PROGRESS
These seraphim are intrusted with the task of initiating the evolutionary progress of the successive social ages.  They foster the development of the inherent progressive trend of evolutionary creatures;  they labor incessantly to make things what they ought to be.  The group now on duty is the second to be assigned to the planet.
" And this which your eyes now behold, this small beginning of twelve commonplace men, shall multiply and grow until eventually the whole earth shall be filled with the praise of my Father." "Joshua ben Joseph"
THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCHES IN THE 21st CENTURY
The higher a civilization climbs, the more necessitous becomes the duty to "seek first the realities of heaven" in all of man's efforts to stabilize society and facilitate the solution of its material problems.
Religion is now confronted by the challenge of a new age of scientific minds and materialistic tendencies.  In this gigantic struggle between the secular and the spiritual, the religion of Jesus will eventually triumph.
The modern age will refuse to accept a religion which is inconsistent with facts and out of harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness.  The hour is striking for a rediscovery of the truth and original foundations of present-day distorted and compromised Christianity-the real life and teachings of Jesus.
But religious leaders are making a great mistake when they try to call modern man to spiritual battle with the trumpet blasts of the Middle Ages.  Religion must provide itself with new and up-to-date slogans.
"The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries.  Jesus of Nazareth must not longer be sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ.  What a transcendent service it, 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 that bears his name, and to all other religions.
"But doubt not, this same kingdom of heaven which the master taught, exists within the heart of the believer, will yet be proclaimed to this Christian church, even as to all other religions, races, and nations on earth- even to every individual."
"Paul's Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be- and what it most certainly will yet become."
Many of the great truths taught by Jesus were almost lost in these early compromises, but they yet slumber in this religion of paganized Christianity, which was in turn the Pauline version of the life and teachings of the Son of Man
"For the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larvel stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master's teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development.  Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus's concept now slumbers.  The kingdom of the divine brothethood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development."
Modern culture must become spiritually baptized 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.
The great hope in Urantia lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers.
Christianity is an extemporized religion, and therefore must it operate in low gear.  High-gear spiritual performances must await the new revelation and the more general acceptance of the real religion of Jesus.  But Christianity is a mighty religion, seeing that the common place disciples of a crucified carpenter set in motion those teachings which conquered the Roman world in three hundred years and then went on to triumph over the barbarians who overthrew Rome.  This same Christianity conquered-absorbed and exalted- the whole stream of Hebrew theology and Greek philosophy.  And then, when this Christian religion becaome comatose for more than a thousand years as a result of an overdose of mysteries and paganism, it resurrected itself and virtually reconquered the whole Western world.  Christianity contians enough of Jesus's teachings to immortalize it.
But the Christianity of even the twentieth century must not be despised.  It is the product of the combined moral genius of the God- knowing men of many races during many ages, and it has truly been one of the greatest powers of good on earth, and therefore  no man should lightly regard it notwithstanding its inherent and acquired defects.  Christianity still contrives to move the minds of reflective men with mighty moral emotions.
Many of the great truths taught by Jesus were almost lost in these early compromises, but they yet slumber in this religion of paganized Christianity which was in turn the Pauline version of the life and teachings of the Son of Man.
Scientists have unintentionally precipated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it.  Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race.  When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt.  The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it "in His name."
Modern Science has left true religion- the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of His believers-untouched.
Religion does need new leaders.  Spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings.
But be patient!  when the present superstition revolt is over, the truths of Jesus' gospel will persist gloriously to illuminate a new and better way.