CHAPTER FOUR

 TRINITIES

Father says we cannot grow alone. He has always lived with others in a community. He Rev. & Mrs. Moon with followerssaid, "You cannot go the way of faith alone. You need a like-minded friend in faith. More than three people should be one. That's why a trinity is needed." He explains that God teaches us through others, "God cannot teach human beings directly when they make mistakes. He cannot teach us vertically. But if three people become one, when one makes a mistake and the other two don't, he can instruct the mistaken one about what he did wrong."

Satan isolates people, like he did Eve, and then overpowers them. The 19th century often lived as extended families and in small communities. When the pioneers went west they went as a group of wagon trains. The twentieth century is isolated nuclear families that are as vulnerable as a single wagon crossing hostile Indian territory. It was better a hundred years ago when there were extended families so men could talk over decisions with fathers, brothers, cousins, etc. Many women hate patriarchy today because their husband is alone and makes a lot of mistakes. They don't read any instruction manuals for marriage. The culture overwhelms them with temptations of women who are everywhere, especially at work. He is tempted by Satan's lie of instant gratification with greasy, artery blocking fast food and car dealer's ads for loans and so-called conservative bankers who flood the mails with credit cards. Everything is so impersonal. Investments are mutual funds that are so impersonal they don't mean anything. The warm neighborhood spirit of small town barn-raisings and quilting bees is gone. Thousands of people came to the UC in the 70s and left because they felt alone. The UC needs to create an atmosphere of friendship.

Sun Myung Moon and Mrs. MoonBecause men lead, Father says men especially must be united: "Especially the three men should be united, spiritually and physically." They must be so close and pure that each one would take care of the other family if one should die: "When one husband dies, the trinity should be responsible for the household of his family. From now on, we are to manage three households together; we are not to live alone. ... Consider Father's words as life itself. Be absolutely obedient. ... The trinity should feel the same even if they exchange their babies. If you feel troubled about this, you will fail. Don't worry if a husband of one family in the trinity dies. In that case, the remaining two families should be responsible." This is Completed Testament Age living. This is Father's new paradigm for the family. We're not eliminating patriarchy, but making it work perfectly. Satan cannot dominate a man and make him evil or incompetent in this ultimate insurance plan. Now men rely on distant, impersonal life insurance companies to protect their families, but God's way is personal, intimate and safe.

Children need other men nearby to see different aspects of God's masculinity and to see femininity in other women. If someone gets sick then there are others to help. In the Sun Myung MoonChristian men's organization, Promise Keepers, a man wrote these similar thoughts in their magazine: "Too many men today are trying to go it alone in terms of their marriage and family life, their personal life, their work and their spiritual commitments. They are trying to scale mountains of Himalayan proportions solely on the strength of rugged independence. It won't work." He gives an analogy of a group of men scaling a mountain: "If a guy is linked to another guy above him, and that man in turn is linked to other men farther up the cliff, then together they have safety, stability and strength. If a man slips and begins to fall, 15 or 20 climbers absorb the impact and pull him back from disaster. But imagine a man climbing alone, with no support system. He may achieve great heights. But one wrong move, and he can fall thousands of feet to his death, without so much as anyone hearing his cry. That's why Scripture says, 'Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up' (Eccl.4:9-10)." There is strength in numbers.

The following is from a seminar I attended on leadership in effective organizations:

Lessons from Geese

Geese 1. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for others behind it. There is 71% more flying range in a v-formation than flying alone.

 LESSON: People who share a common direction and sense of common purpose can get there quicker.

 2. Whenever a goose flies out of formation it quickly feels the drag and tries to get back into position.

LESSON: It's harder to do something alone than together.

 

3. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates into the formation and another goose flies atGeese the head.

LESSON: Shared leadership and interdependence gives us each a chance to lead as well as opportunities to rest.

 

4. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

GeeseLESSON: We need to make sure our honking is encouraging and not discouraging.

 

5. When a goose gets sick or wounded and falls, two geese fall out and stay with it until it revives or dies. Then they catch up or join another flock.

LESSON: Stand by your colleagues in difficult times as well as in good.

Father says women must overcome their selfish desire to live away from others: "WomenGeese are capricious, aren't they? ... Women want to live only with their spouses, right? Unless we destroy this standard, world unity is impossible. You have to understand this point. ... The three wives of a trinity should be one, so Father disciplines you right now to become one." Father goes on to say that 12 families should live together, then 1,200. We are to "live in the same village." There's a saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." Father says there must not be any fighting. If there is then "a tribal conference should be held to punish the ones who fight."

