Religion Mun kor

Die ICUS hält jährlich Kongresse ab, auf denen die teilnehmenden Wissenschaftler 1000 $ für jede Rede und 500 $ für jedes eingereichte Papier erhalten sowie noch einmal 500 $ für dessen Veröffentlichung. Senior Consultants erhalten 5000 $ im Jahr. An den Konferenzen nehmen namhafte Wissenschaftler, auch Nobelpreisträger, teil. Der Soziologe Irving Horowitz nannte sie eine „brillante Marketingstrategie“. Eine weitere Unterorganisation, die World Media Association, organisiert Reisen für Journalisten, speziell von kleineren und mittleren US-Tageszeitungen. „Ich dachte, das sei die einzige Möglichkeit für mich, nach Asien zu kommen“, sagte ein Journalist der Palm Beach Post nach der Teilnahme an einer solchen Reise.[49]

Eine andere Unterorganisation Freedom Leadership Foundation finanzierte 1984 die Reise eines Senatsausschusses nach Zentralamerika.[50] Die Aktivitäten des National Conservative Political Action Comitee wurden im selben Jahr mit 500.000 Dollar unterstützt. Ferner gründete die Kirche ein Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy, das konservativ orientierte Forschung an verschiedenen Universitäten, u.a. in Stanford, unterstützt. Zur Finanzierung ihrer Aktivitäten transferierte die Kirche von 1975 bis 1984 800 Mio Dollar aus Japan in die USA; den Erlös aus Spenden- und Verkaufsaktionen in den USA gab sie mit 20 Mio. Dollar an. Eine wichtige Einnahmequelle ist der Verkauf von Blumen und Schmuck durch Anhänger, die sich verpflichten, mindestens 100 Dollar pro Tag einzunehmen. Spendensammlern ist ausdrücklich erlaubt, die Zugehörigkeit zur Kirche und den Verwendungszweck der Spenden zu leugnen (heavenly deception).[51][52][53][54][55]

Bo Hee Park definierte den Zweck des politischen Engagements 1984 wie folgt:

“Wir wollen die Welt erwecken und erreichen, dass dieses gottlose, totalitäre System verschwindet...Es ist ein totaler Krieg. Hauptsächlich ein Krieg der Ideen, der Köpfe, des menschlichen Verstandes. Dort wird die Schlacht geschlagen. In diesem Krieg wird alles mobilisiert: politische, soziale, ökonomische und propagandistische Mittel...Die Medienorganisation, die wir schaffen, soll als Instrument unserer Sache eingesetzt werden, als Instrument Gottes“.[49]

Seit 1991 missioniert die Vereinigungskirche verstärkt in den Ländern der ehemaligen UdSSR.

Die baden-württembergische Landesregierung bezeichnete das Auftreten der „Vereinigungskirche“ 1995 als „exemplarisch für die Instrumentalisierung der Religion für die Durchsetzung politischer Ziele“[56].

Verbreitung und Mitgliedschaft

Einflussschwerpunkte der Vereinigungskirche sind Südkorea, Japan, USA und Westeuropa. In Deutschland hat sie nach eigenen Angaben 1.300 Mitglieder und etwa 10.000 Sympathisanten[57], weltweit rechnet man mit 2 Millionen. Nach Angaben der Vereinigten Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche Deutschlands beträgt die Mitgliedschaft in Deutschland „mindestens 200“ Personen (incl. Kinder 350) plus etwa 1000 Sympathisanten.[58]

Nach Angaben der Statistik Austria haben bei der Volkszählung 2001 in Österreich 297 Personen angegeben, zur Vereinigungskirche zu gehören.

Bräuche

Durch zahlreiche Bräuche soll unter den Mitgliedern das Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl und die innere Ausrichtung auf Gott und Sun Myung Moon verstärkt werden. In den regionalen Gemeindezentren werden sonntags Gottesdienste abgehalten, deren Ablauf dem der etablierten Kirchen ähnelt. So werden gemeinsam Kirchenlieder gesungen, es wird eine Predigt gehalten und eine Kollekte durchgeführt. Für die Kinder der Gemeindemitglieder werden Kindergottesdienste durchgeführt. An den Feiertagen der Moon-Bewegung - wie z.B. dem Gottestag, dem bedeutendsten Feiertag am 1. Januar - werden in den Gemeindezentren feierliche Zeremonien abgehalten.

