The Words of the Haines Family
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The Words of the Haines Family |
Hello William,
How are you these days?
Just a short disclaimer; I wasn't sure who to turn to with this particular issue, but I thought with your broad thinking, that you may be able to help.
I must admit, I have been in quite a conflict with myself, concerning about True Father.
After the passing of True Father, I was reading a couple of articles on Father, some of which good, most of them fair, but it was the comments that brought, not only myself but many second generation a bit of distress.
Of course, I was ignoring these comments and didn't want to get myself too involved, however there was one comment that became the final nail in the coffin for me for the day. Basically put, one person branded Father as a "racist, homophobic old man who set up a scam to score himself a mint and have sex with many young women."
The first 3, I could understand why it could be seen as so, but the last one, I thought it was just referring to Father's previous wives. But then the person who posted the comment also posted up a link with which it had an interview with Un Jin Nim talking about an illegitimate that belonged to Father, by the name of "Samuel". Un Jin, claimed that she is aware of this child and that this child was conceived after Father marriage with True Mother.
At first I thought to myself this has to be absolute rubbish, but then I researched it a bit further and I found that several ex-members posted the same story along the same lines, and that they were told at the time that they should protect the church by not speaking it out.
Now, of course I can just simply turn my mind to something trivial (e.g. sport) to get my mind off it, but that would simply be brushing dirt under the rug, gets rid of the dirt temporarily, but it is still there until someone uncovers it again.
I suppose I am looking for some peace of mind to find out if this is true. Maybe I have been gullible to have stumbled upon the topic and pursued in hope that it is untrue.
Of course whether it is true or not, it won't have an impact on me physically, but if it does turn out untrue, then I stand as a fool for doubting/questioning.
But if it is true, I can't help but to say that is incredibly disturbing that we have been taught to live by a standard and yet Father besmirches and goes against his own standard. Which to me is rather worrisome, since I have made my choice to commit my life to being a member.
Then again, from my own perception and understanding of Father's lifestyle, teachings and principles, it is totally illogical for Father to have an illegitimate child at all!
I guess this message was an extended way of asking if this story is true, or not, but I didn't want to go blindly asking without making my own assumption.
Regardless of how you see me and this message, I'm grateful that you have taken time to read this message.
Thank you very much,
Thanks for writing. It is a difficult question and hard to explain in a way that makes sense or is acceptable. It is something some 1G have known about for a long time but not something we talk about or tell others about for that reason.
It always reminds me of the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth. We know that Jesus was not born of a virgin as it is biologically impossible. Jesus had a natural father. But we also know it wasn't Joseph. The early church would have known that Joseph wasn't Jesus father and they would have known that someone else was. But it was very hard for them to explain that the messiah was illegitimate and that Mother Mary had committed adultery or at least fornication. A serious sin in those days. So they came up with the fiction that she conceived by the Holy Spirit. This was originally just a euphemism for the idea that the relationship she had was God's will and not the result of lust and therefore not sinful. Through this they tried to protect Mary's modesty and reputation and thus also the status of Jesus.
Later this fiction evolved further into the idea of the virgin birth – that Mary conceived Jesus without a natural father. In crude terms God, through the Holy Spirit, was Jesus' father. This was supported by a mistranslation of a passage in Isaiah which in Hebrew says a 'maiden shall give birth'. This was translated into Greek and later Latin as 'a virgin shall give birth'. So for two thousand years people were taught this and because they heard it from when they were young children they believed it and didn't question it. Indeed questioning this doctrine would lead to accusations of heresy, being expelled from the church and possibly even losing one's life. And yet, we know a virgin birth is impossible and Jesus must have had a natural father. But the church has continued to teach this to protect the reputation and modesty of Mother Mary and thus safe guard the status of Jesus as the sinless messiah and son of God. In fact it is argued that he could only have been born without original sin because he didn't have a natural father.
