Cham Bumo Gyeong: Episode 65

Cham Bumo Gyeong
Book 3: The Beginning of True Father's Public Course and the Founding of HSA-UWC
Chapter 3: Founding the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity
Section 1: Background, Paragraph 18
Section 2: The Cheongpa-dong Headquarters Church, Paragraph 01

18  The fact that we established ourselves as the Unification Church was a risky venture. Our name, which includes the word “unification,” describes our purpose to unite all religions. What a vast and incredible ambition! When we look at the 2,000-year history of Christianity, numerous theologians came and went, and numerous denominations were created, presented new doctrines and set up their own traditions. Those theologians who started new denominations criticized the older doctrines as mistaken and rejected them. In this way the Protestant cultural sphere was formed. Eventually Protestantism established a worldwide foundation, yet at the same time it divided into numerous denominations. Therefore, Christianity itself is not united. It will not be easy to unite Christianity alone, but we claim that we will unite not only Christianity but all religions, and even the physical world and the spiritual world.

19  To transform the world of Satan’s sovereignty back to the world of God’s sovereignty, you must follow God’s Word absolutely and unite with Him to defeat the world of Satan’s evil. If you do not win this fight, then the Lord at his Second Advent will have to find others and re-engage in this struggle. You have to raise a worldwide movement in which you volunteer to take up this laborious path in order not to leave the Returning Lord in such a difficult and lonely position. Unless you do this, there will be no way forward for Christianity.

Then what should the Unification Church do? We must become a group that absolutely believes in God’s Word. No matter how much persecution we face from Satan’s world, we must unite with God. The mission of the Unification Church is to grow into a movement that can, with God’s love, liberate the world from Satan. We need to establish the worldwide foundation for a new Christianity that transcends national boundaries. What I am saying is that we need to establish a foundation for the Returning Lord to carry out new works worldwide, realizing the sovereignty that the people of Israel could not accomplish on earth.

20  What kind of truth is religion meant to express? We do not need truth that simply presents doctrines. It has to be a truth with which your body, mind and heart can all agree, saying, “That’s it!” We need such principles and teachings. If you hear something about them and then encounter them, your heart will be drawn to them. If you hear teachings that attract you, that make you feel as if you are transcending time and space, then you had better pack up your bags and follow those teachings. You will not perish. You will be remembered in history.

If you want to become such a person, you cannot do it with your old self. Please take off your old, defective mask and throw it away. If you are a religious person, please take off your religious mask. If you are a conscientious person, please take off that mask. Please take down your religions sign. Right now you are all part of the Unification Church, but I long for the day when I can take down the Unification Church sign. I had to put up the Unification Church sign only because of the prevailing circumstances, because there was an opponent to struggle against.

We have to take down that sign someday. What kind of sign do we need in the world of mind and heart? Even without a sign, you will already know yourself. Even without making intentional effort, you will naturally know and do what is right. This is the primary standard through which you will be able to resolve anything.

21  My purpose for founding the Unification Church was not only to benefit our church. On this anniversary of the founding of the church, we have to broaden our scope. We need to make this day the day for guiding our nation to God’s Will, and we need to make this day the day we guide the entire world to build the kingdom of heaven on earth that God hopes to see. It is to fulfill this mission that the Unification Church was founded.

The Unification Church is different from all other churches that have appeared in history. Representing the entire providence, it has to indemnify everything and settle all accounts. At the same time, the Unification Church carries the overall responsibility to leave behind a victorious foundation with which God can be happy and that gives Him hope for the future.

Therefore, the Unification Church was not founded merely to build a denomination. It was founded to take on the whole providence and to build the one foundation that is centered on the Will. Based on the founding of this church, individuals are to stand anew before God. These individuals must solidify a philosophy of life and establish a tradition for new families, new tribes, new peoples, new nations and the new world that will continue on into the future.

The mission of church members

HSA-UWC aims to build a community of family members centered on true love. The term shikku, meaning “family member,” refers to the members of a church family who eat together at the same table. Family members have the mission to realize the kingdom of heaven on earth, centering on God’s love and the ideal of creation. They also have the responsibility to dissolve the bitter sorrow of Jesus, who was unable to love his parents, relatives, the synagogues, the people of Israel, the nation of Israel and the world. This is why members of the Unificationist family are devoting all of their energy to realizing one world under God, as members of one great family transcending all barriers of ideology, religion, race and nationality.

