The Words of the Hendricks Family
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The Words of the Hendricks Family |
Rev.
Michael Jenkins explaining the interdenominational work of our
movement to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.
Approximately one hundred fifty years ago a vision, try Presbyterian named Alexander Campbell established in the American hinterlands a movement to unite all Christian denominations. They called themselves, simply, "Christians," though others called them Campbellites. Needless to say, they did not succeed in uniting all Christians. Their movement later split into three major denominations (The Disciples of Christ, The Christian Church, The Church of Christ) plus a few other offshoots.
Approximately thirty years ago, a visionary Presbyterian named Sun Myung Moon established in the Korean hinterlands a movement to unite all Christian denominations. They called themselves HSA-UWC, though others called them Moonies. Needless to say, they have not yet succeeded in uniting all Christians. Whether or not they will succeed eventually will be determined in the same way all world historical religious changes are determined: by the interworking of God's providence with human responsibility.
Study of the Principle and of Father's life reveals the state of God's providence, and that will constitute the first part of this article. Knowledge of the work our members are doing within American Christianity reveals part of the state of human responsibility, and a report on that work will constitute the second part of this article.
The ideal of Christian unity has been ever-present in the church, whether expressed as an institutional claim to be the Catholic (i.e., Universal) Church, or as a theological affirmation of the transcendent unity of Christendom -- the body of Christ. Hope has emerged afresh in the twentieth century that the seamless garment could be realized in reality. Principle considers various aspects of modernity to comprise a providential preparation for this unification. For example, advances in communications and transportation have brought to mass attention the fact that we are in fact one human family living in a global village.
There have been significant political and social developments in relation with this, setting up the possibility for religious resolution as well. The spirit and intellect of human beings has also matured significantly, bringing on a yearning for human fellowship in a world of peace. Over the last two centuries many movements, including the Campbellites, the Bahai, Nicheran Soshu Buddhism, the World Council of Churches, Vatican II Catholicism, and so forth have arisen out of this common yearning. What has been lacking, ultimately, has been a world- level spiritual leader. People use different names for this universally awaited figure. We call him Messiah.
Principle views the providence as having prepared the United States as a social base for the Messiah's work. Fundamentally this refers to the de jure religious liberty established here, resulting in separation of church and state and the legal right for all religions and denominations to exist. This novel arrangement by and large has been very beneficial to church life. Of all parts of the Christian world over the past two centuries, the churches in the United States have exhibited the most vitality. Here in a relatively open society, denominations and sects of all theological, racial, ethnic and social varieties have developed.
It is not an unrelated phenomenon that in this same time and place has occurred the greatest modern expectation of the millennial climax to world history, of the inbreaking of God's Kingdom on the earth. The great surge of Christian missionary work in the nineteenth century gained its impetus in large part from a sincere faith in Jesus' statement that when the gospel had been taken to all the nations then he would return. When American missionaries carried the gospel to the final corner -- Korea -- in the 1880s, they were struck immediately by the intense piety and zeal of their Korean converts. Could any of them have foreseen that their awaited Messiah was to be born in one of those hidden Korean villages?
The absolute goal which has guided our Father's work is the providence for the unification of Christianity as the key to the Kingdom of God. This goal could have been attained in the late 1940s in North Korea. It could have happened in the mid-fifties in South Korea. The early seventies in the United States was another crucial period. In each instance history shifted against him, with the powers of the world rejecting him as a sectarian trouble-maker, as an immoral heretic, as a pseudo-religious industrialist. Constantly the way of the cross, the burden 01 human sin, has been upon his shoulders.
And yet, providentially, faith bore fruit for the unification of Christianity. Interfaith work in Korea has brought about a strong ecumenical foundation with the "Supra-denominational movement," and the International Christian Professors Association. Through the seed of the Unification Theological Seminary, a great network of religious scholars has developed under the banner of ecumenical research, and upon this foundation Interdenominational Conferences for Clergy (ICC) has brought hundreds of Christian ministers into a working relationship centered upon ecumenism and social action. Combining with the New ERA theological foundation is the social action foundation of the National Council for Church and Social Action (NCCSA), based upon which the ICC could meet and coalesce so many ministers. Through the late seventies the Council laid the foundation for this work with painstaking love and care, and with the 1983 ICC meetings the full weight of Father's attention is now upon the renewal of Christianity. The providential preparation is there, for us to develop.
