Momentous Messages of Peace

This week in history, September 13-19:

• Members of Congress invite True Father to speak on Capitol Hill (September 13, 1974)
• True Mother delivers the Completed Testament Age message before 50,000 at the Tokyo Dome (September 14, 1993)
• True Mother tours Japan with President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush (September 14, 1995)
• A new prayer tradition begins (September 14, 1999)
• True Parents officiate an interreligious and international Holy Marriage Blessing and rededication ceremony (September 14, 2002)
• True Father’s Seonghwa Ceremony is held (September 15, 2012)
• Korean surnames are bestowed upon 172 faith leaders from the United States (September 16, 2011)
• The Seoul Olympics are held (September 17, 1988)
• David S.C. Kim arrives as the second missionary to America (September 18, 1959)
• HSA-UWC is legally incorporated (September 18, 1961)
• True Father speaks at Madison Square Garden (September 18, 1974)
• The Washington Monument Rally is held (September 18, 1976)

September 13, 1974

Members of Congress Invite True Father to Speak on Capitol Hill

On September 13, 1974, one U.S. senator and twelve congressmen issued a formal invitation to all members of Congress and their staff to attend True Father’s speech on “America in God’s Providence” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on October 8, 1974. The invitation read:

“Dear Colleague: The United States today is in need of strong moral leadership. The great moral and spiritual values upon which this nation was founded must be renewed at all levels of American society. Moreover, our nation seeks a clarification of its national identity and the role it must play as the leading nation of the free world.

“Many of us have been impressed with the work of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon from Korea. We well remember the three days of prayer and fasting on the Capitol steps conducted by young people last month, in which they sacrificed food and rest to ask God’s guidance for each of us on the critical decisions we were facing at that time. Beyond the exuberance and dedication of those young people is a deep concern for America and a fresh new vision of America’s role in God’s providence, which stems from the teaching of Reverend Moon.

“We in the Congress now have an opportunity to hear the message of this dynamic man.”

The invitation was signed by: Senator John Sparkman, Congressman Robert L.F. Sikes, Congressman O.C. Fisher, Congressman Bob Wilson, Congressman Tim Lee Carter, Congressman Robert H. Michel, Congressman John E. Hunt, Congressman Barber B. Conable Jr., Congressman Bill Chappell Jr., Congressman Charles W. Sandman Jr., Congressman Goodloe E. Byrne, Congressman Manuel Lujan Jr., Congressman C.W. Bill Young.

September 14, 1993

True Mother Delivers the Completed Testament Age Message before 50,000 at the Tokyo Dome

On January 10, 1993, True Father announced “the transition today to the Completed Testament Age,” which shifted the focus of salvation from the individual to the family. In May 1993, True Parents began a speaking tour of 33 U.S. cities under the theme “True Parents and the Completed Testament Age.” True Mother delivered the message on July 28 on Capitol Hill and on September 7 at the United Nations. This was the springboard to a world tour in which True Mother delivered the Completed Testament Age message to audiences in forty countries. From September 11 to 30, True Mother conducted twenty-five rallies in Japan, the highlight being her speech before 50,000 at the Tokyo Dome. On that occasion, which also commemorated the first anniversary of the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), Princess Eva Maria of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Marilyn Quayle, wife of the former vice president of the United States, offered congratulatory remarks.

September 14, 1995

True Mother Tours Japan with President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush

Former U.S. President and First Lady George and Barbara Bush attend a WFWP conference.

On September 14, 1995, fifty thousand representatives from 53 countries gathered in the Tokyo Dome for a rally to celebrate the third anniversary of the founding of the Women’s Federation for World Peace. True Mother spoke, as did former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. The president, along with former first lady Barbara Bush, accompanied True Mother on a historic five-city tour which focused on building bridges of friendship between the Japanese and American people. The Bushes were inspired to do so as a result of their participation in the WFWP-sponsored “Sisterhood Ceremonies” which brought together women from Japan and the United States on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II.

September 14, 1999

A New Prayer Tradition

The press conference announcing the World Festival of Culture.

On September 14, 1999, True Father opened the era in which blessed families were no longer to pray in the name of True Parents or any mediator but in their own names as blessed couples who have inherited True Parents’ realm of victory. True Father explained that this was meant to mark the era of “personal responsibility.” He said that couples should “report their work” and that it was no longer “a time to pray to receive blessings.” This guidance was consistent with True Father’s view that humankind had entered the Completed Testament Age.