There is another reason why the church didn't talk about the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. The church taught that fornication and adultery were serious sins. How were they to explain that Mary had committed these sins and yet the fruit of this relationship was a sinless messiah? If Mary committed adultery guided by the Holy Spirit why shouldn't I? People might easily be deceived or deceive themselves into thinking that the feelings they had for a person they were not married to were from God and should be followed. Thus people would be having sexual relations with people they weren't married to believing they were ordained by God. This would cause incredible damage to individuals and families. Indeed from time to time such "sex cults" have emerged who taught such things. So the church invented a "white lie" and after a while thought it was the truth.
As we know the course of restoration and the change of blood lineage has involved all sorts of complicated relationships which look immoral. There was the situation of Sarah going into Pharaoh's palace and overcoming the temptation to become his queen; Tamar risking her life to have a child with Judah and thus continue his lineage; the story of Rahab the prostitute who changed her loyalty to the God of the people of Israel; Ruth who did the same and married Boaz; the affair of David and Bathsheba that produced King Solomon. And of course the relationship that Mother Mary had with Zechariah who was already married to Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist. When we look more deeply into these immoral relationships that are part of Jesus lineage we can see how the different characters were restoring some aspect of the fall. They weren't acting out of lust and selfish desire but doing something at the risk of their life because they felt from God that it was the right thing to do. To explain each one in writing would take ages but may be worth doing sometime. Normally I cover these things in a lecture.
We don't know about father's lineage, whether or not such 'strange' relationships happened. Generally speaking we understand that Father was born on the foundation that was established in Jesus lineage.
Father himself as the messiah has to restore through horizontal conditions of indemnity all the vertical conditions of indemnity. In other words to try to restore in his lifetime (horizontally) all the things that went wrong historically (vertically). Just as the 40 day flood was to restore the fact that the previous 1600 (400) year period to separate from Satan had been invaded by Satan.
One of the things he and mother needed to restore was the Fall. Both needed to go through the same emotions as Adam and Eve and all the people in history and restore them by overcoming the temptation to react in the wrong way. I think one of these was that Father had sexual relations with a woman he wasn't married to after he was blessed to Mother and this was a test for her to experience and overcome all the emotions and feelings that women have experienced when they have been betrayed by the man to whom they were married. So I don't think Father did this out of lust or an incidental sexual desire but so as to set up a situation to enable restoration to take place. Much as Joseph put his brothers through a test to give them the opportunity to restore the mistake they had made before when they sold him into slavery. A kind of role play.
Whether Father really needed to do this or not I don't know. Maybe it was a mistake. It certainly had a bad effect on his family and caused a lot of pain to his children, his daughters especially, the effects of which are still being played out.
Why don't we talk about it? The same reasons the early Christians didn't talk about the questionable and scandalous circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. It is hard to explain and justify. But we also don't want other people to think that because Father did it so should they. It was only Father and Mother who as the True Parents had to do such things in the complicated process of restoration. It would have been easy for people to think that as they were national messiahs or tribal messiahs they should emulate Father and engage in similar relationships. Indeed I heard such a thing did happen in the US in the very early days when one leader went around and seduced several sisters claiming it was part of the process of restoration. There is one blessed brother I know in London who uses this as an excuse for the many relationships he has. So we didn't want to make the same mistake that some other groups have made and become a sex cult. This is something Hyung Jin Moon wrote in "The House of Heaven's Harmony":
"Some forms of spiritual practice have made the grave mistake of believing that one can circumvent or 'transcend' conventional morality.... I assume that you the reader are already practising to restrain yourself from... adultery... There are those people who may believe that they have attained full perfection, enlightenment, divinity, mind/body unity while violating these fundamental precepts.... This work seeks to afford no solace to those who wish to exploit spiritual practice while pursuing a pathological and immoral lifestyle. No one is an exception to this principle and I certainly include myself under its authority."
I don't know if this helps. It is not an easy question to wrestle with. At the end of the day when I look at all that Father accomplished and his spiritual state I don't think he did anything that corrupted him but at the same time I think it was a mistake. But as I said maybe it was a providential necessity. I think Father certainly would have thought it was otherwise I don't think he would have done it.
Best wishes,
William
Yes it was helpful thank you.
As you have said, not easy to make it seem acceptable, but from a view point it did make sense, but rather more importantly it was an honest answer and that was what I was looking for, an honest answer.
Thank you for your time and explanation.
Best wishes