Showing posts with label **. Show all posts
Showing posts with label **. Show all posts

2022/08/12

Spiritual gift - Wikipedia 영적 선물

Spiritual gift - Wikipedia

Spiritual gift
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the gifts listed in Isaiah 11:2–3, see Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
For how Mormonism looks at spiritual gifts, see Gifts of the Spirit in Mormonism.

The term charism denotes any good gift that flows from God's benevolent love.[1]

A spiritual gift or charism (plural: charisms or charismata; in Greek singular: χάρισμα charisma, plural: χαρίσματα charismata) is an extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit.[2][3] 

These are believed by followers to be supernatural graces which individual Christians need (and which were needed in the days of the Apostles) to fulfill the mission of the Church.[4][5] 
In the narrowest sense, it is a theological term for the extraordinary graces given to individual Christians for the good of others and is distinguished from the graces given for personal sanctification, such as the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit.[1]

These abilities, often termed "charismatic gifts", are the word of knowledge, increased faith, the gifts of healing, the gift of miracles, prophecy, the discernment of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues. To these are added the gifts of apostles, prophets, teachers, helps (connected to service of the poor and sick), and governments (or leadership ability) which are connected with certain offices in the Church. These gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to individuals, but their purpose is to build up the entire Church.[1] They are described in the New Testament, primarily in 1 Corinthians 12,[6] Romans 12,[7] and Ephesians 4.[8] 1 Peter 4[9] also touches on the spiritual gifts.[2]

The gifts are related to both seemingly "natural" abilities and seemingly more "miraculous" abilities, empowered by the Holy Spirit.[5] The two major opposing theological positions on their nature is that they ceased long ago or that they continue (Cessationism versus Continuationism).


Contents

1Biblical and theological overview
2Descriptions
3Other spiritual gifts
4Social meaning
5See also
6References
7Further reading
Biblical and theological overview[edit]

The New Testament contains several lists of spiritual gifts, most in the Pauline epistles. While each list is unique, there is overlap.


Romans 12:6–81 Corinthians 12:8–101 Corinthians 12:28–30Ephesians 4:111 Peter 4:11
Prophecy
Serving
Teaching
Exhortation
Giving
Leadership
Mercy Word of wisdom
Word of knowledge
Faith
Gifts of healings
Miracles
Prophecy
Distinguishing between spirits
Tongues
Interpretation of tongues Apostle
Prophet
Teacher
Miracles
Kinds of healings
Helps
Administration
Tongues Apostle
Prophet
Evangelist
Pastor
Teacher Whoever speaks
Whoever renders service[10]

Romans 12:6–81 Corinthians 12:8–101 Corinthians 12:28–30Ephesians 4:111 Peter 4:11
  1. Prophecy
  2. Serving
  3. Teaching
  4. Exhortation
  5. Giving
  6. Leadership
  7. Mercy
  1. Word of wisdom
  2. Word of knowledge
  3. Faith
  4. Gifts of healings
  5. Miracles
  6. Prophecy
  7. Distinguishing between spirits
  8. Tongues
  9. Interpretation of tongues
  1. Apostle
  2. Prophet
  3. Teacher
  4. Miracles
  5. Kinds of healings
  6. Helps
  7. Administration
  8. Tongues
  1. Apostle
  2. Prophet
  3. Evangelist
  4. Pastor
  5. Teacher
  1. Whoever speaks
  2. Whoever renders service[10]




Christians believe that the charismata were foretold in the Book of Joel (2:28) and promised by Christ (Gospel of Mark 16:17–18). This promise was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost and elsewhere as the church spread. In order to correct abuses concerning the spiritual gifts at Corinth, Paul devoted much attention to spiritual gifts in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (chapters 1214).[1]

In 1 Corinthians 12, two Greek terms are translated as "spiritual gifts". In verse 1, the word pneumatika ("spirituals" or "things of the Spirit") is used. In verse 4, charisma is used. This word is derived from the word charis, which means "grace". In verses 5 and 6, the words diakonia (translated "administrations", "ministries", or "service") and energemata ("operations" or "inworkings") are used in describing the nature of the spiritual gifts. In verse 7, the term "manifestation (phanerosis) of the Spirit" is used.[11]

From these scriptural passages, Christians understand the spiritual gifts to be enablements or capacities that are divinely bestowed upon individuals. Because they are freely given by God, these cannot be earned or merited.[12] Though worked through individuals, these are operations or manifestations of the Holy Spirit—not of the gifted person. They are to be used for the benefit of others, and in a sense they are granted to the church as a whole more than they are given to individuals. There is diversity in their distribution—an individual will not possess all of the gifts.[11] The purpose of the spiritual gifts is to edify (build up), exhort (encourage), and comfort the church.[13]

It is generally acknowledged[by whom?] that Paul did not list all of the gifts of the Spirit,[1] and many[quantify] believe that there are as many gifts as there are needs in the body of Christ.[14] The gifts have at times been organized into distinct categories based on their similarities and differences to other gifts. Some divide them into three categories using Old Testament offices. "Prophetic" gifts include any gift involving teaching, encouraging, or rebuking others. "Priestly" gifts include showing mercy and care for the needy or involve intercession before God. "Kingly" gifts are those involving church administration or government.[15] Others categorize them into "gifts of knowledge" (word of wisdom, word of knowledge, distinguishing between spirits), "gifts of speech" (tongues, interpretation, prophecy), and "gifts of power" (faith, healing, miracles).[16] The gifts have also been categorized as those that promote the inner growth of the church (apostle, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, teaching, word of wisdom/knowledge, helps, and administration) and those that promote the church's outer development (faith, miracles, healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues).[1]

Proponents of cessationism distinguish between the "extraordinary", "miraculous", or "sign" gifts (such as prophecy, tongues, and healing) and the other gifts.[17] Cessationism is held by some Protestants, especially from the Calvinist tradition, who believe that miraculous gifts and their operations were limited to early Christianity and "ceased" afterward.[18] Other Protestants, including Lutheran,[19] Methodist,[20] Pentecostals and charismatics, adhere to the continuationist position, believing that all the spiritual gifts are distributed among Christians by the Holy Spirit and that they are normative in contemporary Christendom. In addition, Roman Catholicism[21] and the Eastern Orthodox Church also continue to believe in and make use of all of the spiritual gifts.

