Criticism of Unification Church

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Main article: Unification Church

The Unification Church is among the most controversial religious organizations in the world today. A number of opponents denounce it as a cult with bizarre features such as Sun Myung Moon's saying he is the "Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord"[1] and using a Senate office building for a coronation ceremony,[2] or his saying that his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons".[2]

Contents

Origins doubted

Some doubt the organization's religious origins. But after an 11-month study of the worldwide Unification Church, Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy (whose view of the church is no longer favorable)[3] concluded that "one thing is sure: the church has a genuine spiritual basis."[4] A German court made a similar finding.[5]

B. A. Robinson, in an essay published by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance wrote:

However, there is a potential negative side to membership in the Unification Church. Their core, dedicated members accept strong discipline and can develop a deep commitment to the church. They must remain celibate before marriage, abstain from tobacco and alcohol and work long hours. The group can become their whole life, the source of their religious, cultural, social, and other support systems. If they become disillusioned by some aspect of the church, this minority of unusually dedicated members can find it very difficult to leave the organization and abandon these support networks. When they do leave, they are often angry with themselves and the church, believing that they have wasted perhaps years of their life within the group. This problem is common to all high intensity denominations which require major commitment to the group. e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and (for priests and nuns) the Roman Catholic Church.[6]

Abuse of money

Critics point to irregularities in the use of money and highlight the church's role in enriching Moon personally.[7] The Moon family situation is described as one of "luxury and privilege"[8] and as "lavish".[9]

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, for 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."[9]

In the 1990s, thousands of Japanese elderly people claimed to have been defrauded of their life savings by Moon followers' spiritual sales. Moon's 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 pay two women coerced into donating their assets to the Unification Church.

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 college students from their families through the use of brainwashing or mind control.[10]

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. [11]

Political activities

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

Some detractors of the Unification Church have said that its main purpose is to advance Moon's political aspirations, such as the formation of a one world government.

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. 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.

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.

Rev. Moon's infidelity

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.[12]

South America

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 2008 no legal action has been taken by the Brazilian government resulting from their investigations.

Accusations of anti-Semitism

See Unification Church and anti-Semitism.

Teachings about sex outside of marriage and homosexuality

Moon has spoken vehemently against "free sex" and homosexual activity. In talks to church members he compared homosexuals to "dirty dung-eating dogs"[13] and prophesied that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders". These statements were criticized by gay rights groups. [14]

The B. A. Robinson of the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance wrote:

With this emphasis on male-female sex as the only valid model, and on heterosexual marriage as the only ideal, it is reasonable to expect that the Unification Church has very negative views on homosexual behavior:
  • Actively homosexual persons are not admitted into membership.
  • Actively homosexual persons would be prohibited from the clergy.
  • Most church leaders are married and have stable families.
  • Since they consider a gay or lesbian committed relationship to be outside God's ideal, commitment services for homosexuals are not held.
  • Their practice is to hate the sin but love the sinner.
  • They view homosexual behavior as a deviation from the God-centered family.[15]

Succession of Sun Myung Moon

The issue of who will lead the Unification Movement after his death is of importance to Sun Myung Moon. In 2001 he 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." [16] Observers of the Unification Movement, as well as some members, have speculated about the succession issue.[17]

Moon has indicated several times that his wife Hak Ja Han Moon will be his successor upon his death. He had her start the Women's Federation for World Peace and sent her on many lengthy speaking tours to proclaim core church teachings. She took on major leadership responsibilities in the mid 1980s when her husband served a little over a year of a prison sentence for white-collar crime; see Sun Myung Moon tax case.

Moon has also said that he desired to find a successor among his sons. Hyo Jin Moon (who died of a heart attack in 2008), Hyun Jin Moon [18], and Hyung Jin Moon [19] have been mentioned.