An Sonn- und Feiertagen sowie am Monatsersten wird üblicherweise im Familienkreise das sogenannte Familiengelöbnis[59][60] gesprochen. Dazu versammelt sich die Familie um fünf Uhr morgens am Hausaltar. Der Ablauf wird eingeleitet durch eine dreifache tiefe Verneigung vor den Bildern Sun Myung Moons sowie seiner Frau bzw. Familie. Im Anschluss daran wird gemeinsam ein Treueschwur rezitiert, an den häufig Gebete angeschlossen werden.

http://en.wikipedia.org

Sun Myung Moon

This article's introduction section may not adequately summarize its contents. To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (December 2009)

Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon (born January 6, 1920) is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects involved in political, cultural, artistic, mass-media, educational, public service, and other activities. One of the best-known of these is the conservative Washington Times newspaper.[1] He is famous for holding blessing ceremonies, often referred to as "mass weddings".

Moon has said, and it is believed by many Unification Church members, that he is the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling Jesus' unfinished mission.[2][3] He has been among the most controversial modern religious leaders, both for his religious beliefs and for his social and political activism.[4]

[edit] Early biography

He was born in 1920 in northern Korea and named Yong Myung Moon.(After changed to Sun Myung Moon) His birthday was recorded as January 6 by the lunar calendar. [1]

[edit] Life in Korea

Moon was born in Sangsa-ri (上思里, lit. "high-thought village"), Deogun-myon, Jeongju-gun, North P'yŏng'an Province[5] (now in North Korea; Korea was then under Japanese rule). His father, Kyung-yoo Moon, was a scholar, while his mother, Kyung-gye Kim, was an active woman. They had six sons and seven daughters, of which Sun Myung Moon was the second son. When he was a child, Moon was heavily affected by his elder brother Yong-Su Moon's deep faith. The family went into bankruptcy when the elder brother of Sun Myung's grandfather, Rev. Yunguk Moon, gave most of the money belonging to the family to an independence movement from Japan. [6] In 2009, the Yonhap News Agency reported that Moon had plans to establish a sacred sanctuary at his birthplace.[7]

In the Moon family, there was a tradition in the form of a superstitous belief that held that if the second son was to receive a Western-style education, he would die early. As a result of this, Sun Myung received a Confucian-style education when he was a child and did not receive his first Western-style education until he was 14 years old.[8] The Moon family held traditional Confucianist beliefs, but converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian Church when he was around 10 years old. Moon taught Sunday school for the church.[9] On April 17, 1935, when he was 16 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon says he had a vision or revelation of Jesus while praying atop a small mountain. He says that Jesus asked him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God's kingdom on Earth and bring peace to the world. When he was 19 (in Korean age reckoning), Moon criticized Japanese rule over Korea and Japanese education at the graduation ceremony speech, which made himself a focus of police.[10]

Moon's high school years were spent at a boys' boarding school in Seoul, and later in Japan, where he studied electrical engineering. During this time he studied the Bible and developed his own interpretation of it. After the end of World War II he returned to Korea and began preaching his message.[9]

Moon was arrested in 1946 by North Korean officials. The church states that the charges stemmed from the jealousy and resentment of other church pastors after parishioners stopped tithing to their old churches upon joining Moon's congregation. Police beat him and nearly killed him, but a teenage disciple named Won Pil Kim nursed him back to health.

Moon was arrested again and was given a five-year sentence in 1948 to the Hŭngnam labor camp, where prisoners were routinely worked to death on short rations. Moon credits his survival to God's protection over his life and his habit of saving half his meager water ration for washing the toxic chemicals off of his skin after long days of work, bagging and loading chemical fertilizer with his bare hands. After serving 34 months of his sentence, he was released in 1950 when UN troops advanced on the camp and the guards fled.

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 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.[11]

In 1954, he founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul (also known as the Unification Church).[12] The Unification Church expanded rapidly in South Korea and by the end of 1955 had 30 church centers throughout the nation. In 1958, Moon sent missionaries to Japan, and in 1959, to the United States of America. In 1975, Moon sent out missionaries to 120 countries around the world.[11]

[edit] Marriages and children

In November 1943, Moon married Sun Kil Choi. Their son, Sung Jin Moon, was born in 1946. They divorced in 1953 soon after Moon's release from prison in North Korea. Choi and Sung Jin Moon are now both members of the Unification Church.[13] Sung Jin Moon married in 1973 and now has three children.[14]

Moon was still legally married to Choi when he began a relationship with his second (common law) wife Myung Hee Kim, who gave birth to a son named Hee Jin Moon (who was killed in a train accident). The church does not regard this as infidelity, because Sun Kil Choi had already left her husband by that time. Korean divorce law in the 1950s made legal divorce difficult and drawn out, so much so that when Myung Hee Kim became pregnant she was sent to Japan to avoid legal complications for Moon.[15]

Moon married his third wife, Hak Ja Han,[16] on April 11, 1960, soon after she turned 17 years old, in a ceremony called the Holy Marriage. Han, called Mother or True Mother by followers, and her husband together are referred to as the True Parents by members of the Unification Church.

