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A Urantia CULT?
by Dick Bain, GA, USA
Now that I have your attention.... I'm sure that those of us in the Urantia community would give a vehement NO to such an idea, but the problem is that there are others who are not students of The Urantia Book who would give a different answer. Suppose that the late Heaven's Gate group recently of San Diego had mentioned The Urantia Book on their web site or if the book had been found in their rented home after their mass suicide. Perhaps some investigative reporters would have done an in-depth investigation of the Urantia community. Would their exposé portray us as a dangerous or weird cult?
Cult used to be a pretty respectable term. My 1979 Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines cult as:
1. Formal religious veneration. worship. 2. A system of religious beliefs also: its body of adherents. 3. A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious also its body of adherents. (Of special interest to us) 5.a. A great devotion to a person, idea or thing.
We would probably place our community in category #2 or #5a, but there are those who would place us in #3. Notice that there is no definition that fits the way "cult" is commonly used today. Today it has the connotation of a group that uses brain washing and mind control techniques to completely control its members.
On page 966, The Urantia Book uses "cult" in the older and more positive sense of the word when it advises that a cult needs to develop based on our highest and best religious ideals. There is no doubt that someone looking to condemn The Urantia Book would seize on this and use it to condemn the book and our community. But we would be amiss if we did not admit that there has been at least one group associated with our community that began to look like a cult?
Suppose that a decade or so ago, shortly before a certain group out in California disbanded, an investigative reporter heard rumors about this group. Then suppose the reporter had visited the group's headquarters and had observed the preparations for nuclear holocaust--the weapons, the fortifications, the stocks of food, as well as the fact that the group's leader was sequestered away in an upstairs command post.
Suppose the reporter found out that the leader was following orders supposedly channeled to him from high spiritual authorities? If this was all the reporter knew about the Urantia community and reported it as such, it certainly could have created a long lasting negative impression in the public mind about our community.
Most people I know in our Urantia community are well balanced and responsible citizens of the larger culture. But when we deal with the perceptions of people who are not part of our community, we don't necessarily deal with reality, we deal with reality after it has been filtered through their prejudices and preconceived notions.
Fortunately, such an exposé didn't happen, but it certainly could have. There are Urantia groups today that lean toward the negative type of cultism. I doubt that there will ever be a Branch Davidian type confrontation such as occurred in Waco, Texas, but it's not impossible either. We have limited knowledge of what's going on in some of these closed groups.
If the media does give the book and the community extensive negative publicity due to some sensational incident, how will we deal with it?
While we may not be able to prevent such incidents from happening, we can do something beforehand to dilute the damage. It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum. In the absence of real knowledge, all sorts of nonsense can rush in to fill the void, and right now the public perception of The Urantia Book and the Urantia community is mostly a void. It would be excellent if there were a general perception of our community as a positive spiritual force in our world. How can we fill the void with positive information?
Would it be wise to use advertising to create a positive image? I doubt that advertising by itself can fill the void, though there may be a way in which it can be helpful. I am impressed by the TV advertisement sponsored by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) that offers a free tape about improving family life. Is advertising of this kind something we should consider? While this sort of effort may be of some help, I believe that something is needed that requires a personal investment from us.
On page 852 of the book, the authors tell us that we must: "do something as well as be something." What we are is a collection of study groups; what we do is mainly study The Urantia Book. The two major organizations connected with The Urantia Book are focused on activities related to the book and to study groups. These organizations are not philosophically or organizationally oriented toward outreach; their activities seem to focus mainly on encouraging the formation of study groups and promotion of the book.
Whatever the case, service outside the Urantia community does not seem to be high on the priority list of either organization. This is not to criticize the organizations; they are doing very valuable work. But the lack of any national organization to promote service work leaves the job to individuals and study groups. Doing service work is important, but our motives for
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