He rewrote the New Testament stripping away its "corruptions" and omitting anything supernatural like the Virgin Birth, the miracles, and the Resurrection. He said he wanted to write the true story of Jesus so people could see how different his story is from the fairy tale ridiculous story of Christianity and then people would see how obviously false Christianity is. It would be "as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill."
JEFFERSON BIBLE
He envisioned his forty-six page pamphlet to be used to convert the Indians to his true version of Jesus during his presidency, but he did not complete it because he was so busy with his duties of the presidency and finally completed it in 1816. He had it bound in red morocco with gilt edging, with the title "Morals of Jesus" stamped upon the spine in gold. It was published after his death as The Jefferson Bible. He said his book was "proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus which is a much truer Christian than those clergymen who have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man." Because everyone totally misunderstands who Jesus was, Jefferson wrote that "were he to return to earth" people "would not recognize one feature."
He hated the clergymen who attacked him for not being a Christian as much as they hated him. After many years of attacks by clergymen he would still get filled with rage: "I am not afraid of the priests," he wrote. "They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain." He accused theologians of not understanding Jesus and then "giving their own misconceptions of his" teachings and then "expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves." He says he performed an "operation" on the New Testament by "cutting" out the bad and leaving the good. It was like finding "diamonds in a dunghill." "The result," he said, was a booklet "of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines, such as were professed and acted on by the unlettered Apostles, .. and the Christians of the first century."
Jefferson missed the aspect of the second coming. He did not realize another man would come. He just concentrated on Jesus' high moral standard and therefore failed to understand a key point of Jesus. In taking out the bathwater of the supernatural views of Christians towards the Second Coming, he also threw out the baby – the return of Christ. He also didn't understand the calling Jesus gave us to witness and convert the nations. He was too mental and bookish. The Age of Reason and The Age of the Enlightenment was too cerebral. Still, those who did not become atheist and strove to bring some common sense to Christianity were a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, their voice was too small and Satan's voice of Jesus being God prevailed. This "nonsense" as Jefferson called it, led to many other superstitious views of Jesus that prevented the world from accepting him as their moral guide and the savior of the world. Jefferson was also cynical of religious leaders and felt they were only out for personal gain and to rule over people. Many were, but there have been many who sacrificed and helped advance God's providence by raising the standard of moral purity and the love of God and Jesus. Because of the flaw of seeing Jesus as God, Jefferson is also right that Christianity has sabotaged itself severely. Jefferson did not know, but with the Divine Principle we know that they also set up a belief system that would be hostile to the coming Messiah.
STUPIDITY AND ROGUERY
Jefferson was right in being furious at Christians for persecuting the minority of Christians who correctly saw that Jesus was not God. He said, "They excommunicated their followers as heretics" because they are filled with "so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth." Christians have either fallen into "stupidity" or "roguery."
Orthodox Christians "denounce as enemies all who cannot perceive the ... logic ... of Athanasius, that three are one, and one is three; and yet that the one is not three nor the three one." Christians, he says, call the Trinity a "mystery" when it just superstition.
Jefferson wrote to a friend saying he would never dream of publishing a book on religion "for the reformation ... of the world of religious sects" which he says "there must be, at least, ten thousand" and "every one of them thinks they hold the whole truth." The task is too great: "To undertake to bring them all right, would be like undertaking, single-handed, to fell the forests of America." He hated religious leaders: "I abuse the priests who have so much abused the pure and holy doctrines of their master." They have created "artificial structures" so they can have "wealth, power and preeminence to themselves." He blasts them in private to his friends writing: "I have classed them with soothsayers and necromancers [black magic]."
He also hated political leaders who also persecuted true Christians: "Government, as well as Religion, has furnished its schisms, its persecutions, and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people. It has its hierarchy of emperors, kings, princes, and nobles as that has of popes, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and priests. In short, cannibals are not to be found in the wilds of America only, but are reveling on the blood of every living people." It is impossible to express disgust more than that. Then he says he will leave the task of fighting politicians and clergy who go to bed together and abuse their power to others who have more enthusiasm than he has to fight. He fought for religious freedom and suffered so much for that, he probably felt that if he fought religious ideology, his house would be burned down, like Priestley's was. When one visits his home, Monticello, it is hard to criticize him for not going the next step and infuriating people with an attack on the Trinity. He writes: "Turning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds." Fallen man is weak. Jefferson was great but he was still fallen and so was weak too. It is easy to criticize. He did so much and each person can only do so much.
