A Moonstruck Heaven Taps Favorite Son

Salt Lake Tribune, Friday, July 12, 2002
BY PEGGY FLETCHER STACK
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Having presided over millions of mass weddings and marriage blessings, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon most certainly has earned the title Almighty Matchmaker.

But the 82-year-old Korean evangelist recently arranged a holy union that surprised even his own supporters.

Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Confucius, Jesus and, well, God, got together last Christmas and unanimously decided that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was their guy. They voted him the "Savior, Messiah and King of Kings of all humanity,"

according to a full-page ad running this week in dozens of U.S. newspapers, including The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News.

The 7,000 word ad, entitled "The Cloud of Witnesses: The Saints' Testimonies to the True Parents," claimed that representatives of Communism and the five "great religions of the world" met in a "spirit world seminar" and gave Moon their blessing. Quite an accomplishment for a man whose own church has been ridiculed by some as a brainwashing cult.

The Rev. Sun Jo Hwang, pastor to Utah's only Unification congregation, said he was "shocked" to see the report in the newspaper but acknowledged that messages from "the other side" have been widely discussed among the faithful.

"I never expected that it would be published," he said, quickly adding, "Something important must be happening in the spiritual world now."

Evidently. The ad cost $7,800 in Utah papers alone, and is running in 45 other newspapers around the country, according to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as the Unification Church.

And the ad reads like the minutes of some heavenly city council meeting. It lays out who was there (representatives of Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism), where they sat (the front seats reserved for leading figures), and what they did (adopted a resolution, recited the Family Pledge). Jesus gave the closing prayer, followed by three cheers of victory led by Muhammad.

"The ceremony ended with applause," the ad says.

Jesus called Moon as Messiah in 1935, the ad says, with dual ministries in the visible and unseen world. Unable to complete his mission before his crucifixion, Jesus asked Moon to carry on.

Moon wants to unite all world religions, on Earth and in heaven, Hwang said. "We human beings are very related to the spiritual world."

The charismatic evangelist first arrived in the United States from Korea in 1971, and his followers soon were derisively dubbed "Moonies."

Today the church has a presence in 190 countries, with about 3,000 members in the U.S. and just one congregation of 11 families in Utah. Moon visited Utah last year on a 50-state tour, preaching religious harmony, racial reconciliation and family renewal.

According to the ad, even the Communists have come around.

"Our beliefs are wrong," says Josef Stalin. "The worst of it is that we deny and ignore God, who is the origin of the cosmos."

Lest you think everyone has kissed and made up, though, the ad makes clear:

Stalin was speaking from hell.

http://www.sltrib.com/2002/Jul/07122002/utah/752878.htm

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