Washington Monument, 1976

In September 1975, we founded the Unification Theological Seminary
in Barrytown, New York, which is located north of New York
City. The faculty was hired on an interreligious basis, and we had
professors representing Judaism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Eastern
Orthodoxy, and Oriental philosophy. When they lectured about their
own religions, our students asked them very difficult questions. The
classes always became forums for intense debate. When all the religions
were put together and debated, they began to break through the incorrect
concepts that they had about each other and to better understand
each other. Gifted young people finished their master’s level education
at our seminary and entered the doctoral programs at Harvard, Yale,
and other leading U.S. universities. Today they have become people
capable of leading the religious world on a global scale.
In 1974 and 1975 I was invited to speak on Capitol Hill. I spoke in
front of members of the House of Representatives on the topic “One
Nation Under God.”
I addressed the congressmen in the same manner as I had the young
people on the street, saying, “America was born through God’s blessing.
This blessing, however, was not for Americans alone. This was God’s
blessing for the world, given through America. America must understand
the principle of this blessing and sacrifice itself in order to save
the world. To do this, there needs to be a reawakening that lets America
return to its founding spirit. Christianity, which has been divided into
dozens of denominations, must be united, absorb all religions, and open
a new future for world civilization.”
I was the first foreign religious leader to be invited to speak by
the U.S. Congress. After I was invited for a second time, many more
people became interested in finding out about this man Reverend
Moon from Korea.
The next year, on June 1, 1976, we held a celebration at Yankee Stadium
in New York City to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary
of America’s independence. At the time, America was not so peaceful as
to have the presence of mind to celebrate its anniversary. It was feeling
the threat of communism, and its young people were living lives far
distant from the desire of God, engaging in such things as drugs and
free sex. I felt that America was seriously ill. I went to the celebration
feeling as though I were like a surgeon cutting open the heart of a New
York that lay sick.
On the day of the celebration, torrential rains came down, and a
strong wind blew the decorations all around the field, but no one tried
to get out of the rain. The band started playing “You Are My Sunshine,”
and everyone in the stadium began to sing together. They were singing a
song about sunshine, even as they were being soaked by the rain. Their
mouths were singing about sunshine, but their eyes were crying. It was
a moment when rain and tears were mixed together. Then, incredibly,
as I went to the stage to speak, the sunshine broke through the rain
clouds. It was as if God had heard their singing.
I did some boxing when I was in school. You can hit a good boxer
with many jabs and still find that he is not affected. If you can land a
solid upper cut, however, even the strongest boxer will be shaken up. I
was counting on landing a solid upper cut on America. I felt that there
needed to be a much larger rally than what had been held up to that
point so that the name “Sun Myung Moon” would be indelibly carved
into America’s mind.
Washington is the capital of the United States. In a place that is a
straight line from the Capitol, there is a tower called the Washington
Monument. It is an obelisk, shaped like a sharpened pencil standing on
its end. A large grassy area extends from the monument to the Lincoln
Memorial. This area represents the heart of America. I set a plan to hold
a large rally in this place.
To hold a rally there, however, we needed permission from the U.S.
government and the U.S. National Park Police. Most U.S. officials did
not like me very much. I had previously put ads in newspapers calling
on the people of America to forgive former President Richard Nixon,
who had been pushed into a crisis because of the Watergate incident.
This view was very unpopular. So now the U.S. government kept turning
us down, and it was not until forty days prior to the event that we
were finally able to receive permission.
Our members, too, suggested to me that this was too ambitious a
plan and that we should not go forward. The National Mall surrounding
the Washington Monument was an open park in the middle of an
urban area. There were not many trees—just a wide expanse of grass.
If the crowd were small, it would be obvious for everyone to see. To
fill such a large area, there would have to be hundreds of thousands
of people. Our members wanted to know how this could be possible.
Prior to this, only two people had held large events on the National
Mall. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had held a rally for civil rights on the
steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and Rev. Billy Graham had held a large
gathering there. So it was a place with a lot of symbolism. This was the
place that I was challenging.
I prayed without ceasing for this rally. I wrote the speech that I was
to deliver four different times. A week before the event, I still had mixed
feelings about what I should say in my speech. Finally, three days before
the event, I completed the text. Generally, I don’t speak from prepared
texts. I made an exception in this case, because of my concern that the
event go well. I knew this was going to be a particularly important event,
though I wasn’t quite certain in what way.
