Building Our Common Legacy Faith, Family, Freedom and Peace Centered on God

Filial Children of God  are Patriots Who Strive to Liberate His Heart Rev. Sun Myung Moon December 13, 2004 Washington, D.C. Distinguished present and former heads of state. Respected members of the clergy. Leaders from America and around the world, ladies and gentlemen. I come to this gathering today to deliver a message from God, a warning for the six billion people now living on the earth. I know all too well God's timetable and the direction of His Providence. In all of history, no one has understood with certainty God's circumstances or God's heart. But today, in this era of the providential Last Days, I can reveal them to you. In so doing, I hope to present a correct understanding of the responsibility we must shoulder and the direction we should take. I would like to speak to you on the topic, "Filial Children of God are Patriots Who Strive to Liberate His Heart." God's Grief and Sorrow Why did God create human beings? God is the source of true love. Yet the joy of love wells up in the heart only in the context of a relationship. A solitary being cannot experience it. Even God could not experience any stimulation as long as He existed all alone. Alone, He cannot love. For His love to blossom, God needs objects to love. For this reason, God created human beings to be His children, partners in His true love. God is the Father of all humankind, and we are God's sons and daughters. In creating us, God invested everything — the bone of His bone, the flesh of His flesh, and the marrow of His marrow. Parents raise their children hoping to reach that most exalted place where parent and child come together — that central point where their loves converge, their lives converge, and their ideals converge. In this way, the omniscient and omnipotent God created us to grow into a position on par with Him and equal to Him in rank. Then, what is required to complete God's ideal of creation? Beyond anything God can do, there is the human element. Because God's ideal is the oneness of God and human beings, God cannot be perfect until human beings reach perfection. How God must have yearned that the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, would become beings of infinite value reflecting His image. Yet because Adam and Eve fell, God no longer had His own true sons and daughters. Tragically, God could not establish His family capable of possessing the deep bonds of true love and propagating a divine lineage. Instead, Adam and Eve were seduced by the false parent. Their family was entangled in the chains of false love, false life, and false lineage. As a consequence, we — their descendants — suffer from an incessant struggle between the mind and body. Adam and Eve fought constantly, and so did their children, resulting in murder. They did not become the exalted beings whom God could relate to as His eternal son and daughter. God could not glorify them as the true ancestors and true parents of humanity. Yet with their fall, God lost the only son and daughter He had. What happened between Adam and Eve that caused them to fall? Was it, as the Bible literally says, that they ate the "fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil"? Could merely eating a piece of fruit be the original sin? Could our ancestors by eating a piece of fruit doom thousands of generations of their descendants to be sinners? No. It is because the root of sin was planted in the lineage that it continues on forever in accordance with the laws of inheritance. The only transgression that can have such lasting impact is a mistake of love, committed between two people of the opposite sex. Eve committed adultery with the archangel Lucifer, and they became one. When Eve then joined with Adam, she bound him in that same oneness. As a result, Adam and Eve built their family on a conjugal relationship that centered not on God but on Satan, the fallen archangel. Consequently, all human beings, because we are descended from Adam and Eve, have inherited Satan's lineage. According to the Principle of Creation, love determines the right of ownership. In a relationship of love the partners possess a right of ownership with respect to each other. By this principle, Satan used his ties of illicit love to claim ownership over fallen human beings. Satan took over the role of the "father" of humanity, even though the true Father of humanity is God. This is why Jesus, in the Gospel of John Chapter 8 verse 44, chastised the people as children of Satan, saying: "You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire." Christians today may think that almighty Jehovah sits on His royal throne, and because He is omniscient and omnipotent, He can give orders as He pleases and have everything go exactly as He wants. In reality, God sits in a place of wretchedness and harbors tremendous grief. God had intended Adam and Eve to become the ideal counterparts for His pure, essential love. Can you imagine the sorrow in God's heart when they fell? It was infinitely worse than the sorrow that Adam and Eve experienced; indeed, no one in this world has experienced anything nearly so painful. The most tragic loss is to lose what is most precious. Carrying this grieving