22  Jesus and the people of Israel in his day were chosen to represent the 4,000-year history of God’s providence. Likewise, you, the saints on earth who are chosen today, represent the entire world and its 6,000-year history, transcending peoples and nations. If you do that, then God’s judgment as foretold in the Bible will be removed from the earth.

To achieve this standard, we hung up the Unification Church sign, and we call each other “family members.” We are a family. We are brothers and sisters, although not blood-related, and we are one tribe. We are one brotherhood and one tribe, and we are building the Israel that will take responsibility to establish the Parent-child relationship with God. To do this, we must experience Jesus’ bitter sorrow, take the path of pioneers, go through the course of fighting against Satan, and fulfill God’s Will.

23  When we established the Unification Church, it was as if we were finding and reestablishing Judaism as God intended it to be. To build up the Unification tribe is as if we are recovering the lost tribes of Israel and recovering the brothers from whom those tribes stemmed. In this sense, all Unification Church members need to become brothers and sisters. It is only by making that connection of brotherhood that we can form a tribe. Unless we connect as brothers and sisters, we cannot build a church, nor can we form a people or a nation.

Therefore, the Unification Church has the mission to connect all people centering on this relationship of brothers and sisters. This is the meaning of the term “family member.” Because we are family members, we call each other brothers and sisters. The term “family member” is foundational to building the kingdom of heaven. This is why in the Unification Church we use this term. This is also the reason Unification Church members should love one another.

24  Today, in the Unification Church we call ourselves a family. However, you also use the term “family” when referring to your family by blood. Then on what basis do we in the Unification Church call ourselves a family? We call one another family based on God’s love for us. We do so because God desires to have that precious, loving relationship with all of humankind and for each one of us. And we do so because we are striving to fulfill the ideal of creation that God originally intended to realize. All people in history have wanted to have the kind of connection to one another that we have. These are the kinds of relationships implied in the word “family.”

We are here in this movement having this central relationship with one another. Therefore, if we are close to someone, we should love that person with a love surpassing that of anyone in the world. And if we are loving someone who is distant from us, we should love that person with a higher love than others do in the world.

25  While you are sleeping, some of your brothers and sisters are following the Will, staying up late at night and shedding tears. While you have a full stomach, some of your fellow family members are going hungry. Therefore, even when you are eating or sleeping, you need to have a tearful heart, help them through spiritual power, pray for them and make an altar for them. You should always keep the altar clean and pray to God, telling Him that you are ready to submit yourself as an offering, day or night. Especially when a brother or sister is going through a difficult course of the cross, you should at least prepare internally to fight alongside the person. Otherwise, sooner or later you will end up being separated from those who are fighting on the front line. If that happens, you will fall behind and end up a defeated soldier.

Section 2. The Cheongpa-dong Headquarters Church

The central base

HSA-UWC was founded on May 1, 1954 at a small house in Bukhak-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul. On January 17, 1955, the church moved to 241-44, Heungin-dong, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, and on April 27, to a two-story building with a garden at 37, Jangchung-dong 1-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul. On October 7, 1955, right after True Father was released from Seodaemun Prison, it moved yet again, this time to 71-3, Cheongpa-dong 1-ga, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. This is the address that the church used on May 31, 1963, when it registered with the government as Civil Society Organization No. 261. It is where True Father offered countless prayers while shedding tears and where he made many conditions of devotion for the advancement of the providence. It is where he educated members day and night and where he prepared to expand the providence to the worldwide level.

1  When we think about all the people in today’s world who died for God, just as Elijah said, all I can say is, “Lord, I alone am left.” It is with that heart that I am leading the providence in these miserable circumstances at the shabby Unification Church building whose address is 71-3, 1-ga, Cheongpa-dong, Seoul. This is the place under the sun where I am expanding the base for the salvation of the fallen world. How sad God must feel as he looks down at this place, where a small band of followers and I are striving to dissolve the 6,000 years of His bitter sorrow. When I think of this, tears well up in my eyes.

Tears flow down my face when I think of God’s situation, so sad and painful. But the question is how much you have experienced that heart. In the Unification Church, do you relate to God with such a heart? You have not been thinking this way.