Jefferson is not exaggerating about how bad political and religious leaders have been corrupted by power.
He wrote giving advice to a young man saying: "Adore God; reverence and cherish your parents; love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than life. Be just; be true; murmur not at the ways of Providence – and the life into which you have entered will be one of eternal and ineffable bliss."
He wrote that he was a true Christian: "Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin?"
He was 33 years old when he authored the Declaration of Independence which he meant freedom from a government that imposed the religion of its ruler on everyone else. England failed to give up the concept of state religion and using force against what they called heretics. The burning of Dr. Priestley's house by the religious people of England shows how far they were from being a country that God could use to be the power base for the coming Messiah. God had to side with the Americans. Many interpret that the Revolutionary War was about taxes. That was part of it. But the internal reason that America could overcome the greatest empire on earth, the British empire, was because God needed a nation that would not use government force to prevent freedom of religion. Sadly, America has not always lived up to the magnificent words of Jefferson in the "Statute of Virginia for religious freedom" and his insistence that the Constitution state that the whole country be free in the First Amendment. The American Revolution was a fight against religious tyranny. God also wanted a nation that would reject the traditional belief of the Trinity so it would be more receptive to the Messiah who would come and be Antitrinitarian. But, to the extent America has respected minority ideologies and racial minorities, it has been blessed. America's problems come from not living by the truths and high standard Jefferson taught and lived. America needs to look at Jefferson again and do better. Politicians need to decentralize the government and the clergy need to give up the "mystery" of the Trinity and both need to stop persecuting those who do not teach their satanic views that are cherished by the majority.
The worst taxes the Americans had to pay was for the support of the Church of England. Jefferson led the way to end this abuse of power.
He wrote, "Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole world would have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of only one God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian."
Cerberus
In Greek mythology, the hound of Hades, was the guardian of the underworld. Hercules had 12 labors. The last and most difficult was to bring Cerberus to the upper world - to light. Cerberus was a monstrous dog with three heads who dripped venom from his fangs. We have a herculean task of bringing the satanic ideology of the trinity to the light.
GENERAL RELIGION
He wrote to a correspondent in Ohio: "Sir, I have to thank you for your pamphlets on the subject of Unitarianism, and to express my gratification with your efforts for the revival of primitive Christianity in your quarter. No historical fact is better established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded, was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was among the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. And a strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith, is its restoration, as soon as a nation arises which vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and its external divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simple unity of the Creator of the universe, is now all but ascendent in the Eastern States; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States ....
One book says, "Jefferson imagined Unitarianism sweeping irresistibility across the country. He took it for granted that all who encountered its 'pure and simple doctrine' would be converted, and that orthodoxy would quickly fade away. He was mistaken."
"One obstacle to Unitarian growth was aggressive organizing by other denominations. A second obstacle was the lack of organization among Unitarians who ... were unwilling to employ missionaries. [William Ellery] Channing feared that a Unitarian missionary program would heighten antagonisms between Unitarians" and the other denominations. This was just rationalization for not witnessing. "Many Unitarians dismissed missionary work as being beneath their social rank." Christians often view aggressive witnessing as obnoxious. They have no fire in the belly to convert others. They do not think they should rock the boat, and upset people and themselves with religious controversy. Religion and politics are the most controversial things in the world and because it is so emotional and fallen man can become violent, most people would prefer to not share their beliefs and instead talk small talk and get along with their family members and with their neighbors. They don't want to lose their peace of mind, their job, their home and property, and most of all their life.
Jefferson did not fear the people, freedom or different beliefs. It stretched his contemporaries to not only tolerate different beliefs of Jesus, but of other non-Christian religions which they called Pagan, and even more the freedom to openly be an atheist. He wrote these powerful words that have had international impact and will someday be the attitude of everyone if we fight for it: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God."
Jefferson and Adams may not have been elected President if they had openly criticized orthodox Christian teachings. Hamilton was the Cain to Jefferson. He called Jefferson "an atheist in religion and a fanatic in politics." He was neither. Those who fight for truth must be tough.
