Based on extracts from his speeches throughout his life
Earlier installments are available for reading.
Part 80
The Course of the Korean Movement, and Expanding to Japan
Following True Parents’ Holy Wedding, True Parents’ built the movement together. From about that time, Father spoke less about his own course and more about the providential events surrounding him. His words to his disciples from these times in the 1960s reveal many aspects of his outlook and heart.
Our church will also need to prepare a certain area of farmland in which our members can cultivate the soil, centering on local village churches. This is why I have begun setting up Nongdowon Farm, which is not yet ready. All the young people who join our church from now on should be brought to Nongdowon and taught how to farm. We should prepare at least three to four acres of farmland and teach farming.
We should also teach them to farm scientifically and train them on real farms as their on-site mentors. We need to actualize scientific farming in Korea’s agricultural regions. We need to begin working on this project right away.
The providential era and the ecumenical movement
The time has come when the young brother, Abel, can meet the older brother, Cain. That means it has become possible for the Unification Church to have a dialogue with the established Christian church. That is why we must promote this ecumenical movement within the seven-year course…
In one sense, fulfilling this goal requires people imbued with holy spiritual power. We should carry out a campaign to organize into groups the many spiritualists who are up in the mountains. Everybody needs holy spirits to work with them. Once you have felt their grace, your heart will later feel slightly empty [in their absence]. It doesn’t matter if these people do not become our members. We need to have people who are in a midway position.
We must promote the fulfillment of the will externally through our outreach activities and internally by bringing together people who have received grace. In this way, they should serve the role of a beacon for saving the Korean churches. People who have spiritual experiences have been completely ignored in the churches. It should not be like that.
Even I cannot do things by myself. One wrong step and a big problem will arise. I make decisions that conform to the global circumstances and the program of the spirit world. We should acknowledge spiritualists and discern whether they are Cain-type or Abel-type….
From 1965, grace began again to work within in the Christian churches. They had lost God’s grace by opposing the Unification Church. Now the Unification Church has existed for twenty-one years.[1] Therefore, Christian churches are also placed in a position of being able to once again greet the spring. Once Abel’s altar is decided, Cain must also prepare an altar.
A three-year intensive campaign (1966–1968)
We held a big event to commemorate the first anniversary of our ecumenical movement. Some five hundred people participated. This surprised the members of other churches. However they looked at it, they could see that the Unification Church was behind it and so they did their best to stop us. However, they failed to follow through on their own strategies. Now, they are even thinking of nurturing us. That’s their attitude at the moment. You have no idea how fearful they are of the Unification Church.
From now on, when you visit other churches with confidence, you will find their members trembling in fear. That’s why we have become such a problem for other religions. I am planning to expand our church more widely this year. Last year, we focused on contacting the higher officials of other churches, so that they can serve as protective walls surrounding us.
The other day we held a three-day symposium, inviting fourteen Christian church ministers. Some twenty people in all participated. Over the past year, through our ecumenical movement, we did what no other association of Christians could have done. We have invested a substantial amount of money in this ecumenical movement.
Until now, they have never been able to bring together religious leaders from different denominations. But thanks to these meetings, more than twenty religious denominations got together to talk their hearts out. After sitting side by side and talking to leaders of other churches, whom they had always thought of as enemies, they found that such meetings were not unpleasant. These religious leaders came to the interreligious meetings and confessed that they were the ones who had ruined their churches. Until now, they had thought that it was God’s will to fight with other denominations, but in the end they found that they had committed a grave sin in front of God. Thus, they officially repented for their actions and took a step forward. Now our interreligious activities are flourishing more than ever.
At first, Christian newspapers also tried to confront us and destroy us. Now, however, newspapers such as the Gospel Times came to apologize to us and asked for our forgiveness, saying that they would never attack us again. Christian Today, the United Christian Newspaper, and all the press organs that opposed us, now feel they must stop attacking us and nurture us instead.
Japan leg of the global tour (June 12–August 10)
I have chosen seventy members to take responsibility to do God’s will with sincerity, to closely unite and to pray until I come back. I will give them those responsibilities and leave for Japan. They must pray all night on Saturday; they must pray at the Holy Ground every day; and they must witness and restore more than one person during this period. I want you to pray not for me but rather for the members scattered in Japan, the United States, Germany, and all over the world…
I think that this a is very important time… Members in foreign countries expect great things from Korea. After coming to know God’s will, they are likely to think of Korea and of me as the best and the highest. I do not take lightly those people who offer their sincere heart…
What we have done for Korea’s sake must be publicly recognized by the spirit world. Therefore, we must go through trials. On my first world tour, I took with me holy stones and earth. This time I am going to take my sincere heart. I will take some church leaders[2] with me to inspire overseas members. If all people can revive by my doing so, I would not mind it if I were to die…
I said to the Japanese leaders, “I will not come to Japan unless you listen to what I say.” As a result, over the ensuing year, the church developed to a considerable degree.
The last time I visited Japan, I felt that I must unify Japanese members’ hearts with the fatherland of faith. Accordingly, this time I took with me leaders from the church headquarters and sent them to local regions in Japan in order to make connections of heart between Korean and Japanese members.
Soon after I arrived in Japan, I held a two-week workshop, and then I visited the different districts for thirteen days. After completing all that, I visited about ten of our important factories in Japan to see how they were doing.
We have a factory in a city called Kanagawa. In the evening after work, our young members go out and collect discarded items to sell as scrap. As they follow that difficult lifestyle, they long to hear news from the headquarters.
During this time in Japan, I gave instructions that more than one thousand Divine Principle lecturers be trained and sent to the forty-seven prefectures across Japan by the end of March next year and that two hundred and thirty college graduates be selected and trained as lecturers by that time.
I went to Japan thinking about giving the Blessing to Japanese members, but they had not even dreamed of receiving it. They asked me if it could be in another two or three years. I felt very satisfied. They said they felt could not yet stand before God because they had not been able to put aside their own situations and live and work truly for the sake of Japan. This is the proper attitude to have.
To be continued…
[1] Father is seemingly referring to the point where he went to North Korea in 1946, the beginning of the first seven-year course.
[2] Eight church leaders accompanied True Parents¡¯ family to Japan.