“THE FREEDOM SOCIETY: Our Vision for Building God’s Ideal”

by Chairman Kook Jin Moon
Sunday Service, 2012.07.01 ~ 12.5.3 Cheon Gi
Royal National Hotel, London, UK.

(Audience applauds Kook Jin Nim’s arrival)

KJN:“Thank you, thank you for coming today. I’m very happy to see all of you; we’ve been quite busy in Asia and in Korea. We’ve made a lot of progress in developing our church. I’m just curious, how many of you here have been able to hear the Strong Korea presentation?” (Audience raise their hands, but not all)

KJN: “Just a few people. Are you aware of the military build-up of China that’s going on in Asia right now? Well, they are building up their military quite significantly out there and they’re getting quite aggressive. It’s unfortunate that your media is not reporting these things to you because the last time a nation was building up their military and you guys didn’t pay attention to it, you found yourselves in World War Two. You remember that? …it kind of destroyed all of Europe. But you know, Hitler’s military might and his ability to wage war didn’t happen overnight, there was nearly a decade of military build-up before the war started. Did you know that?Well basically, as Hitler was building up his military everybody in Britain and France were saying: ‘Laa lee lah, he’s never going to start a war’ …but the war happened. So please pay attention to this issue. We are going to be presenting the Strong Korea lecture to many of the VIPs tomorrow, but today for all of you, for our brothers and sisters, today we are going to be talking about something else.

The title as you can see is: ‘THE FREEDOM SOCIETY; Our Vision for Building God’s Ideal’. You know, we’ve talked a lot about Cheon Il Guk and the Kingdom of Heaven, and we’ve talked about True Parents fulfillingtheir mission and creating the foundation for the ideal world to be established. But up until this time we haven’t really been able to explain eloquently exactly what is Cheon Il Guk. What is the Kingdom of Heaven? What will the politics of the Kingdom of Heaven be? What will the economics be? How exactly will it be structured?These questions we have not yet answered; but if we are going to create the Kingdom of Heaven we at least should know what the blueprints are. Yes? No? Maybe?”Audience: “Yes”

KJN: “Does this topic sound interesting?”Audience: “Yes”

KJN: “Then let’s talk about it. As we study the Principle of Creation we learn that God created human beings as his children and that He desired to bequeath to them the Three Blessings: to achieve individual perfection,to multiply, to bear fruit and to have a family and to have dominion over creation. This you all learned in the Principle. But in order to inherit the Three Blessing God gave His children, freewill and freedom, and with freedom He gave them responsibility.

Now, Adam and Eve were to grow up, to live their lives, they were supposed to inherit the Three Blessings and they were supposed to inherit freedom and responsibility so they could be co-participants in the creation process with God and thereby establishing a conditional requirement to inherit the creation which God desired to give them… and this was God’s desire. But as we heard, God’s desire was not fulfilled at the time of the Garden of Eden.

God had initially wanted Adam and Eve to be His children and the Archangel was in the Garden of Eden to serve Adam and Eve as the servant of God and His children. But what happened in the Garden of Eden? …the Fall. And in that process, the Archangel went from being the servant of Adam and Eve to being the master of Adam and Eve. He left his position. He came to dominate Adam and Eve and by doing so he separated them from God.

So whereas the Archangel started as a servant, by seducing Eve and then together the Archangel and Eve seducing Adam, as a result of this seduction we have the Fall of Man, and as a result of the Fall of Man we lost the Three Blessings and we lost freedom and responsibility. Of this you are all aware because you’ve all studied the Principle, correct? Everybody here has studied the Principle, right?” Audience: “Yes”

KJN: “So what are the results of the Fall? As a result of the Fall human beings have lived largely under dictators and tyrants throughout most of our history. We have seen human beings repressed into slavery,into servitude, forced to fight for dictators and for kings and to kill, and to conduct genocide. This has been the terrible history of suffering of mankind. However, we know that God has worked through the Providence to restore humanity and bring them back to the Garden of Eden, so that they could once again have another opportunity to fulfill their purpose of creation. As a result, even though we as fallen human beings have fallen and have been chased out and have lost God’s Blessing, we as human beings still have the memory of freedom. And throughout history, although the predominant nature of history was that of tyranny and despotism, there have been a few instances when glimpses of freedom have appeared in human history,reflecting the memory of the time when Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.

