Here are my thoughts on how the Chongpyong phenomena fits in with the
Korean experience:
1. Personal development
Korean members are from the same planet as us and, like most western
members, would appreciate this opportunity for personal advancement. They
are also attracted, as we are, to the powerful mystique of the unusual
spiritual phenomenon of the channel.
2. Chanelling
Shamans go back to the mists of time. Many shamans in Korea are
chanelling or at least summoning up ancient Chinese generals. There was
one in the early '80s who drew on General Douglas Macarthur. There was a
program on TV about her and an observant and ambitious policeman
noticed that there was a carton of American cigarettes on her altar. At the
time it was illegal to smoke foreign cigaretttes in Korea and she got arrested.
Her defense was that the smokes were for the General, not her, and she was
let off.
3. Theology
Heungjin-nim's theology and stories about meeting Abraham - who told him
that Sarah repelled the chieftain who claimed her favors by smearing faeces
in the layers of her clothing - and others, were spell-binding and marked a
"development" of DP. Likewise, Mrs. Kim's experience for UC members is
very compelling. She is chanelling Mother's mother and is making new
providential claims, such as the one that Satan has been restored and is
now Lucifer again, which fascinate us and reinforce our sometimes battered
conviction that we are at the core of the most meaningul events of our age.
Also, there are angels helping us and evil spirits are taken off to get
blessed. This would all seem cuckoo to ordinary Koreans, but appeals to UC
members in Korea as it does elsewhere.
4. Healing
The "ansu kido" slapping type of faith healing has been around for a while
in Korea. There was a woman who half-joined the UC back in the early
1980s who did it. Her story was that she had been really fat and had gone to
the mountains to pray and received that she should slap herself. It worked.
Her purpose was physical healing and her theory was that "bad blood"
collects where there is a problem and prevents natural healing. By slapping
hard, she drew the bad blood to the undersurface of the skin, where it
dissolved away as a bruise. Some masseurs incorporate it into their massage,
(but will stop if you yell at them). In the Chongpyong case, the theory is that
we are riddled with evil spirits bent on destruction, and that the body
must be made uncomfortable enough for them to leave. This surely fits in
with a lot of religious belief, Korean and otherwise?
5. Control
Koreans are inclined to fortune-tellers, spiritual healers and alternative
medicine. So successful spiritual healers in the UC have tremendous power
and need to be controlled. If you recall, prior to the Zimbabwean
incarnation, many people "received" messages or were part-time channels for
Heungjin-nim. This was seen as a preparation for the near-complete return
through Cleophas, which, until it went bad, served to purge the sin of
blessed couples in such a way that people talked of it as having saved the
movement. But when he arrived in Korea, they had no idea what it was all
about. Our group of 1,800 people had a 12 hour session of talks and
lectures to prepare people for his appearance, with Kim Won-pil having to
explain to a puzzled audience what "anal sex" meant. (Sorry, Teri, but it
was on the repentance list). The church had suppressed the phenomenon.
But because they let us long-time westerners do what they like, we were full
of it and totally ready. We were all in the front row and half of us - your
reporter included - burst into tears when he walked in. Two Koreans I'm
aware of who were "receiving" from Heungjin-nim linked up with western
members. They had arranged a meeting at the HQ church in Seoul for other
Koreans, but it was physically broken up by church officials. The Korean
church had had experience of this type of things before. It's how cults
start, for God's sake.
6. Moon family
Heungjin-nim is Moon family and his channel found himself propelled to the
leadership of the church. Mrs Hong is also Moon family. The top leaders
tend to endure the worst judgments from these people and I think they
would try to prevent any other kinds of such phenomena from getting
Father's approval. A return of Jesus, for example, would cause havoc. As a
westerner, I have noted that the Moon children have never engaged in the
"formula course," nor in other things like homechurch or Chongpyong. To
me, this indicates that these directions are not absolutes. When Father says
they are, it's just to encourage participation. Any child of Father's that
got down there with the masses would immediately win the across-the-board
support of the Korean membership, but there's no philosophical struggle
about why they don't. It's an intuited acceptance of the traditional caste
system.
