The Words of the Sandon Family
|
|
The Words of the Sandon Family |
Theology Today, a quarterly ecumenical journal of Christian theology, publishes articles on a wide range of classical and contemporary issues in Christian theology by many of the finest theologians working today. Theology Today is published by Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ.
THE Unification Theological Seminary is located in the buildings and on the grounds of what used to be St. Joseph's Normal Institute, an impressive 256 acre estate on the bluffs overlooking the Hudson River in Barrytown, New York, 90 miles north of New York City. St. Joseph's, which once included both a boarding school and a novitiate, was run by the Christian Brothers order and was typical of many such Roman Catholic schools which were forced to close in the 1960's. The Unification Church purchased the estate and now administers a growing seminary where approximately 110 Moonies engage in a two-year curriculum which includes biblical studies, church history, philosophy, theology, religious education, and which leads to a Master of Religious Education degree. The reclamation and restoration of the Barrytown estate is an appropriate symbol of what the Unification Movement is about: no less than the rebuilding of what in its view is a rapidly deteriorating world.
I lived in Barrytown for five days as a "visiting theologian." During that time I immersed myself in Unification thought and community life. The Moonie program is demanding. These young adults rise early and work very late. It was for me a taxing but rewarding round of conversations, group discussions, and opportunities to observe Unification study and piety. Two disclaimers are necessary, one personal and one professional: (1) Personally I remain a relatively mainline churchman of identifiably Reformed Christian persuasion, who functions as an active Presbyterian ruling elder (PCUS); (2) Professionally I chose not to accept either travel expenses or an honorarium from the Barrytown Seminary. My room and board were paid for "in kind" by my services as a lecturer, tutor, and term-paper advisor. I have never submitted any kind of voucher to, or received a check from, the Unification Church. I neither succumbed to ideological appeals nor to my own venal tendencies. In a word I was neither brainwashed nor bought off. In my judgment, the opinion of several of my colleagues and friends to the contrary notwithstanding, I used the Unification Church as much as I was used by it.
If indeed my visit to Barrytown added what one colleague calls legitimacy to the Moonist cause (my presence was duly reported in Unification news organs), I believe it also provided some authority for the following observations which are not intended to be an apology for the Unification position but, rather, are academically descriptive and theologically reflective. I went to Barrytown as an Americanist scholar and teacher who has an interest in, and some responsibility for, interpreting the ferment in contemporary American religion. I went also as a teacher and writer who, when appropriate, speaks as a Christian from a confessional commitment.
As part of my inquiry into the faith and order of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the official name of the Unification Church) I stopped by the offices of the National Council of Churches and the American Jewish Committee. I also visited Unification Church enterprises in New York City.
The legitimization of the Unification Church is proceeding at a rapid pace (with or without my vote). Abingdon Press published a book by philosophy professor Frederick Sontag which apparently is doing well;1 Harvey Cox, America's bellwether theologian, has written an earnest and engaging article in Christianity and Crisis;2 and Moon's annual International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, Nov. 24-27, 1977, was praised by a number of participants and observers.3 Finally, the American Academy of Religion held a consultation on the Unification Church at its annual meeting in San Francisco, Dec. 28-31, 1977.
This essay centers on the Unification Church's experience of religious community, which I understand to be the central theme of Moonist theology -- a theme expressed in the Unification emphasis on the family: the God-oriented family as the fundamental locus of salvation.
Salvation for the Moonist does not consist in the receiving of forgiveness, but rather in becoming a member of the "True Family." To demonstrate this judgment it is necessary to lay out in a cursory way the essential structure of Unification thought.
Unification theology is eclectic, syncretistic, and esoteric. The theology is based on the receiving of "new, ultimate, and final truth" by the God-chosen messenger, Sun Myung Moon. The movement's official doctrinal statement, and a part of the revelation, is the Divine Principle.
Both an oral tradition and a written one and published in several versions, Divine Principle is the Completed Testament. The Rev. Moon claims to have come not to destroy or abrogate the Old and New Testaments, but to fulfill them-to "complete" them. To his Moonist followers, the Rev. Moon is primarily "true father," probably the Messiah, and only secondarily a theologian. In an effort to systematize Moon's teachings, several members of the Unification Church in Korea have put together a developing theological system in Divine Principle which is impressive in its imaginativeness, coherence, and consistency, if not in its Christian orthodoxy. As the most complete expression of Moonist teachings to date, Divine Principle is the basic text of the Unification Church.4 The two major divisions of the system are the doctrines of Creation and Restoration. There are many subsets to these major divisions, but Creation and Restoration are the foci for the Moonist theological system.
