Principle and Politics

Hal McKenzie
November 1970
New Haven, CT Center

In political science, a political organization is defined a group of people organized around a purpose determined the form and character of the group.

The purpose of the Unified Family is to relieve universal suffering by restoring man and the world to God. That purpose determines the formant character of our group: the family base, our communal life, witnessing and teaching, the Divine Principle, and our True Parents all came about to fulfill that purpose. Because we are a group organized around a purpose which involves other people, then we are, by the above definition, a distinct political entity.

This is not to say that we are not a religious group at heart. It simply means that as long as we strive to achieve God's purpose, then our actions are bound to have political consequences. Thus, we must understand the political situation in our society and learn to use political means to further God's purpose.

Politics involves the use of power. Political power is defined as initiative which is unopposed by a stronger or countering initiative. In other words, as long as one exercises initiative in a particular area that person has power unless someone exercises a stronger initiative to oppose him. "Absolute power", then, could be defined as the exercise of initiative on a broad scale which no one could possibly oppose with a stronger initiative.

What sort of initiative could no one possibly oppose? It is, of course, service to mankind, motivated by Divine love. God's power is absolute because His love is unceasing and all encompassing, and his initiatives are always designed for the greatest good. If man tries to reject God's love, or turn away from it, then he is punished; not personally by God, but by the consequences of his own action in turning away from that which is ultimately best for him. Our Leader, in telling us to follow Father's example, was really showing us the way to achieve power over the minds of men which no political leader or group has ever been able to achieve.

Many leaders and groups have dreamed of attaining absolute power, and have recognized the value of meeting the people's needs to get it, but they failed in the end because they have seen service merely as a tactic to obtaining power. They would not really serve the people, but world exploit the people's fears and grievances in order to enhance their personal power or further their visionary ideals.

Thus they would inevitably commit some act which would give rise to opposition from the people, and so their power would be overthrown. There has never been a political movement which could serve mankind unselfishly, purely for the purpose of relieving the universal suffering of God's heart, except for the Unified Family. If we keep God's purpose firmly in our hearts, then power will come about purely as a byproduct of our loving initiatives on behalf of God and man.

Furthermore, the Divine Principle is the most powerful political ideology in the world today, because it shows us how to use power in such a way that it does not degrade, coerce, or corrupt man or nature. The Satanic idea of power is energy going out in a straight line, not returning beauty to its source but only oppressing and coercing all before it, leaving nothing but emptiness and desolation behind. The Divine Principle, however, gives us the knowledge with which to build a new civilization which can expand forever without oppressing God's creation, but bringing all things under God's dominion of joy and love, thus liberating man and nature and making them more in His image. In this way, our power can not only be absolute but eternal and self-generating, because we build on the past to perfect the present, thus laying a strong foundation and true values for the future.

Not many of us came into the Family out of a political motivation, but still we must understand political matters, simply because we are living in a political world. Politics is simply the outward expression of people trying to achieve certain goals. These goals may be selfish or altruistic, but from Principle we know that all human activity is being guided toward a common center, so that we, as God's central dispensation, have the responsibility to coordinate these activities so that man may reach the goal as quickly as possible. To remain true to our purpose, we must endeavor to become the center of man's struggle for social justice.

One problem that we have faced, however, is how to reconcile our basic witnessing and teaching activities with the pressing need to directly confront specific problems in our society; but in God's eyes, this is not really a problem. As long as we remain true to God's purpose, then our movement will spontaneously assume the form and character that God desires. Like a seed or zygote that branches out into many different forms to achieve its purpose, we have seen our movement grow into a complex, colorful and multi-faced organism which is the embryo of a vigorous new civilization. As more and more people with different backgrounds and talents join the Family, then it is naturel that we develop new faculties and appendages with which to mobilize these talents to deal with the specific problems that we meet in the Satanic world.

We cannot think of ourselves as pioneers facing a vast cultural, moral, and social wilderness, a "concrete", jungle as some have said. By exercising our fullest capacities, and really sowing our sweat, blood, and tears for God, we can order that wilderness and make it bloom and bring joy to all mankind. This demands a tremendous challenge to our creativity and flexibility. We must avoid becoming too isolated from the world, or on the other hand, too bogged down in the vested interests and unholy purposes of other systems. If a specific political issue demands our direct involvement, then we must act as "political guerillas; that is, the Family mobilizes around the issue in question, then returns to Family work once the point has been made or the problem solved. We must keep in mind that the central focus God's work is spiritual; we are dealing with the world of cause; not effect, and so we work to cure the cause of the world's disease, not merely the symptoms. Therefore, our "infra-structure" must be solidly based in heaven with True Families, which is the only real ground for health and life.

We are becoming more aware of our mission and capacity as Americans, and as we grow more confident in our mission, then, the movement in America will grow much more rapidly than it has in the past. America's peculiar genius has always been in finding practical application to theory; thus it seems that America's mission is to develop the material systems and forms which the Lord can use to restore the world. Our Leader has said that America is in the position of Lucifer; that is, America is the chief servant and guardian of the world created to care for and protect God's children and prepare the way for the True Parents. Our political mission, therefore is to lead America along that path. If America becomes isolationist, or on the other hand too domineering in world affairs, then our country will suffer a deeper hell than that endured by Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.

Our artistic endeavors are broadening and becoming more sophisticated, particularly in music and graphics. As this work expends, then we will have completed the groundwork for the heavenly civilization. We will then have established a base of four positions between HSA, FLF, an economic foundation, and a cultural foundation with the Family as subject and center of circular movement. Once all these elements become harmonized and worked freely together, then the Family will have become a really astounding movement which cannot fail to have a transforming, even revolutionary effect in our society. When a free people work together toward a higher purpose, with God as the center, then, as history has attested, they can create miracles of achievement.

So far I have been talking in the realm of ideas and visions of the future. But I have found, through painful experience, that to relate to the world only on the basis of abstract ideas and visionary projections makes one incapable of relieving suffering or of raising anyone to God. Without the fullness of a giving heart, then the highest and noblest ideas cannot prevent one from neglecting and even dehumanizing his fellow man. In the last analysis, the only thing that will make this movement successful is our love. Only through the love of God can any of our ideas bear fruit. If we can't express God's love, then all our efforts will come to naught.

"The process of an individual's growth is deeply involved with whom he lives or interacts. Parents must provide a model of sure personal identification or the developing pattern of mankind and womanhood is vague and uncertain"

"The only way we got any satisfying idea of God is through realizing what is highest and best in man himself. Only men who understand the experience of really loving someone and the wish to share one's life with the beloved can understand the God who is described as loving us and wanting to share His life with Him The great mark of holiness will be manifested to the world only through men and women have first achieved their wholeness."

Fashion Me a People-Man, Woman and the Church
By Eugene C. Kennedy