A Stalinist Arrest in Kazakhstan

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.html
http://www.freelisa.org/
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS185087+26-Jan-2009+PRN20090126
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/16/what-values-are-shared/
http://www.cuebon.com/Drenicheva.html
http://www.rferl.org/content/Right_Defenders_Demand_Release_Of_Missionary_In_Kazakhstan/1370910.html
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=3773

If 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

How do I help my bisexual college friend?

I've been looking over old emails lately, emails which I've starred but never done anything with. I've decided I aught to start doing something with these and unstarring them. Today I found one of Damian Anderson's emails.

It was full of different stuff; Wango Wards Ceremony - April 21st 2007, TFVNews: Virginia Tech and the heartlessness of our media and therapy culture, TFVNews: Traffic Deaths a Global Scourge, Health Agency Says, Polity: Sherman's march, Hostages released in Paraguay after TV plea, The matter of Josette Sheeran Shriner, MEPI Report - Cracking the Walls of Hate and Fear - by Joy Pople, Announcement about Cheon Il Guk Horsemanship Challenge, and finally, Advice please - How do I help my bisexual college friend?


It is that last one wich caught my eye this time, wich I really thought could be good keep - not just for myself, for I currently have no friends struggeling with their sexual identity - but for anyone in this similar circumstance. So without further ado:

http://www.unification.net/faq/uniffaq010.html

Questions and Answers about Unificationism
Home

Advice please - How do I help my bisexual college friend?

by Damian Anderson
Sunday April 22, 2007

On 2/26/07, BP wrote:

Dear Mr. Anderson,

You are probably really busy and I've already gotten some ideas from reading a few things I found on Unification.net, so I don't mind if you don't respond.

If you have time, though, here is my situation:

I am a BC in college and I have a friend who is bisexual (currently in a relationship with someone of the same sex) but is also really open to hearing about DP and discussing this issue of homosexuality in relation to politics and our different belief systems. She keeps asking me about it and trying to point out loopholes such as "what about the technology that we can now splice two eggs together and give the fertilized egg to a woman to carry?" My response was basically, "just because we can, doesn't mean we should." My basic argument is that it isn't in our design to be homosexual and that homosexuality happens because of spiritual influences, but that our design is that man was made for woman and woman made for man and that relationship brings joy, happiness, and fulfillment, not just in itself but in the context of having a family and raising children. My friend, however, doesn't seem to be satisfied with this answer. She thinks that a homosexual couple is just as capable of having a spousal relationship that brings joy, happiness, and fulfillment, even in the context of raising children (adopting?). I'm not sure what else to say. I've explained it from the perspective of "this is how God made us and He did it for the sake of creating a new unity after a separation." I touched on the idea that "it's not just about having a fulfilling relationship, but that you are fulfilling your design." but I'm not really sure she's hearing me, because then she said that her design is that she is bisexual and it should be okay for her to marry a woman.

I pray for her, and I try to understand her perspective when I talk to her, but even though I don't press the issue, she brings it up every now and then as if it will not rest in her mind until we agree with each other completely. Also, she says that she has been praying about her situation and is getting the answer that it is okay. I don't know if this is still a part of her own process of becoming okay with herself as she is, or if she is hearing herself telling herself she's okay, or if this is her hearing another spirit or if she is mishearing something or if what she's hearing is God saying, "Yes, I love you anyway."

I've run out of things to say when we have these discussions, and I was wondering if you have any advice for me for when our next discussion comes up.

Thanks so much!

God bless!
BP

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Dear BP,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. As to your question, Father teaches us that before we can teach people the truth, we have to serve them. This person is not yet ready to receive truth from you, because you have to make a foundation of trust and love first. In other words, we have to lay the foundation of faith before the foundation of substance. We have to establish our own personal connection to God and serve others in the position of a servant, before they can come to recognize us in the position of their Abel, their mentor, guide, spiritual parent. When your friend can come to accept you in that role, then you will be able to teach her truth, and not until then. If she is open, then read the Bible or Divine Principle together and discuss the content. Let Father's words and spirit teach her, even if you are not able to personally. That is my initial response. Also, pray for wisdom and the heart that you need to reach her. When you have the right heart towards her, with compassion and without judgment, God will give you the right words and insight to help her.

Why is homosexuality not the ideal? Simply put, God created all things in pairs, because it is in the reciprocal relationship of complementary pairs that God's love can manifest in the world. Whatever she experiences in a homosexual relationship is not God, or from God. My feeling about homosexual women is that it is almost always a result of a broken relationship with the significant men in her life, such as father, brother, uncle, grandfather. How is her relationship with her Dad? Did anyone take advantage of her sexually that caused her to fear or hate men? She needs to meet a Godly man for her original principled sexual desire to be aroused. Then she has to learn not to act on that desire until she is ready to make a commitment to one spouse and to take responsibility for the life which is the natural consequence of heterosexual love. At that point, you can educate her about the Blessing of marriage.

Sincerely,

Damian Anderson

I hope posting this here can proove useful to someone some day.

Yours, from Tisbury, Massachussetts

Christopher D. Osborn