New
York. Dr. Osborne Scott and Rev. Michael Beard, co-conveners of the
Advanced Ministers' Seminar, concluded the meeting by calling
everyone to prayer.
In February of this year, Father appointed ten leaders to take responsibility for ecumenical social action. These leaders -- Shawn Byrne, Michael Beard, Tom McDevitt, Tom Cutts, Michael Jenkins, Richard Beussing, Bento Leal, Jim Flynn, Matthew Morrison and Patrick Hickey -- were called to serve both the IOWC/State center sphere and the NCCSA/ICC sphere. From the IOWC side they are known as "Itinerant Lecturers," and are guided by Rev. Won Pil Kim. From the NCCSA/ICC side they are known as "Regional Coordinators" for the International Religious Foundation (IRF), and are guided by Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak. They are also guided by the Christian ministers in their regions, and here it starts getting interesting. The mission of the Itinerant Lecturer/Regional Coordinators (ILRCs), officially, is to facilitate the cooperation of our members with other Christian churches to bring about revivals and social action. The revivals are to benefit their churches, bringing them new members, reviving their spirit. The social action is to serve those communities, bringing them services, enhancing their prosperity.
The idea is that as we all become involved in this work, we become a true "unification movement," and we do so because we are truly unifying, working together to serve the world and making one whole real body of Christ in the process. Through the ICCs we are educating ministers in Principle, and working to develop the expression of Principle for the ministers to use in educating their congregations, thus connecting all people to True Parents. At the same time we become educated our- selves, inheriting the tremendous foundation of Christianity, accepting directly the fruits, fables and foibles of the continuous ministry of two thousand years since the resurrection. In the process, the Unification Church becomes a movement within Christianity, where it was sup- poked to be from its inception. That means our movement is changing.
The following testimony could be multiplied many times:
The IOWC people and the minister parted with grief and even some tears. The eight members of the IOWC had been canvassing door-to-door for the previous two days to bring local people to the minister's revival. They had acted on the minister's instructions, passed out his fliers, they had prayed, eaten and fellowshipped together...a church member insisted that they sleep overnight in her house. The pastor insisted that they stay with him the next night. On the street and at doors they were well received. They experienced joy and vitality. So did the pas- tor and his core people.
And then the mischief started. A church member began to call others to persuade them that, since the helpers were "Moonies," their help should be refused and they should be sent packing. Enough pressure was developed that the pastor decided, with keen regret, to call off the project for the present and have the IOWC people leave his church. I am sure tears were shed in heaven, too.
Interspersed with testimonies like this are equally significant victories, and sometimes the smallest church will yield unexpected results. In Chicago, for example, Rev. Michael Jenkins was working with a small church, the Holiness Community Temple, pastored by Rev. Zephery Barnes. After a successful, though small, revival, Rev. Barnes held a birthday party for her close friend, Chicago's Mayor Washington, at her church, inviting all the IOWC members. Rev. Jenkins could strike up a friendly relationship with the mayor, bringing great promise for the advance of social action in the city. In another Chicago church, our members participated in the TAMBO revival ("That All May Be One"), sponsored by Rev. Morris H. Tynes. Rev. Tynes is a graduate of Yale Divinity School, and he has held Father in high regard since first hearing him speak in the 21 city tour. Rev. Tynes came up with the TAMBO idea based in part upon his inspiration at seeing our members' efforts for ecumenism and social action. TAMBO brought ministers of all colors onto the same pulpit. Rev. Jenkins gave the morning sermon, Rev. Tynes presented a commentary, and four other ministers participated in the afternoon program. The attendance was over 250, and the interracial composition of the clergy brought joy and inspiration to all.
