Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 15
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 1: The Principles of True Peace
Speech 3: A World of Living for the Sake of Others, Pg 60-64
How the UN General Assembly passed the Korea bill
You may not know that I had a keen awareness that the issue of Korea was causing much trouble at last year’s United Nations General Assembly session. I gathered all the information I could, including the evaluations of everyone at the Assembly, from the president of the General Assembly to his aides, ambassadors, and observers, in order to understand the problem. The consensus was that the South Korean position was hopeless.
As the founder and leader of the Unification Church, I have always believed that the Unification Church exists not for itself but for the nation as well as the world. With this principle in mind, I brought together Unification Church missionaries from about thirty nations and selected thirty-four representatives from among them. I paired them with thirty-four Japanese women and called these sixty-eight members to pray for and attend the UN General Assembly meetings. They shared their faith with everyone they met in the Assembly and moved their hearts, one on one. What did I tell our members to say? It was nothing special. I did not send them because they were excellent speakers. I just told them, “You need to devote yourselves completely for their sake! When you meet them, make every effort to live for their sake. Speak with them, dine with them, counsel them with God’s heart.”
After experiencing our ministry for forty days, the hearts of these delegates were moved by our efforts. As a faith leader, I knew that the issue of the Japanese women who had been deceived into moving to North Korea to join their husbands and then denied freedom of travel would open people’s eyes about that regime. While the general sentiment of the world toward South Korea was unfavorable, I knew that the United Nations ambassadors’ support for the Japanese wives would change international opinion on Korean issues. When I said this, however, no one believed me.
The UN General Assembly brings together intellectuals from all parts of the world, and our Unification Church missionaries were not confident to open their mouths and speak with such people. However, I asked them to work from the position of truly attending with sincerity and faith. So they looked at an ambassador’s office, not as that of a stranger from a random nation, but rather as from their own. They served and selflessly helped those people, day and night, even calling taxis after one or two o’clock in the morning for them. They served in the background with love.
As you may know, we have a conference center called Belvedere in the village of Tarrytown, just north of New York City. We hosted UN ambassadors from seventy nations there. After this kind of ministry, they opened their hearts to the cause of justice for the Japanese wives. During this process, we discovered that friends of North Korea had reached out to underdeveloped nations in Africa, offering bribes for their support in the General Assembly. And so, the North Koreans toasted their victory even before sending their delegation to the United Nations. Nonetheless, as a result of our having invested our service for the world, shedding tears, and staying up nights for the sake of freedom and justice for God’s daughters from Japan, South Korea’s proposal was accepted by sixty-one votes to forty-two, whereas North Korea’s received forty-eight votes against forty-eight.
Thus we brought a victory for freedom. I am not telling you this to boast. It is only to show how unimaginable miracles can be wrought based on this principle of living for the sake of others, miracles I have experienced on many occasions throughout my life.
The reason the Unification Church is developing globally
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you, what do you think the Unification Church is? In the course of history, many theologians tried to bring together the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church, yet success remained only in their dreams. Moreover, many Protestants tried to unite, yet they now are divided into more than four hundred denominations. This is the actual state of affairs, so how can the Unification Church unite all religions? You may think Mr. Moon is somewhat weak in the head. However, I think the solution to division among religions is quite simple. It boils down to whether Unification Church members can love Christians more than their ministers do and whether Unification Church members can love Christian ministers more than their own congregations do. Can we exist more for their sake than for ourselves? If this is possible, the unity we are envisioning is also possible.
The Unification Church has now passed through a history of twenty years. I know you must have heard all kinds of rumors and controversial news about the church. Yes, we have been persecuted globally; nonetheless, we have achieved a global impact. How do you think we achieved such an impact? It is because we learned that when people betray us, a path is opened that leads to the world. Everyone ought to tread the path that is taken for the sake of the world. If this path is indeed the principle of heavenly law and the common formula that everyone must follow, the world will come to know this fact. When it does, the Korean people can automatically come to know this as well. Based on this principle, we continue to carry out mission work abroad, even in the face of bloody persecution.
To give an example, our missionaries pioneered Japan seventeen years ago, when the Liberal Democratic Party had just come to power. At that time, the Ewha Women’s University incident had erupted, and Mr. Moon’s reputation had fallen to the point where he was deemed contemptible. However, I actually intuited how the political situation of Japan would develop in the future, and in my own way, I had an inkling of how the situation of Asia would unfold.
Therefore, while I was aware that Japan was barring missionaries, I knew that this would change soon and that in five or ten years, the Unification Church of Japan would serve the world. I decided I had no choice except to take this path, even though I might be branded an outlaw. It was in 1956. As you well know, I had just been released from Seodaemun Prison and had gone to Gabsa Monastery in South Chungcheong Province to recuperate. A young man visited me, and I called him to go to Japan. I told him, “When a person sets out on the path of his choosing, he ought to do so at the cost of his life.”
On his first entry, he was arrested as soon as he set foot in Japan. So the first try was unsuccessful. I sent him a second time to try again. He was rebuffed in his second entry too and came back. Upon my release from prison, I found that the Unification Church had disbanded, and its one-room house had been lost. I had to borrow money in order to send that man a third time, which I did for the sake of Korea and Asia. It seems like that happened only yesterday. That was in 1958. In Japan, the Unification Church began under such circumstances. When he went to Japan for the third time, again, he was detained. This was a major crisis for him. He had made me a solemn promise to succeed, yet instead of being in a position to lay the foundation for the church in Japan, he was blocked, and there was no one to whom he could turn for support. So he found a way. He drank a large quantity of soy sauce, and he became feverish. He was admitted to a hospital and was kept there for three days. From there, he escaped and made his way to Tokyo. This is how the Unification Church began in Japan.
Now we have reached the stage at which the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan respects our voice. When a major event is taking place there, they listen to us; we have faithful members on that level. While the movement was growing, I taught the members in Japan the principle of living for the sake of others, established by heavenly law. When you uphold it, you will succeed. Because they are aware of this, the young men and women of the Unification Church in Japan have spread nationwide. They carry out activities on the premise that “the Unification Church exists for the nation. It needs to be a church that exists for Asia and, furthermore, it needs to be a church that exists for the world.” This is why they are prominent in Japan today.
My meeting with you on such a formal occasion as this and delivering these words is unprecedented in the twenty-year history of the Unification Church. While visiting all parts of North America, I was very sad. I said to myself, “You poor man, you are no better than an orphan! You are in a pitiful position, having left behind your young members who are distrusted and mistreated in your own country, while you are asking for the trust of the people of a foreign nation. However, since God called a man such as you and is working through you, God is supporting you. He knows your situation.” While saying this, I held on to God and invested all my effort, and as a result, I have come to experience the beginning of a new history of creation both in name and in reality.
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