By 1977, with a fledgling community of committed and dedicated people, and with a sound teaching that inspired us to live our ideals, the Unification movement in California had grown rapidly. Our first challenge was to become ourselves a model of what we wanted the world to become. The love-ethic presented in the Divine Principle demanded a life of prayer, study, and service to others. We sought within our community to be caring, creative, and loving people, and upon this foundation to work actively for the sake of God and humanity.

We called ourselves "The Creative Community Project" and used a former fraternity house on Hearst Street as a place to teach the Divine Principle at luncheon and dinner programs. We were inspired by an ideal and wanted above all to communicate that ideal to those around us who, so it seemed, had very little commitment to anything other than self-interest.

Most people we encountered had only the foggiest sense of ethics, so we felt great meaning in sharing with them, through our dinner discussions and lectures, the significance of our own ethical ideals. Those who were serious and wanted to pursue those ideals further were invited to workshops at Boonville and, later, to other country retreats.

Hand in hand with teaching was our desire to do substantial good works so that people could see that we were serious about making the world a better place. From my experiences at the inner-city college in Oakland, I knew that right in the heart of the city, people had an enormous need for the basic necessities of life. I had the greatest satisfaction in simply helping students with fundamental reading and writing skills to enable them to fill out job applications. Many of them were unemployed, and I knew that what they were eating in the cafeteria was often insufficient. I decided to mobilize our spiritual community to help the larger human community in Oakland.

Since about forty acres of the Boonville farm consisted of an apple orchard and a vegetable garden, and, since every October we harvested such a super-abundance of fruit and vegetables that much of it would go uneaten and rot in the field, I thought: Why not pack this food in crates and distribute it to people in Oakland? We had given some of our harvest to neighbors, but now Jeremiah Schnee and Russell Allen, two stalwarts of our community, and I tried to figure out how we could systematically distribute it to a larger number of people. Jeremiah suggested we look in the telephone book under churches and social service groups, then make calls to the appropriate directors or ministers to see whether they would be willing to take any food. Russell assured us he could get a truck and some of the men to do the distribution. We were on our way, if not to solve the problem of hunger in the world, at least to help some people in our own community.

Although in our first distribution effort we gave away only a few tons of food, what became known as "Project Volunteer" has since then given away millions of pounds of food, medical supplies, and other needed surplus material. The project has now spread to numerous cities throughout the United States, and last year in Oakland alone the project distributed over five million pounds of surplus government cheese.

After our first distribution from the Boonville farm, we learned that the great central valley of California grows about one quarter of the fruit and vegetables for our nation, and that, as in Boonville, a great part of any harvest would either rot on the vine or in the ground. Wholesalers, for example, would only buy picture-perfect fruit and vegetables for the supermarkets. Any food with even the slightest blemish was culled, placed in thousand-pound bins to be dumped in the ground. We found, too, that growers and wholesalers would have to pay for this good food to be carted off. All this then was happening a few miles from cities in the San Francisco Bay area where people were malnourished.

Our community purchased several trucks and a warehouse in Oakland, not far from the college where I was teaching. We began, under Russell Allen's supervision, to make regular trips to Modesto, Stockton, Vacaville, and numerous farming areas throughout California. Our young volunteers would bring guitars on the trucks and would be accompanied by senior citizens who went along for the gleaning. Truly, the biblical concept of gleaning the fields was being revived.

Several retired men and women built a food-processing room in our warehouse. Then, after we obtained the materials, a retired electrician built a huge refrigerator-freezer next to the dry food storage area. Since refrigerated space was usually expensive, we became one of the few such groups to be able to store fresh vegetables and government surplus butter, milk, and cheese. Our greatest boon came a few years ago when we received several thousand frozen pizzas from a large company. I thought the Kingdom of Heaven had surely arrived.

Through Project Volunteer we sought to embody the Divine Principle's ideal of public service and civic virtue. Of course these are good old Yankee virtues as well, but we felt that words and concepts like virtue, honor, nobility, and love had to be revitalized. We did not want people to become dependent on us through our service, rather we wanted to awaken their divine nature and get them to help each other. We gave food and other materials directly to the leaders of various community groups so that they could work with their own people. We did not desire credit for our efforts, and to this day most recipients of material from Project Volunteer do not know that we are involved.

