Making Radical Unity in the New Millennium a Reality

By Gabriel of Urantia

Both the Old and New Testaments mention that there was a war in heaven and that Lucifer rebelled against God. But neither Testament gives much information about the details of what the Rebellion was. The Fifth Epochal Revelation, The URANTIA Book, devotes two whole papers (chapters) to this rebellion: Paper 53—The Lucifer Rebellion and Paper 54—Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion. It is not the context of this article to teach the specifics of the Lucifer Rebellion, but after 200,000 years of those specifics, our planet Urantia/Earth suffers great divisions among its races.

It was the purpose of Lucifer to cause divisions among the family of God. These divisions exist today mostly in the area of religious thought—how God is defined and how ascension to Paradise is understood. Even among the world's major religions—such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and various indigenous religions—there are subdivisions or numerous sects, all, in some way, competitive with the parent religion.

In Christianity alone, there are estimated to be more than 2,000 different sects and thousands more nondenominational churches. The parent church of Christianity is the Catholic Church, in which Martin Luther in 1521 tried to correct some wrong doctrines by posting his 95 theses. He never meant to start a new denomination; he wanted the Catholic Church to correct the problems. The following humor describes what has happened as a result of the Reformation.

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, “Stop! Don't do it! There's so much to live for!” He said, “Like what?” I said, “Well, are you religious or atheist?” He said, “Religious.” I said, “Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?” He said, “Christian.” I said, “Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?” He said, “Baptist Church of God.” I said, “Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God or Reformed Baptist Church of God?” He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!” I said, “Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?” He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.” I said, “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.¹

The URANTIA Book goes further to earnestly state the need for unity among believers of God:

Christianity is seriously confronted with the doom embodied in one of its own slogans: ''A house divided against itself cannot stand.'' The non-Christian world will hardly capitulate to a sect-divided Christendom. The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church—the Jesus brotherhood—is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the physical world of mechanistic nature. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. And this brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them.²

"Unification" by Willowela.
All Rights Reserved by the Out-of-the-Way-Galleria and CosmoArt in Tubac, Arizona.

STEPS TO RADICAL UNITY

First, Divine Administration [Global Community Communications Alliance], the Urantia movement, and the Christian world must unite behind the Fifth Epochal Revelation found in The URANTIA Book and Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation found in The Cosmic Family volumes. Yes, this is radical unity. But it is the only way to begin a worldwide acceptance of epochal revelation.

Second, a new world religion must evolve out of the major religions with all of their divisions by embracing and encompassing epochal revelation, which will then give a higher understanding of the cosmic Christ—the local universe Creator Son, Jesus Christ Michael. People who consider themselves Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims must move out of their specific religions into epochal revelation that includes the spiritual truths found in all other religions as well as expanding upon those truths and adding even more. This new world religion expansion will probably happen first in nations that are already considered “developed countries.”  

Most of the people of the world, particularly in “third-world countries,” need food, clothing, shelter, and jobs before any new revelation can be introduced to them. Christ Michael knew this. That is why the beginning one-tenth of the Fifth Epochal Revelation (the 196 papers of The URANTIA Book) was brought through and introduced in Chicago, Illinois USA as well as the continuation of these papers (Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation) that is in the process of being brought through to a forum of humans in the state of Arizona USA. The URANTIA Book will not be accepted en mass worldwide until those who believe in Christ can unite behind higher revelation of who Jesus Christ Michael is, in addition to an understanding of the ascension process, not only of our local universe of Nebadon but other universes as well.

Many in the Urantia movement and Christianity do not generally accept past lives, because they have not embraced Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation. The majority of the world believes in reincarnation. Why should this majority accept the incomplete revelation of The URANTIA Book or New Testament which do not explain and even deny what people have believed (and is the truth) for thousands of years? The Cosmic Family volumes (Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation) teach the concept of repersonalization—a higher understanding of past lives that is not the lower understanding of reincarnation. For the more than 500 million starseed (souls who lived before and whose ascension process is of another universe), ethnocentricity is not a problem in their character. They already consider themselves citizens of the world.

Gabriel of Urantia and the Bright and Morning Star Band
performing a Sacred Concert in Flagstaff, Arizona.