Moon's theology is based on a relational ontology which understands God's nature to have "dual essentialities" -- containing both subject and object -- and every creation is a "substantial object" of the invisible deity of God, the Creator. God's creation must reflect God's dual essentialities. The purpose of the creation of the universe was God's joy in the reflection of his own nature: "God wanted to feel happiness whenever be looked at his creation" (D.P., 41).
The purpose of the creation of man, after the image of God's own nature, was that man should enjoy his position as an object of God and thus increase God's happiness. God therefore gave to Adam and Eve three great blessings: to be fruitful, to multiply and fill the earth, and to subdue it and have dominion. These three great blessings should have been fulfilled on the basis and with the completion of the four position foundation: "the four position foundation is manifested as God, husband and wife, and their offspring" (D.P., 32). Man was created as both spiritual and physical being, each dimension having its own structure and function and each in reciprocal relationship with the other:"... unless a man leads a good life, the living spirit element cannot provide anything for the betterment of physical man… Likewise, our spirit man can be perfected only through our physical life on earth" (D.P., 62). (Moonist writing is excessively masculinist when referring to God, or to humans. Some young people in the movement are aware of this, but they have not as yet been able to do anything about it.)
The primal act which was the occasion for the fall of man was fornication: an improper act of love. Lucifer seduced Eve and she responded by committing illicit sexual intercourse and then, thinking that she might reverse the process which had been set in motion, Eve seduced Adam and he in turn responded by having sexual relations prematurely. The point is that Adam and Eve were in a growth period during which they were to relate as brother and sister. The original sin, then, was unprincipled love. According to Divine Principle the Fall is both spiritual and physical in its nature.
Since God created man in spirit and flesh, the fall also took place in spirit and flesh. The fall through the blood relationship between the angel and Eve was the spiritual fall, while that through the blood relationship between Eve and Adam was the physical fall (D.P., 77).
The result of the Fall was that the world of creation was now based on the four position foundation, centered on Satan (Lucifer) rather than on God. Formally, Moon's understanding of original sin is that of unprincipled love; materially it is "unrighteous intercourse."
According to Moon, God has been working to restore creation ever since the original fall. Human history is the history of attempted restoration. This history is divided into three dispensations: the Old Testament Age; the New Testament Age; and the age of the Second Advent -- the Completed Testament. According to Divine Principle the entire period of human history is 6,000 years: 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham, 2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus, and 2,000 years from Jesus to the Second Advent.5 The end of World War I marks the beginning of the Age of the Completed Testament.
The New Testament Age was not the age of restoration because of the cross. To fulfill God's mandate, Jesus, with the divine blessing, should have been united with a woman who, in the position of Eve, reared children; thus he would have re-established a God-centered four position foundation. All men could have been restored to the original perfection by being grafted both spiritually and physically into Jesus. The death of Jesus on the cross, due to the disloyalty of his followers, meant that he could accomplish only the spiritual restoration of creation. He failed to accomplish the physical restoration. This is why the Moonist reveres Jesus, yet cannot believe in the full sufficiency of his work. Jesus is a tragic figure, betrayed and lost; and God's hopes are crushed, a state of affairs which causes God to suffer.
To meet the conditions for full restoration there must be a Second Coming of the Messiah -- the Third Adam. In the age of the Second Advent the Kingdom of God on Earth will be established.
Divine Principle describes the conditions to be met if the Second Advent is to occur. The first condition is the arrival of the Lord of the New Age. This was preceded by the Satanic counteraction of Wilhelm I who initiated World War I. The second condition was the start of the Lord of the Second Advent's mission which was Satanically counteracted by Hitler with the initiation of World War II. The third condition was met by an event which initiated the Cosmic restoration in 1960, again preceded by the counteraction of the Communist regime in the Soviet Union. These formal conditions for the time of the Second Advent were fulfilled as follows: (1) the birth of Sun Myung Moon on Jan. 6, 1920; (2) the vision of Jesus that Moon experienced Easter Sunday, 1936, at which time Jesus revealed that Moon was to accomplish the complete restoration of the world; (3) the marriage of Moon to Hak-Ja Han, April 11, 1960, which began her twenty-one year course of preparation to become "True Mother" to "True Father," the new Eve to the Third Adam.
