Sun Myung Moon
May 21, 1992
Tenth Anniversary of The Washington Times
Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC, USA
Photo date and location unknown
Distinguished guests, Freedom Award recipients, ladies and gentlemen:
As the founder of The Washington Times, I would like to extend my congratulations to the Freedom Award recipients.
You richly deserve recognition for your service in the defense of freedom. Tonight, as I look back, I remember the day in 1981 when I decided to create this newspaper.
A decisive role in the downfall of communism
I ask you to recall the situation at that time together with me. When The Washington Star collapsed, Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States of America and the world's inspiration for freedom and democracy, was left with just a liberal newspaper, The Washington Post. That situation was completely unacceptable.
At that time, the idea of starting up a new, conservative paper to challenge the Post was unthinkable. I assure you that if I had sought political, influence, religious propaganda or personal wealth, The Washington Times would have been the wrong project indeed. The fact is that I have invested close to a billion dollars in this newspaper during the past decade. I founded this newspaper only because I understood that this enterprise was the Will and sacred plan of God, who loves America and its Judeo- Christian heritage.
God looks to America to assume the central role in saving the world from the collapse of traditional values and in defending the free world from the threat of communism. That is why I, who have dedicated my entire life to the fulfillment of His Will, created The Washington Times, to provide America with responsible leadership in fulfilling this providential role without any hesitation.
This tenth anniversary celebration commemorates the decisive role played by The Washington Times in the downfall of communism, and it anticipates the hope of America and the world for a bright future. In speaking of the future, allow me to share with you my hopes for a world of peace and harmony.
The basis of peace and unity is true love
Ladies and gentlemen, what is the most precious thing in the world? It is true love, with God at its center. If there is anything that you cannot gain with money or power, it is true love.
True love is unique in that it cannot be actualized except within a relationship. A relationship requires giving and receiving between two beings, a subject partner and an object partner. Love between husband and wife, love between parent and child, and love between brother and sister are all experienced within relationships. In the same way, for God to fulfill the ideal of true love, He created the universe to be in the object partner position.
Among all of God's creations, humankind, consisting of God's sons and daughters, was created to be God's primary object partner of love. It is only through true love that we can experience true unity between God and human beings, between men and women, and among all the creatures in the world.
True love is the ultimate center of all united and absolute values. This love originates from the act of sacrificing oneself for the sake of others. Give of yourself to others and forget your giving, then give again; this is the nature of true love. That is why when God created an object partner of love, He gave of Himself for the sake of that creation. He invested everything He had. God invested one hundred percent and then invested again and again.
In nature, when air moves, a low-pressure area is created. Then in a cyclical motion air rushes back to fill the area of lower pressure. In human life, when we give our love until we have no more to give, God's unlimited love rushes back into our hearts to fill the void. This is the fundamental truth about the mind.
Absolute giving for the sake of others, therefore, will bring us unlimited energy. God stands in the position of subject partner, giving love to humanity.
God's original nature of giving love again and again generates a perpetual dynamic motion characterizing God's eternal existence. It is logical for this to occur. Thus, eternal life is the natural consequence of living according to the way of true love.
The special qualities of love include the right of inheritance, the right of equal status, and the right of participation. There may have been occasions when men who became presidents of the United States had wives who had not even graduated from high school. However, when a husband and wife are engaged in mutual true love, what belongs to the husband belongs to the wife at the same time. And since they live together, day and night, they both have the right to live in the White House as president and first lady, and both can participate in affairs of the state.
Since love has these three important qualities, if you can stand in the position of having God's absolute and unchanging love, you can be where God is. You will have the right to live together with God all the time.
When you have accepted this true love of God one hundred percent into your body and mind, the roots of God's love will begin to grow in your heart. Then you will be able to sense everything He feels, and your body automatically will resonate with that.
Therefore, filling yourself completely with the true love of God is the essential condition for uniting your mind and body and becoming the eternal object partner of God. If we, as human beings, resonate with God's love and enter a sphere of oneness, then God's love will be our love, God's life will be our life, God's lineage will be our lineage, and God's creation will be our creation.
The life of human beings takes after the life of God. The core of His life is true love, which is living for the sake of the object partner. For this reason, God created us according to His principle of living for the sake of others. By living and sacrificing for others, we can realize the ideal of love.
