Rearing Monarchs #29:

The Value of the Word
Unification Thoughts, October 2023

This month’s topic follows up last month’s article—The Practical Value of Vision—because visionary ideas are articulated in words. I’d like to refer to two examples from the Bible and one from our own lifetime. The first refers to Moses.

Moses received the Word

We know that Moses received the Ten Commandments while he was in the desert with the 12 tribes of Israel. Of them, there was a tribe set apart to bear a special responsibility: the Levites (or Kohen). They were to attend the Tabernacle and also to keep the Word alive, which they have, for millennia. To this day, they honor the Word and I wonder if that is the condition they have to still survive and prosper, despite their providential errors and the repeated efforts in history to eradicate them.

Sometimes, when I consider this most fundamental expression of the Word, I wonder about the level of understanding such people had, that they needed to be told such basic things! Is it an indication of the abysmal chasm between God and humanity that resulted from the human fall?

A second example refers to Christ Jesus.

Jesus said “It is finished!”

This is the record of Jesus’ final words on the cross:

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

• John 9:28-30

I’ve long thought that if a bystander on Golgotha heard Jesus utter “It is finished!”, he or she would have thought grimly, “Yes, we’re done for. It’s all over for us.”

But that’s not what Jesus meant. Rather, he knew that he’d planted a stake in the ground, around which the spiritual rotation of the earth itself would be changed. He knew the power of the Word he had shared and that it would change the way people thought and lived.

It only needed some people to treasure the Word, share it orally and eventually write it down, so that it could be studied and passed on to the future. It would take time—as all things do when they grow—but He knew that the transformative power of that Word was real.

And fortunately, there were people who kept the Word alive and transmitted it from generation to generation. Inexorably, the very empire which had crucified him embraced him officially. Even now, the descendants of Israel read the Word and are accepting him as the greatest of their own.

This brings to mind an event from our own time.

Father Moon said “I have completed everything.”

This is the record of Father Moon's final prayer:

I have completed everything…I am spending this time now to bring my life to its conclusion, to bring it to a close with utmost devotion, in accordance with Your Will.

• Sun Myung Moon, Oct. 13, 2012

I look at these words that Father Moon spoke near the end of his life as similar in meaning to the ones that Jesus spoke at that same time in his life.

As we’ve just seen, Jesus knew the importance of the life he’d lived. And he knew the power of the Word he’d taught and the inevitable effect it would eventually have on humanity. I think Father Moon spoke in the same vein and with the same certainty.

Through observing historical precedents of people’s original minds seeking for and valuing the Word, I expect that these teachings of Godism can also eventually prevail.

In his 400-page book Unificationism, Dr. Sebastian Matczak appraised the potential of Godism to do that very thing:

…Although its theology is basically Christian with some distinctive emphasis, Unification philosophy in its basic origin is quite different from, even if reconcilable with Western philosophy, especially with Platonism and Aristotelianism. In addition, the Unification philosophy is fitted into an explanation of Christian belief. Nevertheless, more explicitly speaking, Unification philosophy is of Chinese origin, a mixture of Taoism and Confucianism. …All these influences, however, are united in one organic philosophical body, bringing new valuable elements to Western philosophy, and possibly offering solutions to the problems which have tortured Christian theology for centuries.

• Unificationism, a New Philosophy and Worldview
Dr. Sebastian Matczak, p. 39-40

That book appraised three aspects of Godism that were expressed in the main textbooks of 1982: its theology (Divine Principle), its philosophy (Unification Thought), and its social theory (Communism: Critique and Counter-proposal). The above extract is within a larger context that you can see in this endnote.

The Word unfolds as we grow

As the Divine Principle explains, a “new expression” of truth appears in history, to accommodate the development of humanity:

…truth itself is unique, eternal, immutable and absolute. Scriptures, however, are not the truth itself, but are textbooks teaching the truth. They were given at various times in history as humankind developed both spiritually and intellectually. The depth and extent of teaching and the method of expressing the truth naturally varied according to each age.

• Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction, p. 7

And it’s an essential part of learning that study must result in actual practice. Father Moon said:

I do not want to leave anything but the Word behind, and I need to leave behind the substantial realization of the Word. (324-027, 2000/06/04)

• Chambumo Gyeong, Book 12, Chp. 1, §2

So, though Father Moon left physically, the Word remains and—as long as it is preserved and practiced—it can continue to do what it always has: change the world’s people, throughout the generations.

A personal note

I’ll take a liberty here and insert something personal that’s nevertheless related to the topic and to the overall theme of this series—that is, the education of our young people. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Believing that one important thing that can keep a child from making a bad choice—when he or she will be older and alone—was a connection to God’s Word and heart, I tried a plan to nurture that connection. Guided by the notion of an education of the heart (from Unification Thought’s Theory of Education), I started my son on the children’s bible when he was old enough to understand it, which was in the formation stage of his life. That way, he’d be familiar with bible figures and their dilemmas when he later met them in the Divine Principle.

Then, in the next seven years (i.e., the growth stage), he worked with the Level 4 Outline of the Principle. By “worked”, I mean that we’d read a short, age-appropriate section of the Level 4 book; we’d make sure it made sense to him; and then he’d copy an accompanying diagram into those old-fashioned bound notebooks that schoolchildren sometimes use. He’d usually lie on his stomach on the floor, with the Level 4 book and his own notebook. Children like to draw, and writing and doodling aid understanding and imprinting concepts on the mind.

I recall that the whole process took about 40 minutes, unless he got more involved in the diagramming. Otherwise, I didn’t want it to drag on, because I didn’t want Principle study to become associated with boredom and dread. We basically did this every Sunday, after Pledge, until he left our house and moved into a dorm in college. And it had to start when he was still young, so that he’d get accustomed to it as a normal family practice, our “tradition”, as it were. As his reading and comprehension developed, the readings would adjust, in the same way that mathematics or English is adjusted to grade levels at school.

By the time he’d reached the top of the growth stage—14 years and puberty—he’d filled that little notebook with diagrams and we’d gone through the Level 4 book three complete times.

In his completion stage—15 and later—two memorable things happened. He told me that he’d realized that his friends didn’t know the Principle so well, and he became the children’s lecturer at family camp. And the screenshows he created for them were polished reflections of the drawings in his little childhood notebook.

Fast forward to college graduation and, despite my hopes for the best and my fears for the worst, he made it through college with his faith and integrity intact. And later, when he became a father, he asked me to explain the home education plan he’d experienced, because he wanted to use it in his own family.

I only share all this because it’s one possible way of educating a child in the Word that seems to have some effectiveness.

Conclusion

The Word has power, but for that to manifest, that critical “five percent” of human responsibility is needed.

History demonstrates the powerful appeal of the Word and the persistence of people’s original minds. Everywhere throughout time, there have been earnest ones who seek, find and respond. So, it rests with those in the present time to recognize the value of the Word and study it prayerfully, and then to preserve, practice and transmit it to future generations.

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