Category: Education

Flesh and Bones: Experimental Outreach and Church Orthodoxy

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By Scott Simonds

SSimonds_1The Unification Movement and our close cousins, evangelical Christianity, are struggling to engage young adults between the ages of 18 and 29.  David Kinnaman, a sociologist with the Barna Group research firm and author of unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters, analyzed data on what people in this demographic think about evangelical Christianity, and why it matters for outreach ministries.

While researching how “Outsiders” — those outside the church — view Christianity, he also discovered common reasons why young believers are leaving the church, which he documented in his follow-up book, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith.

Kinnaman and the Barna Group have delineated and characterized four generations which form the backdrop for his book: Elders, Boomers, Busters, and Mosaics.

Elders are characterized as having grown up in homogenous communities, engaged in organized churches, they are patriotic, and had limited means of communication outside of their neighborhoods.  They lived through the Great Depression, World War II and the Korean War.

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Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

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By John Redmond

JohnRedmond2On the first anniversary of Foundation Day, Sam Nagasaka, project manager of the Vision 2020 Project of FFWPU International, presented in Today’s World a strategic planning document. It describes a process that each nation and city can follow to align their efforts with the current highest providential priority. Mr. Nagasaka (UTS class of 2000) served as a vice president for PR and marketing with World CARP International HQ and was part of the strategic task force team of Japan FFWPU HQ.

His document represents a significant change in the way strategic activities are developed in the movement.  Reverend Moon closely controlled strategic and tactical planning, seeking to move quickly and decisively, planning battles like a general, with short timelines and sacrificing long-term goals for short-term wins.  Based on his successful foundation, the shift to building and maintaining the movement for long-term effectiveness requires a different approach.

Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon has set large general goals, but expects the central blessed families to take the time and make the effort to plan and execute strategies and tactics for success in the areas of their local and national responsibilities.  Headquarters can’t effectively decide what your community does best and how to make a community that attracts young families; only those who know the local area and culture can be successful at that.

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Leaving a Legacy of Heart

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By Kim Barry

Kim BarryIn the past few years, I have studied about and met some truly amazing people and looked at the legacies they left by their lives, impacting those around them and their descendants.  We don’t often see first-hand the influence one person has had on the lives of others, but recently some of us were fortunate enough to experience this.

On March 1st, 400 people gathered at UTS for a seunghwa ceremony to celebrate the life and give our final farewell to Bruce Bonini.  He was not a major leader in our movement, and I’ve yet to see an announcement on an official church site about his passing. What drew so many to his final farewell?  It was his heart.

The large attendance of so many young people attested to the fact he had a big impact across generations.  Several young men gave tearful testimonies of how just a few wise, kind words from Bruce had life-altering impact on them.

Bruce was instrumental in the development of Shehaqua Family Camp in Pennsylvania, the Pocono Family Ministries, which has been such a great source of inspiration, education and community.  It would take a book to document the impact that Shehaqua has had on the lives of countless families. All of those who started and invested in that camp should be proud of its legacy. Bruce more recently had invested himself in developing a music ministry in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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Giving, Freedom and the Future

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By Richard A. Panzer

Richard_PanzerIt could be fairly said the defining element of those who identify with the Unification Movement is that at one time or another in our lives, we have been touched by the teachings of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon. Reflecting on Father’s legacy, I have asked myself what is the core message he strove to leave behind? If I had to choose one word to describe Rev. Moon, what would that be?

For me, that one word would be: giving. To pick just two of countless times: his 14 hours of non-stop speaking about God’s nature, will and ideal I experienced in the 1980s at Belvedere; and when he returned during temporary releases from Danbury prison and spent that time telling us not to worry, that God would use his incarceration to further bless America. The main lesson, in my mind, was: here is a man who is constantly striving to find ways to give more and more.

While he was battling his federal court case in 1982, he launched The Washington Times, and in 1984, purchased 250 trucks to be used to deliver food to the needy shortly before entering prison. How many foreigners in the U.S. decide, while on trial or in prison, to spend more than a billion dollars of precious resources to serve the nation that incarcerated them?

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The Seven Principles of Creation

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By Stephen Stacey

Stacey copy_edited-1What does it mean to apply the Principle to life? Does it mean that we just understand that the world has the potential to be much more ideal than it is, and then go off and read the ideas of others who are succeeding in life? Or does it mean that within the Principle itself, and in the many speeches of Rev. Moon, there lie the principles upon which human beings can succeed in building a more beautiful world into the future.

