MARRIAGE WITH GOD Kirsti L. Nevalainen

The Internal Mission: Complete Salvation,The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.MARRIAGE WITH GODShamanistic Rite of the Unification ChurchKirsti L. Nevalainen

To my familyAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in anyform or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recordingor by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafterinvented, without the prior written permission of the author.Marriage With God© Kirsti L. NevalainenLayout: R. PenttinenPublisher: Mediapinta, 2009ISBN 978-952-235-083-1Print-On-Demand

1. INTRODUCTION1.1. Aims and Methods of the ResearchI was a member of the Unification Church for eight years,from May 1971 until May 1979. I joined the UnificationChurch in Bremen, Germany, and stayed in Germanyuntil January 1972. During that time I translated The DivinePrinciple, A Study Guide by Young Oon Kim intoFinnish 1 . In January 1972 I started a missionary workin Finland together with a German member Ms. Ellenvan Kampen 2 . We did only religious missionary workand were not active on the political arena. I worked inFinland until August 1977 when I left for the USA and Istayed there until Christmas 1978. Soon after that I leftthe Unification Church in May 1979. The main reasonwhy I left the church was Rev. Moon’s fierce Anti-Communism.I could not accept his interpretation of Communismas Satan incarnate. Rev. Moon had founded severalanti-communist political organizations and it was supposedthat every Unification Church member was willingto work against Communism. During my stay in the1 Jumalalliset Prinsiipit, Opinto-opas, saksasta kääntänyt KirstiLaaninen, Gesellschaft zur Vereinigung des Weltchristentums e.V.,Essen, 1971.2 Her birth name was Ellen Kocher.7

USA in 1977-1978 I was able to witness the socalledKoreagate scandal.This was an affair relating to the lobbyingand corruption of US Congress representatives infavor of the political and economic interests of SouthKorea. For instance Rev. Moon was accused of bribingAmerican congressmen in order to keep the US troops inSouth Korea. I decided to leave the Unification Churchbecause I did not want to participate in Rev. Moon’s anticommunistpolitical activities in the Cold War. Becauseof my membership in the Unification Church for eightyears I came to know the movement quite well both inEurope and the USA. 3This book is a Religious Studies research and it belongsto the discipline of Religionsgeschichte or the historyof religion. I examine the early history of the UnificationChurch in North and South Korea and Sun Myung’sMoon’s connections with Jesukyo the ‘Jesus Church’.Rev. Moon was a member of this church during 1938-1947 and he adopted the doctrines and practices from theJesus Church. The most important sacrament of the UnificationChurch is The Blessing of Marriage. Throughthis ceremony fallen people are cut off from their satanicblood lineage and engrafted into the blood lineageof God and the Messiah, Sun Myung Moon and his wifeHak Ja Han. I examine in this research what was the historicdevelopment of this sacrament into its present formin 1962.3 See more about the history of the Unification Church in Finland:History of The Unification Movement in Finland, Helsinki,March 2006.http://www.euro-tongil.org/finnish/finnish_history.htm8

My main thesis is the following: The Blessing of Marriageof the Unification Church is directly derivativefrom the pigarum or yongch’e ceremony of Korean messianicgroups from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. A pigarumceremony means ‘change of blood lineage’ anda yongch’e ceremony means ‘receiving a new spiritualbody’. Even though there were two names in use in Koreathey had the same meaning, uniting a human beingwith God and Goddess in spirit and body. And this tookplace through ritual sex. A male spiritual leader unitedsexually with his female disciples and a female spiritualleader had ritual sex with her male followers. It was believedthat through this process God and Goddess becameincarnated in human form. But before a spiritualleader could transfer his or her divinity to the followershe or she had first to unite sexually with God or Goddessthrough a spiritual sexual union. So he or she wasable to receive a new spiritual body directly from Godor Goddess. The Unification Church practiced the pigarumor yongch’e ceremony from the 1940s throughthe 1950s until 1962 when The Holy Wine Ceremony andThe Three Day Ceremony replaced this original sexualritual. Both of these ceremonies are integral parts of TheBlessing of Marriage.My second thesis is that the yongch’e or pigarum ceremonyof Korean messianic groups is similar to theinitiation rite of a Korean shaman or shamaness. It iscalled Naerim kut or Gangsin kut. In this initiation rite ashaman or shamaness is officially married with God orGoddess and has a spiritual sexual relationship with Himor Her. God or Goddess takes a permanent abode in a9