heart, God has to this day pursued the path of restoration in order to recover His lost children. There is nothing vague or ambiguous about God. He possesses a definite character. He desires to form a relationship of the highest true love with human beings. He desires to share with each of us the most exalted love and joy eternally. But God lost the starting point for this, due to the mistake of the first human ancestors. The fall of Adam and Eve caused such damage. God is the original True Parent, yet He was robbed of His rightful parental position. How heartbroken He is over this! God looks upon His fallen children, who inherited the lineage of the enemy Satan and refuse even to recognize that He exists. How excruciating must God's heart be each and every moment, as He observes humanity's wretched condition! For God, nothing was more precious than to have flesh and blood counterparts who could share His true love. God would not have traded His beloved children for the entire universe. His sorrow upon losing them was as if He had lost the entire creation. He felt that His entire purpose for creating the universe had collapsed. He became a God whose enemy unjustly robbed Him of His cosmic throne. The fact that God invested His love so completely, in keeping with the principles of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience, only made the results of the fall even more devastating. God was plundered of His ideal, plundered of His beloved son and daughter, and plundered of His sovereignty over the cosmos. And yet, forbearing all these years, the innocent God has had to endure Satan's false accusations. Seeing the history of lamentation that befell the world following the fall, the Book of Genesis says that God grieved in His heart. The Apostle Paul said, "Creation groans, our ancestors groan, and all humanity groans, waiting in eager anticipation for the appearance of the sons and daughters of God." All creatures desire to escape this realm of lamentation. God's inmost heart is broken as He surveys human beings struggling, leading lives of no value, having lost the glorious value with which they were originally created. God cries out in grief and agony, saying, "You are supposed to be my direct lineal children, possessing My love, My life, and My lineage. You should be enjoying all the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. My heart is grieved to see you wearing the mask of the defeated, struggling in pain, lamentation, and despair until the end of your meaningless lives." Do you think that God, omniscient and omnipotent and seated on His glorious throne, would say to His children: "Come on up here. I'm not going to leave this seat"? Or is it more likely that He would kick His throne out of the way and come down to where we are? It is important for you to know that for tens of thousands of years, even millions of years, God has been wailing tearfully, crying out, "Oh, My son. Oh My daughter." You may ask how the omniscient and omnipotent God could be in such a pitiful state, but God cannot get over the shock of losing His beloved sons and daughters. If there were a way for God to solve this problem on His own, He would not have had to suffer as He traveled the long, lonely path of the providence of restoration. Why God Doesn't Punish Satan Directly No caring parent would stand by idly while her child suffers. Hence, it must be impossible for the all-loving God to abandon humanity, His beloved children, to perish eternally. God is absolutely committed to recovering us and the world that He originally envisioned. This is the reason that God has ceaselessly worked His providence of restoration to save humanity. Know how intensely God has labored to make progress in the providence of restoration! God is our True Parent. As He carried out the providence, God's heart felt the pain of human beings as His own pain. Yet it was excruciatingly difficult for God to carry out the providence of salvation, because the original human ancestors who committed the fall received Satan's false love and false life. Ever since, Satan has acted as humanity's false parent and false lord. You may raise the question: "God is omniscient and omnipotent. How could He stand by, seemingly impotent, while humanity went down the path of destruction?" It is because human beings committed sin in a realm where they are totally responsible; therefore, they are required to fulfill the conditions needed to resolve that sin. God cannot liberate us from sin unconditionally. If He could, He would have liberated the first human ancestors in the Garden of Eden instead of casting them out. Furthermore, restoration has been even more difficult because Satan uses his ties of lineage to enslave human beings as their master. The fall was something that should never have happened under the original standard of the ideal of creation. Therefore, God was not in a position to intervene, even though He was the Creator. Having been robbed of His position as the original Parent, He could not cover for His children's mistake. On the other hand, neither can the omniscient and omnipotent God simply solve the problem by sending judgment on the fallen human world and Satan. Since God created human beings to be His