A Gathering of Evangelical Superstars in Washington

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  The following are excerpts from an article that appeared in the Washington Times on January 20, of this year under the headline:  “America Come Together Prayer Luncheon.”  The prayer luncheon, sponsored by the Washington Times Foundation was one of the largest and most diverse inaugural religious gatherings of clergy and lawmakers in memory.  Martin Luther King, evangelist Billy Graham and the Reverend Sun Yung Moon were honored by an evangelical group of clergymen.  The Reverend Moon received an award for his work in support of traditional family values.  “It is possible for humankind to receive a great blessing through the rededication of marriage ceremony centered upon God’s ideal of family,” Moon said.  Luncheon committee member Doug Weed introduced what he called, seven of the ten top television evangelists in America today.  They included Paul Crouch and Kenneth Copeland, both of whom made brief remarks.  The Reverend Jerry Falwell brought greetings from the Reverend Jesse Jackson.  The Reverend Robert Schuller, pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, marveled at the myriad of different religious groups praying in the same room and complimented each for its own spiritual pilgrimage.  Commenting on the apparent unity Schuller added, “The only way I can explain it in my theology is the Holy Spirit and that Jesus Christ has really diversified his investment portfolio.”  Singer Pat Boone noted the wonderful feeling at the prayer event encompassing Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus which overflowed into adjoining smaller ballrooms.  Boone also sang.  Other performers also included singer John Michael Talbot, a Franciscan brother, and trumpeter Phil Driscol.  Imam Hasan Koswini, Director of the Islamic Center of America, said that all praise is due to Allah and urged prayers for children in Palestine, or the West Bank and Iraq.  Rabbi David Ben Ami, Chairman of the American Forum for Jewish Christian Cooperation, spoke of the common Jewish and Christian heritage.  In introducing Reverend Moon, Wesley Prudent, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Times, paid tribute to Reverend and Mrs. Moon and to Reverend Moon’s vision of a secular newspaper in the nation’s capitol to cover the world and promised that, armed with editorial independence and that vision, we will always be faithful to the values that bind God’s children together.

Tom:

Dave, is “incredible” too big an adjective here?

Dave:

Tom, you spring these things on me and I just—overwhelmed—what could you possibly say?  What a mess it is!

Tom:

Well Dave, that’s your view, but there are a lot of people out there who are saying hey, come on! Look at this unity, look at this coming together.  This is the inaugural event for our new president who is going to be conservative—

Dave:

He wasn’t present, was he?

Tom:

No, but it’s not—

Dave:

I think that’s good for him that he wasn’t there.

Tom:

Why, Dave?

Dave:

Well, Robert Schuller, he compliments each group for its own spiritual pilgrimage.  Now, we have Muslims, we have Hindus and so forth—their spiritual pilgrimage is not going to take them to heaven.  We are obligated to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ and Jesus did say “I am the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”  You could imagine Elijah getting together with the prophets of Baal and the prophets representing the false gods of the pagan world all around him.  Or Paul on Mars Hill, instead of preaching the gospel to them why didn’t he just have a big ecumenical gathering there?  Tom, it is so contrary—I’m sorry, I’m getting a little bit worked up here—but it is so contrary to rationality, to the truth, to the Bible, to the gospel.  What in the world is going on?  Have Christian leaders gone mad?  And then, Sun Yung Moon is honored—

Tom:

Well Dave, let me underscore that, to just give our listeners an insight as to how insidious this is.  This is a Sun Yung Moon event.

Dave:

Yes!

Tom:

This is an event to promote him and that’s the bottom line here.  This event was sponsored by the Washington Times.  Now on the one hand, it’s good to have a conservative newspaper out there.  On the other hand, it is owned by Sun Yung Moon.  This is a “Moonie” endeavor, in effect, even though he is supposed to be at arms length from it.

Dave:

Yeah, and he is praised—listen to what he says.  In introducing Reverend Moon,—holy and reverend is God’s name.  Let us get clear who Sun Yung Moon is, the Korean evangelist.  He claims that Jesus failed because Jesus didn’t get married and the whole thing we need is a unified family.  So, his big deal is getting people married.  Now, he has been married more than once.  He didn’t do too well and some of his children have had some real problems also.  But nevertheless, he is going to pick it up where Jesus failed and he is going to create this unified family for the world through these marriages and so forth.  Listen to what it says—We will always be faithful to the values that bind God’s children together.  Wait a minute!  Who are God’s children?  The Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists and so forth?  The Bible says—well, Jesus said to the Jewish leaders in His day, and to the Jews and to us, as well, you are of your father the devil.  The Word of God says—Jesus said it to Nicodemus, a religious leader—“Nicodemus, you must be born again, you must be born of the family of God by the Spirit of God.”  And the scriptures say we become the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  Now, how can we talk about the children of God and they don’t have faith in Christ Jesus.  And then we are going to talk about their wonderful spiritual pilgrimage and their spiritual values.  Tom, if I had any hair left on the top of my head I would pull it out.  Because you see, just as you said people say well isn’t this wonderful?  Well, I suppose if you want to talk politically, morally, let’s all get together and be for family values or whatever, traditional morals, I don’t know whose tradition that might be but the issue is the eternal destiny of souls.  Our commission is to preach the gospel, not to try to get together with everybody on some social or political issues.  If you want to do that, go ahead and do it but what about the eternal destiny of souls?  So, we have people who are being really led astray, led down the primrose path to destruction.  And, Tom, that concerns me because I believe the Bible.  I believe Jesus Christ and I believe that He is the only hope.

