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High on Angels
Dick Bain, Hickory, N.C., U.S.A.
Do I believe in angels? Well...yes; but why am I so reluctant to say so? Could it be that angels are a little like Tinker Bell? Because they have wings and do magical things? Or perhaps it isn't respectable to believe in such magical beings. Have angels gotten bad press?
It seems to me that angels were the victims of 19th and 20th century rationalism. They were pulled down in the whirlpool along with spontaneous generation, ecclesiastical authority, jinns and familiars, the flat earth, earth-centered cosmology and a legion of other ancient ideas. They may also have lost appeal due to the Protestant revolution. The austere founders may have objected to the frothy cherubim and seraphim of the Catholic Church. But recently there has been a surge of interest in angels. Time magazine conducted a survey for a recent article, Angels Among Us. The article reported that 69% of the people surveyed believe in angels, and 46% believe that they have their own guardian angel. Is this just another New Age fad, or are people tired of rationalism and now searching for the spiritual? Will we return to the good old days when people accepted angels as part of the natural order of things?
All major western religions - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism - have hierarchies of angels. The Christian concepts of angels were inherited from Judaism. The Old Testament mentions specific angels at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Jewish Talmud speaks of seven archangels as the leaders of seven heavenly hosts. Rabbinic literature speaks of higher and lower angels. The prophet Mohammed said that he received the Koran over a 23 year period from the "angel" Gabriel. Moslem theology speaks of two angels, one on each shoulder. One records our good deeds while the other records our bad deeds. In the New Testament we learn of the "angel" Gabriel's visit to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Even today there are people who feel they have encountered an angel at some time. The Bible mentions angels about 300 times, but doesn't give much specific information about them. The Urantia Book does.
Seraphim are mentioned 240 times in The Urantia Book. There are 8 papers devoted entirely to the various orders of angels, and there are numerous other places in the book which mention their ministry to mortals and others. Obviously, the authors of the book felt that it was important for us to know about the ministry of angels; perhaps part of the reason was to correct our distorted ideas about the nature and mission of angels. but I suspect that an even more important reason for making us aware of their ministry is to encourage conscious co-operation with our unseen friends.
No doubt most of us would like to see an angel, but very few people say that they can see angels. This is no doubt fortunate, because much of the angels' work would be hampered if we could see them. And we would certainly be nervous if we were aware of their constant attention to us, especially when our motives are less than honorable. The angels can be made visible to us if there is a reason to do so. The Urantia Book states that the tradition of angels having wings got started when mortals were allowed to observe transport angels being readied for takeoff from our planet. The energy fields around them appeared to be wings to the mortal observers.
Students of The Urantia Book soon realize that angels are some of the unsung heroes on our world, especially guardian angels. Consider their challenges: they have to guide reluctant, lazy, materialistic mortals into situations that promote spiritual growth. And to make their task more interesting they can influence us only by manipulating external circumstances. It's sort of like playing ping-pong by remote control. Furthermore, it appears that they must work at least 12 hours per day, seven days per week, since there are two who take turns being on duty. One does the guardian's job and the other records the proceedings. But like mortals who run down and need to sleep, the guardian angel must take time periodically to spiritually recharge. The guardian's complement takes over the guardian tasks and a cherubim takes over the recording duties.
The job of guardian angel must be demanding and arduous because the seraphim are required to spend a long time qualifying for this job. Their training is as follows:
Noncommissioned observers of Salvington - 1 millennium
Salvington seraphic training school - 1 millennium
Observers on evolutionary planets - ? millennium
Advanced studies, constellation level - ? millennium
Further training, system level - ? milennium
Following the final training, the Seraphim are commissioned as ministering spirits to mortals like us. Of course, seraphim have many other types of occupations; guardian is only one possible avenue of service for them.
I suspect that most students of The Urantia Book accept the existence of angels; angels and their ministry to us are a significant part of the book. Our acceptance puts us in some unusual company. While many liberal Christians may regard angels as Christian mythology or even pleasant fairy tales from the distant past, more conservative Christians regard angels as real since angels are referred to often in the Bible. Dr. Billy Graham's book, Angels,
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