For the last 10 years, because of my teaching work, I have had to ask this question every day. Over time, I believe I have gained new insights into how both the Principle and principle-related concepts are helpful in understanding human well-being and success.

My first deep insight was a revelation I received at 2 a.m. on a bus to Russia where I was to teach a marriage enrichment seminar eight years ago. Let’s start with a simple scenario.

If you were the head of a project team at work, what questions might you ask to be sure the project was on track? Some of your most important questions might be:

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Selfishness: The Greatest Challenge of the 21st Century

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by Bruce Sutchar

bruce_sutcharRev. Sun Myung Moon has always maintained that truly the greatest revolution in the world is the one from selfishness to unselfishness.  Likewise, nearly every spiritual teaching has always dealt with the idea of transcending the self and being one with the universe.  From Buddha, Lao Tse and Jesus, to Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, and many of today’s modern writers, all have focused on this critical point. In modern psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung also wrote of the importance of the self-centered ego in explaining our everyday actions.

Jesus taught it is better to give than to receive, but for most of us, this is little more than a nice phrase to quote—one that everyone agrees with, but few try to observe.  Some spiritual disciplines even equate our condition to having a raisin heart—one all scrunched up but with minimum capacity to give and receive love.  After we marry and start having children, it finally becomes opens up, when we actually experience more joy watching our children open their Christmas presents than our own.

Each of us has only one pair of physical eyes.  These eyes see the world from our own point of view.  The Divine Principle teaches that one of the four fallen natures is seeing only from our own point of view.

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Challenges of Life: Why and How?

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By Keisuke Noda

Keisuke_NodaHuman life is enigmatic. A variety of challenges falls unexpectedly on an individual and life can seem absurd. There are religious and scientific explanations, but we still wonder: Why? How do we make sense of the challenges we face in life?

This article attempts to shed light on this extremely complex problem by answering the questions of why we have challenges and how we can cope with them.

The most common approach to challenges in Unificationism is based on the concept of “indemnity.” The underlying thesis of this model is that challenges are “caused” by sins, evils, and problems from the past. Other religions also use this sin-redemption approach to challenge.  This model is one that looks backwards in time, but is this retrospective approach the only model that Unificationism offers?

I suggest that a model based on the Unificationist concept of the “original human nature” sets out a forward-looking model.  I argue that human life is “originally” designed as challenge-and-response.  In other words, some challenges (not all) are an intrinsic part of life.

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God’s Original Design for Human Sexuality

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By Jim Stephens

Jim Stephens_edited-1I’m almost 65, but many tell me I look very young for my age. Probably the major reason for this is I have been blessed with a wonderful wife. She understood from the beginning that one of the basic emotional, mental, and physical needs of a man, husband, and father is regular sexual relations about three times a week. And we are still doing it.

I studied engineering in college and I like things that are practical and down to earth. I encountered the revelations of Rev. Sun Myung Moon when I was 24. Over the last 40 years, I’ve had profound spiritual insights and experiences with God. For five years, I co-led with my wife the Blessed Family Department and studied all about marriage enrichment and research. More recently, I became a certified practitioner of an energy healing technique.

Recently, three men revealed to me in brief conversations that they wanted more sex with their wives. Then the pieces began falling into place and a strong impression came over me to write on this topic. Brothers and sisters could be so much happier, joyful, and fulfilled in their marriages than they are. The understanding that God “downloaded” to me I’m calling “God’s Original Design for Sex: Three Times a Week.”

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My Neurons Made Me Do It: Neuroeducation at the Intersection of Religion and Science

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By Kathy Winings

(This is an excerpt from the full 2011 article published in the Journal of Unification Studies)

kathy-winings-2The cornerstone of the Divine Principle is its emphasis on the original ideal of God and the subsequent ontological understanding of men and women. The first chapter outlines the basic principle that guided the creation and interrelatedness of all life forms with God and provides a clear description of our ultimate purpose of life as God originally intended. An important component of that principle concerns the description of human beings as having a spiritual body and a physical body. Divine Principle further explains the process of growth and development for human beings as envisioned by God and describes how and in what way these two “bodies” interconnect.

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