BECOMING A SPIRITUAL CITIZEN OF THE WORLD

Millions of people identify nationalism with religious affiliation. However, both nationalism and religion by birth need to change. A Jew does not necessarily have to be involved in the religious aspect of Judaism in order to be a Jew, nor does a Japanese person have to be a Buddhist just because a majority of Japanese are Buddhist, nor does a Mexican have to be a Catholic just because Catholicism is the dominant religion in Mexico.

Professor Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University, a Muslim scholar, says of Islam:  In Islam, umma signifies a community of people who are united by their commitment to faith. Muslims form a global faith community that transcends the nation-state. When one thinks in terms of umma, one doesn't think of borders. To a Muslim, it doesn't matter whether it was an Iraqi, an Indonesian, or a Turk who got killed, because these labels are an accident of birth; what matters is that a fellow Muslim got killed. This concept of umma creates a deep sense of solidarity among Muslims.³

The fact that people of all religions are beautiful and that there is truth in all religions can be invisible barriers that prevent the truth-seeker from discovering epochal revelation and realizing the planetary need to grow out of these evolutionary religions. Along with the truth and beauty within all the world religions, there is also much fallacy and superstition. It is true that certain customs and traditions are beautiful, and it is certainly true that people of all races are beautiful, but unless we have a planetary synthesis of all those races, we will continue to war in an unhealthy materialistic way with each other.

Here's one of my new quotes:  All paths may eventually lead to God, but one is less bumpy. It creates less wear on your vehicle, and you can get to your destination much faster. Another quote by Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins, states:  There are many, many gates to the sacred, and they are as wide as we need them to be.⁴ (A major misconception prevalent in the world today is the idea that traversing the width of a road is no different from following the clear direction of the road.) Quoting Jesus:

You also have another saying among you, and one that contains much truth: That the way which leads to eternal life is straight and narrow, that the door which leads thereto is likewise narrow so that, of those who seek salvation, few can find entrance through this door. You also have a teaching that the way which leads to destruction is broad, that the entrance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not without its meaning. But I declare that salvation is first a matter of your personal choosing. Even if the door to the way of life is narrow, it is wide enough to admit all who sincerely seek to enter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse entrance to any child of the universe who, by faith, seeks to find the Father through the Son.”⁵

Billions of people have no choice but to take the wide road due to of lack of education and opportunity as well as the pervasiveness of poverty and superstition in those cultures and religions. Many millions of others in more affluent societies take the wide road because of greed and self-assertion. The affluent may achieve material success, but they may never have the fulfillment of having a family with a truly complementary husband or wife. These blessings are actually more likely to be given by God to those trapped in their caste or economic systems.

You see how difficult it is for those who have riches to enter fully into the kingdom of God! Spiritual worship cannot be shared with material devotions; no man can serve two masters. You have a saying that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the heathen to inherit eternal life.” And I declare that it is as easy for this camel to go through the needle's eye as for these self-satisfied rich ones to enter the kingdom of heaven.⁶

On higher worlds, where rebellion against God has not taken place, within the evolution of humankind, there is gradually an amalgamation of all the races and eventually all the skin colors are mixed into one human race. This has not yet happened on Urantia/Earth, and as a result, interracial marriage today still is stigmatized by many. More than 2,000 years ago Alexander the Great had the vision of amalgamation between his Macedonian soldiers and the Persians he conquered. He realized that there would be a greater civilization if the races came together in marriage and shared the best of each culture. His vision was not understood by most due to their entrapments in limiting identities.

Many people identify religions by how people dress, and it is true on this planet that people do dress the religious part in many sects. An example where different dress and modes of worship do not necessarily cause those individual sects to form new labels for their type of religious worship would be, again, the Catholic Church. They have been able to form new orders—such as Franciscan, Benedictine, Dominican, Trappist, and so on—and still all be united as Catholic Christians.