Descriptions[edit]

Apostle: The title apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos which means "a messenger, one sent forth with orders".[22] It refers to one who has been delegated authority by another in a foreign land.[23] Apostles were the first leaders of the Church; they were commissioned by Jesus to initiate and direct the preaching of the gospel. While many Christians agree that the title of apostle is reserved for those among the first generation of Christians, many Christian denominations continue in one way or another to recognize a continuing apostolic ministry. Many churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, believe in the doctrine of apostolic succession, which holds that properly ordained bishops are the successors to the apostles. Other Christian groups, such as classical Pentecostals, consider the role of a missionary to be fulfilling an apostolic ministry.[24] There are some Christians, however, who advocate restoring the Fivefold ministry, including the formal recognition of the office of apostle. Others would say that the office no longer exists.[25]

Prophet: In the New Testament, the office of prophet is to equip the saints for the work of service through exhortation, edification, and consolation (1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 14:3 Ephesians 4:11).[26] The prophet's corresponding gift is prophecy. Prophecy is "reporting something that God spontaneously brings to your mind".[27] Many, particularly Pentecostals and charismatics, distinguish between the "office of prophet" and the "gift of prophecy", believing that a Christian can possess the gift of prophecy without holding the prophetic office.[28]

Prophecy has been addressed to the human understanding “he who prophesies speaks to men,” Cor 14:1-25. The prophet “edifies the church” (14:4).[29]

Evangelist: An evangelist is one who devotes himself to preaching the gospel. In the New Testament, evangelists preached from city to city, church to church.[30]

Pastor: This term derives from a Greek word for "shepherd". In theory pastors are gifted to lead, guide, and set an example for other Christians. The grammatical structure of Ephesians 4:11 leads many to conclude that teacher and pastor should be considered one term (pastor-teacher). Even so, the two terms are not interchangeable; while all pastors are teachers, not all teachers are pastors. Pastoral Gifts include integrity and compassion.[31]

Teacher: Someone who devotes his or her life to preaching and teaching the Christian faith. When teaching is provided for the Church by God, two gifts are actually given—to the Church is given a teacher and along with the teacher comes a divine capacity to teach.[32]

Service: The word translated as "ministry" is diakonia, which can also be translated "service".[32] Since there are many types of ministries and service to the Church, this then describes a broad array of gifts rather than a single gift.

Exhortation: The ability to motivate Christians "to patient endurance, brotherly love, and good works".[33]

Giving: Those with this gift share their own possessions with others with extraordinary generosity. While all Christians should be givers, those possessing this gift will go beyond this normal giving.[33]

Leading: This gift speaks to the various leadership roles found in the Church. While many think of roles such as administration, management of funds, strategy planning, etc. as functions outside of the supernatural realm, in reality individuals in these positions are just as in need of supernatural empowerment as are ministers of the gospel.[34] Some writers consider the gifts of governments and leading to be the same gift, but others consider them closely related yet different.

Mercy: Possibly identical to the gift of helps, the mercy-shower possesses a ministry of visitation, prayer, and compassion to the poor and sick.[34]

Word of wisdom: An utterance or message of wisdom supernaturally granted to an individual. For Paul, wisdom refers to "the knowledge of the great Christian mysteries: the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, and the indwelling in the believer of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2; Ephesians 1:17)".[1]

Word of knowledge: The knowledge referred to is often said to relate to understanding Christian doctrine or scriptural truth.[1] It is sometimes said to be connected with the ministry of teachers.

Faith: This refers to that strong or special faith "which removes mountains, casts out devils (Matthew 17:19–20), and faces the most cruel martyrdom without flinching".[1] It is distinguished from the "saving" and "normal" Christian faith.[35]

Gifts of healings: The ability to supernaturally minister healing to others. The plural indicates the variety of sickness healed and the many forms the gift takes, such as healing by anointing with oil, by the laying on of hands, by saying the name of Jesus or by the sign of the cross.[1]

Working of miracles: The performance of deeds beyond ordinary human ability by the power of the Holy Spirit.[1]

Visions. An outpouring of this gift is prophesied in Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 shows that early Christians believed this prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Visions tend to be more private experiences than the other gifts. Some researchers expand the definition of visions to include a strongly felt presence.[36]

Discerning of spirits: The capacity to discern, distinguish, or to discriminate the source of a spiritual manifestation—whether it emanates from a good or evil spirit. It seemed to have been particularly associated with prophecy as it would be necessary to know whether a prophetic utterance was truly inspired by God.[1][37]

Tongues: The supernatural ability of speaking an unlearned language.[1] Paul seems to have distinguished between the public use of the gift (which must always be interpreted) and the private use which was for the spiritual strengthening of oneself.[38] Currently among Christians there is a dispute as to whether tongues were/are always xenoglossy (speaking an unlearned human language) or whether it also included/includes glossolalia (speaking an unlearned and allegedly non-human language of heavenly or angelic origin).

Interpretation of tongues: This gift ought always follow the public exercise of the gift of tongues.[1] In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul required that all speech in Christian worship should be intelligible. This required that speech given in an unknown tongue be interpreted in the common language of the gathered Christians.

Helps: This gift has to do with service to the sick and the poor.[1] Possessors of this gift have a "spiritual burden and a God-given love for the needy and afflicted".[39]

Administration: Also called the gift of governing,[1] the Greek word translated "governments" is kubernesis, the verb form of which means "to steer" or "to be a helmsman". This gift then refers to the God-given capacity to lead or guide the Church through storms and difficult seas.[39]


Other spiritual gifts[edit]

While not specifically defined as spiritual gifts in the Bible, other abilities and capacities have been considered as spiritual gifts by some Christians. Some are found in the New Testament such as:celibacy (1 Corinthians 7:7)[40]
fellowship[41]
hospitality (1 Peter 4:9–10)[42]
intercession (Romans 8:26–27)[42]
marriage (1 Corinthians 7:7)[43]
(effective) witnessing (Acts 1:8, 5:32, 26:22, 1 John 5:6)[42]

Others are found in the Old Testament such as:craftsmanship (such as the special abilities given to artisans who constructed the Tabernacle in Exodus 35:30–33)[42]
interpretation of dreams (e.g. Joseph and Daniel) in Genesis 43-50, Daniel 2
composing spiritual music, poetry, and prose[42]
Social meaning[edit]

The word is also used in secular circumstances within social psychology. In that context, charism is defined as personal influence on other people individually or as a group.

