Some things for the TRUSTEES OF THE Urantia
FOUNDATION
and the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE of the
Urantia BROTHERHOOD CORPORATION to ponder
An unofficial "White Paper" related to book distribution
by Clyde Bedell
(Handwritten date on typed original is 4/76)
INTRODUCTION
Submitted by Clyde Bedell who - (a) due to 50years of Sadler-Urantia contact, (b) mainstream intimate association with hundreds of Urantia BOOK READERS by correspondence and long-distance telephone, and (c) persisting association with quite a few old-time readers and lovers of the BOOK - is perhaps as nearly constantly conscious of Urantia BOOK readers and distribution problems away from headquarters as almost anyone.
In contemplating writing to you, I intended saying at the end of this letter something I believe I should say here too. This: I have never yet been disloyal to you people at headquarters. Critical on occasion, yes, but when the chips are down, my loyalty is always with you and will continue to be. I write in hoping to help you. If I cannot help, I certainly will never turn against you.
So, I ask you to read this paper objectively, as though you were standing aside with me, and viewing the Brotherhood (and Urantia Foundation) from outside, as highly intelligent and fair-minded strangers, who - nevertheless - with all your hearts, want the Urantia BOOK to prevail on this earth, and the BROTHERHOOD AND THE Urantia FOUNDATION to play as important a role in its success as possible, consistently, at all times.
We are all Urantians together, serving the same Master. If what I say here has ANY value, it may be worth reading, and re-reading, and pondering seriously. For it is possible our organizations in this vastly troubled, desperately sick world are not far from a crisis level.
PURPOSES AND OBJECTS OF Urantia FOUNDATION AND BROTHERHOOD -- OUR ORGANIZATIONS
MAY I respectfully suggest you read (as we all should read with some frequency the following few words: From the DECLARATION OF TRUST CREATING THE Urantia FOUNDATION (1/11/1950)
ARTICLE II
OBJECTS
2.1 PRINCIPAL OBJECT: The object for which the Urantia Foundation is created is the promotion.of the true teachings of Jesus Christ.through the fostering of a religion, a philosophy, and a cosmology which are commensurate with Man's intellectual and cultural development.
2.2 CONCORDANT OBJECTS: The concordant object for which the Urantia Foundation is created is to perpetually preserve inviolate the text of the Urantia BOOK and to disseminate the principles, teachings, and doctrines of the Urantia BOOK.
From the PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD
".It is our considered judgment that the purposes.may best be accomplished through the mutual assistance and association of a body of people working together for a common cause; we do hereby unite."
From the CONSTITUTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD
ARTICLE II
PURPOSE The purposes of the Urantia BROTHERHOOD are the study and dissemination of the teachings of the Urantia BOOK: the promotion, improvement, and expansion among the people of the world.(emphasis added by present writer.)
It should be noted that even when PRESERVATIONAND PROTECTION of the TEXT is mentioned as a primary object of the Urantia FOUNDATION, an immediate concordant and equal purpose is dissemination. Establishment of a BRTOHERHOOD doesn't discharge that purpose. The Urantia FOUNDATION still has the fundamental responsibility through the Brotherhood. We are, as UrantiaNS, ALL responsible for promotion and dissemination, ALL OF US.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
WE HAVE TO BELIEVE that the Urantia movement is worthy of money, of contributions of people of very modest and moderate means, and people of wealth as well. What kind of program is being carried on intelligently and professionally to raise money? Wise executives of all charitable, religious, or other organizations that must depend upon contributions raise money before they need it.
Raising money is not difficult. A few years ago, Father Flanagan's Boy's Town in Omaha was found to have $209,000,000 in the bank, while pleading for more, and they had only 700 boys in their institution. Shouldn't we be able to raise a few thousand?
Today, hundreds of institutions are raising many millions of dollars by mail alone, with almost no validity - many in the names of religious organizations FROM A RELATIVELY small closed group of "Forum members" who met at 533 many years ago, enough money was raised to set the entire 2,100 pages of the Urantia BOOK in type, and then to make copper letter press printing plates from that type.
Thus, the first edition of the Book cost the NEW Urantia FOUNDATION in 1955, only the price of Paper, presswork, and binding. That gave the great BOOK its start. It sold for $10.000, and made enough for a second printing.
Yet, now with many thousands of readers replacing fewer than 100, do we believe money cannot be raised to do whatever we feel may be necessary to carry on this world's most important work for the Master? Not enough money for legal fees, not enough money for sufficient help? Not enough money to justify distribution of the Book through normal wholesale channels?
Of course, it is desirable to sell it at $20.00. It would also be desirable to sell it at $15.00, or $10.00. It could be sold in a VERY DURABLE, flexible cover at even less. I don't think a really careful study has been made of that.
