Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: Episode 376
Pyeong Hwa Gyeong: A Selection of True Parents’ Speeches
Book 9: The Role of Nations in Realizing World Peace
Speech 15: The Path for America and Humanity in the New Millennium, pg 1407-1410
The mission and responsibility of religious leaders
I was enlightened regarding the Will of Heaven, and rather than letting this remain only in my heart, I have worked to bring God’s vision to reality.
There is nowhere in the world I have not been active. I have inspired evangelical and oceanic enterprises in Alaska, the countries of the former Soviet Union, the thirty-three countries of Latin America, and throughout Asia and Africa. We are making preparations to solve problems that humanity will face in the coming millennium, especially in the areas of environmental pollution, hunger and disease. In recent years, I have worked in the Pantanal and Amazon regions of Brazil to lay a substantive foundation to protect the environment.
Addressing internal problems, I have worked through the international holy Blessing and the Pure Love movement. Some 430 million couples around the world have participated in these, adding further impetus to the building of the kingdom of God on earth that God has longed for ages to see.
Ladies and gentlemen, up to now countries possessing superior power politically, militarily and economically have controlled the world. However, no country can exist eternally unless it is in line with God’s providence. The fall of the once-glorious Greek and Roman civilizations are good examples of this.
The United States, which today stands tall as a superpower, is in the same position as Rome in the past. The fall of Rome came more from internal moral corruption than from any external pressures. Its moral corruption cut Rome off from heavenly fortune.
In recent history, political forces favoring dialectical materialism and the materialistic view of history went so far as to take control of one-third of the world’s population and two-thirds of its land area, including the former Soviet Union and China. That hegemony, however, could not long remain.
The time will soon come when religious leaders who speak for the Will of God will rise to prominence. Religious leaders are prophets. They are called to stand in the place God wills, declare His Will, and point the way that humanity needs to go. Tragically, the splintering of denominations and the struggles among religious groups that we see today serve no purpose other than to hinder God’s providence.
True Parents embody humanity’s hopes and history’s victories
This is why I have for years devoted 90 percent of our church’s budget to activities that reach out to other denominations and religions for the sake of resolving interreligious conflicts. I founded the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace for three purposes: to facilitate harmony and unity within and between religions, to resolve regional conflicts in many areas, and to help bring about world peace. Most recently, I founded the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, which has held seven international hoondokhae conferences.
All people need to go beyond racial and religious differences, understand God’s providence to bring His ideal world of creation into reality, and ultimately unite with His heart. In the end, heart is what will realize the faith, hope and love we have been pursuing. We must recover the relationship of heart with God that we lost as a result of the Fall, and we have to recover the positions of parent and child as God originally envisioned them to be.
Thus, the Last Days that God has promised us is the time when True Parents come. In other words, it is the time when the multitudes of people in the world, who lost their Parent as a result of the Fall, will again meet their original Parent. Thus, the True Parents are the final fruit of the desires and hopes of all humanity. They are the final fruit of the victories wrought throughout human history.
The Unification Church has disseminated this tradition throughout the world through the international holy Blessing ceremony. The fact that black, white and yellow people are able to come together as brothers and sisters—beyond their differences of ethnicity, race or nationality—and form loving married couples is among the most significant steps in accomplishing God’s Will. Today, through realizing the blessed family tradition, humanity is beginning to recover the relationships of brother and sister, husband and wife, and parent and child as originally envisioned by God. Ultimately, we need to go even so far as to liberate God, who has been in the depths of sorrow ever since He lost His children. It is only then that the path to true happiness will be opened.
Until now, democracy has called for human freedom and human liberation. But we must also call for God’s freedom and God’s liberation. When we succeed in relieving God’s sorrow, human liberation and the recovery of human freedom will follow naturally. Each of us has to realize that we were born to liberate God and the world.
The United States was built upon the strict Puritan faith
Ladies and gentlemen, there is profound significance to my discussing God’s providence across the United States. In many ways, the United States is a country prepared with God’s blessing. The forebears who built this nation were the Pilgrim fathers and mothers, who risked their lives to practice their religion and who came to America seeking freedom.
For the sake of their search for true religious freedom, these people left behind their parents, brothers and sisters, and homeland. They relinquished their ties to their home country as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean at the risk of life and limb.
When the Mayflower arrived in New England in 1620, it was late autumn. That winter, more than half of the 102 Pilgrims died of cold and hunger. What was particularly remarkable was that they died refusing to eat the precious seeds reserved for planting the next spring.
The Puritans strongly believed in serving the Will of God in every aspect of life. After taking in their first harvest, they offered thanks to God. They first built a fort housing the church and school, and it was only afterward that they set about to build houses for themselves.
In their pioneering course, the Pilgrims began every activity with prayer. This was true whether it was plowing a field or governing the community. When George Washington was at Valley Forge during the War of Independence, he prayed with great desperation. In that battle fought for the sake of God-given rights, God sided with America. In England, the king and his government were fighting the war, but in America it was fought by God and His sons and daughters. Isn’t this how the United States came into existence as a country advocating freedom of faith?
Even now, the United States Congress opens with prayer. The president, when being sworn into office, places his or her hand on the Bible, takes the oath of office, and receives the blessing of a pastor. America even prints the words “In God We Trust” on its currency. The level of importance the United States attaches to God is unique in the world. This is how the United States, as a Protestant country, came to occupy its position of worldwide influence.
But what about America today? Prayer in public schools is officially banned. Teachers teach the theory of evolution and ignore other viewpoints. The divorce rate of around 50 percent is badly undermining the integrity of the family.