The climax of the revelation contained in Divine Principle is the announcement that "the nation of the East where Christ will come again would be none other than Korea" (D.P., 520). As Moon is the Third Adam, Korea is the third Israel. In order to demonstrate that Korea is the birthplace of the Second Messiah, Divine Principle cites the following considerations: (1) the "fact" that Korea has suffered forty years of Japanese colonial domination; (2) the "fact" that Korea is a nation which is both God's front line (South Korea) and Satan's (that is, North Korean communism's) front line for the final confrontation; (3) the "fact" that Korea is a nation which always has valued "loyalty, filial piety, and virtue" qualifies it as a nation which is close to God's heart; (4) the persistent Korean folk belief in the prophecy that the "King of righteousness" would appear in Korea (D.P., 520-528).
Moonist theology is eclectic in that it is composed of motifs selected from many sources. One can easily discern elements from primitive Korean Shamanism, Confucianism, Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Roman Catholic Christianity, and Presbyterian Calvinism. Another way of saying this is to say that Moon's theology is typically Korean. Korean culture reflects the fact that, in its documented history of more than two thousand years, it has experienced a series of invasions and depredations by stronger nations. Korean culture is eclectic. Moonist theology also is syncretistic in that it attempts to reconcile or unify these apparently different motifs into a coherent system. The Korean people have always experienced a desperate need for religious, cultural, and political unification. Koreans have demonstrated a continuing ability to assimilate what is alien into their own sense of reality and tradition. It is instructive to note that Sun Myung Moon's movement is not the first religious movement which has sought the unification of Korean culture. Ch'odogyo, the "Religion of the Heavenly Way," played a significant role in the development of Korean nationalism and in Korea's struggle for independence. It began in 1860 as a religious movement, but Ch'odogyo early acquired a strong political emphasis. The movement was founded by Ch'oe Che-u, who, as is the case with the Reverend Moon, received a supernatural revelation. Ch'odogyo bore a resemblance to Christianity, but it was essentially a syncretistic religion which proclaimed a new age to be established through human effort.6
Moonist theology also is esoteric, not only in that it is difficult to understand, but also in that there are levels of its teaching expressions which are thought to be understood only by the especially initiated. Certain teachings are to be reserved for those who are established in the faith. Several members of the Barrytown seminary community were a little uneasy to discover that I had been reading the lectures of Mr. Ken Sudo, a Japanese Moonist who instructs members in such matters as proselytizing, witnessing, and fund raising. There was some question as to the appropriateness of my having access to teachings meant for members of the inner family circle.
Unification theology-eclectic, syncretistic, and esoteric -- also is clearly heretical from the standpoint of classical Christian theology. The Commission on Faith and Order of the National Council of Churches was both technically correct and acting in a spirit appropriate to its responsibilities when, after an analysis of Divine Principle, it concluded that the Unification Church is not a Christian church.7 Apparently the National Council of Churches in Korea also has stated unequivocally that the Unification Church is not Christian, as has the National Association of Evangelicals in Korea. The central and most serious Unification divergence from classic Christian doctrine is its interpretation of the cross as failure and the crucifixion as tragedy. Of course the cross is always a scandal and a stumbling block to those who interpret the Messianic office with the traditional Hebraic expectation. The Christian understanding is that the expected Messianic role was rejected by God and that the Lord has reigned from a cross.
It should be noted that the Commission's statement was not punitive in spirit and that it expressed concern that the judgment not be the basis for arbitrary action: "The Commission on Faith and Order is wholeheartedly committed to the inalienable rights of civil and religious liberties enjoyed in this country by all religious groups, whether they are the critics or the criticized."8
Heresy is not a serious vice in a culture in which orthodoxy is not an esteemed virtue. Those who believe little hardly can take pride in not believing erroneously. Besides, we've learned to live with Joseph Smith's "revelation" and Mary Baker Eddy's "discovery" and even to appreciate some of the truths which these aberrational theologies propound. Many a conservative mainline Christian expresses admiration for certain aspects of Mormon culture, and Christian Scientists are indirectly honored by a variety of "positive thinking" ministries which are carried on by mainline churches. Like the Latter Day Saint and the Christian Science faiths, Unification faith is not just a heresy and it is not just any heresy: it is a Christian heresy. In the first place Unification thought and community must be understood in large measure as a synthesis resulting from almost two hundred years of Christian missionary teaching as it has interacted with indigenous Korean culture. In the second place the Unification perspective in relation to Christianity is similar to the Christian claim in relation to Judaism. The Unification faith claims to be the fulfillment of Christian hope. The Unification movement is a Christian mutation and therefore its relationship to Christianity, and thereby to Talmudic Judaism, is a peculiar relationship. Because of this peculiar relationship it is appropriate and probably in the mainline Christian churches' best interests to engage openly in dialogue with Unification apologists.
