A couple of recent events have given me a few concerns. The concerns are for an individual, a religion, and a country.
To individual is Liza Drenicheva, a Russian Unificationist missionary. The religion is
Unificationism, my own religion based off the
Christian Bible and, especially, the teachings of
Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The country is
The Republic of Kazakhstan, the landlocked country in Western Asia which is the 9th largest country in the world and borders Russia, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and China.
The event that sparked my intrest in Kazakhstan was not Borat, not whatsoever(I tried watching it but could not get through the whole thing). It was news from Unificationist leaders in Oslo that Liza Drenicheva had been arrested for teaching the
Devine Priciple view of origional sin and the consept of spiritual blood lineage. The claim is that these teachings are denigrating to groups outside the church on the basis of their "ethnicity" or "lineage".
If you wish to read the teachings to find our for yourself about how accurate the claims are, a 1996 translation (from Korean to English) of the Exposition of the Devine Principle - one of four main theological texts Unificationists read and teach from - can be found
here. To read about this subject in particular, I recomend Part I: Chapter 2 and 4, as well as several sections throughout Part II pertaining to the
providence of restoration.
If you want the short explanation written by me, you can read the following:
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Lusifer the Archangel who was charged with educating Adam and Eve until they were all grown up became jealous of God's love for them. He therefore decided to seduce Eve - who was not yet a grown woman and who was destined to become Adam's wife - to have sex with him, telling her it would be really nice and give her more knowlege about God. This caused her spiritual blood lineage to be attatched to Lucifer instead of God, the True Spiritual Parent of all humankind.
Eve realised what she had done wrong, and then saduced Adam. However, what she should have done was repent to God first, and then wait until both she and Adam were grown to maturity to consumate their marraige.
This whole act, espcially the fact that they did not repent, made it so their children would be attached to Lucifer's lineage and be even more suseptable to make mistakes and commit sin than their parents. This is why the first murder was able to happen. The cycle goes on and on, the sins of men and women continuing on to the next generation. The comming for Jesus his subsiquent murder was able to get rid of the spiritual sin - that of Eve and Lucifer. However, because Jesus never married and never created a True Family of sinless children, the physical sin of Adam and Eve was not eliminated.
Now that Rev. Sun Myung Moon has come a created a True Family, he is able to "bless" people in marraige and take away the origional physical sin. This does nto make them perfect, for they still have the sins of their other ansesters that they must take care of. However, they ahve gotten rid of the origional spiritual sin by accepting Jesus and physical sin by accepting the blessing from Father Moon. Their children are also born without this origional sin and reconnected to God's lineage, but it will take many many generations to rid their lineage of ALL sin.
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This is my understanding of basically what she was teaching and what the Kazakh authorities got all upset about. I understand that many people in the world would find these teachings to be wrong, and without hearing any other Unificationist teachigns one might think that such teachigns could breed racism against people who aren't blessed and therefore still have Lucifer's blood lineage running through their veines.
However, Unification though also teaches that all people are God's children, God loves his enemies even more than he loves his devote children, and that the best way to create world peace and reunification between all peoples is for everyone in the world to be blessed in holy matrimony with people of different races and nationalities and with ancestors of different religions. It also teaches that all religions come from God. Finally, and most importantly, Unification though teaches that free will is most important to God.
Without free will, life and love are rendered meaningless.
Many people around the world beleive this same thing. New Hampsire's state motto is "Live free or die." That's why I'm posting about this hear, rather that my other blog
The Fight for Cheon-Il-Guk. This is not just an issue for me as a Unificationist. This is an issue for me as a freedom loving American. People around the world, no matter where live live, aught to be allowed the right of freedom of conscience and religion.
That's why I urge you all, as citizens of the world, to help freedom fighters in Kazakhstan in their fight for religious freedom. This is only the beginning of religious persecution in Kazakhstan, for they have recently passed a law to make it hard for minority religions (which in Kazakhstan includes some Muslums as well as Baptists, among many more.) To hear more about this specific situation, here's a list of links:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/a_stalinist_arrest_in_kazakhst.htmlhttp://www.freelisa.org/http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS185087+26-Jan-2009+PRN20090126http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/16/what-values-are-shared/http://www.cuebon.com/Drenicheva.htmlhttp://www.rferl.org/content/Right_Defenders_Demand_Release_Of_Missionary_In_Kazakhstan/1370910.htmlhttp://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=3773If you want to help, here are some things you can do:
1. Join the facebook group
Petition to Free Lisa Drenicheva!!2. Write to you government represetatives.
Here is a link to the contact information for the U.S. Department of State.
3. Write to your local Kazakh embassy.
Here's a link for the one to the U.S.
Kazakhstan Kontaktinformasjon Til Norge:
Diplomatisk misjon av Republikken av Kazakhstan i Norge
Drammensveien 40
P.B.-0255, Oslo
Norge
Tel : +4722445323 fax : +4722445322 kazak(at)online.no
I hope some of you can see the importance of this and be inspired to act. As long as one of
us is chained, none of us are free!
In Love and Liberty,
Christopher D. Osborn
Bergen, Hordaland, Norge
