| Unification Church | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 통일교회 |
| Hanja | 統一敎會 |
| Revised Romanization | Tongil Gyohoe |
| McCune–Reischauer | T'ongil Kyohoe |
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC). In 1994, Moon changed the official name of the church to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.[1]
Members are found throughout the world, with the largest number living in South Korea or Japan.[2][3] Church membership is estimated to be several hundred thousand to a few million.[4][5] The church and its members own, operate, and subsidize organizations and projects involved in political, cultural, commercial, media, educational, and other activities. The church, its members and supporters as well as other related organizations are sometimes referred to as the "Unification Movement". In the English speaking world church members are sometimes referred to as "Moonies"[6][7] (which is sometimes considered offensive);[8][9] church members prefer to be called "Unificationists".[10]
Unification Church beliefs are summarized in the textbook Divine Principle and include belief in a universal God; in striving toward the creation of a literal Kingdom of God on earth; in the universal salvation of all people, good and evil, living and dead; and that a man born in Korea in the early 20th century received from Jesus the mission to be realized as the second coming of Christ.[11] Members of the Unification Church believe this Messiah is Sun Myung Moon.[12]
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Unification Church members believe that Jesus appeared to Mun Yong-myong (his birth name) when Moon was 16 and asked him to accomplish the work left unfinished after his crucifixion. After a period of prayer and consideration, Moon accepted the mission, later changing his name to Mun Son-myong (Sun Myung Moon).[13]
The beginnings of the church's official teachings, the Divine Principle, first saw written form as Wolli Wonbon in 1946. (The second, expanded version, Wolli Hesol, or Explanation of the Divine Principle, was not published until 1957; for a more complete account, see Divine Principle.) Sun Myung Moon preached in northern Korea after the end of World War II and was imprisoned by the communist regime in North Korea in 1946. He was released from prison, along with many other North Koreans, with the advance of American and United Nations forces during the Korean War and built his first church from mud and cardboard boxes as a refugee in Pusan.[14]
Moon formally founded his organization in Seoul on May 1, 1954, calling it "The Holy Spirit(ual) Association for the Unification of World Christianity." The name alludes to Moon's stated intention for his organization to be a unifying force for all Christian denominations. The phrase "Holy Spirit Association" has the sense in the original Korean of "Heavenly Spirits" and not the "Holy Spirit" of Christianity. "Unification" has political as well as religious connotations, in keeping with the church's teaching that restoration must be complete, both spiritual and physical. The church expanded rapidly in South Korea and by the end of 1955 had 30 church centers throughout the nation.[14]
In 1958, Moon sent missionaries to Japan, and in 1959, to America. Moon himself moved to the United States in 1971, (although he remained a citizen of the Republic of Korea). Missionary work took place in Washington D.C., New York, and California. UC missionaries found success in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the church expanded in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco. By 1971 the Unification Church of the United States had about 500 members. By 1973 the church had some presence in all 50 states and a few thousand members.[14] In other countries church growth was slower. In the 1990s the Unification Church of the United Kingdom only had an estimated several hundred members.[15][16]
Irving Louis Horowitz compared the attraction of Unification teachings to American young people at this time to the hippie and radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s, saying:
Missionaries were also sent to Europe. The church entered Czechoslovakia in 1968 and remained underground until the 1990s.[18] In 1975, Moon sent out missionaries to 120 countries to spread the Unification Church around the world and also in part, he said, to act as "lightning rods" to receive "persecution."
