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inherited them in Greek, and interpreted them literally. That is the hurdle Christianity must overcome in this post modern age now that the literal interpretation no longer makes sense.
Somewhat remarkably, this new interpretation is not far from what we read in the Urantia Book. God is seen, not as the theistic God of old, but as the Ground of our Being, a transcending reality present in the very heart of life--which roughly corresponds to The Urantia Book's existential Universal Father in Paradise and the indwelling Father-Spirit in the hearts and minds of finite individuals. And Spong sees Jesus as the human portrait of the meaning of God, understood as the source of life, the source of love and the ground of being. Again there is a close relationship with views expressed in the Papers.
Spong describes himself as a Christian in exile, but he is not alone. There are vast numbers of Christians sharing that exile, seeking release from the manacles that bind them to an outdated Christology and an outdated theistic God of reward and punishment.
Surely it was always the purpose of the Urantia revelation to help these exiles to find their way. So what have we done that is wrong? Where have we failed? For one, very few of us have learned to present "the living Jesus to the church that bears his name." And fewer still have fulfilled the task of presenting in our own lives for the world to see, "Jesus living again in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men.
In some ways Urantia Book readers have treated the Papers in the same way as Christians treated the Bible. They interpreted them literally. These Papers were never meant to be interpreted literally. If we look inside their wording we find all the signs of similarity to the Jewish midrash methodology. We need to look beneath the surface to find the meaning within the meaning. But our problem is far simpler than that facing outdated Christianity. The authors of the Urantia Papers told us where and how to look--and where their story would soon be outdated.
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