The Challenges of Faith in
the Quest for Cosmic Citizenship

In order to explore the content of our faith we need language and stories.  The religious language of sacred stories is created in the community of believers and cannot be fully understood outside this community.  But within the community, the religious language enables the act of faith to realize a richer content because it embodies the combined experience of many truth seekers.  Faith needs its language; without language and stories, faith could not be conscious of itself.  This is the reason why faith communities are important.

When we participate in study groups we not only study The Urantia Book, but we also become more aware of the experiences and insights of others; we are enriched and we contribute to the strengthening of faith by the manner in which we participate

1094:2  100:0.2 “Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with other religionists. Love supplies the soil for religious growth--an objective lure in the place of subjective gratification--yet it yields the supreme subjective satisfaction. And religion ennobles the commonplace drudgery of daily living.”

The problem which arises here is that the community itself, with its own needs and attractions, stands in danger of replacing the life of faith.  Communities of believers must evolve in a way which facilitates the relationship between God and each participant.  The challenge for the community is to learn how to mobilize faith in the hearts of believers without becoming obsessed with ideology, without becoming an idolatrous replacement for the spiritual faith which originally led to the creation of the community

1487:1  134:4.4-9  "Religious peace--brotherhood--can never exist unless all religions are willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign.

"You cannot have equality among religions (religious liberty) without having religious wars unless all religions consent to the transfer of all religious sovereignty to some superhuman level, to God himself.

"The kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men will create religious unity (not necessarily uniformity) because any and all religious groups composed of such religious believers will be free from all notions of ecclesiastical authority--religious sovereignty.

"God is spirit, and God gives a fragment of his spirit self to dwell in the heart of man. Spiritually, all men are equal. The kingdom of heaven is free from castes, classes, social levels, and economic groups. You are all brethren.

"But the moment you lose sight of the spirit sovereignty of God the Father, some one religion will begin to assert its superiority over other religions; and then, instead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dissensions, recriminations, even religious wars, at least wars among religionists.

"Freewill beings who regard themselves as equals, unless they mutually acknowledge themselves as subject to some supersovereignty, some authority over and above themselves, sooner or later are tempted to try out their ability to gain power and authority over other persons and groups. The concept of equality never brings peace except in the mutual recognition of some overcontrolling influence of supersovereignty."

Another problem faced by communities of believers deals with faith and doubt within the community of faith itself.  The question is whether the dynamic concept of faith is incompatible with a community defined by creedal expressions or which relies on shared beliefs for the maintenance of social coherence.  Such a situation will lead to problems if it excludes the element of doubt regarding the truth of the shared meanings which define the social boundaries of the community.  The concept of the “infallibility” of a creed, shared beliefs, a decision by a council, a bishop, or the contents of a book excludes doubt as an element of faith in those who subject themselves to these authorities.  They may have to struggle within themselves about their subjection; but after they have made the decision, no doubt can be admitted by them about the infallible statements of the authorities.  Such a faith has become static, a non-questioning surrender not only to the ultimate, but also to its symbolic expression as formulated by the religious authorities.  In this way something preliminary and conditional – the human interpretation of the content of faith is treated as if it were ultimate and is elevated above the risk of doubt.  This is idolatrous faith because its object is a human formulation which is merely representative of the infinite, but not the infinite itself.

When I speak of the “content of faith," I am referring to the stories, rituals of expression, and other factors which enable us to socialize our faith experience – to share it with other travelers on the journey. The "object of faith" is the infinite; the "content of faith" consists of the stories we tell ourselves and each other about the nature of the infinite and our relationship to it.

Pride and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed.  Doubt is overcome not by repression but by courage.  Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it accepts doubt as an inevitable expression of its inability to fully grasp the infinite.  Real courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction or belief.  Real courage enables us to live with the risk without which no creative life is possible.  Living faith is not a matter of doubtless certainty, but rather a matter of daring courage which accepts the possibility of failure. 

When we talk about the possibility of failure in relation to faith, it is important to understand that the real risk of faith is in the domain of what we have chosen to believe is true about reality as a result of our experience of the presence of the infinite.  There is always the chance that our beliefs have been constructed upon erroneous assumptions, or that they have been created by unmet needs of our unconscious minds. 

Without an element of doubt we lose the power to have a faith capable of powering an unending quest for truth which includes constant critical evaluation, discarding of illusions and restructuring of the content of faith.  Thus we are equipped to pursue the quest for the infinite itself, rather than becoming paralyzed by centering our lives on a set of beliefs which merely represent the infinite.

Communities of faith must be sure that they include a means for criticism and self-correction. The Urantia Book notes that “Religion can be kept free from unholy secular alliances only by . . .  a critically corrective philosophy.”  In this same section the revelators suggest guarding against fanaticism “by the compensations of the scientific mental attitude.”

One of the great dangers in the formation of religious communities is a paralysis of spiritual growth which occurs when members of the community construct their social identities out of the roles they imagine themselves to be playing in the community. This difficulty is compounded when those social roles are reinforced by other members of the community. Genuine spiritual growth will eventually demand the abandonment of identity based on roles played in human social systems.