7. Politics
Because of all these sensitivities, the Korean in me is interested in who
has controlled the phenomenon and harnessed it to their careers. I don't
think it would be lost on Korean members that both the Heungjin-nim and
Mrs. Hong returns have enhanced the position of Rev. Kwak. She has
revamped the world mission field and is saying that success in the next
blessing is crucial. Both of these things are Rev Kwak's responsibilities. Call
me cynical, but despite the wonderful experiences people have and despite
the personal healings, I see this interest served more than the well-being of
the movement as a whole.
8. Subjectivity
If there is no judgement made on this kind of thing, we're going to have a
few Fathers returning in the future to run the church. The thing here is
that we should be subjective over the spirit world and not the other way
round. (Which is why I'm tough on my spirits. Isn't that right, guys? Mais
oui. What? Where did that Frenchman come from?) There's nothing Korean
about that, except that they can be very subjective over this kind of
phenomenon when they want to be.They recognise, after all, that the
channels are people, usually with ambitions.
9. Short-termism
A very Korean aspect of the movement-level direction that appears to be
given in Chongpyong is that it deals with short-term issues. A weakness of
Korean management style is that it is frequently crisis-led. Tremendous
resources are thrown at problems that would never have occurred if there
had been a bit of forward planning. We are a religious movement and I can
understand that Father acts spontaneously in response to inspiration and to
keep Satan guessing. Still, the intense top-down structure, in which one man
can have a thought in the shower and in five minutes have 100,000
people scrambling to change their plans, while it makes for fluidity and
ability to change, also leads to tremendous inefficiencies. The Mrs Hong
phenomenon, if we accept the explanation at face value, is occurring to
deal with the immediate problem of the allegedly recent descent of evil
spiritual world into members. Fair enough. But the rebuilding side of the
equation is not to then strengthen those people to burrow them into God's
heart and help us arrange the movement that we love into a force for real
change. Or am I wrong? I see it dealing primarily with the immediate issue -
the blessing - and rattling the national mission field cage. OK, I'm
cynical and I'd be happy if someone who's attended the 40 days would
correct me.
10. Approval
Another thing I wonder about is how you deal with powerful authority and
get its approval. Anyone who went to Father and said, "Do I have to go to
Chongpyong?" would be an imbecile, because Father is required to be
consistent with his own direction. So the thing is not to ask. Conversely,
if there's a perceived threat on the horizon, like say Hoseanism, the trick
is to say to Mrs. Kim "what about members who say we don't need True
Parents?" and she's going to say "off with their heads." You tell Father
she has spoken against David Hose and what's he going to say in the
absence of the evidence that David is actually saying we should become true
parents? "To the Tower with him, then." Father seems to believe people who
say such things to him. So I'm suspicious of the approval process underway
for a lot of these things. I have to rely on my conscience and think that even
though Father said we have to go to Chongpyong three times, I don't have to.
My God, I've been ducking conditions and campaigns for over a decade now.
Trust me on this one.
11. Western leaders
I'm verging off the point here, but the above makes me want to say that
while I note a lot of anger against Koreans in the US, I keep coming back
personally to an anger against western leaders for their failure to roll up
their sleeves and wade in with the Koreans. They would respect that. Their
antenna are very sensitive to power and if they sense you've surrendered
yours, they'll stomp all over you. With a smile and some spiritual guidance
of course, because we are a loving religious family. But I'm talking about the
use of power. There are a lot of tough-minded people in our movement, but
my image of the western leader is a nice brother tiptoing in to see Mrs Kim,
confused about how to bow to a Korean, and whether to use the three words
of wretched Korean he's learned and in the end making a total wooz of
himself. Meanhwile, everyone keep pretending that the entire western
movement isn't festering like a sore wound.
