Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 349
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 9: The Role of Nations in Realizing World Peace
Speech 2: God’s Plan Centered on the United States, pg 1302-1306
God’s Plan Centered on the United States
December 18, 1975
Senate Caucus Room, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., USA
The second invitational lecture for United States senators and congressmen
Most esteemed Congressman Ichord, members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen:
First of all, I would like to sincerely thank Mr. Ichord for his kind words of introduction, and I would also like to express my gratitude to all of you for coming to attend this meeting despite your busy schedules.
It is a great honor for me to speak to you today in this beautiful hall at the United States Capitol. This is the second opportunity I have been given to speak to the eminent members of the United States Congress. The first was on October 8, 1974. And today, about fourteen months later, I stand here in this hall once again.
A subject of controversy
During the past fourteen months, the media in the United States have gradually made me a subject of controversy. Various newspapers across the country have carried feature articles about me, and a few magazines have written cover stories about me with big cover photos. I think some of those pictures have made me look more handsome than I really am. I don’t know how to thank all the media outlets in the United States for making me so famous without my having paid a penny for the advertising.
The focus of the controversy caused by the American media is that they believe I am brainwashing the young people of America. So I would like to ask you wise Americans one thing: are Americans foolish enough to be brainwashed by Rev. Moon? No, you would answer, of course not. And my answer is the same. I respect Americans. And I find it hard to understand why the Americans I respect are criticizing me like this, even to the point of using violence against the Unification Church.
Nonetheless, I did not come here today to make excuses. I have come to pass on the words that God has commanded me to convey. The rest will be judged by history. The title of my speech today is, “God’s Plan Centered on the United States.”
God’s providence to restore the world to the ideal
For us to know about God’s plan, we first need to know His Will. God is an eternal, unchanging, unique and absolute Being. Therefore, His Will must also be eternal, unchanging, unique and absolute. God had a purpose and an ideal when He created human beings, and if that purpose had been achieved, the world would have become united through love; it would be a world where all humanity would live in harmony as brothers and sisters attending God as their Father, with all humankind as one great family.
In a word, our world would be united, with all people united centered on the Will of God. It would be a world where each individual’s body and mind were united, where families were united, where peoples and nations were united, where East and West were united, and where God and humankind were united. To put it another way, the world where God’s purpose of creation is completed would be a world of unity. The task of building this unity remains extremely difficult, yet it is the most important task we face today.
Today’s reality is far removed from this ideal world, and this tells us clearly that something is wrong at a fundamental level. What would that be? Due to the Fall of the human ancestors, Adam and Eve, the Will of God could not be fulfilled. Accordingly, the mind and body of every individual is divided, as are family and family, tribe and tribe, nation and nation, East and West, and God and humankind; we are all living in division and disharmony.
Human beings who are thus divided are in a disordered state, having even lost some of their faculties originally intended by God. This being the case, God’s purpose for the salvation of humanity is to send a doctor who can examine this dysfunctional humankind and prescribe a course of treatment, thus curing all people and restoring them to the state of health they enjoyed before they became sick. Therefore, this providence of salvation can be said to be the providence of restoration. The person who comes as the doctor is the Messiah.
Then the question is, how does God prepare before sending the Messiah, and what does the Messiah come to do? We can clearly recognize through history that God sets up a central religion to achieve His Will, based on which He establishes a central nation of His chosen people, and then He continues to carry out His providence to save and restore the entire world through that central religion and central nation.
That central religion was none other than Judaism, and that central nation was the chosen nation of Israel. The mission of that religion and that nation was to receive the Messiah and complete the Will of salvation for the entire world. It was the mission of that central religion and that central nation to take the lead in fulfilling God’s Will to save the entire world, even if it meant having to face difficulties and bear the cross of sacrifice.
Because He had such a clear and well-planned Will for four thousand years before sending Jesus as the Messiah, God established Judaism and prepared the people of Israel to receive him. The providence of salvation for humankind, which is the Will of God and the will of the people, was supposed to have been completed through the Messiah, Jesus, leading to the creation of a united, ideal world.
Christianity and America are the central religion and central nation
Yet what happened when the Messiah actually came two thousand years ago? Judaism and the people of Israel, sadly, dreamed that as the chosen people they would stand in a place of glory, above the Roman Empire and even the world. God expected that they would think first about their responsibility, which was to save the entire world, but they thought first of their own nation and its traditions. From then on, a gap opened between them and the Messiah and God, who were thinking first about the world and carrying out the providence.
Jesus, who came as the Messiah under such circumstances, strove to reform Judaism and the people of Israel, in order to empower their foundation to save the world. Nonetheless, the religious and political establishments opposed him. They stood on their existing traditions and eventually sent Jesus to death on the cross. With the Will left unfulfilled, the chosen people walked a tragic path, and Christianity, centered on Jesus, lost the foundation of the nation. Christians suffered martyrdom amid persecution as they began working for the fulfillment of the Will in the Roman Empire.
What you need to know here is that, when a group of people chosen by God does not fulfill its mission, God finds and establishes another appropriate religious group to fulfill the Will of the central nation. Christianity came to stand in the position of the central religion, working for God’s Will at the next stage of the providence. It eventually went on to claim sovereignty over the Roman Empire, which was at that time a global kingdom.
Thus, the religion of Judaism and the nation of Israel lost the foundation that had taken four thousand years to establish. To atone for this mistake, Christians had to suffer for four hundred years under persecution in the Roman Empire.
God had meant for the Roman Empire to unite completely with the Christian leaders of the time and march forward with them to save the entire world. If the Christian leadership had understood this Will clearly and had marched forward, united with the Empire and undaunted by any sacrificial cross they had to bear, they would have saved the world at that time. However, the Christian hierarchy that arose eventually forsook the Will of God and manipulated nations centered on its own power, seeking to make other nations its subordinates.
Because they walked a path opposite to the Will of God in the Dark Ages of the medieval period, God departed from the Christian hierarchy. The prestige of the papacy and the church hierarchy plummeted because of the institution’s secular behavior. Hence, God had no choice but to bring about the Protestant movement to pave once again the path of world salvation. Henry VIII of England took advantage of this trend to justify his divorce. He rebelled against the Catholic Church and moved Parliament to change the country’s laws, and he succeeded in establishing the Anglican Church. Henry VIII was in a position to repent on his own, and to lead the church and his nation to a higher level.
At this time, England had a good opportunity to be recognized as the leader of Protestantism. God’s Will had left the Roman Empire and moved to England. As God laid down the foundation for world salvation there, the small island nation of England expanded its territory. Within two hundred years it became a great global empire on which the sun never set, spanning the five oceans and six continents.
God allowed England to enjoy the height of civilization and bestowed glorious blessings on it, not for England alone but in order to fulfill His Will of saving the world.
FFWPU, USA