Charges also have been leveled that Unification thought is anti-Semitic. One has to recognize that, if the classical Hebraic office of Messiah is taken with radical seriousness, and if one believes that the Messianic work is dependent on the loyalty of the Messiah's followers, then the conclusion must be that the Jews did fail Jesus. Thus the American Jewish Committee is correct in labeling the treatment of Israel in Divine Principle as a type of anti-Semitism.9 I would add that such doctrinal anti-Semitism can also be found in The Divine Principle Study Guide. But along the same line of reasoning, Moonists believe Christians also are now failing the Rev. Moon and that his success is dependent on the loyalty of the Moonists. Indeed, one of the reasons why Moonists are reluctant to identify Moon as the Messiah is because that question finally will be answered only by the loyalty and tenacity of those who are working for the Messianic Kingdom of God on Earth. Moonists teach that the achievement of the Kingdom may be 95 percent dependent upon God's effort and 5 percent upon human effort, but that the human effort is crucial and that it demands 100 percent human energy and devotion from each follower. The Unification Church argues that this apparent anti-Semitism is the result of Korean ignorance of Jewish sensitivities and that much of it can be clarified through dialogue and the revision of some unfortunate expressions in Divine Principle.10
More troubling is the unmistakable anti-Semitism I heard expressed by a highly placed and veteran Korean Moonist who interpreted the failure of the New York Board of Regents to grant the Barrytown seminary a charter as being the result of the international communist and Jewish conspiracy. The communists and Jews characteristically are linked, he explained. I have heard Robert Shelton, veteran American Klansman, allude to the same conspiracy.
I suspect that the American Jewish community's sensitivity to the Unification Church is based not so much on doctrinal anti-Semitism as on the understandable nervous reaction Jewish folk inevitably have to any high intensity11 religious movement which is serious about proselytism.
We have a de facto "live and let live" policy in the American religious establishment and the Moonists violate that arrangement.
Whether or not the Unification Church is going to continue to grow at the rate that it has since 1971 is of more crucial concern to the Moonists, who eagerly anticipate each approaching date in the movement's eschatological timetable, than it is for most of us. My own guess is that the Unification Church in America has already peaked in its brief center stage visibility as a subject of humor, fascination, wonder, and fear. Religious movements in the 70's have tended to be media events. I would predict that many of the students I met at Barrytown are going to experience the severe cognitive dissonance that millenarian sectarians have known before.12 Dissonance is occasioned when a "disconfirmation stage" occurs in a millenarian movement.
Perhaps young Moonists will find, as did many of the nineteenth century Millerites, that it is easier to tolerate the dissonance than it is to abandon their beliefs and admit to having been wrong. Moon has warned that the effort to restore the world could fail in the short run and that a revised schedule for restoration would then need to be activated. I predict that there will be a long-term membership decline, but probably no wide-scale defection. In a word, I suspect that the Korean Moon is waning.
In whatever phase of its life the Moonist movement now is, it raises crucial questions for those of us who are confessing Christians. Perhaps the Moonies are sending us a message about the nature of conversion and commitment among young adults, about the need for an adequate eschatological perspective; about the need for thoughtful morality and spirituality; and about the hunger in America for community-"True Family."
Thousands of young American adults (probably 3,000 - 5,000) have joined the Unification Church.
Many of these members are attractive, well-educated graduates from some of our finest colleges and universities. Their membership in the movement should remind us that for the young adult (18 - 25 years of age) conversion has a highly ideological and vocational dimension. Moonies have found both a comprehensive belief system and an answer to the question of what they should do with their lives. Most of the members with whom I talked testified to their never having found meaningful answers within their inherited religious traditions.
