The time has come for you as well to open your hearts and receive the secrets that Heaven is disclosing in this age through me. In one sense, I am a human being living with a physical body like each of you. But in the context of Heaven’s providence, I am God’s ambassador, sent to earth with His full authority. I am sent to accomplish His command to save the world’s six billion people, restoring them to Heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.

These are the words of Rev. Sun Myung Moon from a March ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington D.C., which honored the reverend and businessman and was attended by more than a dozen lawmakers. Paul Smith describes a video of the ceremony in the Chicago-based blog Polis, focusing in on the actions of Illinois Democrat Danny K. Davis:

It’s a longish video, but you need only watch the first few minutes which focus on the March 23rd event at the Senate Office Building. In it, we see Rep. Davis reading from a poem written by Moon, some treacle about a “crown of glory.” Moments later, during the “highlight” of the evening — the “Crown Peace Ceremony” in which Moon and his wife are enrobed and various figures come before them and bow [a pang in my heart as I hear the name of the Congressman of my home district in Maryland, Roscoe Bartlett, announced] — Rep. Davis, wearing a set of white gloves, brings Moon a crown on a velvet pillow. (House Speaker Denny Hastert (IL 14, R) is also named in the video as having sent congratulations to Moon.)

“Does Congressman Danny Davis (IL 7, D) have some explaining to do?” asks Smith.  

I think I can state without hyperbole that this video is truly one of the most unsettling things I have seen: to see members of Congress participating in a cult-like ceremony in which a right-wing media tycoon and leader of a controversial church is proclaimed the messiah is nauseating. I’m not a Christian or even religious for that matter, so it’s not as if I’m offended by Moon’s claims (except on an intellectual level, of course). Is it really necessary to state that I am disturbed to see our elected representatives credulously and subserviently going along with it?

Davis, while not a powerful Congressman, has been a reliable liberal and advocate for the poor, as he was during his time as 29th Ward alderman in the Harold Washington [Chicago’s first Black Mayor] era. What’s he doing not just allowing himself to be seen cavorting with Moon, but actively participating in a cult-like ceremony? Should Illinois democrats … be concerned? And how do South and West Side black ministers — a large base of political clout for Davis, a Baptist — feel about it?

While other politicians who were present at the ceremony have distanced themselves from Rev. Moon, Davis has been less apologetic. Speaking to Christopher Hayes of the Chicago Reader, he offered, “You know the Boy Scouts have rituals that they go through and they make individuals Eagle Scouts and they give awards and presentations.”

Davis has a point. We do have rituals left and right in our society — religious ones, secular ones and many that hover somewhere in between. But very few of them have our senators and representatives listening to, let alone crowning, keynote speakers that go on like this:      

The five great saints and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin, who committed all manner of barbarity and murders on earth, and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons. Emperors, kings and presidents who enjoyed opulence and power on earth, and even journalists who had worldwide fame, have now placed themselves at the forefront of the column of the true love revolution. Together they have sent to earth a resolution expressing their determination in the light of my teaching of the true family ideal. They have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. This resolution has been announced on every corner of the globe.

But I’ll let Smith have the final thought. After all, this is one of a growing number of important news stories that marinates in the blogs before being cherry-picked by the big print boys. Tune into Polis for Smith’s ongoing Moon-Davis Watch.  

Davis dismisses the event as “symbolic” and yet fails to grasp that it’s precisely the symbology of this religious ceremony taking place on government grounds with governmental countenance that’s set this whole thing in motion. Davis comes across as a dupe or a low-rent flak for Moon, and I don’t know which is worse. In any case, Davis is clearly willing to risk being seen as a loony cultist rather than running afoul of Moon, for what reason, we still do not know.

Benjamin Helphand