In the 1970s Moon gave a series of public speeches in the United states including one in Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1974 and two in 1976: In Yankee Stadium in New York City, and on the grounds of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., where Moon spoke on "God's Hope for America." In 1974, Moon took full-page ads in major newspapers defending President Richard M. Nixon at the height of the Watergate controversy.[19]
Starting in the 1960s the Unification Church was the subject of a number of books published in the United States and the United Kingdom, both scholarly and popular. Among the better-known are: The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? (1984) by British sociologist Eileen Barker, Inquisition : The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon (1991) by American journalist Carlton Sherwood, and In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family (1998) by Nansook Hong, Moon's former daughter-in-law. In 2009 Moon's own autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen, was published in South Korea and then in the United States. [20][21]
In 1978, the Fraser Committee a subcommittee of the United States Congress which was investigating the political influence of the South Korean government in the United States issued a report that included the results of its investigation into the Unification Church and other organizations associated with Moon and their relationship with the South Korean government. Among its other conclusions, the subcommittee's report stated that "Among the goals of the Moon Organization is the establishment of a worldwide government in which the separation of church and state would be abolished and which would be governed by Moon and his followers."[22]
In 1982 Moon was convicted of tax fraud and conspiracy in United States federal court and was sentenced 18 months in federal prison.
In the 1980s the Unification Church sent thousands of American ministers from other churches on trips to Japan and South Korea to inform them about Unification Church teachings. At least one minister was dismissed by his congregation for taking part.[23]
In 1991 Moon announced that church members should return to their hometowns in order to undertake apostolic work there. Massimo Introvigne, who has studied the Unification Church and other new religious movements, has said that this confirms that full-time membership is no longer considered crucial to church members.[24]
Starting in the 1990s the Unification Church expanded its operations into Russia and other formerly communist nations. Moon's wife, Hak Ja Han, made a radio broadcast to the nation from the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.[25] In 1994 the church had about 5,000 members in Russia and came under criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church.[26] In 1997, the Russian government passed a law requiring the Unification Church and other non-Russian religions to register their congregations and submit to tight controls.[27] Starting in 1992 the church established business ties with still communist North Korea and owns a automobile manufacturer (Pyeonghwa Motors), a hotel, and other properties there. In 2007 it founded a "World Peace Center" in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital city.[28]
In 2000, the Unification Church was one of the co-sponsors of the Million Family March in Washington, D.C., along with Louis Farrakhan the leader of The Nation of Islam.[29] Starting in 2007 the church sponsored a series of public events in various nations under the title Global Peace Festival.[30][31][32][33]
In 2003 Moon began his "tear down",[34] or "take down the cross"[35] campaign. The campaign was begun in the belief that the cross is a reminder of Jesus' pain and has been a source of division between people of different faiths. The campaign included a burial ceremony for the cross and a crown to be put in its place. The American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), an interfaith group founded by Moon, spearheaded the effort, calling the cross a symbol of oppression and superiority.[36]
In April 2008, Sun Myung Moon, then 88 years old, appointed his youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon, to be the new leader of the Unification Church and the worldwide Unification Movement, saying, "I hope everyone helps him so that he may fulfil his duty as the successor of the True Parents." [37]
In January 2009, Unification Church missionary Elizaveta Drenicheva was sentenced to two years in jail in Kazakhstan for "propagating harmful religious teachings." She was freed and allowed to leave the country after international human rights organizations expressed their concern over her case.[38][39]
The beliefs of the Unification Church are outlined in its textbook, Divine Principle.
A brief overview with 12 theological statements about these teachings was written by thirty eight seminary students.[40]
1. God. There is one living, eternal, and true God, a Person beyond space and time, who possesses perfect intellect, emotion and will, whose deepest nature is heart and love, who combines both masculinity and femininity, who is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness, and who is the creator and sustainer of man and the universe and of all things visible and invisible. Man and the universe reflect His personality, nature, and purpose.
2. Man. Man was made by God as a special creation, made in His image as His children, like Him in personality and nature, and created to respond to His love, to be the source of His joy, and to share His creativity.
3. God's Desire for Man and Creation. God's desire for man and creation is eternal and unchanging; God wants men and women to fulfill three things: first, each to grow to perfection so as to be one in heart, will, and action with God, having their bodies and minds united together in perfect harmony centering on God's love; second, to be united by God as husband and wife and give birth to sinless children of God, thereby establishing a sinless family and ultimately a sinless world; and third, to become lords of the created world by establishing a loving dominion of reciprocal give-and-take with it. Because of man's sin, however, none of these happened. Therefore God's present desire is that the problem of sin be solved and that all these things be restored, thus bringing about the earthly and heavenly kingdom of God.
