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But now, approximately 70 years after completion of that book, plus an extraordinary knowledge explosion in virtually all spheres of human activity, we have to face the fact that the Papers abound in outdated, outmoded materials and concepts.
This is the reality we must learn to live with, but taking care not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In terms of their spiritual meanings and values, these Papers stand alone, head and shoulders above anything else available to us.
Even back in the 1930's the "powers-that-be" were concerned about the rapid social changes occurring on this planet. Paper 99 warns us: "Mechanical inventions and the dissemination of knowledge are modifying civilization; certain economic adjustments and social changes are imperative if cultural disaster is to be avoided. This new and oncoming social order will not settle down complacently for a millennium. The human race must become reconciled to a procession of changes, adjustments, and readjustments. Mankind is on the march toward a new and unrevealed planetary destiny."
This is followed by: "Religion must become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never-ending economic adjustments. Urantia society can never hope to settle down as in past ages." And: "The paramount mission of religion as a social influence is to stabilize the ideals of mankind during these dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to another, from one level of culture to another." Finally, "Religion has no new duties to perform."
Could it all have been planned? A paragraph in Paper 2 provides food for thought. It says:
"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. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God, who is love."
The reference to "enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, beauty, and goodness" can only be self-referential. These concepts are to be found in the Papers! And it is a "new and righteous vision of morality" that is required. Why? Is it because the revelators knew that the foundations of our Judeo-Christian morality must shortly expire?
At its beginning, Paper 99 warns of a thousand years of rapid social change. We are already about 70 years into that period, and if we take the Urantia revelation seriously, in the situation of being required to "become a forceful influence for moral stability and spiritual progression functioning dynamically in the midst of these ever-changing conditions and never ending economic adjustments." And our paramount task is to "stabilize the ideals of mankind during the dangerous times of transition from one phase of civilization to to another."
Western Christianity will probably collapse within the next 10-20 years. It is too priest-bound and creed-bound to have any chance of adjusting to the inevitable collapse of faith that will follow the equally inevitable dissemination of knowledge of the demise of the Old Testament--hence the foundations of the theology upon which the Christian Church founded its doctrines.
The reality of Jesus' life was and is a revelation of the nature of God. That fact is untouched by any of man's desecrations of his reality. Thus our primary task for a thousand years will be to promulgate Jesus' interpretation of God's nature.
Our best source will be the Urantia Papers. The material we need will not be that relating to material facts. Rather, we will find what we need amongst that which has "spiritual meaning and value," that part for which we can have certainty about its revelatory status.
The two thousand pages of The Urantia Book provide a content far too large to permit efficient location of reference material. A highly abridged reference version of its spirituality--related content that may help ease this vital task, will appear in the next issues of Innerface.
References.
1. Herzog, Ze'ev. Ha'aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999.
2. Finkelstein, I. and N.A. Silberman. The Bible Unearthed.(Simon and Schuster, N.Y. 2002)
3. Rev'd G. C. Jenks, M.A. Ph.D. Forest Lake Anglican Community, Brisbane, Australia.
4. Colbert, K., referenced by Rev'd Jenks above.
5. Dr W.S. Sadler, A History of the Urantia Movement. (1960)
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