With an understanding of God as Father and Mother, an era has begun when manifesting the divine together is within reach for man and woman
a speech by Dr. Andrew Wilson, Professor of Scriptural Studies at HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership (HJI), New York, USA. The speech was given 11th April 2024, the first day of an international online 3-day conference on “Peace and Public Leadership: Addressing the Challenges of Our Times”, organized by HJ International Graduate School for Peace and Public Leadership, New York, USA. Dr. Wilson’s speech was delivered during session 3, which had the theme “Christology and Women: Relevance for Peace”. Andrew Wilson’s current research interest is the theology of God as heavenly Mother.
Part 2 (click here to read Part 1)
From Christology to Ontology
God is male and female, but fallen humanity could not provide a base for God to fully reveal Him-Herself.
As above so below, and as below so above, as Jesus stated,
“Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:18)
Jesus, as God’s Son on earth, revealed God as Heavenly Father, and thus Christians have known Him. But without a wholesome and authoritative Eve by Jesus’ side, Christians could not fathom God as Heavenly Mother.
The masculine God, Heavenly Father, has been leading the providence of salvation through religion. His primary concern was restoration and defeating Satan. He led believers on paths of sacrifice without too much regard for their personal happiness, setting up religions with strict rules, instilling fear and obedience. In pursuit of the goal of defeating Satan, religions mostly ignored the plight of those on the margins – Canaanites, pagans, slaves, women, gays.
Those religious paths brought some good fruit, notably democracy, but nevertheless they are unbalanced, as are the societies they created.
Furthermore, in relating to Heavenly Father, women could not see a God who looked like them or experienced what they experienced in life that was different from a man’s experience – menstruation, sex, childbirth.
And since God the Father is a male being, a woman should depend on the male in her life as carrying God’s authority. We can go back to Ephesians 5:22-23,
“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church.”
Some Catholics say that the Virgin Mary manifests God’s feminine side, yet the Virgin Mary is not adequate to represent the whole of Heavenly Mother. She does not provide a full expression of womanhood. As a virgin, she never experienced sexual fulfillment. She grieves having lost her son, just as women’s lot is to lose their children in war. Her value was based on the man (Jesus) whom she bore.
In lifting her up, the Catholic Church was proclaiming that the highest ideal of a woman was to become a nun. Yet the Principle of Creation clearly states that God’s ideal for a woman is to fulfill the Three Great Blessings, which includes marriage, sexual love, and bearing and raising children in love. Clearly, as an image of God’s femininity the Virgin Mary is an imperfect image.
Hak Ja Han Moon, in her position as the female Christ, proclaimed on January 7, 2013 that when we pray, we need to address God as our Heavenly Parent, no longer as Heavenly Father. The words “Heavenly Parent” (Korean: Haneul Bumo) includes the words father (bu) and mother (mo). “Haneul Bomo” means Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother together. Her proclamation opened the door for Heavenly Mother to manifest to humankind. It was fitting that not Reverend Moon but Hak Ja Han, the Only-begotten Daughter, should make this proclamation. And it was fitting that she did so a mature woman, who knew her husband’s love and raised 14 children of her own.
I believe that when humankind knows God as Heavenly Mother as well as Heavenly Father, God’s Kingdom can begin to unfold.
In Wolli Wonbon, Reverend Moon‘s text from 1951, he wrote that because we have not known God as Heavenly Mother, human lives have been imperfect. It is because we are cut off from God‘s feminine love. And he wrote that as a result, God, our Parent, lives in pain and bitterness:
“Throughout human history we have related to God as our Father and not as our Mother […] How can we even fathom the pain and bitterness of God?” (Wolli Wonbon, p. 278)
Only by understanding the fullness of God as heavenly Father and Mother can God’s Kingdom, the kingdom of love, unfold in the world. Father Moon wrote,
“When we know God and attend Him as our Father, and likewise when we know God and attend Her as our Mother, that is the time when the ideal of re-creation will commence on earth.” (Wolli Wonbon, pp. 55-56)
With the appearance of God as Heavenly Mother, things are already changing in the spirit world. The door is open to the creation of female angels. Formerly, angels were only male. But now, angel families can form that can substantiate the form of Mother-Father God in heaven.
Spirits in heaven are becoming aware of the deep-seated masculine bias of their conceptualization of God, which has privileged men and disempowered women. They are coming to recognize that this has left people of both genders with traumatic wounds and personality distortions that need healing.
This kind of healing is going on now in the spirit world under the auspices of Heavenly Mother. Reconciliation is taking place in marriages. People are being liberated to be able to discuss anything with Heavenly Mother without judgment or the shame that previously shaded them due to the Fall. We are closer than ever to realizing God’s dream, the purpose of creation which is joy.
To summarize my presentation, think of the providence as unfolding stagewise, like a three-stage rocket.
During the Christian era, we had the Christology of the Only-Begotten Son and the Ontology of God as Heavenly Father; that was the first stage.
After the Marriage of the Lamb, we had the Christology of True Parents. True Parents were equal when it came to rebirth, yet in terms of authority, True Mother took a back seat to True Father. Also, ontologically speaking God was still known and prayed to as Heavenly Father. That was the second stage.
The third stage began when Hak Ja Han began proclaiming that she is Only-begotten Daughter and that God is Heavenly Parent. Her self-assertion of her value as the female Christ on earth lifts up God to be fully manifest as Heavenly Mother, co-authoritative with Heavenly Father. Thereby, God can unfold a world in which women and men can fully manifest their original divinity as God’s daughters and sons. That will be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Thank you.
Featured image above: Female and male as yin and yang. AI illustration generated by Microsoft Designer Image Creator.