Is the Urantia Book a branch of Christianity?

[McCulloch]

In the comments and suggestions forum

[the Urantia Book] Is Definitely Not a Branch of Christianity!

I disagree. The question for debate is, "Are the believers of the Urantia Book a branch of Christianity?"

The UB papers include a lot of material about the life and teaching of Jesus. They make the claim that they are following his examples and his teaching. From my perspective, that makes them Christian.

If they are not Christian what religion are they? They are not Buddhist, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Taoist, Zoroastrian or neo-pagan. They even call themselves Jesusonians.

The teachings in the Urantia Book differ in significant ways from the teachings of the Bible. This is quite apparent. But then so do the Jehovah's Witnesses' teachings and the Mormons'. All of these groups are branches of Christianity in the sense that they make the claim to be the true religious followers of Jesus Christ rather than making the claim to be the true religious followers of Gautama Buddha, the Sikh Gurus, Mohammed et al.

I do not claim that they are true followers of the Christian faith. I don't think that anyone can objectively identify the true followers of Jesus Christ's teachings. But even if they do not follow the teachings of Jesus that does not remove them from being categorized as Christian. It just makes them into heretical Christians.

[Cathar1950]

As I recall you were trying to label or compare the UB to Liberal Christianity.
Liberal Christianity has a long tradition and distinctive character. Its development came with both higher and lower critics and a view of the modern world providing blessings for humans. The ideas were largely shattered with the sinking of the Titanic and the First World War. Neo-orthodoxy would keep the liberal views but add sin or the fall of man to the equation. The UB hardly fits into this category historically.

Although I suppose it could fit in the broad category such as

Ultimately, the word liberal connotes a more progressive attitude towards Christianity based on individualism, in its emphasis on individual subjective experience, and liberalism, in its respect for the freedom of the individual to hold and express views which fall outside the boundaries of conservative orthodoxy and tradition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Christianity

Labels are easy when one doesn't know what they are speaking about. Cathar is once again Parroting Gardner's sloppy research , and is as ignorant of what the Urantia Book actually teaches as Gardner, since neither has read it, and Cathar simply mouths and parrots Gardner's stereotypes.

I added the bold.
Who is breaking rules?

Because the moderators do not require him to abide by the rules, seems obvious

.
Your obvious is often found lacking.

At this point, Cathar's continued abuse of this forums rules, his blind dogmatic parroting of Gardner with absolutely no effort to provide evidence or quotations to support his claims, is little more than the same argumentative style of biblical literalists (except he uses Gardner instead of the Bible), and reveals a deep seated prejudice, rather than an informed view supported by evidence

You seem to do a lot of whining and frequent indirect insults.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Only a little flock of 144,000 go to heaven and rule with Christ.

The UB may not hold this in common but the Jesus/Michael would also be a logical comparison.
http://adventist.org.au/about_adventist ... _witnesses

Adventist scholars believe that this number is most likely symbolic and represents the people of God. We also believe that faithful people from all ages, not just Adventists, are the people of God.

So I would repeat my opinion that the UB would be more like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists. Now as for labeling, Are you saying there is something wrong with these groups that the UBers would be ashamed of?

[Bro Dave]

May I just interject that the Urantia Book, is a book, not a religion. It has no doctines, and no clergy, and makes no monitary demands on its readers.

No that does set it apart, does it not?

Bro Dave

[Rob]

As I recall you were trying to label or compare the UB to Liberal Christianity.

Liberal Christianity has a long tradition and distinctive character.... The UB hardly fits into this category historically.

(....)

So I would repeat my opinion that the UB would be more like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists. Now as for labeling, Are you saying there is something wrong with these groups that the UBers would be ashamed of?

As typical of Cathar's thoughtless parroting of Gardner, he continues with more of the same. As the evidence below shows, Cathar clearly neither knows the specific views and teaching of liberal Christianity or the Urantia Book, but speaks from dogmatic a priori assumptions based upon prejudice, logical fallacies, and appeals to authority.

The following comes from Gary Dorrien's comprehensive history of American theological liberalism, from which I will draw and provide comparative analysis with the teaching of the Urantia Book to refute Cathar's thoughtless dogmatic parroting of Gardner, to show that the teachings contained in the Urantia Book are in harmony with progressive liberal theology. I note that liberal progressive Christian theology is not in many cases in harmony with "Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists" theological interpretations, as most informed individuals already know, so I will not bother to highlight their doctrines, as showing the Uranita Book's similar teachings with liberal progressive Christian theology is enough to refute Cathar's ignorance of what the Urantia Book actually teaches.

