Discovering True Parents in the future

May 9, 2025

Why this topic?

Due to some conversations, some expressions that the Unification Principle1 (and Godism in general) is hard to read or even relate to anymore—especially for young adults2—plus one nation’s dissolution of its Holy Community and its effect on the blessed children there, thoughts come concerning how True Parents teachings will affect the future. Acknowledging the wide variances of perspectives within a family—let alone on an global community—there’s at least one important factor to consider. This article focuses narrowly on just that one.

The transformative power of God’s Word

One thing that human history documents is that there’s a spiritual thirst within many peoples that seeks a better way of life. God has responded to that thirst by providing special individuals who receive revelations of God’s Word and who devote their lives to sharing them. And regardless of whether those people had flawless lives or not, if their inspired teaching lives on, it can transform the behavior of at least some segment of humanity for hundreds or thousands of years, even across the globe. And as the Unification Principle points out (in Part 2, Chapter 5; scroll to Section 3: The Period of Maturation of Politics, Economy and Ideology), those expressions of God’s Word can even become the basis for the worldviews and actual governments of societies.

For the purpose of this article, we will refer to the sum of True Parents’ teachings using a term that Father Moon coined, which can express the scope of all His teachings. That term is “Godism”. And regarding it, this is the scholarly assessment of Dr. Sebastian Matzcak3, who was the first professor whom Father Moon selected to teach philosophy at the founding of the Unification Theological Seminary:

“… Unification philosophy is … a mixture of Taoism and Confucianism. ...Both these influences are mingled with Christian ideas, brought to Korea by missionaries. As the result, the Unification philosophy somewhat resembles Platonism and to some extent Aristotelianism. …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. … The novelty of the Unification philosophy and its application to Christian teaching lies first of all in its new ontology resulting from the concept of man. For Unificationists, man becomes the starting point for our knowledge of the whole of reality. He becomes also a creature of supreme dignity, second only to God, and the relative center of the whole of reality, God being its absolute center. The Unification understanding of man, therefore, leads to understanding of the whole or reality, even of God, and therefore of all Christian teaching.”

- Unificationism, a New Philosophy and Worldview, p. 39-40

UNIFICATIONISM A NEW PHILOSOPHY AND WORLDVIEW

The import of Dr. Matczak’s assessment of the significance of Father Moon’s teaching in the history of thought is rather arresting. In short, to this scholar who has devoted himself to the study of world theology and thought, Godism is not just another inspired perspective that God has given to the world; it is rather singular in importance. He saw that it was capable of changing humanity’s understanding of itself and of God.

Whenever that has happened in history and souls were illuminated, societies could be influenced to strive for something higher. There are many records of a “golden age” in the world’s societies. One remarkable example is the Axial Age which Karl Jaspers identified as a worldwide occurrence, roughly around 400 years before the appearance of Christ.

Spiritual nurture

Another important idea that relates to Godism and the future is that of life elements. Elder members have heard it hundreds of times and younger members might recall hearing in weekend or summer workshops. It’s not just conceptual but it bears directly on having a vibrant spiritual life.

Briefly put, the idea explains that our inner health and well-being is nurtured by elements of a yang type and elements of a yin type. The one passage that mentions this states:

“The spirit grows through give and take action between two types of nourishment: life elements of a yang type that come from God, and vitality elements of a yin type that come from the physical self.” - Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 48 (or online, use the browser’s search function to locate “life elements” here)

There’s no further explanation of the life element in the book, but there is a little more in the Outline of the Principle, Level 4 book. There, it adds that the Life Element “…develops Heart within a person and develops him as a being of truth.”

Thankfully, a more definitive explanation of the life element came from Rev. Ken Sudo during the 120-day trainings that Father Moon created for America back in the mid 1970s. The exact passage states that “… in order for the spirit man to grow, it … needs positive and negative nutriments. The positive nutriments are God's truth and love.” (Online, use the browser’s search function to locate “life element” here.)

So the nature and content of the life element is “God’s truth and love.” And the most direct expression we have of this divine truth—and the love within it—is in the Words that God has given to us in our scriptures4. And so it has been the faithful practice of religious people throughout history to study the scriptures they were given with filial devotion.

This is the reasoning behind Father Moon’s insistence on our study of the Unification Principle. And since the book concludes with events up to its publication in the 1960s, Mother Moon fulfilled Father Moon’s desire to publish the three Holy Books, which contain much new material that True Parents taught in the 50 or so years after the Exposition of the Divine Principle was published. As the Introduction to the Divine Principle states:

“The words proclaimed on these pages are only a portion of this truth. This volume is merely a compilation of what his disciples have hitherto heard and seen. We believe and hope that when the time is ripe, more profound portions of the truth will be published.”

- Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 12

Consistent with those words written in the late 1960s, Mother Moon said in 2013:

“It is good to educate ambassadors for peace. We need to give them Divine Principle education. Actually, teaching Divine Principle is not enough now. We need to teach them Father’s words. They need to do Hoon Dok. Don’t you think so? Divine Principle was revealed in the 1960’s. After that, we need to study Father’s words, don’t we? We need to publish Cham Boomo Gyeong (Teaching of True Parents), and together with Peace Messages and Cheon Seong Gyeong, we need to educate them.”