I will never forget what happened on that day, September 18, 1976.
People started coming to the Washington Monument from early in the
morning. Some three hundred thousand people gathered. It was impossible
to tell where all these people had come from. They had all different
colors of hair and skin. All the races that God sent to earth gathered
on that day. It was a rally on a global scale that does not require any
additional description.
I stood in front of the gathering and declared, “God prepared America
for two hundred years. This is the time for awakening. America must
accept her global responsibility. Armed with Godism, she must free the
communist world and at last build the Kingdom of God here on earth.”
The speech was interrupted many times by shouts and applause.
Newsweek, in a year-end pictorial review of the major events of 1976,
carried my photograph and referred to me as part of the revivalism of
the 1970s. On the other hand, an increasing number of people were
beginning to look at me with caution and fear. To them, I was nothing
more than a strange magician who had come from the East. I was not a
white man they could place their faith in and follow. The fact that I was
saying things that were somewhat different from what they had heard in
their churches made them feel very insecure. In particular, they could
not allow a situation in which young white people were showing respect
to and following an Asian with slender eyes shaped like a fish. They
began spreading rumors that I had been brainwashing innocent young
white people. This group that opposed me gathered in the background,
behind those who were shouting their support. I knew that another
crisis was about to befall me. I was not afraid, however, because I was
clearly doing what was right.
America is widely known as a country of freedom and equality,
where people of all races come to realize the American dream. In fact,
however, there is a great deal of struggle stemming from racial and
religious discrimination. These are chronic illnesses that are embedded
deep within America’s history, and they are therefore much more
difficult to cure than the social diseases such as immorality and materialism
that arose out of the affluence of the 1970s.
About this time, I often visited African-American churches in an
effort to foster ecumenical harmony. Among black leaders there were
some who, in the manner of Dr. King, were working to do away with
racial discrimination and bring about God’s world of peace.
Some of these ministers had images hanging in their basements
of slave markets that had existed for hundreds of years prior to being
outlawed. One such image was of a black man being burned alive while
hanging from a tree. Another was of black men and women stripped
of their clothes being looked over like merchandise by potential slave
buyers. And yet another was a black baby crying as it was being taken
away from its mother. One could hardly believe that human beings were
capable of the barbaric acts depicted so clearly in those images.
“Wait and see,” I told a gathering in Chicago on October 24, 1975.
“Within the next thirty years, there will be a president of the United
States who was born into an interracial black and white family.”
The prophecy I made that day has now come true in America with
the inauguration of President Barack Obama, who spent much of his
adult life in Chicago. This prophecy did not come true on its own.
Many people shed their blood and sweat to do away with the struggles
between the races, and those efforts have now finally blossomed.
Surprisingly, a number of ministers of established churches in
America came and brought their congregations to the Washington
Monument rally. They decided that my message transcended denominations
and that I was inspiring young people. I called on people to
transcend differences of denomination and religion, and those words
were realized at this rally. The Washington Monument Rally was a
miracle. Three hundred thousand people attended, making this among
the largest gatherings ever on the National Mall.

Reverend Moon, Seed for a New American Revolution

The initial warm hospitality shown to me by Americans began
to grow cold, even hostile. They cynically questioned how a
religious leader from Korea, an insignificant country that had
barely survived hunger and war, could dare call on Americans to repent.
It was not just Americans who opposed me. The reaction from
the Japanese Red Army, in league with international communists,
was particularly strong. They were even caught by the FBI trying
to sneak into the workshop center in Boston where I often stayed.
There were so many attempts to harm me that my children could
not attend school without the presence of bodyguards. Because of
the continued threats on my life, I spoke from behind bulletproof
glass for a period.
Despite such opposition, the lecture series by the small-eyed man from
the Orient gathered more and more interest. People began to listen to the
teachings, which were completely different from what they had heard until
then. The content of the lectures dealing with the fundamental principles of the
universe and seeking to reawaken the founding spirit of America was a breath
of fresh air for Americans who had fallen into the hell of immorality and sloth.
Americans experienced a revolution of consciousness through my
lectures. Young people began to follow me, calling me “Father Moon”
or “Reverend Moon” and cutting their shoulder-length hair and their
scruffy beards. When appearances change, minds also change. So God
began to enter into the hearts of young people who had been immersed
in alcohol and drugs.