Hak Ja Han gave birth to 14 children; her second daughter died in infancy. The family is known in the church as the True Family and the children as the True Children. Shortly after their marriage, they presided over a Blessing Ceremony for 36 couples, the first of many such ceremonies.

Nansook Hong, the former wife of Hyo Jin Moon, Sun Myung Moon's eldest son, said in her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family that both Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han told her about Moon's extramarital affairs (which she said he called "providential affairs"), including one that 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.[17]

[edit] Name and titles

McCune–Reischauer Mun Yongmyŏng

In 1953, Moon changed his name from Mun Yong Myong to Mun Son-myong (which he spelled "Moon Sun Myung"). In a speech Moon explained that the hanja for moon (문, 文), his surname, means "word" or "literature" in Korean. The character sun (선, 鮮), composed of "fish" and "lamb" (symbols of Christianity), means "fresh." The character myung (명, 明), composed of "sun" and "moon", (which was part of his given name), means "bright." Together, sun-myung means "make clear." So the full name can be taken to mean "the word made clear." Moon concluded by saying, "My name is prophetic." [18]

In the English-speaking world, Moon is often referred to as Reverend Moon by Unification Church members, the general public, and the media. Unification Church members most often call Moon Father or True Father. He is also sometimes called Father Moon, mostly by some non-members involved with Unificationist projects. Similar titles are used for his wife: Mother, True Mother, or Mother Moon. Dr. Moon has also occasionally been used because Moon received an honorary doctorate from the Shaw Divinity School of Shaw University.

[edit] Basic teachings

Main article: Divine Principle

Moon's main teachings are contained in the book Divine Principle (retranslated in 1996 as Discourse on Divine Principle[19]).

[edit] 1970s

[edit] Move to the U.S.

In 1971 Moon moved to the United States, which he had first visited in 1965. He remained a citizen of the Republic of Korea and maintained a residence in South Korea.[20]

[edit] Support for Nixon

In 1974 Moon supported President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.[3] Church members prayed and fasted in support of Nixon for three days in front of the United States Capitol, under the motto: "Forgive, Love and Unite." On February 1, 1974 Nixon publicly thanked them for their support and officially received Moon. This brought Moon and the Unification Church into widespread public and media attention in the United States.[21]

[edit] Public speeches

In the 1970s Moon, who had seldom spoken to the general public before, gave a series of public speeches to audiences in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. The largest were a rally in 1975 against North Korean aggression in Seoul and a speech at an event organized by the Unification Church in Washington D.C. that also featured fireworks and music. The United States Park Police estimated an attendance of 50,000 at this event.[13][22]

[edit] United States congressional investigation

Main article: Fraser Committee

In 1977 and 1978, a subcommittee of the United States Congress led by Congressman Donald M. Fraser conducted an investigation of South Korea – United States relations and produced a report that included 81 pages about Moon and what the subcommittee termed "the Moon Organization."[23] The Fraser committee found that the KCIA decided to use the Unification Church as a political tool within the United States and that some Unification Church members worked as volunteers in Congressional offices. Together they founded the Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization which acted as a propaganda campaign for the Republic of Korea.[24] The committee also investigated possible KCIA influence on the Unification Church's campaign in support of Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal.[25] Robert Boettcher, the staff director of the committee, in his book Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park, and the Korean Scandal (published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980) reported what he described as financial corruption.[26]

[edit] 1980s

Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han[edit] U.S. tax case

Main article: Sun Myung Moon tax case

In 1982 Moon was convicted by the U.S. government for filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy. His conviction was upheld on appeal in a split decision. He was given a prison sentence and spent 18 months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. Many individuals, organizations and religious figures protested the charges, saying that they were unjust and threatened freedom of religion and free speech. Based on this case, reporter Carlton Sherwood wrote the book Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

[edit] Support for Ronald Reagan

In 1980 Moon indirectly supported the campaign of Ronald Reagan for President. He asked the church-owned New York newspaper News World to print a headline saying "Reagan Landslide" on the day of the election, before the outcome was known.[27]