With this in mind, we cannot expect world peace to result from the contemporary philosophy of individualism, in which each person lives for himself or herself. It is the intention of evil to destroy the sphere in which the individual dwells as God's object partner. When that occurs, what remains is the individual living only for oneself. This is the fundamental cause of family breakdown, racial conflict, economic disparity and conflict between religions.
I came to America to awaken her youth
America was founded on the Judeo-Christian spirit of love. Then how did it develop this culture of individualism? While fighting communism, I have tried continually to awaken America's youth and I have repeated my warnings to people in the free world so that they would not be affected by this degenerating pattern. Yet America is still suffering from a variety of social ills. Drug wars, AIDS and increasing criminal violence still plague this great country. Even the considerable military, economic and intellectual might of America did not and cannot cure these diseases.
This is the very reason for my coming to America. I am like a doctor who has been called to treat a wound. Even when I was indicted wrongfully in America, I willingly came back from Korea to answer that summons. That was because I believed that the truth would prevail. I was indicted and imprisoned unjustly. However, I still wish to save America.
I even made the decisions that led to the creation of The Washington Times while sitting in the courthouse during my trial. Moreover, I gave instructions to start Insight and The World and I magazines while in Danbury prison. I am proud of the fact that The Washington Times played a decisive role in heightening America's awareness of the threat of communism. Although this country has rejected me repeatedly, I have continued my best efforts to awaken America to its providential responsibility.
Insight magazine publicized the results of its polls on a weekly basis to inform the general public about the direction taken by the congressional leadership. And The World and I, by publishing words of guidance from world-renowned scholars, has attempted to widen the ideological horizon of the future of humanity.
It was while I was in Danbury prison that I helped to found the American Freedom Coalition, due to my anxiety regarding the decline of the United States. Through a nationwide network the American Freedom Coalition is educating the general public on building a better society. I also recently launched the International Christians for Unity and Social Action (ICUSA). This organization is carrying out the mission of awakening and uniting Christianity through the true love of God.
Although America continues to rebuff me, I have persisted in doing my utmost to awaken this nation to the realization that it bears providential responsibility. God's strategy to save humankind is to absorb the first blow and suffer the loss but then, through the course of time, to regain even more than what was lost.
Evil, on the other hand, always strikes first and claims initial victory, but ultimately loses everything. As you know, during the First and Second World Wars, and even in the Cold War, the countries that struck first eventually lost. The life of Jesus is an example that best illustrates this principle. '
Jesus was persecuted severely, and he died under wretched circumstances. However, as a result of that, billions of people have been following Jesus and returning to God. If righteous individuals endure persecution, their commitment to suffer for their faith plants a seed of respect and admiration in the conscience of their oppressors. Eventually, that seed will grow and transform the hearts of many for generations to come. This quiet revolution of the heart is Heaven's secret weapon. I have undergone immense hardship in my efforts to pioneer the way to a world of true and just peace.
When I founded The Washington Times, very few people comprehended my intent, let alone offered to help. Nonetheless, because I knew God's winning strategy, I went forward. I foresaw that this newspaper would be an instrument to save America and the world, even if it meant sacrificing the Unification movement and myself.
The love between God and humankind forms an axis that is a straight, vertical line. On the other hand, the love between Adam and Eve forms a horizontal axis that intersects the vertical one. Therefore, to inherit the love, life and lineage of the two sets of parents, God and Adam and Eve, humankind needs to serve God as the vertical Parent and Adam and Eve as the horizontal parents. Moreover, the mind, which is the vertical self, and the body, which is the horizontal self, unite through true love. At that point, humankind becomes the eternal object partner of God. God and human beings, like a father and his children, need to unite in true love.
Each person's mind and body also need to unite as one through true love, just like the mind and body of God. However, due to the Fall, humankind came to inherit the love, life and lineage of Satan. Therefore, even though our mind stands on God's side, our body is under Satan's control. Consequently, our mind and body are fighting ceaselessly on account of their internal contradictions.
