Claim. Death is not extinction but birth into God’s infinite realm of love — the moment of leaving limited earthly love and entering joyful infinite love — and humans were designed to welcome it rather than fear it.
Elaboration. SMM names death affirmatively as a second birth: “Death means to be born in God’s love. But in the human world, people make a fuss, saying, ‘Oh, I am dying!’ Seeing this, would God laugh merrily or would He exclaim, ‘Oh, no!’?” (2.1. Death is the inevitable conclusion of earthly life, 116-172, 1982.1.1). The affirmative reframing is grounded in purpose: “We die for the sake of God’s true love. The reason we discard our physical body is to actively participate in the work of God’s infinite love” (ibid). The fear-of-death is reframed as a barrier to God-relation: “You cannot establish a relationship with God without liberating yourself from the fear of death” (ibid). The implication for pastoral practice is significant — Christian mourning should be replaced with Seunghwa celebration, and death-anxiety in healthy Unificationists should diminish rather than grow.