We saw glimpses of freedom during history in the times of ancient Greece when we had the brief renaissance, the revival of democracy, the birth of democracy, and in the Republic of Rome. But the problem was that throughout history freedom and democracy and these fundamental ideas were not sustainable; they invariably died. Aristotle said: ‘Republics decline into democracies, and democracies degenerate intodespotism’. That’s what we’ve seen; we’ve seen freedom come and then freedom goes. Hope coming and being vanquished. This has been the sad history of human history and of mankind.

You can see in Athenian democracy, it started with people voting, voting for their leaders, but then as that democracy progressed they started pursuing policies for the state just on the basis of popularity and who gave the best speech: “Hey let’s go and fight the Spartans! We should be better than Sparta, we’re democratic!” …and then pursued all these popularistic policies which did nothing but lead the state to ruin. Ultimately, because of these policies that were pursued it was, in the end, conquered by Phillip the Second and the free state of Athens became subject to a king. They lost freedom and democracy’s gone.

Likewise, in the first five hundred years of Rome you had the Republic of Rome where the people voted for their representatives and representatives ran the state for the benefit of the people. But towards the end of the Roman Republic you had a lot of popularist policies emerging: distribution of the land to the poor; subsidized corn rationing… “We want free stuff!!! Give me free stuff!!!” …cancellations of debt; the catering to the masses and to the mob.

Offering free stuff from the state ultimately led the state to ruin and bankruptcy. As a result of these popularist policies, popular but unsustainable policies, the Republic of Rome collapsed and was replaced by the dictators of Rome. Democracy appeared briefly, but then popularism led to the end of democracy and the replacement of democracy with tyranny and dictatorship. You can see modern examples of popularism throughout the world today… Peron of Argentina: “Let’s help the poor!” By having the call to help the poor, to feed the poor, and make the society equal he became a dictator and he ruined the state! Argentina at the time of his election was one of the ten wealthiest nations of the earth, but after his rule of it became one of the poorest. Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany, you all know that story and you all know how that story ended. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, here’s another story; he used popularism to make himself dictator! Today you can see this whole scenario unfolding right here in Europe. Look at Greece. Greece, because of its popularistic policies: free stuff for Greeks, more free stuff “for me”, now it’s in bankruptcy, andnow it has to follow the dictators of Europe. So the Greek democracy is being replaced by the European dictatorship! Out of control social welfare spending in southern Europe is causing those same problems. In Italy, you’re living it, you’re seeing it every day. Look at the historical example; what starts as democracy degenerates into popularism, and popularism invariably leads to dictatorship and tyranny.

As we know, the Messiah’s mission is to come to the earth to fulfil the Purpose of Creation and to inherit God’s Three Blessings; to establish God’s family and God’s sovereignty. He has come to inherit freedom and responsibility and to open the way for all humanity to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As we learn from the Principle, the Messiah comes at a time when the world has returned to a stage comparable to the time of the Fall of Adam and Eve, which is at the top of the growth stage. So, today, we see democracy is spread throughout the world wider than it has ever been spread throughout all of human history. In this respect we have come to a very similar stage as that which occurred just prior to the Fall in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve could have chosen to go towards fulfilling God’s Will and inheriting God’s Three Blessings and creating the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth or, in failing to acknowledge God’s Will and receiving God’s judgement, being chased out of the Garden of Eden. Although freedom is wide-spread today, it is not secure and this is the problem we have to understand; freedom is in danger. The world has returned to the stage just prior to the Fall but requires the Messiah and his teachings to secure freedom and liberation for all, for all time. In order to understand the situation of modern society and modern democracy and to understand the situation of society today, we need to understand the present society and the present reality in the context of the Garden of Eden because the Garden of Eden is the original ideal of the ideal world. This is what God intended to fulfil; His purpose of Creation.