The Creative Community Project, which conducted seminars on the Divine Principle, together with Project Volunteer organized numerous activities throughout California. We would travel to Sacramento with musicians to hold a square dance for members of Senior Gleaners, a group of retired men and women who themselves distributed surplus food to the needy. We honored their president, Homer Fahrner, at an awards banquet for volunteers. We held Christmas parties at homes for the elderly in Oakland, and we visited the sick in hospitals throughout the Bay Area. Dr. David Rueter, a podiatrist, opened up a clinic to help the poor, and Sheri Sager Rueter, a registered nurse, would give lectures on "Health for Seniors" in San Francisco. In Los Angeles, where we also eventually bought a warehouse to distribute surplus food, we worked together with eight churches for a Spring Gospel Concert. We felt filled with the spirit of God's love, and wanted to express that in service to our brothers and sisters.

I was very pleased one day in 1976 to receive an invitation from David S. C. Kim, one of the earliest missionaries to the United States, to become a member of the board of a relief organization founded by members of the Unification Church. The International Relief Friendship Foundation ¹ (IRFF) was established to provide emergency assistance to people in need throughout the world, and also to assist in long-term development projects that would attack the causes of poverty, malnutrition, and disease. My vision of helping a few poor in Oakland was now being stretched to include the needy of the world.

Over the last few years IRFF has helped people in over 35 countries either through emergency assistance or aid to long-term development projects. We have sent tons of food to Santo Domingo, medical supplies to Zaire, and clothing and material to various refugee groups in Southeast Asia. In Thailand we operate a full-time medical team at the Sikhul Vietnamese refugee camp. "This camp is for boat people who escaped from the communist regime in Vietnam," writes Kem Mylar, secretary general of the IRFF. "However, the Thai government is concerned that there might be communist agents among them and keeps them separate from the general population. But the IRFF medical team, with its determination to provide medical service, consists of twenty-five to thirty members, eight of them are Unification Church members, including a doctor, a pharmacist, and a laboratory technician." ²

In Zaire, members of IRFF established an agricultural and technical school called ECOPROF (L'Ecole Cooperative Professionelle). Kehaulani Haydon, a member of the IRFF staff, explains:

In the first year of preparatory training, students receive a weekly course on 'spiritual values and ethics' in addition to general education, language, mathematics, typing, and other basic subjects. The second and third years continue in the two specializations of the technical cycle: commercial management and fish farming. Students are also required to complete practical work internships, often in cooperation with other non-profit organizations such as the Peace Corps. These internships give the students an opportunity to apply practical knowledge learned in the classroom to realistic field situations such as constructing ponds and fish cultures and building small bridges. ³

Nearly simultaneous with the birth of IRFF in 1977 was the organization of the National Council for the Church and Social Action. (NCCSA) NCCSA is a product of the vision of church ministers from over twenty denominations who met at Fordham University in May, 1977. Because of the ecumenical vision of Reverend Moon, which ties in spiritual teaching with practical activities, the Unification Church has supported NCCSA with funding and manpower since its inception. Each chapter of the National Council (there were about forty-five local chapters by the spring of 1984) is independent and is governed by a local board of directors that interacts with the national board. The overall purpose of the organization is to mobilize the resources of a community to serve the spiritual, emotional, and material needs of its poor.

Kevin and Maria Brabazon, members of the Unification Church, were involved in organizing the Harlem Council for Church and Social Action. They live in Harlem and were concerned about the many, many needs of their community. I went to visit them for the first time in the summer of 1980. As I entered their office, which was near their apartment on 125th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, I was struck by the activity of four or five young men and women on telephones writing frantically in what looked like schedule books. Kevin and Maria had set up a transportation system by which elderly people would be picked up at their homes and driven to shopping markets, churches, or hospitals. The project was working so well that Kevin was able to employ a number of young people from the community; also, new passenger vans were donated by the City of New York.

Kevin and Maria are particularly committed to solving the problems of poverty and racism by showing what one couple with a vision can do. They were married by Reverend Moon several years ago, and they take seriously the ideals of the Unification Church. Like so many couples in our movement, theirs is an interracial marriage centered on God's love.

