The Sun Moon, The Church

            I had recently heard about a church called The Unification Church lead by a reverend Sun Myung Moon.  I didn’t know much about the church so I went over to the Watchmen Fellowship website to see what they had on Unification Church.  I was surprised to see that Watchmen Fellowship had several different very interesting articles on Sun Myung Moon and theUnification Church.  So I wanted to share with you some of the information I had picked up in some of the articles I had read. 

            The first article I had read and the one that I will write about mostly was an article by Bob Waldrep called The Unification Church: Moonshine for the Soul.  You can gain a lot of great information from this article, which I will share, and it will help you better understand where Moon is coming from in his thinking.  Moon was raised as a Presbyterian in a small part of Korea.  At a very young age he was very interested in Spiritism, which is evident in many of the things he teaches now.  When Moon was in his teens he said that Jesus had visited him one Easter morning.  Jesus told Moon that he would be the “Completer” of mans salvation, that he would be the Messiah.  Man, what a weight for one man to carry, especially a tiny man from North Korea.  Later on Moon became involved with a group in Korea that believed that the Messiah would come out of Korea and they believed that Korea would be the next Jerusalem.

            In Moon’s later years he had decided that he needed to visit a Medium so that he could affirm that he was the next Messiah.  (Which is strange because I believe the bible says something about mediums and not having anything to do with them.)  So Moon went to a medium named Arthur Ford.  In the séance they where visited by a spirit called “Fletcher”.  (I am the great and powerful Fletcher, all knowledge ends hear).  That kind of reminds me Tom Hanks for some reason.  Anyway, Fletcher revealed to Moon that the Spirit of Truth would now speak through him.  Fletch told Moon that Christ would not return and that Moon could speak more clearly, and be understood better than any other man today.  He said the Spirit of Truth uses men to basically become the Christ, and that the Spirit of truth would now use Moon.  Fletcher seems like he might have been a funny guy back in his day.

            All of these things lead up to Moon’s great awakening that he was to be the completer of mans salvation.  Here is where the story really unfolds.  The biggest point that the Unification Church holds to and bases all the doctrine and theology is on the view of “True Parents”.  In the article it is said that Moonies teach that Adam and Eve were God’s first children and that God was to make Himself complete and exist in His entirety through them after they where married.  The only problem was that Eve messed everything up!  It says that Eve had sexual relations with Satan and because of hear guilt she decided to cover it up by having sex with Adam long before God had planned for them to have sex.  After Adam had done this he then realized his mistake, and than he felt “fear and shame” over having sex with her.  Well this kind of put a damper in Gods plan so he had to find another solution to his plan for salvation.  He needed another couple that could be the “True Parents” those who were sinless and perfect so that he, god, could live and bring eternal happiness to his people.  Who other could fill such an important position that Jesus.  The problem was with Jesus was that he died on the cross and wasn’t able to complete the salvation plan.  Jesus was supposed to get married and raise little sinless babies and live a great life with him and his wife as the final “True Parents”.  So Jesus failed because he was crucified, so says Moon.  So that leaves it up to someone else.  There must be a third Adam.  One who will have the perfect family and perfect marriage that will show us all how a family should be and a great model for all families to follow so that God may exist among us.  You got it Moonies believe that Man, that Messiah, that model is none other than Reverend Sun Myung Moon himself. 

            This created a bit of a problem for me.  OK, this created a huge problem!  I needed to know a little bit more about this great model family so I read some more articles.  I the article The Son doesn’t fall far from the Moon, I found some great information.  This family that is supposed to be sinless and perfect and that everyone is supposed to become like has a few minor glitches.  How about the fact that not only has Moon himself been married more than once, but all of his children are now divorced.  Not only do they have marital problems but Moon’s son Hyojin Moon has a huge cocaine addiction problem along with other drugs and his wife has left him because she says he abused her during his violent rants from drug usage.  Moon himself has been arrested three different times, in three different countries on different accounts some dealing with tax evasion and draft evasion.  This “True Family” is supposed to be sinless and perfect and Moonies teach that if the entire world becomes like there family it could help cure mental illness and help kick drug problems.  Um’ it doesn’t seem to be working for him, and I don’t want to raise a bunch of crack head babies, that can keep a marriage together.  Also I have had a pretty good streak of not going to jail and I would like to keep it that way.  So I have to say that Moon is pretty much off his rocker.

            The bible teaches that Jesus wasn’t sending another messiah, Jesus said himself “I am the way the Truth and the life…”  Also Jesus said about his death on the cross “It is Finished” Christ did not look down from the cross and say “Wait for the Completer, he will be the way”.  Moon is in serious danger, danger of eternal damnation and I hope and pray that soon he will understand and believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and repent of his teachings and follow Christ alone.

