The Transition Years

134:4.1The broth­er­hood of men is founded on the fa­ther­hood of God. The fam­ily of God is de­rived from the love of God—God is love. God the Fa­ther di­vinely loves his chil­dren, all of them.

134:4.2The king­dom of heaven, the di­vine gov­ern­ment, is founded on the fact of di­vine sov­er­eignty—God is spirit. Since God is spirit, this king­dom is spir­i­tual. The king­dom of heaven is nei­ther ma­te­rial nor merely in­tel­lec­tual; it is a spir­i­tual re­la­tion­ship be­tween God and man.

134:4.3If dif­fer­ent re­li­gions rec­og­nize the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, then will all such re­li­gions re­main at peace. Only when one re­li­gion as­sumes that it is in some way su­pe­rior to all oth­ers, and that it pos­sesses ex­clu­sive au­thor­ity over other re­li­gions, will such a re­li­gion pre­sume to be in­tol­er­ant of other re­li­gions or dare to per­se­cute other re­li­gious be­liev­ers.

134:4.4Re­li­gious peace—broth­er­hood—can never ex­ist un­less all re­li­gions are will­ing to com­pletely di­vest them­selves of all ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity and fully sur­ren­der all con­cept of spir­i­tual sov­er­eignty. God alone is spirit sov­er­eign.

134:4.5You can­not have equal­ity among re­li­gions (re­li­gious lib­erty) with­out hav­ing re­li­gious wars un­less all re­li­gions con­sent to the trans­fer of all re­li­gious sov­er­eignty to some super­hu­man level, to God him­self.

134:4.6The king­dom of heaven in the hearts of men will cre­ate re­li­gious unity (not nec­es­sar­ily uni­for­mity) be­cause any and all re­li­gious groups com­posed of such re­li­gious be­liev­ers will be free from all no­tions of ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity—re­li­gious sov­er­eignty.

134:4.7God is spirit, and God gives a frag­ment of his spirit self to dwell in the heart of man. Spir­i­tu­ally, all men are equal. The king­dom of heaven is free from castes, classes, so­cial lev­els, and eco­nomic groups. You are all breth­ren.

134:4.8But the mo­ment you lose sight of the spirit sov­er­eignty of God the Fa­ther, some one re­li­gion will be­gin to as­sert its su­pe­ri­or­ity over other re­li­gions; and then, in­stead of peace on earth and good will among men, there will start dis­sen­sions, re­crim­i­na­tions, even re­li­gious wars, at least wars among re­li­gion­ists.

134:4.9Free­will be­ings who re­gard them­selves as equals, un­less they mu­tu­ally ac­knowl­edge them­selves as sub­ject to some super­sov­er­eignty, some au­thor­ity over and above them­selves, sooner or later are tempted to try out their abil­ity to gain power and au­thor­ity over other per­sons and groups. The con­cept of equal­ity never brings peace ex­cept in the mu­tual rec­og­ni­tion of some over­con­trol­ling in­flu­ence of super­sov­er­eignty.

134:4.10The Ur­mia re­li­gion­ists lived to­gether in com­par­a­tive peace and tran­quil­lity be­cause they had fully sur­ren­dered all their no­tions of re­li­gious sov­er­eignty. Spir­i­tu­ally, they all be­lieved in a sov­er­eign God; so­cially, full and un­chal­lenge­able au­thor­ity rested in their pre­sid­ing head—Cym­boy­ton. They well knew what would hap­pen to any teacher who as­sumed to lord it over his fel­low teach­ers. There can be no last­ing re­li­gious peace on Uran­tia un­til all re­li­gious groups freely sur­ren­der all their no­tions of di­vine fa­vor, cho­sen peo­ple, and re­li­gious sov­er­eignty. Only when God the Fa­ther be­comes su­preme will men be­come re­li­gious broth­ers and live to­gether in re­li­gious peace on earth.