Why Abel is Abel

In a former blog i wrote about the principle of Cain-Abel restoration. In the principle of Cain-Abel restoration the words 'Cain' and 'Abel' are used to characterize positions in relation to another. Abel here means a person who is representing God to his brother Cain, who is struggling to liberate himself from attacks of forces of evil. The purpose of the restoration of the relationship between Cain and Abel is first for both Cain and Abel to come closer to God and second for them to improve their human relationship, but centered on God.

To describe the positions of Cain and Abel i often prefer to use the words 'worldly' for the position of Cain and the word 'heavenly' for the position of Abel.

There is much confusion about what the concepts of Cain and Abel really mean. This is mainly due to the misuse of these concepts as qualifications for certain people. The words Cain and Abel are then used as a kind of noun or adverb to qualify those believed to be Abel and to disqualify those believed to be Cain. Sometimes people say that a person is Abel or that someone is an Abel person, meaning that this person would be 'good.' And to be Cain or a Cain person would mean that the person is bad. This is a misuse of the meaning of the concepts of Cain and Abel in the principles of restoration.

In the original meaning, both Cain and Abel are children of God and they both have a mission that they received from God. When people in the positions of Cain and Abel are fulfilling their missions they are growing in their course of restoration to find God.

Let us examine here why Abel is Abel.

The original Abel

For Abel there was nobody standing in the Abel position in relation to him. Abel was Abel because of an inherited heavenly position. That heavenly position meant that Abel could be reached by God and by heavenly spirits, in Abel's case we assume that these heavenly spirits were heavenly angels.

When someone is standing in the Abel or heavenly position it has nothing to do with an external position in an organization. When you are Abel you are Abel because, just like it was the case for Abel, you can be reached by God and consequently God can send heavenly angels and spirits to support you. To be 'Abel' means to be connected to God while at the same time not being controlled by evil spirits.

To keep your position as Abel you need to do God's will daily. You need to continously live a life of prayer to God and to continuously let the direction of your actions be determined by God.

Standing in this position it is more important that you have your personal relationship to God than to have contact to good spirits. You need your good relationship to God to judge the spirits that come to you. Also heavenly angels and spirits can make mistakes or sometimes they are being subdued by evil spirits. The heavenly angel that inspired and helped you yesterday may have made a mistake today. Your spiritual situation will change instantly in such a case, but you may not notice it right away. Sometimes the place of heavenly spirits is secretly taken by evil and misleading spirits. In such a case your only safety net is your relationship to God.

For Abel, his relationship to God always must be subject while his relationship to good spirits is object in relation to that.

The misunderstood position of Abel

In the Unification Church the positions of Cain and Abel have frequently be misunderstood and misused. The position of Abel then came to mean something like 'the position of an accepted leader' or 'the position of a leader appointed by Sun Myung Moon.' But even if Mr. Moon would have correctly chosen the person who was Abel at the moment of being appointed, that doesn't guarantee that this person can keep that position all the time. People make mistakes.

Furthermore, the positions of Cain and Abel should not be understood as being permanent. In reality, when two people meet, the qualifications of Cain and Abel are set at that moment and are open for change.

The names Cain and Abel should solely be understood as concepts for principles of restoration.

Another commonly made mistake is that the positions of Abel are thought to belong to people of a certain lineage. For example, in the Unification Church, the children of Moon were seen as Abel in relation to all other members.

Even though the qualification of being Abel can be inherited (for example Abel became 'Abel' as the second son of Adam), that by no means is a certificate engraved in stone. As shown above, one is Abel because of an actual and close relationship to God and in addition to that and consequently having the aid of good angels and spirits.

Sometimes people make mistakes and at that moment, almost instantly, the positions of Cain and Abel can swift. The one who was Abel may temporary become Cain and someone else may need to fulfill as Abel.

The pride to be Abel and the pride to be Cain

In order to overcome the problem of misunderstanding the positions of Cain and Abel i would advise that these names are firstly understood as responsibilities. Both Cain and Abel got a responsibility and mission from God. For your being loved by God it makes no difference whether you are 'Cain' or you are 'Abel.' Nobody is Abel all the time and nobody is Cain all the time. These positions are open for change in each new relationship and also for each new situation in an existing relationship.

To be Cain in a relationship with someone as Abel is a honor. It is a task given by God to protect and love that Abel person. And to be Abel in such a situation is a honor, a responsibility to keep your good love for God and to pass on that love to the one who is in the worldly position to you at that moment.