Our goal as human beings is to return to that Garden of Eden. But how then can we understand today’s society filled with seven billion people in the context of the Garden of Eden? In the Garden of Eden there were only four actors: there was God, Adam and Eve, and the Archangel. But how can we understand society, billions of people, within the context of these four actors? This is the question we must solve if we are to understand the direction of providential history. Now we understand that our True Parents have come unto this Earth as the Lord of the Second Advent, and because they have successfully completed their mission they are the substantial representatives of God on Earth. So our True Parents represent God. So who is Adam and Eve? Who represents Adam? Well, actually, all the men in society are Adam. Who is Eve? All the women are Eve. Adam and Eve are all the people and citizens of the world and all the citizens of this democracy here in the United Kingdom. Then who is the Archangel? This is the key point to answer. Who is the Archangel? Would anybody like to guess?”

(Audience laughs)

KJN: “In a democracy, the role of the government is what? …servant of the people. So the Archangel clearly is the government. So we have seen the same relationship as existed before the Fall of Man in the structure of society today where you have God, Adam and Eve, and the Archangel as the servant of the people. But then what happened in the Fall of Man? What was the process of the Fall of Man? It was a process by which the Archangel went from being the servant of Adam and Eve to being the Master of Adam and Eve and the rejecting or excluding God. This process, lo and behold, we can see today. The Fall of Adam and Eve and the process by which the government goes from being the servant to being the master of the people is called popularism. Popularism is the Fall of Man at the society level. They promise you free stuff but then the day of reckoning comes when you have to pay, and the price of all that free stuff you got is to become the slave of government. Popularism is how free people become the subjects of the tyranny of government. That is where we stand today; we are at that point in history today when we can either move forward to fulfil God’s Purpose of Creation or fail to understand His direction and receive His judgment.

When Father describes the Kingdom of Heaven, there are a number of very significant concepts which he always mentions. When he talks about the Kingdom of Heaven he always talks about the Peace Military, and the Peace Police, and he talks about the world where people live in accordance to their conscience without laws, without lawyers, prosecutors and judges. If we read the Peace Messages we will see the same concepts repeated over and over and over and over again. But what do these concepts mean?! How can there be a society without laws and judges? What is the Peace Police and the Peace Military?! …and what does that have to do with the Kingdom of Heaven? We have the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s peaceful… why do we have military and policemen?! These are questions we have to answer if we want to understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is because True Parents, as the Messiah, have emphasized them so strongly. They are obviously of great significance and importance.

What exactly is a society of conscience? Is it possible to construct a society of conscience? How can we have a society without laws and policemen? Well, there actually is a close approximation to that kind of society. It’s not completely without lawyers and laws but you can get pretty close to it, and that society is called a self-regulating society, and there just a few ingredients that you need to make a self-regulating society. The first ingredient required to make a self-regulating society is private property, so you need a minimum amount of laws to register who owns what. The second ingredient you need for a self-regulating society is free markets. The third ingredient is competition. Competition creates the environment in free markets where entities or organisations, whether they’re businesses or non-profit organizations, compete with each other to deliver goods and services. They do so without any government telling them how to do it. They do so efficiently because only those organizations which are able to deliver goods and services more cost effectively and with better quality at lower cost will continue to survive in that competitive environment. When we understand this point of view then we can see that yes, a society without laws, without policemen, and without a government telling me what to do is possible. Not only is it possible historically, but it is the reason why wealth creation exists.

All of the wealth that you see in the modern world was created by entrepreneurship and free people building businesses. It hasn’t been created by government. When government ruled the world there was zero wealth creation, zero technological development; it was freedom and free markets that created all the wealth. What we see here from the Principle pint of view and from Father’s words, Father is describing Cheon Il Guk as a self-regulating society where all things and all services are put into the model and the pattern in which they can self-regulate themselves to fulfil the needs of human beings.