He wrote to Adams: "The day will come when the account of the birth of Christ as accepted in the Trinitarian churches will be classed with the fable of Minerva springing from the brain of Jupiter."
To a Unitarian preacher and historian he wrote: "The religion of Jesus is founded on the unity of God, and this principle chiefly gave it triumph over the rabble of heathen gods then acknowledged."
He wrote, "It is the speculations of crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to create differences. These religious animosities I impute to those who call themselves ministers and who engraft their casuistries [false reasoning] on the stock of Jesus' simple precepts."
Theology, he says, has "made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and at this day divides it into Casts of inextinguishable hatred of one another, witness the present inter-necine rage of all other sects against the Unitarian."
Throughout his life Jefferson lived by the highest ethical standards of personal character. His critics falsely charged him with drunkenness, immorality, or financial irregularities. Those who knew him knew that these charges were false and they respected his self-restraint in language and his greatness of spirit. He gave his principles of life to others. One of the most moving is his advice he gives as a good mentor and role model to a nephew. He wrote to him saying: "Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act.... From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured that you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death." As for religion he advised to not have a weak mind and think clearly: "Your reason is now mature enough to examine religion ... Shake off all the fears and servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crounced. Fix reason firmly in the seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness...." Jefferson was fearless in looking for truth and he fought valiantly for it. America and the rest of the world must accept spiritual and physical laws and give up anything that does not make sense. In that search for what is true, God will help. If we ask, we shall receive.
Sally Hemings
If he fathered children from his slave Sally Hemings we have to understand the times he lived in. Jefferson was a loving and devoted husband and father. His relationship with Sally would have been after his wife's death. In those days (and for almost two centuries to continue) it would have been illegal and therefore dangerous for Jefferson to be public about a black/white relationship. He had great character and if he had a relationship with her, as some scientists now say he did because of DNA testing of his descendents) then he would have been kind and loving to her.
WHOLE WORLD WOULD BE CHRISTIAN
One book says, "Jefferson repeatedly chastised the church for not living up to its divine mission, for not upholding the purity of the Christian faith in a corrupt world. He attacked the church for neglecting its duties, for its venality and hypocrisy.... Jefferson's principal complaint against the Church was that its distortions of Christ's ethical teachings, essential to a virtuous republic, drove good people away: 'They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejected the supposed author himself, with the horrors so falsely imputed to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian.'" Jefferson was wise and tuned in to God in an extraordinary way.
One book says, "Jefferson's remedy for this perversion of true Christianity was the establishment of absolute religious freedom in America, from which, he hoped, through the clashing of various denominational interpretations of Christianity, the simple ethical teachings of Christ might be distilled." One reason he fought so hard for religious freedom is because he felt that Unitarianism was logical and "practical" as opposed to traditional teachings that are "mystical." Unitarians were the only "true" Christians and all the rest were false Christians. Unfortunately in the Enlightenment's excitement of reason and clear thinking they threw out the very important aspect of the effect of the legitimate mystical aspects of religion.
In a free society he saw the truth would rise and then creating unity between Christians and this would bring peace and justice.
He said that each person has "social duties" to live up to Christian ethics some of which he listed in his first inaugural address such as "honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence."
He wrote, "Had not the Roman government permitted free inquiry Christianity could never have been introduced. Had not free inquiry been indulged at the era of the reformation, the corruptions of Christianity could not have been purged away. If it be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged."
He was right in separating politics and religion. God's way is not for government or religious leaders to make people believe a certain way. In a free atmosphere the truth will rise anyway. There is no need to persecute anyone or use force against anyone. God does not want any government to proclaim a state religion. Jefferson did not mean, as so many have said, that religion has no place in government. Religion should be honored by politicians and everybody in their professions and they should be seen as the most important part of life. Jefferson was wrong in wanting public schools, but he would have been for prayer in schools. He had a blind spot in not realizing that there is a slippery slope in government. If they interfere in the marketplace, they can only do wrong. Today, schools do not teach Jefferson's idea of religion, which is what he thought would happen. He believed in limited government and didn't realize that public schools would make government big. God does not want government to be big.