Dorrien writes:

Three issues were crucial: How was Christianity to deal with increasing scientific acceptance of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the recent developments in German biblical criticism, and the problems of a rapidly industrializing social order? These questions fundamentally shaped what came to be called American theological liberalism.... American liberal Christianity ... emphasized the convergence between Christianity and evolution, the constructive value of modern historical criticism, the spiritual union between God and humanity, and the kingdom-building social mission of the chruch.

-- Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion 1805-1900.

Contrary to Cathar's claim that the Urantia Book is closer to the belief's of "Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists," none of which I believe accept that evolution is a fact, the Urantia Book unequivocally states that evolution (by natural means) is a fact.

The fact of evolution is not a modern discovery; the ancients understood the slow and evolutionary character of human progress. (837.4 )

The facts of evolution must not be arrayed against the truth of the reality of the certainty of the spiritual experience of the religious living of the God-knowing mortal. Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact. Scientific materialism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring universe phenomenon, in refunding its current objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower. Consistency demands the recognition of the activities of a purposive Creator. (1125.4 )

Organic evolution is a fact; purposive or progressive evolution is a truth which makes consistent the otherwise contradictory phenomena of the ever-ascending achievements of evolution. The higher any scientist progresses in his chosen science, the more will he abandon the theories of materialistic fact in favor of the cosmic truth of the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Materialism cheapens human life; the gospel of Jesus tremendously enhances and supernally exalts every mortal. Mortal existence must be visualized as consisting in the intriguing and fascinating experience of the realization of the reality of the meeting of the human upreach and the divine and saving downreach. (1125.5)

On issue #1, liberal theological Christianity and the Urantia Book are similar, if not the same, and both are 180 degrees opposite of "Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists." But of course, Cathar would never know this, as he spouts only uninformed opinions, nothing more than thoughtless parroting of Gardner, rather than actually reading the Urantia Book and confirming what it actually teaches in relation to liberal theological Christianity.

THE TALK WITH NATHANIEL

And then went Jesus over to Abila, where Nathaniel and his associates labored. Nathaniel was much bothered by some of Jesus' pronouncements which seemed to detract from the authority of the recognized Hebrew scriptures. Accordingly, on this night, after the usual period of questions and answers, Nathaniel took Jesus away from the others and asked: "Master, could you trust me to know the truth about the Scriptures? I observe that you teach us only a portion of the sacred writings--the best as I view it--and I infer that you reject the teachings of the rabbis to the effect that the words of the law are the very words of God, having been with God in heaven even before the times of Abraham and Moses. What is the truth about the Scriptures?" When Jesus heard the question of his bewildered apostle, he answered: (1767.3 )


"Nathaniel, you have rightly judged; I do not regard the Scriptures as do the rabbis. I will talk with you about this matter on condition that you do not relate these things to your brethren, who are not all prepared to receive this teaching. The words of the law of Moses and the teachings of the Scriptures were not in existence before Abraham. Only in recent times have the Scriptures been gathered together as we now have them. While they contain the best of the higher thoughts and longings of the Jewish people, they also contain much that is far from being representative of the character and teachings of the Father in heaven; wherefore must I choose from among the better teachings those truths which are to be gleaned for the gospel of the kingdom.

"These writings are the work of men, some of them holy men, others not so holy. The teachings of these books represent the views and extent of enlightenment of the times in which they had their origin. As a revelation of truth, the last are more dependable than the first. The Scriptures are faulty and altogether human in origin, but mistake not, they do constitute the best collection of religious wisdom and spiritual truth to be found in all the world at this time.

"Many of these books were not written by the persons whose names they bear, but that in no way detracts from the value of the truths which they contain. If the story of Jonah should not be a fact, even if Jonah had never lived, still would the profound truth of this narrative, the love of God for Nineveh and the so-called heathen, be none the less precious in the eyes of all those who love their fellow men. The Scriptures are sacred because they present the thoughts and acts of men who were searching for God, and who in these writings left on record their highest concepts of righteousness, truth, and holiness. The Scriptures contain much that is true, very much, but in the light of your present teaching, you know that these writings also contain much that is misrepresentative of the Father in heaven, the loving God I have come to reveal to all the worlds.