Religious orders (including Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist) use the word "charism" to describe their spiritual orientation and any special characteristics of their mission or values that might be exhibited as a result of the vows that they have taken and the orientation of the order to which they belong. An example might be the works of a teaching order compared to that of a missionary order or one devoted to the care of the poor or the sick and those in need of help.



References[edit]
  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wilhelm, Joseph (1908). "Charismata". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. III. Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 6 July 2010.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b "Spiritual gifts". A Dictionary of the Bible by W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 22 June 2011.
  3. ^ "charisma". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
  4. ^ "Charismata". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Ed F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 22 June 2011.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Zondervan, 1994): 1016–17.
  6. ^ 1 Corinthians 12
  7. ^ Romans 12
  8. ^ Ephesians 4
  9. ^ 1 Peter 4
  10. ^ Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Zondervan, 1994): 1020.
  11. ^ Jump up to:a b Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, 1983, (Los Angeles: Foursquare Media, 2008), pp. 332–33.
  12. ^ "Spiritual Gifts, Natural Talents Abilities, Fruit of Spirit". mintools.com. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  13. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 334.
  14. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 335.
  15. ^ Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1021.
  16. ^ Sumrall, Lester "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit" p. 25 Aug 2000
  17. ^ Easton, Matthew George. "Gifts, spiritual". Easton's Bible Dictionary. 1897. Accessed June 22, 2011.
  18. ^ Ruthven, Jon. On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Post-Biblical Miracles Archived 2009-03-19 at the Wayback Machine. Deo Press, 1993, rev. 2008. pp. 3, 7. Accessed June 27, 2011.
  19. ^ "Spiritual Gifts Survey". Peace Lutheran Church. Archived from the original on 5 September 2012. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  20. ^ "Spiritual Gifts". The United Methodist Church. Archived from the original on 3 March 2017. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  21. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church 799–800 Archived 2011-10-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  22. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 351.
  23. ^ Coppieters, Honoré (1907). "Apostles". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  24. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 353.
  25. ^ Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1031 note 21.
  26. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 353–54.
  27. ^ Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1024.
  28. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 339–40, 353–55.
  29. ^ "Paul and Spiritual Gifts: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 12–14".
  30. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 356–57.
  31. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 357–58.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 347–48.
  33. ^ Jump up to:a b Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 348–49.
  34. ^ Jump up to:a b Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 349–50.
  35. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 336–37.
  36. ^ Kavan, Heather (2013). "A psychodynamic interpretation of gender differences in descriptions of religious visions". The International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society. 2 (2): 77–87. doi:10.18848/2154-8633/CGP/v02i02/50994.
  37. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 340–41.
  38. ^ Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 345.
  39. ^ Jump up to:a b Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, p. 343.
  40. ^ See for example "Stephen Vantassel, "Celibacy: The Forgotten Gift of the Spirit," Journal of Biblical Counseling. 12, no. 3 (1994): 20–23"[permanent dead link], 10 January 2008
  41. ^ https://www.kentuckytoday.com/stories/entity-leaders-reflect-on-how-covid-19-has-changed-the-southern-baptist-convention,31057 "Entity leaders reflect on how COVID-19 has changed the Southern Baptist Convention"
  42. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Duffield and Van Cleave, Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, pp. 358–59.
  43. ^ Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1020.


Further reading[edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Catholic Encyclopedia: CharismataGrudem, Wayne A. (editor). Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Zondervan, 1996. ISBN 978-0-310-20155-7. Four authors each provide four viewpoints concerning spiritual gifts: Cessationist, "Open But Cautious", Third Wave, and Pentecostal/Charismatic.
Bullock, Warren D. When the Spirit Speaks: Making Sense Out of Tongues, Interpretation, and Prophecy. Gospel Publishing House, 2009. ISBN 0-88243-284-2.
Carter, Howard (1968). Spiritual Gifts and Their Operation. Missouri: Gospel Publishing House. ISBN 0-88243-593-0.
Deere, Jack. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993. ISBN 978-0-310-21127-3.
Deere, Jack. Surprised by the Voice of God. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. ISBN 978-0-310-22558-4.
Greig, Gary and Springer, Kevin (eds.). The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and the Spiritual Gifts Used By Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today? Ventura, CA: Gospel Light, 1993 (thorough and practical). ISBN 978-0-8307-1659-3.
Hurst, Randy (editor). Divine Order: Leading the Public Use of Spiritual Gifts. Gospel Publishing House, 2009.
Lim, David. "Spiritual Gifts" in Systematic Theology, A Pentecostal Perspective revised edition, edited by Stanley M. Horton. Springfield, MO: Logion Press, 1994. ISBN 0-88243-855-7.
Wagner, C. Peter. Discover Your Spiritual Gifts: The Easy-To-Use, Self-Guided Questionnaire That Helps You Identify and Understand Your Various God-Given Spiritual Gifts, expanded edition. Regal, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8307-3678-2.
Wimber, John and Springer, Kevin. Power Evangelism, revised and enlarged edition. Regal, 2009 (originally 1986). ISBN 978-0-8307-4796-2.


hide
v
t
e
Private revelation in the Catholic Church
Revelations
Apparitional experience
Christian mysticism
Locution interior
Marian apparition
Religious ecstasy
Vision (spirituality)
Visions of Jesus and Mary
Miracles
Bilocation
Charism Gift of miracles
Gifts of healing
Glossolalia
Interpretation of tongues
Prophecy
Word of Knowledge
Word of wisdom
Eucharistic miracle Miracle of Lanciano
Levitation
Lourdes water
Miracle of the Sun
Odour of sanctity
Stigmata
Tabor Light
Thaumaturgy
Weeping statue
Discernment
Documents Code of canon law
Haurietis aquas
Normae Congregationis
Tribus circiter
Magisterium
Rule of Faith
Sensus fidei
Theology Bridal theology
Christology
Mariology
Mystical theology
Popular piety
Acts of reparation First Thursdays Devotion
Immaculate Heart of Mary Consecration
First Saturdays Devotion
Miraculous Medal
Seven Dolors
Pilgrimage
Rosary Rosary of the Holy Wounds
Sacred Heart First Fridays Devotion
Divine Mercy Chaplet of the Divine Mercy
Divine Mercy novena
Eucharistic adoration
Holy Hour
Saint Michael in the Catholic Church Chaplet of Saint Michael
Prayer to Saint Michael
Scapular
Shrines

Marian shrines
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar
Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal
Knock Shrine
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes
Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help
Sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces of Onuva
Shrine of Our Lady of the Hens
Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei
Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of San Nicolás
Others
Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy
Sanctuary of Christ the King
Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo


gift noun

Definition of gift (Entry 1 of 3)
1: a notable capacity, talent, or endowment
2: something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation
3: the act, right, or power of giving


1: 주목할만한 능력, 재능 또는 자질 
2: 한 사람이 보상 없이 자발적으로 다른 사람에게 양도한 것 
3: 주는 행위, 권리 또는 권한



2022/08/11

SWEEP 13 Elaine Emily from Pacific Yearly Meeting on "How do we nurture the Spiritual Gifts of Friends?"


