The Words of the Reid Family
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The Words of the Reid Family |
I bring you greetings from Gideon's Missionary Baptist Fellowship, which was born on July 11, 1985, out of a religious freedom struggle in Norfolk, Virginia. It was in Norfolk that the state held the New Calvary Church hostage and conducted an illegal, ungodly, and unconstitutional election in the congregation to have me removed from the pastorate I had served for 19 years. The state refused to permit anyone who had joined the church in the last two years to vote in that meeting. Except for that, they permitted anyone to vote who had ever joined the church since 1934, anyone who said he or she was a dissident, and the consequence was that 1 left the church building. But the church left with me.
Just yesterday, the judge signed an order against me and four of my deacons to pay the overseer $6,000 and the dissidents' lawyers $2,400 plus. I haven't lost a night of sleep over the near half million dollars they have already charged against me, and I'll be dogged if I'm going to lose a night of sleep over $8,000.
Certainly I had heard of Rev. Moon prior to our struggle of three hard and desperate years in the city of Norfolk. Our church had been friendly to Unification missionaries in the area for at least seven years. They worshiped with us, they worked with us, they had fellowship with us. But it wasn't until Rev. Moon's case reached media attention, mostly negative, across the nation and in many parts of the world that I got to know him; and to know perhaps one of the most misunderstood religious leaders since Jesus of Nazareth.
It was fairly easy for me to get to know Rev. Moon. We have many things in common. We are both committed to the restoration of God's order in this world by making humankind conscious of God's original purpose. We are both on the outside of the mainstream of religious thought and theological practice in America. We are both minorities whose commitment to the will of God supersedes our cultural calling. We are both commit- ted to the preacher's task of sharing the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world, and we feel the compelling urge to bring together the divine oneness of faith by implementing the social imperatives of the gospel. Finally, we have both been jailed and fined because we have followed the will of God and have been obedient to the spirit and the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I feel honored to be with Rev. and Mrs. Moon tonight and to welcome him back from an unfortunate legalized leave of absence from his family and from the freedom that is normally assumed by other Americans and those who visit our shores with a vision for a better world under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it was the will of God that Rev. Moon was imprisoned here in the "land of the free and the home of the brave!' Chances are had he not been in prison we would not be here tonight, concerned about the vanishing vanguard of religious freedom in America. The fact is that religious liberty is eroding in this last bastion of freedom in the world, and too many churches are at ease in Zion, not knowing, not understanding; and the government and the courts are taking over.
My understanding of scripture tells me that ministers are not only called of God, but they are also sent by God to declare the good news of His saving grace and redemptive love. It is also my understanding as I read the gospel that this world is not only out of harmony with the will and the purpose of God, it is antagonistic to it. There are three major forces that are threatening our survival on the planet earth which appear innocent to too many of us in the church. They are Godless communism, christless capitalism, and secular humanism. Rev. Moon's Task Is Our Task
Rev. Moon has chosen to wage war against each of these evils through a force which he calls simply "Godism:' Rev. Moon has had the courage to say what few Christian ministers in the West would dare say. And that is that God is giving him the task of completing the works of Jesus. Now to some of us that is threatening. It was threatening to me when I first heard it, because I thought I was to do that. As I read my Bible and analyze the hermeneutical vision of the ecclesiastical community which is the body of Jesus Christ, I realize it is not only the task of Rev. Moon but the task of all Christians, ministers included, to complete the work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to his disciples on the mount one day, "You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth:' As we look at the crime, the hunger, the breakup of families, the joblessness, the racial discord -- intact and unnoticed, the religious indifference, the religious intolerance, the judicial injustice, the political back-scratching--where greed overpowers need, I'm afraid that we have not only hidden our light, but we have lost our taste.
I was privileged to travel to Korea and Japan in July to study Rev. Moon and Korea in the providence of God. It was one of the most amazing trips I have ever taken outside of the continental United States. If you ever have an opportunity to go I recommend it. And you don't have to worry about losing your identity. I washed my face with yellow towels in Korea for seven days, I soaped with itty bitty bars of yellow soap, I ate and worshiped and relaxed with yellow folk, and I came back just as black and Baptist as I was before I left. I am impressed by the growth of Rev. Moon and the Unification Church, which in the last 31 years has grown from a mud but to a movement of missionaries in 130 countries of the world, all working on man's restoration as a divine principle of life's commitment.
While fulfilling his mission on earth, Rev. Moon's ministry is not only concerned with educating the mind, exploring revelations, feeding the hungry, providing thousands of jobs, and unifying the Christian family under Godism, but his mission to build an international highway is actually coming off the drawing board. Our world will soon become a major neighborhood on planet earth. Isaiah may have seen not only the coming of Jesus, but the works of Rev. Moon, because he said, "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way."
When God in His infinite wisdom created cosmic reality out of chaotic confusion, He set forth in the universe a constellation of sun, moon, and stars. God so arranged it that the sun gave light to the moon and the sun and moon gave light to the stars. God has done it again. It is His doing. And it is marvelous in our sight. He has set before us, believers and non- believers, Rev. Moon, who tells us that he has received a revelation from the son and he is acting on it. Maybe if we listen to him we might glean from him a new reflection from the son, s-o-n, that we might move from philosophical is-ness to theological ought-ness, so that God might be praised as we join Him in the starlight in the galaxy of glory.
Let us receive Rev. Moon as he comes to us tonight! God bless you.