Ronald Johnson, a member of the New York City Council for Church and Social Action, helped organize the Farm Club for residents of Harlem in the summer of 1983. On land in upstate New York they began numerous gardens.

The most inspiring member proved to be Fanny Freeman of 118th Street. She grew up on a farm in Alabama and learned the value of growing her own food at an early age. A very active urban gardener in recent years, she has prompted many of her neighbors to become community gardeners. When she first heard about the Farm Club there was no holding her back. She would get up early and cook barbecued beef and chicken, corn bread, and collard greens for everyone who came. This feast became a regular feature of our Farm Club, a shared community meal at our Saturday outings. As the season progressed, many of our own vegetables made their way into the picnic lunch. ⁴

Project Volunteer, the International Relief Friendship Foundation, and the National Council for Church and Social Action are only three of the humanitarian projects that have developed out of the teaching and vision of Reverend Moon. Another organization inspired by Reverend Moon often co-sponsoring projects with these others, and dedicated to ending racism and religious bigotry, is the Minority Alliance International (MAI). MAI has hosted annual banquets celebrating the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, has organized cultural nights at the Manhattan Opera Center in New York, a Unification Church-owned facility, and has organized ecumenical conferences to promote interfaith and interracial harmony.

In May of 1978 I had the pleasure once again of accompanying Reverend and Mrs. Moon to Korea. We stopped overnight in Tokyo and Reverend Moon spoke to church leaders in the morning. Afterwards about twenty-five of us drove to a new gray stone building where several men and women in white laboratory coats and wearing broad smiles were waiting to greet us. Reverend Moon was to dedicate a new hospital.

On a tour of the soon-to-be-opened Isshin Hospital, as we passed from room to room, Reverend Moon would say a prayer and sprinkle sanctified salt. Everything must be dedicated to God, Reverend Moon always taught us. All the while, I couldn't help thinking back to the rock in Pusan and how, with almost nothing, Reverend Moon believed he could create a movement that would be of service to the world. It struck me that most people would consider their lives highly successful if they, like he, could be the inspiration behind the founding of even one hospital.

The philosophy of Isshin Hospital, we were to learn from the woman who was the head doctor, as well as a Unification Church member, corresponded to the teaching of the Divine Principle. The doctors sought to work unselfishly for the well-being of their patients and would emphasize in their treatment the prevention of illness. Medical care, we learned, was based on the latest Western medicine, but various techniques of oriental medicine were also available. We saw the latest technology in each area of the hospital: departments of internal medicine, orthopedics, dermatology, pediatrics, plastic surgery, obstetrics, and physical therapy, a dental clinic, and an eye clinic.

The World Medical Health Foundation was incorporated in New York in 1977 as a public, non-profit educational and research organization by a group of medical professionals who were inspired by the philosophy and ideals of Reverend Moon. Though the founding members were all members of the Unification Church, it was hoped that the vision and goals of the medical foundation would attract medically oriented people of many different religious and philosophical persuasions, but who shared the concepts of unified medicine and absolute values, and the ideal of a unified world. The foundation was originally organized through a grant from the International Cultural Foundation, but since then has been entirely self-sufficient through private donations and through offering seminars and classes on a wide variety of topics.

At various times, the medical foundation has offered programs to the general public, and to other health professionals, in the areas of childbirth education, nutrition and dietetics, natural therapeutics, and first aid, with an emphasis on wellness, lifestyle, and preventive medicine. Currently the foundation is offering programs on stress management, weight management, and personal growth.

Dr. William Bergman, a New York physician and a close friend of mine who joined the Unification Church in Oakland, California, while he was working at Kaiser Hospital, is the director of the foundation. A sparkling intellect, deep heart, and joyful smile are the qualities one is struck by on first encountering this Columbia University trained physician.

Since the teaching of the Unification movement has at its core a commitment to value, it is natural for Reverend Moon to have created numerous activities for scientists, philosophers, and other academicians to focus on ethical questions. The International Cultural Foundation, an organization established in 1968, promotes academic discussion of the highest caliber through the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, the Professors World Peace Academy, and the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy.