4. Sin. The first man and woman (Adam and Eve), before they had become perfected, were tempted by the archangel Lucifer into illicit and forbidden love. Through this, Adam and Eve willfully turned away from God's will and purpose for them, thus bringing themselves and the human race into spiritual death. As a result of this Fall, Satan usurped the position of mankind's true father so that thereafter all people are born in sin both physically and spiritually and have a sinful propensity. Human beings therefore tend to oppose God and His will, and live in ignorance of their true nature and parentage and of all that they have lost. God too, grieves for His lost children and lost world, and has had to struggle incessantly to restore them to Himself. Creation groans in travail, waiting to be united through the true children of God.
5. Christology. Fallen mankind can be restored to God only through Christ (the Messiah), who comes as a new Adam to become the new head of the human race (replacing the sinful parents), through whom mankind can be reborn into God's family. In order for God to send the Messiah, mankind must fulfill certain conditions which restore what was lost through the Fall.
6. History. Restoration takes place through the paying of indemnity for (making reparations for) sin. Human history is the record of God's and Man's efforts to make these reparations over time in order that conditions can be fulfilled so that God can send the Messiah, who comes to initiate the complete restoration process. When some effort at fulfilling some reparation condition fails, it must be repeated, usually by someone else after some intervening time-period; history therefore exhibits a cyclic pattern. History culminates in the coming of the Messiah, and at that time the old age ends and a new age begins.
7. Resurrection. The process of resurrection is the process of restoration to spiritual life and spiritual maturity, ultimately uniting man with God; it is passing from spiritual death into spiritual life. This is accomplished in part by man's effort (through prayer, good deeds, etc.) with the help of the saints in the spiritual world, and completed by God's activity of bringing man to rebirth through Christ (the Messiah).
8. Predestination. God's will that all people be restored to Him is predestined absolutely, and He has elected all people to salvation, but He has also given man part of the responsibility (to be accomplished through man's free will) for the accomplishment of both His original will and His will for the accomplishment of restoration; that responsibility remains man's permanently. God has predestined and called certain persons and groups of people for certain responsibilities; if they fail, others must take up their roles and greater reparations must be made.
9. Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth came as the Christ, the Second Adam, the only begotten Son of God. He became one with God, speaking the words of God and doing the works of God, and revealing God to the people. The people, however, rejected and crucified him, thereby preventing his building the Kingdom of God on earth. Jesus, however, was victorious over Satan in his crucifixion and resurrection, and thus made possible spiritual salvation for those who are reborn through him and the Holy Spirit. The restoration of the Kingdom of God on earth awaits the Second Coming of Christ.
10. The Bible. The Old and New Testament Scriptures are the record of God's progressive revelation to mankind. The purpose of the Bible is to bring us to Christ, and to reveal God's heart. Truth is unique, eternal, and unchanging, so any new message from God will be in conformity with the Bible and will illuminate it more deeply. Yet, in these last days, new truth must come from God in order that mankind be able to accomplish what is, yet, undone.
11. Complete Restoration. A proper understanding of theology concentrates simultaneously on man's relationship with God (vertical) and on man's relationship with his fellowman (horizontal). Man's sin disrupted both these relationships, and all the problems of our world result from this. These problems will be solved through restoration of man to God through Christ, and also through such measures as initiating proper moral standards and practices, forming true families, uniting all peoples and races (such as Orient, Occident and Negro), resolving the tension between science and religion, righting economic, racial, political, and educational injustices, and overcoming God-denying ideologies such as Communism.
12. Second Coming or Eschatology. The Second Coming of Christ will occur in our age, an age much like that of the First Advent. Christ will come as before, as a man in the flesh, and he will establish a family through marriage to his Bride, a woman in the flesh, and they will become the True Parents of all mankind. Through our accepting the True Parents (the Second Coming of Christ), obeying them and following them, our original sin will be eliminated and we will eventually become perfect. True families fulfilling God's ideal will be begun, and the Kingdom of God will be established both on earth and in heaven. That day is now at hand.
