Claim. The Divine Principle’s Principle of Restoration (per EDP p. 194) teaches that the universal human desire to come before God is satisfied through meeting an Abel figure and uniting with him — and the verb “meet” is load-bearing: not seeing on television, not hearing in a stadium, but actual personal contact.
Elaboration. Per principle-of-restoration, quoting EDP:
“…the universal tendency to seek out good leaders and righteous friends stems from our innermost desire to come before God through an Abel figure who is closer to God. By uniting with him, we can come closer to God ourselves. The Christian faith teaches us to be meek and humble. By this way of life, we may meet our Abel figure and thus secure the way to go before God.”
Hendricks’s operational reading is sharp: “I’ve seen many presidents on television, but have I ever met one? No. I’ve heard Billy Graham preach in a stadium, but did I ever meet him? No. Change comes from human touch, human contact. To the new person, the usher whom they meet is more important than the senior pastor in the pulpit.”
The structural consequence: a church relying on broadcasts, streamed sermons, mass-audience preaching, or remote celebrity-pastor figures cannot satisfy the Restoration condition DP describes. Only embodied, personal, member-to-member encounter can. This grounds the populist insistence on lay-led small groups, member-to-member welcome, and local-pastor accessibility.
Application across UC: Hendricks specifically praises Rev. In Jin Moon’s practice of personally greeting and shaking hands with all members after worship services as fulfilling this principle. By the same criterion, UC’s heavy reliance on large-event speeches and broadcast sermons (without comparable individual contact infrastructure) violates the Restoration condition.
See also. populist-church