"Jefferson opposed the establishment of a Chair of Divinity at the University of Virginia not because he wished to exclude religion from that public institution, but because a single Chair of Divinity would imply representation of only one denomination (just as had the established church): 'It was not, however, to be understood that instruction in religious opinion and duties was meant to be precluded by the public authorities, as indifferent to the interests of society. On the contrary, the relations which exist between man and his Maker, and the duties resulting from those relations, are the most interesting and important to every human being, and the most incumbent on his study and investigation.'" Once again Jefferson shows his genius. The most important thing in life to study is religion.
Jefferson on Plato's Republic
Jefferson detested and denounced Plato’s Republic: "While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been, that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this? Fashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities and incomprehensibilities, and what remains?"
"John Adams agreed with Jefferson’s assessment. Recalling the ‘tedious toil’ of reading Plato’s works, Adams declared: ‘My disappointment was very great, my astonishment was greater, and my disgust shocking.’ Adams believed that Plato’s defense of communal property (including a community of wives) was ‘destructive of human happiness’ and was ‘contrived to transform men and women into brutes, Yahoos, or demons.’"
One author says that when he was nominated for the presidency his opposition wrote in newspapers and pamphlets that everybody read that he was a "revolutionary, an anarchist, and an unbeliever. One Connecticut clergyman wrote: ‘I do not believe that the Most High will permit a howling atheist to sit at the head of this nation.’ As President, Jefferson believed in very limited government and began a policy of strict economy. He sharply reduced expenditures and made substantial payments on the national debt."
"The severest struggle of Jefferson’s career, however, was that for complete religious freedom, involving the dis-establishment of the tax-supported Anglican Church. His activities won him the bitter and lifelong opposition of most of the large landowners, as well as that of the Episcopal clergy and conservative churchmen, who consistently portrayed him as the enemy of Christianity. It was their opposition to a reform which he considered essential for human liberty, later reenforced by his observation of the corrupt and reactionary Roman hierarchy in France, which led him to take a strongly anti-clerical position, and to say that he knew of no example in history in which a priest-ridden people had been able to maintain a free civil government. Surely it was one of the minor ironies of history that when the majestic Jefferson Memorial in Washington was dedicated in 1943, on the 200th anniversary of his birth, two prelates, one a Protestant Episcopalian, the other a Roman Catholic, should have given the invocation and the benediction. Both of them, had they been Jefferson’s contemporaries, would have vigorously denounced him as an infidel."
He was called in his day an infidel. Today he would be called brainwashed by a cult.
Jefferson fought not only for the end of the state to force through taxes to get money for state-supported church, but against heresy laws that were still on the books and could technically and legally be used by some over zealous government officials. One book wrote that "It is no wonder that Jefferson wished to keep his opinions to himself. But to Jefferson’s whole moral philosophy all such legislation was profoundly repugnant. All his life long he fought attempts to limit freedom of thought."
REASON AND PERSUASION
"Subject opinion to coercion,’ he wrote in his Notes on Virginia, ‘whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men, governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face or stature ... Difference of opinion is advantageous to religion. ... The effect of coercion has been to make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites .... Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments by which men can be gathered into the fold of truth."
"Therefore when Jefferson drafted a constitution to be submitted to the Virginia Convention called in 1776 to organize the state, he included an article reading, 'All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion.'"
The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom is one of the greatest victories for God in human history. After so many thousands of years God finally had a leader of his chosen people do it right and do it with style. In the preamble he begins by saying that the state cannot use its powers, such as taxation, to force anyone when it comes to their religious beliefs. He says God does not use coercion and it is "sinful" and "tyrannical" for politics and ministers to "impose" their beliefs by using physical "coercion" on anyone.
"Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord of both body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical."
Americans have not lived up to the vision our Founding Fathers had for this country. America is dominated by a government that uses it force to destroy religious liberty. It is an outrage. One of the causes of America being so uneducated and ungodly is because it turned education over to the state as Marx and Engels preached in their atheistic religion of communism in The Communist Manifesto.
He wrote, "that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions rule of judgement, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its offices to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order."
He ended by saying that truth is so great that it can stand up to "debate" and "free argument" and so no one should be afraid to let all views be heard freely in society and no person should be "enforced, restrained" or "otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief."
