Naming God Heavenly Parent
On January 7, 2013, in the run-up to Foundation Day, Mrs. Moon declared that henceforth Unificationists should refer to God not as Heavenly Father but as Heavenly Parent (in the singular).[16] The theology of God as dual-gendered Parent is based on God become manifest on earth in the persons of True Parents. It speaks to the equality of True Father and True Mother’s positions that had been secured for the Cheon Il Guk era.
In an article that I wrote in support of this innovation,[17] I argue that the term Heavenly Parent, meaning that the one God is Heavenly Mother as well as Heavenly Father,[18] was already an established feature of Rev. Moon’s theology. As evidence, I cite the teaching of Exposition that “God… has the dual characteristics of yang and yin in perfect harmony,”[19] and passages in the first Cheon Seong Gyeong that link God the “vertical Parent” with True Parents, the human “horizontal parents”:
God has the qualities of both masculinity and femininity. That is why He[20] is called the Subject with dual characteristics.… The invisible Parent is causal, the visible parents resultant. In the position of parents, God the invisible Parent and these visible parents [True Parents] are to become one based on love. The latter are the horizontal parents and the former the vertical Parent.[21]
I also pointed out that Rev. Moon’s Wolli Wonbon (1951) speaks of God as both God the Father and God the Mother, and laments Christianity’s recognition of only the male side of divinity:
We must know why throughout human history people have related to God only as our Father and not as our Mother. We… have not even considered that the fundamental meaning of God is as our Parent—our Father and Mother. How can we even fathom the pain and bitterness of God the Father, who has had to face such children? Human beings have endured all manner of suffering throughout history, yet still they do not grasp this fundamental issue, which is at the root of their difficulties. What a tragedy!
God must be inaugurated as the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. Only then can we begin the ideal family as God’s children.[22]
This last statement was enacted ritually on January 13, 2001 in the Enthronement Ceremony for God’s Kingship. It began with a procession in which Rev. and Mrs. Moon wearing crowns followed behind attendants carrying two crowns and robes, one for Heavenly Father one for Heavenly Mother. Likewise, the entrance ceremony to the Cheon Jeong Goon Palace featured a configuration of four thrones, two in front for True Father and True Mother and two behind them for God as Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. They demonstrate in ritual form Rev. Moon’s Christological teaching that links Heavenly Parent and True Parents.
Entrance procession at the Enthronement Ceremony for God’s Kingship, January 13, 2001.
In this light, we can view Mrs. Moon’s proclamation that God should be addressed as Heavenly Parent as bringing the church’s everyday liturgy in line with the liturgy of its big events and with its theology. She also revised the language of the Family Pledge to reflect this liturgical change.
Nevertheless, Unificationists were still praying to God as “Heavenly Father,” so when Mrs. Moon announced that they should address God as “Heavenly Parent,” it created controversy. Many objected to what they saw as an unwarranted tinkering with time-honored tradition, even as others welcomed it as a step away from a sexist view of God.
Even today, not all FFWPU members completely accept this innovation. Some open their prayers with “Heavenly Parent,” but as they go on they revert to saying “Heavenly Father.” The Holy Songs in FFWPU’s hymnal still address God as the Father—and as is well known, hymns are the heart of worship.[23] FFWPU churches also include Christian praise music in their worship services. This means that the God who is the two-gendered Heavenly Parent in theology is not yet fully made present in the church’s worship.
For those in FFWPU who embrace this change, especially women, it opens new doors in their spiritual life. As they pray and relate to the Mother-aspect of Heavenly Parent, they deepen their relationship to God by connecting with Her newly-accessible feminine energies.[24]
Addressing God as Heavenly Father was appropriate during the age of restoration, when Rev. Moon was continuing Jesus’ mission to indemnify and clear away the obstacles to establishing God’s kingdom. Both Jesus and Rev. Moon were manifesting God as male leaders. But in the new era of Cheon Il Guk—when “two become one” and Rev. and Mrs. Moon stand together as to manifest God as True Parents, God may rightly be called Heavenly Parent.
In my view, moving beyond the time-worn concept of God as a male Heavenly Father had to happen sometime. Perhaps Rev. Moon always intended leave it to Mrs. Moon, who theologically speaking is the embodiment of God’s feminine side. Certainly for Mrs. Moon—and by extension for all women, knowing God as Heavenly Parent opens the door for her unity with the divine in ways that would not be possible if she could relate only to a masculine God.
The Only-Begotten Daughter
A second theological development is Mrs. Moon’s declaration that she is God’s “only-begotten Daughter.” In a similar vein, she states that she was born sinless from a specially prepared lineage. She has made this point repeatedly ever the second anniversary of Rev. Moon’s passing.
For members who regard Mrs. Moon less for her own merit than from her marriage to the Lord of the Second Advent, these words are challenging. Their object of devotion and source of inspiration was Rev. Moon, but here is Mrs. Moon proclaiming herself a divinely-appointed leader in her own right.
