LIVING LOVE or lip-service?

OMG…

You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. (196:2)

But true religion is a living love, a life of service. (100:6)

All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. (117:6)

Although I don’t attach “woo-woo” significance to the name “Agape` Michael Organization” (amo – latin: I love) for a chaordic infrastructure supporting a grassroots network of family-based fellowships unified in spiritual purpose and ideals, it seems apt enough to me. I’ve already discussed that minor detail in a public-access post at amodeus.net/forums, and today I just feel like focusing on Living LOVE and self-forgetful loving service.

…man’s nearest and dearest approach to God is by and through love, for God is love. And all of such a unique relationship is an actual experience in cosmic sociology, the Creator-creature relationship–the Father-child affection. (3:4)

Jesus, the revelation of the highest type of religious living, proclaimed that “God is love.”  (92:1)

The brotherhood of men is founded on the fatherhood of God. The family of God is derived from the love of God—God is love.  (134:4)

As they walked along, Jesus said to John, “John, do you love me?” And when John answered, “Yes, Master, with all my heart,” the Master said: “Then, John, give up your intolerance and learn to love men as I have loved you. Devote your life to proving that love is the greatest thing in the world. It is the love of God that impels men to seek salvation. Love is the ancestor of all spiritual goodness, the essence of the true and the beautiful.” (192:2)

Jesus loves men so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative. (188:5)

The Father is living love, and this life of the Father is in his Sons. And the spirit of the Father is in his Sons’ sons – - mortal men. When all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest human concept of God. (196:3)

“But I declare to you that my Father in Paradise does rule a universe of universes by the compelling power of his love. Love is the greatest of all spirit realities. Truth is a liberating revelation, but love is the supreme relationship. And no matter what blunders your fellow men make in their world management of today, in an age to come the gospel which I declare to you will rule this very world. The ultimate goal of human progress is the reverent recognition of the fatherhood of God and the loving materialization of the brotherhood of man.” (143:1)

I equate the words “ultimate goal“ in this last quote with Tillich’s “ultimate concern”, Bill Sadler’s “primary loyalty”, and a proposed wording for the Mission/Purpose of AMO which I hope to blog about soon.

The old cults were too egocentric; the new must be the outgrowth of applied love. The new cult must, like the old, foster sentiment, satisfy emotion, and promote loyalty; but it must do more: It must facilitate spiritual progress, enhance cosmic meanings, augment moral values, encourage social development, and stimulate a high type of personal religious living. The new cult must provide supreme goals of living which are both temporal and eternal–social and spiritual. (87:7)

Since “living love” is “truly contagious and eternally creative”, I believe that when AMO (or something like it) is actualized that the evolving dynamic breadth and effectiveness of unified loving service will, in time, eventually far outstrip my limited vision.

May our Father’s living LOVE bless us to overflowing with loving service,

M. Brent Melody

"restatement" : "sum and substance"

Dear friends,

How nice…since there isn’t any feedback yet, I’m still at liberty to bounce around with my subject choices, as I have a noticeable tendency to do that.

It would be beneficial, I believe, to have a real discussion on how the benefits of ‘chaordic’ organizational design can be applied to socio-religious group functioning. But, I’m hoping to know that someone is interested enough to be paying attention when I go there, here. (By the way, no one has to be ‘registered’ here in order to submit a comment…)

So… for now I want to blog some more on the Brilliant Evening Star’s insistence that we “must develop a new and appropriate symbolism” (dare I say “cultus”?) involving the “restatement of the religion of Jesus” (87:7) – aka. the “revelatory religion of LOVE”.

The worship of God and the service of man became the sum and substance of his religion. (159:5)

I like to call this most-common denominator the “core-gospel” or what Bill Sadler correctly identified as “primary loyalty” at the end of his Triennial Report. Again, want to emphasize that, in my opinion, basing “the new cult” upon any “secondary loyalty” (even one with such an undeniably high goal as dissemination) would constitute a confusion of priorities. I’m also reasonably certain that the second bird can be had with the first stone, if thrown with due diligence.