[edit] Death and "return" of second son

The second son of Hak Ja Han and Moon, Heung-Jin Moon, died on January 2, 1984, from injuries suffered in a car crash in December 1983. Moon ascribed great importance to his son's death, and Heung-Jin Moon is officially regarded to be the "king of the spirits" in heaven, and is now said to be conducting seminars in heaven for departed souls. For several years church members "channeled" his spirit, and in 1987-8 Cleopas Kundioni, a Zimbabwean member who became known as "the Black Heung Jin Nim", was accepted by Moon and his family as Heung Jin Moon's continuous channel,[citation needed] and toured the world giving speeches, getting confessions, and subjecting some members to beatings. Long-time member Damian Anderson reports seeing Kundioni

"knock people's heads together, hit them viciously with a baseball bat, smack them around the head, punch them, and handcuff them with golden handcuffs"

and describes

"brute force applied to stop people leaving the event, or the building, and imprisoning protesters by force and with handcuffs in isolation."[28]

Nansook Hong recounts: "No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain. He beat Bo Hi Pak—a man in his sixties—so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital."[29] Washington Post staff writer Michael Isikoff reported that "Later, Pak underwent surgery in South Korea to repair a blood vessel in his skull, according to Times executives."[30]

[edit] Founding The Washington Times

Main article: The Washington Times

In Washington, Moon found common ground with strongly anti-Communist leaders of the 1980s, including Reagan. Using Unification Church funds in 1982, Moon, Bo Hi Pak, and other church leaders founded The Washington Times. By 1991, Moon said he spent about $1 billion on the paper[31] (by 2002 roughly $1.7 billion),[32] which he called "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world".[33]

[edit] Opposition to the Soviet Union

In 1976, Moon told church members that one day he would organize "a great rally for God in the Soviet Capital." In 1980 Moon founded the anti-communist organization CAUSA International. In August 1985 the Professors World Peace Academy, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in Geneva to debate the theme "The situation in the world after the fall of the communist empire." Moon suggested the topic. In August 1987 the Unification Church student association CARP led a reported 300 demonstrators in Berlin calling for communist leaders to bring down the Berlin Wall.[13][34]

[edit] 1990s

[edit] Visit to the Soviet Union

In April 1990 Moon visited the Soviet Union and met with President Mikhail Gorbachev. Moon expressed support for the political and economic transformations under way in the Soviet Union. At the same time the Unification Church was expanding into formerly communist nations.[35] Massimo Introvigne, who has studied the Unification Church and other new religious movements, has said that after the disestablishment of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moon has made anti-communism much less of a priority.[13]

[edit] Relationship with George H. W. Bush

In the mid-1990s, former U.S. President George H. W. Bush accepted millions of dollars from Moon's Women’s Federation for World Peace to speak on Moon's behalf around the world, a fact[11] that Moon and the Unification Church have widely publicised, particularly in efforts to improve the image of the Unification Church outside the US. While discussing one of Bush's trips (a 1995 tour of Japan), Bo Hi Pak said:

"Then George and Barbara Bush went to Fukuoka, the capital of Kyushu. The people of Kyushu were flabbergasted at Father and Mother's power to tell a U.S. president what to do and plan his schedule. Incredible. This completely changed the attitude of the Japanese government and media toward the Unification community."[36]

[edit] Daughter-in-law's book questions role as "True Parent"

When the Moons' eldest son Hyo Jin Moon was 19 years old, Sun Myung Moon picked a 15-year-old wife for him, Nansook Hong, with whom he had five children.[37] In 1998 Hong published a book about her experiences in the Moon family, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family (ISBN 0-316-34816-3), which the New Yorker Magazine called Moon's "most damaging scandal".[2] The "tell-all memoir"[2] openly challenges Moon and his wife's role in church teachings as "True Parents". According to Hong, and later confirmed by his public confessions and his own statements in a court deposition on November 15, 1996,[38] Hyo Jin Moon had repeated problems with substance abuse, pornography, infidelity, violence and run-ins with the law. A few years later, Hong left the Moon estate with her children, subsequently publishing the book and appearing in several interviews, including 60 Minutes.[39] She told TIME Magazine: "Rev. Moon has been proclaiming that he has established his ideal family, and fulfilled his mission, and when I pinpointed that his family is just as dysfunctional as any other family - or more than most - then I think his theology falls apart."[40] For some Unification Church members, this book was a revealing portrait of the way Sun Myung Moon and his wife had raised their children, and caused a great deal of soul-searching.[41]

[edit] Son's death

On October 27, 1999 the Moons' sixth son, Young Jin, fell to his death from the 17th floor of a Reno, Nevada hotel. Police reports and the coroner officially recorded the death as a suicide. Moon has said that he does not believe it was suicide.[42][43]

