Attached Paper Annual Meeting 2024

The Factionalized Urantia Book Movement: Ripe for Scholarly Inquiry

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

The colorful Urantia movement grew up around The Urantia Book, a lengthy and mysterious tome that was first published in 1955 in Chicago and has since sold over one millions copies worldwide. The Urantia Foundation is the receiver of the original manuscript that it claims is authored by higher angels, and three rival “fellowship” organizations have arisen around this phenomenon since the 1990s, many of whom are educated professionals. Most adherents believe that the new revelation, said to be authorized by Christ himself, will bring about the radical reform of the Christian church. The three competing groups are now engaged in an intriguing power struggle—the key focus of my paper because it reflects sincere but conflicting responses to a rare claim of epoch-making revelation. I show how each response clusters around *one* of the classic three levels of interpretation of scripture first identified by Origen of Alexandria, who distinguished the literal, moral, and spiritual dimensions of scriptural texts. This influential NRM has distinctive, idiosyncratic, and often baffling social and literary characteristics requiring much more scrutiny by scholars.