Rastaman

God works in awesome ways! Recently in my cults class we had read a profile on Rastafarianism. The profile was well written and can be read along with other profiles at the watchmen fellowship website. One of the beliefs of the Rastafarians is that they grow out the hair into dreadlocks because of parts of the bible that discuss not cutting ones hair. After I had learned about this I thought about a fellow employee that I work with at UPS who had dreadlocks. The very next morning at work I went to Brian, Brian is the one with dreadlocks, and asked him if he knew anything about Rastafarianism. God opened up a great opportunity, Brian knew all kinds of things about Rastafarians. Because of reading the profile I was able to talk with him about some of the things I had read, and he was able to give me some understanding on some of the things I had read. This really opened up a time where Brian and I could talk about the differences in Rastafarian view of scripture and the Christian perspective.

I have downloaded a small clip I had found. The clip is very short. But listen to what Bob Marley says about it not being a religion but “life”.

The Rastafarian movement was started by Marcus Garvey. Some believed Garvey to be a prophet while others believed he was the actual reincarnation of John the Baptist. Garvey had started his new ideas during his “back to Africa” movement. Garvey taught and believed that there would one day be a black king that would bring redemption to his people (the black people). This prophecy was soon fulfilled in an Ethiopian King named Haile Selassie. Selassie was called by his followers “The Lion of Judah” and “King of Kings” This great Lion of Judah was said to always travel with a pet Chihuahua named Chicheebee. (http://www.answers.com/topic/haile-selassie) Selassie passed away in August of 1975, and as you would guess this would probably raise a few questions. It is believed though that Ras Tafari still lives in individual Rastafarians, because divinity didn’t die with Selassie.

This religion or “way of life” is not an organized religion where they go to church every week, and meet together to read scripture. Most of the religion is just individual; you find mostly little pods of people here and there that have their own idea of what Rastafarians believe. But because of a lack of leadership and set rules it is hard to find much information at all of their doctrine.

Leonard Howell a former leader of the group wrote 6 principles of the Rastafarians which you can read online at the watchmen fellowship website. Two of the major principle thought that can be seen almost domineering is the teachings on Babylon, which refers to the Jamaican government, and also the statement “I and I”. “I and I” basically is the idea that God is in all man and that because He is in all man than everyone is one. Rastafarians also believe that much like in Hinduism the doctrine of avatar. They believe that Jesus first came as Moses, first avatar as savior, and than the second avatar Elijah, than the third avatar Jesus Christ.

rastafarians and the mistic of bob marley

Tom Crusie, Actor or Evangelist?

I had written not to long ago on an article from the Watchmen Fellowship Website that I had named sons of god vs. aliens. I had received a couple of comments on the article where it seems that I struck a nerve. It did get me thinking though. I began to wonder where I had heard about the alien theory before. Then I remembered it was Scientologist. I went back over to the Watchmen Fellowship website to see what I could find on the Church of Scientology and I really found some great stuff. What I had found most interesting were a couple of videos staring Tom Cruise. You should really check these out! The first one I watched was Tom Cruise being interviewed by Matt Lauer. Where did Cruise get so educated in the art of psychiatry, and when did Cruise become so violent? Cruise said in the short film. “You can be a Christian and a scientologist.” Not the Christianity that I know! Cruise also said that he didn’t agree with psychiatry, and that’s ok with me. But, my problem is when you start to know way more than anyone else. Several times throughout the video Cruise told Matt, “You don’t know, I do.” Cruise has apparently done some extensive research dealing with psychiatry, psychoactive drugs, and psychopathology. Where was it he received his degree from? I don’t think he has one. But, who’s to say you can’t know more than anyone else.

The second video I watched was an Inside Edition look at Tom Cruise. In this video it showed several times where Cruise lost his temper and lashed out at people. Is this what they teach at scientology? A person is to talk degrading to another and lash out at them. In the short film there is one episode where Cruise lashed out at a newspaper reporter who asked if the movie War of the Worlds mirrored his beliefs in Scientology. Cruise either had no idea about the scientologist view on aliens, in which case he should spend more time studying his own religion, or he was offended because this type of information was not supposed to be public. Sorry Cruise, if it embarrasses you maybe you should take another look at the religion. Also on the Watchmen Fellowship website there is a article called Tom Cruise: Phone Home that is some very interesting reading as well.

Oprah, can’t talk religion!

WHAT A SAVIOR WE HAVE IN JESUS! I never really thought that my blog would be read by so many people. I am a collegiate minister at Timber Crest Baptist Church and recently we added a collegiate web page to the churches already existing web page. On the collegiate web page we had linked an area where you can go right from the home page over to my blog. In the last few weeks I have had many people come to me and tell me that they had read some of my blogs and where very interested in what the articles I had read had to say about. What was most fascinating was that most of the people who had read the blogs went over to the articles as the watchmen fellowship website and read the articles themselves. One thing though that caught my attention was that most of the people who came to talk to me asked me if I had watched the short video clip about Oprah. I had not, so I went over to Watchmen Fellowships website and watched the clip, and man was it interesting.

