Misunderstandings About New Teachings

In message October 6, 2024, Dr. Michael Balcomb points out that misunderstandings are circulating about content of new teachings expected to be published soon

Part 3 of extracts from a sermon titled “Yesterday, Today and Forever”, that Dr. Michael Balcomb, the President of the Europe and the Middle East Region of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, gave at the Sunday service in Geneva, Switzerland on 6th October 2024. Slightly edited. 

See part 1, part 2, part 4

These days, there’s a lot of concern and confusion about some new teachings coming from Korea, which we call the Cham Pumo-ron, and formally and wrongly called “True Parents’ Theology”.

But actually, the “ron” in “Cham Pumo-ron” means discourse. When the Divine Principle was published in 1966, it was called Wolli Kangron, meaning a “Discourse on the Principle”.

A “discourse” means there’s meant to be discussion, give and take, debate. It also means that it’s not finalised or settled because it’s a discourse. And out of our conversation, new things may emerge and a new understanding. If you’ll permit me, I’ll briefly speak to this issue, since it’s a hot one in Europe these days.

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that the Divine Principle itself clearly indicates, right in the very first chapter, that this is not the whole truth. It’s right there. It says that this is just a textbook teaching the truth. And we confidently expect that new things will be revealed.

But very tellingly, it also says it may be displeasing to believers that the truth they now have is not the whole truth. And we always used to think,

“Yeah, those mainstream Christians, they should wake up and smell the coffee. New truth has come.”

But I put it to you that for any believer, including a Unification believer like myself, like yourselves, new things, new ideas can be discomforting, especially, and particularly if they challenge things that we’ve already thought. That’s okay. And it takes effort to find out.

You may think, “Well, you’re the continental director, so probably you’re going to set us straight this morning and tell us what’s what.”

Well, I have bad news for you. I’m not going to do that. And in fact, I cannot do that. But one thing I can say is that there’s a lot of incomplete information out there. A lot of statements are being made and people contributing opinions.

Interestingly, in most cases, they haven’t actually been firsthand in touch with True Mother or with the source. So, it’s secondhand. It’s not gossip, but it’s removed by one or two degrees.

I have, of course, had to listen to the Cham Pumo-ron several times. And also, I’ve had the privilege and the challenge of sitting right opposite True Mother and, hearing from her things that, for me are quite new, making me think, “Really? Is that what you think, Mother? Or is that how you want?”

But I have three simple takeaways, for me. You might say, “Well, Mike, those are your takeaways. You’re you and I am me.”

Yes, absolutely right. These are my takeaways. The first one’s very simple. The first one is that God is a Heavenly Parent.

That’s not new, but when I think about it myself even now, I catch myself saying “Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father” all the time, in prayer and everything. And it’s taken a real effort to start thinking God is also a Mother, as well as a Father, and yet one.

Because this is also challenging for the human brain, right? How can you be a father and a mother? One of my friends, Jin-Choon Kim, who’s also one of the teachers of Cham Pumo-ron, and a high-energy physicist [Editor’s note: Particle physicist]. I’ve actually found the quantum concept of superposition helpful. Superposition means that something can be two things at the same time that are mutually exclusive. It happens in science.

But anyway, this is the first message of Cham Pumo-ron: God is masculine and feminine. It’s right there in the Principles. But let’s be honest, it was never really explored or discussed.

And I’m a man, and I freely admit it’s taken me a long time to even begin to understand the world of women, even though I have three younger sisters and two wonderful daughters and one wonderful wife. But if you ask them how well I understand the realm of women, I don’t think I’ll be getting an A grade at all. In fact, my wife says, “You’re a very clever man, but sometimes you’re so stupid?” Anyway, she’s not here today.

The second takeaway is that it’s through True Mother, the daughter of God, that we can most fully understand the Heavenly Mother. True Mother, because she’s a woman, and a very special woman, is able to explain this characteristic of God better than Father ever could, because Father‘s a man. Father never gave birth to any children, never experienced the pain of childbirth or miscarriage or any of those things that women endure.

Likewise, men can talk to men about things that women don’t understand. But generally, history has been, and our movement has been, very centred on men. Still, when we have meetings in Korea, […], it takes enormous effort to let even one woman speak. […]

The third takeaway is that we have to look to the future because the past is behind us, and it can’t really be changed. We can try to understand it, but we should not permit ourselves to get lost in disputes about things from a long time ago because we have to look to the future now.

I want to be honest, not everyone who’s been exposed to these ideas in Cham Pumo-ron has had the same experience. […]

Of course, it doesn’t help that at this moment there is no authoritative text to study. It would be different if I could pull out this book and say, “Here it is: Cham Pumo-ron! Read it yourself and make up your own mind.”

But actually, there is no such book. There’s a book in preparation. I understand the Korean version is already on version 10, but it hasn’t been published once because there’s such intense dispute about what should be in it.

And there’s a set of lectures that’s circulating which I only saw myself for the first time yesterday, which are also not authorized. And yet people are using them to teach their version of the Cham Pumo-ron. So that’s a problem.

Again, I’d like to say sorry that I haven’t been able to produce something more tangible for you to get your teeth into, but that’s the reality.

But anyway, […] I think the key controversy among all these things is that the allegation that the Cham Pumo-ron teaches that Father made some serious errors in his lifetime, key among which was he didn’t wait until he was 40 years old to marry True Mother. Another allegation is that those “mistakes” are the reason why Father had to go, for example, to Heungnam death camp, to Seodaemun prison, why he was tortured and suffered, not, as we have traditionally believed, to take on responsibility for the sins of humanity, but because of his own mistakes – rather than providential matters – that led him to do what he undeniably did, which was to endure torture, betrayal, beatings, imprisonment.

Many people feel very indignant about such a suggestion, and I would say rightly so. If you don’t feel that about True Father, there’s something wrong. I felt very angry when I thought that that was what being said. […] This is wrong, and we should not be teaching it.

And there’s one huge problem: The Cham Pumo-ron does not say it. It does not say it. [Editor’s note: does not mention the above-mentioned allegations]

So again, like that deepfake audio in Baltimore, it’s going to be difficult to undo this because the misinformation and the confusion is already out there.

Continued in part 4.

See part 1, part 2, part 4

Featured image above: Left part of image by Superbenjamin. License: CC ASA 4.0 Int. Right part by Aethelwolf Elmsworth / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.

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