12. Trust
Sorry, Franco, I almost forgot about this notion of trust. This idea comes
from a book called "Trust" by Francis Fukuyama, a Japanese-American who
wrote the "End of History and the Last Man" after communism collapsed.
He writes mainly about economics and the formation of businesses. He notes
that there are theories that explain society in terms of economics,
religion, legal system and so on. He distinguishes between "high-trust"
societies, like America, Japan, Germany, Britain and others, and low-trust
societies like China and Italy (and parts of America, like black America).
He says that there is an invisble quality of trust that enables complete
strangers to get together, agree on a contract, and launch a business. In
low trust countries, businesses are almost all family-based and frequently
don't make the 2nd generation change to being run by professional
managers. (Sound familiar?) He has a chapter on Korea in which he says it's
an anomaly. A low-trust Chinese culture which is behaving in a high-trust
manner thanks to the intervention of government, which has through
favorable financing boosted several family companies up to become
nationwide conglomerates. If you study the stock structure of the UC
companies, you'll see the UC manifestation of this. There's very little, if
any, non Moon-family shareholding in the non-public companies. Only
family is trusted. When you back this fact up with "God's heart," are you
saying that God sees me as an inferior? (Shut up, Pierre).
In the Chongpyong case, it wouldn't be a question of Korean members not
trusting what's happening. But you would see an interesting thing if Mrs
Kim were, say, to instruct that members to start businesses in teams.
Westerners and Japanese would have no problems, but the Koreans would
have problems. You'd see many of those who didn't have relatives in the
church running off with the money before their partners did. Pak Bo-hi's
activities in the west were sucessfully run by westerners who admired him.
But in Korea, it was his family that ran his projects. There was trust
there.
Mike
---
**************************************
From: Michael Breen
Subject: Re: Chong Pyung
To: UNIF-EVANGELISM@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
As this is one of my favorite subjects and Robert and I have exchanged
thoughts on it elsewhere, I'll take this opportunity as a new boy to jump
into the discussion.
An Unknown person wrote:
> Mrs. Kim's foundation is leagues away from that of the black brother
> chosen by Heung Jin NIm. Mrs. Kim was preparing for her work for
> several years before she was actually called by God to her specific mission.
>When you go there, no one confronts you about your sin, the way
> Heung Jin Nim did.
>
>"(No Name Available)"
Robert responded:
>> I am happy you had a good experience at Chong Pyong,
however I did not feel so good about the above statement. I felt it to
be racist. Again, I may be wrong, but I really feel this.<<
Hi, Robert.
I'd agree there's a measure of racism - not in No Name Available's comment,
but in the broader context it referred to.
At the time, I felt that Heungjin-nim's selection of Cleophas was an
inspired move. Not only was he able to reach his brothers and sisters
(especially his older brother) through this young man and confront the
horrendously unresolved sin of blessed couples, but he also temporarily
blew away a couple of -isms in the process - racism and ageism.
By "racism" I refer to the inevitable value judgments behind the use of the
restoration patterns as applied to people by nationality (not so much
race). In other words Germans are Cains, Brits are Eves, Americans are
Archangels (loafing around thinking about naughty things) and Japanese are
bigger Eves and we're all subservient to Korean Adams. But, where on earth
did Zimbabwe fit into this odd system? Nowhere. Exactly. God bless
Heungjin-nim.
The ageism used to be apparent in the concept of spiritual age and blessing
rank. Cleophas was not even blessed, if I recall, and had not been long in
the church. So what did he know? would have been the thinking.
Back in 1987 I had distinct experience in Korea in the immediate aftermath
of Cleophas that our church elders were looking at us more like brothers
and sisters in a family rather than like superiors and inferiors in an
organization. But it seems that Heungjin-nim's youthfully revolutionary
gamble did not succeed. Black mark for young members and non east
Asians, I'm afraid...
Robert asked:
>> Why do we need intervention from the spirit world when the
living Messiah is here with us now? Aren't his word and deeds
enough?
