Damian Anderson answers critics in a section of his website at www.unification.net. Here are a few examples: http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq21.html
Keith Bennett (kbennett@cpcug.org) wrote:
: >>That's pretty clear. It is clear-cut deception, and Hassan thought so much of it that he put it in his book as an example of how he conducts his business.
: Andy -
It was clearly stated in church writings, speeches, etc., that deception is acceptable as long as it is for the "higher" purpose. This "heavenly" deception is exactly the kind of thing these parents were doing. So if you believe deception for a "higher" purpose is acceptable on one side, I think it would be fair to understand its use on the other.
Could you please back up your statement that the Unification Church justifies deception? If you have evidence, please state the name of the publication and where the statement appears. This is a charge frequently made by our critics, but you will not find it taught within the Unification Church.
http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq30.html
jarrod@breeze.seas.ucla.edu (Jarrod J. Williamson) wrote:
The pursuit of this mystical imperative supersedes all considerations of decency of immediate human welfare. The end justifies the means. You can lie, deceive or whatever to those outside the organization. Association with the "outside" is only to benefit their own cause in some way. Some cults like Moonies and Hare Krishna's call their deception "heavenly deception" or "transcendental trickery".
Members believe in the ideology to such a degree that they rationalize these deceptions. Members are kept in a frenzy of cult related activities. There is little time or energy to think about their lifestyle.
This is a myth and a slander that the Unification Church promotes deception. The critics call this deception "heavenly deception" yet it is a fiction of their own making. It is not a part of the teachings or the practices of the Unification Church.
This is a distortion on a par with the Nazi stereotypes of Jews. The trouble is that ignorant people hear these slanderous things, believe them, and then attempt to punish the members of the targeted group for the alleged and fictional wrongdoing which has been invented by the blackshirts who oppose them. The blame belongs with the rabble rousers who foment trouble against these innocent people.
Damian Anderson +1-301-921-0082 Home damian@unification.net DamianAndr@aol.com
Unification Home Page http://www.unification.net
Web pages on Unificationist ideas and activities in 13 languages and growing.
http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq44.html
Subject: Craig Maxim waxes mendaciously
From: Damian Anderson
Date: 1997/10/01
Message-Id: <875725151.27364@dejanews.com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.unification,alt.religion.christian,talk.religion.misc
In article <19970930233201.TAA19607@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
rosamaxim@aol.com (Rosa maxim) wrote:
Craig Maxim wrote:
" So telling a lie becomes a sin if you tell it to take advantage of a person , but IF YOU TELL A LIE to do a good thing for him that is NOT A SIN ." ( Master Speaks 3/16/72 )
That's okay for me.
So was God's commandment " Thou shalt not lie "or was it " Thou shalt not lie ..unless? "
This is one of the old themes that the enemies of the Unification Church have used for a long time. As the story goes, members of the church lie. It is borne of a prejudice which is in the mind of the accuser, just as the bigotry of the anti-Semite or the Catholic hater. What basis is there for this in fact? Rev. Moon does not encourage his disciples to lie, and to say otherwise is to indicate the mendacity of the accuser.
And, the Bible does not say "thou shalt not lie". It says "thou shalt not bear false witness" which was intended to prevent people from being accused and convicted of crimes of which they were innocent. It sounds like Craig is breaking the very commandment he is erroneously quoting.
REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON OUR PRESENT POSITION
October 7, 1979 Belvedere Translator - Bo Hi Pak Without question the worst problem faced by the world today is communism. How can we win against it-with fists? No, only with the word of God, and the heart of love. The communists believe that the end justifies the means, and that if a lie is repeated enough it will become the truth. We must teach them that truth is always truth and a lie is a lie. We have become the most formidable organization working against communism. Our International Federation for Victory Over Communism is working in Asia, Europe, and America and will weaken international communism. http://www.unification.net/1979/790930.html
REVEREND SUN MYUNG MOON SPEAKS ON
LET US KNOW OURSELVES
September 30, 1979 Belvedere Translator - Sang Kil Han The essence of Christianity is to seek repentance for the sin of greediness and selfishness. Sin can be defined as violation of the universal law of service to others. Even stealing a dress from a big department store chain is wrong. That dress has value which comes from the person who prepared it, and the person who steals it nullifies that public value. That is the sin. Another person might realize that he tells lies all the time, but his conscience doesn't hurt him. The motivation for lying always involves hiding something to take advantage of others: otherwise, there would be no reason to lie.
