Feedback on Communication for The World Mission Department of FFWPU — Simon Cooper

I put ‘blank’ because no one in your dept. in Seoul ever puts a name to the emails you send out (well almost never.)

Instead you put a red Korean stamp. The stamp doesn’t mean much outside of Korea. Don’t know if you realised that.

You do mention at the start of your memo that:

“The content below is based on a paper prepared by the FFWPU Korea Headquarters.” But you/they are anonymous.

I think very few people have any idea who you are, who is in your department, how decisions are made, and what processes are in place to evaluate and decide how to disseminate information to the masses. You could at least set up a website with your pictures on it describing your different roles and functions. That would be a start.

I am writing this as a pastor who regularly emails his congregation and gets a lot of generally positive feedback on my approach to communication from the congregation and wider afield. Sometimes I get constructively critical feedback, and I am always grateful for it, as it gives me a chance to change, develop, and improve when I fall short.

How we communicate as human beings says a lot about who we are.

Here is some feedback for you, from me, as someone who reads your emails. I hope that you are interested in the people who read your emails and what they think. That would imply good give and take. I am blogging this letter because in the past I haven’t always had a reply when I have written back.

You send out memos from time to time that come across to quite a few people as propaganda. I am sure that isn’t your intention, but unfortunately that is how they are often received.

You just recently sent out a memo about something that was so full of complex theological phrases that it came across as quite fantastical. Did no one ever tell you, that if you want to communicate meaningfully and effectively you need to be what in England we call: ‘down to earth.’

I think for many people who read your memos you come across as if you are all from another planet. This is a bit of a problem when you reflect on what you are representing.

One common theme in your memos is to include countless superlatives to commend True Parents to us, the readers. But probably unwittingly, the excessive repetition of your reference to True Parents’ victories and successes at completing and solving every problem in history comes across to many as superficial and insincere, and thus achieves the opposite effect that you are intending to give.

I imagine you want to promote hope, belief, and certainty in people’s hearts and minds, but the your tone does not encourage those sentiments. By the time I have got to the end of one of your memos I have often come to question whether I want to be associated with what you are trying to represent.

This is a shame, because of course I know that on a human level we share a common faith. Here are some examples of what I mean from your recent memo:

“the eternal realm of victory of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, who had perfected, completed and concluded the providence of restoration. ”

“…whether the victorious True Parents bestow their grace and blessings…”

“True Parents, who have been victorious in all aspects of the providence….”

It almost feels like you don’t trust that church members believe in all of the victory, and therefore you need to emphasis it a lot, because perhaps that will make them believe a bit more….?

I was wondering when you write the word ‘victory’ what you have in your mind? What picture you do you see? Is it something that resonates with in you? Maybe try describing that.

Then in your recent memo you wish to tell us about something that has recently happened. But before you can do that you decide to write a potted history of God’s history to emphasis how this recent event is simply the next part of God’s plan.

I am not saying whether that is or isn’t the case, but the result of your preamble is to make what for some people is a happy announcement into something that sounds contrived.

By describing everything that has taken place in True Parent’s life as if nothing went wrong, and over emphasising all the ‘victories’, you present a theology of predestination. This is not what most of us were taught when we met the movement. We understood that often God has had to go to plan B, C, and D etc. because things haven’t always worked out. You seem to accept this in the history you present in your memo, only up to and including Christian history, but with ‘our’ history you seem to switch to a different and new theology, that emphasises the victory of having chosen a national anthem and national flower, rather than the fact that what had been hoped for on so many levels by True Parents has not materialised.

Your attempt to present this recent event as a parallel of history by dipping in crudely to a moment in Christian history without any proper analysis is frankly for most people going to seem very amateur.

I think it is certainly disrespectful to those who have recently just been married. It is normally best to give people a bit of an opportunity to carve out their futures before you start to say that their marriage is ‘surely’ going to become a big historical event.

Did you interview them, and ask them if that is how they see it? I bet you didn’t. How would you feel if someone wrote about an event in you life with out first checking if that was really how you felt about it at the time? Again, it may be true, but some things are best left to grow organically on their own, before trumpeting another victory that is billed to happen in the future.

I imagine what has taken place actually required an enormous amount of compromise by all parties and a lot of generosity of heart. But the way in which you write it up gives the impression that it was actually something that had been planned from the beginning of time.

I wonder if you were put to the test to discuss in depth about Emperor Theodosius making Christianity the state religion whether you would be able to present a convincing case that those events were God’s real plan for Christianity.

