Marriage in the Unification Church
From Conservapedia
Marriage in the Unification Church works the same way as marriage in every other religion or culture. A man and a woman consecrate their relationship to God, and live together. They love each other, have sexual relations only with each other, and they raise their children to love God and to refrain from sexual relations until marriage.
In the early days of the Unification Church in America, few married couples joined. New members were nearly all young single adults. Married couples remained married, although some refrained from conjugal relations until their marriage was Blessed by Rev. & Mrs. Moon.
Single members were encouraged to take up full-time missions. By the early 1970s, church membership in the US was less than 1,000 - nearly all single. Curiously, the church did not have men and women live separately (except, of course, that they had separate sleeping quarters). It was an arrangement described as a "co-ed monastery".
Members pledged to refrain from all sexual relations until marriage, which in itself seemed odd to the secular world. Why refrain? It's not breaking any law. In addition, members were strongly encouraged to permit Rev. Moon to arrange their marriages.
The arrangement of marriages is seen as a way of indemnifying the Fall of Man, in which Eve fell into a sexual relationship (in spirit) with the archangel Lucifer (who then became Satan). Note that many Christian theologians disagree with the idea that angels can have sex with human beings; the church quotes Jude 1:6 and Jude 1:7 to support its interpretation. When fallen Eve turned from Lucifer to Adam and seduced him, this was the physical fall.
Each human being has a spiritual body and a physical body. (1 Cor. 15:44) It is with her spiritual body that Eve had sexual relations with Lucifer. She inherited her fallen nature from him: inability to love God or receive his love, the desire to dominate others arrogantly, and the tendency to spread her evil into other people.
When Adam and Eve started their married life, it was before receiving God's permission or blessing. The result was that Eve transmitted her fallen nature to Adam. Since then, God has struggled to restore fallen mankind, but the first family also had the first recorded murder! God hoped for unity between Cain and Abel, but Cain killed his brother when Abel's offering was accepted and not his. We see this kind of jealousy today, even on this web site. Many writers are openly jealous of the senior staff: why is HIS writing accepted? Why should I have to listen to HIM? Etc.
To restore their fallen nature, therefore, Unification Church members are requested to do two things which Adam and Eve did not: refrain from all sexual activity before marriage (for a lengthy period of time) and to let God assign their marriage partners.
Those members who regard Rev. Moon as the earthly representative of God may apply to be matched with a prospective spouse. Mass weddings are held to emphasize that a marriage is not primarily for the benefit of the two spouses, but is for children as well as for the community, nation and world.
All people are called to be patriots and saints on the way to becoming children of God. Dedicating one's marriage to the family, nation and world is seen as the express route to saintly joy.
When the church was just getting started in Korea, Rev. Moon knew each member personally and prayed long hours while considering which were the best matches. Being able to see into the spiritual world, he could see their ancestry and thus determine who ought to go with whom; even as a child in his village he had the reputation as a shrewd matchmaker. In the US, members would gather in large rooms and Rev. Moon would look at them or talk with them briefly, mostly relying on discernment of spirits to make his choices.
Of course, members are free to refuse a match. In that case, Rev. Moon often has offered an alternative match.
When international membership exceeded 10,000 members it became impractical to conduct matching ceremonies, so Father Moon began using pictures attached to application forms. He still used his talent of spiritual discernment to arrange the matches. Reportedly, the process can take as little as a few seconds per couple. It's not just him: he has help from God and his angels, of course. Sometimes church elders even make specific suggestions.
For the second generation of church members, that is, sons and daughters of Blessed members, the parents do the arranging.
