William S. Sadler - Reception

Reception

By the time of his death, Sadler was acclaimed for his accurate prediction of the advent of organ transplantation decades before the practice became commonplace. Members of the Urantia movement have also held high opinions of Sadler, sometimes idolizing him. In her 2003 profile of the Urantia movement, Lewis states that descriptions of Sadler by members of the movement could suggest that he possessed charismatic authority and is revered as "the chosen". Gooch deems Sadler the "Moses of the Urantia movement" and casts him as "one of America's homegrown religious leaders, an original along the lines of Joseph Smith". He also applauds Sadler's writings about mediums, describing Sadler's book The Truth About Spiritualism as "one of the strongest attacks ever written on fraudulent mediums and their methods".

Gooch believes there is a contradiction between Sadler's advocacy of science and reason and his support of the avant-garde theological, "inter-planetary" contents of The Urantia Book. Gardner describes Sadler's life story as "riveting" and summarizes him as an "intelligent, gifted" person who proved to be "gullible" about alleged supernatural revelations. He contends that Sadler eventually developed megalomania that was unrecognized by those around him and argues that Sadler succumbed to hubris and began to believe that he was a prophet, divinely chosen as the founder and leader of a new religion. Lewis disputes this characterization, maintaining that Sadler and those around him sought only to clarify and explain the teachings of the Bible.