But is the $20.00 price sacred? If the new printing could be priced at #22.00 or $22.50 the Urantia FOUNDATION could allow a sufficient discount to enable regular book distributors who serve the book trade all over the United States to distribute the Urantia BOOK.
If the Urantia BOOK were handled in normal channels of distribution, the Brotherhood would have only 3 or 4 or so accounts in place of 1,200 bookstore accounts. Books would ship primarily from your printer to your distributors.
Individuals could still order from you. Your people would simply receive checks, address pressure sensitive labels to single cartons, affix postage, and put them out for the mail pickup. Think of the saving in time and handling.
DE VORSS & CO., your sole jobber-wholesaler through 1975, who sold Urantia BOOKS last year do not sell the Urantia BOOK in 1976. They have sold several thousand Urantia BOOKS in the past few years.
The Urantia FOUNDATION and BROTHERHOOD allowed De Vorss, a large book wholesaler the same 40% discount they allow a small bookstore. De Vorss needed and took 15% of the 40% and offered the Urantia BOOK at 25% off on a short discount page in their catalog, along with a few other books.
Had Urantia been able to give them 50% they would have relieved headquarters of all the chores of handling, unpacking, repacking, addressing, mailing, billing, collecting, credit checking, etc., and worked on only 10% themselves!
One wonders, in view of the scant $1.85 "gross profit" you have on every book sold to book stores, if you aren't LOSING MONEY on every book you handle to stores, besides using precious time of people who might be doing far more important work for the brotherhood or Urantia Foundation than wrestling physical packages and bookkeeping.
While De Vorss was handling Urantia BOOKS I never heard them criticized. Since they are not handling Urantia BOOKS, I have heard them criticized for handling books on the Occult and Mysticism. They handle all sorts or religious books. If the Urantia BOOK cannot be handled by such distributors and such bookstores, we will further and permanently suppress its distribution.
PLEASE: I instance this - not to be critical - but to illustrate the fact that a staff of overworked full-time people with little authority have neither the time nor clout nor experience to adequately do the research and analysis to provide essential facts and material on which sound decisions can be based.
Extremely harassed part-time top executives, already overworked and already oppressed and time-short, with no facilities nor background for analytical ferreting-out of alternatives, simply cannot do what headquarters work demands in the way of research, fact-finding, surveys, and analyses.
MANY years ago, as a business consultant, I joined every executive in a now vastly valuable corporation (7-11 Stores, Texas) in voting against raising the price of Cokes to 30 cents for a 6-pack in all 7-11 outlets, when EVERYONE ELSE was selling them for 25 cents. Cliff Wheeler, a District Manager, youngest man among us had made a careful survey, had interviewed many people. I didn't know that 7-11 Stores were open when all other stores were closed. He contended that as convenience outlets, 7-11 could get more and were entitled to it. We all said, "No!"
Capitalist, Jody Thompson, principal owner, and President, smelling a possible plus profit, said: "It won't hurt to try."
That extra nickel made 7-11 $250,000 EXTRA PROFIT the first year and many millions since!
Wheeler had dug in and had the basis for an intelligent decision, for a radical change from the "way it had always been done." The rest of us were voting hunches, guesses, and intuition.
I SUGGEST that headquarters presently has no personnel, no plan, no setup, for finding out facts essential to certain intelligent important decisions. The ARTICLES OF TRUST that set up the Urantia FOUNDATION, and the PREAMBLE and the CONSITITUTION OF THE BROTHERHOOD should be re-read at least every 90 days by all of us who are devoted to the Urantia movement. And we should ask ourselves if we are really sensitively, precisely aware of the tasks to which we have set our hands.
Today, important decisions in connection with the Revelators' work may have to be made after sitting and deliberating with the same few people, and errors that will handicap and haunt the future for years to come can be made.
Does it not seem logical that more help is needed at 533, of a caliber that can match the heads of other important, fast-operating institutions - and that can relieve overworked top people, like Christy and Tom Kendall and Paul Snider?
FULL-TIME EXECUTIVE MANAGER FOR THE Urantia FOUNDATION
You will have observed that I am addressing myself to problems of both the Urantia FOUNDATION and the BROTHERHOOD. It seems logical to do so. The Urantia FOUNDATION is the BASIC, PARENT organization. The BROTHERHOOD was created to implement the second half of the purpose for which the Urantia FOUNDATION was established. The two consonant purposes are inseparable in a manner of speaking. Were there a properly functioning Urantia FOUNDATION FULL-TIME ADMINISTRATOR OR EXECUTIVE, leading directly to the Urantia FOUNDATION PRESIDENT, that full-time administrator would inevitably cooperate in intimate relationship with the BROTHERHOOD President, who might NOT be a full-time person.
Considerable BROTHERHOOD function might be delegated to the FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE OR ADMINISTRATOR. This is not necessary to be discussed here, but it is easy to see that the potential for a full-time person devoted to the advancement of the coordinated OBJECTIVES of both the Urantia FOUNDATION and the BROTHERHOOD would be immense.
