Unification Church

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
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 started by Sun Myung Moon in Korea in the 1940s.

The beliefs of the church are explained in the book Divine Principle and draw from the Bible as well as Asian traditions and include belief in a universal God; in the creation of a literal Kingdom of Heaven on earth; in the universal salvation of all people, good and evil as well as living and dead; that Jesus did not come to die; and that the Lord of the Second Coming must be a man born in Korea early in the 20th century who must marry and have children.

In 1954, the group was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), reflecting Moon's original vision as an ecumenical movement. In the face of opposition by established churches, however, it developed not as a movement, but as a separate organization or religion and became known as the Unification Church.

Members are found in over 50 countries, with the majority living in South Korea or Japan.[1] Estimates of the number of its members range from 250,000 to 3,000,000.[2] In the English speaking world church members are sometimes referred to as Moonies, although they consider this pejorative.

In the 1990s, Moon began to establish various peace organizations, including the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, which took over many of the spiritual and organizational functions of the church. In many parts of the world, the movement was incorporated as HSA-UWC, and that name is found on legal documents.

Contents

The Unification Church (UC) believes that Jesus appeared to Mun Yong-myong (his birth name) on April 17, 1935, when Moon was 15 years old (in his 16th year in Korean age reckoning), and asked him to accomplish the work left unaccomplished 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).

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 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.

Moon formally founded his organization in Seoul, Korea, 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.

In 1958, Moon sent missionaries to Japan, and in 1959, to America.

Moon himself moved to the United States in 1971. UC missionaries found success in San Francisco first, where it expanded in both Berkeley and San Francisco as Creative Community Project. By 1973 missions had spread to most of the nation's most populous cities.

Moon took full-page ads in major newspapers defending President Richard M. Nixon at the height of the Watergate Controversy, based on the principle that God works through designated central figures throughout history, and that America played a crucial central role in the ongoing Providence of God on the world level.

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."

A few books have been written about the Unification Church. In 1976 Christian writer James Bjornstad wrote The Moon Is Not the Son, which criticized Unification Church theology. In 1979 Canadian writer Josh Freed wrote Moonwebs: Journey into the Mind of a Cult, which was the basis for the film Ticket to Heaven. 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? Barker wrote that she rejected the "brainwashing" theory as an explanation for conversion to the Unification Church. In the 1980s reporter Carlton Sherwood wrote Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. This book was partly sponsored by the church.

In 1978, a Congressional subcommittee issued a report that included the results of its investigation into the UC, and into other organizations associated with Moon. 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."[3]

In 2000, the Unification Church was one of the cosponsors of the Million Family March in Washington D. C..[4]

Main article: Unification theology
See also: Divine Principle

God is viewed as the creator in Unification Theology. God has polar characteristics corresponding to (but more subtle or "internal" than) the attributes we see expressed in his creation: masculinity and femininity, internal character and external form, subject and object. God is referred to as "he" for simplicity and because "masculinity" is associated with "subject." God is omniscient and omnipotent, though bound by his own principles and the logical consequences of human freedom; in order to experience a relationship of love, he created human beings as his children and gave them freedom to love him or not as they chose.

Unificationists believe that the Fall of Man was an actual historical event (rather than an allegory) involving an original human couple, who are called Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis in the Bible. The elements in the story, however, such as the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the forbidden fruit, the serpent, etc., are interpreted to be symbolic metaphors for ideal man, ideal woman, sexual love, and Satan, respectively. The essence of the fall is that Eve was seduced by an angelic being (Lucifer). Eve then seduced Adam. So love was consummated through sexual intercourse between Adam and Eve apart from the plan of God, and before Adam and Eve were spiritually mature. Unificationists believe there was a "spiritual (sexual) fall" between Eve and the angel, and a "physical (sexual) fall" between Eve and Adam. They also regard Adam and Eve's son Cain killing his brother Abel as a literal event which contributed to humankind's fallen state. Unificationists teach that since the "fall of humanity," all of human history has been a constant struggle between the forces of God and Satan to correct this original sin (cf. Augustine and lust, concupiscence). This belief contributes to their strict moral code of "absolute love" and sexual purity, and the need for "indemnity" or reparations.

A fundamental teaching of the church is that God possesses both male and female attributes and that the most perfect substantial expression of God is to be found in a "true love" relationship between a fully perfected man and a fully perfected woman, living in accordance with the will of God. This love can then grow between parents and children. "True love" is understood to mean a sacrificial love that it is unconditional, unchanging, and eternal. The love that was lost at the Fall of Man must be restored. The history of religion, especially that of the central Providence of Judeo-Christianity, is the story of Divine and human effort to rebuild God's original ideal world. A messiah comes in the position of Adam as a starting point for a new sinless Eden, the Kingdom of God on Earth. Jesus provided spiritual salvation but could not achieve the complete elimination of evil and the establishment of a perfect society on earth. The Lord of the Second Advent comes as True Parents (Sun Myung Moon and Hakja Han Moon) to complete this restoration work by adopting all people into the True Family, cleansing them of Original Sin, and laying the foundation for the Kingdom of God on earth (see: Unification Church political views) and in the spirit world.