eternal partners in true love, He cannot just annihilate them. Instead, with true love God has labored to carry out the providence of restoration. Though all the while enduring Satan's contempt and accusations, His response is always to sacrifice and give unendingly. Satan mocks God, saying, "How can you hold fast to your principles, now that the lineage of true love, which was supposed to be the foundation of the ideal world, has been utterly degraded? Your ideal of creation — the absolute realm of love where true people live together as one — that is something You will never see." In this situation, how can God reply? It is an impossible situation. Why does God carry on with His restoration providence while enduring such suffering? Is it because He is omniscient and omnipotent? No, it is not. The ideal of true love is the reason that He seeks to recover His beloved sons and daughters. With true love, God ignores His own circumstances and works to understand the circumstances of human beings. If people are sad, God approaches them by comprehending their sadness. If people are angry because they have been treated unjustly, God approaches them by first understanding the reasons for their anger. We Need to Know God's Circumstances and Heart Respected leaders, in your communion with God, have you fathomed His suffering heart? Have you shed tears for God? Have you ever attempted to take on a task that would lighten God's load, even a little? Would you struggle to do it, even if it meant that each of your limbs might be torn from your body? You haven't. On the other hand, God ever draws near to comfort us in our difficulties. Through the long ages, He has sought out the children who betrayed Him with an unchanging parental heart. God, our Parent, remains in the realm of lamentation until every last human being has been freed from lamentation. Because He is in this position, we must comfort God and bring Him true liberation. How are we to liberate God? God lost His beloved children. God is confined in a place where He cannot love humanity with the original love that parents give their children. Therefore, our task is to establish a realm of true liberation for God where He can freely give love to all humankind. God's confinement was brought about by the human fall, so human beings must become victorious sons and daughters who transcend the limits of the fall. This is what will bring God true liberation. Human beings have lived ignorant of the tremendous pain in God's heart. When I first understood the pain of God, I wept for weeks. Please know that such profound circumstances lie behind the founding of the Unification Church. Longing for those who betrayed Him, those who were embraced in the bosom of the enemy, God has been calling out, "My son! My daughter!" But have you even once cried out, "My Father!" so loudly that it made you hoarse? Have you ever passionately called for your Father until it made your tongue dry and you began to choke? As fallen people, what do we have that would enable us to relate with God? Our emotions and the perceptions of our five senses are entirely profane. Nothing in us is acceptable. Under the laws of justice, we have nothing that will let us relate to God, but under the law of love there is a way. God's True Liberation and Complete Freedom Because human beings fell, God could not be free. Hence the first human ancestors also were imprisoned and lost their original freedom. Following this, the angelic world, all religious people, and ultimately all humanity came to be imprisoned. God lives in prison. How can we free Him? We must become filial sons and daughters of God, more so than the original children whom He lost. We must do better even than the original children were supposed to do had they been filial and not fallen. Even if we were to accumulate ten times as much merit in every aspect and relate to God with great filial piety, it would not be easy to bring God back to His original heart, in order that He might dwell in true freedom. Yet at an early age, I made a determination "to truly liberate God with my own hands," and I have lived accordingly throughout my life. What is the true mission of religion? It is, with a heart of love, to truly liberate God, truly liberate humanity on earth and in the spirit world, and truly liberate the planet earth. Many people think that God will liberate us. But now that we recognize that God's heart is under confinement, we understand that we should liberate God and bring Him into complete freedom. God has long been searching for people burning with zeal for true love, having the faith that says, "I see now that God is in prison because of me. I see now that God is receiving Satan's accusations because of me. I see now that Jesus suffered because of me. Oh, Father, I will carry You to the place of true liberation. I will carry Jesus and the Holy Spirit, too, to the place of true liberation." To this day, there has not been any sovereign country on earth where people of true love have established God's dominion. Despite this, people are singing praises to the Almighty. In such circumstances, how can God's heart be free? There have been no filial children before God. There have been no social and political structures founded