True Family Values presents a God-centered model for marriage. How has it worked? Let’s look at the track record of Unification Church blessed marriages.
In the mid-1990s, among devoted Unificationists who received True Parents’ matching and Blessing, we found a divorce rate of less than 5%. There was a very low incidence of infidelity. At a “Forgiveness Ceremony” in 1995, some 40 couples sought forgiveness for infidelity, accumulated over an eight-year period. That is about a .12% incidence of adultery per year.
“The good results are not surprising, for we were full-time missionaries.“
Although Unificationists have no explicit rules prohibiting smoking, drinking and drug use, these were virtually non-existent.
The good results are not surprising, for we were full-time missionaries. From the mid-1990s, however, people of all faiths, and our own children, could receive the marriage Blessing. Since then, divorce, while not sky-rocketing, has become more common. How do we explain this?
Of course we are not perfect. And our children are not a cadre of seekers answering the call of life-long devotion. They fit the universal bell-shaped curve in terms of personality and predisposition. From the Founders’ family on out, they are positioned everywhere across the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile.
Nonetheless, the members’ moral fiber, success in life, personal responsibility and God-sensitivity are exemplary. As have all young spiritual movements, Unificationism is going through growth pains. To survive, some movements separate from society. Other compromise with society. The Unification movement has taken a third path: Sacrifice the family and church to transform society.
“It’s not about religious conversion. It’s not about growing the Unification Church.”
Centering on the message of world peace through true families, we engage all nations, races and religions, involve all social sectors, and take on problems common to all peoples. We participate fully in a world in which, in True Mother’s words, “… good and evil are tangled together. Even a good seed has difficulty bearing good fruit when surrounded by an evil environment.” But, as she counseled, “to bear good fruit, we must create a good environment in the nation and world.”
To create a good environment requires sacrificial interaction with people of all faiths as well as secular society. As a result, our identity is challenged and our immediate family interests suffer. At the cost of this sacrifice, we universalize the Blessing. It’s not about religious conversion. It’s not about growing the Unification Church, or even solidifying it. It is about building a God-centered world.
That having been said, let’s look at God-centered model for marriage.
(References: The personality profile insight is from John Redmond; Pyeong Hwa Gyeong 1-12 p. 148.)
– TH
On the way … to becoming True Parents is the Noble Path