The Divine Principle is the fundamental theology of Sun Myung Moon.  When he was 15 years old he was praying on a mountain side in Korea on Easter morning, April 17, 1935.

 

Jesus Christ appeared and told him he had been chosen to fulfill Jesus's mission of teaching the truth from God that would unite the world into one peaceful and happy family.

For years he received revelations from God and saints in the spirit world.  In 1945 when he was 25 years old he began his public ministry and started teaching.  He was persecuted and finally sent to a communist concentration camp in North Korea.  For three years he was tortured.  Most men did not survive 6 months in this death camp.  When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he was freed and went to South Korea as a refugee.  In a hut made of mud and cardboard, he began to write the Principle.  In the midst of this war-torn, ravaged and poor country, he started attracting followers who were inspired by his vision.

In 1959, the first missionary came to America.  She had been a professor at a university in Seoul, Korea who had been fired from her position when she accepted the Divine Principle.  For the past 40 years, the primary method of teaching the Principle has been from lectures.  There have been a few publications of the Principle over the years by his followers, but they have been written in a style that is academic and therefore not very accessible for the average person.  Two of these versions are online if you would like to read them.  The official text is the latest translation from the early lectures given in Korea called The Exposition of the Divine Principle (www.Unification.net). At the website, click on the link Exposition of the Divine Principle"Teachings." Scroll down until you see The Exposition of the Divine Principle. At this website there are many speeches by Rev. Moon that are online for you to read.  Eventually, every speech of his that has been recorded will be on online.

Rev. Moon started a seminary in upstate New York in the 1970s and during that time some students put together a version called The Divine Principle Home Study Course (www.Unification.net/hs). 

In the early 1970s I was witnessed to by a member of the Unification Church and invited to hear the Divine Principle at a week-end workshop.  There were several lectures on Saturday that each lasted about an hour or so.  And there were several lectures on Sunday.  I was thrilled when I heard them.  Many of the fundamental questions of life were answered.  Eventually I became a lecturer.  This book is my lecture notes for a weekend workshop.  My goal is to put this material on video in many different languages so that others may have the chance to hear this wonderful truth.

Bible Explained

The focus of the Divine Principle is an explanation of the true meaning of the Bible.  The BibleBible is the most published book in human history.  It is the highest expression of God ever written.  Jesus is the most important and influential person who has ever lived.  Still, the majority of mankind do not believe in Jesus and those that do, differ in their interpretations of what he said.  Jesus was imprisoned, beaten and received capital punishment for being a dangerous radical when he was 33 years old.  He did not live long enough to teach all the truth he had.  God and Jesus have given Rev. Moon the mission to teach the truth that will set mankind free from ignorance that has plagued mankind with broken hearts, dysfunctional families, wars, crime, famine and pollution.  The world is disunited.  God has revealed his truth in the Divine Principle that will bring unity to mankind.  The first step is to accomplish this is to understand the true meaning of the Bible.

Reverend Moon's Revelations are different from traditional Christian theology. Christianity has not been able to sweep the earth because it has a partial understanding of Jesus and in many ways it is very wrong about Jesus. Much of Christian theology is illogical and irrational. The Divine Principle is heresy to many Christians. Go into any Christian bookstore and there will be at least one book against Rev. Moon and his teachings.

Persecution

Jesus had the same problem that Reverend Moon has today. The religious leaders of his time did not accept him. They were waiting for the messiah, the savior of the world, and one morning they woke up and a simple carpenter was standing in front of them saying he had the truth from God that will unite all the world as a peaceful family. We read in the Bible that Jesus was not accepted by the people of his home town, Nazareth, when he proclaimed himself the messiah in the synagogue. What happened was a frightening scene. A crowd of people forced him out of the synagogue to the edge of a cliff to push him off to his death, but just as he reached the edge, he was able to escape to safety.

Rev. Moon had the same problem when he started to preach in his homeland. He was tortured. Jesus and Rev. Moon share in being simple men from small villages from a poor country. Jesus and Rev. Moon also share in being condemned by the government as evil and jailed. Both have been beaten bloody for what they teach. Both started out with unimpressive followers. Jesus was rejected by the elite of his day and Rev. Moon started out being rejected by the elite of his day. How much easier would it be for you if Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell or some other famous minister wrote this book instead of me? Millions would accept overnight and soon there would be a messianic movement sweeping the earth. Instead, Dear Reader, you get a book written by a nobody. I am not rich and famous. I'm just an average person with lots of shortcomings. God truly works in mysterious and humble ways.

God's Testimony

The Divine Principle is God's testimony. It tells God's story. Up until now the Bible has been the fullest expression of God's providence. Unfortunately, God's heart has been broken to see his teachings in the Bible being misunderstood. Christianity is divided into hundreds of denominations. Theologians disagree over the meaning of passages. Many wars have been fought because people passionately hold different interpretations. How tragic it is that Ireland is Christian and so much blood has been spilled between Catholics and Protestants.