The International Conferences on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS) annually bring together hundreds of intellectuals to discuss the relationship of science to absolute value. The tenth annual conference in 1981 in Seoul, South Korea, gathered almost eight hundred participants from 108 nations. Conference proceedings are published each year, and have become resource material in the area of science and values. At the 11th conference in Philadelphia, the first biennial Founder's Award was given to Dr. Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Laureate in physics, for his outstanding contributions to science. Dr. Wigner has been a regular committee chairman for these annual conferences.

A cynic might say that Reverend Moon promotes such conferences only because he is interested in giving credibility to the Unification Church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reverend Moon has spent his life initiating hundreds of activities like the ICUS series because he wants to bring credibility to God and hope to human life. Those hostile to our church criticize our most innocent acts. Were we to help an old woman across the street, they would speculate on where we were taking her and for what nefarious purpose. Well, we have now taken many, many people across the street, and they have gotten safely to the other side.

Another major ICF-sponsored outreach project to the academic world is the Professors World Peace Academy. This group, which exists in more than fifty countries, supports academic research, conferences, and publications dealing with the theme of world peace. I recently participated in a conference sponsored by the PWPA of Japan on "Japan in the 1980s." The current president of the PWPA in the United States is a professor of neuroscience, Karl Pribram, of Stanford University.

The PWPA of the United States recently initiated a Task Force on Central America as an outgrowth of its annual conference on "United States Foreign Policy Options for the '80s." The Central American task force then became a project of the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy in late 1982. The PWPA is an international association of scholars and academicians dedicated to researching issues affecting world peace. The Washington Institute is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization devoted to providing policy-makers, scholars, and the public with non-partisan analysis of issues affecting the world and nation. A recent book (1983) published by the Washington Institute is entitled: Central America in Crisis -- A Program for Action. Both the Washington Institute and the PWPA are affiliates of the International Cultural Foundation, but the board of each operates with total independence.

Reverend Moon has also inspired an ambitious publishing program, Paragon House Publishers, to help disseminate vital ideas to the academic world. Selected readings from the Proceedings of the International Conferences on the Unity of the Sciences have been recently published by Paragon. Professor Richard Rubenstein, distinguished professor at Florida State University, edited one volume entitled Modernization, and Sir John Eccles, Nobel Laureate in medicine, edited a volume, Mind and Brain. The editorial board at Paragon, which operates with complete independence from the Unification Church, is headed by Professor Frederick E. Sontag, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Pomona College in California. Professor Sontag has also written a major scholarly book on Reverend Moon.

It has always been the Unificationists' desire to promote the revitalization of all religions along with interreligious cooperation. Reverend Moon teaches us to respect all religions, and we especially look upon Judaism and Christianity as our elder and middle brothers. My vision of the future, Reverend Moon's vision, and, I believe, God's vision is of a world of interracial, international, and interreligious harmony.

To make this a reality, Reverend Moon founded the International Religious Foundation, (IRF) which sponsors numerous interfaith activities. A youth seminar on world religions is one IRF project. Each year approximately one hundred and fifty college students and advisers representing each of the major faiths are chosen to make a pilgrimage to major holy places around the world. The students are accompanied by eminent professors who lecture on different areas of religious history and culture. The purpose of such a seminar is to stimulate young people to examine the nature of the religious experience and then to respect, in William James's phrase, the varieties of religious experience.

The IRF also sponsors the New Ecumenical Research Association (New ERA), composed of hundreds of scholars throughout the world who meet regularly in conferences, publish books, and seek to promote religious dialogue generally. In a recent conference on "God," Professors Sontag and M. Darrol Bryant of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, made the following comments in an introduction to the published proceedings:

For a world in religious turmoil, as ours is, the notion of God must be the center of dialogue. Recognizing this, New ERA has inaugurated a series of conferences, to be held annually, on the topic of God. The first of these, "God: The Contemporary Discussion," was held on December 26 - 31, 1981, at Maul, Hawaii, and involved 164 philosophers, religionists, and theologians. The participants represented most of the world's major religious, philosophical, and cultural perspectives. We hope that the high quality of ecumenical discussion begun there can be continued into the future. ⁵