The lectures were attended by a variety of young people, transcending
denominations. When I would interrupt my sermons to ask, “Are
there any Presbyterians here?” many young people would wave their
hands, saying, “Here. Here.” If I asked, “Are there any Catholics?” hands
would go up again. When I asked, “How about Southern Baptists?”
many people would again answer, “Me. Me.”
“Why do you come to hear me instead of going to hear a sermon in
your own religion?” I asked. “Go home and go to your own church to
hear God’s word.”
When I said this, the audience responded, “We want to hear Reverend
Moon!”
More and more people began gathering, and even some ministers
of Presbyterian and Baptist churches came, bringing with them the
young people of their churches. As time went on, Reverend Moon
became an icon representing a revolution of consciousness in
American society.
I taught American young people how to endure difficulty. I thoroughly
taught them the principle that a person must be able to rule himself before
he can rule the universe. My teachings provided a new inspiration to American
young people living in an age of confusion. They shouted in agreement
with my message of sexual purity and true families. The reception was so
enthusiastic that it made me sweat with excitement as well.
“Do you want to bear the cross of pain?” I asked them. “No one
wants to go the way of the cross. Your heart may want to go that way,
but your body says ‘No!’ Just because something is pleasing to the eye
doesn’t mean it is good for the heart. There are many things that look
good, but an examination of their inner aspect shows them to be evil.
If you catch yourself seeking after only things pleasing to the eye and
try following that path, you must immediately stop yourself and say,
‘You rascal!’ Also, if you feel the desire to eat only things pleasing to
the mouth, you must scold your body, saying, ‘You rascal,’ and block
yourself. You young people are attracted to the opposite sex, aren’t you?
In this case, too, you must make a strong stand against such urges. If
a person cannot control himself, he cannot do anything in this world.
Consider that if you break down, the universe will break down.”
I was teaching them the motto that I had followed as a young man,
which was “Before seeking to rule the universe, first perfect your ability
to rule yourself.” America had great wealth and had become obsessed
with material goods. I stood in the midst of this material civilization
and talked about matters of the mind and heart. The mind cannot be
seen with the eye or held in the hand. Yet, we clearly are ruled by our
minds. Without our minds, we are nothing. Then I talked about true
love, God-centered love, which should guide the mind. I said that true
freedom can be enjoyed only when we have a clear understanding of
ourselves based on a foundation of true love and are able to exercise
self-control.
I taught them the value of labor. Labor is not suffering but creation.
The reason a person can work all his life and be happy is that labor is
connected to God’s world. The labor that people perform is nothing
more than taking things that God created and shaping them in different
ways. If you think that you are making something to give to God as a
memento, then labor is not something to think of in a negative way.
Many American young people were so steeped in the affluent life provided
to them by their materialistic civilization that they didn’t know
the joy of working. So I taught them to work with joy.
I also awoke in them the joy of loving nature. The young people were
caught up in the immoral culture of the cities and enslaved in selfish
lives, so I talked to them about the preciousness of nature. Nature is
given to us by God. God speaks to us through nature. It is a sin to destroy
nature for the sake of a moment of enjoyment or an insignificant
amount of money. The nature that we destroy eventually will make its
way back to us in the form of poison and make life difficult for our descendants.
We need to go back to nature and listen to what nature tells
us. I told the young people of America that when we open our hearts
and listen to what nature is saying, we can hear the word of God.

Our Future Lies with the Ocean

As I toured the world, no one knew that plans were being
made to develop economic foundations on a worldwide scale.
As the church grew and the number of missions increased,
the amount of funds we needed to support these activities increased
dramatically. We needed income. As I toured forty-eight states in the
United States, I gave much thought to the kinds of businesses that could
support the activities we had planned.
What came to my mind then was that Americans eat meat every day.
I checked the price of a cow. I saw that a cow that costs a small amount
in Florida could cost several hundred dollars in New York. But when I
checked the price of tuna, I discovered that one bluefin tuna cost more
than $4,000. Tuna lay more than 1.5 million eggs at a time, whereas a
cow will have only one calf at a time. It was clear that catching tuna
would be a much better business endeavor than raising cattle.
