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arrogant. To stand aside from the stream of religious life on this planet, convinced that we possess The Truth is a delusion of grandeur. It is a tragic fallacy to believe that we have a pure revelation needing protection from contamination through contact with the evolutionary religions of our world. Only fundamentalist or markedly ecclesiocentric organizations did not participate actively in the Parliament.
In The Urantia Book, revelation is conceived of as a process, not a static product etched in ink and paper. In much of the text, the revelators resort to pure revelation. But the text is also studded with more than a thousand of the highest existing human concepts gathered from the early part of this century--a ratio of one concept to every two pages. These concepts are destined to become outdated. Such is the wisdom of the revelators; the book itself is a mixed evolutionary/revelatory deposit in the evolutionary stream of planetary history.
The book has not yet entered into the evolutionary stream of this planet, but many of its "concepts representing the highest and most advanced planetary knowledge" (17) are no longer so advanced. Some--certainly most of the science--are entirely outdated. Evolving religious experience and theology (not to mention advances in science and philosophy) have left many of these notions behind in dusty shelves in used bookstores. Other features of our "revelation," such as the Book's use of sexist language are, in my view, completely outdated.
For this and other reasons, I believe that Urantia Book readers can profit from dialogue with contemporary religions and theologies, as much as they can from us. I have personally benefited from study and dialogue with such late-20th century developments as feminist and liberation theology, current discoveries in Christology, new truths emerging from four decades of Buddhist-Christian dialogue, progressive new auto-revelations such as the Baha'i religion, theological reflections on the new physics and biology, and the rapidly emerging methodologies of interfaith dialogue and "global theology."
It is true, of course, that many readers did participate in the Parliament as individuals. Most could be found helping at an advertising booth sponsored by the Urantia Fellowship. More than 70 exhibits were available, manned by a great swirl of traditional religions, modern sects, new religious movements, religious foundations, and publishers.
It is notable that long-time Book reader, Peter Lawrence, executive director of the New York-based interfaith organization known as the Temple of Understanding, represented his organization in the formal meetings of the Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. A committee of the Fellowship, but not the Fellowship itself, is also a member of the North American Interfaith Network, which met at the Parliament.
A profile of the parliament
The plenary sessions were the major events of the week. These covered such topics as "Interfaith Understanding", "What Shall We Do?", "Visions of Paradise", "Voices of the Disposessed", "The Inner Life", and "The Inner Life in the Community." Deep exchanges of religious thought and feeling occurred in these large forums, and scores of smaller sessions and panels. Many sessions, such as "What Shall We Do?" and "Voices of the Dispossessed", also provided an unprecedented encounter of the world's religious leaders with the political and ethical issues raised by science and technology, the global environment, and problems of overpopulation, war (including religiously-motivated violence), politics, media, and economics.
An innovative forum called "The Parliament of the People" provided a vehicle for lay religionists to communicate their concerns about critical global and religious issues to the formal "Assembly of Religious and Spiritual Leaders." The Assembly was comprised of 150 of the most important religious and spiritual leaders in the world. It met for the last three days of the week at the Art Institute of Chicago, site of the original Parliament.
A "Concert for the 21st Century" was held in Grant Park on the final day. The closing ceremony (held on the same stage) was keynoted in a speech by the Dalai Iama of Tibet, with 20,000 in attendance.
The Parliament of World Religions was more than an opportunity for interfaith sharing. It also produced some concrete results: foremost was probably the adoption by the Assembly of a common statement, the Declaration of a Global Ethic. It also produced an unprecedented challenge to the religionists of the world in the form of the report to the Parliament of World Religions from the secular/scientific community, the Global 2000 Report Revisited: What Shall We Do? In addition, it witnessed an encounter among specialists and theologians in the "Conference on Pluralism".
Models of interfaith dialogue
Throughout the week, lay people, theologians, and religious leaders grappled with various approaches to interfaith dialogue. All of us, even the proselytizers, were swept up into a vast experience in sharing and listening.
Speaker after speaker advocated that each of us listen openly and graciously to the
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