Ministry in Japan

Tour by True Parents' family

True Parents visited Japan during their first world tour in 1965, their second world tour in 1969, and their third world tour in 1972, as well as on numerous other occasions, encouraging the members.

During a special visit from June 12 to August 10, 1967, they were accompanied by members of the True Family as well as church leaders. During that visit, they bequeathed traditions of several types to Japan.

First, they bequeathed True Parents' teaching, in particular, the Divine Principle; second, they bequeathed faith; third, they bequeathed the grace of the Blessing; and fourth, they bequeathed Japan's mission as the Eve nation. They held a two-week retreat for key leaders from June 17 and toured Japan's provinces from July 8 to 21.

1. When I met you, my heart was filled with indescribable longing. My heart is always connected to you, and I regret we have not been able to communicate because of the language barrier. I believe that this language barrier may, someday, become a problem for the Unification Church of Japan.

But for now, I would like to discover our similarities during this time of connecting in heart over time and have us draw closer to each other. Because there is so much I want to say, I cannot fully describe the emotions that well up and reverberate in my heart. (True Mother, 1967/06/12)

2. When I arrived in Japan on June 12, 1967, I felt that I needed to unite the Japanese members' hearts with the homeland of their faith. Because we have been focusing on the work of missionaries in foreign countries, we have been unable to move forward steadily in one direction.

I have been concerned that if I do nothing about this, it will negatively affect our members over time, So I brought with me top leaders from headquarters and sent them to the various regions of Japan to form bonds of heart with the Japanese members. I held workshops for two weeks upon arriving in the lead and then toured the country for 13 days.

Thereafter, I visited most of Japan's major factories. I did this because, although I must join Japan's faith movement by addressing religious issues, I also have to focus on and develop a plan to help Korea achieve its national development goals.

I visited more than ten factories to examine the current state of Japan's industries. While visiting these factories, I felt deeply that from this point on, Korea must unite with Japan on a national scale. (018-284, 1967/08/10)

3. When I visited Japan in 1967, engage I contemplated blessing the members. However, the Japanese members were not even considering receiving the Blessing. They were thinking of getting blessed two or three years later.

This comforted me immensely. If they do not live a true life for the sake of Japan, fully engage in genuine activities, and instead live for themselves, they will not be able to stand before God. This is true.

From this fact alone, you can see that you urgently need to change your position right now. You must clearly understand the magnitude of God's expectation and hope for you. (018-309, 1967/08/10)

4. Japan has suppressed the Unification Church to this day, and so it caused a giant sensation when I went to Japan in 1967. Many Japanese reporters requested interviews. Since they saw me accept invitations from government officials and national leaders, the reporters thought I would also accept their invitations.

But they do not know me. I did not meet them. I turned them away at the door. So they got upset and grumbled about the Unification Church. We eventually became a focal point of the Japanese media in 1967. The Unification Church became the front page story. (022-095, 1969/01/26)

5. The elder brother is a representative of the father, and the elder sister is a representative of the mother.

The question is, how strongly do you feel this way?

It is effortless for siblings to criticize one another based on their points of view. How can we overcome these limitations? This was one of the questions on my mind when departing for Japan. How can I help you feel that your church leader is truly a second-self of True Parents?

Do not look at church leaders from your viewpoint but from God's position. Based on how a church leader grew up, his academic level, and other qualifications, he may not necessarily be superior to you. In some respects, there are times when a church leader needs to learn from you.

At such times, it is easy for an ordinary person to criticize the church leader from stem to stern. I am concerned that such a culture might develop. What is important is how many members in the church in Japan have the heart of a parent.

I am hoping that the number of such members will increase. (1967/08/09)

6. The Communist Party is a problem. I rigorously trained the people of Korea because of my belief that Koreans have to be the first to rally their spirits and stand up against communism. Because Korea established a standard of victory over communism, Japan had to start dealing with the same issues. In many respects, Japan is in a strategic location.

