Sun Myung Moon
July 3, 2002
Sheraton National Hotel
Arlington, VA
Translation: Peter Kim
The most crucial issue is Christian unity. The motivation of this event is not me or any religious leader, but God. What is its purpose? Unity. God wants to see unity of the family and religions and reaching beyond religion, to build an ideal world, the world of peace. Don’t worry about newcomers’ opinions, because God is with us.
God began creation with the ideal of peace, and so that surely will be fulfilled. This is straight from God, not any religious book of doctrine. I am been accomplishing peace within mind and body, husband and wife, and different religions, to insure that eventually the Kingdom of God will come.
I was born in the North Korean countryside. As a country boy, I have come through a lot. I have faced opposition from different religions. I have worked hard to reach this point, but I feel that all I have done so far was by God’s grace. Therefore, now is the time to do something much bigger for God and humanity.
The first task I took up was how to reconcile between God and Satan, because Satan has been hindering God’s work all these years. God could not just ignore everything. Satan could not control everything, either. So there has been a constant struggle between them. Because the conflict did not end by now is not because God could not do it, but because by the principle of creation, human beings themselves should reach perfection. By the fall, we have fallen nature and cannot unite mind and body. That struggle has to end, but neither God nor Satan can resolve it. It takes True Parents to establish mind and body unity in individuals and expand it to the world.
Why does it take True Parents? Because Satan inaugurated the world based upon false parents. So we need True Parents to eliminate Satan from our life. Then only True Parents and True Children will remain on the earth. True Parents are opening the way for all humanity to follow the way, without deviating. Therefore, I united all the saints and sages, and so the leaders in the spirit world are united with each other. If this is true, then the physical world will eventually be unified, resembling the spirit world.
Suppose there is a conflict in the world, between Muslims and Christians, and suddenly one night, Muhammad appeared to the Islamic leaders and told them to stop fighting and love their enemy, love Christians. Who would oppose that? That can only happen by the teachings of True Parents. By the same token, suppose that one night, Jesus Christ were to appear to prominent Christian leaders and told them to embrace Muslims, their brothers and sisters. Who would dare oppose that?
Originally, human beings were to have been in the position of God’s children, centering on the true love, life and lineage. That will be restored, with no boundaries. This world will eventually resemble that. Who is the central figure of God’s providence? It is Jesus. He came to this world to reach the level of True Parents, through the marriage blessing. But due to the people’s disbelief, he could not reach that level. His holy mother, Mary, could not fulfill her mission to support Jesus. Therefore, this is the time. The mission of the True Parents is to reveal the secrets of 6,000 years of human history. Jesus knew it, but he could not reveal it because the world was not ready. Also Muhammad wanted to reveal it. It is being revealed now.
Therefore, since the time is immanent to build the world of peace, suppose we select the top ten Muslim leaders and top ten Christian leaders and have them pray together to ascertain if this is true or not. If God and their leader in spirit world answer them, it will be no problem to unite the religions. When God tells the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus Christ to become one, they will not disobey God. By the same token, if that order goes from God to them and to us, who would dare disobey? That is how the world of peace will be achieved.
I already started working for this goal, beginning from the spirit world. I directed great religious leaders, 120 Christians, beginning with the 12 disciples, and 120 Muslim leaders, including Muhammad, and 120 Buddhist leaders, and 120 Confucianist leaders and 120 philosophers, and other representative areas such as media and even the communist world. They all attended a seminar in spirit world, and afterwards they shared their reflections and opinions. They all testified to my message and said that humanity has no choice but to follow my teachings. It is the only hope for world peace. Who can deny this testimony, once it is heard?
I knew this many years ago, from the beginning of my public life. That is why I never paid attention to the persecution. I persevered and won victories at every step. Even today’s gathering testifies to this: many religions together trying to build a one family world of peace. This testifies to the will of God.
Tomorrow morning we will meet at 6 a.m., at which time we will read the statements from the spirit world, beginning with the four great religious leaders and others. This will be another proclamation to all humanity. Please join us. From now on, those leaders in the spirit world do not have to remain in the spirit world, but can descend to the Earth to work with their descendents. So it will be very active from now on.
You can examine yourself by praying deeply about this Blessing arranged by God and True Parents. See if you don’t receive much inspiration. You will be spiritually lifted. If you do that, you will feel great, like flying. If you deny that, you feel darkness. That proves that what I am trying to do for humanity is the right course. Even when I was chained and dragged to prison, when I thought about the mission to build a world of peace with God, I felt as if the world were bowing down to me. When I thought negatively, the world became dark. We have to have that attitude when we pray to God.
