Unification Church views of sexuality
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The Unification Church views heterosexual marriage as God's ideal.[1][2] According to Rev. Sun Myung Moon, people are to grow to maturity, becoming "fruitful" (Gen. 1:28), then join in holy matrimony with a member of the opposite sex and "multiply", i.e. have children.
The church regards any sexual contact between people other than that between husband and wife as sinful,[3] a view at odds with much of the Western world since the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The church opposes pre-marital sex, as well as adultery and homosexuality; it categorically rejects same-sex marriage as an abomination. It asserts that both the avoidance of homosexual acts and the repentance of homosexual desire are possible and desirable (see reparative therapy).[citation needed]
Followers of the Unification faith are strongly discouraged from indulging in sex before marriage, but highly encouraged to enjoy its fruits once maturity is reached and union with an eternal spouse achieved.[citation needed]
[edit] Love is the strongest force
Unificationism's most central book teachings, Divine Principle, asserts that love is the strongest force in the universe, more powerful than law or principle,[4] and true love is Unificationism's highest value. A fundamental teaching of Divine Principle is that the original sin causing the fall of man at the begninning of human history was, in fact, inappropriate sexual relationships that corrupted true love.[5] Sexual union based on true love between husband and wife is spoken about frankly and approvingly in many speeches by Sun Myung Moon.
- "In your relationship as husband and wife do you want to just sit and look at one another and smile? Or would you rather have a love relationship that is so tight, so sweet, so strong that you would become totally one like a rubber ball, and roll around together? Once you become totally one and begin rolling together like a round ball, when you roll too fast you will shout and scream and God will hear you and come down and enjoy watching you. Interesting? Exciting?"
- —Sun Myung Moon, from The Palace of True Love
[edit] References
- ^ The organization is a strong supporter of the traditional heterosexual family. (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance)
- ^ With this emphasis on male-female sex as the only valid model, and on heterosexual marriage as the only ideal, it is reasonable to expect that the Unification Church has very negative views on homosexual behavior. (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance)
- ^ "Do not look, do not touch." (A reference to the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it is interpreted to apply to all sexual activity outside marriage.)
- ^ Exposition of the Divine Principle, HSA-UWC, 1996 (ISBN 0-910621-80-2).
- ^ Exposition of the Divine Principle, HSA-UWC, 1996 (ISBN 0-910621-80-2).
[edit] External links
- Exposition of the Divine Principle, HSA-UWC, 1996 (ISBN 0-910621-80-2).
- Response to a question on homosexuality, from Unification.Net
- Unification Church views of homosexuality
