The Disputed Succession

True Father ascended in August 2012, mourned by millions on earth, and welcomed by the hosts of heaven.

True Father’s passing to spirit world was most unexpected. He had expressed a desire to reach a hundred years of age, even a hundred and twenty. On the other hand, he had always been aware that death might be around the corner, whether at the hands of the North Korean secret service, or simply by being run over by a car while crossing the road. He had survived torture by Japanese and North Korean police in his twenties, as well as hell in the labor camp at Hungnam. Three sons had predeceased him, Heung Jin Nim, Young Jin Nim and Hyo Jin Nim. Just four months after Hyo Jin Nim passed away in 2008, True Parents themselves were involved in the near-fatal helicopter accident on the mountainside near the palace at Chung Pyung. This has been called True Father’s seventh “death and resurrection”. However, a cold which he caught at Chung Pyung in July 2012 turned into pneumonia, and True Father passed away within a month, half a year before D-Day, the projected Foundation Day.

Mother, who had been blessed with True Father for fifty-two years, entered into a three-year period of mourning, while taking over direction of the Unification movement. She presided over Foundation Day in January 2013. Hyung Jin Nim, the youngest son and appointed heir, was sidelined in the preparations for Foundation Day and sent to America to deal with the crisis caused by his elder sister, In Jin Nim, who had broken her blessing. Subsequently, Hyung Jin Nim slipped out of sight, at least for the majority of Unification members who live far from the United States. Only when he “broke his silence” in January 2015 and established the Sanctuary Church in Pennsylvania did we become conscious of what had happened, following True Father’s ascension. He had effectively been rejected by Mother as heir and successor, and his stay in the United States had turned into a period of exile. He was officially removed from his position as international president of the FFWPU two months later, in March 2015.

In the eyes of the world, it is acceptable that a widow takes over the direction of affairs after the decease of her husband, whether in a family or a nation. Solomon Bandaranaike, prime-minister of Sri Lanka, after he was assassinated in 1959, was followed in office by his wife. Later on, the wives of Marcos and Aquino in Philippines both followed their husbands in their political careers. Hilary Clinton has just tried to become the US president, in the footsteps of her husband. This is the age of women. True Father once remarked that it would be just as well if the British parliament were composed entirely of women. Mother kept dutifully by the side of True Father, supporting him in his public life, until, in 1992, she took a leading role in the foundation of the Women’s Federation (WFWP). She began to give speaking tours throughout the world, and became well known. As she was 23 years younger than her husband, it seemed normal that she should succeed True Father when he passed away.

However, this is a horizontal viewpoint, appropriate to the democratic age we live in.

From a vertical viewpoint, we must consider God’s heaven as a kingdom. Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer in which we say, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”. Christians have not been praying for two thousand years, “Thy republic come”, or even, “Thy church, thy federation come”. We expect God’s kingdom to come, in which there is a king and a queen, and where, as True Father would say, we are all princes and princesses in the royal family of heaven. When the king dies, he is succeeded, not by his wife, but by his eldest son. The queen becomes the queen mother, and she advises the new king, her son, from her position as mother.

True Father, like Jesus, came as the Messiah, the sacred king of God’s kingdom. The concept of messiah arose as a result of the Fall and the need for the position of Adam to be restored. The development of God’s providence through the family of Abraham and the tribes of Israel led to the establishment of the kingdom of David and Solomon. According to Divine Principle, the Messiah could have come from the family of David and Solomon, if the necessary conditions had been met. However, Solomon, for all his glory and wisdom, failed, and his kingdom was divided, and the Messiah came a thousand years later in the form of Jesus, when the identity of Israel had almost been extinguished by Rome. Still, Jesus came as a sacred king to form a kingdom, based on Jerusalem and embracing the kingdoms of the earth. Jesus was the second Adam. The followers of Jesus have created the world-wide community of Christianity, out of which, two thousand years later, True Father has come as the third Adam, born in Korea.

True Father has made the kingdom of heaven a reality. He has brought the images and aspirations of the Bible down from the clouds to the earth. He has discovered the purpose of God’s creation, the meaning of the fruit and the Fall, the identity of the serpent, and the way of restoration and re-creation. This was through experiences of extreme bodily hardship and torture, and spiritual struggles, facing the utter enmity of Satan and even rejection by God himself. Furthermore, he found the Bride and established the ideal and reality of True Parents, through the Marriage of the Lamb. He went on to give the marriage blessing to thousands and millions of us, who suffered in sin and ignorance, raising us to be “messiahs” ourselves, family messiahs, tribal messiahs and national messiahs. Who would have dreamed of receiving such honor, which in all truth we do not deserve, were it not for the incredible magnanimity, consideration and love of the Messiah himself? We, brothers and sisters, blessed couples, and the Bride herself, should be eternally grateful to True Father.