I believe that quote, and many others which describe the “core-gospel” of the kingdom, points to a valid foundational PURPOSE for a socio-religious group seeking to “actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes” (99:5).

Later, as we get into the six-lens process of organizational design, we will clearly realize that passionate agreement among a core group of servant-leaders on a succinct statement of Purpose (goals) and Principles (ideals) will be essential for grassroots growth and enduring vitality.

Now, I’ll throw in a twist:

Even a nominal Christian will wonder – HELLO? Where’s Jesus-Christ Michael of Nebadon in this “cultus”?

Think for a moment, or two if you will, about how this question will impinge upon:

1. our “fifth epochal responsibility”

2. the task of leavening liberal-progressive Christianity

3. serving the spiritually hungry unchurched, unread, and under-literate

There’s a whole lot of Urantia Book readers around who, in my opinion, have grossly misinterpreted certain criticisms of evolutionary Christianity and then overlooked some clear advice from the revelators regarding our Sovereign Son’s “personal relationship to the kingdom” (157:3). Watch out!*\`%!  Mr. Melody, don’t even think about fouling up our divine holy-moly book-fetish with another religion “about” Jesus!!!

Rather than continue now with a long-winded explanation of the “full-gospel” purpose and ideals that I embrace, I’ll draw this blogpost to a close with some relevant quotes:

The (Eternal) Son (and His divine bestowal Sons – mbm) is the spiritual and personal nature of God made manifest to the universes – - the sum and substance of the First Source and Center… (6:7)

Though the Spirit of Truth is poured out upon all flesh, this spirit of the Son is almost wholly limited in function and power by man’s personal reception of that which constitutes the sum and substance of the mission of the bestowal Son. (34:5)

(161:2 – The Divine Nature of Jesus) …there remained only one more point to consider, the teaching dealing with the divine nature of Jesus, a (“full-gospel” – mbm) doctrine only so recently publicly announced.

The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael. (194:2)

The spirit guides into all truth; he is the teacher of an expanding and always-growing religion of endless progress and divine unfolding. This new teacher will forever be unfolding to the truth-seeking believer that which was so divinely folded up in the person and nature of the Son of Man. (194:3)

Modern culture must become spiritually baptized (both – mbm) with a new revelation of Jesus’ life and illuminated with a new understanding of his gospel of eternal salvation. And when Jesus becomes thus lifted up, he will draw all men to himself. (195:10)

What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church which bears his name, and to all other religions! (196:0)

…it is indeed a pity that his followers failed to create a unified religion which might have given proper recognition to both the human and the divine natures of the Master as they were inseparably bound up in his earth life and so gloriously set forth in the original (“full”- mbm) gospel of the kingdom. (196:2 – em. mine)

Sincerely,

M. Brent Melody

Where Credit is Due

Dear friends,

In all of my efforts to draw out the recognition of the progressive potentials which will be realized in the evolution of a worldwide socio-religious network based on a commonly held gospel-centric purpose and supreme spiritual ideals, there will be found no really new ideas. The basis is found in the FER itself, but I must tribute one pioneering visionary in particular.

Those who have been involved in the so-called “Urantia movement” for a while and who have known or come across Meredith Sprunger’s life-works should find it easy to make the connection to most of what AMO will become.

Meredith (whose bio and works are archived) has long understood the crucial necessity for the deployment of a “seventh step” (see: Pioneers…) in outreach ministry of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. He also pointed me in the direction of a new paradigm in organizational management which holds the key to a unified and dynamically progressive home-based socio-religious fellowship evolved at the grassroots of society.

My gratitude for this man’s prophetic vision and consecrated efforts is truly beyond expression. His monumental accomplishments in support of the establishment and successful extension of the latest epochal revelation to our planet will continue to inspire many for generations to come. He modestly gives his divine Monitor all the glory.

Now approaching his 95th birthday, Meredith remains interested in the development of socio-religious expressions of the revelation. He has kindly sent encouragement and writes: “I think this new type of socio-religious institution is largely something of the future. I will be on the Mansion Worlds when most of this takes place.”