[edit] 2000s

In 2000 Moon joined Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in sponsoring the Million Family March in Washington D.C., a follow-up event to the Million Man March held in 1995.[44]

In January 2001 Moon sponsored President George W. Bush's Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal.[45]

In 2001 Moon presided over the wedding of now-excommunicated Roman Catholic Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and Maria Sung, a Korean acupuncturist. This attracted worldwide media attention. Milingo later founded the controversial organization Married Priests Now.[46][47]

In 2003 Moon sponsored the first Peace Cup international club football tournament.[48][49][50]

[edit] Schengen ban

Between 2002 and 2006, Moon and his wife were banned from entry into Germany and the other 14 Schengen treaty countries. The Netherlands and a few other Schengen states let Moon and his wife enter their countries in 2005.[51]

[edit] Coronation

In 2004, at a March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in Washington D.C. Moon crowned himself with what was called the "Crown of Peace." [52] United States Representative Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) carried a pillow holding the ornate crown which Moon "snatched up".[53] Other law makers who attended included Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) , as well as former Representative Walter Fauntroy (D-D.C.) . Key organizers of the event included George Augustus Stallings, Jr., a controversial former Roman Catholic priest who had been married by Moon, and Michael Jenkins, the president of the American Unification Church at that time.[52]

Moon delivered a long speech in which he stated that he was

sent to Earth . . . to save the world's six billion people.... Emperors, kings and presidents . . . have declared to all Heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.[52]

On June 27, 2004 the New York Times editorial board criticized the ceremony and the participation of congressional members.[53] The Associated Press reported that "Many of the congressional members in attendance have said they felt misled into making an appearance that later was used to promote Moon's Unification Church."[54] Some stated that they didn't expect a coronation but thought the awards dinner was only to honor activists from their home states as Ambassadors for Peace.[55]

[edit] 120-city world speaking tour

On September 12, 2005, at the age of 85, Moon inaugurated the Universal Peace Federation with a 120-city world speaking tour.[56] At each city, Moon delivered his speech titled "God's Ideal Family - the Model for World Peace".

[edit] Successor

In April 2008, Moon 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 fulfill his duty as the successor of the True Parents."[57]

[edit] Helicopter crash

On July 19, 2008, Moon, his wife, and 14 others were slightly injured when their Sikorsky S-92 helicopter crashed during an emergency landing and burst into flames in Gapyeong.[58][59] Moon and all 15 others were treated at the nearby church-affiliated Cheongshim Hospital.[60] Experts from the United States National Transportation Safety Board, the United States Federal Aviation Administration, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, and General Electric assisted the South Korean government in its investigation of the crash.[61][62]

[edit] Autobiography

In 2009, Moon's autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen (Korean: 평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로)[63], was published by Gimm-Young Publishers in South Korea. An English translation was expected to be published in the United States later that year.[64][65]

[edit] Criticism and controversies

Moon is known as the "True Father," his wife as the "True Mother," (together as the "True Parents"), and their children as the "True Children" (collectively as the "True Family").[66] In her 1998 book In the Shadow of the Moons, Nansook Hong, ex-wife of Sun Myung Moon's eldest son Hyo Jin Moon, (who lived with the Moon family for 15 years) says the leader and his family live a "lavish" lifestyle and that Sun Myung Moon is treated like a god.

Journalist Peter Maass, in an article in The New Yorker, wrote:

A little before dawn one day last April, a chauffeur-driven Mercedes sedan entered the grounds of an estate in Tarrytown, New York, and stopped in front of a brick carriage house that had been converted into a meeting room. An elderly passenger in a business suit got out of the car and, with his wife a few steps behind him, walked inside, where some hundred and fifty people were singing hymns. The singing stopped when the couple entered and made their way through the room. The worshippers shuffled aside, bowing their heads. Once the man and his wife were seated, everyone bowed again, this time dropping to their knees and touching their foreheads to the floor.

There are, certainly, differing degrees of devotion among Moon's followers; the fact that they bow at the right moment or shout "Mansei!" in unison doesn't mean they believe everything Moon says, or do precisely what he commands. Even on important issues, like Moon's claiming to be the messiah, there are church members whom I met, including a close aide to Moon, who demur. A religious leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the messiah, perhaps not.[67]

[edit] Abuse of money

Critics contrast Moon's "opulent" personal lifestyle with that of church members who are asked to sacrifice both in their careers and in donating most of what little they have.[68] The Moon family situation is described as one of "luxury and privilege"[69] and as "lavish".[70]