From a providential viewpoint, Korea and Japan are in the positions of the Adam nation and the Eve nation, respectively. Eve was the first to fall. She was the first to go over to Satan's side. Currently, Japan stands in a similar position. Therefore, Japan must not base its actions on self-interest. Eve ought to have consulted Adam instead of thinking only about herself and then taking action.

Many young people in Japan do not know anything about communism, so they maintain a friendly attitude toward the Communist Party and leftists in general. Considering that reality, we have an important responsibility. We must confront the Communist Party head-on with our logical thought.

We have to show them that democracy is superior to communism. Japan is safe because America has protected it until now, but in the future, it may find itself defenseless. If that happens, it can be attacked. With Red China and the Soviet Union within striking distance, Japan must take rapid measures based on a substantial plan. (1967/06/27)

7. If you go to downtown Tokyo, you will see red-lettered billboards on bold display advertising the Japanese Communist Party. They confidently disseminate their propaganda in broad daylight in front of Tokyo Station and Shibuya Station.

At the Japanese National Diet, members of the Communist Party are joining forces with the Social Democratic Party to oppose the Liberal Democratic Party. They are operating in concert and opposing every bill proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Their purpose is to incite the communists, laborers, and farmers and use them as tools to build their underground foundation. The communists are desperately focusing on these things. (018-286, 1967/08/10)

8. What do you think happened when I toured Japan? Students in the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles dropped out of school to engage in pioneer missionary work, save Japan.

Their activism became the hottest story in every daily newspaper. Some of their parents sent anonymous letters to the newspapers opposing these articles, while others sent anonymous letters supporting them.

One newspaper printed only those stories that were against the Unification Church. So we spoke out that it was a leftist newspaper conspiring against the Unification Church because of our Victory Over Communism stance, which is ideologically hostile to that newspaper's position.

Then, another newspaper publicized how the articles against the Unification Church were not factual. In this way, some news agencies supported us and supported us.

The newspapers that supported us featured stories based on anonymous letters by the parents of several of us. These letters stated, “All young men and women should be sent to the Unification Church.

All newspaper articles opposed to the Unification Church are false. Our children who went to the church improved in many ways.” That is why my name constantly appeared in those newspapers. (018-298, 1967/08/10)

Visits in 1973

True Parents visited Japan from July 8 to 22, 1973. On July 11, True Father spoke to members from the area north of Shizuoka at Sayama Park in Tokyo. On July 12, he presided over a meeting of members from the area west of Nagoya at the Takarazuka Training Center in Hyogo Prefecture.

True Parents made a second trip to Japan from August 7 to 10 of the same year. They visited Japan a third time that year, from November 17 to 24, where they spoke and presided over several events and gatherings, including the Second International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences.

9. In two years, Japan has to decide its destiny. We are at a significant time; we have to choose from several paths. Retreat is not an option. Be prepared to die even as you move forward.

We are in a state of emergency wherein we need to change tactics and direction. You have to harden your resolve once more. Unless you charge forward, Japan will be in danger. The state of affairs in Japan is unfolding exactly as I predicted. The same is true of the conditions in Asia.

If we allow more time to elapse, it will be too late. Every hour counts. We are facing a tragic fate. Failure to invest even one hour of effort could lead to the loss of 1,000 years. Every hour, every second counts. We are facing a crisis. Everything depends on you. (1973/07/08)

10. Japan yearns to connect to the Asian continent. But this can be done only through Korea. The Korean Peninsula is both the base and the ladder to connect to the mainland. North Korea is in the northern part of this peninsula, and the Soviet Union and Red China are hovering nearby. The minute Japan is lost, all of Asia will be lost.

Japan has the mission of the Eve nation. It has no future unless it can provide economic aid and emotional support to the people of Asia, even if it means Japan has to sacrifice its comfort. This is an obvious conclusion.

If the Japanese people can accept Unification Thought, they can become a global people. If that happens, the nation of Japan will come to lead the world.

