The Heart of My Country

At Sunday service this Sunday, we sang the song: The Heart of My Country.  The words were by Hillie Edwards, an early Unification member.  The tune is an old English hymn.  Here are the words:

The Heart of my country beckons to me to fill its emptiness.

My Father long has spoken to me, His desire this land to bless.
He sends me on to life unknown, to work in a far off place.
He loves that land before I come, and through me He'll give it grace.

The truth is sought by ev'ryone in many a diff'rent way.

In darkness children seek the path that will hasten in the day.
Through struggles of the cent'ries long they have never ceased to fight
Our Father's will has kept them strong, and through Him they'll live in light

Now brothers, sisters all join hands to encircle all the earth.

The time has come for all mankind to know the world's rebirth.
Whatever we do, wherever we go, we are all in one embrace.
When we roll the clouds of dark away, we will see His shining face.

This song was very appropriate for the successful completion of the God’s Hope for America Tour.  We used to sing it a lot in the 1970’s during seminars and Sunday services.  It is even more suitable today, where some of us feel that we have lost the heart of our country.

This is the only nation in the world where people can worship freely, express their opinions and follow their dreams, disregarding their gender, religion, skin color, or social status.  Coming from another country (I am now a U.S. citizen) I cannot understand people who come over here and trying to implement the same laws and social status they have had in their country of origin.  If they liked that so much, they should have stayed over there.  This country is great because of its tradition of giving freedom and the pursuit of happiness to all its citizens.  It is our right based on the constitution.  For those who think that they have to change the constitution, they should go back to their home country or maybe check out North Korea.

I have also wondered why modern-day pastors and churches are so silent regarding political issues and why leaders are keeping their flock deliberately in the dark.

When I learned about a research done by the Barna Group that discovered that it has been decades since even a sizeable minority of pastors have bothered to educate and inform their congregations as to the Biblical principles relating to America’s political, cultural, and societal lives, I was truly amazed.  Why are religious leaders more interested in “being successful” as a congregation than serving their God?

Barna cites five reasons:

*Attendance
*Giving (money)
*Number of programs
*Number of staff
*Square footage (of facilities)

Barna believes that America’s malaise is directly due to the deliberate disobedience of America’s pastors--and the willingness of the Christians in the pews to tolerate the disobedience of their pastor. WOW.

For that I truly appreciated the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s teachings who always shared with us history and modern day situations from the providential point of view.  That’s why his teaching of God’s Hope for America and America is God’s Hope is still relevant for today.

If we take this country and its historical mission for granted and squander the blessings which God has bestowed upon this country, there is no other place to go to.  Let us rally together to bring God back into our churches, our schools, our government and above all into the hearts of all legal American residents.