But then what exactly is this concept of the Peace Military? We need to think why is this so emphasised? What do they mean? What is the significance? But have you actually asked yourself what is dominion over creation? What does that mean? How is it that man has dominion over the lions, the tigers, the elephant, and rhinoceros? Do we have dominion over them because we are nice to them? Seriously! This is a serious question. By what means does man have dominion over creation? By what means?”

Man in audience: “Weapons”

KJN: (points to man to affirm) “Right, weapons, guns… because we can hunt them and eat them. Because we have weapons we can hunt and eat animals. That’s why we have dominion over them. That’s what it means to have dominion, to have absolute control; it means to have the power of life and death. That’s the only justification for man to have the right to kill and eat animals, is that God gave us that right. How else would you justify us killing and eating animals? I’m sure many of you have your own cats and dogs and animals, and you know they have feelings. This is a very important point because ultimately the citizens of Cheon Il Guk, sons and daughters of God, are supposed to grow in their maturity so they can inherit this authority over life and death and to use that authority only for the benefit of the whole in a mature manner, and so actually the third blessing is that process of maturity from going to having a family to participating in society as what? … as Peace Military and Peace Police.

The citizens of Cheon Il Guk are to grow and mature to become soldiers and policemen, and this a very key concept. What best describes or approximates this understanding is like we see in Switzerland with the Swiss Militia system. Everybody in Switzerland has their full time job; they do their work, they live their lives. They are the cobbler, the baker, the movie-ticket attendant, they are the banker, the fisher, the weaver, but as their part time job they are also the soldier and everybody in Switzerland is a soldier and it is their duty to bear arms, to protect the nation. So the people own the course of power of that country and it is the same concept as the Swiss Militia system for the army, being applied to the police. So in the Kingdom of Heaven all of us will have our full time jobs and our full time careers, but it will not be the state providing the services of policing and of military as an exclusive monopoly of the state; it would be the people who would all participate to police and to secure national boundaries and integrity of the state. In the Kingdom of Heaven all people would mature to bear arms, and to be responsible for those arms in the protection of common welfare.

So in this state we can see, especially intuitively you can understand this very simply, because, what organisation or entity has committed the greatest elimination or murder of human beings throughout history? Is it the criminals or the murderers which have killed the most people? It’s government. In the last hundred years, if you add up every person who was killed by murderers and crime it may be at most about five million people. But in the same period if you add up all the people killed by governments in genocide and in the policies of government, it’s over two-hundred and forty million. This is what governments do, they kill people, especially when the have monopoly over the course of power. I know the governments teach you that you have to trust government because government does everything so well, but I hate to tell you the reality that governments lie to you, they don’t do everything so well!”

(Audience laughs)

KJN: “Surprise, surprise… and guess why governments lie to you, because government is the Archangel, it is Satan!”

(Audience applauds)

KJN: “And so in the ideal world it is very important for the citizens of Cheon Il Guk to understand that they are the owners of society. The reason why this is so important is because the means by which governments use to enslave the people is what? …the monopolistic ownership of the use of force: standing armies, full time police forces. This is what governments use to make you slaves and, therefore, if you want to create the Kingdom of Heaven, the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven must always understand that God’s intention was for the people to own everything and that includes the course of power and weapons.

The problem is that if we reject our ownership of all things those things will not disappear. If we say we don’t want guns and we don’t want the use of force, it doesn’t mean they disappear, that just means someone else owns them. If the good people don’t own them, the evil people will own them, and they will use that to oppress you… and that has been the history of humanity. When we look at the role of government in the Kingdom of Heaven, we see the role of the government is as servant of the people where it owns as little as possible; a small government; a government which only coordinates the activities of the people and doesn’t try to tell the people what to do; a government which only supports the ambitions of the people but doesn’t do it for them and lets the people make their own mistakes and solve their own problems. This is the ideal nature for the role of government. And intuitively you can understand it, it makes sense.