Home for the True Family was a guarded 18-acre (73,000 m2) mini-castle in Irvington, New York, a tiny suburb located along a sweep of the Hudson River. Named East Garden, after Eden, the estate included two smaller houses and a three-story brick mansion with 12 bedrooms, seven baths, a bowling alley, and a dining room equipped with a waterfall and pond. There were other castles and mansions too — in South Korea, Germany, Scotland, England — and few expenses were spared. The children had tutors from Japan, purebred horses, motorbikes, sports cars, and first-class vacations with blank-check spending. "The kids got whatever they wanted," says Donna Collins, who grew up in the church. "At one point, the Moon kids were each getting $40,000 or $50,000 a month for allowance. They had wads of cash. I remember once in London where [one of Justin’s sisters] spent like $2,000 a day; I saw a drawer filled with Rolexes and diamonds."[69]

Moon owns or sponsors major business enterprises, including The Washington Times, the United Press International, and Pyeonghwa Motors.[71] A small sampling of other operations include computers and religious icons in Japan, seafood in Alaska, weapons and ginseng in Korea, huge tracts of land in South America, a recording studio and travel agency in Manhattan, a horse farm in Texas and a golf course in California.[72]

In a 1992 letter to The New York Times, author Richard Quebedeaux, who had taken part in several Unification Church projects, criticized Moon's financial judgement by saying, "Mr. Moon may well be a good religious leader with high ideals, but he has also shown himself to be a poor businessman."[73]

[edit] Theocracy

According to the New York Times, "outside investigators and onetime insiders … give a picture of a theocratic powerhouse that is pouring foreign fortunes into conservative causes in the United States."[74] Moon's position on the First Amendment's Establishment Clause are unclear. He has frequently relied on First Amendment protections in various legal matters relating to himself or the Unification Church, but he also teaches that religion and politics are inseparable entities. Critics have characterized his call for unity between religion and politics contrary to the principle of separation of church and state.[75]

[edit] Church role in munitions manufacturing

Church-related businesses engaged in munitions manufacturing in South Korea during the 1960s, as reported by the Fraser Committee a United States Congressional committee which investigated the Unification Church and its relationship with the government of South Korea in 1978. According to the same report, Unification Church owned Tongil Group, then South Korea's 35th largest industrial conglomerate[76], which was involved in weapons manufacture and "is an important defense contractor in Korea. It is involved in the production of M-16 rifles, antiaircraft guns, and other weapons." In fact, as South Korea is technically still at war with North Korea, all large manufacturers are required by law to accept military contracts, as Tongil Group was obligated to do under mandatory South Korean law.

Moon's fourth son, Kook Jin "Justin" Moon founded Kahr Arms, a small-arms company based in Blauvelt, New York with a factory in Worcester, Massachusetts.[77][78]

According to the Washington Post, "Some former members and gun industry critics perceive a contradiction between the church's teachings and its corporate involvement in marketing weapons promoted for their concealability and lethality."[79]

[edit] Comments on homosexuality

In 1997 gay rights advocates criticized Moon based on comments he made in a speech to church members, in which he said: "What is the meaning of lesbians and homosexuals? That is the place where all different kinds of dung collect. We have to end that behavior. When this kind of dirty relationship is taking place between human beings, God cannot be happy," and referred to homosexuals as "dung-eating dogs."[80][81] He also said in 2007 that "free sex and homosexuality both are the madness of the lowest of the human race," and that God detests such behavior, while Satan lauds it.[82]

[edit] Jews and the Holocaust

Main article: Unification Church antisemitism controversy

Other controversies arose over Moon's statements about the Holocaust being (in part) "indemnity" (restitution) paid by the Jews, a consequence of Jewish leaders not supporting Jesus, which contributed to his murder by the Roman government.[83][84]

[edit] Allegations of sex rituals

In the early years of the Unification Church in South Korea, opponents of the church made unproven claims that Moon led his congregation as a sex cult. The church has vehemently rejected the claims, and a former member, South Korean pastor Sa Hun Shim, was convicted of criminal libel for publishing the allegation, in 1989, when a Seoul court held that this persistent rumor was without basis.[85]

In 1955, Moon himself had been arrested and acquitted of charges that the church calls fabricated.[86] And in 1960, in what Moon calls the "climax of persecution,"[87] fourteen students and two professors were dismissed from Ehwa Women's University in Seoul on the grounds that their participation in the faith was immoral.[88]