When a bride does well at the bridegroom's house, she becomes the center and focus of opinion for the people of that household. Japan needs to be loyal to True Parents and heaven in the manner of a bride. That is the only way. If Japan fulfills her mission, she will not perish. (1973/07/08)

11. If I were God, I would inspire the young Japanese people gathered here to give their lives because if someone were to offer their life for the sake of Japan, Japan would be truly blessed as a result. God blesses people who, like Jesus, sacrifice themselves, even dying for the sake of humankind.

I hope that each of you takes the lead for the sake of the Japanese people and becomes serious about standing in a public position with a strong sense of patriotism and loyalty. I hope you become more serious than anyone else in history.

How great that would be! No matter what, we have only one life to live. If there is someone who can live in this way and is ready to die out of a heart of love that exceeds that of others, God will be compelled to bless Japan forever through that one person. God's kingdom will live because of you. (1973/07/12)

12. Can Japan become a new pioneer and represent the East in the realm of Western civilization that includes America, France, Japan needs to gain and Italy? Japan is called an “economic animal.” This is a derogatory phrase. Nations are called by many names.

By what name will Japan eventually be called? Japan is living for the sake of Japan. Which is more honorable for a Japanese person: to live for the sake of Japan or to live for the sake of the world?

If the Japanese wish to live for the sake of the world, they need to pay indemnity for their past and create a new tradition.

They have to rectify the mistakes of their ancestors. Each of you needs to restore, through paying indemnity, the sins committed by your ancestors in history.

You must also restore through paying indemnity the sins committed by Japan in the present era. When you do so, your age will arrive. A person who is unable to indemnify the past cannot make his or her ideal a reality.

Japan needs to gain results through an altruistic path in which the people shed blood, sweat, and tears based on a genuine standard. Japan needs to invest herself completely. (1973/11/18)

Visits in 1974

On February 1, 1974, True Father had a significant meeting with United States President Richard Nixon at the White House. Thereafter, True Parents traveled to London, England, and then visited Japan from February 5 to 8.

They visited Japan for a second time that year from April 22 to 25. Their third visit to Japan took place from May 6 to 13.

On May 7, they presided over the Day of Hope banquet at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. True Father delivered a speech entitled “Living for the Sake of Others” to more than 1,800 prominent figures from various circles, including 40 Diet members, officials from the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.

Later in the year, after completing a 40-city speaking tour in the United States, True Parents made their 4th visit of the year to Japan from December 25 to 29.

13. Problems in the world emerge because there is no central standard by which nations can know what to expect from one another. If we can secure that ideal for which all people worldwide yearn, we can find a new direction.

The Unification Church is trying to take responsibility for the most difficult problems in Japan. It will be too late if we do not establish a central standard now, a standard that gives people hope that does not waver during times of instability. I am the one who found a way to resolve the problems that even the Soviet Union and America could not resolve.

How many more people will you gather from now? We need to witness to individuals, but we must also set a goal for witnessing to organizations. With what sense of urgency are we moving Christianity right now?

We have to move organizations. Japan will not wait for us as it moves into the future. Here is what is important: how high we raise the standard of tradition centering on Japan and who nurtures that standard throughout the world. I am thinking of setting up young people from Japan as those who establish this central standard of tradition for the world. (1974/02/06)

14. Until now, the standard of faith in the church in Japan has been structured incorrectly. Is it adequate for Cain to submit to Abel? Of good course. It helps Cain follow the path of absolute obedience.

But that by itself is not enough. To bring Cain to voluntary submission, you have to invest more than three times what you have been doing until now. This is the standard of the Principle.

Satan owns the formation and growth stages, but the completion stage is God's standard and encompasses the foundation of restoration. The Principle of Restoration prescribes that to recover one, you have to invest more than three. (1974/02/06)

15. The regional leader or church leader appointed by True Parents must not say, “I am Abel, and all of you are Cain, so obey me immediately!”

When True Parents appoint church leaders, it is not because you are Abel. It is telling you to become Abel. When we change personnel,l we do so not because he or she already is Abel but because we expect that person to become Abel.