In the New York region, under the guidance of Rev. Michael Beard, churches have become continually involved with ecumenical revivals. Rev. Beard has spoken at several services, and has initiated the participation of hundreds of New York members in these services and revivals. Approximately fifty ministers have attended local introductory and advanced seminars in the Unification Principle, and have thereby established an ongoing ecumenical dialogue in conjunction with the practical NCCSA work. Based upon the insights generated through these discussions, three ministers at a recent revival testified to our movement. One of the three proclaimed that he is an Unificationist.
It is apparent that the pastors working with us are more inspired than we could have imagined. A dozen of them suggested to us that we hold a giant ecumenical revival in Madison Square Garden before the end of the year. One Hispanic minister wants Rev. Beard to help him set up a conference for seven thousand Hispanic members of the clergy in the New York area. One elderly bishop has requested to hold his fiftieth anniversary in the ministry celebration in one of our church facilities, to which he would bring up to one thousand members of churches he works with. The possibility has even emerged for the President of an African nation, visiting the U.S., to have a special banquet with our World Mission Department. We are planning to send hundreds of guests up to the Unification Theological Seminary for its annual Spring Open House, at which Rev. Beard will give the major sermon. Rev. Beard has received substantial support from the New York Unification Church, but even with a solid staff behind him we are having trouble keeping up with all the opportunities for ecumenism and social action in the New York area.
We meet many Christians through the ICC who really do catch the heart of our work: "I greatly admire (and heartily agree with) your desire to pull all religious bodies together in action toward common goals, your acceptance of the validity of other religious approaches (including the non-Christian), and your desire for the establishment of peace based on universal love," wrote one participating minister. Wrote another, "I want to confess how deeply impressed I have been by the dedication, commitment and sacrifices that you young people have made and are making in poor communities and areas across this land and 1 should hope the theologian and the activist would establish working relationships." Another minister took things a step further:
The Sunday after our return I preached on the subject, "Mesmerized by the Moonies?" I had them (a full house, I must add) sing "Tongil" and then shout "Mansei." Following that I told them they had just sung a Moonie hymn and chanted a Moonie chant, that their worst fears were realized, and they were all now Moonies. (I got a good laugh.) Had a good sermon -- lots of good response. It opened a lot of eyes.
The work is just picking up steam now, with dozens of revivals, ministers' breakfasts and luncheons, and seminars for clergy planned for the coming weeks. In addition, NCCSA chapters are blossoming throughout the nation. A great substantial movement is beginning, and we have a large role in helping the Spirit maintain its direction toward the Kingdom of God. Relating to this, I would conclude with two observations. One, in terms of Father's work in America, we are viewing a new horizon, fraught with unique dangers and blessed with unprecedented opportunities for God to act. The stakes are higher -- failure to sacrifice our own movement's short term interests and serve the people of Christian congregations, will result not just in personal or family level setbacks, but in the alienation of whole churches, whole denominations, whole interdenominational networks. Never has our wisdom and ability to love as a family been so tested. And this leads to my second observation.
"To love the world as a family" means that we are not loving the world as individuals but that we love the world with the love of True Parents. True parental love is a unified love -- its precondition is that the parents are unified with each other. The child cannot understand or receive the father's love which contradicts the mother's love. Now, all the "departments" of our movement should represent one love, True Parents' love. Inevitably we all understand that love differently, and to some degree express it differently, but if what is communicated to the world is not essentially one love then we have failed, and we are allowing our own partial love to muddy the stream of Parents' love.
Occurring with the providence now in America is an unprecedented mingling of departments -- IOWC, state centers, National Headquarters centering on the tax case work, CARP, NCCSA, IRF -- all aimed at the same goal. And that goal is not only spiritual, but has political and economic significance. These departments have been horizontally somewhat separate heretofore, and thus have had varied tendencies in their approaches to the providence. Now is the opportunity for give and take, for integration of heart, mind and will on all sides. Through our oneness, our internal communication, Father will be in the position to generate in America a religious, social, and spiritual power never before realized.