He said, "and, finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
FREE TO PROFESS
"Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
It was not until 1833 that all vestiges of state church monopolies were abolished in America. Earlier in Connecticut, for example, the Congregational church was tax supported and ministers of other denominations were denied the right to conduct marriage services. Unitarianism was classed with atheism and polytheism as a felony subjecting the holder to loss of employment, whether civil, religious or military.
Emerson
Emerson left his pulpit in the Second Church of Boston because he could not believe in the "hocus-pocus" of orthodox Christian theology.
In his Harvard Divinity School Adddress: The idea that people could be what Jesus had been was madness and blasphemy to the orthodox . He was not invited back to Harvard for thirty years. He said of Jesus: "Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. ... He said, ‘I am divine. Through one, God acts; through one, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think."
May 26, 1825, the American Unitarian Association was formed "to diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests of pure Christianity."
Emerson graduated from Harvard and then entered the Unitarian ministry at Second Church in Boston.
He said, "...Historic Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positve, the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the unvierse, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love..."
Again, after pointing out that Jesus, despite his respect for Moses and the prophets, did not hesitate to subordinate their initial revelatioins "to the hour and the man that now is; to the eternal revelation in the heart," Emerson added coolly that "it is my duty to say to you that the need was never greater of new revelation than now." A true teacher must show men "that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake."
The Unitarian Church has gone down the wrong road and become far from God. In one book by an official in the Church it proudly says they have "taken the lead among religious groups in advocacy of gay and lesbian rights." And they "support those ministers who choose to conduct services of union for gay or lesbian couples."
Jehovah Witness
We learn in the Divine Principle that God inspired some people in America to form churches that would prepare the way for the Messiah to come. These are called John the Baptist religions whose mission was to elevate Christians to a higher level of understanding and commitment to Jesus so that it would be easier for mankind to accept the totally unorthodox views of the Messiah. One of the most zealous churches in America is the Jehovah Witnesses. They are famous for knocking on every door in the world time after time in the 20th century. They witness as families and they are fanatics about it. They are on pins and needles for the coming Messiah. Unfortuntely, Satan has got them so wrapped up in their theology that has some truth to it that they may actually be the last to understand Rev. Moon. God had hoped that they would have prepared the way for the Messiah by changing the dominate belief of mainstream Christians that Jesus is God.
DIVIDED CHURCH
In a Jehovah Witness book it says, "Orthodox clergy have no time to knock on doors. But the Witnesses of Jehovah, where their number is one Witness to one thousand population, successfully reach the total population, although 97 out of 100 Witnesses do their preaching in their spare time." The writer says they are in absolute agreement. There is no division within Jehovah Witnesses worldwide: "Doctrinally, they speak in agreement, whether within the same congregation, or within the same country, or world-wide." Then they write that no other church in the world can match their "flawless unity": "It is no exaggeration to say that no other religious body in the world today displays such flawless unity in understanding and action." They are awesome in their dedication and unity. They write: "The Witnesses follow the rule: 'Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose ... Does Christ exist divided?' (I Cor. 1:10,13)."
This is why Sun Myung Moon used the word unification in his name for his organization he started in 1954 called Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC). The messiah comes to bring unity out of the different denominations. Jehovah Witnesses are supposed to pave the way for the messiah and it is appropriate that they criticize traditional Christians for being divided which confuses people: "It is beyond their comprehension that the churches can exist divided and feeling that their doctrinal confusions are all compatibly good, unconfused roads leading to the same heavenly destiny. But if you asked some one for directions to a certain town and he told you to take any old road, that all roads lead to the same destination, what would you think? Why, the Witnesses ask, when the Bible distinctly says there is but one Lord and one faith, can there be in the United States alone five equally good brands of Catholics, six Adventists, 19 Methodists, and 11 Presbyterians? They agree with the Saturday Review comment that 'Nothing weighs so heavily on the conscience of Christians today as the realization that a divided church can speak with only scant authority to a divided world.'"
A Jehovah Witness book asks, "Is God a Trinity?" The book Truth says, "the word 'Trinity' does not appear in the Bible ... this doctrine was unknown to the Hebrew prophets and Christian apostles ... the early Christians who were taught directly by Jesus Christ did not believe that God is a 'trinity'" They then go on to give some of the same quotes and logic as the Divine Principle showing that the Bible clearly shows Jesus is not God.