It is for reasons like this that the church in Japan has not been developing. Many people left because their hearts were hurt. Unless you resolve this real problem with a clear, principled perspective, the problem will be irreparable.

We are busy going our way, but you cannot go to God unless you settle all accounts through paying indemnity before you die. You must first be victorious in the foundation of faith, and on this foundation, you have to be victorious in the foundation of substance.

The foundation of substance requires Satan to surrender naturally. God has been seeking an embodiment of Adam through three eras corresponding to the Old Testament Age, the New Testament Age, and the Completed Testament Age. To embody Adam in the real world, you need to have three disciples who will not leave you even when they are persecuted. (1974/12/26)

16. Why is the Unification Church in Japan not growing? It is because your attitude of faith is not properly established. The conceptual awareness of the district leaders does not connect with heaven.

District leaders must not simply give orders. When they sleep, they must be like parents who first put their children to sleep. If they receive something nice, they have to give it to the members. If they receive nice clothes, they ought not to keep the clothes for themselves. This is a heavenly law.

You have to reflect on whether you have sincerely offered yourself for the members, whether you have shed tears for them, and whether you have stood in a realm of the heart where you grasped their hands with the resolve to be responsible for their salvation.

Always think about how to guide members in a principled way. If you apply the Cain-Abel principle incorrectly, you will end up with a problematic result. The Principle is about applying an orderly method according to rules that lead to growth. Without establishing this standard and bringing your members to do so, you will not get a principled result. (1974/02/06)

17. All of you must become tribal messiahs. It is important to become a messiah who saves your tribe.

Together with your parents and siblings, you have to apply greater sincerity of heart to restore your family and clan than you had when you were a pioneer witness. Young people are not in an important position to expand our membership significantly.

People in the prime of their lives, with a foundation in society, can lead their relatives. When such men and women who are church members can resonate with the social norms of their male and female relatives, respectively, they have the necessary foundation upon which they can easily gather even 100 members of their clan. We cannot expect young people to have that foundation.

To fulfill the mission of the Unification Church, it is important to have numbers that can protect it.

If our numbers are small, we cannot influence the nation, and we will not be able to defend ourselves. For our influence in Japan to extend into the future, we need to witness people who have social influence in the prime of their lives.

Therefore, you have to invest as much effort to restore your tribe as you do to study the Principle. (1974/05/08)

18. I know you left your homeland people, and, as a Korean student living in Japan, you fought hard through many difficulties in this foreign environment. I understand your heart better than anyone else because I, too, studied in Japan during my high school years.

The people gathered here probably do not know the sorrow of people from a nation that lost its sovereignty. Your parents were born before Korea's independence and stood in the painful position of not being able to express their thoughts. You probably have no idea how hard it is to be so deprived and underprivileged, forbidden from holding your vision and perspective.

But I understand that heart all too well. I have the experience of carrying out underground campaigns opposing Japanese imperialism during its rule.

A person who cannot love his nation cannot love God. A person who lost his nation might inherit God's nation, but eventually, he will come to lose that as well. This is what I have believed since I was a student.

All of you are the ones who have inherited the lineage of the Korean people, but you are living on Japanese soil. You have been ostracized and have endured continual suffering, which makes your situation a little different from that of the Koreans living in Korea.

You must become people who are trusted in Japan. When Koreans gather among themselves, more often than not, their conversations are pessimistic and critical rather than constructive. Before complaining, you have to be the first to work hard and win the respect of those around you.

You have to train yourselves so that God can trust you even beyond the brink of death. (1974/05/12)

Visits after 1975

From January 20 to 22, 1975, True Parents visited Japan to recommend partners for Japanese members participating in the 1800 Couples Blessing Ceremony. On February 10, they returned to Japan to speak at the Day of Hope banquet at Tokyo's Budokan.

Two days later, students living they held a meeting for world missionaries and decided to dispatch missionaries to 95 nations. True Parents visited Japan from September 20 to 25, 19,78, to recommend partners for 1,610 candidates for the Blessing and preside over their engagement ceremony in Saitama.