God is viewed as the creator,[40] whose nature combines both masculinity and femininity,[40] and is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness. Human beings and the universe reflect God's personality, nature, and purpose.[40]
"Give-and-take action" (reciprocal interaction) and "subject and object position" (initiator and responder) are "key interpretive concepts",[41] and the self is designed to be God's object.[41] The purpose of human existence is to return joy to God.[42] The "four-position foundation" is "another important and interpretive concept",[42] and explains in part the emphasis on the family.[42]
Indemnity, as explained in the Divine Principle, is a part of the process by which human beings and the world are restored back to God's ideal.[43][44][45][46][47]
The Unification Church upholds a belief in spiritualism, that is communication with the spirits of deceased persons. Moon and early church members associated with spiritualists, including the famous Arthur Ford.[48][49] The Divine Principle says about Moon:
The ancestor liberation ceremony is a ceremony of the Unification Church intended to allow the spirits of deceased ancestors of participants to improve their situations in the spirit world through liberation, education, and blessing. The ceremonies are conducted by Hyo Nam Kim, a woman who church members believe is channeling the spirit of Soon Ae Hong, the mother of Hak Ja Han (church founder Sun Myung Moon's wife). They have taken place mainly in Cheongpyeong, South Korea, but also in various places around the world.[51][52][53]
In the 1990s and 2000s the Unification Church has made public statements claiming communications with the spirits of religious leaders such as Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad and Augustine, as well as political leaders such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, and many more. This has distanced the church further from mainstream Christianity as well as from Islam.[48]
The Unification Church is well-known for its marriage or marriage rededication ceremony, which is sometimes referred to by the news media and others as a "mass wedding." The Blessing ceremony was first held 1961 for 36 couples in Seoul, South Korea by Reverend and Mrs. Moon shortly after their own marriage in 1960. All the couples were members of the Unification Church. Rev. Moon matched all of the couples except 12 who were already married to each other before joining the church.[54]
Later Blessing ceremonies were larger in scale but followed the same pattern with all participants Unification Church members and Rev. Moon matching most of the couples. In 1982 the first large scale Blessing held outside of Korea took place in Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 1988, Moon matched 2,500 Korean members with Japanese members for a Blessing ceremony held in Korea, partly in order to promote unity between the two nations.[55]
The Blessing ceremonies have attracted a lot of attention in the press and in the public imagination, often being labeled "mass weddings".[56] However, in most cases the Blessing ceremony is not a legal wedding ceremony. Some couples are already married and those that are engaged are later legally married according to the laws of their own countries.[57]
Several church-related groups are working to promote sexual abstinence until marriage and fidelity in marriage, both among church members and the general public.[58]
The church does not give its marriage blessing to same-sex couples.[59] Moon has spoken vehemently against "free sex" and homosexual activity. In talks to church members, he has compared people involved in free sex, including gay people, to "dirty dung-eating dogs"[60] and prophesied that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders." These statements were criticized by gay rights groups.[61]
Unification Church activity in South America began in the 1970s with missionary work. Later the church made large investments in civic organizations and business projects, including an international newspaper. In 1996, a group of Catholic bishops in Uruguay issued a strong statement warning Catholics not to take part in any groups or activities associated with the Unification Church, saying:
In the 1990s Moon directed church members to buy land in the Mato Grosso do Sul region of Brazil, which he compared to the Garden of Eden. 200,000 acres of farmland was purchased and building projects started.[63] In 2000 the church purchased 300,000 hectares of land in Paraguay for the purpose of logging and timber exportation to Asia. The land is the ancestral territory of the indigenous Chamacoco (Ishir) people, who live in northern Paraguay. They have told local anthropologists that they wish to purchase the land back, because it is considered a sacred area in their shamanic belief system, but they do not have the capital to purchase the huge tracts back from the Unification Church members. This loss of land has been devastating to the Chamacoco people, who are traditional hunter-gatherers, and in return the church members have financed the construction of schools for them. [64]
In May 2002, federal police in Brazil conducted a number of raids on organizations linked to Sun Myung Moon. In a statement, the police stated that the raids were part of a broad investigation into allegations of tax evasion and immigration violations by church members. Moon's support of the government of Argentina during the Falklands War was also mentioned by commentators as a possible issue.[65]
