Seattle, USA—More than twenty-five UPF Ambassadors for Peace and guests, including two new attendees, gathered at the Windermere House in Seattle on May 21 to discuss UPF founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s vision of “One Family Under God.”
Ambassador for Peace Mrs. Emma Herron, chairwoman of the Cascade Republican Women’s group and board of the JakCares Foundation, served as emcee. She introduced Mr. Ray McCready, secretary general of UPF in Washington, as the speaker of the evening. The title of Mr. McCready’s presentation was “One Family Under God. Really?”.
Mr. McCready reviewed the history of humankind from a human development, historical and spiritual perspective. For the human development perspective, he shared that DNA research and fossil evidence from the past 2.4 million years shows that there is a less than 0.1% variation in DNA for all humankind.
For the historical perspective, Mr. McCready spoke about the history of wars (the large ones in the past 1,300 years) displayed a chart from Wikipedia, showing the cost of war—in lives lost.
For the spiritual perspective, he read excerpts of speeches and quotes by UPF founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon on the unique position of human beings and their importance within the Creator God’s plans. He said that based on the information he presented, it is clear that humans should strive to respect one another as brothers and sisters, elders and youngers—and return joy to the Creator by living as one family under God.
“How is UPF able to reconcile religions, which have different viewpoints, such as on the divinity of Jesus?” asked a guest visiting the United States from Nigeria, where tensions between Christians and Muslims have escalated in recent years.
“UPF works towards reconciliation by emphasizing the elements that religions share in common,” answered Mr. McCready. “In this case, those elements are a belief in the Creator, in the spiritual nature of human beings and that the family is a key institution in the Creator’s plan for humankind.”
After the meeting, Ambassadors for Peace and new attendees gathered together for a group photo.