A Cultural Revolution

This week in history, August 16-22:

• True Father proposes an interreligious council at the United Nations (August 18, 2000)
• The first workshop on Unification Thought and the Theory of Victory over Communism is held (August 18, 2001)
• True Father is welcomed at the “God and Freedom” Banquet (August 20, 1985)
• True Parents call for the founding of the Fourth Israel (August 20, 2003)
• The coronation of True Parents as the King and Queen of Peace takes place (August 20, 2004)

August 18, 2000

True Father Proposes Interreligious Council at the United Nations

The United Nations convened a Millennium Summit, from September 6 to 8, 2000, which was the largest gathering of world leaders in history to that date. It resulted in the UN Millennium Declaration and UN Millennium Development Goals. Prior to that meeting, the Unification movement convened Assembly 2000 from August 17 to 19 at the New York headquarters of the United Nations. It was co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions to the UN of Indonesia, Uganda and Mongolia under the theme “Renewing the United Nations and Building a Culture of Peace.” More than 400 world leaders from over 100 nations attended, including Oscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize laureate; Robert Dole, former U.S. Senate majority leader and Republican presidential candidate; the late Sir Edward Heath, former prime minister of the United Kingdom; Kenneth Kaunda, former president of Zambia; and Richard Thornburgh, former UN undersecretary general and governor of Pennsylvania.

The centerpiece of Assembly 2000 was True Father’s August 18 keynote address, “Renewing the United Nations to Build Lasting Peace.” True Father made three proposals. The key one called for the establishment of “an interreligious assembly to serve as a senate or council within the United Nations,” requiring that “each nation, in addition to its current ambassador, send a religious ambassador … to serve as a member of the religious assembly or U.N. senate.” A second proposal called for the creation of “peace zones in areas of conflict … governed directly by the United Nations” with a special emphasis on North and South Korea. The third called for an official commemorative day to uphold the ideal of the family, “Specifically … that True Parents’ Day be established as a day of global celebration.” True Father’s proposals launched the Unification movement’s Ambassador for Peace and Abel UN efforts.

August 18, 2001

First Workshop on Unification Thought and VOC for the Worldwide Leadership

The first Workshop on Unification Thought and the Theory of Victory over Communism for the Worldwide Leadership was held at Jeju International Training Center from August 18 to 31, 2001. Around 500 leaders, including leaders of mission countries, national messiahs and heads of domestic organizations, were in attendance. At the opening ceremony True Father emphasized, “Starting from the individual to the family, we must be decisive in this era of God’s sovereignty.” True Parents supervised and personally taught participants during the 14-day workshop. (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee.)

August 20, 1985

True Father Released from Halfway House, Welcomed at “God and Freedom Banquet”

True Father’s “Danbury Course” consisted of his indictment, trial, appeal and imprisonment on tax evasion charges. It was his sixth imprisonment and one of the most unjust. True Father was incarcerated at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution in Connecticut from July 20, 1984, to July 4, 1985, and then from July 4, 1985, to August 20, 1985, at Phoenix House Foundation Inc., a halfway house in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

On the evening of his release, 1,600 clergy and prominent laypersons gathered at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., to welcome True Father back at a “God and Freedom Banquet.” Earlier that day, twenty prominent clergy, including Rev. Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority, and Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), usually at opposite ends of the religious-political spectrum, held a news conference at which they decried government encroachment upon religion and called upon President Ronald Reagan to pardon True Father.

In his speech at the God and Freedom Banquet True Father expressed his appreciation to those who had supported him through the court battles, amicus briefs and rallies, and expressed his determination “to relieve the great and long suffering of God.” He called upon all present to “transcend denominationalism” and “to consider seriously the mission of Christianity to lead a supra-denominational, cultural revolution on a worldwide scale.”

August 20, 2003

True Parents Call for the Founding of the Fourth Israel

In May 2003, Christian clergy responded to True Parents’ call and went to Israel, where they and Jewish leaders repented for not having understood one another as brothers. This also included the participation of Islamic brethren. Based on the heart of the three Abrahamic faiths in repentance, True Parents called for the founding of the “Fourth Israel”—a new body of “chosen people” who were anointed by God. True Father offered Holy Wine on this special August 20 celebration, and all who partook of this covenant not only were engrafted into the lineage of heaven and the True Olive Tree but also became the “Fourth Israel,” a new “chosen people of all races, religious, faiths and peoples.”

August 20, 2004

Coronation of True Parents as the King and Queen of Peace

On August 20, 2004, the Cheon Il Guk Registration Blessing Ceremony of the Revolution of True Heart in the Era of True Liberation and Complete Freedom was held at the National Assembly Library in Seoul. In attendance were around 600 leaders, including Stanislav Shushkevich, a former president of Belarus, Nagajima Mamoru, a former minister of the Office of Science and Technology in Japan, and Father Hatoum, the provost of the Church of Saint George, Nazareth, Israel. On this day participating leaders from the different countries crowned True Parents as the King and Queen of Peace in acknowledgment of their interreligious and international peace endeavors. (Materials provided by the FFWPU History Compilation Committee.)