Today I wrote a response to a quote of Father that had been posted on an anti-Moonie website which tried to give the impression that Father is anti-Semitic. I thought some of you (such as Doris) might find it interesting. It also means I can get more mileage out of my writing!

The posted quote of Father was from a leaders conference a few years ago:

“Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed 6 million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents.”

Let’s have a look at this statement bearing in mind it is from notes of a speech given in Korean and simultaneously translated into English and so there may be bits missing because they weren’t translated or noted down never mind the inherent unreliability of such a mode of translation and transcription.

The call to repentance is eternal. Why shouldn’t Jewish people and indeed all the people of the world be called to repentance? This is normal and is what John the Baptist and Jesus called their contemporaries to. It is not unusual
 for Christians during Holy Week to repent for the way that Jesus was treated. So who was responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus? One traditional Christian response has been everyone, and so everyone, Jew, Gentile, black and white should repent which means to feel sorry that it happened and determine to make sure that such a tragedy never happens again.

Jesus is the King of Israel. Well, calling him ‘King’ shows the respect Moon has for Jesus. It is also what Christians believe and that is approximately the title under which Jesus was crucified. From a Jewish point of view he obviously wasn’t the messiah because he didn’t fulfill the messianic roles – such as sitting on the throne of David. At best then Jesus was a ‘potential messiah’ who, had he lived out his natural life, might have fulfilled them.

Hitler killed 6 million Jews. So no Holocaust denial here. What the principle of indemnity is here is not clear (translation/transcription problem?). It doesn’t mean they were punished because they killed Jesus because this is not what the word indemnity means. Indemnity means what has to be done to restore something to its original state. So there is no connection here with the crucifixion as the Holocaust didn’t restore it. One explanation given by some Jewish theologians is that the Holocaust was the ‘price’ to be paid for the restoration or establishment of the state of Israel. That was certainly a consequence of the Holocaust but it shouldn’t have been necessary.

From this statement and others it is clear that Moon thinks Satan was the one behind the Holocaust. In other words it didn’t happen as a punishment by God for the crucifixion of Jesus. It was an act of Satan, not an act of God. So people, such as the institutional churches, were doing the will of Satan, not the will of God, when they marginalised, persecuted, abused and killed Jews. They might have thought they were doing God’s will, punishing Jews on God’s behalf, but from Moon’s point of view they were doing the work of the devil. This of course is very different to traditional Christian theology and folkolgy.

God could not prevent the Holocaust. This of course is a problem that has caused much anguish and led to a whole school of Holocaust Theology in an attempt to make sense of what is, and will always be, a problem of theodicy.

Clearly from Moon’s statement God wanted to prevent the holocaust but God as we know is invisible. As Saint Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body on earth now but ours: No hands but ours, no feet but ours . . .” It was the Christian church that should have stepped in and prevented the Holocaust carried out by the mostly non- or anti-Christian Nazis. That was the body, the body of Christ, through which God wanted to prevent the Holocaust. But because of the latent and not so latent anti-Semitism within the churches this didn’t happen. And this anti-Semitism had part of its roots in the historical anti-Judaism of the church. Why was the church anti-Jewish? In part because the early church found it more convenient to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus than the Romans who executed him as a political subversive and potential revolutionary. The title messiah was very political and threatened Roman sovereignty. Jesus was not the only ‘messiah’ they executed. So because the Christian church has traditionally blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus, they didn’t have much compassion when Jews were being persecuted, rounded up and murdered by the Nazis and so God was not able to work through the Christian conscience to prevent the holocaust.

The other interesting point here is that Moon calls Jesus ‘the True Parents’. In other words he recognises him as at least an equal. Elsewhere he has said he was saved by Jesus and it is well known that Amazing Grace is his favourite English hymn that he has often been heard to sing and hum.

