I liked what you had to say, and agree with most of it. Or Urantia, whoever.
However, I had a few issues with a couple of statements:
"The non-Christian world will hardly capitulate to a sect-divided Christendom." This is divisive in itself, as if the 'correct' christians were duty-bound to 'conquer'- the tone is that the people who are aware of their christ spirit within should somehow 'take over' and direct non christians' spiritual life, and this just rings wrong for me.
It means that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists and so on, will not convert to Christianity or come to Jesus via Christianity as long as Christianity cannot present a unified front and a united front, and a consistent religious world view. It's not about Christians conquering anyone. As it is, who of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and so on would even want to be a Christian, looking at Christianity objectively? Jesus said, "Mar 3:25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." Christianity, with thousands and thousands of sects is certainly a house divided, and as such does not offer much appeal to the world to bring the world to Jesus.
The whole idea of being a follower of Jesus, or to follow what we think Jesus taught, is to direct oneself inwards, to discover that divine spark, that unites all of us, christian and nonchristian alike and to develop our relationship to it, using Jesus' life and stories as a template and guide, not to 'convince' or 'convert' others to discover what is already there.
That's really pretty well said, imo. Here is what The Urantia Book says, similarly:
196:1.3 To “follow Jesus” means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master’s life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.
Part IV of The Urantia Book is "The Life and Teachings of Jesus." If you want to know the true story of Jesus, start reading at Paper 121 and read to the end. Here is a link to the text:
http://urantiabook.org/newbook/"the invisible brotherhood of the kingdom may well include these family groups of various social and temperamental classes if they are only willing to become truly spirit-led sons God." This also gives me pause- perhaps it is the word 'led' that makes me nervous. I know how I interpret scripture, and what I believe the message of Jesus to be, and I mostly believe that my faith is led by the spirit of God- but that doesn't mean I have the right to decide whether someoene else truly is 'led' by Spirit. Especially if I could be wrong.
I don't think it says anyone has to decide whether anyone else is "spirit-led." It's saying that to be in the brotherhood of the kingdom of God, groups must be "spirit-led sons [of] God." (Are you hand typing the text?) I would also submit that "spirit-led" is more of a composite term in the way it's written, than it would be if it was two words, the dash ties them together in a way that carries a subtly different meaning. (IMO)
Take care.
Norm.