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Rev. Moon Makes Global Inroads with Peace Festivals
Over the past six months, Rev Moon's Universal Peace Federation has hosted a series of Global Peace Festivals. The first was in July in Asunción, and the grand finale is taking place now in Jerusalem; in between there have been events in Washington D.C., Kinshasa, Nairobi, Ulanbataar, Ottawa, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Vienna, London, Lebanon, and Manila. These festivals allowed Rev. Moon's son Hyun Jin Moon to grandstand; Sunday's Manila Bulletin shows Hyun Jin Moon on stage surrounded by clerics and politicians, under the headline "Global leaders endorse 'One big family under God'".
The festival in Mongolia was also the unlikely setting for an encounter between Hyun Jin Moon and Mother Tynnetta Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. |
Despite the Manila Bulletin, the Philippines was one country where there was some opposition; The News Today reported:
The Global Peace Festival held here Nov. 17-19 became controversial after the Roman Catholic church withdrawn their support and manifested their strong opposition to it.
The Catholic church even announced on Sunday mass calling people not to support the said festival since it is anti-Christ.
However, organizers denied they are anti-Christ saying that they are bringing people to "One Family under God" regardless of whatever religion they have.
Christians in the Solomon Islands took a similar view, as noted by the Solomon Times:
Church leaders in Honiara are calling on all Christians in Honiara, and throughout the country, not to attend Reverend Moon's Global Peace Festival planned for this Saturday at the Lawson Tama Stadium.
...Church leaders have told their congregations that Rev. Sun Myung Moon had undermined "the finished work of Christ on the Cross and what Moon is doing is the work of the Devil and the Anti-Christ."...Christian ministries and organizations are unanimous in their call for a boycott of the Global Peace Festival and their description of Reverend Moon as the "Devil and the Anti-Christ, the end time figure spoken off in the Book of Revelation."
In the UK, some politicians have distanced themselves from Moon-organised events; the Guardian reported that: Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman...[said] "I don't see eye to eye with their views but I don't see any particular problem with speaking at their event, especially if it gives me an opportunity to challenge what Rev Moon advocates."
...Earlier this year, Shahid Malik, the minister for international development, pulled out of a Commons meeting organised by the UPF after learning of its links to the church. Julia Goldsworthy, the Lib Dem MP for Falmouth and Camborne also withdrew once she too became aware of the connection.
On the whole, however, coverage has been positive. The UPI reports from Japan: The Japan festival, hosted by the Universal Peace Federation and other nonprofit organizations, was held Saturday in Ajinomoto Stadium, Tokyo, with roughly 50,000 participants and delegates from 43 countries.
...The motto Moon emphasized at the Tokyo gathering was "One Family under God," defining it as a spiritual vision, rooted in time-enduring values, principles and aspirations. The idea is one he has inherited from his father, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who is the founder of the Unification Church and News World Communications, Inc.
...Jose De Venecia Jr., former speaker of the House of Representatives in the Philippines, underscored the importance of interfaith cooperation beyond the national, racial or religious boundaries that humankind has created.
...One urgent issue for Moon, who was born in South Korea and grew up in the United States, is the unification of North and South Korea. He urged Japan, where more than 600,000 North and South Koreans live, to support reconciliation. The two communities within Japan have been seen as a symbol of the Korean peninsula's conflict.
A report from Kenya is provided by the Bay Area Family Church: Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his wife Ida introduce UPF Co-Chair Dr. Hyun Jin Moon to a large crowd of Kenyan youth and families at the Global Peace Festival in Nairobi.
..."This is an important day for Kenya and for Africa," said Odinga, "It is a new beginning in the quest for our nation to be once again known as a nation of peace and security...The Universal Peace Federation and the Global Peace Festival are doing great things in Kenya,"
...Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, co-chair of the UPF and founder of the Global Peace Festival Initiative delivered the GPF keynote address. Dr. Moon, who is the third son of the international spiritual leaders and peacemakers Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, urged Kenyans to take pride in their nation and Africa's role as the cradle of civilization.
Unsurprisingly, the USA is covered by the Washington Times : The festival, held on the West Lawn of the Capitol, represents the launch of a long-term initiative by more than 150 faith- and community-based organizations to advocate for peace and unity worldwide.
...Speakers included D.C. civil rights activist and former D.C. Delegate Walter E. Fauntroy and GPF Chairman Hyun Jin Moon, son of Unification Church founder the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
...Among the organization partners are the Humanities Council in the District, the Interfaith Consortium, the Greater Washington Urban League, the Universal Peace Federation and the Points of Light Institute.
From Mongolia we have the strangest account, from Mother Tynnetta Muhammad, "wife" (1) of Elijah Muhammad, concerning a visit she made recently to Mongolia. Muhammad was in the country to research her relationship to Kublai Khan ("revealed to me in a vision in 1984"), but due to synchronicity and telepathy her visit coincided with the Universal Peace Federation's International Leadership Conference and Global Peace Festival:
Representatives from the Unification Church leadership and Universal Peace Federation having learned of my vision and search in finding the interpretation of this vision had first opened the doors to my investigations and my most recent discoveries in Mongolia.
...I was told several years ago before the first organized visit of the Unification Church to Mongolia, giving way to this extraordinary event of this month that I had been shown the significance of Mongolia years before the present hour and before the Reverend and Mrs. Moon began to mention the important genetic link between the Peoples of the Mongolian Nation in the geneology of the rest of the world. Recently, I was told by visiting dignitaries from the Unification Church at the office and Residence of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in Chicago that one of the sons of Reverend and Mrs. Moon also had a vision similar to my own concerning a peace concert and festival several months prior to its inauguration by the Chairman of the Global Peace Fest, Dr. Hyun Jin Moon in Washington, D.C. on August 9th. I had no idea until my recent travel to Mongolia that I would be participating as a guest of the Global Peace Fest planned in Mongolia and that my ticket for travel was arranged to arrive in the exact timing of its program schedule set for the evening of September 9th in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Nor did I know that I would meet the exact son who was carrying this vision.
Apparently she received "gifts and awards" during the festival.
(For reasons unknown, her article begins with a Koranic quote about the crucifixion of Jesus being an illusion, and ends with a verse that mentions "the iniquity of the Jews".)
The links between the NoI and the Unification Church are long-standing; Frederick Clarkson wrote a piece on the subject for Salon back in 2000. I noted Unification Church attendance at one NoI event here.
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(1) The NoI teaches that Elijah Muhammad is still alive (Louis Farrakhan claims to have received confirmation aboard a UFO), so she's not seen as his widow. Also, their marriage was apparently legally unofficial.
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