In 2009, the church gave 30,000 acres of land back to residents of Puerto Casado after a series of land disputes came before Paraguayan courts. It had acquired more than 1.48 million acres of land in 2000 for an environmental and tourism project in northern Paraguay.[66]
There are a number of organizations founded, run, or backed by church founder Sun Myung Moon. Among them are interfaith, educational, arts, sports, and political organizations as well as profit-making businesses.[67] Commentators have mentioned Moon's belief in a literal Kingdom of Heaven on earth to be brought about by human effort as a motivation for his establishment of groups that are not strictly religious in their purposes.[68][69] Others have said that one purpose of these groups is to pursue social respectability for the church.[70]
See: Unification Church political activities
The Unification Church has been noted for its political activities, especially its support for United States president Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal,[71] its support for anti-communism during the Cold War,[72][73] and its ownership of various news media outlets through News World Communications, an international news media conglomerate which publishes Washington Times newspaper in Washington D.C. and newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America, which tend to support conservatism.[74]
Many Unification Church members have left the church over the years. Sociologist Eileen Barker, in her 1984 book The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing?, reported that of people who joined the church only 20% remained members for over a year.[75] In 1985 Anson Shupe, a sociologist who is considered a leading expert on cults and new religious movements, told Time: "What the Moonies do is ludicrous. Most people who go through that experience with them walk away later." [76] Among the most well-known former members are Steven Hassan - author of Releasing the Bonds and exit counselor[77] and Josette Sheeran - Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, formerly a journalist and editor with the Washington Times.[78]
The Unification Church is among the most controversial religious organizations in the world today. In response to doubt regarding the organization's religious origins, Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy, concluded that "one thing is sure: the church has a genuine spiritual basis" after an 11-month study of the worldwide Unification Church.[79] A German court made a similar finding.[80]
Critics also allege irregularities in the use of money and claim that the church has enriched Moon personally.[81] The Moon family situation is described as one of "luxury and privilege"[82] and has been referred to as "lavish."[83]
Nansook Hong, a member of the Moon family for 14 years, describes the Unification Church as "a cash operation" and reports on a number of incidents of questionable movement of money, citing this instance as one example:
"The Japanese had no trouble bringing the cash into the United States; they would tell customs agents that they were in America to gamble at Atlantic City. In addition, many businesses run by the church were cash operations, including several Japanese restaurants in New York City. I saw deliveries of cash from church headquarters that went directly into the wall safe in Mrs. Moon's closet."[83]
In the 1990s, thousands of Japanese elderly people claimed to have been defrauded of their life savings by church members.[84] The Unification Church was the subject of the largest consumer fraud investigation in Japan's history in 1997 and number of subsequent court decisions awarded hundreds of millions of yen in judgments, including 37.6 million yen ($300,000) to two women coerced into donating their assets to the Unification Church.[85] In 2009 the president of the Unification Church of Japan, Eiji Tokuno, resigned after the church was raided, and some church members were arrested and indicted, for selling expensive personal seals, telling people that failure to buy would bring bad fortune.[86]
In the United States in the 1970s, the media reported on the high-pressure recruitment methods of Unificationists and said that the church separated vulnerable young people from their families through the use of brainwashing or mind control. In 1979, Dr. Byron Lambert, in a foreword to a book highly critical of Unification Church beliefs, wrote that accusations of brainwashing were extremely dangerous to the religious freedom of other religious groups, which used some of the same recruitment techniques as the Unification Church.[87] Eileen Barker, a sociologist specializing in religious topics, studied church members in England and in 1984 published her findings in her book The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? Observing Unificationists' approach to prospective new members, Barker came to reject a strict interpretation of the "brainwashing" theory as an explanation for conversion to the Unification Church. Nor did she find the Unification Church's methods of recruiting members to be very effective.[88]
In her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family, Nansook Hong, ex-wife of Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han's eldest son, Hyo Jin Moon, said both Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han told her about Sun Myung Moon's extramarital affairs (which she said he called "providential affairs"), including one which resulted in the birth of a boy raised by a church leader, named by Sun Myung Moon's daughter Un Jin Moon on the news show 60 Minutes.