- Message on Parents’ Day, May 8, 2013

The essence of a movement’s long-term power

And here we reach the heart of the matter: One key observation about a spiritual movement is that its driving power—its fire—directly reflects the strength of its members’ connection with its founder’s heart. Thorough grasp of a movement’s source documents is very important, but for many members, that by itself may not bring passion and fervent devotion to a faith. And realistically, regular in-depth scripture study isn’t something so many people do, especially when the movement’s writings are voluminous.

Many good people are busy grappling with life’s challenges and so it’s common practice for them to rely on learning largely from the sermons of their pastors, who do the deep studying and interpretation for them. Experience or research confirms that’s a dependency that’s common in the congregations of many faiths.

So, in the histories of such faiths, there’ve often been a core of specially focused people. In Judaism, there was the tribe of Levi5, who was specially anointed and entrusted to study and preserve the faith. In Christianity, the 12 apostles weren’t scholars of the scriptures; it likely wasn’t they who wrote the gospels. Other, later followers wrote them, and still later were monks who created the illuminated manuscripts, as well as a few Church Fathers6 who were scholars. The main point here is that, as long as at least some part of a religious community studies, values and is committed to the preservation and transmission of its scriptures, that community can survive the trials of the ages.7.

Finally, if one meets fervent believers—such as sincerely religious Christians—one trait is evident: they love The Lord. Their hearts have somehow been touched, moved and broken open to feel that Jesus took on the weight of their sins—indeed of all humanity’s sins—so that they would not be condemned but instead could be reconciled to God and have a miraculously graceful second chance to do their best in this life. Such people are fully aware of their profound indebtedness to this supreme love of Someone who was fully, unreservedly willing to endure the most public humiliation, horrific torture and “lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). It’s that kind of “fire” that’s kept the purest forms of Christianity strong for over two millennia, even despite the repeated missteps and serious mistakes that mar its history.

How does that happen? It can occur when a sincere and open-minded seeker finds God’s truth and love as he or she prayerfully studies Jesus’ life and words. Those words aren’t read speedily in order to quickly cover a large number of pages. And if the language is a bit archaic—as in the King James version for example—or the examples are from a distant time and culture, the content isn’t dismissed as too difficult to read or understand. Instead, the earnest searcher persists, in faith and in trust; he or she patiently and earnestly reaches deeper to extract the meanings and the heart behind the words.

In the Christian record, that condition of sincere effort and devotion has brought about epiphanies and transformations in people the world over, for the past two millennia.

How True Parents’ heart will be known by future generations

Then, if that works for folks who’ve studied God’s inspired Word in the Bible, and if that’s one apparent way for them to connect to the heart of one singularly remarkable young man who lived on earth two thousand years before them, it stands to reason that sincere and earnest study of God’s Word as given to True Parents could connect people of this and future centuries to Their hearts.

If that happens on as widespread a level—just as it clearly has for Jesus—then it’s entirely reasonable to expect that the spiritual movement that True Parents initiated will continue into even the distant future. The fact that Jesus was killed so young, clearly hasn’t dimmed the transformative effect of God’s Word and God’s Love through Him. That’s its power: it’s undiminished by time, especially as long as there are those who love, study, and preserve it faithfully for future generations to discover and also cherish.

Conclusion

When True Parents created the ideas of Home Church, Tribal Messiahship, Hook Dok Hae, or when They published the Holy Books, They clearly didn’t want only seminarians and pastors to have access to the Word. Rather, They hoped that all their children—including their descendants and even distant generations—would have direct access to God’s life-giving love and truth therein.

It’s the nature of the human soul to earnestly seek divine understanding. And when a soul can grasp God’s Word, it can ultimately lead to finding the life-expanding heart of God as well as that of its human Vessel.

Notes

1 Dr. Lee explained that Tongil Wolli is most accurately translated as the Unification Principle.

2 See the thought-provoking and heart-felt article Patient Love is More Important Than Doctrine

3 Dr. Matzcak was a Polish Jesuit who taught philosophy at St. Johns University in NY. He authored many philosophical treatises.

4 Some scientists believe that creation and nature are also eloquent expressions of God’s Truth and evidence of God’s Love. Of course, with His background in engineering, Father Moon naturally spoke about finding God’s truth and love in nature. See Book 6 True Creation in Cheon Seong Gyeong. And in science, there are numerous examples; here is one inspired perspective from the past and one current resource.

5 Learn about the identity and special function of the Levites online here.

6 These historical individuals are the intellectual leaders of the church; learn about them here.

7 That work of preserving great traditions for posterity can be seen in World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts or the three volumes of World Religions. This is a remarkable trilogy written by Dr. Young Oon Kim, who was the very first missionary whom Father Moon sent to the U.S. She could speak, think and write in fluent English and she made the very first English translations of the Divine Principle.

When UTS was founded in Barrytown, she was its professor of Theology and also Comparative Religions. Her love of the voice of God in great scriptures of the world empowered her to train seminarians to dialog with sincere understanding and respect with people of many different faiths. Her World Religions trilogy is available here, here and here.