Roaming Rants and Rambles

A couple of months ago, my wife showed me a site on the Internet of a break away group of the Japanese Unification Church. It featured photos and profiles of the central people of the new organization. Many, my wife said, were very respected and prominent members of the Japanese Church. The reasoning behind their break was not opposition of Reverend Moon, so they claim, but a ... protest?... the taking of a stand? Trying to do things better? She couldn't find the right words in English or just didn't want to get into a long story.

One of those profiles looked like a man I worked with many years ago in Rhode Island. At that time a young Japanese member, one of many, who had come to work in America. He was not truly steeped in the strict Samurai like traditions of the Japanese church, more of a street wise character with a bit of a wild streak. He worked under another young Japanese member and they didn't get along. They had heated disagreements and clashes of character. At one point this young underling cut off his little finger and gave it to his leader in traditional yakusa fashion. Much to the distress and embarrassment of not only his group leader but the local minister.

I worked with this young Italian member also. I took this picture at a very large, 50,000 couples if I remember correctly, wedding ceremony held in Korea at the Olympic Stadium. I was an usher dressed in grey, not blue as all the grooms were, and not part of the ceremony as a local paper claimed (an already married member filling a spot so a false claim could be made as to how many were really married). Why did they make that claim? Because they are liars. But that kind of false reporting is common in Korea by Christian oriented media. All in the name of God, or at least in the name of one's supposed salvation.

I traveled over a good portion of America with this Italian several years prior to this event. His older brother was religious and he was the mob oriented member of the family. A family characteristic in most of Italy he claimed; that one brother would be drawn to the Church and another to the streets. His older brother joined the Unification Church and he eventually followed.

We were talking one day and he said, several times; "You know I did really really bad things to people. You know mafia? I was mafia."

It was an interesting conversation, and after a while I had to wonder if he was sharing some thing deep from his heart with me, or if I had offended him somehow.

He just took off back to Italy at some point, leaving the Church, and some time later came back. But many people left under many different circumstance. Some came back, some didn't.

There I am in gray with another man I worked with in Rhode Island.

I worked under a respectable American man in Pawtucket, a seminary graduate, for a year or so. He was a fan of "Miami Vice" and it was nearly the only TV I watched in my early years in the church. His wife was from New Zealand and witnessed something that has marred the Church as well as many members. A problem that manifested at least once in nearly every region of the world when the Unification Church was first going global. It was an example of another kind of break from the Church, where a local leader somehow gets it into his head that he is the second advent and all should follow and unite with him and not Reverend Moon. That Reverend Moon came only to point the way to them.

And these ego delusioned break away leaders perverted the teachings of the church in the process of their schism to fit their own desires. That is they preached intimate relations with them was the way to salvation. This is totally contradictory to the teachings of the Unification Church. Though the Church teaches that the fall of man was an illicit sexual relationship between Lucifer, the Arch Angel, and Eve, binding us in a blood relation with Satan, restoring man is not accomplished by making the same mistake.

The Church teaches the dynamic of Cain and Able to be part of the process of restoring man to his rightful position as God's child. That Cain's killing of Abel was another manifestation of the fall of man, Lucifer's desire to destroy man and take his position. That if Cain had surrendered to Abel a condition to separate from Satan would have been made and the Messiah could have been born at that time. And the more mistakes that are made the more difficult this process becomes.

Yet, to make up for the mistake of Cain killing Abel, Abel is not asked to kill Cain. Rather Cain not killing Abel and following Abel, turning his back to Satan and his ways, to become the person God desires him to be has always been the goal. In the same way absolute sexual ethics are the teachings and practices of the Unification Church.

Oh. ...Did you catch that? That God could have sent the Messiah at the time of Cain and Abel? Yes, that 'great heresy' of the Unification Church. That God never planned or desired the fall of man. That He only had joy and wonder planned for His children. If He had planned the fall why does he remain so distant from Him, if it all originated in Him? Though we left His realm, he never stops calling us back, but we have to turn away from the false world we created. This false world is something God cannot acknowledge, lest He give it recognition as part of His creation, making it eternal as he is. And though hell is very real and may seem like an eternity, or many eternities, it can never be part of God's creation, therefore it could never be eternal as God is eternal. That Gospel didn't make the Bible.

Sorry... a bit too much logic?

Oh... You say that that is what your church believes about God too? No it isn't.

If I were in charge, which will never happen, I would plaster it on billboards. 'Come hear the Great heresy. That God never desired, planned or predestined anything but joy and wonder for His children.'

Back to topic, if there is any, when I first joined the Church in Milwaukee there was a so called Reverend starting his return path to the Unification Church. Yes, many years earlier he had broken from the church, taking several wives for himself. Eventually he returned to the church, made recompense for his mistakes and he and some of his family came back together.

The reality is there is no special tactic, or brain washing, that keep people in the Church. Out of those who have joined, more have left, some for good, than have stayed. Many have returned on some level or have kept in contact with the Church.

People join the Unification Church out of personal spiritual experience in relation to the person of Reverend Moon and/or the strength of its theology, ideology, or world view. A Christian theology based on this supposed 'great heresy', is all encompassed a small book, "The Divine Principle." A book that was sent to every library in the United States, though your chances of finding it at one are slim to none. In most cases the books have been stolen from the shelves. I sent a copy to my family. They made it clear that it went straight into the fireplace. Burning books... that great Christian tradition. It is an easy read with hundreds of Bible references.

But there are plenty of problems in the lives of members of the Unification Church as you can see. Problems we all face together as Children of God, in our struggle to return. And you will hear a few problems written about here. There are those who will want to vilify the Church, looking for any mud they can find, but this blog is about the truth; not the imaginings of hate filled minds. The Unification Church has the most inclusive and wholesome teachings of any religion. Believing God put us here to build His Kingdom "on earth as it is in Heaven", not looking to any apocalyptic end of the world. It is about man fulfilling his responsibility to God and all his fellow man without exception. Not an easy path.

I believe people need perspective and that straight talk is the best way to defeat the stereotypes and hate speech directed to the Unification Church; to shatter the lies. To shatter the concept that we are just mind numb robots with blank stares who wont listen to reason. You always try to convince people otherwise, but usually they just give you blank stares and don't listen to a word you have to say.

I've been negligent in regards to this blog, one of many. I hope to write on a more regular basis.