Rumors of polyamory made it into early U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and FBI reports monitoring the church. The intelligence cables claimed Moon conducted sex rituals among six married female disciples (the "Six Marys") to prepare the way for the virgin who would marry Moon and become the "True Mother." Conservative journalist Carlton Sherwood has argued that the claims were invented by Christian missionaries. An FBI field report alleged that Moon's rites involved "having a nude women in a darkened room with MUN[sic] while he recited a long prayer and caressed their bodies. . . . At these meetings, MUN prepared special food and drink, and gathered his nude congregation into a darkened room where they all prayed for twenty-four hours."[89]

In 1993, a wartime friend of Moon, Chung Hwa Pak, revived the allegations in his book "Tragedy of the Six Marys," released in Japan as "Roku Maria no Higeki." But he subsequently rejoined the church and recanted, publishing a 1995 confession, "The Apostate," in which he said he had lied about Moon out of jealousy.[90] Moon's estranged daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, has said that she believes the sex claims are true, writing: "I've always wondered what the price was of that retraction." [91]

http://en.wikipedia.org

Unification Church

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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 Heaven 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]

Contents [hide]

1 History

2 Beliefs

2.1 The Principle of Indemnity

2.2 Spiritualism

2.3 Sex and marriage

3 South America

4 Campaign to replace the Cross with a Crown

5 Related organizations

6 Controversy

6.1 Cult status

6.2 Use of money

6.3 Allegations of fraud

6.4 Recruitment and allegations of brainwashing

6.5 Political activities

6.6 Reports of children conceived out of wedlock

6.7 Accusations of antisemitism

6.8 Use of term 'moonie'

7 Future church leadership

8 Notes

9 See also

11 External links

[edit] History

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 as the Creative Community Project. 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 1997 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:

"[Moon] has a belief system that admits of no boundaries or limits, an all-embracing truth. His writings exhibit a holistic concern for the person, society, nature, and all things embraced by the human vision. In this sense the concept underwriting the Unification church is apt, for its primary drive and appeal is unity, urging a paradigm of essence in an overly complicated world of existence. It is a ready-made doctrine for impatient young people and all those for whom the pursuit of the complex has become a tiresome and fruitless venture."[17]

In 1974, Moon took full-page ads in major newspapers defending President Richard M. Nixon at the height of the Watergate controversy.[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."

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 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."[19]

In 1982 Moon was convicted of tax fraud and conspiracy in United States federal court and was sentenced 18 months in federal prison.

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.[20]

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.[21] In 1994 the church had about 5,000 members in Russia and came under criticism from the Russian Orthodox Church.[22] 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.[23] Starting in 1992 the church established business ties with still communist North Korea and owns a automobile factory, a hotel, and other properties there. In 2007 it founded a "World Peace Center" in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital city.[24]

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.[25] Starting in 2007 the church sponsored a series of public events in various nations under the title Global Peace Festival.[26][27][28][29]

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." [30]

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.[31][32]

In April 2009 the British school system was criticized for including study of the Unification Church in proposed religious studies guidelines for British students.[33]

[edit] Beliefs

See also: Divine Principle

The beliefs of the Unification Church are outlined in its textbook, Divine Principle.

God is viewed as the creator,[34] whose nature combines both masculinity and femininity,[34] and is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness. Human beings and the universe reflect God's personality, nature, and purpose.[34]

"Give-and-take action" (reciprocal interaction) and "subject and object position" (initiator and responder) are "key interpretive concepts",[35] and the self is designed to be God's object.[35] The purpose of human existence is to return joy to God.[36] The "four-position foundation" is "another important and interpretive concept",[36] and explains in part the emphasis on the family.[36]

[edit] The Principle of Indemnity

Main article: Indemnity (Unification Church)

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.[37][38][39][40][41]

[edit] Spiritualism

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.[42][43] The Divine Principle says about Moon:

"For several decades he wandered through the spirit world so vast as to be beyond imagining. He trod a bloody path of suffering in search of the truth, passing through tribulations that God alone remembers. Since he understood that no one can find the ultimate truth to save humanity without first passing through the bitterest of trials, he fought alone against millions of devils, both in the spiritual and physical worlds, and triumphed over them all. Through intimate spiritual communion with God and by meeting with Jesus and many saints in Paradise, he brought to light all the secrets of Heaven."[44]

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.[45][46][47]

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.[42]

[edit] Sex and marriage

Main article: Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church

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 from before joining the church.[48]

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.[49]

The Blessing ceremonies have attracted a lot of attention in the press and in the public imagination, often being labeled "mass weddings".[50] 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.[51]

Several church-related groups are working to promote sexual abstinence until marriage and fidelity in marriage, both among church members and the general public.[52]

The church does not give its marriage blessing to same-sex couples.[53] 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"[54] and prophesied that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders." These statements were criticized by gay rights groups.[55]