In June 1983 the IRF sponsored an Interdenominational Conference for Clergy, in the Bahamas. Over 170 Catholic and Protestant ministers participated in the conference, the central theme of which was "Unification Theology: With Implications for Ecumenism and Social Action." Representatives of the National Council for the Church and Social Action, in conjunction with the IRF, discussed the necessity for churches to involve themselves in a broad range of social projects. In conferences such as the one in the Bahamas, the Unification worldview is discussed, analyzed, and criticized by knowledgeable religious people. Contrary to the mythology of the media, which presents our church as a secret cult whose members lack all critical awareness, our church is one of the few I know that always seeks to discuss its beliefs in the context of other religious traditions. Our graduate Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, New York, sponsors additional ecumenical conferences on campus coordinated by the students themselves for their divinity programs. Eighty percent of the faculty are members of faiths other than the Unification Church: There are several Protestant theologians, two Catholic philosophers, a Jewish rabbi, and three Unification professors on the faculty.

The seminary is a model of ecumenicity and the more than a hundred students there are of an international and intercultural mix. We have students from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and Africa, as well as from the United States. Although the seminary was established as recently as 1975, we can see Reverend Moon's commitment to higher education in even the earliest days of our church's growth in America.

There have already been several hundred graduates of the seminary, a good percentage of whom have gone on, with the full support of our church, to study for doctorates at prominent graduate schools in the country. Dr. Tyler Hendricks, a man my wife and I knew from our California church, just received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University after completing his work at the Unification Theological Seminary. We have other Ph.D. students at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Emory, Chicago, Vanderbilt, Claremont, Catholic University, and many other schools.

The Unification Theological Seminary also publishes numerous books in conjunction with conferences and dialogues. Several recent titles include: Hermeneutics and Horizon: the Shape of the Future, edited by Professor Frank K. Flinn; The Social Impact of New Religious Movements, edited by Professor Bryan Wilson; and Ten Theologians Respond to the Unification Church, edited by Professor Herbert Richardson.

In these books there is no propaganda, no self-serving essays on behalf of the Unification Church. The eminent theologians whose essays are contained in them are not reluctant to write penetrating criticisms of every aspect of the Unification movement.

Reverend Moon also inspired and initially supported the formation of the Global Congress of the World's Religions. (GCWR).For the past several years preliminary meetings of The Global Congress have been held in San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles. The "Notes of the Charter" of the GCWR sets forth the purpose of the organization:

The Global Congress of the World's Religions is a voluntary association of concerned persons from the broad spectrum of all the world's many religions and spiritual perspectives. It was founded in 1980 to become the ongoing forum where representatives from the plurality of human religious experience could communicate with one another, learn about and from one another, and provide means whereby the deepest and highest motivations of both traditionally religious and other persons of spiritual conviction could be creatively and constructively focused for the good of all.

As a complement to his work with professors, scientists, and ministers, Reverend Moon has inspired a university student ministry called the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles. (CARP) CARP membership is open to all students regardless of their religious background, and local CARP chapters can be found at most major universities. CARP seeks to revitalize the spirit of Judeo-Christian values on campuses and to research a God-centered ideology in order to propose a healthy and intelligent alternative to exclusively materialistic and worldly values. CARP encourages dedication and service to the nation's college communities and seeks to demonstrate that traditional religious standards of morality are still healthy ideals for today's young people.

The performing arts are also very much a part of Reverend Moon's vision for a God-centered world, and thus a number of groups have been established to express the ideals of harmony, unity, and beauty through music, dance, and drama. The church sponsors a wide variety of cultural and artistic groups: the New Hope Singers International, the Korean Folk Ballet, the Go World Brass Band, and several rock and popular music groups. We have also purchased the former Manhattan Opera House in New York City as a showcase for the performing arts and religious activities.

Also dedicated to the performing arts is the Little Angels School, which was founded by Reverend Moon in Seoul, South Korea several years ago. It has an enrollment of 3,600 students, with training from kindergarten through high school. Students from this school have entered Seoul National University, the nation's most prestigious university, in greater percentages than students from any other high school in the country. The school has been called the "Juilliard of Korea," and the Performing Arts Center, which is an adjunct to it, contains the most beautiful theater in the nation. Plans have been made for establishing a Sun Myung Moon University, and we expect that this will be opened in the near future.

