Countdown to September 18

Of all the sell-out audiences that have ever filled New York’s Madison Square Garden, none has been more widely heralded nor promises greater cosmic consequences than Reverend Moon’s September 18 “New Future of Christianity” program.

“September 18 could be your re-birthday,” brilliant blue posters with four-color photographs proclaim. Television spots conclude glimpses of Reverend Moon’s previous public speeches, the Korean Folk Ballet, and the New Hope Singers International with “Happy Re-Birthday!”

The September 18 speech of Reverend Moon will mark the focal point of his three-year public speaking tour in the United States, 1972-74, and a clarion call to the American people to turn back to God and prepare to receive the coming Christ. On April 20 of this year, Reverend Moon completed a speaking tour that carried him to all 50 states of the United States.

His fall speeches will encompass eight cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, in addition to New York. This call for individual and national rebirth in preparation for the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America is being issued by a Korean who has endured much personal suffering in his search to discover universal truth and a way for all mankind to fulfill their purpose of life.

Supporting Reverend Moon’s proclamation in America are ten International One World Crusade teams, who will arrive in New York City on August 15 to make preparations for the program and events surrounding it. The approximately 700 IOWC members will live in the Paris Hotel, a 24-story building on Manhattan’s West End which miraculously became available after weeks of fruitless search.

In addition to the IOWC teams, each of the forty nations where Unification Church members live and work will send representatives to assist in the campaign and participate in an international missionary conference following the speech.

Unification Church members from all over America also plan to go to New York on September 11 to prepare for the speech. The New York Unification Churches have been making plans for several weeks for the event. The IOWC teams will join them after a five-day training program in Barrytown, conducted by the highly regarded Divine Principle lecturer Ken Sudo, commander of IOWC # 4.

The advertising campaign for the Madison Square Garden program includes posters, leaflets, transit ads, newspaper ads, and 30-second television commercials taken from films of the 1973 Day of Hope tour and the Celebration of Life programs. The Dentsu advertising agency is coordinating the media campaign with the New York Unification Church leaders and Washington National Headquarters.