And that’s not all »
by William HainesSorry for carrying on with this topic but I guess I am on a bit of a roll. According to the Principle in order for the Messiah to be born both a foundation of faith and a foundation of substance need to be made. As we all know, this was established first by Jacob and Esau which is why eventually Jesus was born as a descendant of Jacob. Along the way there were a number of times when the messiah could have been born but wasn’t because the necessary conditions hadn’t been made. The reason why these conditions need to be made is actually very practical. The messiah comes to establish the kingdom of heaven by bringing a new and complete expression of truth bringing enlightenment, and forgiveness of sin and salvation through bringing rebirth into God’s lineage so that people know and feel that they are God’s sons and daughters. Of course this is quite radical stuff and the danger is that he will be rejected and killed. So it was important that a religious society should come into being which was also tolerant of people with new ideas no matter how controversial. This is more likely to happen when there is a tradition of accepting, respecting or at least tolerating ‘Abel-type’ people instead of persecuting, imprisoning and killing them. This why the focus on Judaism is not believing the right thing but behaving in the right way, namely observing the law. Thus the importance of the rule of law, not men. So that no matter how disagreeable and eccentric and obnoxious a person may be in his opinions, as long as he doesn’t break the law, he remains a free person protected by the law. This incidentally is what the word freedom means – free to do as one likes within the dom (dom is the old Anglo-Saxon word doom meaning law hence doomsday is judgement day).
In Palestine at the time of Jesus there were many different ‘Judaisms’ such the priestly caste focused on the Temple, the nationalistic Zealots, the Essenes, followers of John the Baptist, and at least two disputing parties amongst the Pharisees. This plurality of religious views and opinions is typically Jewish but it also created space for the messiah to come with his own ideas and compete for followers. Unity on the other hand would have meant uniformity and made it impossible for new ideas to have a chance. The main problem Jesus faced was that he was regarded as a political threat by the Jewish priestly class who were charged by the Romans with keeping the peace and stopping insurrection. The title ‘messiah’ had strong political overtones which is why Romans relished in executing them and why Jesus was crucified under the title “The King of the Jews.”
So who created the foundation for the lord of the second advent to be born? This had to be done on a much bigger level now, uniting Hebraism and Hellenism which are the Abel and Cain cultural streams respectively. This happened in the United Kingdom where there has been religious pluralism and freedom, more or less, for 300 years. Unlike the French enlightenment which took a decidedly atheistic turn, the great philosophers of the English enlightenment sought to achieve a synthesis between Christianity and philosophy and science. Thus the empiricist John Locke while also articulating and developing the theoretical basis of liberal democracy and religious toleration also published a book called Reasonable Christianity. One of the other great empiricists who also showed the limitations of rationalistic deism was Bishop Berkeley. Indeed the English enlightenment was quite religious and included several prominent churchmen such as John Wesley. In Scotland in what was known as the ‘Athens of the North’ there was a stunning constellations of great minds, all members of the Scottish enlightenment characterised by a thoroughgoing empiricism and practicality where the chief virtues were held to be improvement, virtue, and practical benefit for both the individual and society as a whole. The most well known are the gentle sceptic and empiricist philosopher David Hume and the economist Adam Smith, but there were many others as well such as Robert Burns and Francis Hutcheson. Although as individuals they were not particularly religious they all recognised the functional importance of religion for civilised society. This synthesis between Hebraism and Hellenism continued in the UK with the fruitful interaction of science and religion – Darwin’s ideas of evolution were readily accepted by most nineteenth century clergymen and Christian scientists – and the Christian origins of even socialism and the trade union movement which on the continent were associated with atheism.
Thus were the principles and traditions of a religious liberal democracy – the rule of law, due process, separation of powers and functions of government, freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc. – established and spread and multiplied throughout the English speaking world and planted in Korea after its liberation from Japan. Without this western oversight Korea would probably have become an oppressive, closed, xenophobic society again in which it is very doubtful that Father would have had a chance. So even though Father was persecuted in South Korea, he was not killed. Even if he was imprisoned unjustly, he was later released. In America too, even although Father was persecuted and even sent to prison under a miscarriage of justice, he was allowed to do whatever he liked within the law which protected him. Even though he was a foreigner he was not deported. No other country in the world in the past or present would have allowed a foreigner to do the sort of things Father has done in America. So the foundation to receive the messiah and enable the messiah to start and continue his work without being killed was established in Britain and multiplied and spread throughout the world.
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