>> The other question is: What is being done "in between spiritual
incarnations" to prevent the need for spiritual intervention? In other
words, how are members being empowered to liberate themselves?<<
It occurs to me that this type of phenomenon may be exactly what early
Christians experienced. Maybe the Gospel writers thought it better to omit
the name of the medium through whom Jesus walked and talked for 40 days
because the medium went the way of Cleophas. Or maybe there were a lot of
media? It is evident from our understanding of his mission that Jesus was
desperate and so employed unusual, but very persuasive means to rescue the
providence.
In this light, I find your question about why we need this phenomenon very
profound and a bit scary. It's my assumption that the Heungjin-nim and
Daemo-nim appearances are evidence of some horrendous failure of Father's
followers to deal with their sin. I wonder if Daemo-nim is not rescuing the
providence from our failure. I'd identify several problems:
1. Lack of confession. As you know, there is no system of confession in the
UM. In fact the east Asian culture discourages it. Maintaining the
appearance of success is much more important than repenting - even
privately to God. The Christian repentence and forgiveness tradition has
not made inroads in a culture in which confession invites shame and
punishment, not forgiveness. Thus within the hearts of many UC-ers, God is
crushed by sin.
2. Arranged marriage. Arranged marriages are more conducive to infidelity.
I believe there is an inordinate level of pain and struggle between matched
couples which needs to be purged and which would not have been so
problematic if Father had blessed us in love matches. (This is an
observation, not a complaint).
3. Failure to follow Father. I believe this is the worst problem. I notice
that the only people who really get our attention in the UC are dead ones -
i.e. people from the other side. Despite what people claim, I think we
resist leadership and even resist Father. I refer to the failure of
individuals to become true parents themselves and liberate God's heart,
rather than failure to join in campaigns or learn Korean or similarly
external instructions.
4. Japanese upheaval. I often wonder if the real target of the Chongpyong
mission is not the Japanese church. It has provided the membership and
financing of the international UC at such a great sacrificial cost and yet
now appears to be undergoing incredible crisis.
5. Future. In addition, Hyojin-nim's divorce creates questions marks not
just over the succession but over the viability in the future of the idea
of True Family, as we presently understand it, at a time when Father is
nearing the twilight of his mission. I would think this creates a sense of
emergency akin to when it became clear that Father's first wife was going
to leave him. A few years from now, Hyojin-nim may be over his
difficulties, but right now they rattle the providence to the core.
In short, desperate times, unusual measures.
Of course, I may be in need of a good slap because I've always been guilty
of thinking too much. Perhaps this is the time for the evil spiritual world
to make a bee-line for blessed couples and get liberated and be blessed.
This is a bit shamanistic for me, but I've had personal experience with an
ancestor that suggests it may be true - so I'm torn.
I'd note it has long been understood in the UC that spirit world help is a
formation stage phenomenon. The next stage would be to, as you point out,
assist individuals in their growth. But I don't see much movement toward
this. In this regard, I am unhappy that the respect for spiritual phenomena
stops at Mrs Kim. I notice in Europe that David Hose is treated like a
heretic. I would like to see him in Chongpyong giving the second part of
the workshop, helping us come in touch with the God within ourselves.
Now, would that not make TP happy?
Mike Breen
*********************************
From: "Gunnard Z. Johnston"
Subject: Re: Chong Pyung
To: UNIF-EVANGELISM@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Someone (No Name Available) wrote:
>>Mrs. Kim's foundation is leagues away from that of the black brother
>>chosen by Heung Jin NIm. Mrs. Kim was preparing for her work for
>>several years before she was actually called by God to her specific
>>mission. When you go there, no one confronts you about your sin, the
>>way Heung Jin Nim did.
>>
Then Robert responded:
> I am happy you had a good experience at Chong Pyong,
>however I did not feel so good about the above statement. I felt it to
>be racist. Again, I may be wrong, but I really feel this.