My next query is about the start of one of your paragraphs:

“In this way, God’s providence developed in line with True Parents’ life course.”

Surely you mean it to be the other way round? I am sure it has been True Parents who have been doing their best to develop their life in line with God’s providence rather than God bringing Himself into line with them.

There are several other turns of phrase that come across as alien and strange to most people who read in the English language, but maybe try asking some other people and see if perhaps it is just me who seems to be distanced by your memos.

One of the fatal flaws in the way you communicate is that you rarely speak in precise and concrete terms. Instead you use grand generalisations, and turn everything into a theological statement. For example you will always refer to whatever has just happened as a moment of ‘providential fruition’ but you will ignore all the real issues that these ‘important’ moments inevitably throw up.

You know perfectly well that what has happened raises some very deep and important questions in respect of how we proceed in our tradition and culture, but you don’t want to refer to them, because it is awkward for you to do so. It is awkward for you because probably you are very unsure about the future, and you don’t know all the answers.

Don’t worry! …that is what God is there for. It’s okay not to have everything perfectly worked out, and to ask difficult questions, and to deal with our own messiness. That’s what our history has always been like, and God has always had a way of eventually taking us forward.

But your memos, pretending that everything is just simply always glorious, and avoiding reality, will only slow things down.

If you remember the time of Father’s passing when you initially described someone stepping down from a leadership role as being for health reasons rather than what was actually a case of them being pregnant and having committed adultery.

That time I wrote my own memo to my congregation because yours fell very short of the truth, when the truth was already in most people’s hands. And there lies the irony of your predicament, you want to witness to a new truth in the Divine Principle but you can’t even call a spade a spade.

I will probably have to write my own memo again this time, as I care about my community being able to grapple with real life and real issues rather than living off heavenly platitudes.

That way we get a chance to authentically honour God, Christ, True Parents, and their family, and steer clear of paying lip service.

I am not saying it was an easy memo to write, but you could have done better.

All the best,

Simon Cooper (43LG community church, London)

Family Federation for World Peace and Unification 324-275 Misari-ro, Seorak-myeon, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea 477-855 Tel: +82-31- 589-9720 Fax: +82-31- 589-9721 E-mail: ffwpuihq@gmail.com

Ref. No. FFWPUI 2014-77 To : Special Emissaries, Regional Presidents, Cheon Il Guk Special Envoys, National Leaders Cc : National Messiahs From : FFWPU International Headquarters Date : 8.20 by the heavenly calendar in the 2nd year of Cheon Il Guk (Sept. 13, 2014) Re. : The Providential Significance of Yeon-jin Nim’s and Jeung-jin Nim’s Joint Holy Wedding

May our Heavenly Parent’s and the True Parents’ blessings and love be with all regions, mission nations and providential organizations.

Following the announcement of Moon Yeon-jin’s and Moon Jeung-jin’s Joint Holy Wedding [Official memo FFWPUI 2014-76], we would like to explain the providential significance of this event. The content below is based on a paper prepared by the FFWPU Korea Headquarters. We hope that all leaders around the world will read this and use it when educating their members. Furthermore, a selection of reflection papers, written by participants in the Holy Wedding Ceremony, was submitted to True Mother. We will soon send a separate memo with these reflection papers.

The providential significance of Yeon-jin nim’s and Jeung-jin nim’s joint Holy Wedding

Under the grace and blessing of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, the joint Holy Wedding for Yeon-jin nim and Jeung-jin nim, the youngest among True Parents’ children, was held on 8.19 on the heavenly calendar in the second year of Cheon Il Guk (September 12, 2014) at Cheon Jeong Gung. More than three hundred world leaders and invited guests were present at this ceremony, which True Parents officiated.

The Foundation Day of Cheon Il Guk was proclaimed last year centering on the eternal realm of victory of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, who had perfected, completed and concluded the providence of restoration. The Holy Wedding was held on this foundation. Thus, we would like to invite all members to contemplate the providential significance of this Holy Wedding while engraving in our hearts the meaning of the Blessing and the absolute, unique, unchanging and eternal stature of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, who are the owner of the providence and the owner of the true lineage.

True Parents’ stature

First of all, we must have a clear understanding of True Parents’ stature. As we all know, the significance of the Blessing Ceremony lies in the fact that it transforms the fallen lineage into the true lineage by engrafting the wild olive tree to the true olive tree (Romans 11:17–18).