"Nathaniel, never permit yourself for one moment to believe the Scripture records which tell you that the God of love directed your forefathers to go forth in battle to slay all their enemies--men, women, and children. Such records are the words of men, not very holy men, and they are not the word of God. The Scriptures always have, and always will, reflect the intellectual, moral, and spiritual status of those who create them. Have you not noted that the concepts of Yahweh grow in beauty and glory as the prophets make their records from Samuel to Isaiah? And you should remember that the Scriptures are intended for religious instruction and spiritual guidance. They are not the works of either historians or philosophers.

"The thing most deplorable is not merely this erroneous idea of the absolute perfection of the Scripture record and the infallibility of its teachings, but rather the confusing misinterpretation of these sacred writings by the tradition-enslaved scribes and Pharisees at Jerusalem. And now will they employ both the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures and their misinterpretations thereof in their determined effort to withstand these newer teachings of the gospel of the kingdom. Nathaniel, never forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of truth to any one generation or to any one people. Many earnest seekers after the truth have been, and will continue to be, confused and disheartened by these doctrines of the perfection of the Scriptures.

"The authority of truth is the very spirit that indwells its living manifestations, and not the dead words of the less illuminated and supposedly inspired men of another generation. And even if these holy men of old lived inspired and spirit-filled lives, that does not mean that their words were similarly spiritually inspired. Today we make no record of the teachings of this gospel of the kingdom lest, when I have gone, you speedily become divided up into sundry groups of truth contenders as a result of the diversity of your interpretation of my teachings. For this generation it is best that we live these truths while we shun the making of records.

"Mark you well my words, Nathaniel, nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. Through the mind of man divine truth may indeed shine forth, but always of relative purity and partial divinity. The creature may crave infallibility, but only the Creators possess it.

"But the greatest error of the teaching about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance. The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition. A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded by common sense. The fear of the authority of the sacred writings of the past effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely longed to see.

"But the saddest feature of all is the fact that some of the teachers of the sanctity of this traditionalism know this very truth. They more or less fully understand these limitations of Scripture, but they are moral cowards, intellectually dishonest. They know the truth regarding the sacred writings, but they prefer to withhold such disturbing facts from the people. And thus do they pervert and distort the Scriptures, making them the guide to slavish details of the daily life and an authority in things nonspiritual instead of appealing to the sacred writings as the repository of the moral wisdom, religious inspiration, and the spiritual teaching of the God-knowing men of other generations."

Nathaniel was enlightened, and shocked, by the Master's pronouncement. He long pondered this talk in the depths of his soul, but he told no man concerning this conference until after Jesus' ascension; and even then he feared to impart the full story of the Master's instruction.

Well, it matters not whether Jesus actually spoke these words, at least as far as refuting Cathar's parroting of Gardner is concerned, for the above make clear the teachings of the Urantia Book have no problem with issue #2, biblical criticism.

Christianity suffers under a great handicap because it has become identified in the minds of all the world as a part of the social system, the industrial life, and the moral standards of Western civilization; and thus has Christianity unwittingly seemed to sponsor a society which staggers under the guilt of tolerating science without idealism, politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without restraint, knowledge without character, power without conscience, and industry without morality. (2086.6 )

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. (2086.7 )

And obviously on issue #3 the Urantia Book is similar to the early gospel movement and the desire for social justice.

The Urantia Book's teachings are similar the teachings and principles below:

The essential idea of liberal theology is that all claims to truth, in theology as in other disciplines, must be made on the basis of reason and experience, not by appeal to external authority. Christian scripture ... does not settle or establish truth claims about maters of fact. (p. 1 )

The Progressive-era liberals believed that God was immanent in the evolutionary process of nature and modern cultural development. They accepted the Enlightenment dictum that no credible truth claim can be settled or based upon an appeal to external authority. Most of them embraced an idealistic theology of social salvation that was novel in Christian history. (p. 2 )

Fundamentally it is the idea of a modern Christianity not based on external authority. Specifically, liberal theology is defined by its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially historical criticism and the natural sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; its favoring of moral concepts of atonement; and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to contemporary people. (p. 3 )

[Its] Personalist philosophy and theology taught that personality (experience) is the key to reality and that life (experience) is the test of truth.... [V]irtually all liberal theologians accepted the empiricist dictum that critically interpreted experience is the test of truth. (p. 8 )

Christian teaching must be reconceptualized in the form of a modern philosophical and/or scientific worldview that satisfies modern tests of credible belief.... Liberal theologians have argued that reason and revelation are both important for theology and that they go together. (p. 15 )

Harnack taught that the basis of Christianity is the historically reconstructed person of Jesus and his message of divine fatherhood and human brotherhood. (p. 18 )

-- Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, & Modernity 1900-1950.

