainly the warning of dire penalties in the Book of Revelations for changing any biblical teaching does engender wariness about embracing new revelation.
So what can we do? First we must have patience, tolerance, humility, and be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves--all these recommendations come directly from Jesus.
The switch to a religion of the spirit demands, as a first essential step, the establishment of a personal relation of the individual and the Father-Spirit within.
There are more than twenty New Testament verses that tell of our indwelling by the Spirits of the Father and the Son. Some of these are:
John 14:23...if a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.
John 14:26. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father shall send in my name will teach
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