Community by John GodwinThe subtitle of this book is In God's ideal world families will live in democratic, capitalist, tight-knit, loving, cohousing villages centered on traditional family values. I hope I've got you excited about cohousing communities. Now I'm hoping I will excite you about what I feel are the values people will live by in the future utopian communities and nations.

NO FORCE

I want to make it crystal clear that I am not advocating the use of force to coerce people to act as I think they should. The means to the end of building an Ideal World must be god-centered. God is not into initiating violence. Satan is into physical coercion. Steve Hassan started his crusade against Rev. Moon's movement by using violence in deprogramming. My wife was the first member to go through their brutal kidnapping and incarceration. Ted Patrick tied her to a chair and slapped her across the face when her mother was out of the room. Her mother pulled her hair and screamed at her to change her religious beliefs. Rev. Moon has never kidnapped anyone or locked anyone in a room with boarded windows until they agreed with him.

He gave a speech on his 80th birthday in Washington D.C. in front of many distinguished quests such as Sir Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister of England. He said he has given over 10,000 speeches in the last 50 years. He has never advocated the use of violence. In the case of the division between North and South Korea he said, "Where should we begin the process of unification? Where should we start in order to achieve North-South unification? What is the first step? Do we begin by using our fists or physical force? If we subjugate the other side with force, then eventually they will develop a force stronger than ours and the conflict will begin all over again. We cannot achieve unification by this method. The way to unification will open when each of us has the heart to say, "Even though I live in the South, I truly want to live in harmony with those people in the North. I truly want to become one with them."

He has repeatedly said that members must always use persuasion, not force. Yet, Steve Hassan keeps proclaiming hysterically that Unificationists are dangerous. The communities Rev. Moon wants to build are not like the militia communities that stockpile guns. UC communities are peaceful. Another fear Hassan tries to instill Americans with is that UC communities will end up like Jonestown with Moon commanding his brainwashed, unthinking, blind faith zealots to kill their parents and then kill themselves. This is ludicrous because the teachings of Rev. Moon are against murder and suicide. Hassan insists he was told by a members or members that he had to have the commitment to kill his parents if asked by Moon. There is so much fear and anxiety about the idea of Moon communities that we must be careful to not reenact Waco where anti new religious movement crusaders like Hassan help inspire the killing of innocent people, as were those in Waco. Jesus and countless others have been attacked by mobs led by the likes of Hassan. Moon communities must do PR to educate others that they are good and patriotic people.

BETRAYAL OF LIBERALISM

Roger Kimball -- Hilton Kramer -- Betrayal of LiberalismHilton Kramer and Roger Kimball in the introduction to The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control denounce the use of force saying their book "is at once a critique of the liberal legacy and an acknowledgment of the pervasive authority that liberal ideas and liberal programs continue to exert on the politics and culture of bourgeois democracies the world over, including our own. As the subtitle of this volume suggests, one major theme in the betrayal of liberalism is coercion: the tendency of liberalism to pervert freedom in its campaign to impose an ideology of virtue. Of course, this is not a new development. In The Social Contract (1762) -- a bible for one strand of liberal thought -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously opposed what he called 'the general will' to the particular wills of individual men and women. 'Whosoever refuses to obey the general will,' Rousseau wrote in one of his most chilling passages, 'shall be compelled to it by the whole body: this in fact only forces him to be free.' Establishing the reign of virtue that Rousseau envisioned was not for the faint-hearted. 'Those who dare to undertake the institution of a Rousseaupeople must feel themselves capable, as it were, of changing human nature, of transforming each individual ... into a part of a much greater whole; ... of altering the constitution of man for the purpose of strengthening it.' St. Just and Robespierre were among the first to act on Rousseau's grandiose plan. They were not the last. How often in the twentieth century have social and moral architects seized upon Rousseau's words as a license for illiberalism or worse!"

They blast the neo-Marxist radical, Herbert Marcuse, calling him a "countercultural guru." He is an intellectual that few would know, but they teach that intellectuals like him have a powerful influence over the thoughts of the masses of people: "it would be a mistake to think that such fantasies of control are confined to academic radicals who, whatever their status as cultural icons, are without real political influence." I would like to interject here that it would be a mistake to see that the diabolical writings of feminists in the UC such as Marilyn Morris and Cheryl Wetzstein are without influence.