selves as the new divine family in God’s direct bloodlineage. 6The Unification Church or The Holy Spirit Associationfor the Unification of World Christianity was born inNorth-Korea at the end of the 1940s. Officially the UnificationChurch was founded by the Rev. Sun MyungMoon 7 in 1954 in Seoul, South Korea. The teaching ofthe Unification Church is uniquely Korean. It is a synthesisof Korean old religions Shamanism, Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism. In addition to these easternreligions the Unification Church doctrine has adoptedChristian teachings. It is a typically eastern practice ofpursuing several religious traditions simultaneously. InKorea a religious seeker can be attached to many religionsat the same time. Rev. Moon’s family convertedto the Presbyterian Church when he was ten years oldand so he became influenced by the Christian doctrine.Rev. Moon began to preach and attract followers inNorth-Korea in 1947. Mainstream Christians rejectedRev. Moon and therefore he began to associate himselfwith some new Korean Christian sects on the fringesof Christianity. These groups were highly spiritualistic,they were prophesying, speaking in tongues, receivingvisions, sinking in trances and consulting with spirits. At6 Flasche, Rainer, The Unification Church in the Context ofEast-Asian Religious Traditions in Acta Comparanda II, Antwerp:Faculteit voor vergleijkende Godsdienstwetenschappen, 1987, p.27.7 Sun Myung Moon’s original name was Mun Yong-myung.Yong means “Dragon”. He was born in a village called Sangsa-rinear a small town Jeong-ju in North Korea on 6 January 1920 as ason of the farming family.13

the same time they were rejecting the traditional Christiandoctrine of the Second Coming: instead of Jesus returningon the clouds of heaven they were expecting anew Messiah, a Lord of the Second Advent, to be bornin Korea. These spiritual groups had also new teachingsand interpretations about the Fall of man and how to restorefallen men back to God. Rev. Moon adopted theteachings and rituals of these spiritualists into his owndoctrine and Church practice and began to spread hisnew message. 8The various religious traditions of Korea had been constantlyinfluencing each other and it was inevitable thatwhen Christianity arrived it would become part of theamalgam of the Korean religions. Numerous small religiousgroups arose in Korea which were strongly influencedby the indigenous Korean faiths, but claimedChristian identity which was vigorously challengedby the mainstream Christian churches. It is estimatedthat there were at least 170 such groups which emergedin Korea after the Second World War. In the minds ofmany Koreans Christianity and Shamanism were basicallyidentical. Christian missionary activity enabledthe propagation of Shamanism in Christian guise. ManyKoreans who supposedly embraced the Christian faithdid not actually understand the differences betweenChristianity and Shamanism. Teachings and practicesvaried from group to group, but their main features were8 Chryssides, George D., The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, TheOrigins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church, MacmillanProfessional and Academic Ltd., Houndmills, Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 2XS and London, 1991, pp. 46-107.14

