Claim. Hendricks argues the Unification community is properly described as a “church” — not a movement, culture, or family-society hybrid — because in identity (being) and mission (doing) it fulfills the Christian theological definition: the community of blessed couples is the body and bride of Christ (i.e., of True Parents).
Elaboration. The argument has two prongs (is-this-a-church):
- Identity (being): the church is the body of Christ — which in UC theology means the body of True Parents. It is also the bride of Christ. Blessed couples, on earth and in heaven, constitute both. The body of Christ is constituted by a change of blood lineage through the sacrament of the Blessing — a physical rebirth.
- Mission (doing): the church is the assembly in which the Word is spoken and the sacraments given. For UC, the Word of True Parents and the Blessing fulfill this role.
Hendricks anticipates the counter-view (held by some Unificationists themselves) that the True Parents founded “something between a family and a culture and not a religion,” and that the UC mission is therefore not to grow a church. He rejects this, arguing the church is the proper vehicle precisely because of what the Blessing is and does.
Hendricks’s eschatological coda: when the Word and Blessing are fulfilled universally, the Unification Church will dissolve as a distinct institution — becoming coterminous with the human race.
See also. blessing, true-parents