Craig Maxim has the ridiculous criticism that Rev. Moon is a sex maniac. The following is an excerpt from a member's summary of what Rev. Moon said the day after Nan Sook Nim went on 60 minutes. Maxim charges Moon with adultery when he had a child with a woman while he was getting a divorce from his first wife. Maxim is the liar. He tells half-truths. In other words he does what he accuses the church of. He is deceptive. He leaves out that Moon's first wife initiated the divorce and now repents for how she treated him. Maxim is a prude if he thinks it is adultery because Moon can't wait for the slow process of divorce proceedings to happen. Maxim doesn't tell you that his second wife repents and is a member just as the first one is. Maxim doesn't tell you that the very core teaching of the church is for sexual purity and Moon has repeatedly stated how pure he is. No one can say as he has for 50 years and not be seen for who he is. Hassan would say that Hitler used mind control on Germany. And how long did it take for Germany and the world to see that Hitler was evil? Less than 10 years. Moon has been preaching and building a movement that now has hundreds of thousands of members. Moon's finances and lifestyle has been studied carefully for many decades. Presidents of the United States, nobel prize winners, and some of the most dinguished and famous ministers in the world have befriended him. Former members are so filled with resentment they cannot think straight. In the following you can get a little flavor of what Rev. Moon is like and how sacred the church views sex and purity. Moon and his followers are not sex maniacs, sex addicts or sex obsessed. They are obsessed with purity, family and having wholesome sex. Christianity is often accused of being uptight about sex. Moon teaches that it is normal (only within God's boundaries.) If Moon has ever done something that seems immoral, we have to view it as an exception to the rule and something he needed to do for restoration of the fall. If he does have a love child, we do not have testimony from the mother denouncing it. True Mother seemed to say to Nan Sook Nim as quoted in her negative book as believing it was a special condition to restore adultery and True Mother needed to know the heart of all the women in history who have had to experience this pain. I don't know what happened, but I do know that Rev. Moon has taught me and countless others the true nature of sex and God's will for our lives. There comes a point where we have to start having faith. God has sometimes had to have his central figures do what seems is immoral such as Jacob lying and Mary commiting adultery with Zacharias. But Moon does not say that is normal and the way the members should act.
http://www.tparents.org/library/moon/talks/moon98/um980920c.htm
The Words of Reverend Sun Myung
Moon from 1998
Father Addresses Members At East Garden
Claude Aubert
September 20, 1998
This report is compiled from several Internet reports, and explanations from people I was able to talk to personally. I relied most heavily on an Internet report from Rachel Carter. Damian Anderson, who attended the speech, announced that he will post more complete notes of Father's speech at a later time.
Yesterday afternoon, September 21, Father talked to a group of members at East Garden, after calling for this meeting just a few hours earlier. Many people in the audience were wondering if Father would talk about the 60 Minutes program that had aired on Sunday on CBS, and if he would comment on some of the statements made during that program made by Nansook Hong and Un Jin Moon.
First Father talked about topics such as God's heart, true love, sexual organs. Then he moved on to talk about the early church, the rumors that arose due to curfews and women wanting to hear Father's words, about the anger of husbands, fathers, brothers etc. How some had even beaten Father for taking their women away from them.
Father talked of how he had trained and disciplined himself in the area of his sexuality, how he could lie next to even a naked woman and control himself. He said that he had absolute control of his sexuality. He would explain to a woman that he was impotent and could not have sexual relations all the while controlling his sexual urges.
Father said he had never broken American or Korean laws and yet he was imprisoned and mistreated.
Father said that he never wanted to divorce and should never have had to divorce. If there had not been failures there would have been no need to divorce and start again. (He also mentioned that his first wife and her mother had been Blessed at the last Blessing).
Father said that Adam had been destroyed by a woman, Jesus was destroyed by women and now women were trying to destroy the Lord of the Second Advent, even his own true daughters!
Father mentioned that Nan Sook had come there when she was 17 (Korean age) and since then he had only really talked to her for an hour at most. He said he loved Cain children more than Abel children and Nansook saw this and grew bitter.
Father talked about how after the 360 million couples the world would begin to understand and people would come and repent and repay for all the suffering that True Family had to endure.
At the end of it all Father asked if he had succeeded in comforting the members' hearts. He asked if he could go to South America now and not worry about the members. He said "I gathered you together to support you at this time".