Question. Per dp-popular-acclaim-conditional-on-fulfilled-responsibility, DP teaches that popular acclaim for the Second Advent is conditional on humans fulfilling their portion of responsibility. Jesus’s crucifixion is the paradigm case in Christianity of failed human responsibility (the Jewish leadership did not recognize him), and yet the church succeeded post-resurrection via apostolic action. What is the analogous UC account for failed responsibility in the Second Advent era — given that broad public acclaim did not arrive during Sun Myung Moon’s lifetime?
Why it matters. Two answers are theologically distinct. (a) The providence is delayed but not cancelled — believers still bear responsibility, and the failure cost time without changing outcome. (b) The providence had to be re-routed through a different mechanism (Blessing-on-millions, post-mortem providence, post-2012 successor) once primary responsibility was unfulfilled. The two have very different implications for what current UC members should be doing. They also affect how to read the post-2012 succession fracture.
Current best guesses. Hendricks’s framing in BR favors (a) — the populist call is a course correction toward fulfilling what was missed. But (b) is implicit in some FFWPU framings post-2012. EDP’s “Periods of Restoration” and “Foundation of Substance / Foundation of Faith” sections should clarify what DP says about restoration after responsibility-failure.
Source. Raised in br-01-church-growth-begins-with-god REVIEW, from dp-popular-acclaim-conditional-on-fulfilled-responsibility.