Academic Session at Summit 2020: The God Conference and God as the Parent of Humankind - February 2 - 7, 2020

The history of Theology Theology related God and Theology True Parents’ related to the to “Pacific Rim in the Tech Age impact on concept of God Culture” Theology and as Parent(s) Religious Studies

Speaker 1 Frank Kaufmann Shrivatsa Cheryl Lau Professor Shin Ahn: Goswami “New Spirituality “How Reverend “​World Theology and Social Moon, redefined “God as Parents, and the Responsibility of the religious world The Hindu Emergence of the Religion in the 1977 - 1998” Pantheon, and Pacific Rim Cyber Context” the Teaching of Culture​” Sun Myung Moon”

Speaker 2 Charles Selengut: Professor Jason Donna Ferrantello Professor Hanoch Wasden Ben Pazi of Israel “The Unification Romanticism’s Church and its : “​The Theology Oriental True Dialogue in an Impact on World of a Member of Renaissance/Prec Era of Synthetic Religious Dialogue the Church of ursors to Conversation: and Jesus Christ of synthesizing an Religious Reconciliation.” Latter-day Saints East-West Knowledge and Regarding our Theology Artificial Intelligence Heavenly Parents”

Commentator (s)

Global Academic Symposium, February 2 - 7, 2020 Section 3 (God Conference), Hour 1 (The history of True Parents’ impact on Theology and Religious Studies) This session is dedicated to scholarly reflection on the impact of Reverend Moon’s life, teachings, and works, and the impact of Reverend and Mrs. Moon together on two parts of the religious landscape of our time: 1. Theology and religious scholarship, and 2. Global, interreligious relations (including the voluminous religious scholarship arising from this work).

There are at least three ways Reverend Moon and his couple impacted theology and religious scholarship. 1. One comes from their towering investment into the religious academy itself, and their boundless support and encouragement for believing scholars to research and write confidently in the face of the seismic onslaught of relativism in academy. 2. The second way Reverend Moon and the Moons, impacted theology and religious scholarship comes from the interreligious cross-fertilization among scholars of all religions and all nations arising from their courageous and sacrificial patronage. 3. The third way Reverend Moon, and the Moons impacted theology and religious scholarship derives from the raw intellectual and spiritual force of his teachings that are lived forward through his couple, and his community.

I addition to impacting the theological academy, Reverend Moon, and his couple further impacted the global reality of religion, by force of the massive and relentless investment in interfaith and interreligious activity for decades without cease, overwhelmingly at the cost of developing his own community of faith.

Scholars in this session will offer reflections seeking to capture some aspect of the impact and transformation of religion in our time resulting from the work, life, and teachings of Reverend Moon and his couple.

Frank Kaufmann Section Convener

Global Academic Symposium, February 2 - 7, 2020 Section 3 (God Conference), Hour 2 (Theology related to the concept of God as Parent(s))

Inquiry into the nature of God is a vital and pressing responsibility not only for scholars, and religious and spiritual leaders, but in fact for all people as a necessary part of living fully and in truth.

Inquiry into the nature of God is the quintessence of theology, once understood accurately to be “the queen of the sciences.”

Unification theology and Unification life is rooted in, in fact begins and ends with the affirmation that the eternal God of all is Parent(s). But Unification believers are not unique, nor alone in seeking to grasp ever more fully the reality and implications of this assertion.

This session provides the occasion for scholars from major, world religious traditions to expound on related truths at the foundations of their own lives and faiths.

Frank Kaufmann Section Convener

Global Academic Symposium, February 2 - 7, 2020 Section 3 (God Conference), Hour 3 (Theology related to “Pacific Rim Culture”)

A key element found constantly and consistently throughout Reverend Moon’s teaching concerns God’s Providence and the “Pacific Rim.”

Reverend and Mrs. Moon invested faithfully applying this teaching as they realized East West harmony in miraculous ways by implementing ​Divine Principle ​principles of restoration and of creation in efforts to create a happy future for all on a global scale.

The view that world culture will flourish in the Pacific Rim derived in part from Reverend Moon’s account of the trajectory of civilization moving Westward from theTigris Euphrates valley, ultimately through “the providential nation of” America, toward the Pacific Rim.

The importance of God’s Providence for the Pacific Rim was ​so​ central to Reverend Moon’s understanding, that he spent the final years of his life in Western United States in his single-minded effort to guide America toward its responsibility to help define an emerging, balanced and ideal culture in the Pacific Rim.

Frank Kaufmann Section Convener

Global Academic Symposium, February 2 - 7, 2020 Section 3 (God Conference), Hour 4 (God and Theology in the Tech Age) Concerns behind organizing this session reflect worry over the decline of religion among people worldwide, impacted by rapid technological advance.

The rapid advance of technology (high speed transmission of knowledge and information, social media, AI, Robotics, and more) has redefined human experience in far reaching and fundamental ways.

Religions traditionally bear the all important task to help conscientious people realize goodness both personally and socially. With the aid of revealed and inherited wisdom, we, as individuals and collectively, stand a better chance to be good people and develop good societies. Religions help us recognize sacred origins and options in our desires, our designs, and our behavior.

Unfortunately existing religions, so desperately needed to speak impactfully to people of today, originated in utterly different times. Our capacities are different, our fears are different, our communities are different, and so much more. Even though our human experience differs radically from that of our predecessors, our need to be nurtured and pushed into moral, ethical, and devotional strength remains now, perhaps more urgently than ever.

This session invites forward thinking scholars to anticipate and recommend steps to address the crisis of religious decline in a time of increasing and intensifying human power and potential as a result of technological advances.

Frank Kaufmann Section Convener