An interview with James Anderson, director of The New Voices of Freedom

Gospel means good news. The reason we need gospel is that somewhere God’s efforts were misunderstood and the good news, interpreted by evil men, became bad news. There is so much news out today, but it is not good news. This is the age when we really need gospel. This is the age when, in preparation for the Messiah’s second coming, there has to be a medium that can’t be twisted. People can accept music because it’s right from the heart.

Our purpose is to convey why Reverend Moon came to America and why he thinks we can build an ideal world. We try to project this in one of our songs, “Pure Heart.” A pure heart is something that only a pure heart can see. So many people who don’t have pure hearts never can understand Reverend Moon’s motives. All he wants to do is God’s will. We’ve sung this song in many, many churches and the people are absolutely turned by it. They look very objectively at the Scripture which says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

These are the kinds of messages we can bring out, directly showing what Reverend Moon is doing and why all these people are responding. We, bring out messages that if faith can move mountains then faith can change this world. People think faith means just having faith in God, but the Old Testament prophets were out there trying to change people’s thinking. They begged the people to repent but they also told them to build a temple, to work with their hands. We try to show that we need faith and works. So we preach a lot.

We can also give our testimony in gospels. We can tell about our experiences with God and show that we are a God centered group. In our music we make it very apparent. Many preachers are really just in love with us and I know it’s because of the way we’re presenting the gospel.

Another theme we stress is overcoming. The Bible speaks constantly in Revelation about blessed is he who overcomes. I link that to Martin Luther King, about him being raised up like a light on a hill by God. I’m sure his dream that all men should live as brothers was given to him by God. We say that in order for everyone to overcome, there has to be a leader, someone who will stand strong in the face of all kinds of evil. Someone has to stand in the forefront of overcoming. We relate the Scriptures to Martin Luther King, to what we’re doing today, and to what Reverend Moon is teaching us.

We try to get people to think on a more universal level-beyond their church, or their neighborhood or their race. What we project to the black community is the reality of black people uniting with the Unification Church. They can see we’re O.K. so it’s a bridge for them.