How difficult it has been for me. I grew up as a boy and reached the point of receiving the mission to save humanity. To reach that point, I had to overcome doubt, conflicts and opposition. I had to walk forward and overcome each step and win victory. I needed absolute self-control, following God. I could not think negatively even one second, doing God’s work. To fulfill the position given me, of Messiah, I was tested on each level. I had to win the battle. The negative power tried to push me down. I had to lift up myself and that was the most difficult challenge for me.
The very secret that I could win each stage of test by and progress in these activities and mission, from the teenage years to 82, is that I had God’s help. God has been with me each step of my life. Our leaders in the spirit world, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, already know this, because God told them to gather and go through the seminar. Through that seminar, God ordered them to unite as one, and instead of praying to God, to help their descendents in the physical world follow me.
True Parents are responsible to liberate both the spirit world and physical world. Do I have confidence to do that? I have to walk the thorny path, paying a lot of indemnity at each stage, to do my mission, so therefore I have to finish and complete this mission in my life on Earth. Adam and Eve failed their mission in their generation, therefore True Parents who came to replace them should do this in one generation. How can we restore the original point in one generation? Without that positive attitude and goal, I cannot reach that original point by indemnity.
All those leaders in the spirit world testify that what I am teaching is not a simple revelation but an order from God that humanity must obey. It is a commandment from God. As we cannot doubt God, we should believe in True Parents’ teachings. Think about the fact that these leaders have thousands of years foundation and followers in the physical world and spirit world, but after hearing the Divine Principle they all gave up their foundation and decided to follow my teachings. Why? Because it is the only way to liberate all humanity.
When I work with Minister Farrakhan and we unite, what do I want to accomplish? Some Jewish and Christian leaders advise me not to do that, because I gain nothing from it. But I know that my teachings are the only ones that can harmonize all religions and beliefs. Since I know that, I cannot run away from Minister Farrakhan. Even if I would be assassinated by any white folk, I will still do it. It is because of this great cause that I am doing these inter-religious, international activities. Please understand that, and support this great campaign.
We must know God and what He wants, and we must know what our spiritual leaders in spirit world want us to do. If we all know that, it will not take too long to unite the world. I have been opposed and persecuted in America for 30 years. I am almost 83 and soon have to return to my homeland. Some people laugh at me for working at this advanced age and not going home to rest. But I still have a mission from God, so I cannot rest. I have to unify North Korea and South Korea. The unity of Islam, Christianity and Judaism is the prerequisite for the unification of the Korean peninsula. That is why I have been putting sweat into unifying the religions.
Tomorrow, this proclamation from the religious founders and leaders will be revealed. Since America is going to celebrate its 226th birthday, America is responsible to spread this message and unify the world as the second Israel, and connect all the people from the 2nd Israel to the 3rd Israel. That is the task of America now. Since that spiritual background is being set, I can return to Korea. What I have been doing is to prepare spiritually for the unification of Korea and humanity. That preparation has been done.
(Question from a clergy leader: It is conjectured that Noah’s ark exists under a glacier in Iraq. Do you think that this is why the US government is desiring to get control of Iraq?)
Discovering Noah’s ark is not important at this point of human history. There is only one secret that can unite humanity. If I tell you how to do it, will you follow? (Of course, yes.) When we look at the family of Adam and Eve, what happened between Cain and Abel? Did Cain kill Abel, or just kick him? The elder brother killed the younger brother. Then as the elder son, where do you think Cain should have found spouses for his children? There were no other people, so the children of Cain, who killed his younger brother, had no choice but to marry his younger brother’s children.
The parents, Cain and Abel, were enemies, but the children had to intermarry. The secret to build a world of peace therefore can be found in the family of Adam. Only when the children of Cain and of Abel love each other as they love their own physical brothers and sisters, can the families multiply. If they had done that, there would have been peace among the families in the tribe. By the same token, if we love the children of our enemies, then we can … If the children of the democratic and communist worlds can intermarry, then they can become in-laws, brothers and sisters and relatives. Then we can build a world of peace. Also between black and white, east and west. Within 3 generations, 60 years, world peace can be achieved this way, if we pursue this goal by this means.
If we have interracial marriage between black and white, Buddhist and Christian, it is like exchanging our own children, and we will become members of one family. Who can pursue this goal for humanity? Not President Bush or the secretary general of the UN, but me. I’m the one who came up with this ideal. Think of the Japanese ladies who gave up their family life as missionaries to come here for the sake of their former enemy nation, to love the enemy nation and find their children’s spouses from the children of the enemy nation. The members of the Family Federation all understand and know this.