Dear Robert:
I can understand how you could feel that there is an element of racism in
this comment, but if there is, I also feel it is minimal. For a long time
now most members I know have referred to Heung Jin Nim's returning
resurrection through the Zimbabwean brother as that of being: with the
"Black Heung Jin Nim". People of ALL races still describe people of
OTHER races as "those white boys" or "those chinks" or "those blacks" or
"those Puerto Ricans", etc, etc, etc. This is an unfortunate result of the fall,
and something that will steadily diminish as we unite together as one race
of people centering on the one heart of our True Parents. Over time, I see
the human race returning to the original blood race of what is now called
"mixed blood", only the origin will be True Parents, not Adam and Eve.
As to Chung Pyung, I think it is an all together different issue than Heung
Jin Nim's resurrection and Clophas. Father himself has gotten so involved
with the Chung Pyung providence that there is no question at all in my
mind that it is a good thing.
I just two days ago saw a video of Parents' visit to Chung Pyung this year
to dedicate the ground-breaking ceremony for the new 10,000 seat facility
that is being built. (Maybe your wife can get you a copy; it came on the
May issue of the Japanese "U-One" video company tape which records so
much of Parent's work, and reports it to the Japanese members worldwide.)
I heard Father say that the specialness of Chung Pyung is that the good
spirit world there is so strong that it can literally drive away low and
evil spirits. Having been there myself with my wife one year ago, I can
attest to the unique spiritual clarity and sense of goodness that pervades
there. I had a dream early on in our 40-day seminar wherein I saw Father
meditating so deeply on many occassions. Father was so serious about how
to fulfill God's providence, and Chung Pyung was the one place where
Father could really get in deep communication with God and the good spirit
world.
Of course, attending Chung Pyung STILL requires the participant's 100%
effort as the offering to get help from the high spirit world. If one has
a doubting or resisting attitude, there is little ANYONE -- whether spirit
being or earthly being -- can do to help that person. But if one has
sincere faith and a willingness to let the higher spirit world attend, that
spirit world can and will help. Countless testimonies from others confirms
this. Along with Father's endorsement, there is certainly nothing more
that I need to say it is a good thing.
>
> Some people were glad about what Clophas (the "black" Heung
>Jin Nim) did. They said they were liberated by it. Others felt it was
>too much.
I agree that Heung Jin Nim did MANY good things through Clophas. For a
time it was a very helpful providence, but unfortunately, Clophas got
unhinged when Heung Jin Nim had to leave him.
Robert Wrote:
> Honestly I don't go for any intervention from the spirit world.
>This is the age of our responsibility, not the spirit world. The Old
>Testament age was the age for spiritual intervention.
>
>
> Why do we need intervention from the spirit world when the
>living Messiah is here with us now? Aren't his word and deeds
>enough?
>
> The other question is: What is being done "in between spiritual
>incarnations" to prevent the need for spiritual intervention? In other
>words, how are members being empowered to liberate themselves?
Gunnard responds:
One common misconception about Chung Pyung, and other occurances of
spiritual healing through someone's returning resurrection (in this case,
Daemonim's through Mrs. Kim), is that the spirit person can do ALL the
work. That is fallacious, of course, but the temptation to depend too
heavily on others is not without precedent: simply look at the providence
of Jesus, with his powerful pure spirit, doing so many works to heal and
even raise people from the dead. It's lazy fallen nature to look to someone
else for a "quick fix", yet we humans get sucked into it time and again.
We need to LEARN from the fact that spiritual world CAN either
SUPPORT US or OBSTRUCT US, as evidenced in everyday life. Chung
Pyung just happens to "accentuate the positive", to borrow a phrase, and I
think it is just as real as porno districts work to accentuate the bad. So I say
to Chung Pyung: why not !!! The world needs a starting point for God to
claim on the earth as the connection between Heaven and Earth, and I've
heard Father say that Chung Pyung will be that starting point.
Don't ever think for one moment that people at Chung Pyung don't have to
WORK to get help !!! One does, and quite hard, too !!
ITPN,
Gunnard Johnston