FIFTH EPOCHAL FELLOWSHIP for readers of The Urantia Book
June 15, 1990
Dear Reader of The Urantia Book:
This is a brief reply to the 'Special Report' from the Trustees of URANTLA, Foundation, a report which offers justifications for their recent actions against our organization, formerly called Urantia Brotherhood. In our opinion, this document constitutes a serious distortion of facts and truth which has served to confuse, concern, and dishearten many readers unacquainted with the events of past years.
Though we don't wish to dilute our time, energy, and resources in a protracted refutation of these statements, we believe that some response to the claims made in the 'Special Report' is necessary. To that end, we have enclosed a letter signed by all but one of Urantia Foundation's living former Trustees whose service totals 73 years including two who served consecutively as Urantia Foundation President from establishment of the Trust in 1950 until 1983. This letter provides their response to the Foundation actions based upon their long experience and service. In addition, in an effort to give interested readers a more complete portrayal of events, we are assembling a packet of informational materials and commentaries which bear on this report written by individuals who have had extensive and direct experience with the issues. It is available upon request by contacting us at the address or telephone number below.
We would also like to address one unfortunate example of a distortion in the 'Special Report' which has caused confusion and concern among the readership: the claim that there were not sufficient monies in the Perpetual Printing Fund to cover the tenth printing of The Urantia Book. Some facts would be helpful here. In 1980‑81, in response to Urantia Foundation's plea for funds for the seventh printing of The Urantia Book, the Finance Committee of the then Urantia Brotherhood raised $200,000. These funds were contributed by donors on the basis of a fiduciary commitment designed to insure the printing of the book in perpetuity: Urantia Foundation agreed that as each book was taken from inventory, an amount of money sufficient to cover its replacement cost would be deposited from sales revenues into a Perpetual Printing Fund. For the last ten years this Fund worked as anticipated and contained a balance sufficient to fund the ninth printing of The Urantia Book in 1987, at a total of 30,000 copies. At the most recent replacement cost per book used by Urantia Foundation ($10.25, according to their 1988 Financial Statement), there should have been $307,500 in the Fund upon depletion of the ninth printing, more than enough for the $250,000 needed for the tenth. Were these replacement monies used for purposes other than to meet the terms of the Perpetual Printing Fund? We know that URANTIA Foundation has other expenses, such as the $393,000 for legal and accounting listed in the 1988 Statement. However, the fiduciary commitment made to donors in 1980 never included funding these expenses; Urantia Foundation planned to cover these from its growing asset base‑‑nearly $2.8 million shown in the 1988 Statement augmented by a substantial but undisclosed amount of capital available in a Limited Partnership Investment in commodities futures discussed in the Financial Statement Notes.
Four Trustees of Urantia Foundation chose last October ‑‑‑ to terminate, using commercial trademark law, Urantia Brotherhood's right to use symbols of religious significance taken from The Urantia Book, the word "Urantia" and the Concentric Circles Symbol. Although we are obviously not in accord with the Trustees' unjustified legal actions, we remain committed to the purposes for which our organization was conceived in the 1930's and constituted in the 1950's. Without the legal, commercial, and secular use of the trademarks withdrawn by the Trustees, our collective efforts must become ever more expressive of the living values of these high universe symbols. Jesus proved that a simple carpenter, without the sanction of the "ruling religious group in power, could transform an entire world. Our challenge is similar in that it will be by our changed lives, our dedication, and the unity of spirit in our reader community that we will have an effect on the peoples of the world. External identification with words and symbols is not sufficient by itself to transform us and others; it is only by identifying with the living truth described by the words and suggested by the symbols that this will take place.
Regardless of the unjustified actions taken by the current Trustees, we remain committed to and supportive of the purposes established for Urantia Foundation by its founders. Most importantly, we invite your support of the Fellowship in order to achieve the mission which has brought us together: "...to increase and enhance the comfort, happiness, and well‑being of [humankind], as an individual and as a member of society, by fostering a religion, a philosophy and a cosmology which are commensurate with [humankind's] intellectual and cultural development, through the medium of fraternal association..." We pledge our collective efforts to the accomplishment of this mission in faithfulness to the Master who calls us even now and in response to the heavenly gift of the Fifth Epochal Revelation to our planet, Urantia.
In fellowship,
The Members of the General Council of Fifth Epochal Fellowship