Cheon Seong Gyeong 2160
From what point will God’s ideal nation be realized? Where will the restoration of the homeland take place? It starts from the individuals who live by the philosophy to love their enemies. Therefore, as long as God exists, there is no way Christianity can avoid becoming a global religion, because Christianity offers a movement to break down national borders with love, to transcend all environments and cultural barriers, and to embrace even one’s enemies. If you plant beans, you get beans, because kidney beans come from kidney bean seeds, and red flowers bloom from red flower seeds. In the same way, if you plant a satanic seed, a seed of taking revenge on your enemies, you will get a tree of evil – a tree of vengeance. But if you plant the seeds of goodness, the seeds of loving your enemies, you will get a tree of goodness, a tree of love for enemies. This is just a natural principle.
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1272
In order to enter God’s realm of heart, your lineage has to be the same. You can only join that realm of heart after changing your lineage, which originated from a different root. The stems are different. The roots, stems and sprouts need to be identical. For that to be so, the great work of the conversion of lineage is absolutely necessary. This cannot be carried out alone. You need True Parents for this task. (172-55, 1988.1.7)
Richard: This is a very core part of the Unfication teaching: you must change your lineage through the Blessing (of marriage).
Chapter 9
History of God’s Providence
Founders, Prophets and Saints
God operates His Providence to save humankind through establishing religions; the religions in turn elevate human morality and ethics, leading to the creation of civilizations. Each of the major religions begins with its founder. Father Moon terms these founders “saints,” and gives pride of place to Jesus, Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad as the four representative saints of humankind.
Each founder is unique, proclaiming the core truth for the religion he spawned. For the Christian, it is the saving work of Christ alone that saves, notwithstanding the accomplishments of other founders, great as they may be. Likewise, the Muslim’s faith is defined uniquely by the message of Muhammad, the “seal” of the prophets—that is, the last and final prophet. The committed believer is confronted with one individual as the standard of truth, the exemplar and revealer who defines the true way. the declaration, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14.6) is comparable to, “outside the Buddha’s dispensation there is no saint” (Dhammapada 254); “Muhammad is the seal of the prophets” (Qur’an 33.40) and so on. For Father Moon, however, all the founders were sent by the one God. All bear witness to the one truth of God. All stand within a single providence of God that seeks to elevate people of every culture and every nation and prepare them to enter his universal Kingdom.
Thus, Father Moon adds Buddha, Confucius and Muhammad to that more familiar roster of God’s chosen ones in providential history, which in the Western tradition begins with able and Noah and continues with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon and the prophets, up to Jesus. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all regard themselves as heirs to this illustrious lineage. Judaism omits Jesus of course, but adds a succession of great rabbis; Islam includes Jesus and adds a few Arabian prophets to its list such as Ishmael and Idris. Meanwhile, in the east, Hinduism recognizes a succession of avatars who arise from age to age to defeat the powers of evil and return the world to righteousness. Confucianism has its own lineage of saints: King you, Wen and Wu and the Duke of Chou. Confucius saw himself as recovering their ancient wisdom and tradition.
This section treats the common characteristics of a saint: pursuit of the truth regardless of the cost; desire to elevate society and all humankind to a higher ideal; a universal outlook that does not discriminate by nationality, wealth or social status; faith in God or heaven or some higher power; and willingness to bear with persecution and ostracism from ignorant society. Subsequent sections will treat these saints and prophets individually, with special attention on the Western biblical tradition.
1. God’s Champions and Messengers
and our fathers in their generations.
The Lord apportioned to them great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
and were men renowned for their power,
giving counsel by their understanding
and proclaiming prophecies…
And there are some who have no memorial,
who have perished as though they had not lived…
but these were men of mercy,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.
Ecclesiasticus 44.1-10 (Christianity)