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H.J. Moon: Americas Summit Keynote Address
Written by Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, Co-Chairman, Universal Peace Federation
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Excerpts from address to the Opening Plenary of the Americas Summit, Washington, DC, USA
This is truly an honor for me to be here today, being in this gathering of international leaders of the Americas where we are discussing a new paradigm for problem-solving and conflict-resolution that can change the hemisphere of the Americas.
In 1776, when the United States was first formed, it embarked on a great experiment, a great adventure in a world filled with state-sponsored religions. It made a proclamation to the world that this will be a nation rooted in God, recognizing and upholding His sovereignty, but also a place where all people of faith could come and build their home. It embarked on a great experiment and vision and hope of interfaith – bringing the faith traditions of the world to its shores to make the greatest nation the modern world has seen.
The greatest document of the modern era, I believe, was the Declaration of Independence, where it is written, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
In one sense, we are unique in that the history of the Americas is relatively recent, and it began rooted in a dream and a vision. Yes, it was brought over from Europe but there were indigenous people who lived on this continent. And it was a fusion of those aspirations from Europe as well as the cultures that existed here that created the unique promise of what the Americas represented.
What made America great was the spirit of religious freedom, a spirit of building one family under God. It was the recognition that God’s divine sovereignty over this land allowed America to stand as a moral nation among all the nations of the world. The American vision inspired the greatest aspiration of building that “city upon a hill” where all people of all faiths who believed in that one God could come and call this their nation.
Before we call ourselves Christians, before we call ourselves Muslims, before we call ourselves Jews or Buddhists, once again, we are sons and daughters of God and members of His eternal family. I believe the promise of America is the promise of building a nation that recognizes and affirms these principles and, therefore, it is these principles that we need to hearken to at this hour and at this stage when the hemisphere of the Americas is in need of direction
It was 2,000 years ago that a young carpenter’s son inspired the world with a message of universal salvation. He did not come to establish a new religion. He came to establish a movement of peace, recognizing that God was the holy Parent of all humankind and recognizing that beyond the chosen people of whom he was a part, that God has a heart to embrace all humankind. And it was his vision to bring the message of building one family under God to that ancient world. Although he was cut short in fulfilling his vision when he lost his mortal life, the vision that he inspired, the message that he gave, led to the development of the modern world as we know it and the very basis for human rights as we know it today.
It is the recognition that we are all sons and daughters of God that has allowed humanity to be aware that we human beings, coming from this divine legacy, that we have infinite value, and even that nations, governments and institutions of law must be subordinate to the values that God has given to humanity. The problem is, may people want to talk about human rights, yet don’t want to talk about our common legacy in God.
Consider the experience of the 20th century, and the Nazi regime in Germany. It was a democratically elected government, but it was also a regime centered on the value systems of the political state, not of God. We saw horrendous, inhumane acts that this regime committed toward the Jews and all those peoples they thought were inferior.
We need only hearken back to the history of Communism in the last century where 200 million people were killed in the name of a so-called proletariat revolution to bring greater equality. It failed to created equality because it did not recognize God and the human dignity that can only come from the values God created.
I believe the world is at a decisive point where we can truly move toward peace or go back to the turmoil of the past. The vision of one family under God did not die with the death of that carpenter’s son 2,000 years ago. The vision of one family under God has been brought to the world stage once again through the efforts of a young farm boy who went into the hills near his North Korean home many years ago and in deep prayer and meditation asked God, pleaded with God, to give him a revelation or a vision that could allow humanity to find peace, and in the process also alleviate the suffering heart of God as the eternal Parent of humankind.
He sensed that an eternal Parent who sees the conflict and turmoil that human history has wrought must be a suffering God and Parent. That young farm boy who received the revelation and the vision of one family under God and made a covenant pact on that fateful Easter Sunday more than 70 years ago is none other than my father the Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon.
My father came to this nation at a time of crisis where America was losing this spiritual center and core. Yes, America was a great democracy. Yes, America was a great capitalist nation. But it was this spiritual core and the vision of one family under God, and the values established by this idea, that made this nation great. The dream that brought my father to this nation 35 years ago was a hope to rekindle the original spirit that made this nation truly great. He felt a divine providential calling to revive the founding Pilgrim spirit upon which this nation was built. He believed that was this spirit that made this nation great.
Sometimes it takes a foreigner or immigrant to recognize the value of a nation or region. Thirty-five years ago I had the great fortune of coming here to the United States with my family. For my family the American dream was not a political dream. Is America’s political system, being the greatest democracy in the world, the quality that made America great? To us, that was not the American dream. Nor was it an economic dream. Is being the greatest capitalistic nation in the world what made America great? No.
The vision of building one family under God is alive and well through the efforts of the Universal Peace Federation and thousands of Ambassadors for Peace who are committed as owners to fulfill this vision of one family under God. What greater opportunity is there for the Americas, which is a predominantly Christian hemisphere that is rooted in the original vision of building one family under God through the work of Jesus Christ? What better way to lead the world to peace than for the people of the Americas to adopt the initiative not just for one nation under God, but for one family under God and the values and the principles that this engenders?
I had the great fortune of taking the message of one family under God throughout the world. I believe that this is an even greater vision than one nation under God. The reason I believe this is that the idea of one family under God allows all of humanity to see itself as one unified family – beyond the borders of any one nation, beyond ethnicity, and even beyond religious traditions.
We recognize our common heritage rooted in our divine heavenly Father before we see ourselves as Americans, before we see ourselves as Paraguayans or Panamanians, Koreans or Japanese. Before we are any of these, we are first and foremost the sons and daughters of God and members of His eternal family.
We talk about economic cooperation; we talk about political cooperation. What about cooperation in vision and in values and in principles? I believe that if we come together in the Americas based upon a common vision, common principles, and common values, the political and economic benefits of cooperation will naturally follow.
This is a time in which we as leaders need to dream big and think boldly about what this future can offer. This is a time in which we need to fight for a vision and ideas that can move humanity in this 21st century to a world of peace, prosperity, and most important, humanity’s divine dignity. I believe that the time is right for this world to receive the message of one family under God and it is the Americas, as a united hemisphere rooted in these God-centered values, that can lead the world to peace in the 21st century.
Thank you very much.