On issue #1 above, that all claims to truth evaluated on basis of reason and experience, not appeal to external authority, the Urantia Book has the following to say:

What both developing science and religion need is more searching and fearless self-criticism, a greater awareness of incompleteness in evolutionary status. The teachers of both science and religion are often altogether too self-confident and dogmatic. Science and religion can only be self-critical of their facts. The moment departure is made from the stage of facts, reason abdicates or else rapidly degenerates into a consort of false logic. (1138. 5)

The experience of God-consciousness remains the same from generation to generation, but with each advancing epoch in human knowledge the philosophic concept and the theologic definitions of God must change. God-knowingness, religious consciousness, is a universe reality, but no matter how valid (real) religious experience is, it must be willing to subject itself to intelligent criticism and reasonable philosophic interpretation; it must not seek to be a thing apart in the totality of human experience. (69.7 )

Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term "faith" stand for the individual's relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. "Have you faith? Then have it to yourself." (1091.6 )

FAITH AND BELIEF

Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more. (1114.5 )

Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist. (1114.6 )

Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance. (1114.7 )

Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace. (1115.1 )

Clearly, in Jesus' purported discourse on true religion below he is saying that living religion is a matter of personal experience, and is an "openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially historical criticism and the natural sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience":

The acceptance of the traditional religions of authority presents the easy way out for man's urge to seek satisfaction for the longings of his spiritual nature. The settled, crystallized, and established religions of authority afford a ready refuge to which the distracted and distraught soul of man may flee when harassed by fear and tormented by uncertainty. Such a religion requires of its devotees, as the price to be paid for its satisfactions and assurances, only a passive and purely intellectual assent. (1729.4 )

And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fearful, and hesitant individuals who will prefer thus to secure their religious consolations, even though, in so casting their lot with the religions of authority, they compromise the sovereignty of personality, debase the dignity of self-respect, and utterly surrender the right to participate in that most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences: the personal quest for truth, the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal triumph of the actual realization of the victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in the supreme adventure of all human existence--man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him. (1729.5 )

The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The religion of the mind--the theology of authority--requires little or none of these exertions from its formal believers. Tradition is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fearful and halfhearted souls who instinctively shun the spirit struggles and mental uncertainties associated with those faith voyages of daring adventure out upon the high seas of unexplored truth in search for the farther shores of spiritual realities as they may be discovered by the progressive human mind and experienced by the evolving human soul. (1729.6 )

The Urantia Book teaches that true religion leads to the bearing of the fruits of the spirit, which bring forth ethical living, it refutes the atonement doctrine as being primitive religion, and insult to God, and emphasizes that we as the children of God are endowed with the divine gift of personality and free will choice, and that as we experience, realize, choose, and actualize divine values (living truth, living beauty, and living goodness), i.e., choose to do the will of God as revealied through faith-insight of the divine indwelling spirit, we are co-partners with God (experiential Deity) in actualizing new experiential realities of eternal value.

None of these positions are consistent with the teachings of the groups Cathar tries so desparately to associate the UB with in his blind parroting of Gardner.

Truly, the blind parroting the blind leads to little more than intellectual parrots of their favorite authority, whomever that might be.

The spiritually blind individual who logically follows scientific dictation, social usage, and religious dogma stands in grave danger of sacrificing his moral freedom and losing his spiritual liberty. Such a soul is destined to become an intellectual parrot, a social automaton, and a slave to religious authority. (1458.1 )

[Cathar1950]

Fundamentally it is the idea of a modern Christianity not based on external authority. Specifically, liberal theology is defined by its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially historical criticism and the natural sciences; its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience; its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life; its favoring of moral concepts of atonement; and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to contemporary people. (p. 3 )

[Its] Personalist philosophy and theology taught that personality (experience) is the key to reality and that life (experience) is the test of truth.... [V]irtually all liberal theologians accepted the empiricist dictum that critically interpreted experience is the test of truth. (p. 8 )

Ok, The Ub is a modern hoax with back ground and ideas like the "Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Seventh Day Adventists and fetish followers.

I wonder if Dorrien thinks the UB is liberal or cultic?

[Rob]

May I just interject that the Urantia Book, is a book, not a religion. [true, it is just a book; only people have religious experience] It has no doctines, [false, it does have positions on ideas, concepts, and ideals, it is not vacuous] and no clergy, [true] and makes no monitary demands on its readers. [true]

No that does set it apart, does it not?