They believed Jesus was going to return in 1914. WWI did start and this is a prelude to the Messiah coming. They are a John the Baptist religion preparing the way for the Second Coming; They have the most passion and urgency, but they have been so corrupted by Satan that they have made it more difficult for the Messiah because they missed the point that everyone is to be saved. They accuse others of being false Christians because only true Christians would do as Jesus said and carry the cross of witnessing. They are also wrong in denouncing blood transfusions which has caused the death of some people, even children.
One book says, "The Witnesses are equated with Reverend Ike, the Mormons, Christian Science, and Sun Myung Moon: 'All of them turn away from the central doctrine of the Christian faith.' And they are considered as pernicious as the occult – as witches, Satanism, astrology, and tarot cards.' Dr. Walter Martin, of the Christian Research Institute of Melodyland, California, says: 'Satan manipulates the church. The Christians have been afraid of the cults. A JW comes to the door ... a millions times a day all over the world this happens. The Christian says, 'Well, I belong to such-and-such a church; I'm a Christian.' Then the JW zaps him with the Trinity: 'Can you prove to me that it's in the Bible?' he asks. The Christian can't prove it; he's frustrated when he can't answer questions. So the scenario is that the Christian's blood pressure goes up to about 5000.'" ... "What we should recognize is that JWs are lost souls for whom Christ died. The Watchtower is a cult; it's a group gathered around somebody's interpretation of the Bible, and it ends up denying that Jesus Christ is literally God in human flesh."
Then Dr. Martin explains how Christians must witness and convert JWs, "We've got to go to their Kingdom Halls – their meeting places – to hand out tracts. We have organized a whole movement in Southern California which we call Operation Recovery. We have hundreds of young people volunteering to pass out tracts (designed to look like Watchtower literature) at their conventions. We have teams of people all over Southern California being trained to go to JW meeting places and pass out tracts to lead these people back to Christ ...."
BRAINWASHED
"The Witnesses appear to be impenetrable, brainwashed. But's it's an illusion. Their minds are blinded by Satan."
The truth is that both of them are blind. There is a battle of ideas, of ideology. Religion is an emotional, controversial issue. People have been killing each other over differences of thought throughout history. It is illegal to even witness in some countries. Christians are being killed by other faiths and Christians are killing each other over theological disputes even today. Sun Myung Moon has been tortured in Korea and even jailed in America. A Pulitzer prize winning journalist investigated Rev. Moon's court case and found him to be innocent. His book, Inquisition, tells this sad story of injustice and persecution.
Religion is such a hot topic that most people do not want to even mention it but Jesus told us to witness even though we are risking our lives to do so.
The Witnesses wrote in 1919 that Arius was a key messenger from God. One book on them says, "Russell openly rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and adopted what is commonly regarded as an Arian Theology."
An encyclopedia says: "The Christology of Jehovah Witnesses, also, is a form of Arianism; they regard Arius as a forerunner of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of their movement."
All of the John the Baptist religions have fundamentally failed because they were corrupted by Satan and saw only themselves as going to heaven. God wanted them to go beyond Christianity and embrace the whole world with universal salvation and with a more rational view of Jesus, especially against Trinitarianism instead of becoming arrogant and thinking they are the only ones to go to heaven while others live an inferior life. Their zeal to witness is not enough to show they are true Christians.
Christian Scientists
God tried to speak to Mary Baker Eddy who founded Christian Science in the 19th century. Like so many before her, she got some truth, but Satan garbled the revelations God was giving. She did understand that Jesus was not God. In a book entitled Why I am a Christian Scientist, the author writes, "In fact, Mrs. Eddy's concept of God, based on her long and faithful study of the Scriptures was so exalted that she could not accept the divided authority which she felt to be implied in the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, with its assumption of three persons in one Godhead. In short, she concurred with the inspired pronouncement recorded in the book of Deuteronomy 'Hear, O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord." But she got mixed messages from spirit world in her revelations and believed that Jesus was born of a virgin. As usual there is so much baby and bathwater, with the emphasis on bathwater. She wrote that the "theory of three persons in one God suggests polytheism, rather than the one ever-present I AM."