September 14, 2002

True Parents Officiate Interreligious and International Blessing and Rededication Ceremony

True Parents officiated four major Holy Blessings in 2002, all in the United States. On April 27, they officiated the 144,000 Clergy Couple Blessing, the main venue of which was the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. On July 3, they officiated the 1.44 million Second Generation Christian Youth and World Religious Youth Blessing from the same main venue. Then on September 14, 2002, they officiated the Interreligious and International Blessing and Rededication Ceremony. This historic Blessing ceremony was held in New York City’s Manhattan Center, just a few short miles from “Ground Zero,” where the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been destroyed barely one year earlier. Couples from many faiths participated as well as several Christian-Muslim couples in a poignant and moving statement of hope that New York’s Daily News said “couldn’t be more appropriate on the week America marked the first anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.” The final 2002 Holy Blessing, a “National Blessing for Reconciliation,” was conducted at the Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on December 7. It marked the 61^st anniversary of the Japanese bombing raid on Pearl Harbor and included some 300 Japanese leaders who expressed their wish for reconciliation among former enemy nations.   

September 15, 2012

True Father’s Seonghwa Ceremony

True Father ascended to the spirit world on September 3, 2012 and his Seonghwa ceremony was held on September 15 in Korea.

True Father’s “Universal Seonghwa Ceremony” took place at Cheongshim World Peace Center on September 15, 2012, twelve days after his ascension on September 3.  From September 6 to 14, an estimated 157,000 people had come to pay their respects to True Farther, many waiting for hours to sign an electronic register and offer a rose or lily before True Father’s portrait. Most had been able to offer a final bow to True Father, who lay in state at the Cheon Jeong Gung peace palace. On the day of the Seonghwa True Father’s body was carried reverently to a waiting vehicle and a flower-bedecked procession wound its way slowly down the mountainside to the stadium where tens of thousands of mourners waited. The casket was met at the main entrance by an honor guard of pallbearers and began a dignified processional entry through the center of the arena up to the main stage, which had been transformed into a garden of roses, lilies and chrysanthemums. True Father’s family accompanied the procession, and True Mother took her seat next to True Father for the last time. Following the representative prayer, Seonghwa address and eulogies, True Father began his final journey, with the procession winding its way back up the narrow mountain road lined with flag-waving supporters to the burial site on the grounds of the Cheon Jeong Gung peace palace. There, close family members and leaders gathered to hear final words from True Father’s teachings. Each offered flowers and sprinkled soil onto the casket as it was lowered into the waiting earth.

September 16, 2011

Korean Surnames Bestowed Upon 172 Faith Leaders from the United States

Ministers of different faiths and backgrounds embrace after receiving honorary Korean surnames.

True Parents conducted a grand ceremony in the Cheongshim Peace World Center for the bestowal of Korean surnames upon 172 ministers, 43 each from the North, South, East and West quadrants of the United States. They came to Korea representing America, Christendom and the entire world, with the purpose of registering in God’s Kingdom and testifying that God had anointed Father Moon. The clergy, who understood and supported True Parents’ historic mission from the point of view of 77 different religious denominations, were united through a singular cause. By joining into and becoming part of a Korean family and exchanging names, they gave a powerful testimony to the Korean people of the fruits of True Parents’ work to remove all barriers between races and denominations. Through proclaiming that Korea is God’s Homeland and Hometown, they affirmed that God had chosen this nation to be the base for the Kingdom of God and the family culture that honors elders and has fidelity and faithfulness in every aspect of the family—from marriage to the filial piety of children to their parents.

September 17, 1988

Seoul Olympics

True Father welcomes the representatives of 120 nations to his home in Korea for the Seoul Olympics.

The Games of the XXIV Olympiad took place from September 17 to October 2, 1988, in Seoul. The “Seoul Olympics” were significant not only for Korea as the second Asian nation to host the Olympic Games but also for the world, as the games brought together athletes from the communist and free-world nations for the first time since 1976. These also were the last Olympic Games for the Soviet Union and East Germany, both of which would cease to exist by the time of the next Olympic Games in 1992. True Father recognized this and made a special effort to welcome Eastern Bloc and Soviet athletes, providing them with generous gifts and invitations to cultural events. Although Coca-Cola was the official soft drink of the Games, athletes, friends and officials of many nations accepted more than 40,000 cans of McCol and bottles of Ginseng-Up. Following completion of the games, True Father proposed the holding of a World Festival of Culture (later designated as the World Culture and Sports Festival) as an “internal” complement to the Olympic Games.

