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"Modern culture must become spiritually baptized with a new revelation of Jesus' life and illuminated with a new understanding of his gospel of eternal salvation " (2084)
There is an enormous latent potential in the congregations of mainstream Christianity waiting to be awakened to the new revelation. But the sole method of its introduction cannot be restricted to a direct acceptance of The Urantia Book per se, a fact admitted in the above references that refer to "a new revelation" in a manner that is not self-referential. Then, in the next quotation that specifically states "this revelation" (i.e. The Urantia Book) the presentation of the living Jesus to the Christian churches is to be through the revelation and not necessarily by it.
"What a transcendent service if; through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions." (2090)
The means and the method? - elsewhere we are told:
"And this was his (Jesus) method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed so to embellish and illuminate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error " (1455)
Confrontation is useless, and not the way of Jesus. There is no gain to be made in, for example, attacking the creation theory of the fundamentalists--and there is no need. There are far more important things that should concern us, for example, the truth that the spirits of the Father and the Son indwell us to lead us to ardently seek the perfection of God as revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus. Reference is made to this information in the gospel of John (14:16, 23) and the letters of Paul (Romans 8: 14-16; Gal. 4: 6), but interpretation has become confused and its relative importance has been submerged in traditional theology. The Urantia Book clarifies this for us and gives us the task of restoring the proper priority for such teachings.
Similarly, there is no point (and no need) to argue against the doctrines of original sin or atonement through the cross. If we just teach that, for Jesus, reality was a gracious and compassionate God, the profound truths implied fly this apparently simple statement of fact will eventually crowd out such error. We must realize that the revelators are not so much concerned with how we get their message through as with the requirement that ue do get it through. Acceptance of the revelatory nature of the book is not paramount. It will come in its own good time.
There are many basic teachings contained in the igospels the importance of which is clarified for us in The Urantia Book. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel is very close to the version given in the Ordination Sermon in Part 4 of the book. The true meaning of some parts of the gospel account that may be misinterpreted or perhaps partially overlooked are reinterpreted more explicitly in the book. Also the book provides an expanded explanation of the meaning and significance of the gospel accounts of the parables.
Of the parables, among the most important are the three that Jesus was very partial to recounting together (1853). These were the parable of the lost Sleep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son that illustrate the Father's willingness to receive all who seek entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke J5), when the son returns with the aim of throwing himself at his father's feet to plead for forgiveness, the father does not wait for the prodigal to do this but rushes out to meet him and welcome him home--even before the son can ask for forgiveness. Here, we are touchingly reminded of the true nature of our heavenly Father, a nature that is totally incompatible with the notion that the forgiving of our sinfulness was ever conditional upon the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, on a cross.
Together these three parables provide an excellent example of truths that, of their own accord, have the potential to painlessly displace error--if repeated well enough and often enough. But the truth about forgiveness should have always been obvious to theologians since the New Testament gospels tell us that Jesus often forgave sin before he was crucified. Our personal opinion is that one of the most effective ways to introduce Christianity to the living Jesus depicted in The Urantia Book is through children's stories. There are many ways to restate Jesus' parables, as expanded or explained in the book. in a manner that is consistent with the gospel versions and, when read by parents to young children, will not only hold the attention of the children, but will also rub off painlessly on the parents. And besides the traditional bedtime story, modern technology presents vast new opportunities by use of electronic media, interactive computer programs, virtual reality, etc.
Many other examples could be given but this is really the task of those "farseeing and forward-looking" individuals referred to by the Divine Counselor in our first quotation from the book. One of the subsequent quotations requires that we present the truth of the living Jesus, not only to the Christian churches but also to all other religions! If you think fundamentalist and some fringe group Christians present a formidable task, give thought to presenting the truth about the living Jesus to Islam.
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