On the occasion of celebrating the 11th anniversary of Father’s Seonghwa:
The following article contains background information about the very early days of our movement’s history. It was compiled by Mrs. Nora Spurgin largely from three historical speeches given by Father in 1971. This article was published in the September issue of Today’s World Magazine.
If you are interested to read stories of early days and father’s life on his own words click here.
Part 2 (Click here to read Part 1)
The West Coast Church
The western coast of Korea is a flat and gentle land where nature shows its more feminine side. From a providential point of view, the west side represents Eve. Here, in the city of Kon San, an elderly lady named Mrs. Kim Son Do received many prophetic messages. She was a woman of deep prayer, often praying from 1:00 a.m. until mid-morning. The messages she received directly from God included such things as the exact date of Korea’s liberation; that the Second Coming of the Lord would be as a physical man; that the world would be restored through Korea. She also received information about the “fall of man” which prompted her to teach her followers not to marry because a new blood lineage was to be established.
Her husband, who could not accept her devout lifestyle and unusual religious beliefs, persecuted her and even beat her nearly to death. Mrs. Kim also had two sons, the first of whom was married to the daughter of a devout minister. This daughter-in-law respected her and also received spiritual messages. The son, however, could not respect his mother’s request that he and his wife give up their married life. When he disregarded her instruction (from the spirit world) his wife died. Providentially, this was to indemnify the ill-treatment Mrs. Kim’s husband had given her. Her second son and her daughters did not marry in accordance with heaven’s instructions.
Many women followed Mrs. Kim. After her death, which came as a result of torture during imprisonment, a faithful disciple, Mrs. Ho Ho Bin, was chosen by God as successor to this mission. According to Won Pil Kim, Mrs. Kim’s group was divided into two groups with some followers remaining with the original group. However, a larger number, including Mother’s mother, moved to Mrs. Ho’s group. Mrs. Ho, unlike Mrs. Kim, had a husband who was also a devout follower of Mrs. Kim. Together they prayed to inherit Mrs. Kim’s foundation, for they both believed that through Mrs. Kim’s work, the true provident would come. They received that God wanted one man and one woman whom he could prepare for a final mission.
Because Mrs. Ho understood the “fall of man,” she told her husband that he was in the archangelic position, requiring him many difficult tests to indemnify the archangel. He had to prove that he was willing to die for this mission. Because of his obedience to God and unity with his wife, his indemnity conditions were always shortened.
Jesus revealed to Mrs. Ho much about the heart of God, the inner secrets of the mission Mary could not fulfill, Je-sus’ childhood, the fact that John the Baptist failed his mission resulting in the crucifixion of Jesus, and that the Lord of the Second Advent would come as a man to Korea. Mrs. Ho was also told that the Lord would come as a prince of heaven on the sacrifice of 6,000 years of history. Therefore, those who would receive the Lord must solve the resentments of Jesus prior to his second coming. The Ho Church was to solve this resentment by preparing the best princely clothes and food for Jesus- enough that he could have three banquet-style meals a day and clothes (both Korean and Western) to change every three days from birth to 33 years of age.
Every specific instruction was given for the fulfillment of these incredible requirements and the 1,000 members toiled endlessly to collect the money through donations and prepare the food and garments. They faithfully did this over a period of seven years. The following are some of the instructions given by Spirit World: Members should wait for the markets to open in the morning so as to be the first to buy. They should buy only things that were freshly put on display. Members should never haggle over the price (which is general practice in Korea). All the clothes were to be made by hand. They were to be sewn three stitches at a time, then tied, and the three stitches repeated. If they were interrupted by their children, they had to start over. They were not to stand up or go to the toilet until the garment was finished. The room had to be absolutely clean before preparing food or clothing.
After the clothes were made for Jesus, Mrs. Ho was told to make clothes and prepare food in the same way for the Lord of the Second Advent. They were given specific sizes for each age. When they brought food to serve to this unknown “Lord” they were told to bow 300, sometimes even 3,000 times, which took ten hours. Mrs. Ho received details such as the academic background of the Lord of the Second Advent. She prepared and trained her membership of 1,000 to all be ready to give their lives for him. She was also told that she would meet him as Chung Hyang (in a Korean folktale) met her Lord in prison.