Patricia Johnson

Dear Friends,

We are excited that you will join us this coming Friday for SWEEP 13 with 
Elaine Emily from Pacific Yearly Meeting on 
"How do we nurture the Spiritual Gifts of Friends?"

Elaine will talk about her concern for 
revitalising Eldering, 
the naming and claiming of spiritual gifts, and 
how Friends may nurture spiritual gifts in our meetings. 

There will be time to ask questions and to share in breakout rooms to share with others. Please look at the suggested pre-viewing and pre-reading below. 

Trish Johnson,
Silver Wattle Elders Committee


The Zoom session will start at 10.30am, with a gathering in Silent Worship. It will conclude at 12.00 noon with closing Worship.
Please note the start times:
Eastern States 10.30am
South Australia  10.00am
Western Australia 8.30am
Pacific (US) previous day 5.30pm

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/528059600?pwd=ZitGbGUrczFUWXRBb2lKc1RlTE8yQT09


Meeting ID: 528 059 600

Passcode: 2621


Before the session, you may like to view 
the QuakerSpeak video by Elaine on Spiritual Accompaniment; 
read a list of Eldering and Spiritual Gifts and a quote from "Community Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts" by Lloyd Lee Wilson.



The Quaker Practice of Traveling with an Elder - QuakerSpeak
Resources: Subscribe to QuakerSpeak so you never miss a video; See a list of all the videos we’ve produced.; Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality; Learn more about Quakers in PA, NJ, DE, and MD at PYM.org.; FCE: deepening intimacy, finding peace, building community. Curious? Learn more. Learn about how Friends Fiduciary witnesses to ...
quakerspeak.com

Reading for SWEEP 13:

Lloyd Lee Wilson, “Community Stewardship of our Spiritual Gifts” 

from “Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order’ (Quaker Press, 1993), pp13,14.

The responsibilities that accompany spiritual giftedness are numerous, and each must be assumed and carried out in order for the full benefit of the gift to be felt in the faith community.

For the individual, the responsibilities of giftedness include naming and accepting the gift and offering it to the faith community in God’s service.

For the faith community, the responsibilities include helping the individual name and develop the gift, and accepting its exercise within the community – agreeing to be ministered to. 

If these responsibilities are shirked on either side, the gift will not grow into its maturity and the faith community will not be nurtured as it needs. Not only the specific individual will be affected, but also other “infant ministers” or persons with other spiritual gifts who, seeing how a more seasoned Friend has fared, will not take the risks of ministry on themselves as they should.

When these responsibilities are acknowledged and carried out, however, the benefits to the faith community are great. The community receives just those gifts that it needs in order to carry out God’s will and therefore knows the joys of growing spiritual maturity and of being in harmony with the divine intent. 

Individuals receive and exercise those gifts that are best suited to their condition, and become more nearly the persons God yearns for them to be.

Let us resolve then, as faith communities to be good stewards of the spiritual gifts that have been bestowed on us, that we might also hear the Master’s Voice, “Well done, good and  faithful servants.”

===

ELDERING AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS – an incomplete list

 Love

 Deep acceptance

 Patience and capacity to wait

 Willingness to pray

 Prayerful use of intuition

 Listening

 Concern and feeling for quality of worship

 Holding the meeting in spiritual space

 Vocal ministry

 Groundedness

 Spiritual presence

 Ability to recognise and name gifts in others

 Ability to prompt others to trust and grow their gifts

 Responsive to That of God in the Other

 Teaching/ministry and opening understanding for others

 Open heart

 Open mind

 Focused attention

 Capacity to read body language of self and others

 Trusting in God’s leadings

 Help others to test leadings

 Discernment of the sense of the Meeting

 Love and nurture for the Meeting community

Provide spiritual hospitality

 Faithfulness

 Willing to speak truth in love, even hard truths

 Know when and how to call others to account

 Know when you/others are outrunning the Guide and need to stop and

listen

2022/08/07

I'm A Moonie And I Love It - Talking Spirituality And Fish Powder With Alaskan Followers Of The Reverend Sun Myung Moon - Euge

I'm A Moonie And I Love It - Talking Spirituality And Fish Powder With Alaskan Followers Of The Reverend Sun Myung Moon - Euge

The Words of the Harnett Family

I'm A Moonie And I Love It - Talking Spirituality And Fish Powder With Alaskan Followers Of The Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Interview of Eugene Harnett and Neil Drucker

Hal Horton Jr.
July 13-19, 2000
The Anchorage Press

I come bearing good news: the Messiah is now walking the earth. He is in excellent health, considering his age. He is optimistic and spending His summers fishing in Kodiak.

And still better news: the Messiah has a sizable band of adherents, whom you are lovingly invited to join. There is even a handful of such families in Anchorage. They are members of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, or "The Unification Church," for short.

You probably know them under another name.

"The term 'Moonie' shall not be used in your article," Pastor Eugene Harnett informs me.

Harnett is head of the Anchorage Family Church, the local branch of the Unification movement, and a follower of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the church's leader and messiah. Pastor Harnett has been kind enough to meet with me on short notice to discuss theology, the Unification Church's Kodiak congregation, and what it is like to cast for kings on the banks of the Olds River while standing next to the Lord of the Second Advent.

The Unification Church has invested heavily in Kodiak. It owns International Oceanic Enterprises, the parent company of both International Seafoods of Alaska, a Kodiak processing plant, and U.S. Marine, a subsidiary which runs a fleet of fishing boats on the island. Moon's church has become the largest tax-payer on Kodiak, and the largest private employer, which has done wonders to quell controversy among non-believers on the island, who once wielded picket signs in protest against the people you are now allowed to call "Unificationists."

Pastor Harnett compares the term "Moonie" to "the N-word:" in short, it's only permissible to say it if you're doing so in love, and you are one yourself.

