IMPERFECT WORLD SADDENS GOD, MISSIONARY SAYS

God is unhappy and is suffering because the world is imperfect, says Margaret Mead, state leader in Utah for The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.

Mead, a member of the Unification Church since 1977 and a church missionary for nearly 10 years, said her religion believes God is unfulfilled and it is man's responsibility to make the world a better place and to help make God happy.Led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a native of North Korea who started his ministry as a youth, the Unification Church now has about three million members worldwide, mostly in Korea and Japan, and about 10,000 missionaries in the United States, Mead said.

Despite negative publicity generated by the Rev. Moon's arrest in 1955 for draft evasion (e was freed three months later and acquitted) and his prison stay for income-tax evasion (e was released in July 1985 after serving nearly 12 months of an 18-month sentence), the Unification Church is flourishing, Mead said.

"The reputation of our church was damaged for awhile, but not for long, and slowly and surely our members are changing the hearts of many. When people get to know us, they get a much different idea of the church than the one once portrayed in the media."

She said the Unification Church is a Christian church, based on the Bible. Founded officially on May 1, 1954, it had its beginnings on Easter morning, April 7, 1936, when 16-year-old Sun Myung Moon was praying on a cold Korean hillside. "The spirit of Jesus appeared to him and spoke to him about Christianity in the world and asked him to continue Jesus' own mission by bringing a deeper understanding of God to humankind."

For nine years, while the Rev. Moon attended high school and college, he studied the Bible and finally worked out a series of principles, Mead said, through which many of the unsolved mysteries of the Old and New Testaments were illuminated.

"During this time, North Korea was occupied by Soviet troops and ruled by a communist government. Following a call from God, he went to the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, and began preaching the word of God."

She said the Rev. Moon was arrested, tortured and left for dead outside the Dae Dong Police Station. "His congregation found him, bleeding and unconscious, lying in the snow and prepared for his funeral, but one young man treated his injuries with herbal medicines and, miraculously, the Rev. Moon survived."