If the Urantia BROTHERHOOD arranged for conventional distribution of the Urantia BOOK, the time and money saved would go a considerable way toward helping finance A VERY CAREFULLY SELECTED CAPABLE FULL-TIME ADMINISTRATOR who could take 65% of the load (or more) off the shoulders of both Christy and Tom Kendall, and give them time for Urantia THINKING AND THE PURELY SENSITIVE UrantiaN things others can't do. They could project operating detail.
Such a person would also work as a money-raiser and should raise at least 3 to 5 times, and perhaps 10 times or more, his own salary per year.
He would have to be selected, not by hunch or because a committee liked his personality, or because he was personable, or because he knew the Urantia BOOK intimately, but because he (1) met the intellectual, personality, occupational requirements, and (2) because he LOVED and BELIEVED IN THE Urantia BOOK.
He would have to be proved open-minded and willing to become a 100% UrantiaN, not dedicated to transforming UrantiaNS to his particular beliefs and methods.
I have heard it said that no one should become a headquarters executive who is not already a longtime and thoroughly versed student of the Urantia BOOK. That is certainly desirable, but if Bill Sadler were alive, a most capable and well-proven personnel advisor, he would quickly dispel anyone of that notion.
Given the proper qualifications, it is important that any headquarters' executive (1) be convinced that the Urantia BOOK is a genuine revelation and that he wants to study it, live by it, and advance its truths, and (2) be OPEN-MINDED, OBJECTIVE, COOPERATIVE, OUTGOING, (3) along with the requirements mentioned above.
IT IS FAR EASIER TO GIVE TRUE Urantia COLORATION TO A DEDICATED OPEN-MINDED, EXCELLENT EXECUTIVE, than it is to make a capable, open-minded, outgoing, objective executive out of a PROFESSED UrantiaN who is introvertish, closed-minded, subjective, reluctant to take suggestions, resistant to others' ideas, and an organizational irritant.
IF WHAT I SAY NOW, sounds like an indictment, I indict myself. For I have never made this suggestion before. PONDER THIS: The Urantia BOOK has been on earth 20 years, plus. Yes, I know it was not intended we should use it to make a great splash. I know all about the "low-profile". (That has been used perhaps more as an excuse for doing little, than as an explanation of a carefully planned well-executed series of "5-year plans" for dissemination and promotion [but muted], that we probably should have had.
THE FOUNDATION EXISTS to establish THE BOOK'S COSMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, and RELIGION, and to disseminate the GOSPEL OF JESUS (DECLARATION OF TRUTH). And the fact that after 20 years we do not have a remarkably qualified executive head of the FOUNDATION full-time is shocking and an indictment of us all.
I believe this is the year we should formally resolve to do something about it. Is there any business more important on earth?
Can the focus of responsibility fall anywhere but on the TRUSTEES of the Urantia Foundation, on the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE of the BROTHERHOOD, and all of us old-timer UrantiaNS, and not so old, who feel a great love for the BOOK, and some sense of responsibility toward it? The rallying of support for whatever headquarters decides to do must come from headquarters. Prayers are not enough. God helps those who help themselves.
THE NEED FOR Urantia DYNAMISM
I BELIEVE the Urantia BOOK is here to change the world. I do not believe it was placed in our hands to hold until the eager and the curious come and take it away from us. Jesus' religion was a religion of dynamics! Jesus changed the negative Golden Rule of all other religions to be a positive Golden Rule. He said: "DO UNTO OTHERS.". You can't sit idly and be a Jesusonian Christian. He said: ".assume obligations of sonship". (1750A); also, you are to be ".aggressive in the preaching of this gospel of the kingdom, even to the ends of the earth,." (1931D) Ever his exhortation was: "Go seek for the sinners, find the downhearted, and comfort the anxious,." (1543B)
There was nothing passive about Jesus or his ministry. He didn't sit and wait. He "wiggled". He moved and he instructed movement, action.
There must be some happy medium between an objectionable forwardness, a blatant ministry on the one hand, and a passivity that is barely distinguishable from reacting only when it seems necessary, or planning a minimum of activity to avoid the appearance of stagnation, on the other.
Of the "twenty-four" Jesus asked: "Are you fearful, soft, and ease-seeking?.or will you gird yourselves to go forward with me.?" (1730B) Jesus said: "Go forth proclaiming.God is your Father and you are his sons, and this good news if you wholeheartedly believe it is your eternal salvation,." (1593A)
Again and again he said: "Go into all the world", and preach the gospel. He said: "Go to all the world proclaiming." (2033B) "Go into the land of the gentiles, proclaim the gospel,." (2049A) He said: "Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,." (1681D)
He didn't wait for people to come seek him out.
