UNIFICATION CHURCH

History

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity was organized in 1954 in Seoul, South Korea by Rev. Sun Myung Moon ["One who has clarified the Truth"]. Some sources say the organization started in Pusan, not Seoul. Its followers are often called Moonies by persons outside of the Association. However, this term is considered derogatory by its members, who refer to themselves as Unificationists.

Rev. Moon was born in what is now North Korea in 1920 and was raised in the Presbyterian Church. He is a Professional Engineer by training. When he was 15 years old, at Easter, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision, charging him with the responsibility of completing the work in the world that Jesus had started. During his adult life he has had trouble with legal authorities, having been arrested for practicing capitalism (a crime in North Korea), charged (but not convicted) in South Korea of other activities, and convicted of tax evasion in the United States. The Presbyterian Church of Korea, in 1948, felt that his views were incompatible with traditional Christianity; they excommunicated him.

In 1957, Rev. Moon published Divine Principle which is a collection of his beliefs, as written by a member of the Church. Two years later, Young Oon Kim moved to North America as a Unification missionary to establish a church presence there. Many of the members in the US expected a type of apocalyptic event in 1967. When nothing of that nature occurred, some members became disillusioned and left the organization. In 1972, Rev. Moon moved to the United States and started a major recruitment drive. A decade later, he performed the first of many mass wedding ceremonies in which more than 2000 couples were married. In 1984, he was convicted of tax evasion in the US and sent to prison for 13 months.

The Church has established a large number of religious, political, cultural and business organizations, ranging from the International Religious Foundation, Korean Folk Ballet, International Cultural Foundation, Free Press International and CAUSA. They purchased the Washington Times.

With the fall of Communism in Europe and Russia, the Unification Church has been actively proselytizing throughout that region. They have a presence in over 150 countries, with concentrations in Korea, Japan and the United States. Total membership is difficult to estimate, but is probably many hundreds of thousands world wide. Both the Church and its opponents have issued inflated numbers. It is probable that there are on the order of 5,000 dedicated members in the US, and a much larger number of persons affiliated in some way with the church.

Rev. Moon is the ultimate authority within the Church. The administration of Unification organizations is by a board of elders.

Beliefs:

While many of the beliefs of the Unification Church are identical to those of other conservative Christian groups, there are some major differences:

Practices:

Conflicts between the Church and the Counter-cult Movement

The Church was widely criticized (largely by conservative Christians) for its unorthodox beliefs. During the early 1970's, at a time when the membership of the Unification Church was growing rapidly, it was verbally attacked by the Counter-cult Movement. The latter criticized its alleged unethical recruitment and brainwashing methods. This was an era when many people were inspired by the movie The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and believed that many small religious movements were turning recruits into robots, using physical and psychological manipulative techniques to destroy their free will.

One focus of the counter-cult groups were the Unification residential seminars, where people were first invited to learn about the Church. These were viewed as entrapment meetings, which lured the unsuspecting visitor into a commitment to the organization. There were suggestions that once in the Church, it was difficult to get out. These criticisms do not hold up to scrutiny. Only about 10% of the visitors decided to investigate the church further. And many of these dropped out after a few weeks or months. Their methods differ little from many Evangelical / Fundamentalist groups which are also dedicated to recruitment.(1) The rapid turnover in church membership is a good indication that the vast majority of members are not trapped in the organization. Former members now vastly outnumber the current dedicated Unificationists.

However, there is a potential negative side to membership in the Unification Church and similar religious organizations. Their core, dedicated members accept strong discipline and can develop a deep commitment to the church. In the case of Unificationists, they must remain celibate before marriage, abstain from tobacco and alcohol and work long hours. The group can become their whole life, the source of their religious, cultural, social, and other support systems. If they become disillusioned by some aspect of the church, they can find it very difficult to leave the organization and abandon these support networks. When they do leave, they are often angry with themselves and the church, believing that they have wasted perhaps years of their life within the group.

There are no indications that the Unification Church is a destructive cult, like the religious groups that have resulted in mass murder-suicides (e.g. the People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, or the Solar Temple in Quebec and Switzerland). Such dangerous groups have existed and continue to exist. However, they remain a small minority of new religious groups.

Many Unificationists were kidnapped by counter-cult "deprogrammers", forcibly confined and manipulated to destroy their allegiance to the Unification Church. These illegal deprogramming attempts continue to the present day, but at a reduced level.

Unification Church Books and Publications:

The Unification Church's main religious text is the Bible. It teaches truth, but is not truth in itself. It is only a partial revelation. Rev. Moon's interpretations of Christian beliefs and additional revelations from God are contained in the book Divine Principle, which was written in Korean in 1959 and translated by Young Oon Kim in 1959. The Church publishes the Unification News, Today's World and a secular newspaper, the Washington Post.

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Reference Texts:

Internet References: