Chapter 1 - The Meaning Of Religion And Its Mission

What does religion do? It has the mission to connect with God and to connect with God's essence and mission. (89-171)

Humankind cannot be satisfied with the things of this world. We can obtain the highest happiness and be endowed with the highest value only in the place where we are serving the Absolute Being who can melt heaven and earth. It is for this that humankind is going its way today and tomorrow. Religion is to establish an internal relationship with this Absolute Being. Religion carries out the providence internally, not externally. The external is dominated by evil and the internal is dominated by good.

We must realize a world of ideology centered on goodness. The ideology of goodness is made of internal reflection. The pursuit of religion is to seek completely the internal aspect, to search for the world of ideology, and in the end to find the Creator and serve Him eternally and to live together with Him in joy. (11-85)

Today if we dig into the original source of religion, we see that it is God Himself. It is God who is in the subject position of that world of heart. But if we do not know what kind of situation God is in, or how God realizes His will, then what difference does it make if God's will is realized? It doesn't matter. (85-234)

If history has been a process of history heading towards one center, it is acceptable; but if that is not so, history should be broken up and cast away. And now you too, if you are in such a process it is fortunate; but if not, it is reason for despair. Our conscience orders us to find one center to lead. It is pushing us. Then if you find a center to lead, will it be at an acceptable level where it can be led in the way you want it to be? The goal must be God.

The conscience is heading towards one goal, but because the body is going in the opposite direction the difference in degrees is felt as pain. If there is a purpose for heaven and earth, who is the lord of that purpose? You should know that the lord of that purpose is pulling you along. Then who is the lord of that purpose? There must be one place where the consciences of all humankind can reside. That center must be a being on a higher level than humankind. The center of that purpose does not accept evil. If it is not good, it cannot be led. If it is not good it cannot become one. You who are heading towards the goal, are you good or are you evil? What percent of you is good and what percent evil? We are middle beings who are fighting between good and evil.

Now in the world of humankind, is there a person who qualifies as good? No, there is none. Therefore all humankind must be led. Giving up everything you have and wanting to go together with another person is goodness, and keeping everything you have and wanting to go alone is evil. Our spirits want and like goodness, but our bodies dislike it. As we head along the way to goodness, our greatest enemy is our body. If there is a creator of goodness, he should struggle for the salvation of humankind; and he must be a being who works in addition to humankind's conscience. Only then does he qualify as the creator. The traces of power coming into history in addition to humankind's conscience remain, and that is religion.

Religion! The historical traces that the God of goodness worked His providence by moving the consciences of weak humankind are religion. Therefore, although history changed, and the world was transformed, the basic center of goodness did not change. If we look at the developing history of the civilized world, we can see that the creator of goodness exists. Since the beginning of history there have been many cultural realms centered on religions. According to the flow of history they were developing towards one goal. Now there are the Christian realm, the Muslim realm, the Hindu realm and the Buddhist realm, and these all are in the process of uniting centered on the Christian realm. This fact cannot be denied. (12-103)

Today if we consider what religion has come into existence in order to do, we see that religion came into existence in order to fulfill the responsibility of uniting the people of the world today, of making into one all humankind who have not been able to unite into one in the history of the world. Then what does religion assert? What should a religion assert? We must unite our individual selves into one. In order to make ourselves one, we must bring our mind and body into unity. But until now the directions of the minds of different individuals were all different according to their thought systems or concepts. If a person is a scholar and he dedicates his life in order to do research in his area of specialty, if his area is scholarship then the direction of his mind is towards scholarship and he gambles by bringing his body into unity with that idea.

Then centered on God, what should be the standard for the highest heaven which humankind are longing for? The standard is hearts or minds which do not change. However history may change or develop, the standard of the mind which does not develop and does not change no matter how rapidly the environment and the times may change, a standard of one mind which is not dominated and which never changes is necessary.

That standard of mind is not according to my own standard of thinking. It must be the standard of the common mind of mankind. And not only that, if there is an absolute being who created the heavens and the earth, that standard must contain the content which will allow a reciprocal relationship to be formed with that absolute being and will allow becoming one with Him. From that position, we see that it is God's subjective standard of conscience which must be established.

Therefore religion should gamble on uniting our standard of conscience centered on God. If there is a being called God, then the standard of my conscience must not change in relation to Him. Therefore it seems to me that the important standard which religion should assert is how to establish an absolute, unchanging standard of heart in front of the absolute God. If this deviates, if this changes according to the age or according to one's situation, then I don't see that the mission of a religion to accomplish God's will can be fulfilled. In that sense, it is the mission of religion, which has crossed through the course of history of human society, to unite our standard of conscience with the absolute God. (82-272)

Through the fall, humankind became people whose minds and bodies are fighting. Inside me are fighting the elements which are heading towards two purposes. When we form a family, this becomes four. If there are ten people, it becomes twenty.

From this viewpoint, we cannot deny the statement that our world is a world of unhappiness. It is made of such people. Then if the absolute God exists, He cannot just leave such people as they are. If God just left them as they are, then that is not God. Because humankind is broken like this, behind the scenes in human history, God began to create a repair shop to repair them. That is religion. Religion teaches humankind to return to God. There is no religion which is not centered on God. Because we do not have a relationship with God, if we don't form a relationship there is no way to return.

Therefore, many different forms of religions were placed in the different cultures, different traditions, different races and different backgrounds. In that way centered on God humankind headed towards the purpose of God, the purpose God desired. (53-115)

The exalted concept of love which God gave us as a great under, taking, we lost that concept of absolute value. We should know that today we are pitiful people living and moaning as beings between two opposite, phenomenal worlds. In other words, we are broken people. But because the absolute God cannot help but relate to us, and because He could not just leave mankind this way, through the course of history He worked to give mankind rebirth. That is to say it was necessary to make a repair shop. And that is religion. (52-321)

Then is God a good being or an evil being? [A good being.] If he is a good being then he will be a nice being. If someone is good, then he is nice; but can a good being watching humankind fight be a good being? Can he be a good being or not? No, he can't. Then if God is good, He has to stop the fighting between fallen humankind, between these evil beings whose minds and bodies are fighting.

In order to correct this and take it apart and fix it above this earth's historical providential course, God is doing a reconstruction movement. Only if there are actual results making these into one can we say that God exists. What is the organization which is working to make these into one? It is religion. Then do people need religion or not? They absolutely need it. People who are here for the first time, maybe the girl students over there are thinking, "Why do people need religion? That is for weak people to believe in."

These days the people in the alienated intellectual class say, "People like us who are at the top of the world, why do we need religion? It's only weak people who believe in that. God? Oh? I'm God." But things are not that way. The strength of religion. . . What is religion supposed to do? What has God placed religion here to do? It is to restore humankind which is broken. It is to restore and to reconstruct. As it is a place where restoration is going on it is a restoration place.

If it is a place of restoration, what happens? It must be taken apart and fixed. Can something be fixed by just leaving it alone? If you want to fix something, you have to take it apart. Completely, all of it. Don't you have to take it apart? Do you just leave it that way as good as it is? You must take it completely apart and fix it. (160-33)

Then what has been accomplished through religion is the reconstruction of what was broken. It has proceeded through a movement of individual reconstruction, family reconstruction, national reconstruction, world reconstruction, and reconstruction of the whole. If there is a God we cannot deny the fact that there must definitely be traces of this in the historical periods. Otherwise there cannot be any connection between God and humankind.

If you think of it, religion has managed to carry out such a mission. It has formed the civilized world through expanding, centering on God and centering on humankind.

The purpose of religion is not to give all the bodies to Satan. Isn't that right? The purpose of religion is to have also the body be loved by God in the realm of perfection on heaven's side through ruling even the body centering on the mind. But Christianity consists of only the spiritual side. It has gathered only spiritual people in a world form. Therefore we must unite all the bodies together in a game in which they can be loved. Because they cannot be made into one without a unifying plan which can bring the mind and body into unity through a new thought system, the lord who comes will come in order to make heaven and earth one.

The making of the unity is not done by force. It's like Ssang Hwa Tang. It's like the Ssang Hwa Tang of heaven and earth. Do you know what Ssang Hwa Tang is? Its Chinese characters mean that two (Ssang) become harmonized together (Hwa ) into one drink (Tang). Therefore it becomes a medicine.

In the same way the Lord who comes must harmonize and make into one everything which was divided when heaven and earth were divided by the fall. Then what on earth is this Unification Church? From which point will the unity advocated by the unification plan of the Unification Church be realized? It is first applied to the individual and then it is just adapted to the family, and that which is adapted to the family is applied to the society, and that which is adapted to the society is applied to the people, and that which is adapted to the people is applied to the nation and that which is adapted to the nation is applied to the world.

The Unification Church has the ideology which can be applied to the very end like that. If the Unification Church is that kind of Unification Church it will surely become the Unification Church. That is to say the Unification Church will surely become the Unification Church. Do you understand what that means? God made repair shops; everything that was spread about is being gathered into the four great religious cultural realms in the repair shops. . . If they are just repaired, legs are made, and arms are made, everything is divided up.

Therefore at the end in the last days that must be gathered together. A general repair shop must appear. A general repair shop. Do you understand? That which is seeking to do the mission of the general repair shop is the Unification Church. Do the people who are here for the first time understand? What is the Unification Church doing? It is a general repair shop. Then are only individuals repaired in this general repair work? No. Individuals must be repaired; families must also be repaired; tribes must also be repaired; peoples must also be repaired; nations must also be repaired; the world must also be repaired; communism must also be repaired. This is what it is. Do you understand?

The repair shop which has the mission to repair everything is the Unification Church. Therefore if one comes into the Unification Church and is completely repaired, even if that person is thrown back into Satan's world, he does not retreat but becomes an individual who can win over Satan. If you just leave him in the family, it will not be ruined; it will become a family which receives God's love. And if children are born they will become the sons and daughters whom God loves. They are different.

It is the Unification Church which advocates that families unite and form a tribe, that tribes unite and form a nation, and that nations unite and form the world. When one fully has the thought of the Unification Church, no matter where you leave that person, without any relationship to Satan he stands sturdily as an individual, forms a family and when children are born into that family Satan cannot invade them. And centered on those sons and daughters, if they are Kims, they form the Kim clan and Satan cannot relate to it. The church which is advocating becoming that kind of clan is the Unification Church. When clans which cannot be invaded by Satan unite, they become a people. In this way let's make a people which can never be destroyed and let's make a heavenly nation which will never be destroyed! This is the thought of the Unification Church. (56-190)