Dr. Sadler and his early Forum members spent endless hours and much substance, employed legal talent, and again and again, read and re-read and furbished documents which became the DECLARATION OF TRUST CREATING THE Urantia FOUNDATION in 1950, and later the CONSTITUTION OF THE Urantia BROTHERHOOD CORPORATION.
The DECLARATION OF TRUST, primary document of the Urantia movement has as its PRINCIPLE OBJECT, declared in ARTICLE II, the fostering of a religion, philosophy, and cosmology, commensurate with Man's intellectual and cultural development. The same ARTICLE names as CONCORDANT OBJECTS two things, and only two. They are, and I quote: ".to perpetually preserve inviolate the text of THE Urantia BOOK, and to disseminate the principles, teachings, and doctrines of THE Urantia BOOK."
The BROTHERHOOD'S CONSTITUTION AND ITS PREAMBLE immediately make clear purpose of ".dissemination of the teachings of the Urantia BOOK", and ".the promotion.among the peoples of the world.of the teachings of Jesus Christ." (As well as much else.)
The Urantia Foundation and the Brotherhood were established (I believe it is clear, and their official documents of foundation make clear) not as passive organizations but as active and dynamic organizations. If the Brotherhood is to take its cue from the Master, it should be reaching out, quietly, yes, but actively. If it is to abide by its own CONSTITUTION's PREAMBLE and CONSTITUTION, it should be reaching out - yes.
It should be seeking to distribute as many Urantia BOOKS as it can consistent with the dynamics of the responsibility the BROTHERHOOD faces, in character with the BOOK itself, but surely too in keeping with the facts of life and the opportunity this terrible age and its spiritual hunger presents.
We can err on the side of timidity as well as on the side of brashness. I believe in my personal distribution of BOOKS, (aside from my first foolish and lavish distribution of 200 Books from the first edition, before we had learned any sensible discretion, when we thought everyone would welcome the BOOK as we did). I have been too timid and careful - fearful lest some prominent person might do the BOOK harm.
Have we been fearful of putting this new truth amidst old beliefs because we were cautioned to be careful? Jesus told his apostles to let the Spirit of Truth do his own work. (1932B) Perhaps we should do the same.
If we have faith in our unseen friends we must be willing to take some small risks. They can handle on occasion what we can't when we err.
Jesus was not timid. He said: "My mission will not bring peace.Nevertheless, go into all the world proclaiming this gospel to all nations, to every man, woman, and child." (1824D)
Jesus didn't pussyfoot. To Simon, kindly but: ".you still do not know what you are talking about." (1956C)
When Jesus admonished Nathaniel, (2049A), ".serve your fellow men,." this was hardly a unique and individual admonition.
The world is more in crisis today than it was in Jesus' time. Were Jesus here today, it is not likely he would dawdle, or modify his instructions and make them more passive. It is hard to put a construction on the Revelators' mandate that would not validate a somewhat more effective and dynamic program of BOOK DISTRIBUTION than the FOUNDATION-BROTHERHOOD exhibits. An observer might almost ask if ours is a program of SUPPRESSION?
ARE WE DOING OUR JOB?
IT USED to take decades, even centuries, for a religious book to be considered a "Christian Classic" with sales in excess of a million copies. Current "Christian Classics" include THE LIVING BIBLE, over 18 million copies; the LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH" has sold over 6,000,000 copies; "REACH OUT", over 4,000,000; "HALLEY'S BIBLE HANDBOOK", over 3 million; Taylor's "THE WAY", over 3 million; and so on, more than 20 more, all in the past 5 years more than a million copies!
Yes, all sell for less than $20.00. I mention them simply to indicate the great thirst for, and interest in, Christian literature.
And in 20 years, we have sold 58,000, (2,900 a year) of the Urantia BOOK, and instead of issuing memoranda pledging to do very much better, we congratulate ourselves.
MEANWHILE, the week does not pass that I do not receive literature about books that are selling popularly through THE LITERARY GUILD, THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB, SUNSET MAGAZINE, TIME-LIFE BOOKS, and various other PUBLISHERS at prices ranging upwards from $17.95 to #39.95 or more. They do not advertise these books in full-color brochures without test mailings first. This means they sell in volume new ones week after week!
The high priced books I mention usually run less than 500 pages, yes with colored illustrations, but usually to be looked at or read once and then placed on a table or bookshelf. We are timid about raising a 2,100 page book from $20.00 to $22.00 or $22.50 Are we perhaps too timid about the value of the LORD'S revelation to this desperately needy world?
Stop for a moment. Think of the last person you know who bought a Urantia BOOK. No matter how hard it was financially for that person to raise the $20.00, would he or she have failed to buy it had it been $22.50? Would she or he have said: "Well, I see it is $22.50. If it had been $20.00, I would have bought it. It was something I wanted, but not at $22.50!"
