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A FEW MONTHS ago I
began posting a series of new parallel
charts for various Urantia papers on
Square Circles, and I hope to have at
least twenty on the site before the year
2010 is out. I’ve presented the charts
as stand-alone "works in progress,"
without commentary, since I’m focused
now on bringing out as many charts as
possible to make up for several years of
no releases. In my files are detailed
commentaries for each paper, which I
hope to share in print and/or at
workshops, before long.
Since the current parallel chart
involves only two sections of a paper,
Saskia and I thought it would be nice to
accompany it with this article, which
gives an account of the source find, and
other relevant materials.
On June 24 of this year, I discovered
that Jesus’ discourses on true religion
in Paper 155 - "The Discourse on
True Religion" (155:5) and
"The Second Discourse on
Religion" (155:6) - were
derived, in large part, from a fine book
of sermons published in 1928, called
The Religion of the Spirit:
Studies in Faith and Life. I
hit upon this book after a five-minute
search for parallels on
books.google.com, and was able to
finish tracing the parallelisms a couple
weeks later, after buying a used copy
from an internet bookseller.
Through further googling I learned
that the book’s author, Ernest
Fremont Tittle (1885-1949), was
pastor of the First Methodist Church in
Evanston, Illinois, and professor at the
Garrett Biblical Institute, also in
Evanston. A blurb from a later volume of
his describes him as "frequently in
demand as a college preacher throughout
the east and middle west," and a book
about him published in 1996 - Social
Gospel Liberalism and the Ministry
of Ernest Fremont Tittle, by
Christopher Hodge Evans - indicates by
its title the direction of his
sympathies. (Glenn Beck fans, be advised
- Tittle was a prototypical
"social-justice Christian.")
If I had noticed The Religion of the
Spirit in any library or used book store
in the past thirty years, I certainly
would have picked it up and leafed
through it, hoping to find similarities
with the Urantia Book, particularly with
the two discourses. But thanks to
books.google.com, which became fully
functional in the spring of 2007, one is
no longer restricted to such chance
encounters. In the past three years I’ve
found about as many UB sources as I’d
found in the fifteen previous years,
without straying from my computer. In
fact, the month of June 2010 alone saw
the discovery of three other Part IV
sources.
The sharp increase of recently found
books containing row after row of
parallels with material in the Urantia
Book has led me to sharpen my criteria
for what constitutes a "source." I can
no longer confidently identify a text as
a source if it contains conceptual
similarities with the Urantia Book
without also clear and consecutive
linguistic parallelisms.
Long before becoming more selective,
I named Auguste Sabatier’s 1904 book,
The Religions of Authority and the
Religion of the Spirit, a "human
source" for part of 155:5. In my first
list of supposed sources, published in
1992, I wrote:
The sections
in the Urantia Book on the discourses on
true religion, which distinguish the
religions of authority from the religion
of the spirit, are an amplification of
Sabatier’s thesis. The Urantia Book’s
listing of the "three manifestations of
the religious urge" on p. 1728
corresponds to Sabatier’s "Three Degrees
of Religious Evolution." Sabatier’s book
was quite influential; both Rufus Jones
and Walter Bundy, among others, refer to
the religions of authority and the
religion of the spirit, attributing the
origin of the latter to Jesus, as does
Sabatier.
Yesterday I reread Sabatier’s "Three
Degrees of Religious Evolution," and
find the parallels with 155:5 to be
nothing more than vaguely suggestive.
(You, the reader, may judge for
yourself. Click
here to read Sabatier.) It may be
that the writer of 155:5 and 155:6 used
Sabatier’s formulation as a springboard
for his or her own threefold
formulation. In any case, I’ve found no
clear parallels in Tittle’s book or
anywhere else for the UB’s rendition.
Nevertheless, the Sabatier link is
not consigned to dubious obscurity. In
the first paragraph of his opening
sermon, "The Religion of the Spirit,"
Tittle credits his inspiration:
AUGUSTE SABATIER made the world
his debtor when he published his great
book, Religions of Authority and the
Religion of the Spirit. It has been
a long time since I read it, and I am
obliged to acknowledge that all I can
distinctly recall of it is the title.
But that alone is enough to call forth a
hymn of praise if only one were able to
compose it. The mere recognition of the
fact that there are religions of
authority and the religion of the spirit
is one of those flashes of spiritual
insight for which we can never be
sufficiently grateful.
The parallels with 155:5 begin
immediately after that paragraph.
Tittle’s first sermon threads subtly
through Jesus’ first discourse, and then
the thread picks up more and more beads
as the second discourse progresses.
Towards the end of the latter, material
from Tittle’s third, fifth, sixth and
seventh sermons come successively into
play.
The narrator of Paper 155 describes
the first discourse - given in response
to Thomas’s questioning as to "just what
is wrong with the religion of our
enemies at Jerusalem. What is the real
difference between their religion and
ours?" - as "one of the most remarkable
addresses which his apostles ever
listened to throughout all their years
of association with him" (155:4.2). The
second discourse is hardly less
remarkable in its inspirational power.
But by carefully studying the parallel
chart - and ideally by also reading the
five drawn-upon sermons in Tittle’s
book, the first sermon of which can be
read here (click on book above
right) - you, the reader, will
be able to see the equally remarkable
way in which the sermons were
incorporated into Jesus’ discourses,
discourses which were, according to the
writer of Paper 155, "summarized and
restated in modern phraseology."
Naturally, the parallel chart is a
work in progress. Constructive criticism
is always appreciated.
* * *
Here are a few pointers which may
help those of you who are new to the
parallel charts, as well as a few
questions for in-depth study:
(1) Skim through the whole chart
first, to get a sense of the course of
the parallels. See how far the source is
used in consecutive page order. See how
many chapters are used, whether some
chapters are used more heavily than
others, etc.
(2) Read the left column all the way
through first, to get a sense of the
source author’s (in this case Tittle’s)
message and style of expression.
(3) Specific to this parallel chart:
Notice how 155:5 is more complex than
155:6. It begins with the restated
discourse (5.2-5.5) and adds two
paragraphs of commentary (5:6-7) before
resuming the discourse (5:8-5:11). It
then directly quotes Jesus, who assesses
the religious situation in Jerusalem in
the light of the discourse teaching and
then appeals to the apostles and
disciples to courageously embrace the
religion of the spirit, which they
unanimously commit to doing (5:12-16).
See where and how the Tittle parallels
come in and leave off as discourse
shifts to action.
(4) Observe that 155:6 consists
exclusively of restated discourse, apart
from the opening and closing paragraphs.
Notice that, unlike in 155:5, Jesus
addresses the apostles and disciples as
"you" and frames his comments in the
light of their new conviction. See how
the Tittle parallels begin to cluster
and concentrate. See, later in the
section, where the culling from Tittle’s
first sermon ends and other ones are
used. Has the UB author succeeded in
maintaining continuity while turning to
Tittle’s later sermons?
(5) Reread the parallel chart, this
time concentrating on how the UB author
"tweaked" Tittle’s meaning, language and
context. Notice, for instance, how
Tittle's words and word clusters were
retained while his 20th-century
references were removed. What added
resonance is given to Tittle’s
statements after they’ve been transposed
and adapted from the pages of his book
to become the substance of discourses
from Jesus himself?
(6) Then, if you feel like it,
reflect on how your new knowledge of
Tittle’s influence on the discourses
affects your larger understanding of
Part IV. What questions does it raise
for you, if any?
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papers paralleled 