Thanks Meredith, and well done, good and faithful servant!

To be continued friends,

M. Brent Melody

Socializing a Revelatory Religion of Love

Hello dear friends,

Yes, it would be hard to overstate the importance that we:

Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother. (99:5)

Yet many UPapers students are also aware of these further words of the Melchizedek:

While religion is exclusively a personal spiritual experience – - knowing God as a Father – - the corollary of this experience – - knowing man as a brother – - entails the adjustment of the self to other selves, and that involves the social or group aspect of religious life. Religion is first an inner or personal adjustment, and then it becomes a matter of social service or group adjustment. The fact of man’s gregariousness perforce determines that religious groups will come into existence. What happens to these religious groups depends very much on intelligent leadership. (99:5)

While some folks may also recall a few pages earlier that we were told:

It is difficult for religion to survive as the private practice of isolated individuals. This has ever been the error of the religious leaders: Seeing the evils of institutionalized religion, they seek to destroy the technique of group functioning. In the place of destroying all ritual, they would do better to reform it.  (97:10)

and:

While it is true that the institutionalization of religion has usually detracted from its spiritual quality, it is also a fact that no religion has thus far succeeded in surviving without the aid of institutional organization of some degree, greater or lesser.  (98:6)

Now, these few quotes are directly pertinent to the perplexities that many students experience when seeking to understand the subject of “the new cult” with “appropriate symbolism” suggested by the Brilliant Evening Star in Paper 87. Folks interested in deeper appreciation of the relation of cultism to the appropriate socialization of religion might want to research a work (which was clearly a source text used by the celestial author) by the respected theologian Henry Weiman. – “The Cultus and Its Emotional Accompaniments“

In 87:7 we read that:

Every inspiring ideal grasps for some perpetuating symbolism–seeks some technique for cultural manifestation which will insure survival and augment realization–and the cult achieves this end by fostering and gratifying emotion.

Regardless of the drawbacks and handicaps, every new revelation of truth has given rise to a new cult, and even the restatement of the religion of Jesus must develop a new and appropriate symbolism. Modern man must find some adequate symbolism for his new and expanding ideas, ideals, and loyalties. This enhanced symbol must arise out of religious living, spiritual experience. And this higher symbolism of a higher civilization must be predicated on the concept of the Fatherhood of God and be pregnant with the mighty ideal of the brotherhood of man.

The old cults were too egocentric; the new must be the outgrowth of applied love. The new cult must, like the old, foster sentiment, satisfy emotion, and promote loyalty; but it must do more: It must facilitate spiritual progress, enhance cosmic meanings, augment moral values, encourage social development, and stimulate a high type of personal religious living. The new cult must provide supreme goals of living which are both temporal and eternal–social and spiritual.

No cult can endure and contribute to the progress of social civilization and individual spiritual attainment unless it is based on the biologic, sociologic, and religious significance of the home. A surviving cult must symbolize that which is permanent in the presence of unceasing change; it must glorify that which unifies the stream of ever-changing social metamorphosis. It must recognize true meanings, exalt beautiful relations, and glorify the good values of real nobility.

No cult can survive unless it embodies some masterful mystery and conceals some worthful unattainable. Again, the new symbolism must not only be significant for the group but also meaningful to the individual. The forms of any serviceable symbolism must be those which the individual can carry out on his own initiative, and which he can also enjoy with his fellows. If the new cult could only be dynamic instead of static, it might really contribute something worth while to the progress of mankind, both temporal and spiritual.

But a cult–a symbolism of rituals, slogans, or goals–will not function if it is too complex. And there must be the demand for devotion, the response of loyalty. Every effective religion unerringly develops a worthy symbolism, and its devotees would do well to prevent the crystallization of such a ritual into cramping, deforming, and stifling stereotyped ceremonials which can only handicap and retard all social, moral, and spiritual progress. No cult can survive if it retards moral growth and fails to foster spiritual progress. The cult is the skeletal structure around which grows the living and dynamic body of personal spiritual experience–true religion.