In the video clip there is a women who was talking about two different types of powers that work in the world. Those powers being the “Good” power and the “evil” power. The good power is the power which refers to God. The other power, the power of evil, is the power which refers to Satan’s evil power that roams the earth looking to destroy (Jb. 1:7, 1 Pt. 5:8, Lk. 8:12). According to the video this kind of idea that Satan is out there and that God exist as one single person didn’t go over real well with Oprah. As a matter of fact what Oprah said, in a way, was that there was no such thing as GOD. Oprah says that there is two directions that a person can go you can chose darkness or light and if you chose light than it really dosen’t matter what you believed on the way there it only matters that you get there. To me, just hearing Oprah speak herself, is sounds as if she is laying her understanding of what she believes on a book called Ishmael. She stated herself that people need to be aware of the paths they take and she got into an argument about how what may lead to “your God” may not be the same god as someone else. Man this is when the film gets exciting. I am so glad to see that there are people out there that will take a stand against people like Oprah. A women on the show took a stand for Jesus, on Oprah’s show, and made Oprah look like she didn’t know to much. The only thing that Oprah could come back with was “I can’t discuss religion with you!” which to me sounds like she was bailing out. You can watch this video at Watchmen Fellowships website which I linked above and you should go over and read the profile Watchmen Fellowship has on Oprah at http://www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=artNewAge.article_1.

The Children of God?

I am a collegiate minister at Timber Crest Baptist Church in Waco. We have just finished an Experiancing God study and I was looking for a discussion for the college group to look into to pass some time because we have a revival coming up this weekend and I didn’t want to start a major study two weeks before. I was looking around for different things that could tide us over for a little while, and I decided to share with the group some of the information that I had gathered during my Cults class. The group has been real excited about the topics we have been talking about. The way I set it up was I would share the beliefs of another cult and I would challange the class to tell how it differed from our beliefs. THe college group has access to my blog via the church website so I told them that I would continue to write blogs about different things (they seem to enjoy that). One cult the group took special interest in was “The Children of God” (linked is there profile). I had learned some about the cult in class, and I told the group I would go online to the Watchmen Fellowship website and see if there was more information about the cult. I found the profile online but I had already read it because it was required for class. But, I did find another article that I thought was interesting. In the article, The Family of “Love”?, it gave some very interesting bits of information that gives an over view of some issues the cult has. According to this article, The Children of God was given the name the ‘sex cult of the 80’s’ by the media. The founder of the cult is David “Moses” Berg, he is said to be the world’s end time prophet and that his writings are even greater than scripture. Berg had lead his group to believe all knids of lies that dealt mainly with sexual addictions. Under his teaching Berg would stress the importance of sexual libirites. He even went as far as to teach that Jesus had sexual relations with Mary and Martha, and he taught that the Holy Spirit, feminine in nature, is a “Dream Queen” or “Holy Queen of Love” in which he has the same type of sexual realtionship with.

The Children of God, have some literature that they try and sale. Some common names of the literature is “Heaven’s Magic” or “Music with Meaning”. The cult is very secretive, they mainly are located in large city’s so that they will not be easily noticed. They do most of there distribution at colleges or at Christian book stores and some times even sale there material door to door. This is a cult that needs a lot of prayer! Go over to the website linked above and check out the article about this cult it is sure to turn your head.

Is Joseph Smith a Prophet?

This week in class we are starting a study on Mormonism. I wanted to read a little about the group so that I could get a better understanding of there beliefs, so I went over to the Watchmen Fellowship website to see what they had written on the subject. I ran across a very interesting article called Joseph Smith and the Biblical Test of a Prophet. In the article it ask the question,”What is the test for a Prophet?”. According to the Mormons the Passage Moroni 10:4, is enough evidence to support that Joseph Smith is a great prophet, and they use the passage to support more. The article helps us to understand the what the biblical test of a prophet is by looking at a text from Deuteronomy 18:20-22. In this text it says that we can test a prophet by checking its prophecies. Are the prophecies true? Now, this may be a little hard for some to grasp, as a matter of fact it is obvious that some have not grasped this fact still, but pay very close attention. NO matter how many prophecies a person prophesies if one of the prophecies is not true than the prophet is not a true prophet. How can I make this clearer? If a prophecy never happens you may want to check the ingredients on your prophet. So the article continues, is Joseph Smith a Prophet? According to the rest of the article it seems to me that he would be a false prophet. The article gives you types of prophetic statements such as there are open dated predictions, self-fulfilling prophecy, and conditional prophecy. After looking at these different types of prophetic statements the article then begins to test the truthfulness of Joseph Smith in being a prophet. This is a great article that everyone should read.