[edit] South America

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.[56] 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. [57]

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.[58]

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.[59]

[edit] Campaign to replace the Cross with a Crown

In 2003 Moon began his "tear down"[60], or "take down the cross"[61] 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.[62]

Unification Church member and theologian Andrew Wilson said, "The crucifixion was not something that God loves, but something that God hates. It hurts every time he sees people glorifying the cross, which was the instrument of execution used to kill his beloved son."[63]

Michael Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Christian advocacy organization Concerned Women for America, responded: "Just imagine if some misguided Christian were to suggest that the Jews have to take away their symbol and the Muslims would have to take away their symbol, not display it in public any longer. That would be identified instantly as a statement of intolerance. Reconciliation and peace do not grow out of intolerance." [64]

[edit] Related organizations

See also: List of Unification Church affiliated organizations

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.[65] 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.[66][67] Others have said that one purpose of these groups is to pursue social respectability for the church.[68]

[edit] Controversy

This article's Criticism or Controversy section(s) may mean the article does not present a neutral point of view of the subject. It may be better to integrate the material in those sections into the article as a whole. (May 2009)

[edit] Cult status

The Unification Church is among the most controversial religious organizations in the world today.[citation needed] 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.[69][Need quotation on talk to verify] A German court made a similar finding.[70][self-published source?]

[edit] Use of money

Critics also allege irregularities in the use of money and claim that the church has enriched Moon personally.[71] The Moon family situation is described as one of "luxury and privilege"[72] and has been referred to as "lavish."[73]

Nansook Hong, who lived with 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."[73]

[edit] Allegations of fraud

In the 1990s, thousands of Japanese elderly people claimed to have been defrauded of their life savings by church members.[74] 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.[75] 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 a scam involving selling expensive personal seals, telling people that failure to buy would bring bad fortune.[76]

[edit] Recruitment and allegations of brainwashing

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.[citation needed] 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.[77] 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.[78] 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." [79]

[edit] Political activities

See: Unification Church political activities

The Unification Church has been criticized for its political activities, especially its support for United States president Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal[80], its support for anti-communism during the Cold War[81][82], and its ownership of various news media outlets, especially the Washington Times, which tend to support conservatism.[83]

[edit] Reports of children conceived out of wedlock

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 that 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.[84]

[edit] Accusations of antisemitism

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) released a report on antisemitism in in 1976, centers on passages found in Divine Principle, the church's basic text, stating that it contained "pejorative language, stereotyped imagery, and accusations of collective sin and guilt."[85] In a news conference consisting of the AJC, and representatives of Catholic and Protestant churches, panelists stated that the text 'contained over 125 anti-Semitic references.' The panelists noted Moon's public recent condemnation of "anti Semitism 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.[86]

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.[87]

Leo Sandon Jr. wrote in Theology Today in 1978 supporting the AJC's charge of antisemitism in Unification Church teachings, but noted that the church argued that this resulted from "Korean ignorance of Jewish sensitivities". He stated that he was more troubled by the "unmistakable anti-semitism" of "a highly placed and veteran Korean Moonist".[88]

The Unification Church explanation for 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.[89] 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".[90]

In 2003, journalist John Gorenfeld criticized the Anti Defamation League (ADL) in an article in Salon Magazine for its silence on antisemitic statements by members of the Unification Church, in contrast to the its outspoken criticism of the Nation of Islam and other groups.[91]

[edit] Use of term 'moonie'

Main article: Moonie (Unification Church)

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.[92] Some dictionaries call it offensive or derogatory;[93][94] others do not.[95][96] It has been used by critics of the church since the 1970s.[97] Church members have used the term, including Sun Myung Moon,[98] President of the Unification Theological Seminary David Kim,[99] and Moon's aide Bo Hi Pak.[100] Members of the Unification Church have stated that they currently prefer the term "Unificationists".[10] It has seen usage in languages including English,[95][96] French,[101][102] German,[103][104] Spanish,[105][106] and Portuguese,[107][108] and according to Religion and Politics In America Unification Church followers are "universally known, often derisively" by the term.[109]

[edit] Future church leadership

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[110] and Hyung Jin Moon.[30][111][112] In 2001, Moon said:

"I have to set up a representative or successor before I can complete this mission. Is there anyone? Rev. Kwak? Dr. Bo Hi Pak? Is there? No, not one is qualified."[113]

In 2009 the BBC reported on recent changes in the Unification Church and concluded that: "...Unificationism has a long way to go before it is simply regarded as one religion among many."[114]

[edit] Notes

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