upon true love that would enable people to fulfill the way of the patriot, the way of the saint, and the way of divine sons and daughters in Heaven and earth. Hence there has been no way to establish and protect the heavenly kingdom. These circumstances left God with no place to stand. Consequently, God has remained until now imprisoned — in a state of virtual captivity. How are we to resolve this grievous situation? The only way is to carry out a movement practicing the love that is God's original essence. The final stage of religion must teach in detail about God's pitiful suffering and the injustice He has endured, and it must connect human beings to the world of His original heart. Let us join in a true love movement to bring God true liberation and complete freedom. If we do not set this standard of love, the heavenly way cannot be set right and the ideal world cannot come on this earth. This true love movement is bringing an end to the history of division between Cain and Abel. To that end, we are bringing together the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace and the Peace U.N. (World Peace Council) in the Abel position, and the Mongolian Peoples' Federation for World Peace in the Cain position, (all organizations I founded) into a single unity. I call on America to take on the role of the elder brother, representing the free world, and lead all nations toward the fulfillment of God's will. To do this, America needs to put aside selfish and individualistic thinking. When political parties and ethnic groups place priority on their self-interest, they divide and mislead the people. America must build a true nation, blossoming with true freedom and peace. Then God will want to reside in your families and in your communities. For this noble goal, let us all stand hand in hand and establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, the Peace Kingdom, where God's ideal of creation is fulfilled. There, God will enjoy true liberation and complete freedom. I pray that God's blessings may be with you forever.

REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON Freedom, Family and Faith The Role of the Media in the 21st Century

20th Anniversary of the Washington Times Banquet  Hilton Washington Hotel, International Ballroom Washington, DC May 21, 2002 Distinguished guests from the United States and around the world, parliamentarians and other leaders on the invitation committee, dear staff of The Washington Times, ladies and gentlemen. I deeply appreciate your taking time from your busy schedules to attend this gathering. We are gathered for the meaningful purposes to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Washington Times and to look back on the historical role the Times played during the rapid changes of the previous century. During these two decades The Times has grown in dedication and distinction to become one of the most influential and significant newspapers in the world today. Its reputation for integrity and truthful reporting is unmatched. When I first announced the founding of The Washington Times in 1982, many people in America ridiculed me. Some critics predicted that The Times would only become a mouthpiece for the Unification Church, or end up as a weekly newspaper read by almost no one. Others said that even if the newspaper maintained acceptable quality, it would run out of funds in only six months. Yet year after year, for these past 20 years, The Times has steadily grown stronger and improved in its quality. The Washington Times has become one of the world's most-quoted newspapers. It regularly scoops other major news media. The newspaper's vast collection of award-winning news stories, editorial and opinion columns, illustrations, and photographs is testimony to the highest standards of journalism. First, I wish to thank God for bringing us successfully through these twenty years of accomplishment. I also wish to offer my praise to all the employees of The Washington Times for their hard work and dedication. It is through their efforts that the newspaper has achieved its well-deserved reputation for distinction in reporting and excellence. Let's give them all a big round of applause. I would like to take a moment to explain my reasons for establishing the The Washington Times two decades ago. It was not for my own personal interest or to promote the interests of any other organization. In fact, my decision to launch The Washington Times came while I was facing trial in New York City on federal tax charges. I could have felt resentment and anger toward the United States for bringing malicious charges against me. But instead, I endeavored to serve and love this nation. Instead of seeking revenge, I turned around and tried to help save the destiny of this nation. I founded The Washington Times as an expression of my love for America and to fulfill the Will of God, who seeks to establish America in His Providence. During the Cold War, God placed America in a position to protect worldwide freedom by blocking the attempt by communism to gain world domination. When the Washington Star closed down in 1981, this nation's capital was left with only one newspaper, the Washington Post. This meant that the capital of the Free World had