that they were syncretistic and had messianic expectations,laid emphasis on communication with the spiritworld, practiced healing and prophecy and were tryingto transform the existing socio-political system. TheseChristian-related spiritual groups were messianic, thatis, they believed the Messiah was already among themor at least his arrival as a physical man was imminent.In common with many new Korean religions the UnificationChurch proclaims a ‘this-worldly’ goal, centredon a messiah who emerges from Korea to unify andsave the world. 9The basic ingredients of the doctrines of the new religionsare: syncretism, the advent of a future world, paradiseon earth, faith in a savior, the notion of Koreans asa chosen people, faith in the Chonggamnok and shamanisticfaith. 10 The Korean people, the Third Israel, havebelieved in the prophecy that the Righteous King willappear and found a glorious and everlasting kingdom intheir land. This messianic idea among the Korean peoplewas revealed through the Chonggamnok, a book ofprophecy written in the fourteenth century at the beginningof the Yi dynasty. The hoped-for Righteous Kingforetold in the Chonggamnok has the appellation Chongdoryong(the one who comes with the true Word of God).This is a Korean prophecy of the Christ who is to return9 Chryssides, George D., The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, TheOrigins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church, MacmillanProfessional and Academic Ltd., Houndmills, Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 2XS and London, 1991, pp. 79, 88.10 Moon, Sang-hee, Fundamental doctrines of the new religionsin Korea in Korea Journal, Vol. 11, 1971, p. 23.15

to Korea. 11 Unification Church came into existence in1947 in North Korea. When Moon was in Pyongyangbefore the Korean War, his messianic group had suchnames as Kwang-ya Kyohoe (the “Wilderness Church”)or Chaegun Kyohoe (the “Second Root Church”). Itsformal name, Segye Kidokkyo T’ongil Sillyong Hyophoe,was decided on in May 1954. It can be translatedinto English as the “Godly-and-Spiritual Association forUnification of World Christianity”. The word sillyong asa noun means “god-and-spirit”. 12On June 21, 1977, the Commission on Faith and Orderof the National Council of Churches of Christ in theU.S.A. (the NCC) released to the press and other interestedpersons a “Critique of the Theology of the UnificationChurch as Set Forth in Divine Principle”. Theconclusion of the Critique is that the Unification Churchis not a Christian Church, and that its claims to Christianidentity cannot be recognized. The Critique concludes:A. The Unification Church is not a Christian Church. 1.Its doctrine of the nature of the triune God is erroneous.2. Its Christology is incompatible with Christian teachingand belief. 3. Its teaching on salvation and the meansof grace is inadequate and faulty. B. The claims of theUnification Church to Christian identity cannot be recognized.1. The role and authority of Scripture are com-11 Exposition Of The Divine Principle, The Holy Spirit AssociationFor The Unification Of World Christianity, Second Printing,New York, 1998, pp. 404, 405.12 Choe, Joong-hyun, The Korean War and messianic groups:Two cases in contrast, Dissertation, Syracuse University, 1993, p.94.16

the Son of God. The qualification of the Messiah is thathe must be able to defeat the evil and erect the Heavenon Earth. This Son of God on earth must find a divineBride for himself, marry Her and have children with Her.In this case their children are born without original sin.Their family is the first True Family of God on earth anda perfect family, tribe, society, nation and world will beborn out of this nuclear True Family. The Messiah andhis divine Bride become the True Parents of the new sinlesshumankind. 15According to The Divine Principle Christ at the SecondAdvent, who is to come as the center of Christianity, isat the same time the person of the Maitreya Buddha whois to return according to the teachings of Buddhism, theTrue Man Jin-In who is awaited in the Chinese religioustradition, and the Chongdoryong for whom many Koreansyearn. He is the central figure whose advent is expectedin other religions as well. The Jews would thenagree that Christ at the Second Coming was the longawaited Messiah, the Hindus would accept him as Kalki(Vishnu’s incarnation in the future age), the Muslims asthe hidden Imam and the Baha’is as the messenger of thenew age. All religions will find the fulfillment of their15 Moon, Sun Myung, God’s Will and the World, The New Futureof Christianity, September 18, 1974, New York.http://www.unification.net/gww/gww-17.htmlExposition Of The Divine Principle, The Holy Spirit AssociationFor The Unification Of World Christianity, Second Printing, NewYork, 1998, p. 112.18