Originally, human beings were supposed to uphold God’s commandment (“…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” - Genesis 2:17), complete the three great blessings described in Genesis 1:28, and live centered on God in the Garden of Eden, the kingdom of God on earth.

However, due to the fall of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, the first human beings lost God’s lineage, the ideal of the three great blessings, and were driven out of the Garden of Eden.

As a result, human history has in fact been the history of the providence of restoration through indemnity for the purpose of receiving the Messiah and of being restored into God’s lineage of goodness. From this, we can see that the four-thousand-year Old Testament Age was part of the history of the providence of restoration for establishing the foundation of faith and foundation of substance to welcome the Messiah who brought the heavenly lineage.

However, the Messiah suffered on the cross and was unable to complete the history of salvation through which, together with the substantial Holy Spirit, he would have restored the lineage.

Christianity emerged on the foundation of God’s love for humanity. During its two-thousand-year history, the spirit of Christianity moved from Rome to Britain and the United States, passed through Japan, and arrived in Korea, the third Israel, where the Lord at the Second Advent was born.

During this time, Heaven also prepared the Holy Spirit in substance who, together with the returning Lord, would emerge from the land of Korea in order to connect humankind to the lineage of goodness.

In the beginning, God already had Eve in mind when He created Adam. In the same way, just as there was a providence to send the Lord to earth at his Second Advent, behind the scenes, another providence was underway to send the substantial Holy Spirit.

True Parents’ Holy Wedding was finally held, marking the beginning point of the Blessing that restores the lineage—for which God had waited six thousand years. The reason we value and commemorate the anniversary of True Parents’ Holy Wedding (16th day of the 3rd month on the lunar calendar; April 11, 1960), as well as True Parents’ Birthday, is because it marks the day that Heaven’s true lineage could substantially emerge on earth.

The significance and value of the Blessing and the fruition of providence

With True Parents’ Holy Wedding serving as a turning point, twelve major Blessing Ceremonies were held, for 3 couples, 36 couples (including the original 3), 72 couples, 124 couples, 430 couples, 777 couples, 1,800 couples, 6,000 couples, 6,500 couples, 30,000 couples, 360,000 couples and 3.6 million couples. As the Blessing passed through these twelve stages, it was held both vertically and horizontally at eight stages from the individual to the family, tribe, people, nation, world, cosmos and God. Through this victory, the tradition of the Blessing Ceremony has been firmly established on earth.

In 1992, True Parents publicly proclaimed that they were the returning Messiah and began to set conditions to restore important rights: The right of the eldest son was restored through the 30,000- Couple Blessing Ceremony held that year; the right of the parents was restored through the 360,000-Couple Blessing Ceremony; and God’s kingship was restored through the 3.6-Million- Couple Blessing Ceremony. On the seventh day of the seventh lunar calendar month in 1997, True Parents’ proclaimed “the Realm of the Cosmic Sabbath for the Parents of Heaven and Earth.” Through this declaration, they established the stature of the Parents of Heaven and Earth both on earth and in the spiritual world. On this foundation, four years later, on January 13, 2001, True Parents offered the Coronation for the Kingship of God.

In this way, God’s providence developed in line with True Parents’ life course. On this foundation, the effects of the Blessing, of giving new life through restoring the lineage, was manifested in stages from the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, world and cosmos encompassing the spiritual and physical worlds. The scope and standard of the Blessing has gradually expanded and, as a result, True Parents have opened the Blessing to all people. Furthermore, True Parents spoke about how in the future the wall dividing the Blessing for first- and second-generation members would disappear and a time would come when salvation would be brought to all people.

The significance and value of the Blessing lies in its power to engraft us to Heaven’s lineage of goodness. When we think about this, we can understand that whether the victorious True Parents bestow their grace and blessings or harvest the fruits of the providence, this is well within the boundaries of their absolute authority and power.

In this way, the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind have been victorious in the providence of rebirth and the restoration of the lineage through the Blessing. The grace of the Blessing has expanded to the entire cosmos, reaching all people on earth and in the spirit world. Through its expansion, True Parents were able to perfect, complete, and conclude the entire

providence, and on this foundation they proclaimed Foundation Day of Cheon Il Guk on the 13th day of the 1st month on the heavenly calendar in 2013.