Why does Mrs. Moon make this declaration? My under standing is that during the 52 years she was married to Rev. Moon, she could rely on being objective to her husband, who was, after all, the Second Coming of Christ. But after his death, she found it necessary to declare that she also stands on her own foundation. The title “only-begotten Daughter” serves this purpose.
If she did not stake her own ground, if she only relied on Rev. Moon’s authority, she would be vulnerable to challenges from others who believe it unseemly for a woman to lead, or who fancy themselves more knowledgeable than she about Rev. Moon’s teachings. Moreover, this self-understanding gives her strength to overcome the many trials that she has been encountering ever since the mantle of leadership fell on her shoulders.
This self-understanding is rooted in Mrs. Moon’s own life experience from an early age. When she was born, her mother Hong Soon-ae had a dream in which her former pastor came to her and told her told to raise the child with special care because she was not her own but God’s daughter.[25] When she was six, an elder in the spiritualist church she was attending gave her a special blessing, saying, “You will surely be Heaven’s bride.”[26]
Why, as a church theologian, do I take it as my duty to defend Mrs. Moon’s statement that she is the only-begotten Daughter?[27]
First, it is on Rev. Moon’s authority, who affirmed her to be so with statements such as,
“At his return Jesus, as God’s only-begotten Son, must receive God’s only-begotten daughter…. Otherwise, the fundamental problems in heaven and on earth will never be solved. God has dual characteristics, and He can dwell only where the Son and Daughter are one.” (Jan. 8, 1989)
“Jesus must return to meet God’s only-begotten Daughter, who can totally receive God’s first love. That is why the Lord at his Second Advent must celebrate the Marriage Supper of the Lamb… This man who completely receives God’s first love must marry a woman who completely receives God’s first love, and they must start a family together, thus restoring the positions of unfallen Adam and Eve.” (Feb. 17, 1971)[28]
Second, I am not about to gainsay Mrs. Moon’s experiences with God and the course that she walks, where I have no doubt God has been with her every step of the way.
Third, I know Rev. Moon regarded the work of the spiritualist churches of which Mrs. Moon, her mother and her grandmother were devoted members to be an essential foundation for the providence for the Second Advent. He made great efforts, even risking his life, to connect them to his ministry. One can say that God gave him Mrs. Moon as their fruit. Hence, it is entirely plausible to me that she was born the only-begotten Daughter on the foundation of their devotion.
Fourth, I honor the fact that Mrs. Moon has steadfastly fulfilled the difficult responsibility of her position. At the time of her marriage, she endured the gossip and backbiting of women jealous that they were not the one chosen to be Rev. Moon’s bride. Being married to the Messiah was no bed of roses; for example, she completed several grueling world tours, including one in 1992 when she courageously testified to God before an audience of communists in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.[29] Currently she is dealing with the heartache of betrayal from within her own family.
Fifth, because Rev. Moon officially recognized her as the victorious True Mother, announcing in 1999 that she “had fulfilled the mission of a true child, true wife and True Parent.”[30] He also recognized her authority as comparable to his own, saying, “When she is alone, she represents True Parents… I am the first founder of the church and Mother is the second founder of the church.”[31] “I have been on the right side of God, but now I have set up Mother on the left side of God.”[32] He declared her accomplishment a “cosmic victory.”[33]
This speaks to the question of Rev. Moon’s first wife, when people ask whether she might have been similarly predestined to be the only-begotten Daughter. Even if she had been so designated, Divine Principle’s theory of Predestination states that while a person may be prepared and called for a position, to be justified and glorified as such they must fulfill the responsibility to which they were called.[34] His first wife did not.
Sinless Birth
As mentioned above, besides asserting that she is the only-begotten Daughter, Mrs. Moon declares that she was born without original sin. There is theological rationale for this, because the Holy Wedding in 1960, which inaugurated the True Parents, needed to join a man and woman in an equal position. Since the Holy Wedding was intended solve the problem of original sin, both the bridegroom and the bride had to be in the position of Adam and Eve prior to the Fall, namely, without original sin. Further, since it was through Eve that sin came into the world, the young Hak-ja Han as the new Eve had a crucial role for resolving sin. Were she not in that sinless position, how could the offspring of her union with Rev. Moon be without sin?
Mrs. Moon caused even more consternation among some church elders when she declared that she was born sinless while Rev. Moon was not. Yet, that statement was not to belittle him, but rather to highlight the added difficulties in her course as a woman. Rev. Moon inherited the condition of being without original sin from Jesus; hence, he did not need to be born without it. Mrs. Moon had no one to inherit from, so she needed to be born with that condition and carry it from birth to her wedding day. This meant she had to go through a difficult and rigorous childhood to pioneer that path, whereas Rev. Moon could have a normal childhood until age 15 when he met Jesus and inherited Jesus’ sinless foundation.
