they believed themselves to be virtuous."
— Sir Kenneth Clark, "Civilisation", referring to the French Revolution.
This is a critique of taking religious literalism and fundamentalism too far, and the misuse of religion for political purposes. This is not a critique of religion or the good people of the Unification Church and their good works.
It is possible to be good, fulfilled, happy, and deeply religious without being a literalist. The purpose of a religion is to relieve suffering. As we have seen in the news lately and in history, unexamined religious beliefs and passions can lead to terrible, unnecessary and unintended suffering, especially when religion is used for political and secular ends rather than spiritual ones.
My main criticism of Unificationism, the way it is taught by some of the current leadership, is that it largely promotes a selective, literal, historical and political interpretation of scriptures. It has interpreted the otherwise symbolic, metaphorical and allegorical "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God", of which Jesus spoke of in the Bible, into a utopian ideal of a literal political nation state called "Cheon Il Guk" with the end of elections.
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"Elections conducted in a purely secular fashion will disappear from the face of the earth"— Sun Myung Moon, March 10, 2011
"From now on, the president of a nation cannot do his job as he wishes. The next election (in Korea) will be the last one. In the future we will not use the electoral system anymore. You have to know that. The next election will be the last one."— Sun Myung Moon, October 18, 2008
It attempts to turn a personal religious belief into a claim to political authority.
Unfortunately (and sadly), because of its literal nature, this interpretation also has other readily identifiable (and familiar) political traits: subordination of self to the state, anti-communism, corporatism, nationalism, autocracy, adoption of one language, opposition to liberalism, religious homogeneity, populism, collectivism, militarism and anti-secularism to name a few. (see: fascism)
This worldview runs exactly contrary to our traditional values of personal dignity, liberation, freedom of choice, and moral responsibility. It also violates our hard won cultural and political values of pluralism, tolerance, democracy and the separation of church and state guaranteed in our constitution.
When Jesus prays in the Bible, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven", he is not making a political speech. Like all great religious teachers, he is speaking symbolically about the spiritual ideal of God's understanding and compassion coming to have dominion over the inner landscape of the soul of the one saying the prayer -- as in Genesis, "breathing" spiritual life "in"-to that which is otherwise just "earth."
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground (earth), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." — Genesis 2:7
In the New Testament, Jesus (a Jewish religious reformer, speaking to the Jewish people) makes the point clearly that the kingdom he is referring to is not an actual national monarchy like many expect, but (in fact, the opposite of that) a symbolic, universal, spiritual ideal -- "the kingdom of God" -- that is "within you." To take it literally and politically would be to miss the point! (see: sin)
Jesus, or his disciples after him, did not seek governmental power -- they were spiritual teachers and healers.
In our society, civil government and religion have two separate roles. Religion is a private matter and is protected by law as the first and fundamental right of each individual. When religion seeks secular governmental power, it is religion and religious freedom that suffers first and most. Someone once said that "the way to ruin a perfectly good religion is to get it involved in running the government." Our collective experience in history has made this point all too painfully clear.
Our founding fathers and mothers came to this country to escape the oppression of government enforced religion so that they might be free to worship in their own way. The founding principle of America is pluralism — E pluribus unum — "Out of many, one".
It is not to say that religious institutions are not valuable -- they are very important. However, it is also critically important that religious institutions, for their own good, and the good of the society as a whole, remain separate from government.
As the old saying goes: "absolute power corrupts absolutely" no matter how good the original intentions.
also see: literalism, political religion, theocracy, fascism, political ideologies
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