Harnett has a point. Under "the M-word," followers of the Reverend Sun Moon have been subjected to the most virulent press coverage of any new religious movement of modern times-with the obvious exceptions of those that ended in mass suicide or in flames and gunfire.

Some headlines from a collection of U.S. and European papers in the late '70s:

"Reverend Moon's plot to rule the world;"

"Parents fight 'brainwashing' by bizarre sect;"

"Mass suicide possible in Moon Church, 3 say;"

And my personal favorite from the Paris Match of 1975: "Le Dieu Moon nous arrache nos enfants"-"The God Moon snatches our children."

Pastor Harnett looks nothing like a child snatcher. He is a youthful and friendly 44-year-old with red hair and large, freckled hands. His eyes are extremely intense when he is passionate about his subject-for instance, the subject of his 1982 arranged marriage.

For Pastor Harnett, "it was very personal. I had a match. Someone I could commit my life to. She was from Japan. And she-you see this chipped tooth? Her tooth was chipped the same way. The same tooth. When we met each other it was like that."

When they met, Harnett and his wife-to-be were standing with 5,836 other couples in a stadium in Seoul, Korea. The matches had all been made by the Reverend Moon.

"It's not like a herd of cattle," Harnett says. "Visually it might look like it, but each individual has his or her own relationship with God and is building a relationship with another person.... When there is no love, but there's a commitment to find love, that marriage can be stronger. Do you understand?"

I am not sure I do. I ask if he ever wonders about that chipped tooth-if he hadn't chipped it, might he now be married to someone else?

"What I'm trying to say is that there's a commitment to the relationship, even before there's love," Harnett says. "A lot of marriages, you fall in love, you become passionately in love with each other, like a pot of boiling water. And then you get married. And then that pot of boiling water starts to simmer and cool down as the years go by.

"In my situation, it's like we started out as that tepid pot of water. But as you add love, and you go through those times when there is no love and you're asked to find some-especially when it's over an expanse of culture, which it was with mine, or skin color, or language-then you're asked to find love over difficult circumstances, but when you do it becomes a boiling pot of water. And it gets hotter and hotter and more passionate. That's been my experience, over eighteen years."

The American contingent of the Unification Church began with a single missionary from Korea who landed in the Bay Area in 1959. Membership growth was incremental over the next decade. Fundraising relied on members' tithing and a few small church businesses. In 1972, however, a few church members in Maryland began asking for "donations" in exchange for candles. By July 1973 average sales per convert were nearly $1,000 a week, and the church established "Mobile Fundraising Teams," whose members lived communally, worked out of vans, and sold flowers and peanuts for long hours. Individual members of the Unification Church saw none of the proceeds, although their basic needs were provided for.

This era also saw the advent of "the love-bomb."

A conversion technique popular within Bay Area branches of the church, love-bombing involved gathering groups of Unificationists around a reluctant new recruit and "bombing them with love." (Keep in mind that each Unification group in the United States operated independently. The national leadership cannot be proven to have condoned any of this.)

In 1974, the church bought a mansion in Westchester County as a personal residence for the Reverend and his family. Two years later, the church bought Tiffany's. Both purchases were indicative of an underlying Republicanism which often surprises those unfamiliar with the inner-workings of the movement-including many of its professed members. During the Watergate hearings, for example, the Reverend Moon directed mass demonstrations in support of President Nixon. During the political unrest in Central American in the 1980s his church established CAUSA, an anti-communist group implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. CAUSA funneled money to General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez who, according to Amnesty International, directed Honduran death squads.

But this is all old news, according to Pastor Harnett, along with the almost certainly false reports of individual members being psychologically infantilized and barred from seeing their families.

Such reports likely arose because, people asked, why else would members spend years raising money for a self-proclaimed messiah from Korea?

Harnett raised funds for the church for three years. It's a question he's happy to answer.

"Because [fundraising] is an education in how to love people," he says. "If you go out every day trying to make money like that, you're going to hit a brick wall. But if you go out trying to love people, if you go out with that idea, then you can break through those brick walls. . . . From a spiritual-training point of view, from a ministering point of view, it's excellent."

Harnett says that like many in the first wave of Unificationist converts, he was unfairly maligned.

"When I joined, or a couple years after I joined-a young kid, right? Nineteen, 20, 21. I was bright, I was sharp, a straight-A student. I knew what I was doing. And I'd meet people sometimes, and they'd start talking about all this stuff, digging it up and going at me, this, that, and the other thing, all this about Reverend Moon, and he's this and this and this. And I'd say 'look'-because you know they called us brainwashed, right?-I'd say 'Look, look at my eyes. Do I look brainwashed.'

"And you know what they'd say? 'Yes.'"

It is impossible to sustain for even a second the illusion that Jean-Paul Franquelin has been brainwashed. If there were such a thing as brainwashing-and there is not, outside of loss of identity brought on by extreme physical torture-it would take a peculiarly American naiveté, a hayseediness, to be susceptible. The French would be automatically immune.

The plant manager at International Seafoods in Kodiak and a Unificationist, Franquelin is from Amiens, a city about 70 miles north of Paris. He has a strong accent and looks a little like a middle-aged Jean-Paul Belmondo.

I have come to ask Franquelin about fish powder. In recent years, the Reverend Moon has become enthusiastic about grinding the parts of a fish you don't want to think about into protein powder.

The fishing industry is notoriously wasteful-from out-of-season species hauled up in nets to byproducts of the slime line-and the Reverend Moon wants to turn that waste into food for the hungry. He has invested millions in Kodiak to develop a machine that will take fish waste and turn it into a water-soluble, human-consumable powder that is 90 percent protein.

Fish powder is Pastor Harnett's first example of the charitable causes which might justify the Unification church's massive business holdings, and it seemed to me a sort of charmingly quixotic mission-one of the small surreal touches that makes the Unificationists so interesting.

Unfortunately, the machine they built in Kodiak is so far not entirely successful. According to Franquelin, it had "decanters and high-speed machine equipment, you know..." For an instant he shakes his head as if it were attached to a piston rod. "Vibrations. And it was on the second floor. We were afraid it would fall through to the first floor. And there were other business-related problems. And the quality of the powder was not so good, not what we wanted. You could see little flecks of bone-not high enough grade."

The machine is currently dismantled for repair, though it did produce enough powder for the church to send 1,500 pounds of it to Burundi in 1994. The shipment ran into a snag-fish powder was not on the list of U.N.-approved comestibles-so distribution was limited to Christian Disaster Relief agency sites.