JESUS SAID: "Every tradesman deserves wages for his services; the merchant is entitled to his hire." (1464A) Isn't the Urantia Foundation attempting to say: "We do not believe this. We will shortcut the regular methods of trade and beat the book tradesman, the regular wholesaler, out of his profit by performing his function with our office people. As long as we do not have accurate costs, and it appears to be profitable, we can keep our price lower than it should be. Our Revelation is not worth what in regular trade it should bring."
Would it not be wise to have a competent outside printing expert (not affiliated in any way with the Urantia Foundation) now carefully appraise the whole purchasing procedure from the standpoint of our customers and the FOUNDATION'S current problems? Might you not find out you can save money, for instance, on very expensive individual cartons that book stores throw away? Cartons you need for books shipped to individuals, but that are garbage and rat-holed dollars on books to stores, which must be 2/3 or more of your sales? Some 40 cents or more per book?
If you had a full-time FOUNDATION EXECUTIVE he could do such research as some I have done, a little of which I suggest above as to the enormous sales currently of religious books.
The FOUNDATION should know ALL ABOUT THIS. And, whether or not it has all the retail outlets it should have, and whether or not it is doing all or what it should be doing to increase its outlets.
It should know whether or not its decision to drop De Vorss was right or wrong. I believe the decision was made on too little information.
A full-time executive could do some research as regards printing. Do you know for sure whether or not your readers would like a little blacker impression, a little heavier kiss of the presses on the paper in the Urantia BOOK? Do you know whether or not it can be had from the process you are using and at your present printers? Shouldn't you know?
Are you aware that the recent offset edition is much grayer and more difficult to read than the first letterpress editions, which were blacker on better, whiter paper? Your printing consultant should have told you this BEFORE the books were printed, and I suppose he did. The question is, are you getting the very whitest paper and the very blackest impression possible for the money you pay and the offset process? A full-time executive would make it possible to know such things.
A Director of a Corporation or a member of an Executive Committee is in an awkward and handicapped position, acting upon partial and fragmentary information provided it by well-meaning executives who themselves are trusting as they must, intuition, guesses, emotions, stale and incomplete information, frequently unavoidably distorted from the reality existing in the field where experience is creating and re-creating problems.
I am not exaggerating. Recently, we have been reading about Boeing's, as well as Lockheed's millions spent on bribes abroad. Some years ago I was asked by a Urantia-reading corporation head to come on his Board of Directors. Impressed by him and his company, which was a big supplier to Boeing, I accepted. Fragmentary information that came to the Directors was inspiring. Then, I was entertained in the man's home. I discovered a very large nursery he owned adjoined his country property.
Through discreet inquiries, I found he was delivering valuable nursery products in volume, free of charge, to Boeing purchasing agents. I resigned from the Board. (I also earlier resigned as a Bank Director in Illinois simply because reasonable questions could not be answered.) I recalled this recently, thinking of the purchasing agents of Boeing, the briber, being bribed.
My point simply is this: Bribery is not the only form of dishonesty or failure. Should we not ask the question: "Isn't refusal to face up to the broadest responsibility we have accepted in a written document a sort of failure, a minor corruption of our good intentions? If we don't KNOW the answers to the questions, are we justified in accepting hunches and intuitions? If we haven't adequate personnel to properly function, isn't it incumbent upon us to find ways to get it?
Is any responsibility greater than that which attaches to the Urantia BOOK? Because overworked volunteer executives do not cry out in surrender, their compatriots are not relieved of some responsibility for calling a halt to their sacrifice which at the same time, must handicap, sooner or later, the work they simply cannot fully discharge as effectively as if they had ample time, assistance, and FULL INFORMATION as the result of adequate research?
MORE ABOUT DISTRIBUTION
The Urantia BOOK, it is said, is carried in 1,200 bookstores. I wonder if the Brotherhood knows how many bookstores there are in the United States alone?
In 1974 (1975 figures not yet available) RELIGIOUS BOOK STORES alone totaled nearly 3,500 in the United States, or which more than 1,850 belonged to the Christian Booksellers Association. A jump from only 1,150 in 1972 - indicating the tremendous surge in interest currently in religious books and publishing. I am not suggesting these are our natural outlets. I am calling attention to the growth of interest in religious works.
In 1974, the U.S. public bought $137,000,000 worth or religious books. At 900 per month, the BROTHERHOOD sold $21,600 worth for the entire year! The figure is miniscule.
I do not mean to imply we should have sold a million dollars worth of Urantia, but $50,000 worth or $75,000 worth? Who says $21,600 worth was right?
I know that there are highly thought of Urantians who are saying: "We must be very low key. We must soft-pedal our operation. We must not move too fast. We are trying to act in accord with our mandate."
But, I believe there are Urantians equally devoted to the purposes of the Revelators, equally intelligent, who are entitled to ask if the cautions in the mandate are not being used as an excuse for procrastination, for not knowing how to move forward progressively with at least more dynamism, coupled with discretion.