Mrs. Ho’s unusual sect became known throughout Korea as the Kok-jungkyo (Inside Belly Church). This name was given to the group because each time Mrs. Ho received revelations, her stomach shook, a sign that served as a constant reminder that the Lord to come was to be born as a physical man from his mother’s womb. Mrs. Ho prophesied many specific things that came true, including that Japan would surrender on August 16, 1945. Because of her accuracy in prophecy, her followers had great faith in her. She also received that they would meet the Lord when Japan perished. Thus, it must have been with great anticipation that these faithful and sacrificial Christians prepared both a house and a bride for the Messiah. They bought a fine house in Pyongyang. By this time (1946) North Korea was occupied by communists who, upon hearing that they owned a fine house and stored many rich garments, confiscated the clothes and put the leaders, including Mrs. Ho, in prison.
On August 11, 1946, several months after Mrs. Ho’s imprisonment, Father was also imprisoned. He had gone to North Korea from Pusan. Without identification, he was suspected of being a spy. Secondly, his religious teachings and practices resembled -those of Mrs. Ho’s church, making him suspect.
As providence would have it, Father was put in the same prison as Mrs. Ho, and in the same cell as her assistant. Won Pi! Kim tells the story thusly:
The cell Father was thrown into was the same as that of one of the Inside Belly Church leaders. When this man saw Father, he immediately felt an impulse to explain to Father everything about the Inside Belly Church and confide in him about his own life.
The communists had given the Inside Belly Church leaders two alternatives: to deny their revelations and be released or to maintain their faith and stay in prison. Even under severe torture, they would not deny their revelations.
When Father heard about this, he explained to his cellmate why their church was prepared, and urged him to deny the revelation so he could be set free. Eventually, this man did deny the revelation and was liberated, but because of the severe torture he had endured, he died shortly after his release.
Father felt responsible for the woman who had received those revelations. In prison, it was very dangerous to write letters, but Father secretly sent a note to her on a piece of paper hidden in a rice bowl. The contents of the note were instructions to deny the revelations she had received and to pray to find out who had written the note. However, the note was discovered and Father was tortured. The Japanese had previously ruled Korea, and the torture in this prison was Japanese-style. It was severe and nearly unbearable. Finally, after about 100 days in prison, Father was set free.
The woman who was the leader of the Inside Belly Church could not accept Father’s request that she deny her revelations and be released. You can imagine how difficult it would have been for her to do so. Because she had been guided by God directly and because whenever she neglected to obey even a small part of her rev-elations she was chastised by heaven, to deny the revelations would have meant denying herself and everything she had done in the past.
Through many experiences, she had learned that if she followed the revelations exactly, many good things happened, but if she did not follow them, bad things would happen.
However, the last revelation she received was that she would meet the Messiah in prison. Her own responsibility was to discover who he was. Father told her to pray in order to find out who had written the note, but she could not.
Mrs. Ho and her followers could not deny their revelations and without understanding who Father was, both they and Father suffered severe torture. The great foundation of faith which had been made through Mrs. Kim and Mrs. Ho was never connected to the Lord they so longed to meet. Had they recognized and obeyed Father there, history would be different. In 1950 when the Korean War broke out, long-suffering members of the Inside Belly Church were sent to concentration camps in North Korea and eventually killed.
Since Mrs. Ho did not accomplish the mission to connect with Father, the blessing of the inheritance of their foundation was passed on to Mother alone. Mrs. Hong (Mother’s mother) was involved with this group. While Mrs. Ho was in prison, Mother as a six-year-old girl was introduced to the spiritual leader acting for Mrs. Ho. This spiritual lady gave Mother a great blessing. As Father inherited the foundation blessing from Mr. Kim, Mother received this blessing. Here, in Mother’s own words given on May 3, 1977, we catch a glimpse of the painful reality of the preparation for this:
In Korea there were many special spiritual groups which were unlike the conventional Christian churches which just blindly believed in the Bible and Jesus Christ, hoping to go to heaven. Those spiritual groups existed solely to receive revelations from God to prepare the way for the Lord of the Second Advent here on earth, and to search to find the heavenly bride.