(There have been no reports of what famished Hutus thought of the taste, but the church baked Kodiak fish powder into desserts at a press tasting in Seattle that same year. According to wire reports, the cookies were fine, but the brownies tasted a little fishy.)

Once he's finished explaining why the fish powder machine is down, Franquelin details, in a cheerfully uncomplicated way, the way in which he came to the Unificationists: he met someone in Paris, agreed to come to a meeting, and liked what was said. The fact that Franquelin's employer is also his church is not of much import to him-work is not therefore prayer.

"Americans are strange about their jobs," he tells me. "They know how to work hard, always-" and he jabs at the air to demonstrate his point. "It is not the French way. I am serious about my job, I am serious about what I believe, but-no."

International Seafoods will hire qualified workers, regardless of their spiritual beliefs-a few of the top managers at the plant are now non-members. It is becoming a business like any other, and, the vagaries of the fishing industry being what they are, it does not always turn a profit. To the people of Kodiak it has become, in a word, uncontroversial.

I suggest to Franquelin that a true Messiah would not have spent so much time and money investing in things that are more properly Caesar's. For instance, this processing plant.

"When Jesus was alive and preaching nobody followed him," the plant manager tells me. "People said Satan made the miracles, and in the end even the disciples abandoned him. And finally the people killed him. If he had fulfilled his mission, of course they would have given him clothes, so on," and he rolls his hand to signify the various fine things the Son of Man would have received.

"The Reverend Moon is more humble than any man I've met so far. He is always trying to spend for the sake of others. It is not like he is eating like a king."

He pauses for a moment, regarding me. "You know, if I had seen Jesus and he had told me he was the Messiah, I would have checked before I threw a stone at him. I would not just go by public opinion. Because truth is not always easy to listen to."

Nor does it always make for light reading. The Divine Principle, the Unification movement's book of theology, has none of the rolling, pleasant, King-Jamesian doggerel of, for instance, the Book of Mormon. It has the style of an engineering manual, and its metaphors are mostly geometric-a soul is compared to a circle becoming a sphere; husbands and wives are meant to triangulate off of God. Certain significant numbers appear again and again: Ten is the number of revelation, 40 is the number of "indemnity" (the process by which trials in this life cleanse us of sin). The Reverend Moon finds a pattern of repeating numbers in the years between Old Testament prophets, a pattern which was repeated after the advent of Jesus in such a way as to point to the era of the Reverend's own birth

But most central to the theology-arguably more central even than Jesus-is the Unificationist take on the Garden of Eden. It goes like this: Adam and Eve were intended by God to form a kind of holy trinity with him, whereby Adam and Eve would become True Parents and all their children would be "Blessed." Evil would not exist in the world. But then Lucifer the fallen angel snaked in. The familiar episode is sexualized-the apple of the Tree of Knowledge is a metaphoric fruit. First Lucifer had a "spiritual" sexual relationship with Eve, and then Eve convinced Adam to have physical intercourse. The triangulation was, therefore, based on Satan, sex occurred before God blessed the union, and Original Sin entered the world.

The Divine Principle dismisses Immaculate Conception-of course Mary wasn't really a virgin-and restates God's aims for the various Biblical personages. Moses, Abraham and even Jesus Christ are rendered as failures. What God really wanted for his Son was to see him married. Tragically, Jesus was murdered instead-and not at God's will; what Father could plan such a thing for His Son?

The crucifixion prevented Jesus from achieving His true mission, which was to enter into holy matrimony and to become a True Parent in the physical sense, as much as He is in the spiritual sense.

Instead, the world had to wait for Sun Moon.

I spent a few hours in Kodiak bars trying to get a sense of public feeling about the church. I found the people of Kodiak, or at least those who drink in public, remain almost universally ignorant about Moon's doctrine. Previous controversies on the island-in the early '80s, when the church was buying up the last remaining frontage on the Kodiak dock-had more to do with the movement's media image as starry-eyed freaks and kidnappers than with any Christian heresies.

In the mid-'90s, though, angry letter-writers to the Kodiak Daily Mirror reported wall-to-wall Unificationists in matching orange raincoats lining the banks of the Olds River. These church members were flown to the island-mostly from Japan-and were bussed to rivers along the road system in groups of as many as 200. Eyewitnesses reported that the Reverend himself was landing 25 or 30 salmon during one day's fishing-as his followers would hand him their pole whenever they hooked a fish.

"He is very intense when fishing," Harnett says of the Messiah. "He becomes very focused."

Barstool opposition to the church's presence on Kodiak lingers, though it's no longer particularly articulate:

"Motherfucking bunch of brainwashed motherfuckers."

"They ain't Moonies. They're morons. Ought to call themselves Moronies!"

More often than not, though, I found the Unificationaist presence was regarded as a non-issue.

"They're nice people. Everybody in Kodiak gets along fine with them."

And what of the accusations that church-sponsored tenders once undercut other processors and handed out twelve-packs of beer to fishermen willing to do business with them?

"Bunch of crap. They pay the same as anyone else, pay taxes like anybody else, run the plant like anybody else. And they don't drink, you know, don't mess around at all. So if they want to believe like a bunch of idiots, I say let them."

This Saturday night gathering of public opinion ended badly. The bartender at the Breakers objected to me recording people, things got ugly, and the whole episode ran out into charges of criminal mischief, a brief stint in jail, and a lawyer named "Razzo."

Suffice to say I was in the mood to be love-bombed come Sunday morning.

And I wasn't disappointed, although the experience was, at most, a light love-strafing.

The service began in Angel Garden with the singing of Unificationist hymns, which have the structure and melodies of folk songs. Pastor Neil Drucker strummed an acoustic guitar in his stocking feet.

Such scenes may be the reason people still think the Reverend Moon leads some kind of hippie cult-the church remains an odd cross between the restrictive discipline of other conservative Christian groups and the free-love stylings of the period in which the American Unificationist movement came of age.

The truly impressive thing, though, was the racial makeup of the congregation, in a country where we do nothing in so segregated a fashion as the worship of God. Kodiak has 17 or so resident Unificationist couples, and their families are strikingly diverse. A handsome black family sat in the front row of folding chairs. Pastor Drucker himself is ethnically Jewish. Mixed-race children, who comprised half the congregation, were permitted to squirm and make noise in admirable freedom.

