Is The Urantia Book a Religion?

   

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Editors Note:  Readers are sometimes asked: “Is The Urantia Book a religion?” Two responses to this question appear below.

By Claire Mylanus, Associate Trustee, Urantia Foundation, Brittany, France   

When you encounter The Urantia Book, you have to put aside many of your ideas about religion. The Urantia Book presents a new approach to belief, faith, and religion.

When we think about religion, we think of institutions, religious systems, dogmas, priesthoods, places of worship, and ways of differentiating ourselves from non-believers or believers in other religions. The word “religion” or “religious” has a different meaning in The Urantia Book.

First of all, The Urantia Book does not separate religion from science and philosophy. The Urantia Book unites science, philosophy, and religion and views them from a cosmic perspective.

To be religious is to attempt to reach God, to attempt the understanding of universal meanings and values, and to integrate them into our daily lives. Jesus frequently referred to “the kingdom of God within you.” The Urantia Book emphasizes going into “partnership with God.“ The personal contact with the divine fragment within us is contact with God the Father. It is fraternizing with God and constitutes having personal religious experience based on faith. Spiritual growth, ever-increasing God consciousness, is a process between ourselves and our divine monitor. It is individual and expresses itself in our daily life by our decisions and choices. It is a living truth-experience having its origin at the level of the spirit with consequent effects, first, at the level of the mind and, thereafter, at the level of the flesh.

That is why I believe that The Urantia Book presents a new and refreshing concept that each of us can experience in our lives. This concept and the resulting experience is religious but does not constitute a religion.

Are you a new religion or a cult?
By Neal Waldrop, Trustee Emeritus, Urantia Foundation, Maryland, USA

The authors of The Urantia Book explain how important it is for each human being to develop a personal philosophy of religion, so that the individual’s awareness of religious and spiritual values will benefit from living personal experience.  In other words, the authors stress that each man and woman has a right to participate in the most inspiring of all possible pursuits — the personal quest for truth, the exhilaration of intellectual discovery, and the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience.

Therefore it is obvious that The Urantia Book has nothing in common with cult, radical, or fanatical movements that subordinate individuals to intense ideologies or some assortment of domineering doctrines. In addition, it is equally clear that the teachings of The Urantia Book have nothing to do with establishing, propounding, or promoting an institutional religion. As previously implied, the authors call on each reader to create his or her own personal religion by interweaving the awareness and understanding that arise from inner experience.

The authors of The Urantia Book affirm that every religion contains truth, and they agree that there is a real purpose in the socialization of religion. Therefore an active interest in The Urantia Book does not conflict with observance of the essential requirements of any prominent institutional religion. Many readers of The Urantia Book continue to participate in activities of a church or another organization that has been their framework for traditional belief.

The authors tell us quite frankly that in seeking to coordinate spiritual values and universe meanings, they are drawing on the highest existing human concepts. On the other hand, the authors do not stop there, for they also supplement and enhance prior understanding in intriguing and innovative ways. For example:

The authors of The Urantia Book contribute many original insights into the essential unity of matter, mind, and spirit. Further, they identify the multiple interactions that pervade science, philosophy, and religion and that resonate in individual experience as causation, duty, and worship.
The authors portray God’s active presence in the human mind, while also explaining his plans for the progressive growth and evolution of individuals, human society, and the universe as a whole.

These aspects are integral elements of the authors’ intensive efforts “to expand cosmic consciousness and enhance spiritual perception” (Forward), a goal that Urantia Foundation emphasizes. In these and all other endeavors, however, the Foundation has no connection with a church, a clerical hierarchy, or any other system that savors of philosophic or spiritual subordination. There is no official interpretation of The Urantia Book, and Urantia Foundation does not claim or exercise any form of authority over understanding or belief.

The Foundation pursues objectives that are identified in The Declaration of Trust Creating Urantia Foundation (January 11, 1950), a document that also describes the duties of the Trustees. From a practical perspective, Urantia Foundation is a non-profit organization that depends on donations to achieve its purposes. Individuals and groups may choose to support its work by providing financial assistance or by serving as volunteers.

A number of readers of The Urantia Book have formed social organizations or other independent groupings that enable them to associate with and inspire each other, or perhaps to take other steps that are linked with spiritual, philosophic, or social ideals that the authors proclaim. In many cases, the organizations and groups mainly focus on fostering study and dissemination of the teachings.

Urantia Foundation is aware of these activities in a broad and general sense, but it certainly does not seek to manage or direct them. To the contrary, the Foundation has a firm policy of not intervening in the affairs of a social organization.