One problem was that Americans did not eat much fish. The Japanese,
however, were extremely fond of tuna. There were many Japanese
living in the United States then, and expensive restaurants operated by
Japanese sold raw tuna at a high price. Also, some Americans who were
learning to enjoy raw fish enjoyed eating tuna.
The earth where we live is covered by more ocean than land. The
United States has two oceans and therefore plenty of fish. Also, beyond
the two hundred–mile limit, no country has territorial claims on the
ocean. Anyone can go out to catch fish. In order to start a farm or raise
cattle, we would need to buy land, but there is no need for that in the
ocean. All we needed was one boat, and we could go as far as necessary
in order to catch fish. The ocean is filled with things to eat. Also, on the
ocean surface, there is an active shipping industry. Ships carry things
made in countries all over the world to be sold elsewhere. The ocean
is a treasure trove that guarantees humankind a bright future. That is
why I teach that those who are concerned with the future of humanity
must be concerned with the oceans. When we can love and inherit the
oceans, we inherit the future.
We purchased several boats in the United States. These were not
the large ships that might be seen in a brochure but boats about
thirty-four feet to thirty-eight feet in length. They could pursue
tuna with their engines turned off. They were fishing boats about
the size of a yacht that would not have major accidents. These boats
were placed in Washington, San Francisco, Tampa, and Alaska. We
also purchased a ship repair facility.
We did a lot of our own research. We placed one boat in each region
and measured the water temperature. We checked to see how many tuna
were caught each day, and placed the data on a chart. We didn’t just take
data that experts had created previously; our members went into the
water themselves to gather the information. The results of studies done
by university-based researchers in the area were used as reference. In
addition, I went to those areas, lived there myself, and checked them
out. No data was more accurate than what we gathered.
We went to a lot of trouble to conduct this research, but we did not
keep it to ourselves. Instead, we shared it with the fishing industry. We also
developed new fishing grounds. If too many fish are caught in one area, it
depletes the fish population. It is important to go to new areas. Within a
short time, we had made a major impact on the U.S. fishing industry.
We entered the business of catching fish on the open sea. Our idea
was that one ship would go out to sea and catch fish for at least six
months without returning to port. When the ship had all the fish it
could carry, a transport ship went out to it, took its fish, and resupplied
it with food and fuel. The ship had refrigeration facilities where it could
store fish for a long time.
The name of our ship was New Hope, and it was well known for being
able to catch many fish. I took that boat out myself and caught tuna.
People were often afraid of getting on boats. When I suggested to young
people that they get on a boat, their first reaction was often one of fear.
“I get seasick,” I often heard them say. “All I have to do is get on a
boat, and I start getting woozy and feel like I’m going to die.”
So I got on the boat myself first. From that day, I went out on the boat
almost every day for seven years. Even now, when I am ninety years old,
I like to go out on the ocean whenever I have the time. Now, there are
more and more young people who say they want to go out on the boats.
More women say they want to do this. With any task, if the leader does
it first, the people follow. As a result, I have become well known as a
tuna fisherman.
It would have been of little use, however, if we had only caught the
tuna. We also needed to be able to sell it at the right price. We created
a tuna-processing facility, and I even sold the tuna myself. We put the
tuna in refrigerated trucks and went out and sold them. If selling was
difficult, we started our own seafood restaurants and sold the tuna
directly to consumers. Once we had our own restaurants, people could
not ignore us.
The United States has three of the world’s four largest fishing
grounds. Three-quarters of the world’s fish population live in waters
near the United States. Yet, the United States has relatively few people
to catch fish, and its fishing industry is extremely underdeveloped. The
government has taken many measures designed to support the fishing
industry, but they have not had a major effect. The government offered
to sell boats at a big discount on the condition that buyers use them for
two and a half years, but few people took advantage of the opportunity.
How frustrating this is. When we started to put money into the fishing
industry, it caused a stir in each port where we went. This was not surprising,
since communities prospered wherever we invested. Our work,
ultimately, was to pioneer new worlds. We were not simply catching
fish. We were taking paths not taken by others. How exciting it is to
pioneer new paths!