Moonist eschatology is interesting in that, while insisting that the present order is rotten to the core, it nonetheless presents a postmillennialist solution rather than a thoroughgoing apocalyptic one. To argue that the Moonist solution is inane, preposterous, or unrealistic is hardly a substitute for our not having any specific vision for the future. Having ourselves nothing to sell we shouldn't take too much umbrage when some of our children buy into the Moonist program. In their own way the Moon people are true revolutionaries who are seeking to build a new heaven and a new earth among us. They are certain they have great work to do. They have rejected privatism for active participation in the changing of social systems. This concern for the building of the Kingdom of God on earth, so reminiscent of the social gospel, is a provocative emphasis at a time when churches in America have stepped back from commitment to social ministry.
Moonists also constitute something of a counter culture in an age of permissiveness. When I remarked to one Moonie how impressed I was with the achievement of chaste communal life at Barrytown, he replied, "In our culture morality is the experiment, permissiveness the norm."
These young adults have rejected a policy of permissiveness for a rigorous morality which certainly is an indictment of our sex exploitive culture. They also have aspired to an attractive spirituality characterized by a robust prayer life and a liturgical orderliness which seldom is found in conventional American religious life.
Finally, Moon people have "joined the family" because there they have found a radically communitarian lifestyle which is more fulfilling than anything they have experienced in mainline American culture. I would argue that the essential power of the movement's cohesiveness is not to be found in the logic of Divine Principle, but rather in the experience of warm, chaste, unselfish, morally principled, and ordered fraternity. In a day when both church and secular society are questioning the viability of the traditional family structure and have almost given up on the possibility of community, the Moonies have "met the family" and are willing to substitute for the pursuit of individual material achievement roles which are communally designated.
These emphases are neither heretical nor esoteric; nor are they incompatible with the inherited Christian theological framework. Indeed, to the extent these emphases are missing in our own witness, we in the mainline churches are judged by the Unification heresy, and the Moonies just might be harbingers of a new age in which the unification of physical and spiritual reality in a lifestyle of principled love is the only alternative to an increasingly fragmented culture and to broken communities. The notion of the final restoration of all things in God, as it was articulated by Gregory of Nyssa, needs no revision by a Korean shaman, but perhaps Sun Myung Moon has served to remind us that we need to affirm it as the ethical corollary to any doctrine of divine sovereignty.
1 Frederick Sontag, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1977). Abingdon produced 50,000 copies the first printing, and apparently has decided to print another 50,000.
2 Harvey Cox, "The Real Threat of the Moonies," Christianity and Crisis, Vol. 37, November 14, 1977, pp. 258- 263.
3 "Gathering Sponsored by Moon Wins Praise," The New York Times, Monday, Nov. 28, 1977, p. 19. According to the article, scientists at the Conference, including four Nobel Laureates, agreed that the church exerted no influence on the panels.
4 The Divine Principle (New York: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity), 1973. The fifth edition is 536 pages in length and evidences fuller development than an earlier English edition. Clothbound, $10.00; paperback, $5.00.
5 At times in Moonist apologetic discussion these dispensations, especially the first two Ages -- from Adam to Jesus -- are interpreted in non-literal terms.
6 See Benjamin B. Weems, Reform, Rebellion, and the Heavenly Way (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1964).
7 A Critique of the Theology of the Unification Church as Set Forth in "Divine Principle," The Commission on Faith and Order, National Council of Churches, n.d.
8 Ibid., p. 1
9 A. James Rudin, "Jews and Judaism in Rev. Moon's Divine Principle," A Report, Inter-religious Affairs Dept., The American Jewish Community, December, 1976.
10 "Response to A. James Rudin's Report, 'Jews and Judaism in Reverend Moon's Divine Principle,"' Unification Church, Department of Public Affairs, March, 1977.
11 I am indebted to Richard L. Rubenstein for the concepts of "high intensity" and "low intensity" religion. These terms are useful in characterizing and contrasting sectarian / cultic with "mainline" religious commitment.
12 Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter first wrote about cognitive dissonance in the classic study, When Prophecy Fails (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), pp, 25-50
Leo Sandon, Jr., is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the American Studies Program, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. He is a graduate of the Boston University School of Theology, an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, and co-author of a widely-used textbook, Religion in America (1975). Dr. Sandon's analysis and critique of the Moon movement and its theology are based upon his own study and experience, including residence at the Unification Seminary in Barrytown, N.Y. A somewhat longer version of this article has appeared under the title "True Family: Korean Communitarianism and American Loneliness" in the monograph series published by the United Ministries in Higher Education, Feb., 1978. Portions of this essay previously appeared in the May, 1978 issue of Worldview.