My Introduction to The Urantia Book

It is difficult, if not impossible, to adequately review a complex 2000 page book in thirty or forty minutes. So I have elected to share with you how I found The Urantia Book, make a few general statements about its content, and then open the meeting to a discussion period.

I have placed an Introduction sheet to The Urantia Book on the tables, which gives an outline of the book’s content, sources of publication, basic theological positions, and organizations associated with the book. I have also placed a pamphlet on “The Origin of The Urantia Book” on the tables because usually the first thing people wish to know about The Urantia Book is who wrote it – what are the circumstances of its origin.

Thomas Kuhn in his classic book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions points out that it is almost impossible, even for experts in any scientific field, to introduce a new paradigm in that scientific field. It usually takes generations to make this transition. It is even more difficult to bring a new paradigm into the field of theology and religion. This is probably good because evolution is a more constructive methodology of change than disruptive revolution.

Although The Urantia Book reinforces and enhances the basic truths of traditional Christian theology and the best spiritual insights of the major religions of the world, it does present a new paradigm of spiritual reality. After forty years of critical study and evaluation, I am confident that in the centuries to come The Urantia Book will be generally recognized as one of the major spiritual touch-stones on our planet.

You may be interested in knowing how I came across this unusual and challenging book. In December of 1955, my wife, Irene, and I stopped in to visit our friends Dr. and Mrs. Edward Brueseke. Dr. Brueseke was pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Sound Bend, Indiana. During the course of our visit, Ed reached over and handed me a large blue book saying, “Judge Hammerschmidt gave me this book. Some businessmen think it’s a new Bible.” I opened the book to the Table of Contents and read chapter titles like: “The Nature of God” – author, A Divine Counselor; “The Universe of Universes” – author, A Perfector of Wisdom; “Personalities of the Grand Universe” – author, A Mighty Messenger. This was enough to turn me off and strike me as ludicrous. We had a good laugh about Judge Hammerschmidt’s naivete and I assumed that was the last I would ever see of the book.

Judge Louis Hammerschmidt was a prominent member of Zion Church and a respected layperson in the larger United Church of Christ. He was instrumental in bringing a Children’s Hospital to Sound Bend and he had donated a chapel to Elmhurst College. Hammerschmidt was also the lay member of our Indiana-Michigan Conference Council. At the time I was Vice-President of the Indiana-Michigan Conference and I picked up Hammerschmidt for our January Council meeting in Jackson, Michigan.

During the drive to Jackson, Judge cautiously mentioned his tentative investigation of Spiritualism. He had lost his wife about ten years before. What he found in Spiritualism did not impress him. When he saw that I was not disturbed by this discussion, he said, “Say, I’ve got a book that I would like to have you read and tell me what you think about it.” I knew what was coming, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I said, “O. K., Judge, send it to me.”

In about a week I received this big blue book. I tried various times to read sections but just couldn’t get interested; and I didn’t want to waste my time reading 2000 pages of what appeared to be gobbledygook. Because of the esoteric names, I thought maybe it was some form of theosophy. I even took it along on vacation that summer, but things didn’t get boring enough to prompt me to read it. Finally, in September I realized that I would be in a meeting with Hammerschmidt in October and I had to read something to get off the hook. I decided to read a small section and tell him what I thought about it.

In examining the Table of Contents again, I was reminded that it had a section of the Life and Teachings of Jesus. I though with my academic theological background I could make short work of this text. I had read the apocryphal stories of the boy Jesus making clay birds and then turning them to life and this did not impress me. I had read books like The Aquarian Gospel and its philosophical-theological slanting was very obvious to me. As I started reading, I did not find what I had expected to find. It had the ring of reasonable historicity. When the narrative progressed to the story of John the Baptist and paralleled the New Testament account, I was deeply impressed. Sometimes I would read with tears running down my face. When I finished The Urantia Book account, I not only realized it was solidly rooted in the New Testament realities, but was the most profound and inspiring Life and Teaching of Jesus in print.

Thus motivated by the high quality of this 700 page Life and Teachings of Jesus, I began reading the Forward and read the entire book. It is the most complete and integrated picture of science, philosophy, and religion I have ever read. Its enlarged description of Spiritual Reality was mind-boggling. After contemplating this new paradigm of Reality for some time, I said to myself, “If this is not an authentic picture of Reality, it is the way it ought to be!”

I contacted Judge Hammerschmidt to inquire as to where he had gotten the book and he informed me that a friend, Mr. W. F. Harrah, the co-founder of the National-Standard Co., had given him the book. Mr. Harrah was a member of a group in Chicago who received the papers. A luncheon meeting was arranged with William Harrah who informed me that Dr. William S. Sadler was the leader of the group who published the book. I knew Dr. Sadler by reputation. He is sometimes referred to as the father of American psychiatry and I had friends who tad taken his course of Pastoral Counseling at McCormick Theological Seminary.

Mr. Harrah wrote me a check to get copies of the book to share with around a dozen of my young ministerial colleagues. All but one, who admitted that he did not read the book, were as impressed as I was. On May 7, 1958 our ministerial group arranged a meeting with Dr. Sadler to begin research on the origin of The Urantia Book. This is a story, which we probably do not have time to relate today, but the origin pamphlet summarizes the basic findings of this research.

AN APPROACH TO A TIME OF TESTING FOR THE Urantia BOOK

I should like to conclude the formal part of this presentation by suggesting an approach to a time of testing for this remarkable book. The basic theological positions of The Urantia Book, as I have said, reinforce the essential tenets of mainline Christianity, but on a vastly enlarged universe scale. Without mass media publicity or promotion, the book has sold more than 250,000 copies. Translations are available in French, Spanish, and Finnish. Work continues on the Dutch and Russian translations, with editions in Korean, German, Swedish, Hungarian and Italian translations on the drawing board. In the judgment of tens of thousands of discriminating people, including many ministers, the book contains the greatest stimulus to spiritual growth in contemporary literature. It certainly merits critical examination and evaluation by all who are seriously interested in the future of religion on our world.

Since The Urantia Book purports to be the Fifth Epochal Revelation, authored by supermortal personalities, it is important to have a clear understanding of the philosophic criteria of truth necessary in evaluating such claim. First of all, claim of authority is not a philosophic criterion of truth. Secondly, knowing the origin and/or authorship of a book may give some insights, but it is not a reliable philosophic criterion of truth. Whether supermortals or human beings wrote the book, it must be evaluated by the quality of its content, not by what it claims, or who may have written it.

The central objective in evaluating The Urantia Book is to assess the quality of its spiritual truth and insight. This must be done by individuals using their total capacity to evaluate its philosophic coherence and experiential spiritual relevance. Is the spiritual quality and insights of the book inferior to, equal with, or superior to our traditional sources of spiritual truth? During this period of testing, gradually a consensus will evolve regarding its quality. If the general opinion is negative, the book will fade into obscurity. If the consensus is positive, continued evaluation will determine the level of its spiritual resource, or does it have the quality of revelation? My philosophic hypothesis is that if it has the spiritual quality of revelation, its influence will continue to grow in the church, the society, and the world.