Question: Your beautiful messages would be so much more appreciated if whenever you refer to sons of God you would add / daughters of God. This would mean so much to the female readers and frankly I & many others are dismayed that in the 21st century this has not been done already. Wherever sons apprear in the papers simply add /daughters.
Answer: This issue of gender pronouns in The Urantia Book has been simmering for many years.
As you know, The Urantia Book is very clear that women are to be accorded the same value as men as regards their spiritual status. This is a theme that is addressed many times and very abundantly in the life of Jesus, who was an unapologetic champion of women. We know that Jesus always included women as valuable kingdom workers and members of the Father’s family. He did use the term daughter of God a few times when speaking directly to certain women, or about women in general and he even gave a talk on “The Sons and Daughters of God.” (I sure wish we had a transcript of that one!) But in most of Part IV, he refers to sons of God far more often.
That being said, I think this passage is important in considering the overall issue (author: a Melchizedek)
38:2.2 “…in dealing with sex creatures it is our custom to speak of those beings of more direct descent from the Father and the Son as the sons of God, while referring to the children of the Spirit as the daughters of God. Angels are, therefore, commonly designated by feminine pronouns on the sex planets.”
And this passage deserves a look, too:
40:5.1 (445.2) Mortals represent the last link in the chain of those beings who are called sons of God. The personal touch of the Original and Eternal Son passes on down through a series of decreasingly divine and increasingly human personalizations until there arrives a being much like yourselves, one you can see, hear, and touch. And then you are made spiritually aware of the great truth which your faith may grasp—sonship with the eternal God!
I think that maybe that is why the revelators chose “sons of God” more often in the text; all of us mortals, men and women alike, are of direct descent from the Father. And we can all identify with Jesus and his humanity, men and women alike.
As a woman, I do not have a problem with considering myself as a son of God, but I am entirely sympathetic to the issue of equality and try to be sensitive about it. When I talk with people about The Urantia Book I will commonly refer to the “children of God” or “child of God” when talking about us mortals. For me, this eliminates the need for gender distinction.
But I would not feel justified to amend the text itself by adding something extra like what you are suggesting, and I doubt whether that will ever become a common practice or policy as far as sites like TruthBook, or others that cite the text of The Urantia Book are concerned. It may be a nice idea in theory but to implement it would not be easy if we are to be consistent.
If you go down that road, to be fair, the next thing would be to amend all the instances of masculine pronouns to include the feminine and all the times that the text refers to the general term “man” or “mankind,”… e.g. “…man is a child of God.” And then there’s the word “sonship,” which is used 170 times in the text. Or the word “brotherhood,” which turns up 178 times!
If someone wants to know if the teachings of The Urantia Book are sexist, they have only to read it for themselves to know that they are not. And in the short term, it seems to me that focusing on this issue is more divisive than helpful.