Ideally, the Cain-Abel relationship is resolved by Cain and Abel uniting centered on God. At that moment, one cannot anymore speak of the one person being Cain and the other being Abel. When two people are united in love, as brothers or sisters under God's love, it does not matter anymore who was Cain and who was Abel. The purpose of the task to solve a Cain-Abel relationship is that Cain and Abel unite in love centered on God.

For this it is paramount that this loving unity is initiated by Abel being in the subject position to Cain. In case that unity is a result of Cain becoming subject over Abel, the unity may be there but is not anymore centered on God.

It is therefore so important that the positions of Cain and Abel are not misunderstood, are not given to the wrong people.

See also this speech that Rev. Moon gave on Dec. 30, 1979:

Abel's Right Path From The Providential Point Of View

Hyung Jin Moon's sermon June 20, 2009

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Title of sermon nr 77: Desiring the promise

In this sermon Hyung Jin Moon begins with saying that

"God wishes us to be ... influential and powerful, have great wealth for us and our Unification movement."

Read my blog "What could be wrong with wishing affluence and influence?" for my comments on his sermon.

Misunderstandings of the Cain-Abel principle in the Unification Church

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In my former blog i touched upon this topic, saying that "The matter of position in the world is really one of restoration of the right order that should exist between people, Cain and Abel in Unification Church terminology. Each person should develop an individual relationship to God and become 'Abel' or take a heavenly position to other people around. That is not a matter of authority first of all. It is a matter of directly being inspired by God's Spirit, again and again, each day."

Over the decades that i studied the principles about Cain-Abel restoration of the Unification Church, how they were written and how they were practiced, i noticed a long list of misunderstandings of what these principles mean and how they should be applied.

I shall need to write about this again and again, therefore here follows a first exposé.

Where does the principle of Cain-Abel restoration come from?

The human fall away from God can be understood as a fall of man under evil angels. Angels existed before God created humans. Human beings live on earth. Angels live in spirit world. Some angels take leading positions and are called archangels. It was the task of archangels and angels to prepare the world for the creation of human beings and to assist these humans in their course of development.

But certain angels who deviated from God's ways have found ways to control and dominate man. This is a problem that Adam and Eve could not overcome and it is the reason for their fall and being expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Because of the fall, the evil archangel came to stand inbetween God and man. This is a problem that needs to be resolved. It is a spiritual problem first of all, as angels are dwelling in the spiritual world. Man, that is "Adam,' and the fallen evil archangel, that is 'Lucifer or Satan.' I am using here the terminology as applied by Unificationists. When Adam could not restore his original position under God and he was thrown out from the Garden of Eden, the task to restore himself as Adam was inherited by his second son Abel. In the task to restore man, Cain stood in the position of the archangel. Therefore, the process of restoration of Cain and Abel is actually the same as that of Adam and the fallen archangel, be it that Cain and Abel were both humans and that Cain was living in the physical world and not in spirit world like the original fallen archangel.

Cain had the problem that the fallen archangel liked him and came to him and tried to influence him. Abel was visited by more heavenly angels. Therefore, Cain had the task to overcome the evil nature of the fallen archangel. Abel had the task to pass on to Cain the spiritiual inspiration he got from God and good angels.

What about the relationship that Cain and Abel had to God? We read in the Book of Genesis that both Cain and Abel brought offerings to God. Also Cain prayed to God and got answers from God, as we read that God spoke to him after Cain had failed his offering.

This is important to note, because it means that both Cain and Abel were religious people. They believed in God, they prayed to God and they brought offerings to God.

Something went wrong with Cain's offering and after God had rejected his offering, Cain expressed his hatred against Abel and killed Abel.

The principle of Cain-Abel restoration is for both Cain and Abel. Abel is a kind of 'chosen one' who received God's revelations. Cain had the task to overcome the influence from evil spirits. Abel had the task to love his elder brother, to pass God's love on to Cain. Cain had the task to protect his younger brother, to give love to Abel by protecting him and uniting with him.

If Cain had fulfilled his mission and if Abel had not been killed, then they could have restored the positions of the archangel and Adam, respectively. From there on, both Abel and Cain would have gotten new tasks in their courses of restoration, both moving up to a more advanced level.

False understanding of who is Cain and who is Abel

Many members of the Unification Church believe that the leaders are 'Abel' and the ones under them in the hierarchy are 'Cain.' Also the people outside of the movement are commonly categorized as being 'Cain.' Rev. Moon is seen as the Abel standing above all other Abels. Therefore, according to this thinking, Rev. Moon should be obeyed and also the leaders who received orders from Rev. Moon.

