Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 187

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 7: True Parents’ Course of Suffering and Victory
Chapter 2: The Ehwa University and Yonsei University Incident and Suffering in Seodaemun
Section 1: The Restoration of a People, The expulsion of professors and students
Section 1: The Restoration of a People, Paragraph 16

The expulsion of professors and students

From March to July 1955, Ehwa Womans University and Yonsei University harassed the students and professors who attended the Unification Church to the point where they had to choose between their school and the Unification Church. Fourteen students from Ehwa Womans University resolutely accepted expulsion and five professors were forced to resign their positions.

Also, two students were expelled from Yonsei University and one professor was dismissed. The press published articles critical of the conduct of the universities. If at that time Christianity and the government had recognized the Unification Church as a legitimate religion to which the students had a right to belong, it would have created a foundation enabling a new start for God's providence on the national level.

8  The Ehwa Womans University incident that took place in 1955 was a national event. Five cabinet ministers of Syngman Rhee's administration who were united with Christianity conspired to eliminate the Unification Church. Nevertheless, we overcame that period of conflict and quietly built up a new foundation internally and externally. By succeeding at this we restructured and solidified our movement so that we could face any opposition, whether from Christianity, the Korean people or the government. In other words, those expelled second generation students made it possible for us to form a new people, the new membership of the Unification Church.

9  Representing humanity, I became a sacrificial offering for God. Although I was attacked ruthlessly, I would not let go of humanity. I alone took responsibility to fight for the Will. 

What would have happened if the established Christianity had accepted me? If Christianity had only listened to what the Unification Church was saying, it could have turned around. Within a matter of seven years, Korea could have stood at the center of the Will. Then it could have guided world Christianity in a single direction, and Christianity united with my worldwide teaching would have brought about the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Yonsei and Ehwa Universities were as Adam and Eve. They were also the second generation of Christianity. I claimed them as the core of the second generation, while half of the first generation was tangled up in the fallen world. In the past Satan took everything that was precious, but this time God claimed what was precious.

10  During the Ehwa Womans University and Yonsei University incident, Ehwa University was in an uproar for three months. During that three-month period, about 100 students came to the Unification Church. Because they could not leave campus due to opposition from the school, cases arose where some students went to the Unification Church after saying they were going to a public bathhouse. Therefore, the school administration responded with emergency countermeasures to protect itself. They demanded that the students and the professors make a choice between the Unification Church and the university. To do something like that, how desperate they must have been!

At the time, all the students who were attending the Unification Church said they were willing to be expelled from the university. After I dissuaded them, only 14 of them were expelled. If I had let them do as they wished, more than 40 students would have left the school. If this had happened, there could have been a serious problem in the history of our church. That was the situation at the time.

11  At the time of the Ehwa Womans University incident, if only six more months had passed, the dormitory where 300 students were living would have been turned around completely. Our church was spreading like a prairie fire. How desperate the administration must have felt when it had no way to block the students from leaving, and had to demand that they choose between the church and the school! In what democratic nation in the world would we find such a situation? 

The university students were from all kinds of religious backgrounds, yet they were told not to go to the Unification Church, that it was Satan's work. Helen (Hwal-lan) Kim, the president of Ehwa, sent Dr. Young Oon Kim, who was the director of the Department of Christian Social Work and a professor who had complete authority on theological and religious matters, to investigate the Unification Church. 

Professor Kim went to our church, but within one week she turned around 180 degrees. She went back to the school and talked about the Unification Church. Christians there would come and ask her in whispers, "What is this Principle all about?" As the school authorities watched, they saw that those who listened to the Unification Principle would change. The school authorities began to fear that everyone would turn to the Unification Church. So they turned against us.

12  Among the 300 students living in the Ehwa University dormitory were many intelligent young people who listened to the Divine Principle lectures of the Unification Church. Many of them changed so quickly it was as if a volcano had erupted at Ehwa. It became a big problem. The university was the recipient of diverse forms of support, including literally hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the American Methodist Foundation. The school feared they faced the possibility that this support could be cut off, and this was unthinkable. For this reason, they mobilized even the president of Korea to have the government attack me.

13  The springtime in 6,000 years of history comes only once. It does not come at just any time. The springtime for Adam and Eve was only once. The spring breeze is felt when the time of marriage has come. Thousands of thousands of years have gone by in the providence of restoration, and finally that spring breeze is blowing through the land of Korea. 

The Ehwa Womans University incident was a manifestation of that spring breeze. That breeze touched more than 300 female college students. This is why they climbed over the school wall or made an excuse that they were going to the bathhouse, and came running to the church.

14  After Korea was liberated from its 40 years of tribulation under Japanese rule, Korea and the missionaries from America should have completely united with me. That would have happened if the Ehwa Womans University and Yonsei University incident had not occurred. 

The students at those universities were the second generation. I understand well the work of restoration. It progresses in reverse, from the second generation to the first. If the Yonsei and Ehwa University incident had not occurred, we would have connected with the presidential residence in Seoul and all of Christianity would have connected with us. At that time, Dr. Young Oon Kim was director of the Christian Social Work Department at Ehwa Womans University. Because important professors like her joined our church, Helen Kim, the president of Ehwa, should not have opposed us. However, despite Professor Kim's reports, several highly placed Christians at the university opposed our church and created a problem for her. 

If Ehwa and Yonsei had turned around and had not opposed us, Korean Christianity would have turned around too. But instead an unprecedented event took place in which five professors were forced to resign and 14 students were expelled from the school. The history of restoration is that difficult. 

You must understand how fearful a hardened belief can be. To bear a habitual, traditional mind-set is truly a frightening thing. Even though you joined the church, the habits and the mind-set that you used to have when you lived in society remain with you. God does not accept them. It is indeed difficult to make a new beginning with the standard that we are newly born.

15  If you ask who was behind Ehwa Womans University and Yonsei University's effort to eliminate the Unification Church in Korea, I would tell you it was the missionary organizations. If at that time these universities had turned around and united with me, then, working with top leaders such as Ehwa University Vice President Maria Park and Korean President Syngman Rhee, we would have been able to carry the flag throughout the world and lead the procession to the kingdom of heaven. If this had happened, then with the heavenly fortune that had come to us through the merit of those who offered their lives down through Korea's 5,000-year history, our land would have received God's blessing for all time. Then I would have stood in the position of the Lord, with worldwide authority. Then we would have established God's nation. However, when they thwarted our growth, that chance was lost.

16  What happened to President Helen (Hwal-lan) Kim of the Ehwa Womans University, the key person in this situation? Indeed she suffered hwallan, meaning disaster in Korean. With the authority of her school, she moved to sacrifice a religion and sacrifice her students. Her move was not based on righteousness. It was based on unrighteousness. This is why she was required to pay the price. 

Had Helen Kim welcomed the Unification Church, Korea would have become the nation that could have won over all the nations and moved the world. The outcome of the events at Ehwa Womans University and Yonsei University, which were at the center of Korean Christianity, was critical for determining whether Korea would go over the hill of its 40-year history under Japanese occupation. However, it ended with the students' expulsion, with the result that 40 years of the Korean people's suffering was wasted.