The Unification Church uses the term "absolute love" to refer to its teaching about sexual morality, which is essentially abstinence before marriage and fidelity thereafter.

During the church's period of early growth (1970–85 in America), most church members lived in intentional communities. The majority of members' marriages were arranged by Moon personally. In recent years this rule was relaxed, with parents often helping to arrange their children's choice of spouse and church leaders suggesting matches for members.

Many members considered it the ultimate test of their faith to accept a match arranged by Moon, and the church's increasingly large marriage blessings have attracted much notice. These ceremonies, dubbed "mass marriage" by the press, constitute the feature of the Church that is perhaps the most unusual to Westerners. Moon has presided over marriages of groups of hundreds, thousands, or even of tens of thousands of couples at once. Many of the arranged marriages paired people from different countries, races, and cultures. Moon teaches that such "exchange marriages" will help build connections among the divided human family, as people stretch their hearts to love spouse, in-laws, and children.

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

The Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, New York was founded in 1975.

News World Communications is their international media arm. It includes the Washington Times newspaper in Washington D. C., United Press International (UPI), Insight Magazine, The World & I, the Middle East Times, Tiempos del Mundo, Segye Ilbo, Segye Times USA, Chongyohak Shinmun, Sekai Nippo, GolfStyles, and the World Peace Herald. [1]

The Professors World Peace Academy was founded on May 6, 1973, in Korea, by Moon declaring its intent to "contribute to the solutions of urgent problems facing our modern civilization and to help resolve the cultural divide between East and West". PWPA now has chapters in over one hundred countries.

In the United States the church and church members own fishing interests, which are for-profit businesses and pay taxes. The biggest are in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Alaska and Alabama. In Kodiak, Alaska the church "runs a fleet of fishing boats ... [and is] the largest private employer" in Kodiak. [2] True World Foods runs a major portion of the sushi trade. [3]

The church itself or members also play roles in a variety of other business including Atlantic Video, a Massachusetts Avenue video post-production facility; the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut; a cable television channel called the AmericanLife TV Network, the firearms manufacturer Kahr Arms, and the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. Church members in other nations have also founded many businesses. David Bromley, a sociologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, said, "The corporate section is understood to be the engine that funds the mission of the church. The wealth base is fairly substantial. But if you were to compare it to the Mormon Church or the Catholic Church or other churches that have massive landholdings, this doesn't look on a global scale like a massive operation."[5]

In the United States the church was instrumental in the formation of the American Clergy Leadership Council (ACLC), an association of mainly African American Baptist and Pentecostal clergy.

The Unification Church was a major financial backer of the World Anti-Communist League.

In the 1980s church members in South America, following Moon's direction, founded the anti-communist organization CAUSA.

The Sun Moon University in South Korea is the movement's principal institution of higher learning in Asia.

In 2004 the church founded the Cheongshim Graduate School of Theology in South Korea.

Also, in 2006, Cheongshim International Academy was founded right next to the Graduate School. It admits both church members and non-members as students. Cheongshim International Middle School, which is a part of the school, is recongnized in South Korea as the most prestigious middle school. In 2007 admissions, the competition rate for this school recorded 54 : 1.

The Unification Church is among the most controversial religious organizations in the world today. Governments of most countries have recognized it as a bona fide religion entitled to tax exempt status. A number of opponents denounce it as a cult.[citation needed]

A frequently heard criticism of the Unification Church (UC) is that it's not really a church at all but a cult. By the sociological definition of "cult", the UC may no longer qualify (has grown too big, is less in tension with the larger society than in the 70s, or may in fact have always had too many beliefs in common with mainstream Christianity), in spite of its reputation for having some bizarre features, as emphasized by numerous media reports [4]. Some detractors have claimed the church's main purpose is to enrich Moon personally or to advance his political aspirations, such as the formation of a one world government.

The Japanese Supreme Court upheld a 1997 fraud charge against the Unification Church of Japan with regard to certain fundraising practices, but it has also upheld the church's status as a religion whose members have a right to practice their beliefs.

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 college students from their families through the use of brainwashing or mind control.[6]

Moon dismissed these criticisms, stating in 1976 that he had received many thank-you letters from parents whose children became closer to them after joining the movement. (In 1977, Moon had a notice posted in all Unification Churches in America, mandating that all members write to their families no less than once every 10 days.)