Mrs. Moon’s childhood was certainly rigorous; as a young girl she was constantly told to steer clear of the world and devote herself to the will of God. Raised in the absence of her father, her grandmother repeatedly told her, “Your father is Heavenly Father.” From four years old, she prayed and bowed to God alongside her mother.[35] In her middle school years, her mother strictly educated her, and when she went off to high school she had to keep herself secluded, to protect the special purity that she was told she carried.[36]
Beliefs about original sin are ultimately unprovable. To get some perspective, I recall that as a seminarian in the 1970s we would discuss whether Rev. Moon was born without original sin or whether received that condition as an inheritance from Jesus. Church elders had varying opinions. For example, Dr. Sang Hun Lee, author of Unification Thought, taught that it was an inheritance from Jesus, just as Mrs. Moon teaches today.
Yet in those days, the issue was purely academic. It made no difference to our faith, which was based on our actual experiences with the man. Yet now, when Mrs. Moon brings up the issue of her sinless birth, some members take offense. One could opine that it points to the double standard operating in the church’s patriarchal culture. But to be charitable, it is also a function of members’ lack of personal religious experiences with Mrs. Moon of the sort that they had with the charismatic Rev. Moon. This leads to the question: to manifest God’s presence, must one be a charismatic leader?
Opening the Age of Women
I have argued elsewhere that God pushes Mrs. Moon proclaim her value as the only-begotten Daughter because she needs to be victorious in carrying the cross of womankind.[37] At the Fall, the woman Eve led the man Adam to ruin. This led to the widespread view that no woman is worthy to be the leader of men. As a result, traditional cultures always put men on top, while women were valued mainly as helpers and as bearers of sons to continue the family line.
To make matters worse, this patriarchal attitude belittling women was inscribed in scripture. Scripture does not value women as much as men. We search in vain to find the names of Noah’s wife, Lot’s wife, or Adam and Eve’s daughters. The important central figures in the Bible—Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, were men. An angel stayed the hand of Abraham when he was about to slay Isaac, but there was none to stay the hand of Jephthah when he offered his daughter as a human sacrifice (Judg. 11:34-40).
Actually, patriarchy was well suited for the era of restoration, where the main purpose was to defeat Satan, a male being. With Eve a double sinner, women did not have the condition to do it. The protocols of restoration put men in charge of that task. They practiced male methodologies such as sacrifice, separation and subjugation. Christianity teaches that the way to salvation is to unite with the male Messiah. Rev. Moon took a small step forward when while leading the providential work he placed Mrs. Moon alongside him, not keeping her in his shadow.
Mrs. Moon’s elevation to sole leadership of FFWPU accords with Rev. Moon’s declaration of the beginning of the Age of Women.[38] That the world has entered such an age is evident from the dramatic cultural shifts of our time, with women rising up to claim their original rights. Still, the FFWPU has been slow to change, especially in Asia where women are only rarely elevated to leadership. Mrs. Moon carries that cross, as patriarchal attitudes persist.
Recognizing the role of women in the work of God should be a feature of the Cheon Il Guk era, when people can live according to the Principle of Creation. That principle, explained in the first chapter of Part One of Exposition of the Divine Principle, speaks of harmonious balance between masculinity and femininity that manifests the duality of God who is Heavenly Father-Mother. It teaches the ideal unity of husband, wife and children centered on God’s love as expressed by both genders. This is quite different than the paradigms of restoration explained in Part Two of Exposition, where male central figures from Noah to Abraham and Jesus led the providence by undertaking indemnity courses of great sacrifice. Accordingly, Mrs. Moon is putting more emphasis on children’s education, promoting godly families through the Blessing, and families doing activities to build up their “tribes.” We can see a gradual shift from a restoration-centered mindset to a creation-centered mindset.
Mrs. Moon has also been moving the church in this direction liturgically. In the calendar of FFWPU holy days, she is deemphasizing those that mark milestones in the providence of restoration such as Parents’ Day, Children’s Day and God’s Day. Instead, she is lifting up the week of True Parents’ Birthday (encompassing Foundation Day, which takes place 7 days later), the anniversary of True Parents’ Holy Wedding in 1960, and the anniversary of True Father’s Seonghwa.[39] They mark, pertaining to True Parents, the natural milestones of human life—birth, marriage and death—that encompass the Principle of Creation.
According to the Principle of Creation, families manifest the structure of a four-position foundation—God, husband, wife and children—such that any of the four positions can take the subject role to the other three. Sometimes God takes the lead, but at other times it can be the husband, the wife or a child. Now Mrs. Moon, because she is on earth, is taking the subject role, while Rev. Moon in heaven is playing the supporting role. I believe he is proud of his beloved wife on earth and is working to see her succeed.