Another impressive thing-impressive in a different way-is that Pastor Drucker did not mention the Reverend Moon once in his sermon, which was on the family as the basis for social and religious renewal. If Adam had created a church, he said, it would have been just a family. And this intimate, sacred relation would have remained among all peoples for all times.

"Family Work, Family Town, Family State, Family Nation," said Pastor Drucker. "And Family World."

His wife, Diane, thanked God eloquently and at length in a spontaneous prayer, another guest and I were introduced, and then the service was over.

A few people came over to greet me, among them Mr. and Mrs. Hokanson. It is difficult when first meeting Unificationist couples to resist evaluating the match. Mr. Hokanson is a tall, gangly, slightly awkward white American, and for a short time I suspected his wife, a first-generation Korean American, was too beautiful for him. But Mr. Hokanson has a compensating generosity of spirit. He works as a boat captain for U.S. Marine, and was also captain of the first Unificationist fishing boat in Gloucester, Massachusetts. (The entry of the church into that fishery made any of the Kodiak controversies look neighborly-at one point the mayor of Gloucester told the Reverend "you'll have strap marks on your ass before you get a permit out of me.")

Mrs. Hokanson has spoken with the Reverend Moon. I just missed him on my recent trip to Kodiak, which is just as well since the Reverend refuses media interviews. But he goes to Kodiak twice a summer for at least a few weeks-during the salmon runs-and so of course everyone I met in Angel Garden had also met the Reverend Moon. But Mrs. Hokanson speaks Korean, and the Reverend's English is not strong, so she has talked with him at greater length than most in Kodiak.

I was fascinated by this, of course, and pressed her for information. Up until that point I was told of nothing but the Reverend's humility and physical stamina-the man is 80, but Pastor Harnett says, "He could probably take down you or me."

Mrs. Hokanson's English was excellent, but accented enough to prevent me from understanding one word.

"The Reverend Moon thinks of himself as a-"

At first I thought she said "Samuel," meaning the Old Testament figure who anointed the first two kings of Israel, but I was wrong. She repeated herself.

"As a ceremony?" I asked.

"Salmon," puts in Mr. Hokanson.

"Oh," I said.

"It's the 'L," said Mrs. Hokanson, smiling.

The journey of the salmon, she explained, is like humanity's quest to get back to the Garden-to return to the place from whence we came, after so many years of wandering the world. The Reverend Moon sees himself as returning to the heart of creation, where it all began, to make things right for the world.

"And when the salmon return to the spot, they find a mate. . . ."

"And spawn and die," I put in.

"Yes, but their children-they help their children. The young."

"Nourished by the bodies of their parents," I said, and then regretted it, as the metaphor fell into pieces around us and drifted away, leaving us in awkward silence.

Fortunately, Pastor Drucker likes to talk. He is a broad-shouldered man with Jewish features, and he told me about how he joined the church in Israel as we walked across the church's Kodiak land.

The two church buildings, set among tall spruce, are bigger than barns and painted a late-'70s puce. We emerged from "Angel Garden" and made our way across the drive to "North Garden." Nansook Hong-the Reverend's ex-daughter-in-law-reports in her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons that the Reverend has at least nine mansions to call his own.

In Gloucester he owns "Morning Garden," in Westchester Country both "East Garden" and "Belvedere." "West Garden" is in L.A. "South Garden" is in South America.

All of this may be true, and the Reverend may also own "North Garden," but Drucker, his wife Diane, and their two children live in it.

Neil Drucker was once a surf-rat and experimental film-maker in California, and you would have to meet Drucker to understand how surprising this is: he is soft-spoken, a little shy, and anyone would have guessed a more timid history.

In Jerusalem, of all the unlikely places, Drucker became a follower of the Korean prophet. Living in the crux of so many world religions for so long has made Drucker uncommonly ecumenical. "Jerusalem has 12 gates, so everyone's coming from a different direction," he said. "But hopefully we arrive all at the same place."

But what would he say to those Christians who object to him not believing in, for instance, the Immaculate Conception?

"I consider it would depend upon the openness of the individual, whether to become emotional from what he understands and shut the door, or really to bring anything he hears to his own personal relationship with God and check it out. I consider God as never saying 'You must do this or you'll go to hell,' and that sort of thing, but as a father, as a parent. God would say, 'Test it out, check it out, make sure what I'm telling you makes sense.'"

I reviewed everything negative I've read about Reverend Moon: That he is an entrepreneur in the field of manipulating faith for profit. That he funded death squads. That as a younger man he was notoriously unfaithful. That he dyes his hair "shoe-polish black." That he is, in every sense of the term, a false prophet. The question I asked Pastor Drucker is this: Suppose Reverend Moon were in some way thoroughly and finally discredited. Would Pastor Drucker then abandon his theology?

He did not pause. "No. True love, the ideal family, these are good qualities. And if I got to the end of my life and someone told me 'It's all not true,' I would look back and think, "What did I do in my life?" And maybe I'll look back and see if I was faithful to my wife. If I was good to my family. Good to my fellow man. That's what will be important."

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
 Table of Contents
 Information
 Tparents Home


===

The Words of Reverend Sun Myung Moon from 1992

Vision for Fishing

Reverend Sun Myung Moon
Kodiak, Alaska
September 21, 1992

The following are some of the key points from a talk by Father to the Korean elders and their American proteges on September 21, 1992, at the beginning of the first of four workshops Father organized in Kodiak last fall.

I have spent twenty years developing oceanic enterprises. I wanted to develop three hundred fishing grounds, with ten good-sized boats in each fishing port, and use them as a springboard for developing sightseeing, fishing, and business ventures.

I am also interested in recreational hunting. In Canada we have the largest deer farm in North America, with about five hundred deer. There is another one in New Zealand with over a thousand head. We have another one in England. Once we are ready we can ship the animals to hunting preserves around the world, set them free, and charge people to come and hunt them. We can invite rich people and charge them a lot.

Fishing and hunting expeditions will be among the most exciting sports. We can build big hotels in port cities and have tackle shops. Our ocean activities can handle all the arrangements for sport fishing.

You need to become a master in terms of dealing with boats, fishing, and training young people. Then witnessing will be easy.