The word "doctrine" can be translated as "teaching," and the Urantia Book definitely teaches something. For example, it teaches the atonement doctrine has its origin in Paul, not Jesus, and it is erroneous and misrepresents the character and nature of God. That is definitely a teaching. There are many others.

But the Urantia Book is clear that beliefs should never become the grounds to become "dogmatic" and exlude anyone from the love and fellowship of the Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of the Unversal Father's family.

Perhaps what Bro Dave means is it is not "dogmatic" ...

[snappyanswer]

Hi all. Urantia is an interesting thing. As it becomes more and more known it will be examined more and more. From equip.org:

BOOK REVIEW

URANTIA: The Great Cult Mystery


by Martin Gardner


For several years, I’ve tried to read every new book that Martin Gardner has written. Gardner is a deist who believes that no Scriptures come from God, that fundamentalists are ideologues, and that creationism is an unscientific, witless swindle. Despite his stereotyped and sometimes condescending remarks, what engages me to continue reading is his insistence on testing religious and scientific truth claims.

A founding Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and a regular contributor to The Skeptical Inquirer, Gardner generally focuses his skeptical eye on occult phenomena: astrology, ESP, channeling (mediumship), "new energies," and other forms of quackery and pseudoscience (and yes, he often includes creationism among his targets). His Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, written over 40 years ago, has been of value in exposing movements such as Flat Earthers, pyramidologists, dowsing, Dianetics, radionics, homeopathy, and Reichian orgone energy.

Behind his jabs at the Christian faith (though it’s usually "young earth" creationism that raises his ire) stands a confirmed naturalist who asks how channeled revelations square with science. Unlike Christians, rationalists do not believe demons exist, so they cannot dismiss the difficulties posed by occult phenomena or The Urantia Book as manifestations of demonic power. In other words, humanists don’t have a "Satan of the gaps," as Christians do, to account supernaturally for problematic occult experiences. Their very rationalism forces them to seek natural explanations, often long after evangelicals have despaired of earthly answers and begun talking about demons.

While I certainly believe in supernatural agents, both demonic and divine, who influence people on earth, my point is that we theists sometimes give up too easily. In this case it took a hard-core skeptic to unwind methodically the tangled origins and material fallacies embodied in The Urantia Book (UB). His chronicle is a landmark exposé of the origins of the Urantian movement.

Gardner’s interest in the UB was aroused in part by the long-maintained secrecy regarding its true author. He also describes himself as "fascinated by the enormous amount of science in the UB" (p. 181). Most channeled writings are deadly dull and palpably untrue where they touch on scientific matters. The UB is an exception. Its discussions of cosmology and anthropology are more erudite, and its errors and internal contradictions more difficult to detect.

The UB claims to be authored by supermortal, celestial beings through an unnamed "human subject" who conveyed messages from them in his sleep. A prominent Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. William S. Sadler, privately transcribed the contactee’s messages, and in 1923 assembled a small group to study the messages while hiding the contactee’s name and identity. The supermortals described themselves as extraterrestrials from other planets and star systems. Their name for earth is Urantia; they claim to have been observing and guiding the evolution of our planet (Adam and Eve, we learn, were actually transported here from the planet Jerusem). They say Christendom has distorted the true nature and teachings of Jesus Christ, and the time is now ripe for mankind to receive this "epochal revelation."

Sadler’s study group submitted written questions to the contactee and eventually came to believe the Urantia Papers were a new revelation from God, on a par with the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Inner circle members funded its printing, and the first edition finally appeared in 1955, weighing in at 2,097 pages.

Looking for the human sources behind the UB, Gardner zeroes in on two former Seventh-day Adventists: Dr. William S. Sadler and his brother-in-law, Wilfred Custer Kellogg, who lived with the Sadlers in Chicago. The unnamed contactee was Wilfred (a nephew of W. K. Kellogg, the cornflake king), an identification Gardner first made in 1991. In Urantia: The Great Cult Mystery, he sets forth the full range of evidence to support this conclusion.

Gardner begins with Dr. Sadler, who taught at Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary. (The UB reflects that school’s liberal views on the dating and origin of the biblical texts.) Sadler was previously employed by John Harvey Kellogg, an eccentric Adventist doctor who became skeptical of biblical miracles and the Atonement (93). Sadler’s own theories about eugenics and racial inferiority seem to surface in the UB, and Gardner believes "too much material in the UB comes straight out of early books written by Sadler" (283).