True Father came to emphasize the importance of lineage increasingly towards the end of his life, referring to his and to our descendants. In his first Peace Message (2006), he said:

“Lineage is more important than life and more important than love … Among the qualities that define the parent-child relationship – love, life and lineage – lineage is the fruit. God’s lineage contains the seed of true love … Only when we are linked to God’s lineage is it possible to create God’s homeland, the ideal nation …. and the kingdom of the peaceful, ideal world. Please inscribe the importance of lineage in your hearts. I cannot emphasize this enough … Without lineage, neither life nor love can endure. You strive to set a good tradition, but it will endure only through your lineage ….. Lineage is the first and final condition necessary for parents to harvest the fruits of their love, the fruits of their life and the fruits of their joy. We need to know this with certainty (hwakshiree araya-kessŭmnida).” True Father repeated virtually the same words in at least four other peace messages. How could his words be clearer about the importance of lineage?

Another clue to the importance of family tradition and lineage is enshrined in section three of the Family Pledge, concerning the four great realms of heart, the three great kingships and the realm of the royal family. The Four Great Realms of Heart refer to children’s love, the love of brothers and sisters, the love between husband and wife, and parents’ love. The Three Great Kingships refer to grandparents as the king and queen of the past, parents as the king and queen of the present, and children as princes and princesses, that is to say, the kings and queens of the future. True Father put it one time this way:

“So then for what purpose do human beings live? The purpose of human life is to inherit each and every kingship realm of the heavenly kingdom: the kingship of the past, the kingship of the present and the kingship of the future. Isn’t that true? Doesn’t everyone want to be a king or a queen? Based on this kind of thinking as the mainstream thought of life, we become a people who form reciprocal bonds of heart as brothers and sisters, and create that brotherly realm of the heart. Centering on the lineage passed down through the eldest son’s line, this foundation of heart will be passed on into the eternal future for a thousand, for ten thousand generations, as the lineage of the royal family” (5th July 1992)(2006 Cheonseonggyeong p 2450).

Associated with the Three Kingships is the concept of the “three great rights” or “three great authorities”, namely: the right of the elder son, the right of the parent, and the right of the king. When these three rights are restored by the True Family and by all families, we can then inherit the Realm of the Royal Family, where all families will be connected. The direct lineage of True Father will be connected with all of our lineages. We will all be princes and princesses, and kings and queens – that is to say, kings and queens in our families, our tribes and our nations. It is difficult for us in our minds to comprehend such an eventuality, but it certainly presents a pleasant contrast to the proletarian-egalitarian ideal of communism, where everyone is brought down to the lowest common denominator.

True Father must have frequently wondered about who should be his successor. He referred to this directly in a speech he made at Belvedere on 26th March 1978. He opened his speech with these words:

“Three elements are essential in order to talk about the Kingdom of Heaven. There must be sovereignty, territory, and a people. Who is going to be the sovereign of that Kingdom of Heaven? God is the sovereign. It is common sense, then, that the people who will truly inherit God’s kingdom are the children of God, and that from generation to generation they are entitled to be the citizens of heaven. The eldest son of God’s family shall succeed to the kingship and receive the inheritance. Then all people together shall constitute the sovereign heavenly nation. Therefore, this sovereignty belongs not only to the eldest son but to everyone. It belongs to everyone. It belongs to one family, which is all people. That kingdom is organized with the eldest son at the head of the rest of the children, making one harmonious family of man. That is the kingdom of God on earth.”

In another speech at Belvedere, entitled Parents, Children and the World Centered upon Oneself, on 5th June 1983, he said:

“There will always be a physical representative of the True Father here on earth, from one generation to another; there will be that axis on which the earth will turn. Therefore, all of you here on earth and all the people in the generations to come will be centered upon the same axis.”

Who then is the eldest son of True Parents? To find this out, we have to try and understand True Father’s concept of the eldest son, or elder son (changja). It forms a very strong part of Korean family tradition. It is also known in western rights of inheritance as primogeniture, “the right of having been born first”. The first-born son inherits the patrimony or the kingdom. However, True Father is taking into account not simply the secular tradition, or the original ideal, but the restoration of that ideal throughout providential history. True Father has explained that the resolution of the Cain/Abel situation is the first step in the restoration of Adam’s family. When Jacob, the second son (Abel), won the birthright (the right of the elder son) and the blessing from his father, and managed to gain the acceptance of Esau, the first son (Cain), a foundation was made in Jacob’s family and lineage for the coming of the Messiah. Jacob had to go that course. So did Jesus, who had to win the approbation of John the Baptist and the Jews. So did True Father, who had to win the heart of his elder brother and the respect of the Christians. We, spiritual children of True Father, also have to overcome the Cain/Abel situation at every level. The younger son must win the elder son position through service and love.

