Deception in the Unification Church
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Deception in the Unification Church both real and claimed has hurt its image. While the Unification Church officially regards honesty as the first of its three chief moral tenets ("honesty, purity and unselfishness") many members have admittedly been less than up front about their association with Rev. Moon or have deliberately deceived prospective donors when fundraising for the movement. The degree to which witnessing is deceptive is hotly debated.
[edit] Fundraising
Members have sometimes raised funds for the church by canvassing door to door, without any visible signs of identification (other than a bright smile and a generally clean-cut, conservative look). When asked what the funds might be used for, they would try dodges like "a good cause" or the artful "saving poor children" (meaning God's unfortunate lost children, i.e., all of humanity).
A favored albeit risky practice was to sneak into office buildings or factories. ("Think of the no soliciting sign as really meaning: Fundraisers welcome, coffee and donuts served.") The idea was to blitz through fast enough to evade the dreaded "kick-out".
Better was late evening fundraising at bars (also called "blitzing"). Here members often felt more comfortable identifying themeselves as Unificationist. Perhaps it was a more relaxed atmosphere. Some members developed regular routes of "customers" eager for the periodic return of their "Moonie flower seller".
As door-to-door canvassing gave way to flower stands at traffic lights, the issue of self-identification appeared to fade in importance. Fundraising took on all the aspects of selling a product, apart from legal recognition by the IRS that the money thus brought in constituted "donations" rather than "gross income". Fundraisers rarely had to confront questions of organizational affiliation when ostensibly "selling flowers".
Not that many people were fooled. Local pastors such as the Rev. Dr. McGhee of Queens, New York might pass by and steal or destroy a Japanese sister's flowers (ironically getting a sincere "God bless you!" in return.)
[edit] Witnessing
The Creative Community Project in Booneville, California was used by the church's "Oakland Family" to attract and recruit what one researcher estimated was nearly one third of the membership of the U.S. church. Members would accost potential recruits at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, give them dinner and whisk them up to "the farm" for a weekend or more.
Only gradually would members reveal to potential recruits that the lectures they were hearing were based on the Divine Principle of church founder Sun Myung Moon.
The initial denial or dodging of the group members' association with their movement's own founder has remained a matter of controversy, both within the movement and outside of it. Some charge that this kind of deception is part of a larger pattern of manipulation amounting to "mind control" (q.v.) while others merely find it annoying.
Insiders often debate the efficacy of the practice, and church founder Rev. Moon has spoken out against it on occasion. In a 1976 interview with Frederick Sontag, Rev. Moon stated:
- A member must say who he is first. If he does not do this, he is not worthy of me. ... Some local leaders may have tried to be expedient ... but I do not condone this.