The ocean changes constantly. They say people’s minds change
morning and night, but the ocean changes moment to moment. That
is why the ocean is both mysterious and beautiful. The ocean embraces
everything in heaven and earth. It can come together at a particular
spot and form clouds or become rain and fall back down. I am very
fond of nature, because it never deceives. If it is high, it becomes lower;
if it is low, it becomes higher. In every instance, it adjusts its height to
become flat. If I am sitting holding a fishing pole, it seems as though
I have all the time in the world. What is there on the ocean to stand
in our way? Who is there to make us hurry? We have a lot of time for
ourselves. All we need to do is watch the ocean and talk with it. The
longer a person spends on the ocean, the greater the spiritual aspect of
his life will become. The ocean, however, can be calm one minute but
then quickly change its face and send us strong waves. Waves several
times the height of a person will rise up above the boat, as if to devour
it. A strong wind will tear at the sail and make a fearful sound.
Think of this, though. Even when the waves have risen and a fearful
wind is blowing, the fish in the water have no trouble sleeping. They
give themselves over to the waves and don’t resist them. This is what I
learned from the fish. I decided not to be afraid, no matter how strong
the waves were. I let the waves carry me. I made myself one with the
boat, and we rose with the waves. Once I started doing that, my heart
was never shaken, no matter what kind of waves I came up against. The
ocean has been such a wonderful teacher for me in my life that I created
the Ocean Challenge program to give young people the leadership
training the ocean provides.

Last Plane to America

Near the end of 1971, I went to the United States. I had certain
tasks that absolutely needed to be accomplished there, but
getting there was not so easy. It was not my first time to go to
the United States, yet I had to wait an unusually long time to receive my
visa. Some members suggested that I delay my departure, but I could
not do that. It was difficult for me to explain to the members, but it was
important that I leave Korea on the designated date. So I decided to go
first to Japan and receive a U.S. visa while in Japan. I was in a hurry to
leave Korea.
The day of my departure was quite cold, but so many members came
to see me off that they could not all get into the terminal. When it came
time for me to go through the passport control desk, however, it was
discovered that my passport was missing the stamp of the section chief
of the Foreign Ministry’s passport section. This stamp was required as
proof that the government had cleared me to leave the country. Because
of this, I missed the flight I had been scheduled to board.
The members who had prepared for my departure apologized profusely
and suggested that I return home and wait while they tracked
down the section chief and got him to place his stamp in my passport.
“No,” I told them. “I will wait here at the airport. Go quickly and get
the stamp.”
My heart was extremely urgent. It happened to be a Sunday, so the
section chief would not be at his desk. But I could not afford to let myself
be concerned by such matters. In the end, our members went to the
home of the section chief and had him place his stamp in my passport.
So I was able to board the final flight of the day out of Korea. That night,
the government declared a national state of emergency and imposed
heavy restrictions on foreign travel by private citizens. I had boarded
the last flight that would allow me to go to America.
I applied for a U.S. visa in Japan, but again it was refused. I discovered
later what the problem was. The Korean government still had a
record of my being detained by the Japanese colonial police just prior
to liberation on charges of being a communist. The early 1970s was a
time when communism was spreading with ferocity. We had sent missionaries
to 127 countries, but those in four communist countries were
expelled. Evangelizing in communist countries in that era could result
in death. I never gave up, however, and continued to send missionaries
to the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
Our first missionary to Czechoslovakia arrived in 1968. Around 1980,
we began to refer to our mission work in the communist countries of Eastern
Europe as “Mission Butterfly.” A larva must go through a long period of
suffering before it can grow wings and become a butterfly, and we felt that
this was similar to the suffering of our underground missionaries working
in communist countries. It is a difficult process for a butterfly to come out
of its cocoon, but once it has its wings, the butterfly can fly anywhere it
wants. In the same way, we knew that once communism came to its demise,
our missionaries would grow wings and begin to fly.
Missionary Young Oon Kim, who had gone to the United States in early
1959, toured the major universities in that country to convey God’s word. In the
process, she met Peter Koch, a German student at the University of California
at Berkeley, and this young man decided to suspend his studies and travel by
ship to Rotterdam and then start his missionary work in Germany. Missionaries
to the communist countries of Asia were sent out from Japan. These
missionaries had to be sent to places where their lives could be in danger
without so much as a special worship service to mark their departure. This
pained me as much as having to push Bong Choon Choi to try again to
smuggle himself into Japan during our final meeting in the pine forest behind
the Gabsa temple. A parent who has to watch a child being punished
would much rather be allowed to take the punishment himself. I would
have preferred to go out as a missionary myself. My heart was full of tears as
I sent those members to places where they would be watched and possibly
executed for their religious activities. Once the missionaries had left, I spent
most of my time in prayer. Earnest prayers were the best thing that I could
do to help protect their lives. Missionary work in communist countries was
dangerous work. A missionary never knew when the Communist Party
might take him.
