What Ought To Be

Donna provides a useful guideline when she says: "Bridge building uses the shared truth of religions and hopes to offer what ought to be in place of what is when growth is needed.

I am reminded of what the UB tells us about Progress Angels:

P.1255 - §5 2. The progress angels. These seraphim are intrusted with the task of initiating the evolutionary progress of the successive social ages. They foster the development of the inherent progressive trend of evolutionary creatures; they labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be. The group now on duty is the second to be assigned to the planet.

We are told: P.1256 - §8 None of these angelic groups exercise direct or arbitrary control over the domains of their assignment. They cannot fully control the affairs of their respective realms of action, but they can and do so manipulate planetary conditions and so associate circumstances as favorably to influence the spheres of human activity to which they are attached.

And that: P.1256 - §9 The master seraphim of planetary supervision utilize many agencies for the prosecution of their missions. They function as ideational clearinghouses, mind focalizers, and project promoters. While unable to inject new and higher conceptions into human minds, they often act to intensify some higher ideal which has already appeared within a human intellect.

It's great to know that they can help us to focus our minds, and intensify our higher ideals--all the while promoting our worthwhile projects. Like this one, for instance.

From a Religion about Jesus to a Religion of Jesus

While we may not have quantity (in the number of participants), we sure do have quality on this forum. Cheryl and Donna offered some very thought-provoking and inspiring comments on the "why" question.

Cheryl calls for the dedicated construction of a bridge to take mankind from the tomb of tradition (the Christian theologic religion about Jesus), all the way to a new revelation of the living Jesus (the living religion of Jesus contained in The Urantia Book).

The last sentence of the paragraph that Cheryl partially quotes is an eye-opener:

Indeed, the social readjustments, the economic transformations, the moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic and revolutionary if the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion about Jesus. P.2090 - §3

This tells us that such a transformation of a religion about Jesus to a religion of Jesus will necessitate drastic revisions of Christianity. But how can this be accomplished? Retired Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong seems to have his own opinion about this. His book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die sounds like something aspiring Bible-UB bridge builders should read. Another of his books, Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism also sounds like it might be relevant.

Bishop Spong has an internet site called A New Christianity for a New World. On June 15th he made the remarkable statement in his weekly Q&A article that "Religion is primarily a search for security and not a search for truth." So it is no wonder that Cheryl says: "From personal experience I also know that as a Christian it can be terrifying to even consider that God allows and encourages us to believe more and even to believe better."

Urantia Book readers believe more and believe better because they have access to the supernal teachings of Jesus. And with that knowledge comes a responsibility to use it in the service of mankind.

P.1041 - §5 All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.

P.2082 - §7 But paganized and socialized Christianity stands in need of new contact with the uncompromised teachings of Jesus; it languishes for lack of a new vision of the Master's life on earth. A new and fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is destined to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and to overthrow a world sway of mechanistic naturalism. Urantia is now quivering on the very brink of one of its most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment.

P.2082 - §9 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings. If Christianity persists in neglecting its spiritual mission while it continues to busy itself with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance must await the coming of these new teachers of Jesus' religion who will be exclusively devoted to the spiritual regeneration of men. And then will these spirit-born souls quickly supply the
leadership and inspiration requisite for the social, moral, economic, and political reorganization of the world.

P.1041 - §5 All Urantia is waiting for the proclamation of the ennobling message of Michael, unencumbered by the accumulated doctrines and dogmas of nineteen centuries of contact with the religions of evolutionary origin. The hour is striking for presenting to Buddhism, to Christianity, to Hinduism, even to the peoples of all faiths, not the gospel about Jesus, but the living, spiritual reality of the gospel of Jesus.

P.2090 - §4 To "follow Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.

P.2086 - §7 The hope of modern Christianity is that it should cease to sponsor the social systems and industrial policies of Western civilization while it humbly bows itself before the cross it so valiantly extols, there to learn anew from Jesus of Nazareth the greatest truths mortal man can ever hear--the living gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.

Vern Grimsley in the closing speech at the 1981 Urantia Brotherhood Conference in Snowmass, Colorado sums all this up as follows: "We are called to be transformed people and herald forth this transforming truth... Jesus emphasized outreach; that it's not enough that we find this wonderful truth for ourselves, but we have a mission to all of humankind, to this entire globe, to help bring a great spiritual renaissance across this earth.