Thursday, March 13, 2008

Former President Bush and Sun Myung Moon's "Holy Wine" Ceremony

On this YouTube video, Unification Church president Michael Jenkins explains how Sun Myung Moon ordered his subordinates to have former president George H.W. Bush unwittingly participate in the Unification Church's "Holy Wine" ceremony. Jenkins' discussion of how they slipped the wine to the former president begins around the 2:30 point in the video. The Bush/Holy Wine episode was first reported in John Gorenfeld's book Bad Moon Rising. As I have mentioned, it is an excellent book (Quick note: for those of you who don't want to watch the entire seven-minute video, John Gorenfeld has an edited version on YouTube).

The meaning of the Holy Wine Ceremony: According to Moon's theology, those who participate in this ceremony become part of Moon's "blessed family," giving the recipient what Moonies believe is a pure, untainted "lineage." In Unification theology, "lineage" is a central concept. Moon believes that Adam and Eve were perfected beings whose lineage was corrupted by Eve's sexual seduction by Lucifer. Since the Fall, humanity's blood line has been corrupted. Moon believes that Jesus emerged to save humanity but failed because he was crucified before he could fulfill his mission to marry and produce perfect children. Moon believes that he is the second Messiah who will restore humanity to its uncorrupted state and create the kingdom of heaven on earth. Drinking the church-sanctioned wine is part of the process of becoming, in Jenkin's words, "engrafted into the lineage of Heaven" by separating from Satan's lineage and becoming one of Moon's "blessed families"--the "chosen people" that Jenkins mentions near the end of the video. As Moon himself claims, as a consequence of participating in the Holy Wine Ceremony, "[y]ou are going to be in ultimate infinite faith to God, to True Parents [Rev. Moon and his wife], grateful to them and obedient to their will."

All in all, it was quite a coup for Moon, especially since the Moonies were able to successfully violate Secret Service protocol. It also allows leaders of the Unification Church to tell church members that a former president is now supposedly obedient to Moon's will and how the ingestion of the wine supposedly caused Bush the Elder to subsequently give high praise to the Moon patriarch:

6 comments:

Kenneth Gordon Neufeld said...

This speech by Jenkins shows the increasingly delusional character of Unification theology. When Moon originally came to America in 1971, he actually thought that within 10 years he would have converted the American population wholesale to his teachings. Back in those days, the Holy Wine was administered one time only to a true believer on the occasion of his or her marriage. It would never have been considered proper to give the Holy Wine to a non-believer in those days. But because the mass conversions Moon was hoping for never occurred, now the Unification Church is fixated on symbollic successes instead of real ones. Now, it is enough merely to give the Holy Wine to someone who doesn't know its theological significance. Now, the wine is alleged to have magical properties even for non-believers. They have to believe this because in fact their actual following remains tiny and will continue to be tiny. However, this shows that they have distorted and debased the significance of a lot of their teachings which were once considered sacred.

Anonymous said...

The Moonies have some prime Paraguayan property right next to Chimpy's. When he goes off into exile (as he surely will,) his friends will still be nearby.

The Moonies hooked up with Neil Bush recently to visit with the Paraguayan President. The ties between the Moonies and Chimpy are interesting, to say the least.

John Gorenfeld said...

But who does Bush have to fear in Crawford? It doesn't seem like anyone is about to chase him out of the country.

Anonymous said...

Love the blog Scoobie. Keep up the good work.

I have one quibble...

"unwittingly participate"

Why do you say "unwittingly"?

Bush knew they were Moon followers. He knew Jenkins was a "Rev." in the Moon organization and they told him outright it was to make his "a Blessed Family for America." If that wasn't a tip off that it was a Moon ritual how about when he asked if it was like "communion" and they said "YES"?

"unwittingly"?

They told him it was like their communion – you think maybe a former head of the CIA couldn’t figure out they were asking him to be involved in a Moon rite? Would you just take communion from a “religion” in which the leader fancied himself to be the Second Coming, that is, when he isn't claiming to be God incarnate. Moon says his words are God's.

The plainly deceptive Moonies may not have sat 41 down and given him a two hour course in what it meant in moonieworld but even at that, do you think he doesn’t know Moon has a fetish for lineage tied to his claims of being better than God?

Bush has traveled for Moon to at least three continents. His son studies Moon's words on his shilling trips for Moon.

At a minimum, don't you think Bush knew he was participating in a ritual of a man who believes he is the Messiah?

That would not give you pause?

“unwittingly” seems to give Moon’s favorite shill far too much of a break, imo.

Anonymous said...

That man, Bush Senior and Bush Junior killed more than two million Iraqis, and stole their wealth, and yet they keep smiling, and consider themselves heroes. I am more than shocked at this despicable species called mankind.

Christopher D. Osborn said...

It's too bad HSA-UWC decided to take down the video. I'll have to look into that. Thou8gh even without seeing the film I can tell you two things:
1. I know Rev. Jenkins personally, and I can't imagine he would ever lie to anyone.
2. I am sure the Bush family knows the Unification movement well enough to know that drinking Holy Wine is a religios spiritual thing.

About the giving the Blessing to just anyone these days. The thing is, what Father Moon has accomplished is amazing. He has created quite a large movement fro God in a short time period, and he has done many other things in order to establish a foundation enough to give the blessing to nonbeleivers. Ofcours this doesn't mean everyone who takes the Holy Wine is suddenly perfect. However, our efforts to give them the holy wine is enough so that they have a higher chance of accepting the truth once they begin learning about it.

With the recent mass Blessing on October 14th 2009, we have Blessed everyone in the world, without them even taking the Holy Wine. This is a conditional Blessing that will make it easier for the whole world to come closer to God and know Him and their True Father in Heaven. I imagine the reason why we gave A.P. unpressidented access to that Blessing seremony in Korea was specifically to increase the meaning of it by bringing knowlege of the Blessing to the whole world.

About who Father Moon is compaird to God. I have never heard him claim to be God, and certainly not better than God. He is in a similar position as Jesus was, though Jesus was unable to fulfil his mission because he was murdered on the cross and his mother didn't do enough to help him find a bride.

Umm, yeah, any questions just ask. I'm honestly not on blogger too often these days, but you can always contact me via twitter http://twitter.com/mvfipher