Herbert Marcuse Herbert Marcuse

INTELLECTUALS LIKE MICHAEL LERNER

Michael Lerner  -- Politics of Meaning"The liberal betrayal of liberalism is also evident throughout the policies and attitudes that constitute political correctness." "Consider, to take just one example, the so-called 'politics of meaning.' Coined by the psychologist and left-wing activist Michael Lerner, the phrase was catapulted into the limelight by Hillary Rodham Clinton in a speech delivered at the University of Texas in 1993. 'We need,' Mrs. Clinton declared, 'a new politics of meaning. ... We need a new definition of civil society." The translation of this nebulousness is that Lerner and Hillary want a "caring" government that intrudes on every aspect of life. They go into detail giving some of the intrusive measures Lerner gives and that Hillary would agree with him. Lerner, like many intellectuals, have great power. The Clintons, like many liberals, are very educated but very dumb people. They are very influenced by socialist intellectuals that very few know: "It would be nice to be able to dismiss Michael Lerner as one more academic totalitarian. What makes this impossible is the fact that he is taken seriously by people like Hillary Clinton: a woman who, althoughMichael Lerner unelected to any office, managed to create untold havoc in the U.S. health care system and who will doubtless be shopping around for other opportunities to intrude herself on the public even if she fails in her bid to win a New York Senate seat. 'Federal legislation should be passed ...'; 'the Department of Labor should mandate ...''; 'every community should be mandated ...'; 'Companies would be fined, up to confiscatory levels ...'; These are phrases dear to the hearts of the Michael Lerners and Hillary Clintons of the world. Such overbearing meddlesomeness is not exclusively an American failing, of course." And then they give an example from England."

CONTEMPT

Peggy Noonan Peggy Noonan in her book against Hillary Clinton states that she does not hate the first lady, she merely has contempt for her. I would say the same thing for the feminists in the UC. The sexual confusion of liberals leads to the confusion in every other area of life. Bill Gertz, a reporter for the Washington Times has a best-seller against Clinton showing how he has betrayed America. Gertz praises Rev. Moon for creating the Washington Times in his book. We have to love the sinner, but we have to have to fight against their diabolical words and deeds.

Peggy Noonan Bill Gertz -- Betrayal

Even though liberals love of the use of force has been shown to be impractical and evil, their ideas are still the most powerful. Also, even though the ideas the feminists have against patriarchy in the traditional family are proven to be impractical and evil, it is the prevailing ideology of the UC as seen by the many feminist statements in UC literature. There is a total lack of chivalry in the UC by men toward women. It is a unisex organization that would please any radical feminist. The epitome of the blurring of the sexes in the UC is the MFT. UC sisters are simply men and brothers could care less and even have no idea what the differences are between men and women. And this the core reason that no one joins the UC and many leave who do join. Subject and object whirl around so fast that the the masculine and feminine, in the politically correct interpretation of the four position foundation, become a new creature that is an androgynous comrade.

Hillary Clinton -- Hell to Pay"Notwithstanding the manifest failures of liberal practice, especially in the economic, cultural, and moral disasters of the welfare state, liberal ideology remains our dominant political ethos. It governs the politics and culture of the mainstream media, and it rules virtually without challenge in the mass-entertainment industry. In arts institutions, in the churches, in the philanthropic foundations, and in a great many agencies of government, this liberal ethos is dominant. So much so, alas, that many more of its fundamental tenets are now silently taken for granted even among its conservative critics than is usually acknowledged, especially among supposedly conservative candidates for public office."

And sadly, many Unificationists, who will say they are conservative, embrace the socialism of FDR's New Deal. One Korean Leader has written glowingly of how there will be a centralized social security agency in the future ideal world. No one challenges him and if they did, guess what would happen? I'll tell you. He would probably not be allowed to have his article printed, and if he did, most would disagree with him. I speak with personal knowledge of what it is like to try to express traditional family values in the UC. It is not a pretty picture.

DISCONNECTION

Kramer and Kimball find it "remarkable" that liberal coercion is so powerful "even as its governing ideas and assumptions prove less and less workable as social and economic policy and more and more inimical to the liberties and opportunities in the name of which they are advanced." They say there is a deep "disconnection between institutionalized policies and the bankruptcy of the principles that inform them" that has produced "decadence." There is a tremendous "disparity between" their "theory" and "the dismal record." So too, is there a disparity and disconnect between the garbage that feminists write in UC literature and their "dismal record" of no growth.

The authors say they are writing their book to expose the "illusion" that liberals have "virtue" and "that any criticism of liberalism is synonymous with unthinking reaction." So am I. I have thought through very carefully in study and in prayer why the UC is a lifeless organization. I hope these few thoughts on force and coercion will help change the view of some in the UC who want to force people to do good as some conservatives do. I hope I bring some reality to those who feel that socialism will voluntarily happen. And finally I hope I have expressed my view that I do not feel coercion is to be used in politics or in a church. I believe most members of the UC would agree with me if they looked at all the arguments. I pray I have given enough arguments for Unificationists to stop sliding over to the side of the Washington Post and to not slide down the slippery slope that many conservatives go down in their well meaning to regulate everything from drugs to highways.