Ocean Church is one of the more unique projects of the Unification movement. The ocean, symbolic of a prosperous life, has always been a helpmate of man. Ocean Church sees the sea as a refreshing place to commune with God and to seek spiritual as well as physical nourishment. Church activities focus on communities whose sustenance and future lies with the seas, while programs emphasize the development of human character, seamanship skills, and the art of fishing. Last summer my two sons spent a week with the Ocean Church project in Gloucester, Massachusetts. During their first day on Cape Cod Bay they were on a boat that caught a 658 pound tuna. You should hear the fish stories they tell around my house about the ones that got away.

When our members first began fishing in Cape Cod, we almost immediately began catching more fish than the seasoned old timers. Rumors began to spread that we had developed a technique for brainwashing fish! Other rumors said that Reverend Moon had taught our members to pour a magic elixir over the boat so that tuna would be drawn to our hooks. After several years now, the secret of success has been revealed: hard work, diligence, study, and a lot of prayer.

When one hears of the numerous projects sponsored by the Unification Church, or supported through its donations, one question invariably pops up: Where does the money come from? The question is usually asked with skepticism, as if to talk about money were to move from the realm of religion into the world of scatology. I have found the public to have an almost universally negative reaction when religion and money are discussed in the same context. The truth is, though, that to carry on the charitable, humanitarian, and educational projects of a religion, one needs not only inspiration, but funds.

The Unification Church acquires its monetary support in much the same way traditional religions have for centuries. The time-honored practice of tithing is encouraged. Contributions are received from individuals and other entities wishing to support the church, while members also participate in fundraising campaigns to solicit contributions from the general public.

Besides the obvious monetary benefits to be gained from fundraising campaigns, the church encourages its members to undertake this activity for a deeper reason. The experience to be gained in dealing with many different people is an invaluable part of character development. Furthermore, church teachings emphasize that money, as all things, should be used unselfishly for the betterment of all. The training received in fundraising campaigns is, therefore, invaluable as a religious and educational tool.

Some members of the church support themselves by operating restaurants, health food stores, and fish markets. Others are doctors, lawyers, and teachers. As with members of any religion, we must live and work in the world if we are to serve Heaven. It seems td me the ultimate absurdity for our church to be condemned for being involved in business, or accused of having a business "front," when our members and our church merely perform activities that are necessary for life and growth.

It is true that Reverend Moon is the inspiration behind some highly visible businesses such as newspapers, but even in the realm of newspapers there are precedents like the Christian Science Monitor and the Deseret News, which were originally inspired by religious vision. In an age of sensationalist media which often pander to the basest sensibility, Reverend Moon had the vision of creating responsible, ethical media. The core of his vision was of course spiritual, but spiritual ideals must be realized in practical ways.

The Washington Times, founded in 1982, became one of the nation's most prestigious newspapers within its first year of publication. The Unification Church exercises no form of editorial or operational control over this conservative, secular newspaper. Noticias del Mundo in New York is fast becoming the largest Spanish language daily newspaper in circulation. Reverend Moon has also inspired The New York Tribune, another daily newspaper in New York, and The Harlem Weekly, as well as a Korean-language weekly. He has founded newspapers in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. All of these media activities inspired by Reverend Moon's vision are funded by tax-paying business enterprises developed by associates of the church.

I have described only a few of the numerous activities he has inspired or founded. Although any one of these projects would credit its founder with being an extraordinary person, Reverend Moon has literally generated the ideas for almost one hundred and fifty such projects. Surely, he is a formidable figure in this age, so much so that it is perhaps understandable why he has generated so much controversy.

1. It was originally founded under the name the World Relief Friendship Foundation.

2. Kern Mylar, "Serving the Needy," Today's World, July 1983, p. 27.

3. Kehaulani Haydon, "IRFF/ECOPROF hailed as Zaire's 'salvation,' " Unification News, December 1983, p. 9.

4. Ronald Johnson, "Harlem takes to farming," Unification News, December 1983, p. 17.

5. Frederick Sontag and M. Darrol Bryant, et al., God: The Contemporary Discussion (New York: Rose of Sharon Press, 1982), p. v.

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