In these quotes I find strong confirmation for the work which lies before us. I will continue, and return again to some of these specific phrasings, as time permits…

Be very well blessed, dear friends,

M. Brent Melody

A Revelatory Religion of Love

 

“excellent as well as genuine” (100:6)

Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love: security in the Father’s love, with joy and satisfaction consequent upon sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.  (196:3 – The Supremacy of Religion)

Greetings friends,

Long discourses surely overwhelm both my communication skills and the attention spans of my happenstance readers.

But, bit by bit, driven by a God-given vocation, I intend to continue presenting views which I hope will serve to catalyze deeper understanding of the value and necessity for the evolved upstepping of modern Christianity, even all religion, by the latest epochal revelation.

Evolution may be slow, but it is unerringly effective.  (86:7)

…mankind is ripening for the appreciation of real religion, even a beginning of the revelation of truth itself.  (92:1)

It is always difficult to induce evolutionary minds suddenly to accept advanced revealed truth. Man is an evolutionary creature and in the main must get his religion by evolutionary techniques. (92:6)

There will be many complexities, sometimes perplexities, involved in a vital ministry of evangelistic missionary outreach inspired by the Urantia Papers, dedicated to the worldwide enculturation of the benign virus of love, and facilitated through the evolution of grassroots networks of ‘home-based’ faith communities united in purpose and ideals.

That overall view seems beyond the reach one individual, much less of a blog post, so for today I’ll continue my efforts by simply offering a few selected quotes that I hope will help to whet some spiritual soul-appetites for insight…

Always keep in mind: True religion is to know God as your Father and man as your brother.  (99:5)

But it is only foolish to attempt the too sudden acceleration of religious growth. A race or nation can only assimilate from any advanced religion that which is reasonably consistent and compatible with its current evolutionary status, plus its genius for adaptation. (92:2)

But if revelation is to exalt and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always keep in touch with evolution. Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man’s capacity of receptivity.  (99:4)

Man’s greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of fear without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of love. (99:4)

Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists.  (99:5)

Modern men have thought out many creeds and created many tests of religious faith. Future religionists must live out their religion, dedicate themselves to the wholehearted service of the brotherhood of man.  (99:5)

The beauty and sublimity, the humanity and divinity, the simplicity and uniqueness, of Jesus’ life on earth present such a striking and appealing picture of man-saving and God-revealing that the theologians and philosophers of all time should be effectively restrained from daring to form creeds or create theological systems of spiritual bondage out of such a transcendental bestowal of God in the form of man.  (195:10)

Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. Religion pays any price essential to the attainment of the supreme goal, the eternal prize.  (100:3)

“… there is a practical method of discovering the degree to which you have yielded the control of your soul powers to the teaching and guidance of this indwelling spirit of the heavenly Father, and that is the degree of your love for your fellow men. This spirit of the Father partakes of the love of the Father, and as it dominates man, it unfailingly leads in the directions of divine worship and loving regard for one’s fellows.  (146:3)

But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE.  (100:4)

The hungry soul of man refuses to be satisfied with anything less than the personal realization of the living God.  (102:1)

Religious insights, spiritual motivations, lead directly to religious actions, unselfish acts of social service and altruistic benevolence.

Religious desire is the hunger quest for divine reality. Religious experience is the consciousness of having found God.

And when a human being does find God, there is experienced within the soul of that being such an indescribable restlessness of triumph in discovery that he is impelled to seek loving service-contact with his less illuminated fellows, not to disclose that he has found God, but rather to allow the overflow of the welling-up of eternal goodness within his own soul to refresh and ennoble his fellows. Real religion leads to increased social service.  (102:3)

To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.

The religionist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of religion and the wellspring of superior civilization.

The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: “If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.”  (102:6)

May we each be filled to overflowing by our Father who IS LOVE ,

M. Brent Melody

ps. Happy St.Valentine’s Day ’10, with much more to come, God willing…

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