Cults and World Religions

The Unification Church

Moonies

You’re a Fundamentalist. You take the Bible too literally.
Sun Myung Moon
Divine Principle, 534

With the fulness of time, God has sent His messenger to resolve the fundamental questions of life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.
Divine Principle, 16

Man is the visible form of God, and God is the invisible form of man. . . .God and man are one. Man is incarnate God. 150
Sun Myung Moon
New Hope, 5

Those that read the Washington Times and keep up with its ownership understand that the Moonies are the owners of this very conservative newspaper. This makes the group seem respectable. But beyond that . . .

What would you call the formulas for some of the other cults? They are similar, and yet, like different types of bread, a little different. Here, for example, one needs some Taoist philosophy, Christian terms, Bible verses, spiritism, mysticism, numerology, physics, anti-communism, and, probably, some good old fashioned pagan type cultic prostitution. Out of the oven pops a Korean Messiah!

History

Moon was born Young Myung Moon (loosely translated “Shining Dragon Moon”) in Korea in 1920. Moon’s parents practiced Confucianism until their conversion to Presbyterianism in 1930. Moon, like many other cult leaders, claims a visit from Jesus in 1935. The message delivered during this visit was that Moon was to finish the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. Moon set forth to develop the precepts to accomplish this, completing Divine Principles in 1945. Moon was imprisoned in 1946 while preaching in North Korea. Ultimately, he was freed in 1950 by the Americans involved in the Korean War. On May 1, 1954, Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. Moon moved to the United States in 1971, although Church missions arrived in 1959.

Sometime prior to 1948, Moon changed his name to Sun Myung Moon, meaning “Shining Sun and Moon.” It is estimated that by 1976, Moon’s Korean business holdings were worth $15-to-$20 million. Moon is said to have a personal net worth in excess of $15 million, with a 25-acre estate in Irvington, New York, a luxury yacht and all the trimmings. 151

The group owns many legitimate businesses and promotes social improvement. It is guessed that the Moonies move into depressed businesses, help them get back on their feet, than retain a substantial portion. The businesses include jewelers, publishers, clothing companies, and the like, on a worldwide basis. Moon himself has spent time in the US prison system for tax evasion. His most famous practice may have been the performing of a mass wedding at which some 30,000 couples were married. This occurred in Seoul in 1992.

There have been allegations made from time to time that part of Moonies pre-marital counseling included sleeping with the bridge-to-be, reminding one of the pagan temple prostitutes of Old Testament times. Reverend Won II Chei, a leading Seoul Presbyterian minister is quoted as saying, “If we believe those who have gone into this group and come out, they say that one has to receive Sun Myung Moon’s blood to receive salvation. That blood is ordinarily received by three periods of sexual intercourse.” 152 Bjornstad goes on to quote a follower of Moon’s as stating, “It is entirely possible that those sexual rites were a part of the early church in Korea. Since original sin came though he woman’s [Eve’s] intercourse with Lucifer through which she receive his evil characteristics, it is perfectly logical that the reverse of this, woman’s intercourse with the perfect man through which she could receive his perfect characteristics, would liquidate original sin. Then, as Adam received Satan’s evil characteristics from Eve through intercourse, so man would receive perfect characteristics through intercourse with the woman.” 153

The current world membership is roughly 3 million.

Beliefs

Basic to Moon’s theology is a dualism of contracts. These include Father God and Mother God, male and female, light and dark, spirit and flesh.

Moon still claims to receive visits and new revelation from God. His book, Divine Principles, is viewed as divinely inspired Scripture. The Bible is scripture along with Moon’s work Divine Principles.
Moon claims to be the messiah of the Second Coming and his wife is the Holy Spirit.
He and his wife, called The True Parents where he is the True Father and his wife, the True Mother, are the first couple to be able to bring forth children with no original sin. The Holy Spirit is ‘the True Mother,’ or ‘the Second Eve.
The cross is the symbol of the defeat of Christianity.
Sin is genetically based. It is not a moral issue. The thieves on the cross represent political movements.
The thief on the right side of Jesus represents democracy. The thief on the left of Jesus is communism.
Adam and Eve fell because of sexual sin. Eve had sexual relations with Satan.
Jesus is a ‘true person’ though not God in flesh. The church denies the doctrine of the Trinity.
Nature is dualistic: male and female, positive and negative, external and internal.
God has an external and internal aspect called the Universal Prime Energy. It creates, develops, and sustains the cosmos. God&s internal aspect of has to do with personhood - motivation, purpose and identity.
People determine their own future place in the spirit world after death through what they do here on earth.

The cult appeals to young people who can find communal unity within the church without the peer pressure of drugs, drinking, and free sex or radical politics.

How does a Moon continue in today’s environment? As indicated, Moon addresses the social problems of people with help in exchange for future financial interests. His efforts are also greatly anti-communist. This stance and his philanthropic endeavors all over the world provide a great deal of garner support and influence for his one world religious system. His is a doctrine of political social outreach, which provides earthly benefits of a limited variety to his followers, but which is very self-exalting for him, producing a type of self-serving theology.

The Moonies also use the cloak of respectability and remain hidden. Consider the following groups which are all owned or controlled by the Unification Church:

One World Crusade
International Federation for Victory over Communism
American Youth for a Just Peace
Freedom Leadership Foundation
Little Angels of Korea Folk Ballet
International Conference on United Sciences

The story is told of Dr. Bob Jones III, out of compassion for Korean children, becoming a member of the Advisory Board of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, Inc. It took Dr. Jones over three months of actually serving on the board to discover it was controlled by the Unification Church. This is the typical manner of operation for the church! 154

The Writings of / About the
Unification Church

155

By Sun Myung Moon:

Divine Principle, Washington, DC: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973.

The Divine Principle Study Guide, Belvedere Tarrytown, NY: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973.

New Hope, Washington, DC, The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1974.

Other Books About The Unification Church:

Young Oon Kim, The Divine Principle and Its Application, Belvedere Tarrytown, NY: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, n.d.

Young Whi Kim, The Principle of Creation, Belvedere Tarrytown, NY: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973.

Young Oon Kim, Unification Theology & Christian Thought, New York: Golden Gate Publishing Co;., 1975.

Unification Thought, NY: Unification Thought Institute, 1973.

Unification Thought Study Guide, NY: Unification Thought Institute, 1974.

Footnotes:
150. Kenneth Boa, Cults, World Religions and the Occult, USA: Victor Books, 1977, 1990, 213.
151. Kenneth Boa, Cults, World Religions and the Occult, USA: Victor Books, 1977, 1990, 213.
152. James Bjornstad, The Moon is Not the Son, Minneapolis: Dimension Books, Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1976, 33, quoting Chei from William J. Peterson, Those Curious New Cults, New Canaan, Conn: Keats Publishing Co., 1976, 250.
153. Ibid., 33.
154. James Bjornstad, The Moon is Not the Son, Minneapolis: Dimension Books, Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1976. Both the list and the example come from p. 22.
155. James Bjornstad, The Moon is Not the Son, Minneapolis: Dimension Books, Bethany Fellowship, Inc., 1976, 17.