If 900 books are being sold in 1,200 book stores a month, and we know for a truth that a good many stores are selling 10 or more a month, many stores are not selling one book in 60 to 90 days. It would be fairer to say that 1,200 stores have bought Urantia Books than to say 1,200 carry the Book.
SURVEYS INDICATE that the average religious book buyer nowadays is between 35 and 49 years of age - 36.6% of them. Another 26.5% are 25.34. Only 22.7% are 50 to 65.
Forty-one point one percent are high school graduates, and 24.5% have had some college education, with 19.1% being college graduates. Fifteen point 4 percent have had less than a high school education.
In the period 1971, 1972, 1973, when religious books started their great boom, church attendance in the U.S. started leveling off after a steady decline of about 15 years (since 1958). (In 1958, about 48% of American adults attended church on a typical week.) In the three later years it steadied at about 40%.
But, while the mainstream denomination churches were still in declining attendance, (Methodists, United Presbyterian, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ, etc., dropped more than 10% in the last 10 years), the conservative evangelical denominations such as independent Baptists and Pentecostals were gaining at an equal rate.
Church attendance among the more liberal stagnating churches had dropped 25%, while the conservative evangelicals increased to 48%.
Some authorities contend that the reactions from Watergate, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and other such factors account for some of these phenomena.
As Urantians, we should be able to see that the malaise in the social body and the body politic is the people's general estrangement from God. (I accounted for this in my Los Angeles Conference talk in 1974 in some detail.) The human soul is detached from God in millions of cases, millions upon millions. Our society - the world - is paying the price.
It is true we cannot hasten God's plan, but it as also true that God works through men on this earth. And, many and many a plan of God has gone awry because the men He would have worked through were indolent, or weak, or fearful, or tired, or too old, or selfish, or bogged down in other things.
He intended working through the Jewish people of the time of the Master. But, a tight little clique who possessed the authority of all Jewry in the Sanhedrin defeated the plan, and 2,000 years later, the Jews or earth (and the entire world) are still paying the price of that default.
IT IS APPROPRIATE that I ask myself as I have recently - and was shocked by the answer - it is appropriate that we all ask ourselves now and again - are we sure we are doing our jobs for God, as well as they should be done, as well as they could be done if we were willing to CHANGE, to MOVE OVER, perhaps, to CRITCALLY ANALYZE OURSELVES, as competent ANALYSTS FROM OUTSIDE would analyze us and our operations?
If we are not to be in the mainstream of religious Book Distribution yet, are we really aware of what is going on in that mainstream? Are we planning several years ahead? ISN'T THE PROPAGATION OF GOD'S WORK ON THIS EARTH WORTH THE BEST PROFESSIONAL PLANNING AND EXECUTION THAT CAN BE MUSTERED? WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT? There is such a thing as an anesthesia of routine labors and oppressive responsibilities. And that "THE EYE OF MAJOR RESPONSIBILITY" has been blinded to HALF ITS TASK, DISSEMINATION AND PROMOTION OF THE BOOK. Perhaps an auxiliary board of experienced Urantians working for the Trustees, meeting regularly, could be of great value to the Urantian movement.
WHY THIS PAPER?
THIS paper is not to deride, embarrass, or challenge the Urantia Foundation and Brotherhood organization. It is to try to stimulate some discussion and hard thinking. It is to joggle some apple carts, I hope, that have been overgrown with the lichens of habit and day-before-yesterday thinking.
AFTER writing a critical letter to Paul some weeks ago, I turned around and asked myself who was criticizing me? The answer was "no one". So, I turned a cold and fishy eye on my own operation, my handling of accounts. And believe me it was a shocking and traumatic experience.
Good friends must have known, they did know, that my service, once worth bragging about, had gone to pot. I had plenty of excuses: A disastrous fire, a grand theft, eye operations, another coming up, and much more. Just as headquarters has excuses for everything I question and everything that doesn't get done, or gets done the wrong way! But, excuses for failures and derelictions in working for our Revelation are NO GOOD.
Would to God I had a frank and honest friend like Clyde Bedell who had come along early and told me frankly I was sloughing off my job, and getting by with it because I was creator of the CONCORDEX; was old, was respected, and no one wanted to upset me. GOOD FRIENDS, really good friends, are those who will risk your goodwill and friendship by telling you the truth, even when it hurts.
Anyway, I am still straightening out my own mess. I am transferring the shipment of all bookstore orders to De Vorss. (I will still handle Brotherhood orders.) I am changing over my record systems, and hope to redeem myself. I am reorganizing, refilling my whole office.
