What is the Holy Spirit in Unificationism?

The Holy Spirit: the feminine part of God, the body of believers, the bride of Christ, or something else? The chief institution of Unificationism, the Unification Church, began as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in 1954. From the outset, the Holy Spirit has been a core aspect of Unification theology and the teachings of Father Moon and Mother Han. Yet, as the decades went on, the name of the Unification Church changed to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, and they focused on publicly declaring themselves as the True Parents: the substantial Jesus and substantial Holy Spirit. Now, Mother Han is emphasizing her position as the Substantial Holy Spirit in the position of "Holy Mother Han." 

This begs the question: what really is the Holy Spirit in Unificationism? The Holy Spirit is the feminine aspect of God that could not manifest in earth 2,000 years ago with Jesus, and worked with Christ until His return, where the Holy Spirit was then able to manifest as a woman on earth to establish the True Parents.

The Bride in Unificationism

In 1956, the Unification Church began recording some of Father Moon's speeches. In one such sermon, Jesus Christ Who Went and Came and Who Will Come and Go for the Sake of Heaven and Earth, Father Moon describes extensively the Holy Spirit:

"Many people have been loving Jesus spiritually for 2,000 years until now, but today, they must also love the Holy Spirit. We must reflect that we the believers of faith and all of humanity must do that. Similarly, the time has come when we must love the Holy Spirit and perfect the body of the bride" (Sermons, 51)

"You must create the center of Jesus and the Holy Spirit within yourself. You who have a living, physical body must follow the example of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who symbolize the spirit world and the physical world, and become perfect as the substantial central being that combines the spiritual and the physical. This central mission is the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is returning to build this one center" (Ibid).

Father Moon refers to the common doctrine of the believers of the Church relating with Jesus as brides to fulfill his will. Father Moon, however, also states that believers must love the Holy Spirit just as much as Jesus. Up until the point of loving the Holy Spirit, the body of the bride of Christ remains incomplete. 

However, Father Moon does not adhere to the traditional understanding of the bride in Christianity. In fact, the idea of the church as the bride of Christ was established to liberate the sorrow of Jesus:

"As you can see in the spirit world, because Jesus has a substantial body with whom we can have a direct conversation, when our spiritual senses are open, we can comfort and express gratitude to Jesus. You cannot do this with the Holy Spirit. The reason is that the Holy Spirit does not have a body. Jesus came to the earth in a substantial body, as the master of Heaven and as the center of the world of creation. Nonetheless, because the Holy Spirit could not possess a substantial body until now, there is no way to directly comfort her for her ordeals. During the 2,000 years of toilsome history, the ideology of the bride and bridegroom was established to extinguish this source of grief, but Christians today do not understand this. When will there be the appearance of the substantial Holy Spirit on the earth who can become the bride of Jesus?" (Sermons 128). 

According to Father Moon, believers are called to become bodies that Jesus and the Holy Spirit can reside in. By forming the center within oneself through loving and relating with Jesus and the Holy Spirit unconditionally, rebirth is given and God's Will can begin to be complete on the earth. However, in addition to the believers receiving rebirth through this process, the Holy Spirit must still come to earth in a physical body just as Christ did 2,000 years ago. Otherwise, believers will be unable to fully relate with and love the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit is the Substantial Bride

Both understandings are correct. Father Moon, however, believed the primary understanding of the bride was the Holy Spirit, a distinct feminine being, that manifests on the earth as a physical human being: 

"What then are we to do now that Jesus Christ has left after having come to the earth? We are to find the master in the position similar to the bridegroom, Jesus, and the mistress who is in the position similar to the bride, the Holy Spirit" (Sermons 128). 

"Therefore, unless a substantial representative of Jesus Christ, who acts on behalf of God's will, and a substantial representative of the Holy Spirit appear on the earth, God's will cannot be fulfilled. You must understand this" (Sermons 64).