Every President of the United States has put his hand on the Bible at his inauguration. But each one has a different view of Jesus. Thomas Jefferson even rewrote the Bible to fit his views while he was living in the White House. He saw Jesus as a man, not God himself. Other Presidents would disagree. In the last hundred years some new churches have been founded such as the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons and Christian Science who interpret Jesus differently. All this disunity is pretty confusing to most people so they don't even bother to look for a church.

World Peace

Because the Divine Principle is true, it will unite all the different churches someday. There is one Bible and someday everyone will accept the Divine Principle as the one truth. The sooner this world accepts, the sooner we will have world peace and everyone will have peace of mind.

Revolution in mind and heart

Rev. Moon has often spoken of the magnitude of the Divine Principle.  In a speech given May 3, 1996 titled "True Parents' Wedding Anniversary Address" he said, "We must understand just how much revolutionary power the truth has. How about you? When you first joined the Unification Church, was it because someone was nice to you, or seemed a good person? No. You did so because of the power of the truth. Within the Divine Principle we can discover True Love, True Life and True Lineage. The New Heaven begins there. How precious this is.
 
"Reverend Moon is the only one who discovered this content. This one book of Divine Principle is able to create a revolution in the minds and hearts of humankind. Once they read it their original minds awaken."

World Salvation

"How many times have you read the Divine Principle book? You have to constantly study and read this book every single day. You cannot imagine how much sweat and blood True Father poured out in order to discover the truth of the Divine Principle ... this book contains the power and ability to give salvation to the entire humanity.

"Here in America so many people looked down on the value of the Divine Principle since it was introduced here. Even Unification Church members have looked down on the value of the Divine Principle. This truth is the thing which God loves the most. Therefore, if we neglect the Divine Principle God feels alienated from us. Do you understand? Some of you are pursuing various degrees in theology in the secular world; however, this is not necessary. It is more important for you to teach these various professors the content of the Divine Principle. In order to find this truth millions of people were murdered and oceans of tears have been shed. We have to realize this."

Day of Hope Tour

Rev. Day of Hope SpeechMoon has taught parts of the Principle in public speeches he has given in every state in America.  In the early 1970s he went on a Day of Hope tour in which he spoke on parts of the Principle.  The final speech of this tour was at Madison Square Garden in New York City where he spoke to an overflow crowd of 35,000. I believe these speeches are the best place to begin in reading Rev. Moon.

 

Rev. Moon's Speeches Online

 You can read these speeches online.  On the Day of Hope tour, Rev. Moon gave three speeches:
"God's Hope for Mankind"www.Unification.net/gww/gww-13.html
"God's Hope for America" www.unification.net/gww/gww-14.html
"The Future of Christianity" www.unification.net/gww/gww-15.html
The speech at Madison Square Garden is at:
"The New Future of Christianity" www.unification.net/gww/gww-17.html

These and other speeches and books are also online at the  website: www.tparents.org  For example, the speech "The New Future of Christianity" is at
www.Tparents.org/library/moon/books/sm%2Dgww/GWW-17.htm

These four speeches were also published in a paperback book called Christianity in Crisis that can be bought from Amazon books (as well as other books by him) Click Here



These four speeches are also printed in a book of 40 speeches titled God's Will and the World published by HSA bookstore and can be ordered at their website: www.HSAbooks.com.

I encourage you to read Rev. Moon writings either on line or in print.  God is revealing His blueprint for an ideal world through Rev. Moon.  Nothing is more important that doing God's will and that means studying Sun Myung Moon.

"Open Your Mind and Open Your Heart"

In his speech "The New Future of Christianity" he began by saying, "I would like to make one personal plea.  I did not come here to repeat what you already know.  I have come to reveal something new.  I want to share with you a revelation from God.

"There is only one God, one Christ, one Bible.  Today, however, in the Christian world alone there are more than 400 different denominations, all looking at the same Bible from very different points of view, with many different interpretations.

"What we are interested in is not the human interpretation of the Bible, but how God interprets the Bible, and what God's will really is.  Therefore, no person by himself is capable of satisfying us.  That information must come from God, in the form of revelation.

And I want to share that revelation with you tonight.  Since this message came from God, and since it is from God's point of view, the content naturally may be different from human understanding.  Therefore, it may be very new to you. But what we need is new ideas -- God's ideas because man has exhausted all of his own ideas already.  That is the reason for my coming to talk to you tonight.

So I ask each of you to open your mind and open your heart, so that the spirit of God can speak to you directly."

True Love

The first chapter of the Divine Principle tells of Rev. Moon's revelation from God that mankind is destined to live in an ideal world where every person experiences true love.  To read more of this exciting good news, please turn the page.