Is Pilates for Christians?

The other day I was talking with my mother on the phone about nothing in general, when she mentioned that she was exercising more and that she had began a new exercise, new to her, that she was really enjoying. This exercise was called Pilates. At the time I didn’t think much of it, my mother was always looking into new and interesting ways to stay fit. I had finished my conversation with my mother and hung up when it hit me that I had seen an article recently at Watchmen fellowships website talking about Pilates. My mother had called me once before and had asked me if I knew anything about Yoga. I had gone to the same website and rummaged around through hundreds of different articles and learned much about the yoga practice. Once I had gathered my material for my mother I went to her house and we sat and talked and I was able to explain to her why doing Yoga was probably not something that a christian should practice. Now that my mother was looking into Pilates and since I recall seeing an article about Pilates at the Watchmen Fellowship website I decided to check it out and see just what this Pilates was all about. The article is called The Pilates Method. The article was actually very interesting, not to long, easy to read and not hard to understand. In the article it gives a brief History of where Pilates had originated from. Joseph Pilates had a great background in gymnastics, yoga, and injury rehabilitation. He was able to use this type of background when he had moved to America shortly after WWI. Because of the prime location of his studio in New York city, it did not take long for Pilates to become very popular form of exercise. Since Joseph Pilates there have been many other styles of Pilates that have hit the market, these different forms are what the article calls Pilate Hybrids. In the article you can read the section on Causes for concern in which can read about how there are some types of Pilates that you may watch-out for and it probes the question of should a Christian support some of the groups or company’s that publish different types of these workouts. I don’t believe the author is totally against the idea of working out to Pilates, especially the original Pilates, but he does raise some interesting points that you may want to look into.

Branch Davidians, still smokin’

I was scrolling through Watchmen Fellowship’s website looking at different article’s and I ran into a couple of article’s dealing with the Branch Davidian’s. I took special interest in these article’s because I live near by the location of the Compound in Waco. Every-time that I tell someone out of town that I am from Waco this is of course the first thing that one thinks of. “Oh, the one with David Koresh , that crazy guy!” Yea that’s the one only I live in Waco not in the compound. Anyway, while I was looking through these articles one especially caught my attention. The History of the Branch Davidians. I had never known or even thought about the history of this cult, I thought that it was very interesting how the cult came to Texas and was very quite until not long ago. The beginning of the group had originated out of the Seventh day Adventist, by a man man named VictorHouteff . He and some of his followers, after many years of disagreement with the theology of the Seventh Day Adventist church, had moved to Texas.Houteff believed that he would see Christ return within his lifetime. He had planned to move his people to Israel to await the return of Christ but was not able to make due to his death in 1955. I had know idea that Jesus was going to be coming to Texas, but many believed that he was. In 1959, 1400 followers came to Texas so that they could see the return of Christ. Sure seems to me that not many people knew about this going on. When Christ never came a man by the name of Benjamin Roden came and claimed that he was the one whom Houteff prophesied as coming. He claimed that he was in Israel buying land. Maybe that was why he was late for his appointed time. When Roden came onto the scene he renamed the group the Branch Davidians. Benjamin Roden then died and his son was the heir of the Branch Davidian cult. In the article it claims that he was a bit of a bully and that he had gotten into quite a dispute with another member. The at this time the group had split into two different areas and later had finally staked claim as the official BranchDavidians in a shoot out that took place in 1987. This was a great article. You can read this one, one dealing with the Theology of the Branch Davidians, and a bunch more at the Watchmen Fellowship website that is linked above.

Watchtower, miracle wheat?

In class at the Criswell College in Dallas, I am taking a class about cults. This is not a class on how to start a cult this is a class that brings understanding to cults that are all around. Recently we have been discussing the beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witness Religion, so I became interested in a few articles dealing with Jehovah’s Witness at the Watchmen Fellowship website. I was looking through a few of the articles and I ran onto one that caught my attention that was called “Pastor” Russell’s Miracle Wheat. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society throughout the years has had many instances where they are caught in their deception and fraud. In this article it talks about how pastor Russell in one of his Watch Tower publications wrote in an advertisement about Wheat seed that was for sale for $1.00 per pound. In this article it said that it was quite expensive for the time period. To really make things worse the advertisement read Miracle Wheat that was guaranteed to grow five times as much as any other brand. It didn’t take long for this new wheat to reach the public as a joke. Pastor Russell was embarrassed at an article written by the Eagle, and sued the Eagle for $100,000. The suit was won by the Eagle, because this new miracle wheat was rated low in government testing. You should look into this article as well as others at the website linked above. Also you should check out an interesting article on the Home for the Prophets that are mentioned in Hebrews 11.