What is wrong with this thinking?

Abel is the one who is inspired and receives inspiration from God and heavenly spirit world. Cain is the one who is attacked by evil spirits and who needs to separate from that.

Cain is the elder one, having the responsibility to protect the younger brother, Abel. When we apply this thinking to positions in the Unification Church, then the elder ones, usually the leaders, should be called Cain. This is something that was also said by Rev. Moon in older speeches. Abel is the younger one, the more inspired one.

Could it not be so that people outside of the Unification Church have a strong desire for God and can be reached by God and therefore are in Abel position to many members inside of the Unification Church? Could it not be so that leaders in the Unification Church, having lost their original love for God and claiming authority based on being elder, are actually the ones to be called Cain?

The Cain-Abel principle of restoration is not about a hierarchy of who has to obey whom. It is a principle that refers to restoration of spiritual realities, Cain being the one who inherited a more difficult spiritual situation in respect to Abel. At the same time, Cain often is the elder one, with more experience and knowledge, but less zeal. Abel could be a young child that shows to us God's love. Should we obey that child? Yes and no. We should learn and inherit from that child's love and purity, but we cannot of course not trust the child to guide us in all matters of life. It is than our task as 'Cain' to protect that child against any intrusion from evil spirits.

The Cain-Abel principle of restoration has nothing to do with a hierarchy of leaders. In fact, the system of leaders and followers is one that is alien to the world of humans. Humans live in families. The system of a leader with many followers is one derived from the world of leading archangels with angels under them.

This means that the entire idea of leaders being Abel and younger members being Cain is one that comes from the world of angels. It is not something to be desired. It is something to be overcome.

Of course, something of this idea we find back in Rev. Moon's idea that blessed families are to be the center of the Kingdom of Heaven. This could be a good principle, but only if the members of those families also really are having their personal relationship to God, will act from that relationship and not from simply following leaders, not even if that leader carries the name Rev. Moon.

Read the next blog on this topic

What could be wrong with wishing affluence and influence?

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A philosophy has taken hold of some or many Unificationists that God wants them to have affluence (wealth) and influence in the world. Watch this video of a recent sermon by Hyung Jin Moon, Sun Myung Moon's successor, to get an impression of this kind of thinking.

But it matters not who is saying it now, because the idea that God wants Unification Church members to be rich and influential has already been embraced since the earliest beginnings of the movement. Behind their thinking is the belief that they are God's chosen ones, God's central ones, those who are building God's Kingdom on earth. Therefore, so is their reasoning, it must be that God wants them to control this world so everyone would be able to find God. And of course, one cannot control this world without money and power, so is their thinking.

Let us examine these thoughts a little more deeply and come to some conclusions. The main question and title of this blog is: "What could be wrong with wishing influence and affluence?"

The original meaning of money and the practice of offering

In order to get a deeper understanding, let's look at the original meaning of money. Money stands for 'things of creation.' With money you can buy houses, land, food, clothing and many more things.

When Unificationists believe that they have the right to own much wealth, it means they want money.

Originally all things belong to God. In history, present and future, all things belong to God. When we look around us, however, we see that many things in this world are owned by people who don't believe in God or who say they believe in God but have no close relationship to God. God gave to Adam and Eve the task to have good dominion over the entire Earth. When people have fallen away from God and don't believe in God anymore, or don't practice living with and under God, then also all their things don't really belong to God anymore.

God cannot control the Earth in the way God would wish it because so many people misuse property for self-centered purposes. This reality has to do with the reality of man's fall away from God. God can only have dominion over what God once created when people live under God in a way pleasing to God. God must dominate the Earth and all things through man, for the very simple reason that man was created with freedom and could decide to do things against or without God.

It is therefore our personal choice to want to live with God and to let God determine what we do with all our things.

Because people fell away from God and consequently also all things fell away from God, it became necessary that we offer everything back to God. The practice of offering is known to all religions although not all offerings in all religions are brought to God the Creator.

We need to offer all things back to God. How can this be done? There are principles for offering. Let me state the two most important principles here:

1. All offerings must be brought to God.

2. All offerings must be cleansed and therefore split in a heavenly and a worldly part (or in an Abel and Cain part).

When we possess money or things, they need to be offered to God. How can they be offered to God? There are many ceremonies of offering and usually the offering is done through a priest or highpriest. The priest of highpriest is responsible to receive the offerings and to make sure that these offerings are purified before they are offered to God. In case that you want to offer to God and there is no priest available ordained by God, you must make your offerings directly to God.