We expected all to become perfect through the Marriage of the Lamb – perfect True Parents, perfect True Family, perfect blessed couples, perfect blessed children. We have found out that it is not as easy as that – far from it. Perfection, or completion, comes through stages. Even Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

True Father said that everything develops in stages, both in the original creation and in restoration. This applies specially to our spiritual growth, as an individual, as a married couple, as a family, and as God’s nation. He compared our life course to a ladder, like the ladder or stairway to heaven which Jacob saw in his dream at Bethel, with the angels going up and down it. True Father just warned us not to fall off the ladder! We have found out that True Father had to climb this ladder towards the completion or perfection level, and that Mother has had to climb it, as well as True Family, and all of us. Father, as the Messiah, is simply the great pioneer.

True Father said that the Cain/Abel situation existed in his family, in the second generation at least. In January 1984 Heung Jin Nim, the second son, died in the car crash. True Father, who was facing a prison sentence at that time for supposed tax evasion, drew victory out of defeat, hope out of despair, and sent Heung Jin Nim to the spirit world as commander-in-chief of the forces of heaven, to fight Satan. Heung Jin Nim was to be in Abel position, and Jesus in Cain position, as they both fought against Satan. As the 1980’s drew on, Hyo Jin Nim, the eldest son, gained his father’s approval for trying to win the young people through music. He distinguished himself by leading us to the Berlin Wall and praying that the wall, and communism, would fall. “Die Mauer muss weg”, we all shouted, “the wall must go”. Two years later the wall came down. But True Father did not appoint Hyo Jin Nim as his heir.

Who would True Father find as his “elder son”? In the late 1990’s True Father proclaimed the age of the Fourth Adam. We wondered if that meant that the Third Adam, or True Father, had failed, and so a fourth Adam was needed. Was Hyun Jin Nim the Fourth Adam? Hyun Jin Nim had ridden in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, and in the 1992 Olympic Games as well. He was an excellent sportsman, accustomed to pushing himself hard, and setting a good example to young people. As time went on, we realized that the realm of the Fourth Adam referred to the new age that True Father himself was initiating, as the new millennium and the time of Cheon Il Guk, the heavenly kingdom, was approaching. We had been saying the Family Pledge since 1994. We were now given the grace of praying in our own names. The new age would be the age of liberation and complete freedom, the time when the age before heaven would give way to the age after heaven, an age when we would cast no shadow as we stand under the sun at noon. We would listen to our conscience, which True Father said was greater than our teacher, greater than our parent, even greater than God. The Fourth Adam could be interpreted as being True Father himself, or his children, or any of us. It was also the era of father-son cooperation. True Father said in Hawaii, on 23rd December 2000: “This message is for women, namely, you mothers … You have to clearly understand the meaning of father-son cooperation …. When a son carries on his father’s lineage, his mother too should serve him”. The father-son, or puja, relationship is very strong in Korean and heavenly tradition.

As it turned out, True Father appointed Hyun Jin Nim as international vice-president of the Family Federation in 1998 and president of World CARP in 2000. Hyun Jin Nim gave inspiration to many young people. Many of the second generation found spiritual rebirth through following him. He was able to galvanize young members, organize rallies and give strong speeches, like his father. He initiated the Global Peace Festivals. It was a shock when he was summoned to Korea in January 2009, and True Father asked him to drop his commitments entirely, and follow True Father closely for a year. Hyun Jin Nim declined. He maintained and strengthened his control over many Unification assets in USA and Korea, and continued his Global Peace Festivals, independently. Takeru Kamiyama, True Father’s companion in Danbury prison, tried to plead Hyun Jin Nim’s case with True Father on a fishing trip a year later, on 16th July 2010. True Father said, after hearing Kamiyama’s pleas: “It is useless to expect Hyun Jin Nim to come back”.

