2. Unity against a Common Enemy
World Scripture
Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
Matthew 12.25
My children, war, fear, and disunity have brought you from your villages to this sacred council fire. Facing a common danger, and fearing for the lives of your families, you have yet drifted apart, each tribe thinking and acting only for itself. Remember how I took you from one small band and nursed you into many nations. You must reunite now and act as one. No tribe alone can withstand our savage enemies, who care nothing about the eternal law, who sweep upon us like the storms of winter, spreading death and destruction everywhere.
My children, listen well. Remember that you are brothers, that the downfall of one means the downfall of all. You must have one fire, one pipe, one war club.59
Tekanawita (Native American Religion)
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.56
Benjamin Franklin
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.
Abraham Lincoln57
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.58
Martin Niemöller (Christianity)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Why did God place Israel as a colony of the evil Roman Empire? It was so the Jews would unite internally around a movement for independence, so that they would make the foundation to stand against the Roman Empire. God often uses a providential strategy of raising a strong enemy to unite His people. If you visit the Catacombs in Rome and see the Christians’ underground dwellings, you can witness how strongly united those Christians were in the face of terrible persecution from Rome. Like the Jews who faced Roman power, God put the Christians in the same situation in order to make them unite.
(105:124-25, October 4, 1979)
Today, you and I stand together facing a common destiny… I know to my bones that people who advocate righteousness in this evil world can be eliminated easily if they lack a substantial foundation. Therefore, professors and students, together with Christians and believers of all religions, should stand together.
(129:304, November 25, 1983)