The Holy Spirit: The True Mother and Embodiment of God's Femininity

All the way back in 1956, Father Moon taught about the Substantial Holy Spirit, who is born on earth as the bride of the Returning Christ, must come to fulfill the Will of God. The bride and the bridegroom, although not named in these speeches, are the True Parents. In 1966, Exposition of the Divine Principle explains further:

"We receive the love of the spiritual True Parents, which is generated through the give and take between Jesus, the spiritual True Father, and the Holy Spirit, the spiritual True Mother" (Eu, 171)  

" To fulfill the purpose of creation, Jesus and the Holy Spirit stand before God as object partners who separately manifest the dual characteristics of God" (Ibid).

"Christ must return in the flesh and find his Bride. They will form on the earth a perfect trinity with God and become True Parents both spiritually and physically" (Eu, 172) 

Unlike traditional Christianity, the Trinity consists not of One Being as Three Beings, but as One Being who becomes one in heart with a man that manifests God's masculinity and a woman who manifests God's femininity. As the substantial Trinity, the True Parents ( Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han themselves) stand as the Substantial Jesus and Substantial Holy Spirit. They each manifest the masculinity and femininity of the Creator and Parent God. This particular point begins to be emphasized more in the 1970s, when Father Moon begins more clearly defining the Holy Spirit as the feminine aspect of God, Heavenly Mother:

"In Christianity, the Holy Father is God and the Holy Child is Jesus. Then what is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the Mother God. Because it is the Mother God, unless you receive the Holy Spirit you cannot be born again. The Mother God, the Holy Spirit, must give birth. This Holy Spirit is longing for Jesus" (Blessing and Ideal Family).

The True Parents: The Embodiment of God 

Just as in Father Moon's earliest manuscript, WolliWonBon, Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother are parts of the One Parent-Being God that must be manifested substantially on earth through human beings. That is why, while believers are also called to become the body of Christ and the body of the Holy Spirit, two distinct beings must be born on earth as the first of those positions as well. That is why towards the end of Father Moon's life in 2010, he proclaimed that Mother Han and him were "The True Parents of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind Who as God's Embodiment Proclaim the World" (tparemts.org). 

Since Mother Han stands in the position of True Mother in Unificationism (some splinter-groups teach otherwise, but that's for another blog post), she also stands as a part of the True Parents who embody God. Specifically, Mother Han embodies the Heavenly Mother aspect of God. Since the Holy Spirit is the Mother aspect of God, Mother Han can be said to be the Substantial Holy Spirit. 

The Importance of Creating the Center Within Oneself

By connecting with Jesus and the Holy Spirit through a relationship of love, believers can build the center, and therefore become bodies for, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. When we do so, we can become true parents ourselves. Rather than dismissing the traditional theology of believers as the bride, Father Moon deepens it. The True Parents are the first human beings to build the center within themselves to embody Jesus & the Holy Spirit. By doing so, they bring the Substantial Jesus and Substantial Holy Spirit onto the earth. They are the first, but not the only: believers are called to the exact same path. The actual Bride of Christ may not be us, but we can still make room for Jesus and the Holy Spirit's works to occur on earth through give and receive action with them. This is why in his prayers Father Moon repeatedly asks his congregation to build an altar that, on it, we as sacrifices can bind ourselves voluntarily for "the sake of the Will" (Sermons).

This process can also be done with the physical True Parents. Through a relationship of heart with them, we can substantiate their works one earth. By uniting with them, believers can also become true parents and embodiments of God in our own right: 

"Now I have given you the name of tribal messiah. What kind of messi- ah? [tribal messiah.] Tribal messiah! As that messiah, what do you have to do? I have prepared everything for you also to become a national messiah, world messiah and cosmic messiah. I have prepared treasures that are as large as a mountain. If you can become a messiah, you will be able to inher- it all this. It will be as if a pipe is connected to you, and like flowing water, all that treasure will be handed down to you."

Bibliography

https://www.tparents.org/Moon-Books/Sermon01/SM001-11.htm

https://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Books/DP06/DP06-17.pdf

https://www.tparents.org/moon-books/bif1/BIF1-3-202.htm

https://www.tparents.org/moon-talks/SunMyungMoon10/SunMyungMoon-100710a.pdf

https://www.unification.net/trmes/trmes-4.html