Predicted years ago

Originally I planned to sell a boat to an interested young person in a port city-the son of the mayor or police chief, for instance, someone with good character and credit references. We could set him up with a fishing boat and encourage him to develop the sightseeing and fishing business, selling fresh fish locally. Once he masters that, he can make a living in the city and pay off the boat in several years. If we give five boats to five promising young people, you will have a group of committed people. With that kind of foundation, after five years you can buy a fifty-foot boat, even a hundred-foot commercial trawler, just by coming up with a twenty-percent down payment. I was thinking of making some kind of association of fishermen all over the country and have them contribute a certain amount each month to help young people buy boats.

If fishermen can't make a living on the fish they catch, they may have to combine fishing with sightseeing. I predicted this twenty years ago, and that is why I encouraged one hundred twenty young people to launch this project. I went to Germany for six months and when I returned, many of them had disappeared, because they didn't pay enough attention.

Now you have some experience dealing with Good Go boats and fishing. If you are really well trained and determined to multiply people like you, then we still have hope. That is why I called you here for training.

The fishing and sightseeing business is ideal, because America is surrounded on three sides by ocean, and seventy-five percent of the world's fishing grounds are within American territorial waters. Out of this, about eighty percent of the fish are around Kodiak. That is why I established this fishing area in Alaska. Other fishermen went bankrupt and left town. Yet I started taking over one by one. We have been losing money up until now, but I never gave up. Even this year, many businesses have been shutting down to save money, but I pumped another five million dollars into it, building surimi and fish-powder factories. I spent over ten million dollars to establish factory boats. To be successful in the fishing business, you need to cover every aspect.

Wherever we establish this kind of project, we become controversial.

I want to establish ocean church projects and centers again. That is why I developed many kinds of things here, where International Seafood Association (ISA) and our factory are located.

Couples from the Blessing of the 30,000 can come here and then publicize our activities in their countries.

We should be able to develop fish farms everywhere, even in the desert or on the top of a mountain. We can channel ocean water anywhere, with advanced technology.

Select them live

Ten years ago I could see that people would be interested in eating live fish, if they could see them live and select the one they want. People will pay five times more for a fish caught in the ocean than for one raised in a fish farm. That is why I made many Japanese restaurants all around the country, so people could go fishing in the night and bring their live catch to the restaurant to sell them the next day.

You should establish four teams in each state, making two hundred teams around the country. Take people out to the ocean and fish. While fishing, teach them Divine Principle. Do you think you would be wasting your time talking about Divine Principle every day?

I have been planning this for twenty years, but nobody could follow me. You didn't know back then the consequences coming in the future. I have been striving all alone for twenty years but nobody really followed. Now you see the reality.

I began tuna fishing in the Boston area. I made innovations here with salmon fishing. You are young people. You have so much hope for the future. Work hard. Mobilize young people. Educate them and train them to follow your footsteps. Otherwise you will be accused when you go to the spirit world.

You may not know about it, but I have sent fishing fleets around the world. For example, Japanese brothers are in Spain. They set out a three-mile-long net in the ocean around Spain to catch tuna. Other companies trying the same tactic caught only two to three hundred, but our net caught 1,664 giant blue-finned tunas. We keep them alive in the net and feed them, fattening them to sell in Japan when the price is highest, around Christmas and January. This is a natural fish farm.

Fish lay millions and millions of eggs at a time, but they become part of the food chain, in which big sea creatures eat the smaller ones. So over ninety-nine percent are usually eaten and only a very small percentage get hatched. If we can control that system, the resources will be unlimited.

We have to realize that sixty thousand people are dying every day of starvation. Think about the position of True Parents. Shouldn't we worry about that? I am very concerned about it. We have to prepare to solve that situation. If we develop a strong foundation of fishing and sightseeing and people come to know what we are doing and why, rich people around the world will support my project and go to Africa for fishing, sightseeing and farming. Then the African people will be able to survive.

Look at all the high-level people following me through the Professors World Peace Academy. Once the project is going well, they will follow me and bring everybody else.

Prepare yourself to receive me any time I give a call from Korea. I may have the photo album of you and go through it and choose certain states and call you up. You should be prepared to receive me at any time. I may not show up myself but send someone else. If you are not fully ready, you are a failure.

We catch fish here in Kodiak and have many trawlers. You should be able to sell them in your region and earn your living expenses.

I will put you through special training, not just how to catch fish but how to cut them, gut them, and all the necessary steps. It is serious training. You can develop fish farms.

Interracial couples have some advantages. For example, an American husband and Japanese wife: in Japan, the wife can represent the project, because you have to have a Japanese president, and in America the husband can be the president. So you can do business both there and in America. You can borrow money from both Japanese banks and American banks, if you utilize your connections. That way you can make a successful international foundation.

I will teach you to catch fish

The Korean regional directors are in my position and will be responsible to push this project. The Korean regional leader will be like the elder brother and the state leader the younger brother. You must follow the elder brother. You need to multiply people like you, because the Korean regional directors are getting old, and we need younger blood. You have to educate other people.

During this workshop, each team will have a tent. If you don't fulfill your responsibility you have to stay out, even overnight, until you reach your goal. You did not come here to have a good time. Tomorrow I will teach you how to catch fish on a boat, how to navigate the boat. In the future you will be trained to repair boat engines, too.

People will be assigned as team captains according to age, and will rotate by turn.

Even though our Good Go boats are safe and do not sink, we want to avoid accidents. Those of you who are here for the first time and are strangers to fishing, I think the fish may try to catch you! Listen carefully to what I will teach you. I cannot be on your boat, so every day I will teach you what to do. I will talk to the first team that meets their goal and gets back. If I went out, it would be too easy. I would be able to finish before noon.

Just like people, fish like to be around scenic areas. They like cool, shady spots. If you see nice mountains and rocks, you will find fish in those areas.

You do not have to use a lot of energy to cast your line. Keep the angle of your line at about thirty degrees. If the angle is perpendicular, the fish are more likely to notice it. Usually fish stay about a foot above the bottom. Wind your lure slowly. Adjust the weight of your lure and sinker to keep the bait floating at about a thirty-degree angle. You will learn the rest by experience on the boat.

Once you go back, you will repeat this kind of session. Send people out to two hundred fifty cities, and then twenty-five hundred cities. Blessed couples must participate. This is the way we will save America. Who will save this country? You will.

You have to be trained to be a lecturer wherever you go. Whomever you meet, you should be able to give lectures to. We should be able to mobilize campus ministers so that they can give lectures every day, just like you. This way we can multiply our membership and also the people who can lecture.

Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Tparents Home