|
by Kerry Williams, UTS '87
The belief that Sun Myung Moon is the returning Messiah has been the central tenet in Unification theology. Unificationists have traditionally believed that Rev. Moon was born without original sin, embodied the same heart as Jesus Christ in loving and forgiving his enemies, and fulfilled the original ideal of creation by establishing the position of True Parents.
However, beginning with the removal of the Eight Great Textbooks by FFWPU in 2013, and the emergence of the“Only Begotten Daughter” theology in the mid-2010s, the core doctrine taught by leaders of FFWPU (now HPHC) has been radically altered.
The common base of shared beliefs and traditions which kept us connected as one family has been broken. Our raison d’etre for meeting to discuss “religious matters” is in question because we are no longer united in our understanding of Sun Myung Moon’s essential identity. What can we realistically hope to achieve by discussing the Six Marys, physical salvation, or the meaning of Cheon Il Guk ifwe hold substantially different views about the very person who gave rise to these concepts?
It is interesting to note that less than twenty years after Reverend Moon’s passing, we are already headlong into the debate regarding his ontological status. Reverend Moon provides the context for understanding the nature of Jesus by comparing him to the originalAdam:
“Adam, had he realized the ideal of perfection symbolized by the tree of life in theGarden of Eden, and Jesus, symbolized by the tree of life in the Book ofRevelation, would be identical in the sense of having realized the goal of creation. As such, they would have equal value.” (Exposition of Divine Principle p.166)
In the Exposition of DivinePrinciple, Jesus is described as a man who has completed the purpose of creation, however he is not the Creator Himself. Rev. Moon described Jesus as the first man of perfection ever to walk the earth, and that he came to restore the true relationship between God and man. But, as he clarified in his 1973speech “God’s Hope for Man”: “After Jesus' crucifixion, Christianity made him into God. This is why the gap between God and man has never been bridged. Jesus is a man in whom God is incarnate. But he is not God Himself.” Rev. Moon taught that God does not desire Jesus alone as His son; rather, God wishes for all humanity to proclaim, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” He strongly encouraged us to understand that this represents the attainable destiny of every person,
In his later years, however, Rev.Moon introduced new terminology regarding the ontology of God and Christ: “God of Night “and “God of Day.” Rather than viewing his later teachings as contradictory to his earlier guidance, I believe that he continued to provide deeper clarification regarding the nature of 1st /2nd /3rd Adam as time progressed.
(read rest of Kerry Williams' essay)
| 
