Self-interest will no longer be the driving force in the society of the future; rather that force will be "showing a warm heart to please the object," said Dr. Sang Hun Lee in a recent seminar. Power will come not from the barrel of a gun but from the True Love of True Parents and the appreciation and reverence of the one who receives it, he said.
In a four-day seminar June 14-17 at the New Yorker, Dr. Lee said that until now the ideal society - so-called utopia - has been described only in vague terms. Now we must describe in concrete detail how True Love will be expressed in the family and, with the family as the model, in the educational system, the organs of government and the institutions of society, he said. Such clarity is an essential step in the public acceptance of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's vision for the future.
Speaking to some fifty leaders of the Unification Church and of other organizations founded by Rev. Moon, Dr. Lee outlined Rev. Moon's Three Great Subjects Thought and its application. He described how Rev. Moon has painstakingly and successfully applied that thought in his mission as Messiah and True Parents in restoring humankind. Also, Dr. Lee presented Rev. Moon's specific strategy for defeating Satan, uniting the Korean Peninsula and constructing an ideal society based on that thought.
Sponsored jointly by the Unification Thought Institute of America and HSA-UWC, the seminar offered a comprehensive overview of recent significant providential events and of Rev. Moon's proclamations and new revelations over the past decade. Much of the content in the twelve lectures Dr. Lee presented was too recent to be contained in The Divine Principle and Essentials of Unification Thought.
"Through Dr. Lee's lectures, one can understand the limits of the Divine Principle book in the Completed Testament Age and the extent and newness of Rev. Moon's recent teachings," said Paul Perry of the Unification Thought Institute.
In a quiet, methodical manner Dr. Lee shared Rev. Moon's views on solving actual world problems, the Four Great Realms of Heart and Three Great Kingships, the House of Unification, the creation of a culture of heart, among numerous other topics. Participants said they had received so much new truth during some 28 hours of presentations that they would need to study their notes for months to be able to absorb it.
"Each lecture gave me incredible insights into the providence, Rev. Moon's life, the background of the Proclamation of True Parents ... which I will want to share with others," said Dr. Andy Wilson in a testimony during the closing ceremony. "I want to teach this material to professors," he said.
Dr. Lee, also at the closing ceremony, noted the substantial value of teaching of Subject Thought in the United States. He said our responsibility as members, whatever our missions, is that humankind quickly accept True Parents. "The U.S. [needs to] become number one in accepting the True Parents in all families, ahead of other countries," he said, implying that Subject Thought will be an invaluable benefit in achieving that goal.
A Thirty-Six Blessed Couple and the creator of Unification Thought, Dr. Lee emphasized the need to solve actual problems from the individual to the world level and beyond. A theoretical messiah can only bring theoretical results.
Past efforts to resolve actual problems proved ineffectual because they were only partial, or what he called "item," solutions based on archangelic thought, Dr. Lee said. Because all problems are interrelated and are ultimately caused by man's fallen nature, their solutions must be "comprehensive," addressing all problems and their root, the fall of humankind.
Political, economic and social solutions in the past have all proved to be partial solutions and despite some temporary successes, have all ultimately failed. While religions and philosophies have sought to bring comprehensive solutions, they were based on angelic revelations which have proved unable in the long run to eliminate fallen nature and thus completely solve actual problems, he said. (Ed: You may want to consider whether this is too sensitive for some of your readers from other faiths.) Only the Messiah can bring comprehensive, Adamic solutions for those problems and their cause.
But the Messiah will not deny those faiths; rather, he will "supplement what remained unsolved" and "revitalize their teachings," Dr. Lee said. "With the aid of True Mother's speech and True Father's thought, each of those religions and thought can be revitalized," he continued. In this way "they can participate in the building of the new culture."
Through True Mother's speech, he added, those religions and systems of thought can discover "what was the cause of their ineffectiveness or decline. ... [and] solve their own problems and participate in the building of the unified culture." That will be the method by which Unification Culture will be formed, he said.
That Unification Culture Dr. Lee called Heart Culture. "In this culture everything is done with the heart of love," he said. "Political leaders are supposed to act with the heart of love; so are economists, educators, and so on. Everything is done with the heart of love."
The solution to these actual problems may come more quickly now because of True Mother's world and campus tours, according to Dr. Lee. In her speech leaders in religion, politics, economics, art, education and other fields will be able to find the keys to solve their problems, he said.
"All world leaders are struggling because they cannot find fundamental solutions to the problems they face in politics, economy, crimes, etc.," Dr. Lee said. "It is like a person drowning in the ocean. They are desperate to find anything that can help them."
True Mother's speech provides the keys to solving these problems, and their desperation will help them to discover that, according to Dr. Lee.
Those leaders will need to realize that today's democratic system, for example, is only a preparatory step for the ideal society of tomorrow, Dr. Lee said. In what he called co-prosperity, the future political structures will all be patterned after the ideal family. Sessions of Congress, for instance, will resemble family gatherings, unlike current sessions of individual legislators which can be thought of as meetings of "angels," not of a family, he said.