Now is the time for us to awaken America
During our lifetime we have to fulfill the task of overcoming this situation. Knowing this, God established religion as the repair shop to repair us. Religion teaches us ways in which our mind can recover its natural control over our body. Herein lies the reason why the ascetic practices of believers -- such as fasting, self-sacrifice and service to others -- are always essential requisites among the various forms of religious penance.
The Bible says that Adam and Eve fell because they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then what did Adam and Eve do after eating that fruit? Instead of covering their mouths or hands, they covered the lower parts of their bodies. This action signifies that Adam and Eve formed their family centering on Satan and not on God. The seed of evil was sown at that time, and it became the origin of the evil lineage that has multiplied generation after generation.
The first human ancestors drifted away from God and fell in their adolescence, before reaching perfection in His love. That is the reason why today's youth in various parts of the world have continued to violate the morals of love, engaging in illicit sexual intercourse just as Adam and Eve did. That also was the cause of the inevitable destruction of obscene and immoral civilizations in history. From the historical viewpoint, Sodom and Gomorrah, and even Rome, were ruined because of immorality. If America follows this path, it too will meet with its destruction.
We need to awaken America now. In the next ten years, our task will be more difficult than ever. We cannot relax just because the fight against communism has ended. Look around you and see what is happening in the most advanced and civilized nations, such as the United States, European nations and major Asian nations.
Who can halt the surging wave of immorality that is sweeping the globe? This is becoming a world that worships hedonism and seeks only to stimulate carnal desires. The war against drugs in this country has been a complete and utter failure. The distribution of drugs is increasing continuously, flooding the world. This is not the way that the mind is seeking. It is the way pursued by the body. It is also the way that leads to death. Someone has to step forward and save humanity from this fallen environment and guide people to the path of salvation.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know who the Messiah is? The Messiah comes as the True Parents of humanity. The True Parents are meant to eradicate the false roots originating from the false parents and build the kingdom of heaven, where everyone can be free in true love. True Parents are the ones who are coming to fulfill this important task.
When we have found the origin of God's true love, when our mind and body are united as one, and when we truly wish to live for the sake of others, the eternal and unchanging world of peace will come upon us. That will be the day of glory.
Moreover, the riots that occurred in Los Angeles a few weeks ago confronted us with issues that cannot be solved merely with more police, more laws, more money or more political negotiations. Without the true love of God on earth, that is, without people living and sacrificing for the sake of others, we will not be able to solve such problems.
World peace through the true love revolution
What we need is a revolution, that is, a moral revolution. I call this the true love revolution. And this revolution is needed everywhere. My wife and I currently are establishing organizations to carry out this work in Korea.
Respected leaders! As community leaders, it is important to realize that giving and sacrificing for the sake of others is the only way to establish yourself as the true head of your family and society, and to become a true leader of your nation. When your family, society and nation follow you in practicing the great principles of true love, you will become a champion in the establishment of world peace.
As you may know, I visited North Korea in November of last year. That event shocked the world. It was considered impossible, due to my lifelong stand against communism. As early as 1985, I predicted and proclaimed the downfall of communism and the economic disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In many communist countries I was considered an enemy of the state. My trip, therefore, was a lifethreatening venture for my wife and me. Yet I went to North Korea out of love for my country and out of a fervent desire for the reunification of my homeland. I met with President Kim Il Sung, and we had a meaningful dialogue.
Even with differences of opinion, dialogue is always useful. Isolation is always dangerous. One outcome of the meeting was that he promised me to settle the nuclear issue to the satisfaction of the United States. The moment of truth on this issue is coming soon. All in all, I feel that my visit contributed tremendously to easing tensions in Asia and the world.
In that atheistic country I preached that God and true love must be the basis and spirit for national unity and permanent peace. The Reverend Billy Graham is well known for his great work, and he was the first to preach in several communist countries. This time, however, it was my privilege to be God's instrument and to speak God's words in communist North Korea.
Today, The Washington Times and its magazines begin another decade of service to America and to God. Even greater challenges lie ahead of us. To meet these challenges, I need every one of you to be a champion. In the next ten years, let us build a moral America, a moral world and a better world for our children. You can surely count on my support.
Ladies and gentlemen, The Washington Times is your newspaper as much as it is mine. Together we will make this great newspaper even greater. May God's blessing be with you and your family.
Thank you very much.