Israel killed True Parents. On this Moon is either misquoted, incompletely quoted, using shorthand or plain wrong as this statement stands. Jesus was executed by the Romans on a political charge. Obviously some Jewish leaders of the Temple were involved. It was their job as collaborators with the occupying Romans to police the people and hand over any potential subversives. When Jesus was proclaimed the ‘Son of David’ by over enthusiastic supporters as he entered Jerusalem, the Temple authorities were worried. When he ‘threw out the money changers’ in the Temple they were even more alarmed and decided that he needed to be arrested and killed so as to prevent the Roman authorities destroying the place in their normal brutal way (John 11:45-49) They had to arrest Jesus at night because he was so popular amongst the people. So it wasn’t Israel or ‘the Jews’ that caused the death of Jesus but a small political clique who had their own partially self-interested and partially public-minded reasons. If Israel had not been an occupied country things might have turned out very differently.

Dear HQ congregation and friends, and anyone who doesn’t have a church they can go to,

Pastor’s update: Sunday Worship, 7th March, 11am at LG: ‘it’s personal’

Been missing you over the last couple of weeks since going to Korea. This Sunday at 11am we are going to look at a fascinating story that will help you consider how you let True Parents into your heart and life:

Jesus spat on the ground mixed his saliva with the earth, put the mud on a blind man’s eyes and gave him back his sight. What was all that about!? And what happened next? John Ch.9

Come and find out why this story can tell you something about your life, and how your big decisions mostly get decided by your heart rather than your head.

not super relevant, but notice the saliva

Message: It’s Personal…

MC: Tom O’Connell

Music: Kathleen and Chris Moloney
(with special performance by Terry – aka Van Morrison – Sweeney singing ‘come what may’)

Reading: Alex Shaw
Prayer: Wen Chang
Lunch: Grant Miller
Ustreaming: Ajay Rai

As we have done previously we will be developing our use of Ustream. So if for whatever reason you don’t make it in for Sunday Worship in person, feel free to join us over the internet at:

http://www.ustream.tv/user/FFWPU-UK-HQ from 11am.

There will be a 3 minute pp presentation in the announcements about our plan to raise £21K to refurbish and upgrade our HQ church facilities.

Lastly, there is now a high end quality video of Pastor Hyung Jin Moon’s message that I originally put up on my blog filmed from my iPhone. Check this link below for a perfect picture and sound done on a professional camera:

http://www.vimeo.com/9915570 (if you haven’t watched this yet, it is well worth checking out.)

God bless,

Simon
Your Pastor

One of my favorite tools for personal growth is what I will call “the pointing finger technique”. You know the saying “when you point your finger you have 3 fingers pointing back at you”.
This is a technique that I apply to myself as often as I can as it can help me “see” myself.
When I have this seeing I am then in a better position to love others rather than judge them. This of course assumes I can love myself when I “see” what is inside me.

This is akin to the bible verse saying that we are all sinners and Jesus asking he who is without sin caste the first stone.

This does not mean that we need not correct wrong when we see it, but rather about how we feel about the wrong and if we can respond in an appropriate way to it. What is happening inside me? Sometimes we hear someone say something like “I was beside myself with rage”, a good indication that that someone may need to do a little looking inside. A little “seeing”.

Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity

Jesus was the only begotten Son of God; he attained oneness with God through perfect give and take action. When we unite with Jesus in a perfect reciprocal relationship, we can recover our original God-given nature. We can cultivate a give and take relationship with God and become one with Him. This is how Jesus serves as the mediator for fallen people; he is our way, truth and life. Jesus came with love and sacrifice to give all that he had to humankind, even offering his life. If we turn to him in faith, we will “not perish but have eternal life.”10(John 3:16)

Christianity is a religion of love. It strives through love and sacrifice to open the path to restore the horizontal relationships of give and take between people in the love of Christ. On this horizontal foundation of love, the way is opened to restore our vertical relationship of give and take with God. In truth, this was the main purpose of all the teachings and deeds of Jesus. For example, Jesus said:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. -Matt. 7:1-2

So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. -Matt. 7:12

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. -Matt. 10:32

He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. -Matt. 10:41

And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. -Matt. 10:42