Strengthening Families and Communities Forum:
#111-Jamal Johnson; Having Sex Outside of Marriage Is Bad for Society
Cheon Seong Gyeong 2084
Using South Korean military power to force North Korea to submit is not the way. We should have an ideological foundation that is stronger than theirs. We should have the ability to naturally inspire the North to surrender and have the philosophy of loving our nation more than they love theirs – and of loving God more than they love communism. Otherwise, we will not be able to win the heart of North Korea. Based on our character, we should impress them with our character, our outlook on life, our lifestyle, and personal history. Unless we can surpass them, we can’t win over those armed with the ideology of communism. We cannot restore a Cain nation without a persuasive environment. Furthermore, if the Cain nation can’t be restored, then the restored nation that could become the worldly nation centering on the heavenly nation, will not be established. (46-123, 1971.8.13)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1241
The literal meaning of the word “blessing” is “praying for blessings.” If you break down the word chookbok (blessing), chook means to pray or wish for something. When you are praying for blessings, what is it that is most precious? It is none other than the blessing of love. The Unification Church uses the word blessing with this meaning. The blessing of love is the greatest, because the fundamental origin of life begins with man and woman coming together in a holy wedding. It represents the most precious commitment of the universe. When praying for blessing, the best blessing you can ask for is the blessing of love, and so the Unification Church refers to marriage as the Blessing.
The people who come to our church for the first time must understand this. When we say we have received the Blessing in the Unification Church, we don’t mean we have received just any blessing. When we speak of the Blessing, what we actually mean is we have been joined in holy matrimony by True Parents in the presence of God. (83-226, 1976.2.8)
FAMILY
THE BASIC FORM OF LIFE
Conjugal Love
4. Marriage Is a Sacred Partnership, Aligning Two Human Beings with the Divine Image
II am He, you are She;
I am Song, you are Verse,
I am Heaven, you are Earth.
We two shall here together dwell,
becoming parents of children.
Atharva Veda 14.2.71 (Hinduism)
Representing heaven and earth, I have created husband and wife. This is the beginning of the world.
Mikagura-uta (Tenrikyo)
From the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
Mark 10.6-9
Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who created humankind in His image, in the image of the likeness of His form, and has prepared for him from His very own person an eternal building. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Creator of man…
May Thou make joyful these beloved companions, just as Thou gladdened Thy creatures in the Garden of Eden in primordial times. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who makes bridegroom and bride to rejoice.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, King of the universe, who created mirth and joy, bridegroom and bride, gladness, jubilation, dancing and delight, love and brotherhood, peace and fellowship. Quickly, O Lord our God, may the sound of mirth and joy be heard in the streets of Judah and Jerusalem, the voice of bridegroom and bride, jubilant voices of bridegrooms from their canopies and youths from the feasts of song. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who makes the bridegroom rejoice with the bride.
Talmud, Ketubot 8a (Judaism)
The gospel of Love… presents the unity of male and female as no longer two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality reflects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no impediment to eternal bliss—to the perfectibility of God’s creation. Science and Health (Christian Science)
All the souls in the world, which are the fruit of the handiwork of the Almighty, are all mystically one, but when they descend to this world they are separated into male and female, though these are still conjoined. When they first issue forth, they issue as male and female together. Subsequently, when they descend to this world they separate, one to one side and the other to the other. Afterwards God mates them—God and no other, He alone knowing the mate proper to each. Happy is the man who is upright in his works and walks in the way of truth, so that his soul may find his original mate, for then he becomes indeed perfect.
Zohar 1.85b (Judaism)
The sacred partnership of true marriage is constituted both by the will of God and the will of man. From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it; while man, through generous surrender of his own person made to another for the whole span of life, becomes, with the help and cooperation of God, the author of each particular marriage, with the duties and blessings annexed hereto from divine institution…
That mutual familiar intercourse between the spouses themselves, if the blessing of conjugal faith is to shine with becoming splendor, must be distinguished by chastity so that husband and wife bear themselves in all things with the law of God and of nature, and endeavor always to follow the will of their most wise and holy Creator with the greatest reverence towards the work of God…
The love of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment, nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love towards God and their neighbor.
Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubi (Christianity)
In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; and in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood (meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage); and if he does not, he cannot obtain it. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, and is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is anointed, unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood; and it shall be said unto them—Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection… which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.
Doctrine and Covenants 131.1-3, 132.19 (Latter-day Saints)