Tom:

Dave, we are going to change our format here a little because this is just power packed.  I mean, this is unbelievable and I think, to do it some justice, we have to continue to talk about this.  So we have this inaugural event, I think it took place January 20th, and we have all of these people invited and them held up through the newspaper and particularly through this event, held up their esteemed.  We have Kenneth Copeland and he says a few words here.  Where are we going with that?

Dave:

And Paul Crouch, and Schuller, and a few others.  Jerry Falwell was there, apparently.

Tom:

Right, Jerry Falwell was there and he brought a greeting from the Reverend Jesse Jackson.  And then, Gary didn’t mention it because we had to cut down the article to get it in, but the Reverend Falwell gave Reverend Jackson’s apologies, went on and on about that.

Dave:

What else did he have to say, anything about Sun Yung Moon?  He has spoken at other Moon features.

Tom:

No.  Sun Yung Moon is in even though he is a cult leader, even though he is the lord of the Second Advent, who is taken up as you said earlier, where Jesus failed.  This man is esteemed.  He is given an award here.  Of course, it’s got to be an inside joke.  Who gave him the award?  Well, it was the Washington Times. Who owns the Washington Times?  Sun Yung Moon.

Dave:

Yeah, but Tom, beyond that here we have evangelical leaders.  They are honoring, along with Sun Yung Moon, Reverend Billy Graham, who was not present, I presume.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

But nevertheless, we have this honoring of Billy Graham along with Sun Yung Moon who has a false gospel and Sun Yung Moon, when he received his award he said, “It is possible for humankind to receive a great blessing through the rededication of marriage ceremony centered upon God’s ideal family.”  Now, this is “Moonism.”  This is his cult, the basis of it.

Tom:

Thirty-six thousand in an arena are married and some don’t even know who they are being married to.

Dave:

And we are honoring this man who rejects Jesus Christ as the Savior of sinners, he rejects the gospel and we have the Imam Hasan Kwaswini Director of the Islamic Center of America, he says, “All praise is due to Allah.”  Who is Allah?  Allah is not the God of the Bible, we have been through this.  The Qur’an says Allah is not a father and he has no son.  Allah hates Jews.Allah has not one good word to say about the Jews in the entire Qur’an.  Jerusalem is not even mentioned in the Qur’an and yet we have the Muslims today, Arafat and so forth, trying to say this has always been a Muslim city.  Not true, okay?  Allah is the moon god, that’s why you have the crescent moon on the minarets and the flags and so forth.  He has three daughters and no son and we could go on and we have talked about it before.  But now, he says, “All praises to Allah,” and he urged prayers for “children in Palestine or the West Bank in Iraq.”  I guarantee you he would not pray for Jewish children.  In fact, the Qur’an says the Jews must be exterminated.  Now, how can you possibly honor this man?  He is entitled to his ideas, Tom, maybe we ought to make that clear.  Sun Yung Moon is entitled to his ideas, the Buddhists and Hindus are entitled to their ideas but don’t bring them together with Christians and give them some respectability as though this is true and give the impression as Robert Schuller does when he compliments them for their spiritual pilgrimage; give the impression that we are all taking different roads to get to the same place; one religion is as good as another.  If you want to believe that you can believe that but that evangelical leaders would gather together to give credence to this idea and they would praise a cult leader.  Sun Yung Moon—why don’t they talk to some of the ex-Moonies who are almost destroyed by the mind control of this cult?

Tom:

Dave, let me read from the article something that Gary didn’t read.  The Reverend Jack Hayford, who will give the benediction at the 54th Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral tomorrow— so, obviously, he wasn’t at this event—looked over yesterday’s—talking about the event—and said it represented a new mood of inter-religious and inter-racial cooperation—”This is something that has been in a process for the past five years” Mr. Hayford said in an interview.  He cited the Southern Baptist’s apology for slavery in 1995; the Promise Keepers apologies to women for abuse by men and the inter-racial reconciliation summits of Pentecostals of which he was a leader as pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California.  Now, people reading this say, Hey, Jack Hayford is for this, this must be a good thing.  Jerry Falwell is in favor of this, this must be a good thing.  You know, this is why we are asking, do they understand what’s going on here?

Dave Hunt:

That’s the impression you would get, Tom, and that’s what concerns me, that we are now giving credibility and approval—Of course, Robert Schuller has done this on a number of occasions.  He said to the Imam in charge there at the Crystal Cathedral of the Joint Muslim Christian Institute for Peace—He said, If I came back in a hundred years and found that all my descendants were Muslims, it wouldn’t bother me.  Well, Muslims are lost; they have a false god and a false gospel.  So, the problem is, Tom, we are giving credibility, not only to these people—Muslims are saying, well, we’re okay.  Hindus, we are all one and people who read this are getting that impression as well.  It is contradictory to the gospel; it is counter productive for evangelism and truth.  That is my great concern.