The Sam Park Controversy, the Providence of Restoration, and Pandora’s Box

(If one is unaware of this relationship, this article details the subject thoroughly.)

Before we dive into our topic, let’s take a moment to appreciate the incredulity of how the Sam Park controversy is treated in the Unification Church: in a church that teaches that sex outside of marriage was the origin of all human suffering, many are attempting to argue that the man who claims to be the Second Coming of the Messiah was told by God to have sex outside of marriage.

…Yeah…

But anyways, I have to admit something: after I got over the initial shock that I experienced when I first learned about this scandal, I came to an unsettling realization:

UC theology is on the side of Moon!

The source of Rev. Moon’s defense lies in the church’s teaching of the “Providence of Restoration” (POR). The POR is the church’s account of how God has supposedly worked throughout history to lay the foundation for the birth of the Messiah: first for Jesus, and later for Rev. Moon after Jesus was killed. An important feature of the POR is that it argues that at times, God asks or authorizes traditionally immoral acts for the sake of furthering the POR. The two most notable examples are Tamar’s seduction of her father-in-law and God’s request of Abraham to sacrifice his son. Both are examples in which the benefit of hindsight is argued to illuminate the significance of acts generally considered immoral.

But importantly, because the Divine Principle (DP) condones these acts of sexual misconduct and attempted human sacrifice, it opens a Pandora’s Box in which virtually any act can be justified by arguing that such actions are in God’s plan. And this is the basis for Moon’s defenders, who argue that his actions are no more incredulous than those recognized in UC theology as providentially sound. (Important to note is that Rev. and Mrs. Moon argue just the same: in pages 196-197 of Nansook Hong’s memoir In the Shadow of the Moons, she recounts how Rev. and Mrs. Moon defended the relationship with Annie Choi as “providential”).

This Pandora’s Box is made more harmful when one considers an important attribute shared by all three actors (Tamar, Abraham, and Moon) : prior to committing their acts, they do not provide evidence that they were acting under divine mandate from God. As a result, not only does the DP’s teaching of POR open a Pandora’s Box that justifies vice in the name of God: it also allows such vices to be partaken of without evidence of their supposed divine mandate!

Also, implicit in the argument that Moon’s actions must have been providential is another argument: that because Moon is the spiritually perfected True Father of humankind, he must have had sex with Choi for a good reason. But such thinking is intellectually dishonest. Instead of attempting to square any and all of Rev. Moon’s actions with a particular idea of who he is, the arrival of new evidence should call members to review whether the body of Rev. Moon’s actions are consistent with the moral code a “True Father” should abide by.

Finally, on a somewhat different note: if there is anyone - anyone - who should be defending Rev. Moon’s relationship with Annie Choi as “providential”, it should be those directly involved in the situation: Choi herself and her son, Sam Park. Yet how do they feel about their immutable connection to Moon?

“…Moon took pains to distance himself from Park. While he regularly visited the [the home of Bo Hi Pak, where Sam Park was kept], especially after moving to the United States in 1971, he avoided conversing with the boy. ‘He never asked me anything: How old are you? How’s school going?’ Park recalls. ‘It was as if he was making a point of not showing an interest.’“

“Park, meanwhile, clung to the hope that Moon would one day acknowledge his existence. “I remember Sam saying, ‘I just want him to recognize me publicly as his son once before he dies,'” recalls one member of the Pak family, who confirmed many details of Park’s account.”

“'So many people sacrificed for the movement, but they didn’t really know what they were sacrificing for,’ Choi says, weeping. 'I used to worry about my financial future and about my son’s security. But now it’s very clear to me: My job is to light the candle — to light a candle so that people can see that the entire movement was built on a lie.'” - (All three quotes come from the article linked at the top)

In a sad case of irony, it is precisely those who are closest to this scandal who have been the most hurt. If this scandal involved any other religious leader, UC members would quickly realize the hypocrisy being practiced. But because the person involved is Rev. Moon, UC members refuse to face the uncomfortable conclusions one must draw regarding Moon’s status as the “True Father”.