Seventh-day Adventism looms large in Gardner’s narrative, which notes that the UB contains Adventist doctrines (e.g., soul-sleep and Jesus being Michael the Archangel) and even the names of famous Adventist leaders. Later in the book, Gardner admits that he himself was an Adventist in his youth, for about one year (181). Thereafter, Adventist offshoots have continued to fascinate him.

Eventually, Gardner comes to the science of the UB. If the UB really were an extraterrestrial revelation, it should accurately describe our universe. It fails this test miserably. The UB claims the universe is over one trillion years old; most scientists date it at about 15 billion years (186). The temperature it assigns to the sun’s surface is off by thousands of degrees (190); it falsely says that Mercury keeps the same face towards the sun (196). The UB teaches that humans have 48 chromosomes; it should be 46 (217). Atoms supposedly cannot possess more than 100 electrons; this "limit" was broken in 1955, as any periodic table will confirm (214).

Once or twice Gardner slips up. The UB claims our solar system was formed with 12 planets, and Gardner notes the improbability of "three undiscovered planets beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto" (189). He apparently missed its statement that the fifth planet between Mars and Jupiter "fragmentized" and became the asteroid belt (UB, 658). This leaves two undiscovered planets, not three. He also refers to gamete reproduction as mitosis, instead of meiosis (217).

Like a good storyteller, Gardner saves the best for last. A lengthy chapter reveals scads of plagiarisms in the UB, originally discovered by Urantian believer Matthew Block. In 1992, Block wrote a paper on "bibliographic" sources used in the UB. The paper reveals shameless plagiarism of earlier works, sometimes word-for-word but more frequently thought-for-thought. Gardner develops these discoveries in parallel-column comparisons and points out that Seventh-day Adventist founder Ellen White had a bad problem with plagiarism (he devotes a full chapter to this), as did Sadler occasionally (290).

The final chapters disclose important recent developments. We learn that since the 1980s the Urantia Foundation has taken legal action against organizations that used the word "Urantia" in their name, even if a group was friendly to the UB itself. The biggest blow occurred in 1989 when the Urantia Foundation "denied the [Urantia] Brotherhood the right to sell the UB, or to use the name ‘Urantia’ or the three-circle logo" (396-97). The Urantia Brotherhood — founded in 1955 with the Foundation’s approval by 36 members of Sadler’s study group, and located at the address of the Foundation — then disbanded and reorganized under another name. The Foundation seems to have become very territorial.

The idea of copyrighting a "divine revelation" was directly challenged in 1990, when Kristen Maaherra distributed free Folio Infobase copies of the UB on computer diskette. (It is now available at several Internet sites.) The following year the Foundation sued her, claiming copyright infringement. Maaherra countersued, arguing that the copyright renewal for the UB was invalid, since copyright can only be granted to human authors. A federal district court agreed, striking down the copyright to the UB in February 1995. The case is now on appeal.

We are also told of a virtual explosion of alleged contact with UB deities over the past decade. Urantians claim they have increasingly been contacted with end-times messages from the celestials. Like other occult movements such as Theosophy, the Urantian revelation provided the seedbed for a new crop of contactees or "Transmitter-Receivers" (Urantian term) to appear later and diversify into new submovements.

In the absence of a good Christian response to the UB in English, this volume by Martin Gardner will have to stand as the thinking person’s premier exposé on the Urantia movement.

—Eric Pement

Eric Pement is a senior editor at Cornerstone magazine.

[Cathar1950]

Thanks snappyanswer. Can you send that review over to
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 6517#46517
?
IT is a thread on "Martin Gardner's Review of The Urantia
Book".
It would be nice to see another point of view and it is a good summary.

[Bro Dave]

And so, because Martin Gardner did a hatchet job, you feel releaved of any obligation to look further. You simply accept it at face value, without examining either his reasons for writing it, or even whether he actually read the book.

So much for the intellectual aproach...

Bro Dave

[Bro Dave]

Rob, what I should have said, was no dogmas, not no doctrines, but I think you knew what I meant.

Bro Dave

[snappyanswer]

Urantia and Christianity are never going to be united. I sure would like to see some pseudo-Christian cults just pony up and admit that. Joseph Smith and his Mormon followers did until recent days and now even they are trying desperately to be numbered among the true Christians.

Why not just be truthful when changing the real Gospel for a lie? Urantia doesn't even have a person to ask these questions of authorship and scholarship. At least scientologists took a make believe science fiction novel and went after Christianity hook line and sinker even inventing a religion, though wierd.

There is honesty in a complete frontal attack and dishonesty in claiming membership when one knows they are not.