Category: Governance

The Doctrine of Continuing Revelation

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By Michael Mickler

Mickler full-sizeThe Unification movement affirms a doctrine of continuing revelation. But this is a difficult doctrine for any religious tradition to uphold.

The reason is simple. Revelation changes or at least upsets everything and almost everybody.

This is certainly the case for founders of religious traditions. The Hebrew prophets were stoned. Jesus was crucified. Mohammad was ridiculed and driven from the city of Mecca. Joseph Smith was assassinated. Sun Myung Moon endured torture and imprisonment.

In short, “Thus saith the Lord” is a life-threatening proclamation.

This is true not only for founders of religious traditions but also for their followers. Those claiming continuing revelation typically earn such titles as heretic, apostate, deceiver, witch, sorcerer, blasphemer, false prophet, liar, cult leader, and Antichrist.

In fighting off new claims, religious traditions generally follow two strategies.

This first is to close off revelation.

Christianity is a case-in-point. The early Church was a maelstrom of competing points of view, self-proclaimed prophets and founders of new sects. Christians agreed that Jesus had overcome death and in one way or another incarnated the living God. They disagreed about almost everything else: strategies of outreach, leadership, worship, church discipline, Jesus’ divine and human nature, and whether they should pray for or condemn Rome.

In this context, a plethora of individuals and groups arose who claimed continuing revelation. Some attracted broad followings. All were eventually branded heretics and many of their “revelations” claimed to supersede Jesus and his teachings. Among the more notorious were:

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To Promote the General Welfare

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By Scott Simonds and Megan Simonds

SSimonds_1In my previous article, “The Freedom Society: Headwing Thought or Tea Party Politics?”, I said I would next take up the issue of government spending on human services.

megan-simondsThe political right advocates for smaller government, addressing domestic issues of poverty and healthcare through private enterprise.

The left advocates for government agencies and programs to provide healthcare, a safety net for people temporarily in need and ongoing support for citizens who cannot “enjoy the blessings of liberty” independently as social responsibilities.

The right claims that government power should be limited to the common defense, brick and mortar infrastructure, law-making and law enforcement. For them, government’s basic purpose is to protect individual rights and freedoms and should keep its hands off the free market system.

Although there is nothing inherently wrong with this worldview, it is not complete. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution includes the phrase:

…[To] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty…

The right argues that protecting the free market system is promoting the general welfare. But is there such a thing as equal opportunity in a purely capitalist society? Do the values derived from capitalist principles, such as independence, self-reliance and faith, apply in every circumstance?

In fact, values such as “justice” and “compassion” (for those who cannot survive independently in civilized society) often conflict. Success and failure, right and wrong, are not as clear cut as some would have us believe.

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Chávez’s Legacy and Worsening Conditions in Venezuela

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Venezuelans hoarding cornmeal flour.

By David Stewart

David Stewart_edited-1I had been in Caracas for just a few days in June when a friend called me and excitedly said, “I have good news. They are selling sugar here and each person can buy four kilos. Come quickly with whoever is at home.” It was a 20 minute bus ride away and then we had to wait over an hour in line. But one spurns such opportunities at one’s peril in Venezuela in recent years.

I never had this experience when living in Caracas in the late 1990s, but this is now the norm. When visiting in March, I asked a clearly irritated mother, just leaving a supermarket, how long she and her young son had waited to buy harina pan, the cornmeal flour used to prepare the Venezuelan staple arepa. “Three and a half hours” she snapped. I could only sympathize and decided not to wait in line myself. The shops are now forbidden to sell this most essential product to anyone under 18, as, with its sale being rationed on the rare occasions it can be bought, whole families wait together in line to maximize their purchasing power.

The harina pan and sugar story is the same for toilet paper, milk, coffee — indeed over 25% of all necessary staples are rationed, being rarely available, according to the last scarcity figures published by the central bank in January. Even the government admits that the poverty rate leapt from 21% to 27% last year, mainly because incomes failed to keep up with soaring inflation, now officially over 60%. The economy is set to shrink this year by at least 1% according to even the government’s predictions. Yields on Venezuela’s sovereign debt skyrocketed in the past year, to just under 14%, tops among 50 emerging markets tracked by JPMorgan Chase. The latest hard-to-find item — coffins!

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BBC Interview: Twenty Years After the Death of Kim Il Sung

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 Dr. Antonio Betancourt meeting President Kim Il Sung in January 1994.

