Spiritual Unity, not Theological Uniformity

Spiritual Unity, not Theological Uniformity

29 minutes, 8 seconds long

Host Brother Dave, a Jesusonian

 

Samples in this podcast:

The Urantia Book, public domain   [my added comments are in these brackets]

 

Paper 103. The Reality of Religious Experience

1. Philosophy of Religion

[God's Spirit within each moral human being is the Source our spiritual unity !]

103:1.1 The unity of religious experience among a social or racial group derives from the identical nature of the God fragment indwelling the individual. [The pure will of God guiding all normal humans] It is this divine in man that gives origin to his unselfish interest in the welfare of other men. But since personality is unique — no two mortals being alike — it inevitably follows that no two human beings can similarly interpret the leadings and urges of the [uniform] spirit of divinity which lives within their minds. A group of mortals can experience spiritual unity, but they can never attain philosophic uniformity. And this diversity of the interpretation of religious thought and experience is shown by the fact that twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have formulated upward of five hundred different definitions of religion. In reality, every human being defines religion in the terms of his own experiential interpretation of the divine impulses emanating from the God Spirit that indwells him, and therefore must such an interpretation be unique and wholly different from the religious philosophy of all other human beings.

5. The Origin of Ideals

[Spiritual/Religious Liberty !]

103:5.12 When a member of a social religious group has complied with the requirements of such a group, he should be encouraged to enjoy religious liberty in the full expression of his own personal interpretation of the truths of religious belief and the facts of religious experience. The security of a religious group depends on spiritual unity, not on theological uniformity. A religious group should be able to enjoy the liberty of freethinking without having to become “freethinkers.” [Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics, secular humanists and rationalists; they tend to reject authority and religious truths] There is great hope for any church that worships the living God, validates the brotherhood of man, and dares to remove all creedal pressure from its members.

Paper 141. Beginning the Public Work

5. Spiritual Unity [with Spiritual Liberty]

141:5.1 One of the most eventful of all the evening conferences at Amathus [to the North, near Pella] was the session having to do with the discussion of spiritual unity. James Zebedee had asked, “Master, how shall we learn to see alike and thereby enjoy more harmony among ourselves?” When Jesus heard this question, he was stirred within his spirit, so much so that he replied: “James, James, when did I teach you that you should all see alike? I have come into the world to proclaim spiritual liberty to the end that mortals may be empowered to live individual lives of originality and freedom before God. I do not desire that social harmony and fraternal peace shall be purchased by the sacrifice of free personality and spiritual originality. What I require of you, my apostles, is spirit unity — and that you can experience in the joy of your united dedication to the wholehearted doing of the will of my Father in heaven. You do not have to see alike or feel alike or even think alike in order spiritually to be alike. Spiritual unity is derived from the consciousness that each of you is indwelt, and increasingly dominated, by the Spirit Gift of the heavenly Father. Your apostolic harmony must grow out of the fact that the spirit hope of each of you is identical in origin, nature, and destiny."

141:5.2 “In this way you may experience a perfected unity of spirit purpose and spirit understanding growing out of the mutual consciousness of the identity of each of your indwelling Paradise Spirits; and you may enjoy all of this profound spiritual unity in the very face of the utmost diversity of your individual attitudes of intellectual thinking, temperamental feeling, and social conduct. Your personalities may be refreshingly diverse and markedly different, while your spiritual natures and spirit fruits of divine worship and brotherly love may be so unified that all who behold your lives will of a surety take cognizance of this spirit identity and soul unity; they will recognize that you have been with me and have thereby learned, and acceptably, how to do the will of the Father in Heaven. You can achieve the unity of the service of God even while you render such service in accordance with the technique of your own original endowments of mind, body, and soul."

Paper 195. After Pentecost

10. The Future

[SERIOUS DIVISION NOW IN CHRISTIANITY ! Only the Living JESUS here in Spirit can possibly unify all Christians !]

195:10.11 [Important !] 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. [over 40,000 different Christian denominations and sects now, and still increasing.] 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.

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