Dr. Lee criticized today's legislators as "archangels, not sons and daughters of God." He said, "Lawmakers make laws arbitrarily based on their selfish thinking. That is why politics does not become ideal." In the future they will serve the purpose of the whole as a kind of family council offering solutions to True Parents, rather than serving selfish special interests, he said. Also, legislators in a not-so future government will be couples, not single representatives, said Dr. Lee. Some of them will be chosen by lottery, just as in the New Testament the disciple to replace Judas was chosen by lot.
Besides the family, the human body is also a pattern for government, Dr. Lee said. Now the legislative, judicial and executive branches correspond to the lungs, heart and digestive system of a person. But in the past those same functions were performed by the monasteries, pope and king in the medieval period and by prophets, priests and king in the United Kingdom of Israel. So, in the future, while those same functions will be necessary, the bodies which carry them out may change as they have in the past.
More importantly, government has functioned until now like a person without a brain and nervous system. In the future, those roles will be performed by the True Parents and what Dr. Lee called the "family system" -possibly elder blessed couples - respectively.
In this ideal society ownership of property will usually be "joint," not private as in capitalist economies, Dr. Lee said. He called this co-living.
After entering Canaan, the Jews held property jointly as have many other societies. In fact, private ownership is a recent development. In the past two centuries as monarchic systems were replaced by democracies in preparation for the Second Coming, property owned by the king was distributed to individuals.
But as individual owners come to know and attend the True Parents in the Last Days, they will naturally want to offer their property to them, Dr. Lee said. Then that property will be jointly owned by the True Parents and the family of that individual.
Dr. Lee cited a conversation Rev. Moon had with the leaders and members of Il Hwa in Korea. "{Il Hwa] is owned first by God and you, secondly by TP and you, thirdly by the company president and you," he reported Rev. Moon as saying.
In the future there will still be a place for private ownership, but it will be in the context of the purpose of the whole. He cited children in a family owning a musical instrument or artistic materials, practicing hard and winning a contest in art or music, and in this way giving joy to their parents. The children's private ownership thus contributed to the joy of the whole family.
In such a society, all political, social, economic and family activities will be based on attendance in the context of family ethics, said Dr. Lee. Calling this way of life co-righteousness, he said, "This life of attendance is expanded to all ... aspects of society and all levels: workplace, home, community, nation, world, etc."
The ideological basis of this society will be True Parents' Three Great Subjects Thought, or simply Subject Thought. According to this thought, there are three great subjects in society: parents, teachers and what he called chief, the person responsible for organizations, associations, government -virtually any administrative function. Each of these subjects functions in their role and has dominion not by force but by exercising "warm heart of love toward the object." If their love is true, then sons and daughters will naturally, appreciatively and even reverently respond positively to their parents, students to teachers and members of an organization or government to their chief and grow and develop in that love. Those in the objective position will also naturally spread that love to others. Such downward true love will eliminate conflict and promote unification and harmony on all levels. Each person in such love relationships will feel like a son or daughter in a family and develop his or her full potential, and the organization or administration of which they are members will function effectively.
This Subject Thought is one of "five great [areas of] thought of the Completed Testament Age," according to Dr. Lee. He identified the others as:
2. Four Great Realms of Heart and Three Great Kingships,
3. Providential background behind the Proclamation of True Parents,
4. Co-living, Co-prosperity, Co-righteousness (above), and
5. House of Unification for World Peace.
The Four Great Realms of Heart refer to the heart of the four basic relationships in the family, namely: husband-wife, parents-children, brothers-sisters and children-parents. These are the same as the three kinds of love identified in the Divine Principle with the addition of that of brothers and sisters.
"The Four Great Realms of Heart means that in a family each member loves each other out of the irresistible impulse to love each other," said Dr. Lee.
Dr. Lee said that God himself also had this irresistible impulse to love. "Because of it, he began to create the universe," he said. "Out of this irresistible impulse to love, he had to create his object of love, human beings, as his children."
Calling this the Heart Mobilization Theory and a new revelation, he said that for God "creation was unavoidable." This same irresistible impulse exists in each individual and is the basis for the Four Great Realms of Heart.
But in a family there is also "an aspect of authority of love with reverence for each other," he said. "That kind of family in which there is mutual reverence is truly an ideal family... a palace of love where kings and queens live together on the foundation of the Four Great Realms of Heart."
Because Rev. Moon seeks to teach the immense value of each family position, he speaks of each as a royal position, according to Dr. Lee. Grandparents are king and queen of the past and of the spiritual world; parents are king and queen of the present and the physical world and the children are princes and princesses of the future.
"When those families in which the Three Great Kingships and the Four Great Realms of the Heart have been established get together, they form the royal family sphere," Dr. Lee said.
Another important development in the Completed Testament Age is The House of Unification for World Peace which Rev. Moon established August 24, 1992 in Seoul at the World Culture and Sports Festival on the eve of the 30,000 blessing. Comparing it to the nervous system with True Parents as the brain, Dr. Lee said the House of Unification will coordinate Unification conferences, organizations and other activities and provide family education. This may be the nervous system which Dr. Lee called a "family system" in his lecture on co- prosperity (above).