September 18, 1959

David S.C. Kim Arrives as the Second Missionary to America

David S.C. Kim was a founding member of the Unification Church in 1954 and its first overseas missionary, having gone to Swansea University College, Wales, as a U.N. scholar during the mid-1950s. He was the second Unificationist missionary to the United States, arriving in Portland, Oregon, on September 18, 1959, some ten months after Dr. Young Oon Kim had arrived in Eugene, Oregon. Like Miss Kim, he came to the United States on a student visa (the only other way out of Korea was via the diplomatic service) and enrolled at Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary. He was expelled for “heresy” just weeks before his graduation in 1961. This precipitated a series of crises as Mr. Kim successively enrolled in Portland University, the University of Oregon, and finally Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, in efforts to retain his student status and stay in the country. He nevertheless founded United Faith Inc., or the “Northwest Family,” and directed a far-flung network of centers extending as far east as Chicago during the 1960s. He played a major role after True Parents’ arrival in America, translating for True Father, firing up members at Belvedere Training, leading the International One World Crusade (IOWC) and later as the founding president of the Unification Theological Seminary (1975-1994).

September 18, 1961

HSA-UWC Legally Incorporated

Dr. Young Oon Kim, the first Unification Church missionary to America, legally incorporated the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC) as a California corporation on September 18, 1961. Her primary motivation in establishing HSA-UWC was to stabilize her visa situation. However, she also recognized that for tax exemption purposes and legal protection, it was necessary for her group to be recognized by the government and to receive legal status as a religion. This incorporation became and still is the legal basis for the Unification tradition in the United States. It preceded the legalization of the church in both Korea and Japan.

September 18, 1974

True Father Speaks at Madison Square Garden

True Father’s Madison Square Garden speech, delivered on September 18, 1974, culminated his “Day of Hope” speaking tours which had begun nearly two years previously. Building on all that had gone before, MSG launched a triumphant 8-City Tour through many of the same cities in the Unification Church’s original, anonymous 7-City tour of 1972. Filling New York City’s Madison Square Garden was the Unification Church’s most ambitious undertaking to date, and the arrival of seven hundred IOWC members in mid-August greatly augmented campaign preparations in New York City. Ten 70-member IOWC teams followed rigorous street canvassing schedules. Representatives from each of the forty nations where the Unification Church maintained missions and the remaining American church members—in all, about 2,000—converged on New York City for a final week-long blitz prior to September 18. Advertising that “September 18 Could Be Your Re-Birthday,” eighty thousand two-by-three-foot posters with a portrait of True Father “wallpapered” Manhattan. The New York Times reported, “His face is everywhere, it seems.”

The turnout at Madison Square Garden was astounding. One thousand six hundred prominent New Yorkers were feted at a kickoff banquet in the Waldorf Astoria hotel on September 17, 1974. The following night, an estimated 10,000 to 35,000 ticket-holders were turned away from an already filled-to-capacity Madison Square Garden. True Father spoke on “The New Future of Christianity.” He proclaimed that Jesus had not come to die on the cross, that the crucifixion was the “secondary,” not the “original” mission of Christ, that the Lord will return “as the son of man in the flesh,” and that “that day is at hand.” With nearly two hundred press people in attendance, widespread publicity helped ensure success in other cities. The pattern of overflow crowds and continued publicity was repeated throughout the tour.

September 18, 1976

Washington Monument Rally

True Father spoke before 300,000 people at the Washington Monument rally, which was the second of two major rallies celebrating the United States’ bicentennial in 1976. The first was the Yankee Stadium rally on June 1. They were both part of the “Bicentennial God Bless America Festival,” which True Father stated was unique among the bicentennial observances because they were convened in the name of God and included international participants. At Washington Monument, True Father spoke on “America and God’s Will.” He stated, “The United States of America, transcending race and nationality, is already a model of the unified world.” He also said that Judaism, Christianity and the Unification Church as sibling faiths and Israel, the United States and Korea as sibling nations had “a common destiny representing God’s side” and needed “to restore the United Nations to its original purpose and function.” He called upon the three religions and three nations to “join hands in a unified effort,” contributing “internally to the unification of world religions and externally to the unification of the world itself.”

After the Washington Monument Rally, True Father confessed:

I feel light as a feather. I feel like I can fly. I have borne a tremendous burden of responsibility, but with the victory at Washington Monument, I feel like I have been liberated from the weight. I can now walk as a free man. I can hold my head up before heaven and earth.

Washington Monument was a watershed event in the history of the Unification Church in America. It concluded the initial proclamation phase of Rev. Moon’s ministry and opened the way for new initiatives in the fields of evangelism, education, interfaith relations, business, media and public life. It also provided the foundation for building a substantial movement worldwide.