At the age of 50 she was unknown, no publisher would accept her book and 40 years later she was a household word in America. Unfortunately, she was taken by Satan off track to become focused on the ridiculous belief that doctors and such medical treatments as blood transfusions are wrong. She was also a feminist and God could not use her to lift up Christianty.
Taft -- 1920
Taft was president a few years before Rev. Moon was born in 1920. Taft was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1920. He was a unitarian. He was not a crusader and God could not use him to prepare America for Rev. Moon's unitarian ideology.
One book says, "Religion, to William Howard Taft, was a matter of relatively slight importance. But it disgusted him, when he was caught in the turbulence of politics, to receive scores upon scores of letters branding him a Unitarian atheist and demanding that he be barred forever from the White House."
Once Taft wrote a summary of his faith in a letter that he asked be kept private: "I am a Unitarian. I believe in God. I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe. I am not, however, a scoffer at religion but on the contrary recognize, in the fullest manner, the elevating influence that it has had and always will have in the history of mankind." His biographer wrote, "It was well that political enemies did not have access to his private files. A single sentence in this letter – 'I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ' – would have been more than enough to send Bryan to the White House in 1908."
William Taft was attacked anyway when he ran for President: "But many good Christians among the voters needed no evidence to convince them that Taft, a Unitarian, was necessarily also an infidel. From the Middle West, in particular, came scores of letters demanding to know whether the Republican nominee rejected Christ." ... "Think of the United States with a President who does not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God," shuddered the editor of one religious paper, "but looks upon our immaculate Savior as a common bastard and low, cunning impostor!"
Taft would not join in a religious debate. He said tersely: "'Of course, I am interested in the spread of Christian civilization,' he told one supporter, 'but to go into a dogmatic discussion of creed I will not do whether I am defeated or not .... If the American electorate is so narrow as not to elect a Unitarian, well and good. I can stand it.'" At the time of the birth of the Messiah in 1920, he was president of the Unitarian Association of America. God was trying to introduce unitarian beliefs into America, but as usual God's voice is drowned out by Satan's spokesmen.
Stevenson -- 1954
Adlai Stevenson was a Unitarian. He ran against Eisenhower for the Presidency. If he had been President then the year the Messiah started his UC in 1954 the President of the U.S. would have been anti-Trinitarian.
ROBERT TAFT
Taft's son, Robert, was the leader of the Republicans in the senate during the Korean War. He was not religious and went golfing on Sunday mornings. He was a unitarian but not interested in religion.
In summary, it has been a dismal failure for God in trying to prepare America to accept the Messiah when he comes. Satan has got everyone believing in so many things that make it hard for Rev. Moon. God's voice is weak now. Sun Myung Moon's voice is weak now. Our voice is weak now. But the meek will inherit the earth and the last shall eventually be first. The truth always ultimately triumphs. It is inevitable that every person will accept Rev. Moon and his teachings just as every person accepts the truth that the earth is round. How long will it take for that glorious day when every person is free of Satan's falsehoods? No one knows. All we can do is get up each morning with a fire in our belly to witness about God's love and his goal of a beautiful ideal world that has no suffering and no pollution.
Unification Church begins in America - 1959
Miss Kim was the first missionary to America from Korea in 1959. When Rev. Moon came to America to live in December 1971, there were only a few hundred members in America. He spoke on whirlwind tours that took him to every state. He called it the Day of Hope tour. He spoke strongly about Jesus - saying that he did not come to die. American Christian leaders rejected him. Some parents even kidnapped their children even though they were over 18 years old. The parents were upset that their child was working so hard and they felt was getting nothing in return. Mostly young people joined, dropped out of college or quit their jobs, fundraised long hours and lived in communes.
It has been 40 years since Miss Kim landed alone and there are still only a handful of members - perhaps a few thousand. We met the church in the early 70s and have witnessed how hard Rev. Moon has worked to uplift America. Someday the world will hear and accept the revelations of Rev. Moon. When America does, it will stop the decline it is in.
I have shown that Rome fell because of three main reasons.