(KJN makes reference to a slide on the screen) This slide shows you a spectrum from tyranny to anarchy. Now when we talk about the Freedom Society in the Kingdom of Heaven, we know that in the Garden of Eden there are always four actors: there is God, Adam and Eve, and there is the Archangel. The Archangel is an important part of the Garden of Eden; we cannot live in it without the Archangel. The Archangel will always be there; the government will always be there. But the role and the size of the government is what’s very important because in order to prevent anarchy you need the minimum amount of government. You cannot have private property of free markets without some government. So the Freedom Society is a society that has just enough government to prevent anarchy; that’s going to be ninety to ninety five percent of private ownership, and we actually saw freedom societies like that I the past. America before the big welfare states came up, from the eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen hundreds had GDP, and the Federal Government share of GDP was less than two percent. They had no income tax for most of American history. You see the freedom society in places like Hong Kong. You guys, you know, you have a lot of troubles here in the United Kingdom and a lot of difficulty in managing the economy and a lot of social welfare spending, but you manage Hong Kong better than you manage your own economy.

You see it in places like Singapore. This (freedom) society works and it works by empowering “you”, the people, and it works by saying: “Yes, you can do it!” It’s not that the government can do it, it’s ‘you can do it!’. This is the society that God wants. He wants Adam and Eve, the people, to inherit and own all things in society. That’s God’s ideal. That was the Purpose of Creation; to bequeath to Adam and Eve. So then what is the Archangel ideology? What is the Archangel’s position or viewpoint? It is very clear… the Archangel or the government owns everything. This is communism! That’s why, clearly, communism is the work of Satan, because the position of communism is that the government owns everything and then communism tells you that when the government owns everything you are all equal. Well, in a sense it’s true because you are all equally a slave to government. That’s the equality that Satan promises you with Communism. Maybe socialism is eighty percent of that. Maybe the British social welfare democracy is sixty percent, fifty percent of that. France is probably around seventy five percent, eighty percent socialist. So you can see the scale of all the different countries and where they lie on the spread sheet of whether they are in relation to God’s ideal or Satan’s ideal. The fight in human history has been between God and Satan. It has been between God’s Will to bequeath to His children and Satan who has tried to inherit to himself. It has been between free people who have aspired to assert their creativity and to have ownership in their lives and of government who have sought to dominate and to control all aspect of every individual’s living conditions. This tension and this conflict have been running throughout history as a result of the Fall of Man. But now, through our understanding of the Principle and through the teaching of our True Parents, we can have a clear vision of what the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is a society where free people own everything and where free people possess the Third Blessing, and where free people are the guardians of both internal security and of external security, and where free people are confident in their ownership and do not run from their responsibilities. It is a society of freedom and a society of responsibility.”

(Audience applauds loudly)

KJN: “As we understand what the Kingdom of Heaven is and what God’s Will for all of humanity is, one of the most important things is to understand what the role of religion is. We saw free society in America briefly before it was destroyed by big government, and we know why this stage of big government came, it was actually religion that was driving it and tried to destroy freedom in America… pushing people to get on welfare, to make social welfare systems, and spend those social welfare states: “This is compassion, social welfare is compassion” There is a reason why religion has always been trying to destroy freedom, it’s because of the crucifixion of Christ. Because Christ was crucified, the religion which formed centring on Christ can only offer spiritual salvation; it cannot provide salvation or the Kingdom of Heaven on the Earth, and that is the limitation of that religion. That’s why Christianity is not complete. Christianity can only deliver humanity and society to the top of the growth stage, and that is exactly what we are seeing. God gave America freedom! He gave it the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth but because the religion of that age was not able to understand the blessings that God was giving to that great nation, the religions actually worked to destroy that freedom and to impair and to cripple it. That is why this Freedom Society cannot exist without a new religion. Without the religion and without the teaching of the Lord of the Second Advent this Freedom Society cannot be maintained. It is only through the understanding of the Principles of Creation and of the Fall of Man, there is no other religion on Earth that can preserve the Freedom Society, and if all the people of this world aspire for freedom and plan to live in the Kingdom of Heaven, they must all accept True Parents as the Lord of the Second Advent.”

(Audience applauds strongly)