After the proclamation of the Cheon Il Guk Foundation Day, True Parents initiated a new providence in earnest to substantiate Cheon Il Guk centering on the stature of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. Now is the time of providential fruition, the time to find substantially and establish the three main elements required for the building of Cheon Il Guk: namely, its governance, environment, and people. True Parents have decreed the name of this nation, the national anthem, national flower, and the Cheon Il Guk national flag. They have compiled three major Holy Scriptures, the fundamental root of Cheon Il Guk, and have announced the Cheon Il Guk Constitution. In alignment with the constitution, True Parents shall wield the sovereignty of Cheon Il Guk throughout the earth, centering on the Cheon Il Guk Supreme Council. They will advance without stopping.

Yeon-jin nim’s and Jeung-jin nim’s joint Holy Wedding

While presiding over this era, which is governed by the sovereignty of Cheon Il Guk, True Parents granted permission for Yeon-jin nim’s and Jeung-jin nim’s joint Holy Wedding. We are more grateful for this heavenly grace because this Holy Wedding was possible due to True Parents’ boundless grace and blessing for humanity.

True Parents, who have been victorious in all aspects of the providence, had until now allowed blessed families to engraft themselves into True Family’s lineage. Now, True Parents, while still on earth, have opened wide a new era, allowing people from the realm of Cain, representing the seven billion people of the world, to be engrafted to the true lineage of the True Family. A new age has begun in which the satanic lineage, which resulted from the fall of the first human ancestors, and all of humanity, can be cleansed and restored centering on our Heavenly Parent and True Parents.

The Blessing centered on True Parents’ teachings and tradition

What is important is the fact that the gates of rebirth, centered not on the satanic culture of the world but on True Parents’ teachings and tradition, have opened wide.

In the Old Testament Age the people of Israel were meant to enter the land of Canaan, establish a united kingdom, and restore and assimilate the gentiles into the realm of heavenly culture centered on God, Jehovah. Yet they were unable to accomplish this. Through this Holy Wedding, the realm of Cain has been absorbed according to the tradition and standard of the Blessing that should be upheld by the Unification family centered on True Parents, the owners of the true lineage.

Consequently, a foundation has been laid that will preserve True Parents’ teachings and tradition, and allow the spiritual work of the Blessing centering on True Parents to embrace all seven billion people of the world and to eternally take root on earth.

The early Christian communities preserved Jesus’ teachings and preserved their purity. Roman leaders and aristocrats began to admire and respect the lifestyle of these Christians, and began to marry Christians. This allowed the heavenly tradition and God’s word to take root, and ultimately led to the victorious providence of the Roman Emperor Theodosius making Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. In the same way, the joint Holy Wedding of Yeon-jin nim and Jeung-jin nim, as a Blessing centered on our Heavenly Parent and True Parents, shall surely become a providential occasion that reflects Heaven’s grace and love, and a basis from which Cheon Il Guk will be further substantiated.

For this Holy Wedding, True Mother instructed the two couples to take part in a special forty-day workshop. Furthermore, Mother offered deep prayer and devotion in preparation for the ceremony. In full unity with True Father in the heavenly world, True Mother endured the spiritual labor pains of conceiving and re-creating new life in order to weld them into Heaven’s true lineage.

Yeon-jin nim and Jeung-jin nim renounced everything in order to take part in a forty-day workshop in Cheongpyeong together with their partners, whom True Parents have accepted. They prepared for the Holy Wedding and have received the Blessing on the condition of maintaining a standard of absolute faith, absolute love, and absolute obedience centered on True Parents’ teachings.

Following their joint Holy Wedding, Yeon-jin nim and Jeung-jin nim will offer a special forty-day period of devotion, and on that foundation will embark upon their journey toward building ideal families. We would especially like to invite all leaders and blessed families of the Unification family to participate in spirit during this special forty-day devotional period, to reflect on our past inadequacies, to connect with and inherit True Parents’ heart, and to show our gratitude for True Parents’ grace and blessings, which have been given to us for the sake of the development of God’s providence.

Beloved pastors and leaders of the Unification family!

The question now is, What should we do at this important time?

At this time of providential fruition, we should offer our deepest appreciation to our Heavenly Parent and the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind, who have given permission and blessed Yeon-jin nim’s and Jeung-jin nim’s joint Holy Wedding with a heart of true love in order to embrace and save all humankind. We, as blessed families, should honor True Father’s final words and attend True Mother as our center, fulfill our mission as tribal messiahs, and become mature providential leaders who, as true parents, true owners, and true teachers, can open the era of Cheon Il Guk in our communities.

We sincerely pray that the grace and great blessing of our Heavenly Parent and True Parents be with you and your family for all eternity.

FFWPU International Headquarters