Mother having been overcome with tears, Father explained:
Mother is very sorrowful because looking back to those days she remembers the impossible tribulations that those people, including Mother’s own mother, went through. Those people who were receiving God’s revelations had to suffer in so many incredible ways. They paved the way for indemnity, and many died in very unfortunate circumstances, sometimes in prison.
Mother continued:
I was also sorrowful to once again think that those heavenly chosen instruments, who were absolutely dedicated to God’s revelations and whose one hope was to someday meet the Messiah, never saw that day.
God had precisely unfolded to them His plan for sending His son here on earth, and under untold hardships, they prepared for the day of the Lord. Unfortunately, they did not see that day, and one after another they died away. Yet their mission continued on for three generations. As the culmination of one group that had such revelations, I was born. The final spiritualist to inherit the mission of unfolding God’s plan to send His son here on earth recognized me at the age of six and said that I would be the bride of the Lord.
The Restoration Process
In a speech on the history of the Unification Church, given on December 27, 1971, Father said, “The Lord of the Second Advent must restore the three lost disciples of Jesus. These three disciples will be the restored archangels. After that, he will restore Eve.”
He continued, saying that to restore Adam, God had to work through the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age, and the Completed Testament Age. Therefore, to restore Eve’s position, Father had to make conditions to restore Eve in the three ages as well.
Originally God wanted to love Adam and Eve together. But in the Old and New Testament Ages God chose men in Adam’s position: Noah, Abraham, and so on. The right conditions for restoration of the Eve position had to be made by Father in the last days.
To restore the three archangels, God had to go through a three-stage providence of the succession of leaders as well. Father said, “If [Father] can restore one man and three women united with that man, from the spiritual group, by that he can restore all the conditions for the restoration of Eve.” When Father went to the east coast church there were three women who testified to him. According to Father, if these three women and their leader, Mr. Kim, had become one with Father, then all the conditions would have been restored at that place and time; they would have become the perfection stage group.
In this same speech, Father explained that had this group united with him, then a second Christian group would have been found which was united with the established Christian ministers, representing the growth stage centered on Christianity. These two groups were to unite. This Christian center would have in turn connected with the government becoming the formation stage group.
At the time these Christians should have become one with Father, Korea was under American military government. Through them, he could have united with the government, and through the government, he could have united with the democratic world. And through the democratic world, the communist world would have crumbled.
Since unity was not made, Father went to North Korea in 1946 where he found Won Pil Kim and three women who played the role of the four people who had been prepared to unite in South Korea.
The Unification Church
A new foundation had to be established. This is the Unification Church (HSA-UWC), whose mission is to indemnify the failures to unite with God’s providence for the fulfillment of the Second Advent. After Father restored certain providential numbers of followers in North Korea (for example, three male disciples from prison), Father could go to South Korea to begin the spiritual work out of which the Unification Church could be founded. By fulfilling this, Jesus’ crucifixion could be restored.
Father had salvaged the restoration providence by himself inheriting the foundation made by the Christian group and creating a new group (the Unification Church) made up of his small group of disciples. Mother also inherited the blessing of the foundation of Mrs. Ho’s church. These two great foundations of faith were finally united in our True Parents, and from this beginning, they took the mission to unite Christianity to the next level, the worldwide level.
In 1971 Father said, “America is the archangelic nation in the democratic world.” In order to fulfill the mission of restoring one nation there are two areas of focus. One is the Principle that will unite Christians and the other is the anti-communist theory to end communism. These “two works must unite in America. The work to restore Christians must be done in America, and also to prevent communist domination.”
So in 1985, at the end of his 40-year course, and on the foundation of his work and tremendous sacrifice in America, Father again asked us to take up the cross of Christianity, bring it into unity, and reach out to the non-religious world, in order to bring all God’s children home./