Since Andrew Kessler took a snippet of a conversation I had with him and made a post responding to that snippet, I think I should provide you with the whole content of my position. Many of you still won't like it, but at least you will see that I had something different in mind:
"Father's words are such a great gift to humanity. It doesn't matter which Cheon Seong Gyeong you read. Better still, read the original speeches from which those passages were drawn. I would like to think that this could be a point of agreement between us."
"In the future, there will be hundreds of books of Father's words, published for all sorts of purposes. Then, the current spat about which Cheon Seong Gyeong to use will seem like a tempest in a teapot."
"The FFWPU elders whom I know study Father's original speeches in the 600+ volumes of his original words. They are among the 8 Textbooks, which SC honors, and they are also honored by FFWPU members. Both Cheong Seong Gyeongs are simply excerpts from the 600 volumes. Those original speeches are the standard, from which all the anthologies such as the Cheon Seong Gyeong and Chambumo Gyeong are made. This is yet another reason why the controversy over the CSGs is nothing but a tempest in a teapot."
"The CSG of 2006 was first created by Japanese members as a 12-book witnessing tool, and Father liked it and adopted it. Regardless of its official status in the 8 textbooks, the need for witnessing materials that excerpt passages from Father's speeches will continue, and I believe more such books will be created in the future. As we have already, there will be more and more books of Father's words on peace, Father's words on marriage, Father's words on mind-body training, Father's words on the significance of True Parents, and so on; these will proliferate as the need for them grows. The CSG in either incarnation is too massive to be used for witnessing, where pocket-sized books will be required. Ultimately, the utility of any book is how widely it is used, and I believe new books will come into existence for wide distribution to the public."
Let me add, that based on my study of the Bible, I can tell you that almost every book written or compiled by a prophet or revelator was subsequently edited again by a later editor or editors before reaching the current form that we have it in the Bible. Yet the work of those editors will ever be secondary to the original prophet or revelator, whose words he edited. Accordingly, I believe that 100, 1000 years from now, it is True Father's words that will be valued, and today's hot dispute over which anthology to draw them from will seem like "a tempest in a teapot."
By the way, I use both Cheon Seong Gyeongs. I find pros and cons in each of them. The new Cheon Seong Gyeong has unique material from Father's late period, while in some cases the first Cheon Seong Gyeong has better material. In my research, and in my recent presentation at the leaders' conference in Korea, I used passages from both. And one of the best things about the first Cheon Seong Gyeong is that it is available in PDF format. If any of you don't have it and would like a copy, drop me a private message with your email address and I will send you a link to download it.
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