Moon and his wife were banned from entry into Germany and the other 14 Schengen treaty countries, on the grounds that they are leaders of a sect that endangered the personal and social development of young people. The Netherlands and a few other Schengen states let Moon and his wife enter their countries in 2005. In 2006 the German Supreme Court overturned the ban. [7]

See: Politics and the Unification Church, Unification Church political views

Critics of the Unification Church have accused the organization of being closely involved with covert CIA-authored operations against communism in Korea during the 1960s, largely due to similarity in names of the actual Korean CIA director and Won Pil Kim, the teenage follower who accompanied Sun Myung Moon on his journey from North Korea to the safety of Pusan during the Korean War, and who became the first long-time member. The Church is known to have been involved with weapon and munitions manufacturing in Korea since the 1960s, as documented in a 1978 United States Congressional Report on the Unification Church. The explanation given by Korean Unification Church members is that all manufacturers seeking to do business in South Korea were required to supply the military, and the actual products made were shell casings.

From 1977 to 1978, Moon's group was the subject of an investigation by the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the United States House of Representatives' Committee on International Relations, chaired by Rep. Donald Fraser of Minnesota. The report issued by the subcommittee alleged widespread fraud as well as ties to the Koreagate influence-peddling scandal. The report asserted that the Unification Church and other related groups constituted a single, monolithic "Moon Organization". Like-minded critics accuse the church of working to further a political agenda in both the Far East and in the United States. Sun Myung Moon's controversial religious and political Unification Movement, which includes not only the Unification Church but an enormous constellation of civic organizations, including the Washington Times Foundation, is allied politically with evangelical Christians such as Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye. Advocates adhering to this point of view have challenged the church's tax-exempt status in the US, arguing that the political activities of church-related groups comprise an impermissible intrusion of the church into political areas.

Defenders of the church dismiss this argument, on the grounds that the Unification movement is properly divided into distinct organizations, each of which should be judged by the laws relating to its type. Thus, church-owned businesses pay taxes, while the church itself largely need not. Church missionaries who decided to campaign for Ronald Reagan, had to resign from church leadership positions (at least on paper) while conducting their non-church political activities (private communication from Dan Peterson and Tom Carter). Moon has said that his order to Unification Church members to support Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign in New York City helped Reagan win the presidential election that year.

The church-related Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), which has a different type of tax-exempt charter, has more freedom than the church itself to engage in political speech and hold demonstrations on political topics.

Authorities in Brazil and Paraguay have expressed concerns over the Church's purchases in recent years of large tracts of land in South America, ranging in the hundreds of thousands of acres.

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 Moon's organization. The Association of Families for Unification and World Peace was the target of the raids, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and the personal residence of Moon's primary representative in Brazil, Reverend Kim Yoon-sang. As of 2007 no legal action has been taken by the Brazilian government resulting from their investigations.

See Unification Church and anti-Semitism.

Moon has spoken vehemently against homosexual activity. He stated that "homosexuals... are like dirty dung-eating dogs"[8] and prophesied that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders".[9] This was met with vocal dissent from gay rights groups.

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.[10]

  1. ^ A Unification Church International Directory lists contact information for 56 countries.
  2. ^ This fact sheet passes along the Unification Church's claim that it has approximately 3 million followers worldwide, but sociologists of religion who have studied the church believe this number is greatly inflated. The Adherents.com site specializes in religious demographics; it also gives direct and indirect reports of the numbers originating from Unification Church sources (1-3 million), as well as one source estimating 250,000, and another estimating "hundreds of thousands."
  3. ^ Investigation of Korean-American Relations; Report of the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives
  4. ^ Million Family March reaches out to all]
  5. ^ A Church in Flux Is Flush With Cash,
  6. ^ See Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900- . New York: Wilson, 1905- . v.1- .
  7. ^ Report released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Dept.
  8. ^ The Family Federation for Cosmic Peace and Unification and the Cosmic Era of Blessed Family. Retrieved on 04-11-2007.
  9. ^ http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_uni.htm
  10. ^ A speech made by Pak titled "Retraction of The Tragedy of the Six Marys" can be found at www.tparents.org.

Find more information on Unification Church by searching Wikipedia's sister projects
Dictionary definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity

Was this the article you wanted?

The following religious groups are often confused with one another:

Unification Church | Unity Church | Universal Life Church | Unitarian Universalist Association | Canadian Unitarian Council

United and uniting churches: Churches Uniting in Christ | United Church of Canada |
United Church of Christ | United Methodist Church | United Free Church of Scotland | United Reformed Church | Uniting Church in Australia
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.