a limited perspective on news, issues, and policy, which ignored the danger of communism and its threat to the entire world at that time. In the context of God's Will, there needed to be a newspaper that had the philosophical and ideological foundation to encourage and enlighten the people and leaders of America. For months, I waited with the hope that some patriotic Americans would start a newspaper in Washington to provide an alternative voice to the Post. But when it became clear that no one would do so, I decided we had to do it. Ronald Reagan had been elected president in a landslide vote. Yet while he tried to maintain a strong stand against communist expansion, there was much confusion in Washington over what America's proper response to the Soviet threat should be. The Washington Times provided leadership through thoughtful commentary and objective news and information to make clear the harsh reality of communist tyranny. The Washington Times editorials and columns supported the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) at a time when many were trying to block this critical development. Years later, former Soviet officials admitted that it was America's determination to develop SDI that fatally weakened the resolve of the Soviet leaders. Finally, in 1989 the Berlin Wall was torn down and on Christmas Eve 1991 the Soviet empire collapsed after having held the world in fear for 74 years. I thank God that the Free World prevailed in this historical struggle, which truly was an ideological battle over acknowledging God or not. It is the principle that God works His will on Earth through human beings. I do not have the slightest doubt that God used The Washington Times to help bring an end to the most pernicious worldwide dictatorship in history and gave freedom to tens of millions of people! In the 1980s, the Contras in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other countries were fighting for their lives against the communist Sandinistas who were seeking to seize control of their countries, slaughtering thousands of people. While other media failed to recognize the seriousness of the situation, The Washington Times emphasized through its stories and columns the dangers of communist expansion in the hemisphere and why the freedom fighters should be supported. Once again, The Times' news and information helped the leaders in Washington stay strong in their support for the Contras. Today, many people thank God and The Washington Times for the fact that freedom and democracy are alive and well in Central America! The mission of The Washington Times, however, was not finished with the end of the Cold War. The fall of communism did not automatically lead to world peace. Nor did it mean that the ideal society that God desires would establish itself without any further effort on our part. Accordingly, during The Washington Times' second decade it had to rise to a new challenge - that of the "Cultural War," or the fight against the degradation of values. God desired that America maintain its traditional family and moral values, which had fallen into confusion. Secular humanism and extreme individualism and selfishness were on the rise. As a result of these, money and material goods have become "gods" to people in terms of their values. This has led to the decline of religion and the rise of secular humanism, which have led to the breakdown of families and juvenile delinquency. We see evidence of this epidemic everywhere, especially among our youth: the AIDS epidemic, increased alcoholism and drug use among young people, teen pregnancies and even murders in the schools. These are all symptoms that our society is still very distant from God. Thus, ten years ago, at the 10th anniversary celebration for The Times, I defined another mission for the media. This is, that the media need to promote ethics and moral values in our society. For its second ten years, I envisioned for The Washington Times the task of contributing to bringing about a moral society. Because a peaceful world is only possible based on the existence of peaceful, ideal families, The Times became a newspaper that helped people understand the importance of strong moral, family values. Even before the term "family values" became a popular phrase, every day of the week The Times was publishing articles highlighting the breakdown in values and what must be done to return to a good, moral society based on family values. The newspaper even began publishing a weekly Family Times section devoted to these issues. Today, family values have become an essential piece of the social fabric in America, even becoming part of the political landscape. We can be proud of The Washington Times' contribution that promoted and elevated family values to an essential part of society in America and the world! The first decade of The Washington Times was marked by its fight for freedom around the world in the midst of the Cold War. The second decade was marked by the Cultural War and the emphasis on building families infused with strong moral values. Now, as we enter the third decade of The Washington Times, this is the time to emphasize and support faith, the time to emphasize and support spiritual values that are based on the