SUPERIOR STANDARD

Rev. Moon said in his speech that his followers must win by showing the world a superior standard of behavior and ideology that will impress our enemies, especially the fierce communists: "We must have the philosophical strength to love Heaven even more than they love communism. We must become capable men and women of character who can bring about their natural surrender."

AMAZE PEOPLE

"In other words, we must become able to impress them with how we live. We must be able to amaze those people armed with communist ideology in terms of our outlook on life and our standard of character." My goal in this book and all my books is to show the lifestyle that will "amaze" even Steve Hassan. Talking about amazement -- one of the most amazing things that anyone has ever done in human history is to see Rev. Moon loving his enemies. They can beat him to near death as the Japanese did to him and to many in his country for 40 long years of brutal domination. Moon spoke about how he loved them anyway saying, "Everyone here needs to bear this in mind. I was involved in the anti-Japanese resistance movement under the Japanese imperial rule, and from that perspective the Japanese people were my enemy. This was true for the Korean people as a whole and for me individually. Yet, after Japan's defeat in World War II, I gave love to Japan.

"After the war, I could have reported the police who had taken me into custody for my activities in the underground independence movement and tortured me severely. Had I done this, they would all have been executed. When I came across a Japanese policeman who was running for his life, however, I packed some things for him and helped him escape to safety under the cover of darkness."

Rev. Moon talked to my wife in 1973 after she escaped her captors. He asked her how her parents were. She said she didn't know and showed in her response that she didn't really care that much. He said to her, "You must love your parents." And he means it. Hassan accuses Moon of deceit. What does Hassan do? To make people fear Moon he constantly makes a point that Moon went to jail in America for tax evasion. He deceives people by not saying it was an injustice as proven in the book Inquisition and by simply using common sense. Moon mentioned this injustice in his speech saying how he built the Washington Times in prison.

Ignorance breeds fear and we must teach America and the world the peaceful and rational teachings of Rev. Moon so that we can live in safety in our communities. Hassan says he has returned to being a Jew, but he and his friends are just like those many scared and angry people who whipped up crowds to attack in what are called pogroms against Jewish communities for over a thousand years. America is supposed to be a place of freedom. If anyone denies another freedom then the courts will decide. Hassan has not taken the UC to court and won any case for his accusations. Still, the majority of Americans fear Rev. Moon and his followers. Polls show that majority even think they are so brainwashed and mentally gone that forced kidnappings should be legal. All of this may give one pause before they think they want to expose themselves as members by living in a community that all can see. But we should take that risk and pray that our high standard of living will "amaze" people and they will not only stop fearing us, but even start joining.

Libertarian

Freedom Works by John GodwinIn my books I interpret the Divine Principle to mean we should be economic libertarians and not legislate morality. God is for maximum freedom. The mainstream political parties of Democrats and Republicans have their favorite things they want the police to enforce. I am against big government. I explain in detail how the state should organize itself in my book Freedom Works. You can read the entire text at my website: www.DivinePrinciple.com. I show that God is for democracy and capitalism. Rev. Moon has given over a billion dollars to help conservatives teach the value of limited government and the evils of socialism.

One Religion

Divine Principle in Plain Language by John GodwinIn my title I say that all families will be centered on Traditional Values. I didn't say they will be centered on Sun Myung Moon. The goal of Rev. Moon is not to build a personality cult, it is to build a world centered on absolute truths that he calls by such names as headwing and Godism. He said in his speech, "I have carried out a movement of ideas, centered on Godism. ... Godism as the only philosophy capable not only of uniting with materialism and atheism, which are its diametrical opposites, but also as the only philosophy capable of liberating secular humanism." He says it is "a movement of ideas." These ideas are the truth that will unite mankind into one family. There will be one religion, one ideology in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. I have written a book of Rev. Moon's theology in my book Divine Principle in Plain Language.

Individual

ReachingYour Full Potential by John GodwinA core teaching of the Divine Principle is that God has given us three blessings -- to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion. I have a book for each blessing. In Reaching Your Full Potential I give some values that a person needs to unite his or her mind and body with such topics as purity, diet and the teachings of motivational speakers who teach discipline in setting goals and working towards them. There are many books about the values we should live by. The president of the Mormon Church has a book about basic virtues everyone should live by. Sun Myung Moon says we are to be nothing less than saints who give everything for God's crusade.