Now, how about things at 533?, probably not as bad as here. Still, you at headquarters are getting by with substandard performance in some ways because of your HIGH CALLING, because we LOVE you, because you are ANOINTED. But, is that an excuse for SELF-ANOINTING? You and I have both been guilty of that. We are both common clay. Both with human weaknesses and mine showed plenty when I looked at them very coldly. And, I was deeply ashamed of myself. Are you certain that the Urantia BOOK is being handled the best way it can be for this earth by all of you?
A FEW QUESTIONS, DIFFERENTLY PHRASED AND SUMMARIZING, TO SPUR THINKING
1. The FOUNDATION'S two purposes are separated by only seven words in its DECLARATION OF TRUST. What program for "dissemination" is the Urantia Foundation pursuing to match its program for "protecting" the text?
2. If the BROTHERHOOD is cited as the "program for dissemination" what is its program today, different from 2 years ago, despite the fact it has an implement of aid - the CONCORDEX, which can make an enormous difference in "dissemination" in several ways?
3. How do we know that we should publish ONLY a hardbound book that will last 20 or 30 years in constant use? Might we not serve the Revelators' and mankind's service better with such a book plus an easy-to-read text that would sell for much less and last only 10 years?
4. Selling only an expensive high-quality Book are we not identifying ourselves as an elite Christian sect? Is this desirable? Pointing to the barefooted blue-jeaned Urantians doesn't alter the fact that many thousands of middle-class conventional families, and millions of "just plain Americans" might much more quickly buy a $12.00 or $15.00 Urantia BOOK than a $20.00 or $22.50 one.
5. Why can't the Urantia Foundation and Brotherhood be served by a coordinate Board of Counselors carefully selected for their experience and acumen, to meet at intervals with trustees and executive committee on specific assignments and problems? It is unfair; it seems to me to burden the few people who live in the Chicago area with all the increasing problems of the Urantia movement.
6. Why cannot someone at headquarters analyze the matter.recognize the existence of the CONCORDEX for what it is and what it does, and begin to bring it into its full recognition at headquarters, and begin to try to serve readers with it for the sake of the GOS PEL; and for the sake of the FOUNDATION'S financial well-being?
A. If Dr. Sadler, who was the BOOK'S premier guiding light onto this earth had not felt readers should have an accompanying INDEX AID, he would not have printed the "Index" notice on page lxvi in the early printings of the U. Bk.
B. Despite his good intentions, that index did not appear. When that notice was 16 years old, I "Backstopped" the FOUNDATION, published the CONCORDEX, personally, with the full knowledge and blessing of the FOUNDATION. Top headquarters people were aware of what I was doing, visited my place, and inspected my effort.
C. It is probably that not one speaker out of 25 has made a talk at all important Urantia gatherings since 1971, who has not depended on some or much help from the CONCORDEX.
D. It is not a perfect INDEX, and improve it, as I will in the next edition, it will not be then. For one thing, the right balance for all readers will never be struck between over-indexing, cross-indexing, and keeping the book manageable in size. Subjective judgments of its creator will never please all readers. Nor will they when, as, and if, the Urantia Foundation publishes an index. Still, hundreds of testimonials say the CONCORDEX is a creditable volume.
E. To shortchange Urantia BOOK readers now, by holding back on warm and vigorous contemporaneous support of the CONCORDEX WITH THE Urantia BOOK itself, simply because the FOUNDATION may publish an index some DAY is immoral, unUrantiaN, dishonest, unworthy of highly placed people. Far better to fully exploit the CONCORDEX now, and drop it completely later if you wish. At least that would be fairer to readers.
7. Is it possible that appearance of the new printing of the Urantia BOOK could be the occasion for putting into operation a coordinated plan consistent with the Urantia Foundation and Brotherhoood purposes, calculated to achieve the utmost for both organizations while rendering a greatly enlarged service to the spiritually hungry people, and to our unseen friends? Such a program would deliberately coordinate a field effort, to spread from headquarters, involving the Urantia BOOK, its COMPANION AID, the CONCORDEX, STUDY GROUP efforts, and Urantia SOCIEITIES.
I submit that the Urantia MOVEMENT has never begun to experience what could happen if the strengths of all its appeals were ever set moving in the field through all possible indicated channels at the same time! EFFECTIVELY as though headquarters MEANT BUSINESS and knew where it was going and what it wanted to achieve! This does not take genius, or scads of money. It takes simple but intelligent "SALES PLANING". There is no other name for it, whether you are spreading religion, or Grape nuts, or ecology.
People who do not know me, and a good many of my activities may say I am pushing hard for the CONCORDEX - in order to make money. I am neither dollar nor profit hungry. The arrangements I have made from time to time with the Urantia Foundation and Brotherhood should prove that I am, instead, READER-HUNGRY for our REVELATION and for the CONCORDEX, which helps make Urantia READERS.
If I were profit hungry I would never have proposed a 75% discount arrangement for headquarters on the CONCORDEX - which after over 20 weeks had not been acted upon. Later, I proposed a little saner 60% discount for a temporary period, to see if that might induce some action. It didn't.