Kim Il Sung passed away 20 years ago on July 8. The BBC World Service broadcast an interview (click here to listen to the full interview) with Unificationist Dr. Antonio Betancourt on meeting President Kim five times (on the foundation of Reverend and Mrs. Moon’s visit with the North Korean leader in 1991), being in Pyongyang when he died, and, with Dr. Bo Hi Pak, attending Kim’s state funeral. Dr. Betancourt is currently Director, Office of Peace and Security Affairs, UPF International, in Washington, D.C., and Secretary General of the Summit Council for World Peace. A nine-minute podcast of the BBC interview may also be downloaded here.

In an analysis of the missed opportunities 20 years ago upon Kim’s passing, AU Blog Managing Editor Dr. Mark P. Barry posted an essay on NKNews.org, the leading site for researchers and journalists on North Korea, that provides an overview of what could have happened on the Korean Peninsula over the past two decades. Dr. Betancourt provided valuable assistance in the essay, and a great debt of gratitude is owed to Dr. Bo Hi Pak for his unique insights in Chapter 21 of Messiah: My Testimony to Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Vol. II. London’s The Guardian newspaper picked up Dr. Barry’s article days later, providing a vastly wider online readership, and he was also interviewed at length by South Korea’s OhMyNews (Korean only).

— The Editor

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The World Peace Center in Pyongyang (photo taken in December 2011 upon the 20th anniversary of Reverend and Mrs. Moon’s visit). The Peace Center was later used to receive condolence visitors upon the passing of Reverend Moon.

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A Principled Approach to Tackling Inequality

File photo of a rubbish collector carrying a bag on her back as she walks past a construction site near a recently finished residential complex in Hefei

By Graham Simon

gs-1308Income inequality has come to the fore as the most pressing economic and social issue facing the world today. According to Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2013, 0.7% of the world’s inhabitants possess 41% of its wealth, 10% have 86%, and the poorest 50% hold a mere 1%.

A new book by French economist Thomas Picketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has topped the bestseller lists. Picketty’s central thesis, supported by a wealth of historical data, is that over time the relative gains to owners of capital in peacetime economies are significantly higher than the returns to labor. His book proves beyond doubt what everyone has long known – the richer get richer while the poor get poorer, at least in relative terms. Pope Francis tweeted in April that “Inequality is the root of social evil.” Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, recently added her voice to the debate, warning that rising inequality threatens global financial stability, democracy and human rights.

While all may agree that inequality can tear nations apart, there is no consensus on the solution. Policy proposals to reverse inequality center upon taxation and redistributive measures. These are inevitably contentious. When owners of wealth, who came by their riches honestly, legitimately and, in their opinion, deservedly, are forcibly dispossessed through taxation or government fiat, resentment arises. If those same governments then expend the proceeds wastefully or corruptly, this resentment only deepens.

But there is another approach. It requires a basic understanding of economics and the application of some principled thinking.

Understanding Economics

The starting point of economics is scarcity. With scarcity comes the need to make choices. The economic cake is not infinite in size and there are a lot of hungry mouths to feed. The two perennial questions nations seek to address are how best to make the cake bigger and how to divide it up.

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Perverse Incentives: When Uncle Sam Becomes Dr. Ruth

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by Richard Panzer

Richard_PanzerEvery area of life involves choices that have a moral dimension. Whether we enter careers in business, education, government, science, health, art, or religious ministry, each one of us needs to be aware of incentives that could bring us closer to or further away from the original purpose that motivated us to begin with. After all, each system has its own openly stated, or sometimes hidden, incentives.

In this context, the recent article by Scott Simonds provides a valuable discussion about the role of government and its benefits to society. He makes compelling arguments, and certainly there are many dedicated people doing important work in government service, but if one looks closely, it also becomes apparent that governmental incentives can lead to the opposite of what any fair-minded person would want.

The federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF, or welfare) program, where substantial benefits are offered to mothers with dependent children based on one main condition — that the mothers not be married — is just a small part of a larger, disturbing pattern.

Simonds expresses doubt that religious agencies would be able to take on the burden of caring for the needy in this country. Maybe so, but when Uncle Sam gets involved there are often strings attached. Consider government actions that force religious organizations that do help those in need to choose between following government regulations and the dictates of their faith. Catholic adoption agencies in Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, DC, have been forced to shut down because they believe that, all else being equal, it is best for orphans to be placed with an adopting mother and father who are married. Isn’t that what most Americans believe? Isn’t that what you and I believe? Even if not, shouldn’t there be room for diversity in adoption agency policies? After all, isn’t the goal to help more, not less, orphans find loving homes? How does shutting down faith-based agencies help needy orphans?