In 1983, the US government initiated proceedings to have True Father indicted on charges of tax evasion. Some members of the government intended to bury him in controversy and remove him from public view. On this serious occasion, True Mother visited Japan from March 13 to 25 to offer encouragement to Japanese members.

Fourteen years later, on March 26, 1992, True Parents visited Japan after receiving an invitation to speak at a “Diet Members Panel on Peace in Northeast Asia.” On the morning of March 31, they met with Yasuhiro Nakasone, former prime minister of Japan, at the Hotel New Otani, Tokyo.

That afternoon, they met with Shin Kanemaru, former deputy prime minister and a leader of the Liberal Democratic Party. They returned to Korea on April 1.

19. Home church, a base that represents True Parents' global victory, is a combined and condensed image of the world with the levels of tribe, people, and nation. It combines all standards on the levels of tribe, people, and nation.

It is a foundation that consolidates the sovereignty of the world, the people of the world, and each ethnic group. Once you gain victory in your home church, you can connect not only to Cain-type families but also to your people, nation, and world. Even after you return to your hometown, it remains your victorious, Abel-type realm that leads to the world.

Home church. True Parents are visiting Japan to create a system for this. True Parents' mission is to teach this clearly, and your mission is to understand it clearly. On a foundation of 360 families, you have to expand and restore a tribe and a people. (1978/09/22)

20. You have to consider whether you have been a person who could maintain your dignity in front of God. True Parents are pioneering the path of restoration on a global level. You have to objectively evaluate the standard by which you have been relating to True Parents. Clarify your position today to historical see victory tomorrow.

Think on the national level. Japan stands in the position of the Eve nation that corresponds with the Adam nation. That being the case, your concept has to be that True Parents must never be accused and must never suffer.

When you think of how fallen Eve committed historical mindset mistakes, you need to achieve certainty within yourself that you will not damage True Parents' hearts during your entire life. This is the current position of Japan, the Eve nation.

It means you should not complain. You have to stand at the forefront of witnessing with a mindset of complete self-denial. If you have these principles, you will be able to complete your mission in the future, even if you cannot complete it today. True Parents guarantee this.

Which is better: completing this mission after a prolongation or during True Parents' lifetimes? To fulfill it during True Parents' lifetimes, you have to strengthen yourself through desperate struggle.

People in the spirit world, even though they believed in religion throughout history, cannot be reborn today, today substantial no matter how much they long for it.

The moment in which we live has a value far beyond any other. When we think about it, we have to be grateful for the fact that we met True Parents in person on earth and that we are fulfilling God's Will while receiving True Parents' guidance. (1983/04/03)

21. You have upheld True Parents' will in different areas, and you have suffered both internally and externally to this day. I have heard much about this through the reports of leaders who visit Japan frequently. I thought extensively about how to support you, even if in a small way while comforting and encouraging you.

Human history was to have begun in glory, but due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, it began as a history of restoration filled with bitter sorrow. Emerging from this history, each person's life is about going through a course of persecution, hardships, and endless ordeals.

There have been many hidden, indescribable circumstances that have contributed to today's global expansion of the Unification Church foundation. In a nutshell, it was a blood-stained history of suffering in which one could not hide from an endless stream of tears.

I am sure you have all had such experiences. Satan does not give us a break. He does not budge an inch. I'm sure you are familiar with the details of the trial in America. Heaven will be victorious without fail. (True Mother, 1983/03/13)

22. The reason we have visited Japan is to unite Korea and Japan, the Adam nation and Eve nation, and to unite America and Germany. All other nations are part of the “clan” of kingdoms within God's kingdom on earth. Until now, we did not have the authority of the elder son and the right of kingship.

With the authority of the elder son in the direct lineage, we have to establish a standard of tradition that is more than enough to guide all people through history.

God's ideal was to plant the seeds of true love and allow them to take root, thereby laying a foundation that would not change even after 10,000 years of Substantial form. (228-170, 1992/03/27)