faith of each individual. We must all understand clearly about God and the spiritual aspect of human life. Freedom at the world level, moral and ethical values at the family level, and faith at the individual level. These are the three great imperatives for our lives and for the media as well. Freedom, family values, and faith are America's most fundamental spiritual virtues. The reason The Washington Times is called "America's newspaper" is that it leads the way in putting America's philosophical tradition into practice. Of course, the phrase "America's newspaper" does not mean that The Times serves only America for its own sake. Instead, it serves America as a country that offers itself in service to the world and all humanity. Our lives are not just eighty or one hundred years on this Earth. We are born into this world through our physical parents, but we must know that ultimately God is our Parent. And after we die in this world, we continue to live in the world of the spirit. Is there any person on this Earth who can avoid going into the spirit world when they die? No matter how much money, knowledge or power he or she accumulated on Earth, everyone is destined to go into the spirit world eventually. You may have made great efforts on the Earth to accumulate money, knowledge or power, but these will not guarantee your happiness in the spirit world. You would do well to invest effort to learn about spirit world now, since God and the spirit world are at the roots of our eternal lives. In this sense, the spirit world is our hometown. How can anyone claim to be a true man or a true woman if he or she does not know God and the spirit world? This is the time when each one of us can set his or her faith compass to God. This is not just Reverend Moon's teaching, it is the providence of God. As the third component of freedom, family and faith, this individual connection to God stems from the same root as America's founding tradition. I hope that each of you will also take up this mission of the media as your own and accept faith as the essential part of your character. We live in an age marked externally by an explosive increase in the quantity of information. The world is overflowing with information. The development of digital communications technologies has produced a sea of information. In the past, it was difficult to get news from out of the way sources. But now there has been a revolutionary change and people can be overwhelmed with the amount of news from all around the world. It the midst of this quantity, there needs to be responsibility for the quality of people's lives. While the media can provide all the facts, they also have the responsibility to provide values to prevent confusion and to provide leadership and direction, especially today when the entire world is flooded with news and information. The Washington Times and its affiliated media properties are taking a leading role in this regard. At the same time as the miraculous growth of The Washington Times daily newspaper over the past twenty years, other media properties have also shown spectacular development. These include the National Weekly Edition, which is distributed to subscribers in all 50 states, presenting the best from The Times daily paper. We also have Tiempos del Mundo, the Spanish language weekly newspaper now published in 18 major cities in 16 countries throughout the hemisphere. Of course, there are sister newspapers in Seoul and New York, the Segye Ilbo, and in Tokyo, Sekai Nippo. The Middle East Times presents news and information concerning that increasingly important region of the world. Among the magazines, there are Insight, World & I, and Washington Golf Monthly. The Washington Times Internet site is also among the most popular newspaper Web sites in the country, attracting hundreds of thousands of people each week who read more than eighteen million pages of news, opinion, and commentary every month. This is well coordinated with the telecommunications industry, including cable television operations, Potomac Television, Atlantic Video, and the Good Life cable TV that is delivered to viewers in all 50 states. The newest member of our media family is one of the oldest privately held news services in the world. United Press International, with almost a hundred years of continuous operation, provides news all throughout the world. UPI will soon unveil a major technology breakthrough. It will have the ability through an aggregated database to collect stories from all our media properties and sort them and distribute them based on content and topic to subscribers around the world. This new era of media, with the massive distribution of news and information, requires leadership and clear guidance for the betterment of individuals based on values and on the knowledge of God and spirit world. The Washington Times and our family of media have been providing this direction for the past two decades and will continue to do so into our third decade. My hope is that each one of you as well will embody the qualities of defending freedom, promoting family values, and strengthening your faith in God so that you may become leaders of the world. God bless you and your families, and may God bless The Washington Times.