Important to note here is that all offerings must be brought to God. It doesn't matter whether these offerings go through the mediation of a priest or not. In either case, the offerings are to God. You are God's child and you can only reconnect to God through your own direct relationship to God. Even when a priest of however high rank takes your offerings as a mediator, you still need your personal relationship to God. A priest can help you to bring the offerings correctly, but the priest should never replace God in such a way that the ones offering neglect their personal relationship to God.

Let's try to understand more about the second principle, that offerings need to be split and cleansed. Why is that? Imagine that someone stole a house from you and lived in it for a long time. The thief never gives the house back to you. Now the thief dies and his son realizes that he lives in a stolen house and wants to return it to you. But his father made changes in the house. The house is not anymore the same as when it was stolen from you. This means that to offer the house back to you, a cleansing is necessary. The son needs to get rid of everything in the house that doesn't belong to you and the son needs to offer the house back in it's original state, cleansed and purified.

Likewise, whatever we offer to God, we are responsible to cleanse and purify our offerings.

How does this relate to money?

When we possess money, we cannot just use it. Before we can use it, we need to offer it back to God. And in order to offer it back to God we need to start developing a good relationship to God, which can only be done by doing God's will. When we offer money to God, we cannot just offer all money to God. For example, if we acquired money in a wrong way by working for some kind of evil company, then that money is stained. Also when we acquired money from bribes, from people who want to 'buy' their salvation in an easy way, we cannot just offer that money to God. If the ones from whom you got the money had selfish motives for giving the money to you, you cannot just pass that money on to God, because these people would make claims on the life and work you do for God and with that money.

We need to be very careful whenever we offer money or things to God. We cannot just say that because we are chosen by God, therefore all our money anyway belongs to God. All the time, each thing and all money that comes in our hands, must go through a proper ceremony of offering.

The world can come back to God through such processes of offerings that are conducted in the right way. There is no automation here and there are no people, not even the 'highest in God's kingdom' who could neglect the main principles of offering.

The original meaning of influence and power

What is true for money and things also is very much true for influence and power. Our influence and power, which equate to having position in the world, must be offered to God.

In upcoming articles i shall write more about this, but here i shall only state that we cannot assume that because we once got an important and central mission from God, we would not be in need anymore to offer all that we own and are to God.

No person can automatically assume that they are God's chosen ones or people, just because they once received a central mission. That mission is a task given, it is not a qualification. Only when a 'chosen one' continues to improve his or her relationship to God and is doing God's will all the time, then the mission can be fulfilled, gradually over a long time and sometimes many generations.

The matter of position in the world is really one of restoration of the right order that should exist between people, Cain and Abel in Unification Church terminology. Each person should develop an individual relationship to God and become 'Abel' or take a heavenly position to other people around. That is not a matter of authority first of all. It is a matter of directly being inspired by God's Spirit, again and again, each day.

For God it is not most essential that God's chosen ones come to rule the world, not as long as this world is so much in need of restoration. More important than influence it is to help people in such a way that they can find their personal relationship to God. And that is only possible in your individual relationship to God and to other indivduals. It isn't possible in large-scale projects and by just speaking to large crowds. Even though such projects and speeches may be helpful, they cannot replace your individual task to learn to relate to God and to individual people.

First conclusions

Is it not strange that Unificationists who supposedly are 'God's children' would speak so much about affluence and influence? Is this not just the same as speaking about money and power? What kind of people want money and power? Is the present world not ruled by people who are out for money and power?

Is it religion when we desire for money and power? Should we not much more desire to understand how we can restore our heart of love? Should we not much more desire to understand how to practice God's principles in our daily lives?

I find it very strange and suspicious, to say the least, when leaders in the Unificationist movement are all the time out to get more money and power in this world.

Read the next blog in this series

Slideshow of photos in all blogs of Truth Lover

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Videos of Sun Myung Moon's family

To watch the videos, click on the pictures.

Hyo Jin Moon in 2004 - screenshot


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Kook Jin Moon & wife - screenshot


Hyun Jin Moon (far left) singing in Germany, 2007 - screenshot


Hyun Jin Moon in South Korea, 2006 - screenshot


Hyung Jin Moon interviewed in Korea (2007) - screenshot


Sun Jin Moon giving sermon on Sept. 27, 2008 - screenshot
See many more videos and podcasts with sermons of Moon's children


In Jin Moon singing - screenshot