People who went as missionaries to communist countries could not
even tell their parents where they were going. The parents knew well the
dangers of going to such countries and would never give permission for
their children to go. Gunther Werzer was discovered by the KGB and
deported. In Romania, where the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu
was at its height of power, the secret police were constantly following
and intercepting the telephone calls of our missionaries.
It was as if the missionaries had gone into the lion’s den. The number
of missionaries going to communist countries, however, kept growing.
Then in 1973, there was a terrible incident in Czechoslovakia where
thirty of our members were taken into custody. One member, Marie
Zivna, lost her life while in prison at the young age of twenty-four. She
was the first martyr who died while conducting missionary work in a
communist country. In the following year, another person lost his life
in prison. Each time I heard that one of our members had died in jail,
my entire body froze. I could not speak or eat. I couldn’t even pray. I just
sat motionless for a while, unable to do anything. It was as if my body
had turned to stone. If those people had never met me, or never heard
what I taught, they never would have found themselves in a cold and
lonely jail cell, and they never would have died the way they did. When
they died, they suffered in my place. I asked myself, “Is my life worth
so much that it could be exchanged for theirs? How am I going to take
on the responsibility for the evangelization of the communist bloc that
they were bearing in my place?” I could not speak. I fell into a sorrow
that seemed to have no end, as if I had been thrown into deep water. I
saw Marie Zivna before me in the form of a yellow butterfly. The yellow
butterfly that had escaped Czechoslovakia’s prison fluttered its wings as
if to tell me to be strong and to stand up. By carrying on her missionary
activities at the risk of her life, Marie truly had been transformed from
being a caterpillar to being a beautiful butterfly.
Missionaries working in such extreme circumstances often received
revelations through dreams and visions. They were isolated and could
not communicate freely with others, so God gave them revelations to
let them know the path they must follow. It would often happen that a
missionary who had lain down to sleep for a short while would have a
dream in which he was told, “Get up quickly and go someplace else.”
He did as he was told in the dream, only to discover later that the secret
police had raided the place where he had been resting. In another instance,
a member had a dream in which a person he had never seen
before came to him and told him how to carry out his missionary work.
Later, when he met me for the first time, he exclaimed, “You’re the person
I saw in my dream.”
This was how I had risked my life and the lives of our members to
overthrow communism and build God’s Kingdom. Yet, the United
States would not give me a visa, because it suspected me of being a communist.
Finally, in Canada, after submitting materials illustrating my claim
to be anticommunist, I was able to receive a visa to the United States.
The reason I went to all this trouble to go to America was to fight against the
dark forces that had caused America’s moral degradation. I left Korea to wage
war on the forces of evil. At the time, all the major problems of the world—
communism, drugs, moral decadence, and immorality—were mixed together
in a hellish stew. I declared, “I have come to America as a fireman and a doctor.
If a house catches fire, a fireman needs to come, and if someone is sick, a doctor
pays a visit.” I was like a fireman who had gone to America to extinguish the
fires of immorality, and like a doctor who had gone to cure America of the
illness that made it lose sight of God and go to the brink of decadence.
America in the early 1970s was embroiled in the Vietnam War, and
activists were protesting. It was a country seriously divided. Young people
searching for meaning experimented with alcohol, drugs, and
free sex and in the process were neglecting their eternal souls.
Mainstream religion, which should have provided guidance to such young
people, was not performing its role. It could not help them end their aimless
wandering and return to proper ways of living. The hedonistic, materialistic
culture dragged many young people down, because they had no place
to rest their hearts.
Soon after I arrived in the United States, I toured the country,
speaking on the topics “The Future of Christianity” and “God’s Hope
for America.” In front of large audiences, I criticized the weaknesses of
America in a way that no one else would.
I spoke about how America was founded on the Puritan spirit and had
grown to be the strongest country in the world in just two hundred years
because it received God’s boundless love and blessing. I reminded the audiences
that America’s freedom comes from God but that today America had
cast God aside. “America has a great tradition,” I said. “All you have to do is
revive it.” I went to awaken America’s spirit, to save America from destruction,
to urge people to repent and return to God.