Claim. True Parents are needed only because the unfallen Adam and Eve failed; had they aligned with God’s original will, the realm of love would have emerged directly, and when it finally does emerge, ‘the Unification Church will become obsolete.’
Elaboration. This is one of the most ecclesiologically striking statements in the chapter. SMM frames True Parents not as an eternal feature of the divine order but as a remedy. ‘The unfallen Adam and Eve should have aligned completely with the original will of God. They should have accomplished the ideal of oneness with God and established the world of love, with the unified realm of heart at the core’ (Section 6. The True Parents are What do the Unification Church members call me? They call me the True Parent. The words “True Parent” are fearsome words. It is also a great thing). The original design was for parent-child unity through Adam and Eve themselves, not for a second messianic intervention.
The self-limiting move on the church is direct: ‘On the day this realm of love appears in the world, the Unification Church will become obsolete. The world will not be needed either.’ This is unusual within new religious movements — most do not theorize their own obsolescence. It signals that the Unification Church is conceived as a providential vehicle, not a permanent institution. Its raison d’être is the establishment of the realm of love; once that obtains, the vehicle is unnecessary.
This frames the whole True Parents project as instrumental rather than terminal. The terminal goal is the family that ‘emerged from the womb of God’s love as a model’ — the four-position-foundation realized at the originally-intended Adamic level. SMM repeats: ‘We must put the nation and world aside and find this family. This has to happen. We must seek out this family even if we have to abandon everything.’
The ecclesiological humility here sits in interesting tension with other passages emphasizing the cosmic uniqueness and historical singularity of the True Parents. The synthesis is probably that the True Parents are uniquely necessary now (during the Completed Testament Age) but not uniquely necessary forever — the original design did not require them. Worth a thread comparing this self-obsolescence claim with similar moves in Pauline eschatology (‘then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father,’ 1 Cor 15:24).