1. Religious - it adopted the ideology of the trinity
2. Family - it did not have pure traditional families
3. Political - it persecuted with violence against minorities
Constantine failed all three. Charlamange failed all three. Thomas Jefferson did not. On God's third try, God found a good man to lead the nation that would be the world leader. Sadly, America has progressively declined since the Founding Fathers. In the category of religion it has not accepted Jefferson's correct view that Jesus is not God. Politically, Americans have often used violence and force against minorities. Leaders such as Joseph Smith, Martin Luther King and Rev. Moon have been jailed. And sadly the family has declined since Jefferson.
Still, America has done many good things and Rev. Moon is always hopeful it will hear God and him and become a true champion of God. America has a long way to go. In the three categories I've given it must:
1. Religious - accept the Divine Principle - a unitarian view of God and that Rev. Moon is the second coming of Christ.
2. Family - America is in deep trouble and has so many problems because of the breakdown of its families. It has accepted feminism that teaches against women being homemakers. Women must return home and stop competing with men. America needs to return to the traditional family.
3. Political - apologize for imprisoning Rev. Moon and parents must stop kidnapping and imprisoning their children until their faith is broken. The United States government must give up its socialist big brother thinking and return to limited government. And it must become a strong world policeman to fight against evil such as Hitler and Stalin.
We have written extensively on all three of these topics. Please read our other books and join Rev. Moon on the greatest crusade the world has ever seen - the building of the Ideal World. God wants America to be a better champion than it has been. God wants major, revolutionary, fundamental changes in your life. We pray Americans can see the truth and stretch themselves to the limit. The truth hurts. And the truth is that a Korean man has given his blood, sweat and tears to raise up America and the world to be the kind of people God wants. Satan has caused so many to betray the precious Messiah, Rev. Moon. Study the words of Rev. Moon, watch videos of him, pray for strength and guidance and then become a workaholic for God. Don't listen to critics of Rev. Moon. His life is just like that of Jesus and George Washington and every other saint that has lived. Jesus's family rejected him, George Washington was hated by the majority in the Revolutionary War, and now Rev. Moon, an innocent man, has gone to jail just like as the innocent man, Martin Luther King did.
Rev. Moon is critical of America and he praises America too. Let's learn from Rev. Moon and help America rise to be an even greater power for good. God is also speaking through others. There are many Cain and Abel divisions in America. God is more on the side of conservatives who are correct on many issues. Satan is on the side of liberals and has tricked them into believeing that feminism and socialism are good ideologies. Paul said we have to fight the good fight. God and the Messiah want us to live and teach the truth. We have done our best to express truth in plain language in our books. Help us distribute our books and videos. Buy them and put them in libraries. We are not trying to make a profit from our books. We sell them at cost and will not use any profit that we might make for ourselves. We will give all money recieved to distributing more books. Let's put these books in the hands and on the doorsteps of every home in the world printed in their langauge. That means billions of our books and videos must be made. Our family is devoting our lives to getting this message out.
If you don't want to distribute our books and God is telling you to do something else. That's great. Go for it. But for heaven's sake, do something everyday to reach out to this dying world the truth that can bring us all together as a family. The problems are so great. And they can only be solved by everyone on this planet accepting Rev. and Mrs. Moon as their true parents and accepting the ideology of the Divine Principle. To stop the wars, racism, family breakdown, addictions, and environmental pollution, the world needs to have a common ideology. Jefferson thought that the common sense view he held of Jesus would just naturally sweep America. Rev. Moon teaches us that God wants us to work day and night. We have to build the ideal world. Jesus is not going to come down out of the clouds and wave a magic wand. Rome was not built in a day and neither was America. It takes a lot of sweat to build anything great. God wants us to sweat. God has sent Sun Myung Moon to show how much a human being can sweat - and I mean literally. No one in human history has worked harder than he has. His story is incredible. When people finally hear how hard and how sacrificially he has lived, then everyone will accept him as the ultimate leader who will lead us to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. God and Jesus have given him this awesome mission. And they have given America an awesome mission. We must not let America decline. The Roman Empire was powerful for many hundreds of years and then it collapsed. Gibbon published his classic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776. God inspired the Founding Fathers of America who were extraordinary men who built the foundation for a great nation. It is unthinkable that America will collapse like the Roman Empire. We must fight for truth in a godly way so that there will never be a book written centuries from now called the The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.