Because the word “Christian” today conjures up an image of a person of the Anglo-Saxon races and conveys a religion of certain doctrines that Jesus Himself did not even teach, the majority of the peoples of the Orient and Levant cannot consider calling themselves Christians—and rightfully so. The URANTIA Book addresses this problem:

These various groupings of Christians may serve to accommodate numerous different types of would-be believers among the various peoples of Western civilization, but such division of Christendom presents a grave weakness when it attempts to carry the gospel of Jesus to Oriental peoples. These races do not yet understand that there is a religion of Jesus separate, and somewhat apart, from Christianity, which has more and more become a religion about Jesus.⁷

A person who seeks for higher truth, then receives that higher truth from God, and next begins to preach or teach it to his immediate family, church, or religious affiliations, will come up against tremendous opposition. The religious organizations have millions and millions of dollars worth of property under the name of that church or religion, and many of the spiritual teachers have titles such as Pastor, Bishop, Cardinal, Sheik, Monk, Shaman, and so on. It is hard to give up one's power or position to become a student of continuing epochal revelation, especially if one's sustenance comes from a religious position.

This, however, is exactly the kind of radical unity that is necessary to unite all humanity under the Fatherhood of God and the brother-/sisterhood of humankind. We need to get away from the labels that separate us, the “isms.” We need to only identify ourselves as “ascending sons and daughters of God.”

In the first century when the disciples were beginning to identify themselves as belonging to the church of Peter or the church of Paul, they were corrected and were asked not to identify themselves with anything other than God. All of humanity must ask themselves: “What unites us and what divides us?” We must then begin to take giant steps to end the separations.

Only by radical decisions can humanity unite under the Fatherhood of God. In order to break away from habits and mindsets that prohibit them from expanding, individuals may need to begin to dress differently from the social standards. They may need to find new ways to worship outside of traditional practices. They may even need to make a geographic move away from those other individuals who refuse to change and choose to remain stagnant. The problem is immense, and maybe the masses within all religions will not make this paradigm shift.

There are political problems and there are economic problems that prevent true freedom of peoples. I personally believe that without either the return of Jesus to this world or the landing of supermortals from another planet to help us out of our quagmire, true peace and justice cannot come to this divided world.

HIGHER COSMIC CONCEPTS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Despite the immensity of the problems of the world, that does not mean that we of Global Community Communications Alliance/Divine Administration are not trying to create that change, one person at a time. Divine Administration presently consists of approximately 100 individuals from several continents and from backgrounds of all religions. We are a prototype subculture that needs to become a planetary culture. We have taken and incorporated the best of those religions and cultures—the truths, the dress, the traditions, the food—but we have also embraced epochal revelation. We are very much like the first-century Christians, who went house to house, broke bread together, and had all things in common. Our children are raised to honor and respect eldership.

We are an EcoVillage and grow our own organic vegetables, fruits, and livestock. We are the beginning model for all of the peoples of the planet. We are blessed to still drink pure water from our wells here in the high desert. In everything we do, we “think globally and act locally.” For instance, we hope one day, in the future as we expand on a planetary level, to be able to feed the world through the World Council of Food and Material Welfare that we are beginning to implement within our model culture.

I coined the phrase, My child is your child, and your child is mine, for we need to raise our children as a tribal family, with many mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts and cousins. This is part of what radical unity is.

I never felt more alone than when I lived in Los Angeles, a city of 15 million people. Most individuals are primarily concerned with their own agendas. Most people have no idea that the spiritual concept—being thy brother and sister's keeper (mentioned in Genesis)—is a key, if practiced, to God's blessings in helping you meet God's destiny for you.

The suburban lifestyle—driving to work miles away from where one lives—has to change. The churches of the future need to become truly commune-istic, as Jesus taught true communism—meaning having all things in common with each other. Communism failed in Russia and China because God was absent from government and the people. True government has godly leaders serving the people, not vice versa. The churches need to become tribal families and, even more so, cosmic families, because of the higher genetics of souls from other universes, as mentioned in Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation, The Cosmic Family volumes.

G.I. Gurdjieff said:  Even if only 100 people remember themselves the world can be saved.                       

1 Emo Philips, The Sun magazine, April 2006
2 The URANTIA Book, p. 2085
3 The Sun, April 2006
4 Ibid.
5 The URANTIA Book, p. 1828
6 The URANTIA Book, p. 1803
7 The URANTIA Book, p. 2086

Gabriel of Urantia is a spiritual leader, singer/songwriter, musician, author, and co-founder of Global Community Communications Alliance.
http://www.globalcommunitycommunicationsalliance.org/
info@ GlobalCommunityCommunicationsAlliance.org
http://gabrielofurantia.info/

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