Gordon Hinkley -- Mormon book on virtues

Marriage

The second blessing is to have god-centered marriages and families. In my book The Cultural War Since 1848 I give the basic true family values everyone must live by to achieve families that will, as Rev. Moon says, "amaze" people. I've already mentioned my book Freedom Works. It is the blueprint for the third blessing.

The Cultural War Since 1848 by John Godwin

My other books elaborate on these topics. The book 1620: The Pilgrims and the New 1620 by John GodwinPilgrims tells the story of of how God worked with the Pilgrims and the lessons we can learn from them. Clear Goal for Utopia is the history of utopian communities that always failed because they were socialist. In contrast, Unificationist communities will pioneer the first successful religious communities that will sweep the earth because they will be based on democracy and private property. At his speech on his 80th birthday he once again spoke of God's dream of a "utopia of true love": "If a loving husband and wife unite as one, who will dare try to tear them apart and defile their relationship? A world made of the harmonious family, harmonious people, harmonious government, harmonious world, harmonious Heaven and Earth, harmonious true human love and God united as one Clear Goal for Utopia by John Godwin-- isn't this world the utopia of true love? In such a world, there will be no possibility of discord. Love will be the life element for all people, in the same way that plants receive life elements by absorbing the rays of the sun. Our fervent desire is to build a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven, where we can resonate with true love eternally. ... centering on God's ideal ... This is, without a doubt, the way that the utopia of true love that God has desired can be built on this Earth."

A leader in the UC (or Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) in Washington D.C. gave a sermon about community. He means well, but his vision is very small. It never occurs to members to live together because they only know the socialism of the hurtful communes they suffered in the UC in the 1960s and 1970s. With cohousing they can now sell what few church buildings they have and come together everyday instead of an hour on Sunday.

Henri Schauffler's vision

 Henri Schauffler said in his sermon titled "Seek First the Kingdom of Heaven" on March 26, 1999 at the "Washington DC Family Church" (http://www.unification.net/ucdc/ucdc20000326.html)

Matt 6:25-23 -- We all want to go to the Kingdom, don't we? But, what is Jesus saying here? He's saying that we cannot just receive the Kingdom, but we must seek the Kingdom. What does that mean in daily life?

I submit to you that we do not go to the Kingdom, or receive the Kingdom, but we must build the Kingdom, brick-by-brick.

Take a look at the Statement of Vision and Purpose; the Vision:

We are a community of faith working together to expand true love by living and teaching the ideal of True Parents." The keys here are "community" and "working together." As I said, we cannot build the Kingdom alone. We need to build it TOGETHER.

Well, I have a practical idea, a proposal for you; a way for all of us to begin branching out and building a few more True relationships that the few we have now. You're probably a little skeptical now about the small group idea, because:

* Rev. Lee and I are always talking about them! * We're just "leader types" and are probably just trying to force some new theoretical idea on you for some purpose of our own.

But, we've ALL had many experiences in small groups. Those of us who spent our younger years in full time missionary work simply called them "teams" or "trinities" or "centers." Same thing, though.

What is a small group, then?

A small group is an intentional gathering of between 3 to 12 people, gathered for common purposes, for a specified period of time, to facilitate growth and fellowship, or to accomplish certain tasks.

I believe that this idea is at it's zenith for our community. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit with Kook Jin Nim Moon, our True Parents fourth son. He has set up a foundation that gives grant for witnessing and development of our movement. He administers it with a committee of elder leaders, such as Dr. Anthony Guerra, Dr. Hendricks, Rev. Peter Kim and Neil Salonen.

I presented our idea of small groups. They went wild! Kook Jin Nim could not stop talking about how he sees building these groups as a solution to so many problems we face in our movement:

* Senior members * Blessed children * Witnessing to new members

So, his committee has given us a sizable grant to build a small group network here in DC! We're going to begin by taking 10 - 12 people from our community to a four day conference in Chicago to learn about how to build this kind of network. I'd like to invite anyone who's interested to apply for a scholarship to join us.

 

I applaud any attempt at people trying to get together to help each other, but Schauffler's vision is not the "zenith." Cohousing is the "zenith." Members in Washington D.C. need to go visit a cohousing community and get the information they need to build one there for their 300 members. I have given some resources in this book on community. Our communities should show mankind for the first time that it is possible for people to live in tight-knit religious communities that do not violate any of the common sense laws of universe God has made us to live by.

I hope you will read my other books that give more details on our values in The Unification Church: An Apology, 1920: The Birth of the Messiah, and Why Rome Fell.

John Godwin John Godwin John Godwin