When a nation erases a religion as a legal entity, what do believers across the sea have to say?
On 4 March 2026, the Tokyo High Court issued a ruling that erased the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification as a legal entity.
A few weeks later, in April, five Christian Bishops who had crossed the ocean from the United States gathered with more than one hundred second-generation Family Federation believers at a venue in Tokyo.
For the Japanese believers, it became a moment that showed the world they were not standing alone.
The venue hosted a talk session bringing together second-generation believers from Japan and the United States alongside subject-matter experts. The five Bishops who had crossed the ocean, Japanese experts, and second-generation believers from both countries gathered in one room to speak openly about what was unfolding in Japan.
The Bishops grounded their message of encouragement in scripture and in the solidarity of believers across borders.
The panel was moderated by Tamami of UPF Japan and featured Secretary-General Uotani and attorney Nakayama Tatsuki as the Japanese panelists.
The American clergy:
Uotani put questions to the visiting clergy in turn, while Nakayama provided legal context for a Japanese audience following via livestream.
Bishop Ronald Thomas, the first to speak, said the dissolution news had come as a shock, but that prayer had brought him to a different reading rooted in the long arc of scripture.
"Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, when persecution has come, it has always been followed by promise."
That, he said, was why he was in Tokyo at all. He had come not to mourn but to ask how he himself could grow through what was unfolding, and the work, he added, was "not for America, not for Japan, but for the Kingdom of God."
Bishop Abram Dixon, addressing the church closures, said the most troubling element was that operational preparations had clearly been completed before the court ruled.
He acknowledged the practical weight pressing on Japanese believers — congregations now uncertain how next month's bills would be paid — but framed the answer in providential terms.
"God is alive, and God has prepared everything for His children. God is protecting Japan. You will all flourish. It will be alright."
Bishop Edward Barnett. traced religious freedom to its biblical foundations, recalling Moses leading his people out of slavery, the commandment that God alone be worshipped, and Jesus reaffirming that same instruction.
"Freedom transcends every domain. The state can constrain the body. It can agitate the soul. But what no human power can do is touch the soul itself. That, I believe, is the freedom of worship."
His framing echoed broader international observations on the Japan case. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has recommended that Japan refrain from restricting religious freedom on the basis of "public welfare," noting that Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not allow such restrictions.
Bishop Leonard Dew, who had traveled from the California Bay Area, opened by thanking the Japanese members for the welcome before turning to a question that often divides Christian clergy: the meaning of denominational difference.
The visiting pastors all belonged to different traditions, he acknowledged, and from the outside the resulting branches could even resemble a "social club." But the branches, he insisted, all returned to the same body. "We are all one."
In his closing message of encouragement to the Japanese members, he pressed the same conviction further.
"We are one. We are one through faith in Jesus. And we share the same mission. Through Spirit and truth, we offer all glory to God, and by lifting up and praising God together with the people of Japan here, we are one."
Bishop John Watts, asked about the meaning of a community of believers when the corporate church itself was being dismantled, offered the panel's most quoted line.
"The community of believers is not a place. Wherever you go, you yourself are the church."
Addressing the second-generation members directly, he continued:
"In this difficult time, your identity is Christ Himself. A place is not the church. You yourselves are the church where God dwells."
He also described the freedom of worship as a God-given right that allowed believers to "stand before God without shame," and pointed to the youth turnout in the room as evidence that "God is at work in Japan, and God is alive."
Attorney Nakayama answered legal questions from the floor.
Restarting under the same name in Japan after a full dissolution would be very difficult, he said, but no Japanese law forces religious organisations to register with the state, and believers retain the right to assemble.
Overturning the ruling through Japanese courts alone would also be very difficult, which made international support essential.
He highlighted that the court itself had held that the actions of Yamagami Tetsuya, the man convicted of assassinating former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in 2022, "have no relation whatsoever to the dissolution of the Family Federation."
The U.S. State Department has noted that Japan's use of civil litigation to justify dissolution contradicts the common sense and norms of liberal democratic nations, according to the Family Federation's world mission headquarters.
Bishop Edward Barnett turned to Dr. Hak Ja Han, the Family Federation's leader.
He praised the unshaken posture carried through from the days of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, then turned to Han's own ongoing trial in South Korea. Her composure throughout that trial, he said, was showing the second-generation members the path toward deeper faith and greater unity with God — and giving them courage.
"Mother (Dr. Han) is unshaken. I am unshaken. In this time, we will not give up. We will not stay silent. We will keep crying out, every last one of us, until the walls of Jericho fall."
He noted Dr. Han's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and said he had been deeply moved to see Japanese believers and American clergy standing as one.
Among the participants in the venue, T-shirts and handheld signs reading "HELP" or "HELP OUR CHURCH" were visible throughout the room. American second-generation believers have been carrying these messages on T-shirts and signs as part of an ongoing campaign of support for Japan's Family Federation.
At the close of the forum, Bishop Watts traced the Latin root of that same word "help" to a term meaning rope, the kind sailors use to bind cargo before a storm.
"We are not going to be scattered. God is binding our cargo together, with the ropes of many nations and the ropes of the world."
The Bishops, together with the Japanese believers, declared that the work of God in Japan would continue regardless of legal obstacles. Members of the Family Federation around the world are watching over their brothers and sisters in Japan, sending their support so that they may overcome this trial.
The pastors then declared together with the Japanese members that the work of God would continue in Japan regardless of legal obstacles.
The unusual visit of five US Christian Bishops to Tokyo signals that the dissolution of the Family Federation is no longer being seen as a domestic religious-corporation matter, but as a question of religious freedom that crosses borders.
The "international support" that attorney Nakayama repeatedly described as essential had, on this day, taken visible form inside the Tokyo venue.
Talk Session Between Japanese and American Second Generation and Experts Full Video : https://www.youtube.com/live/YgmIoCEpPSk?si=_2ATENpzL8ln5Dkj