In 1993, Chung Hwa Pak released the book Roku Maria no Higeki (Tragedy of the Six Marys) through the Koyu Publishing Co. of Japan. The book contained allegations that Moon conducted sex rituals amongst six married female disciples ("The Six Marys") who were to have prepared the way for the virgin who would marry Moon and become the True Mother. Chung Hwa Pak had left the movement when the book was published and later withdrew the book from print when he rejoined the Unification Church. Before his death Chung Hwa Pak published a second book, The Apostate, and recanted all allegations made in Roku Maria no Higeki.[89]
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) released a report of Rabbi A. James Rudin on antisemitism in 1976 which centered on passages found in Divine Principle stating that it contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt."[90] In a news conference consisting of the AJC, and representatives of Catholic and Protestant churches, panelists stated that the text 'contained over 125 anti-Jewish references.' The panelists noted Moon's public recent condemnation of "antisemitic and anti-Christian attitudes", and called upon him to make a "comprehensive and systematic removal" of antisemitic and anti-Christian references in Divine Principle as a demonstration of good faith.[91] Soon after the Jewish Defense League said that it had "declared war" on the Unification Church and "vowed that no Moon missionaries would walk the streets safely."[92]
In 1977 the Unification Church issued a rebuttal to the report, stating that it was neither comprehensive nor reconciliatory, but was rather had a "hateful tone" and was filled with "sweeping denunciations." It denied that Divine Principle teaches antisemitism and gave detailed responses to 17 specific allegations contained in the AJC's report, showing that allegations as distortion of teaching and obscuration of real passage content or as accurate summaries of Jewish scripture or New Testament passages.[93]
In 1989 Unification Church leaders Peter Ross and Andrew Wilson issued "Guidelines for Members of The Unification Church in Relations with the Jewish People" which stated: "In the past there have been serious misunderstandings between Judaism and the Unification Church. In order to clarify these difficulties and guide Unification Church members in their relations with Jews, the Unification Church suggests the following guidelines." This was followed by nine "guidelines" and a "conclusion."[94]
Statements by Moon about the Holocaust, that its victims were paying indemnity for the crucifixion of Jesus, has been reported in a number of sources, including in the official record of the parliament of the United Kingdom.[95] Some commentators, including David G. Bromley, a sociologist and expert on New Religious Movements, have suggested that this is a reason for the church being "considered anti-Semitic".[96]
In 2003, journalist John Gorenfeld criticized the Anti Defamation League (ADL) in an article in Salon Magazine for its silence on anti-Jewish statements by members of the Unification Church, in contrast to the its outspoken criticism of the Nation of Islam and other groups.[97]
Moonie (plural Moonies) is a term which refers to members of the Unification Church; it is derived from the name of church founder Sun Myung Moon.[98] Some dictionaries call it offensive or derogatory;[99][100] others do not.[101][102] It has been used by critics of the church since the 1970s.[103] In a 1982 report sponsored in part by Auburn University, P. Nelson Reid and Paul D. Starr noted: "In informal interviews with U.C. members have indicated that they do not consider the term 'Moonie' derogatory."[104]
Observers of the Unification Church, as well as some church members, have speculated about the issue of Unification Church leadership after Moon's death. Among those sometimes mentioned are his wife Hak Ja Han Moon, and their sons Hyun Jin Moon[105] and Hyung Jin Moon.[37][106][107] In 2008 Moon appointed Hyung Jin Moon as the international president of the church.[108][109] At the same time he appointed his daughter In Jin Moon as the president of the Unification Church of the United States.[110] [111]
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