I have been practicing this through the blessing ceremonies. In my relationship with the Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, I think that we have to become one family, brothers and sisters, elder and younger. Again, if the trend of having interracial marriage, among former enemies, continues, world peace can be achieved. But no one is doing this, only me. That is because I know the final result of it. Remember what Jesus said at the end of his life: love your enemy. It means we have to love the children of our enemy more than our own children.
The leaders and members of the Family Federation have this as our ultimate goal. Still the leaders of other religions do not see this goal clearly. There is a task to be done in that regard. When God looks at this world, if the members and leaders of the Family Federation have this belief, absolutely, and marry their children with other religious leaders’ children, will God be happy to see that intermarriage taking place? Here is an example. I have been opposed and persecuted by virtually all denominations and religions and nations. But the members and leaders of the Family Federation, who are in the position of my children, are willing for their children to intermarry with different religions and races. That is proof that it is possible to build world peace if all humanity can be educated as to the value of intermarriage for world peace. There will not remain any concept of enemy; only of true love centered on God.
I am sure that many of you are prominent theologians and religious leaders, but you should have this kind of thinking and hope. Otherwise, we cannot achieve the goal. This is logical; we have to do it. Then God can work through us.
(A guest: The Prophet Muhammad did this, arranging inter-religious marriages between Jews and Muslims and Christians and Muslims.)
God worked through leaders like Muhammad and Jacob who had multiple wives to continue the lineage. People do not pay attention to this kind of phenomena, but when the Lord of the Second Advent comes, he must choose one central bridge through which to establish one central lineage, physically and spiritually. If any of you Muslims belong to the central lineage of Muhammad, you should… That’s the lineage issue. Of course, in his lifetime, Muhammad had to do what he thought was right, but at that time there was no message of God as I have to unite humanity. Now, Muhammad is in spirit world, and I have already selected his wife in the physical world, to represent his wife’s position in the physical world. That very lady is still alive with us. She has the wedding ring and every necessary item as the bride of Muhammad. You have to meet her and work with her.
Don’t be alarmed; this is not the case just with Prophet Muhammad. Also Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius and Socrates have physical wives as members of the Family Federation. I selected those ladies to be their brides. The blessing of marriage should come from the True Father. That is why they wanted to be married in the physical world through the blessing of True Parents. That is because I have the true love, life and lineage. Those great leaders in the spirit world wanted me to officiate their marriage while I am on Earth. That is why I did it.
When they meet the members of the Family Federation, such as the Japanese missionaries, many Christian ministers express their desire to have such women as their daughter-in-law. One example is Archbishop Stallings. We see this in the physical world, and it is the same in the spirit world. It is like a dream, but it is taking place in reality. People come to know more and more that the Family Federation, under True Parents’ leadership, is the only organization pursuing this intermarriage task. When Jesus came to the world, he wanted to establish families centering on God, centering on the true love, life and lineage. If he had established his family in the world, he would have wanted his children to marry the children of his 12 major disciples.
It did not happen then, so we, representing Jesus, should have our children marry the children of our enemies, so that we can restore the position of the 12 disciples of Jesus. Then this lineage will become the royal lineage of God. If it takes longer, our grandchildren should go through this course. If the children of America’s president marry my children, they will become in-laws and it will be easier for me to unite with and educate people. But to this point, True Parents offered our children to marry the children of the lowest possible, humble children from humble families. It is like reversing the course, the course of indemnity. Through 3 generations, my lineage will be at the point that everyone will want to marry into it.
My children have been educated in America and have been influenced by the American way of thinking. So they don’t think about their children marrying the children of their enemies. But eventually that should take place, regardless of position or race. Today, it is good for me to see all of you movers and shakers, so please believe this. Then we can change the world. If we do not practice it, how can we face God?
(One religious leader gives a testimony about her views on DNA and trip to the Himalayas to discover a kind of Shangri-La.)
You are a spiritual woman and you have had exciting experiences. But your flaw is that it was for your own benefit. You should add experiences in the spirit world. Stand by me for the rest of your life and you will experience the spirit world. When you get into that level, God or His messenger will guide you everyday.
Do not take lightly what I’ve said tonight. If you have a congregation of 1,000 and are well off, be sure to offer your children to the children of the poorest possible congregant, for marriage. Within 7 generations, you will have the greatest possible descendents. Please remember my message tonight: the way to world peace is through inter-marriage among enemies of different religions, nations and races. Then the boundaries and walls will come down, and within 3 generations you will reach a world of peace. That is the absolute truth. I wish I could get into a deep introduction to spirit world, but your heads will be spinning too much, so I will stop right here. This is just the first stage.
Thank you everyone. See you again.