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Crossing the Jordan: From a Led to a Self-Governed People

Journey to the Heartland of Mongolia

By Peter Stephenson

Peter StephensonWithout serious reform, the Unification Movement cannot be a role model for Cheon Il Guk and is in no position to guide any people or society.

We are a movement that teaches the Principle, but do not reflect the Principle. In evangelical outreach the most apt motto for our movement would be, “Do as we say, not as we do.” Our most fundamental error has been the belief that following directions trumps the Principle and exempts us from its requirements. Our operating philosophy has been to channel all energies into the single purpose of convincing the leading lights of the world that Rev. Moon is the Messiah, assuming that everything would take care of itself once we had achieved this.

Our obsession with this “shortcut” has blinded us to the reality that people and the world do not work this way. Ultimately, people don’t prioritize the teachings that make the most sense. The idea that we could just theologically strong-arm them into believing was always going to fail.

Nomadic vs. Agrarian/Settled people

We are nomads. Nomadic people are foragers and opportunistic hunters who work an area while the pickings are good and after exhausting those resources, move onto to other lands. This lifestyle does not promote population growth and it is all such people can do to even maintain their numbers as the harsh existence of the nomad ensures a high loss rate.

The historic and even current, evangelical attitude of the Unification Movement has been nomadic in nature as we sought only to invest in those who were short-term prospects — what we euphemistically refer to as “prepared people.” There are only a small percentage of any society who are of this type though and if we track our world movement’s activity over the past 50 years, we can discern this nomadic behavior of exhausting the resources of a particular region before moving on to other lands.

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The Freedom Society: Headwing Thought or Tea Party Politics?

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By Scott Simonds

SSimonds_1The Freedom Society philosophy as explained by Kook Jin Moon pits private ownership and free enterprise against big government. He argues that:

  • Government has undermined the role of the family and community by using tax money, expropriated by coercion, to provide welfare benefits to undeserving people promoting a cycle of dependency;
  • The free market system is self-governing and government oversight is unnecessary;
  • Government is in an “archangel position,” an instrument of the devil that usurped the positions of God, parents and individuals as free agents.
  • The role of government should be limited to lawmaking, a justice system and defense. Every other function should be managed by the private sector.

These positions, minus the theological jargon, are those of the far right on the political spectrum, advocated by Tea Party proponents like senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, and governor Sarah Palin, among others. However, these are not the views of our founder, Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

One way to understanding Rev. Moon’s perspective on global politics and economics is to examine his vision for a restored United Nations. He cultivated relationships with representatives of the world’s religions which led to the creation of the Interreligious Federation for World Peace (IRFWP). He fostered relationships with political and civic leaders, from both sides of the aisle, with the common values of faith, family and freedom, under the banner of the Federation for World Peace (FWP). In 1999, this process led to the creation of the combined Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP). In 2005, to further the effort to renew the United Nations, IIFWP became the Universal Peace Federation (UPF).

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The Basis for a Constitution

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By Alison Wakelin

Alison WakelinNew times require new thought.

Western Unificationists cannot simply offer the U.S. Constitution as a model constitution for Cheon Il Guk because it is based on a worldview that increasingly reflects the way Americans used to think, not the way we would like to think in the future. It defines life in terms of ownership of material resources and the overarching need to escape the oppression of authoritarian leadership. More human rights-based thinking crept in over the years, but was relegated to the Bill of Rights that is supplementary to the Constitution itself.

The proper order for a healthy society is the reverse. The original purpose of life and identity of a human being should be the primary thrust of a constitution, while the regrettable need for some governmental authority and control should become secondary.

It could be argued that the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights are so obvious they don’t need verbal expression. To young people they probably are.

However, we see much evidence in today’s society that competing in the marketplace and living subject to the many and proliferating instruments of governmental regulation and control has produced a population that lives defensively. Society is finding self-preservation so burdensome that there is little room to care actively for human rights on a larger scale. Those who have been successful in the financial world tend to speak of their own rights much more than of the needs of others, and tend to see poverty as a sign of failure more than anything else.

Constitutional rights have become legal rights, and the legal world dominates modern economic life. Without a wide, encompassing basis for a constitution, it is inevitable that the restrictions will eventually become part of everyday life via a system of laws and societal institutions.

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