Hyung Jin Nim, the seventh and youngest son of True Parents, had been appointed as international president of the Family Federation a year before, in 2008. He had found his path through Buddhism to come to appreciate the depth of Divine Principle. True Father had noted the religious dimension of his character. Hyung Jin Nim gave lectures on Divine Principle in the Korean headquarters building in Seoul in the latter half of 2006. He was appointed to be minister in Mapo, in Seoul, in 2007, and then in Chŏngpadong. He was accompanied in his mission by his wife, Yeon Ah Nim (Yeon Ah Lee). Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim took care to greet all brothers and sisters as they arrived for lectures or services,

and to say good-bye to them as they left. Their care for each person was remarkable. Hyung Jin Nim was supported in his mission as International President by Kook Jin Nim, his elder brother (True Father’s fourth son), who took charge of financial and business affairs.

At the inauguration ceremony on 18th April 2008, True Father prayed to God that Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim “can inherit the authority as the representatives and heirs who can attend to everything on behalf of True Parents”.

Shortly after Hyun Jin Nim (eldest brother) declined to follow his father, in January 2009, True Father performed a ceremony at Chung Pyung where True Father and Mother wore royal crowns and were followed by Hyung Jin Nim (younger brother) and Yeon Ah Nim, also wearing crowns. A fortnight later, True Father repeated the same ceremony at Chung Pyung, and again, after flying to New York, the ceremony of crowns was repeated for a third time. At each ceremony True Father, in front of Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim, reported to God, “In the context of the Coronation Ceremony for the Establishment of the Sabbath [or Sanctuary] Realm of the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humanity, I transfer and pass on the Blessing of the True Parents”.

The following year, on 5th June 2010, True Father wrote, signed and sealed a document declaring that Hyung Jin Nim was the “representative and heir” at the command center of the movement of Unification. This was done privately in the presence of Mother and Hyung Jin Nim.

Hyung Jin Nim was asked to accompany True Parents at Chung Pyung and in all their travels, constantly. He kept close to True Parents in this way until True Father ascended in August 2012. His son, Shin Joon Nim, True Father’s grandson, was also kept at Chung Pyung, beside True Parents.

After True Father’s ascension, Mother took over the direction of the Family Federation with the support of church leaders in Korea, Japan, USA, and world-wide. In light of the words and directions of True Father, this amounted to a usurpation of authority, which left Hyung Jin Nim with no alternative but to stay in exile. Fortunately, he has been supported in his situation by his elder brother, Kook Jin Nim. He is nine years older than Hyung Jin Nim. True Father said that if we are to be victorious, the firstborn son must come to the point of saying to the second son, “I will receive all blessings through you”. In this way, the firstborn son comes down to the position of the second son, and the second son must rise up to take the position of the firstborn son. Only when the first son says, “You go up, instead of me”, and pushes you up, can you go up (21st January 1986) (2006 Cheonseonggyeong p 1190). From the base of Cain/Abel unity, the right of the elder son is gained, and from there the right of the parent is restored, and the right of kingship also. God’s providence will continue.

Mother continues to direct the Family Federation, trying to persuade us of the validity of her theology of “the only begotten daughter”. She is clearly opposed to the idea of a successor. On 3rd January this year she spoke to church leaders at Chung Pyung, and announced that there is no successor, hugyeja-nŭn ŏpsŏ. “I am the True Parent”, she said, “There is no successor without the True Parents’ seal and blessing.” Yet Hyung Jin Nim received True Parents’ seal and blessing when True Father was on earth, and True Father never went back on his word in this matter. Mother went on to say: “There is no successor in the providence.” Church leaders applauded her speech. They did not know what they were doing. If they understood about the eternal spirit world, they would dread the reaction of True Father to this message, which totally contradicts True Father’s word. To deny True Father his lineage is equivalent to shutting the door to heaven. Who wants to do that?

Brothers and sisters of Unification, who love and respect True Father, will not enjoy the desolate prospect of a future church movement ruled by leaders, a church which will be no more capable of bringing about the kingdom of heaven than the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons. One of the weakest pillars of the constitution of the Family Federation is that it makes no provision for the succession after Mother’s passing, except that authority will be taken by the Cheon Il Guk Supreme Council. “True Parents,” in other words, Mother, have supreme power over all organs of government until they pass away. After they pass away, supreme authority is taken by thirteen top church leaders.

Hyung Jin Nim, the appointed heir, does not claim to be the Messiah. Only True Father is the Messiah of God’s providence. Hyung Jin Nim is the second king, and his wife, Yeon Ah Nim, is the queen. All of us, however, are destined to be kings and queens, princes and princesses by accomplishing God’s will in the providence. Hyung Jin Nim’s circumstances are extremely humble compared with those of the palace at Chung Pyung. His resources are very limited compared with the world-wide assets of the Family Federation. Wherever he may be, however, is where True Father’s authority is to be found.

Hamish Robertson, Scotland