The Urantia Book will be generally recognized as one of the major spiritual touch-stones on our planet. You may be interested in knowing how I came across this unusual and challenging book. In December of 1955, my wife, Irene, and I stopped in to visit our friends Dr. and Mrs. Edward Brueseke. Dr. Brueseke was pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Sound Bend, Indiana. During the course of our visit, Ed reached over and handed me a large blue book saying, Judge Hammerschmidt gave me this book.
Some businessmen think it s a new Bible.
This was enough to turn me off and strike me as ludicrous. We had a good laugh about Judge Hammerschmidt s naivete and I assumed that was the last I would ever see of the book. Judge Louis Hammerschmidt was a prominent member of Zion Church and a respected layperson in the larger United Church of Christ. Hammerschmidt was also the lay member of our Indiana-Michigan Conference Council. During the drive to Jackson, Judge cautiously mentioned his tentative investigation of Spiritualism.