Neither a workshop center for learning the Divine Principle, nor a school for learning math, science, history and other academic subjects, it is to be a sanctuary of family education and will focus on non-Unificationists, Dr. Lee said. "The House of Unification will provide what is lacking in today's education," he said.
In this house people will find comfort and a solution to their problems of loneliness and solitude; they come to get rid of anxiety or uneasiness. Many have "private, secret matters which they don't want to reveal to others from which they are suffering," Dr. Lee said. They need someone to confess to who can also help them deal with these matters.
Dr. Lee described the House of Unification as a "warm place" with an "atmosphere of mothers embracing their children ... [a place] people feel like going back to, cannot help but go back to..."
The House of Unification as well as the Four Great Realms of Heart and the Three Great Kingships are all concepts Rev. Moon introduced only in the Completed Testament Age. Proclaimed January 1, 1993 in Korea, the Completed Testament Age is the age in which God will fulfill the promise he made to the Israelites in Isaiah 9:6-7, namely, that he would send the Prince of Peace to the earth to establish the kingdom of peace. Dr. Lee said, "The promise of peace was never to be changed, as written in Isaiah 54:10."
On this biblical basis we can know the Completed Testament Age is an age in which the covenant of peace will be fulfilled, Dr. Lee said. It is also a time when all people will come to attend the True Parents, he said.
Leading up to the proclamation of the Completed Testament Age, however, is a trail of True Parents' intense indemnity to restore 4,000 years of history and a number of important conditions and providential events which Dr. Lee outlined (see sidebar).
One of the more significant of these events was the proclamation of the Day of God's Eternal Blessing. From that time on, God's will will be achieved, Dr. Lee said. Satan has no more condition against Rev. Moon.
Dr. Lee said this day ended the forty-year wilderness course and its aftermath and begins preparation for the Completed Testament Age. It is a watershed event; history before and after this date are different, Dr. Lee said.
As of this date "the Kingdom of Heaven established by the blessed members is eternal and will never perish," Dr. Lee said. God's blessing on the earth is now eternal.
It also meant that "all the conflicts and struggles throughout history had come to an end," said Dr. Lee. Rev. Moon said that his responsibility as parent to resolve the conflicts between brothers - like those between communism and the free world, between North and South Korea, politics and religion, nation and nation, religion and religion, and philosophy and philosophy - had been fulfilled.
That does not mean that these conflicts are over, Dr. Lee explained, but simply that Rev. Moon had established the necessary conditions for them to end. These conditions become a foundation for their eventual substantial resolution.
Rev. Moon declared, in addition, that "the time has come when the blood shed by people on the good side in the struggle between good and evil can be compensated," Dr. Lee said.
Furthermore, from this time on True Parents on earth will have dominion over the spiritual world and will be able to direct them to do things, he said. For example, "True Parents can order the founders of [the different] religions to cooperate, and the spiritual world will be mobilized," he said.
Finally, as of this day Rev. Moon's sphere of victory can be bequeathed to successful tribal messiahs, Dr. Lee said.
Another significant event almost 14 months later that opened the way to the Completed Testament Age is the Proclamation of the True Parents on August 24, 1992.
Dr. Lee reviewed the providential history that made this proclamation possible, only part of which is contained in the black book. Besides the Foundation for the Messiah detailed in the book, there are two parallel providences, one of the history of preparation of the bride of the Messiah through the chosen "maternal" nation - Israel, Christianity and then Korea -and of the preparation of families in which cooperation between mother and sons has been fulfilled to indemnify the failure of Cain, Abel and Eve to unite.
The fulfillment of these "three great internal providences" is a necessary foundation for True Parents to appear and the Completed Testament Age to begin. Dr. Lee shared little-known details of these providences such as the difficult relationship between Zerah and Perez which Tamar helped to resolve as a foundation for cooperation among Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist. He also explained the failure of the Mother-Son Cooperation providence in Korea and how God became a "God of failure" as a result, then how Rev. Moon in tears offered to reindemnify all of human history since Abraham's family so that God would not be a "God of failure."
Dr. Lee also detailed Rev. Moon's strategy for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula.
Participants in the conference said they were overwhelmed by the amount of material they had received in four days. One professor, who had taken 119 pages of written notes, complained tongue-in-cheek of having developed "writer's cramp" during the seminar.
Videos of the conference are available through the Unification Theological Seminary's Audio-Visual department at 758-6881 ext. 250.
At the closing ceremony Dr. Theodore Shimmyo, President of the Seminary, said he was "amazed there is such oneness between True Father's teaching and Dr. Lee's teaching." Rev. Joong Hyun Pak, Continental Director of the Unification Chruch of Noth America, urged participants to become "second Dr. Sang Hun Lee's and teach [this material] to all of the American public."
At the ceremony Rev. Pak and Dr. James Baughman, president of HSA-UWC, presented 36 Couple Dr. David S.C. Kim a plaque of appreciation for his pioneering work in America and his long years of service to True Parents, the Unification Church and the Seminary. In his response, Dr. Kim suggested there be a follow-up "revival" of seminar participants.