Within a few days I will send you a few-page paper on the CONCORDEX to better acquaint you with it, so you can better make some decisions concerning it. So then, can I.
I created the CONCORDEX as a labor of love, not to make a profit. Not to make a living. If 533 will not accept it for what it is and what I created it for, my entire views for distribution may have to change.
Presently, I would say 99 readers out of 100 would say the CONCORDEX is a natural and very valuable companion to the Urantia BOOK. They want it with the Urantia BOOK, and WHEN THEY BUY THE Urantia BOOK - at once, if they can afford it.
There are some highly intelligent people at 533.
The truth about the CONCORDEX must be sensed there.
I have had some nice individual testimonial letters from 533, from "those high in authority" there.
But there has never been one word or recognition of the CONCORDEX from 533, aside from a request I deed it over to the Urantia FOUNDATION - which in a way, is an endorsement.
But NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, has anyone sat down with me and said: "Clyde, we recognize the great value of the CONCORDEX and the extraordinary service it has rendered THE Urantia BOOK and its readers, and how valuable it can be in interesting new readers in the BOOK. We know that almost every Society and Study Group uses the CONCORDEX a great deal, and that almost all speakers use it in preparing talks. We believe there must be ways we could use the CONCORDEX to help sell more Urantia BOOKS, and you have probably thought about this. Let's talk about it.
As the first BROTHERHOOD President, Bill Sadler was quoted as saying in THE UrantiaN, "The BROTHERHOOD was designed to sell the Book." The CONCORDEX is now almost 5 years old, and has helped me sell the Urantia BOOK over and over to people who have never held the Urantia BOOK in their hands for more than 5 to 20 minutes. Yet, no one from headquarters has EVER, EVER, EVER, asked me: "IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN USE THE CONCORDEX to do our job better at headquarters?" to sell more Urantia BOOKS? To disseminate the UrantiaN MESSAGE better or more effectively? Or in any way for the good of the Urantia MOVEMENT?"
With a new printing of the Urantia BOOK coming off the presses soon, isn't it about time to ask such a question? I have no set plan in mind. But, I would like to see this spiritually hungry nation begin to be nurtured a little more with our Revelation, and a little less with some of what it is being fed.
The people are seeking and trying everything imaginable for spiritual sustenance. Are we really happy and satisfied that we are fulfilling our obligations to both the public and the Revelators?
When do we stop planning for the pie-in-the-sky future, and begin to feed a few more of the Master's sheep with what we have available? Just a little more assiduously, even now? They are looking for light and comfort. Perhaps we can increase our efforts.
LOYALTY
I HAVE never yet been disloyal to you people at headquarters, nor will I ever be. But, you would be easier to be loyal to if you would let the fresh chill winds of objectivity blow you before mirrors that will let you see yourselves objectively.
You are charged with perhaps the most HOLY responsibility of any group of people on earth. If it can be done better, more effectively, a little more aggressively and courageously, with a little more dispatch, with a little more assistance to others who have the same responsibility, and who take it as seriously as you, have you the obligation to MOVE? Or should you simply "hold the line"?
If you are overworked and over-pressured, if your strength wanes, if age handicaps you, what are the alternatives? Are you not BOUND by your holy responsibility to move rather than simply "mark time" or evade the issue?
Who am I to advise you? Just one Urantian, but, older than all of you, but one. However, since I faced my own dilemma and am working out its solution, I feel much better and can achieve lots more for the cause I love.
Who among Urantians feels as I do? That at headquarters, all is not well? I need not tell you. In your very bones you know there is a malaise in our movement, and it doesn't begin at the extremities and move inward.
No matter how you receive this memorandum, I shall continue my Urantian love for all of you, my personal love for those of you I know personally. I have written with mixed feelings as you can imagine, but, all out of love for the cause we all serve, and the people in it.
It would be presumptuous and premature to make specific proposals here as to what, in my opinion, would help headquarters most. But, I believe headquarters POSITIVELY MUST HAVE HEROIC HELP, and SOON. I do not want to become personally involved, so I am not writing in behalf of myself - or anyone else, for that matter. When, as, and if, the time ever comes, however, I will, if asked, gladly offer suggestions that may be constructive.
Obviously, there are ways out of your problems that will give you all al great sense of relief; that will disseminate the Urantia GOSPEL more effectively - consistently with the majesty and dignity of the Book itself, as well as with the Revelators' mandate. And, that will preserve, if not enhance your positions relative to the entire movement. Indeed, any up-stepped success for the Urantia movement is bound to reflect greatly added credit to headquarters - and rightly.
THERE IS someone at headquarters I would love to see light of heart, burdens lifted, happy that her Urantia at 533 was anew, a wellspring of joyous outgoing activity, inspiration, and growth. And then, what Urantians would not be happy.
Sincerely yours,
Clyde
