Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 112
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 3: The Mission of Religion in Achieving God’s Ideal
Speech 4: America and Religious Freedom, pg 387-390
America and Religious Freedom
June 26, 1984
United States Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
USA Senate Constitutional Subcommittee Hearing on Religious Liberty
Honorable chairman, distinguished members of the Senate, ladies, and gentlemen:
I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to you for inviting me to speak at this Senate hearing on religious freedom. I want to also express my sincere gratitude, Mr. Chairman, for your support in favor of my appeal to the Supreme Court. Your noble deed to uphold the principle of constitutional rights of individuals will be long admired by millions of Americans.
America and freedom of religion
Since the Supreme Court refused to review my case, there has been a very strong protest by many members of the religious community. More than a thousand clergymen, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, have pledged to commit one week of their lives in prison with me in the name of religious freedom. It moves me deeply. I salute these champions of religious freedom.
I feel this occasion is historic. I am not just speaking to the United States Congress. I am speaking to history and before God.
God loves America. America’s greatness does not lie in her vast resources or in her tremendous prosperity. It lies in the very spirit upon which this nation was founded. That is the spirit of “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.” However, God’s Will is not just one nation under God; it is one world under God. We are all brothers and sisters, one human family. When we all recognize God as our Father, this ideal can become a reality.
Without religious freedom, however, God cannot fulfill His ideal. The nation’s founders understood that if you do not have religious freedom, you have no freedom at all. They risked their very lives to secure freedom of worship.
Now, that freedom of worship is in danger. A blind spirit of atheism and religious intolerance is found in America today, and this time there is no other “New World” to receive us as pilgrims. We have no choice but to restore America as the land of religious freedom. If we do not, this nation will perish, and the world will perish.
I was called to come to America and carry out my mission
In 1971 God called me to come to America and lead a movement to revive the fervor of Christianity and restore the founding spirit of this nation. God has sent me to America in the role of a doctor and a firefighter. He has sent me to bring about a dramatic spiritual awakening. The survival of the entire world depends on America fulfilling its responsibility. America is the last bastion of freedom. For the last twelve years, I have given my heart and soul and every drop of my sweat and tears for the sake of this nation.
In the process of fulfilling this mission, I have become controversial and, in some quarters, unpopular. And I have been persecuted. However, I am by no means the first religious leader to have experienced persecution.
Many of the major religious figures in the Judeo-Christian tradition have walked this path of suffering through persecution. Today, I am honored to follow the same tradition.
I believe that God’s hope is for freedom on the earth, and the greatest threat to freedom today is totalitarianism, particularly in the form of communism, which systematically opposes freedom of religion. Communism has killed more than 150 million people. I myself suffered nearly to the point of death in a communist prison camp. Communism is the worst inhumanity in the world today.
Freedom has been retreating for the past decade. In 1975 freedom retreated from Southeast Asia. Millions of people perished. Nation after nation in Africa and Latin America has been communized. One-and-a-half billion people have fallen under communist tyranny so far. Now Central America, in the neighborhood of the United States, is the front line of the battle. I know that the enemies of freedom will not stop until they achieve their final goal: the conquest of this very nation, the United States of America.
Accomplishments during my twelve years in America
I supported Ronald Reagan for president because I hoped he would do God’s Will to stop the spread of communism and truly bring this nation back to God and to her founding spirit. It is disappointing that under this man, who was elected with the tremendous support of the religious community, the state is encroaching more than ever on the affairs of the church. For the first time, ministers are being jailed. Truly, religious freedom is being dealt a devastating blow.
In the last twelve years, I have done everything I could for America. I have had just one goal in mind: to strengthen the moral fiber of America and enlarge her capacity to fulfill God’s Will.
Through projects such as the International Religious Foundation, the New Ecumenical Research Association, and the conferences on “God: The Contemporary Discussion,” I have sought to bring teachers of all faiths together to better understand God and one another.
I have also worked to bring God’s Will into the academic world. The International Cultural Foundation sponsors annual conferences on science and absolute values and brings scholars together in organizations such as the Professors World Peace Academy, Paragon House Publishers, and the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy.
In the area of cultural expression, I have endeavored to reinforce the theme of reverence toward God. In the movie Inchon, for example, I have tried to portray the historic importance of General Douglas MacArthur, a great American devoted to God and humanity. It is vital for American young people to understand this heroic figure.
Because religious ideals need to be expressed in service to humanity, I initiated the International Relief Friendship Foundation and Project Volunteer.
To work toward the liberation of all people from totalitarian ideologies, I established the International Federation for Victory over Communism, the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, and CAUSA International.
To set a standard of responsibility in the communications media, we founded the World Media Association and News World Communications, both of which publish several newspapers. One of these, The Washington Times, was created to present an alternative view of the news to the people of the nation’s capital. This project alone has cost our movement more than $100 million.
These projects have required a vast amount of financial resources, as well as the hard work and loving sacrifice of committed church members. We have poured several hundred million dollars into America because this nation will decide the destiny of the entire world. These contributions are primarily coming from overseas. The United States has been a recipient of these funds, not a source of them. I have acted in the firm belief that if America is lost, everything is lost. There is no other country God can turn to.
FFWPU, USA. All Rights Reserved.