Moon's former daughter-in-law implied that he had no successor. Nansook Hong wrote, “The failure to designate and groom a successor all but guarantees a familial bloodletting after Reverend Moon’s death.” [20]

References

  1. ^ "God's heart and love for humanity has been the heart of a parent who loves a child. God could not ignore the immorality and wickedness of this world, so He finally sent me to correct these things and to tear down the barriers of war and conflict for all eternity. In doing so, He gave me the qualification to be the Savior, Messiah, returning Lord, and True Parent who appears in the world as the substantial body of God Himself." Let Us Perfect the Peace Kingdom Through the Peace United Nations, speech given by Rev. Moon at the Inaugural Assembly of the Headquarters of the Interreligious and International Peace Council (IIPC) - October 15, 2003 - Seoul, Korea
  2. ^ a b Warner Helped the Rev. Moon
  3. ^ "Theological Uproar in Unification Church; Rev. Moon Recognizes Zimbabwean as His Reincarnated Son", Washington Post March 30, 1988 article by Michael Isikoff. Sontag is quoted as saying: "The church began as a spiritual movement, but in recent years, it's become sort of humdrum and dissolved into more of a business"
  4. ^ Frederick Sontag. (1977). Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. Abingdon Press.
  5. ^ Fefferman, Dan (December 31, 2001). "ICRF White Paper: The Schengen Treaty and the Case of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon". http://www.religiousfreedom.com/Whatsnew/whitepaper.htm. Retrieved on 2006-04-29.  Moon, who was born and grew up in a Japan-occupied Korea, started to preach his religious teachings back in 1945 or 1946 before he personally encountered difficulties with communism. Following Moon's torture and imprisonment by the North Korean communists from 1947 to 1950 he was not reported to have engaged primarily in political agitation, but rather in daily worship. Furthermore, he was barred from the Presbyterian Church as early as 1948 owing to his different religious teachings.
  6. ^
  7. ^ These criticisms have been repeated hundreds of times in media reports. One such example is "Cults, Deprogrammers, and the Necessity Defense", Michigan Law Review, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Dec., 1981), pp. 271-311
  8. ^ "Money, Guns, and God" by Christopher S. Stewart, Conde Nast Portfolio, October 2007
  9. ^ a b Hong, Nansook. (1998). In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family. Little, Brown. (ISBN 0-316-34816-3).
  10. ^ See Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, 1900- . New York: Wilson, 1905- . v.1- .
  11. ^ Report released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Dept.
  12. ^ A speech made by Pak titled "Retraction of The Tragedy of the Six Marys" can be found at www.tparents.org.
  13. ^ The Family Federation for Cosmic Peace and Unification and the Cosmic Era of Blessed Family. Retrieved on 04-11-2007.
  14. ^ [http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_uni.htm THE UNIFICATION CHURCH AND HOMOSEXUALITY] B.A. Robinson, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance 2005
  15. ^ Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
  16. ^ Talk by Sun Myung Moon
  17. ^ Massimo Introvigne, From the Unification Church to the Unification Movement, 1994-1999: Five Years of Dramatic Changes, 1999, Center for Studies on New Religions, "The issue of succession is now of fundamental importance. The Reverend Moon will be eighty years old (by Korean age calculations, he turned eighty in 1999) in 2000. Mrs. Moon is fifty-seven years old. Since 1992 she has taken a more visible role, particularly in three world speaking tours in 1992, 1993, and 1999. Mrs. Moon has also spoken on Capitol Hill, at the United Nations, and in other parliaments around the world. Her relative youth and the respect with which she is held by the membership may be a point of stability for the Unification movement. The ceremony to inaugurate the Reverend and Mrs. Moon's third son, Hyun Jin Moon, as vice president of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification International (FFWPUI) on July 19, 1998, as well as his responsibility to educate the "second generation," denotes him as the successor. Hyun Jin Moon had represented the Republic of Korea in the Olympic equestrian event in 1988 and 1992. He graduated from the Harvard Business School with an M.B.A. in 1998. The Reverend Moon joked during his address that he is criticized for having "failed in business ventures, but now I have a son with an M.B.A. who will be successful in business." Hyun Jin Moon's blessing to Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak's (the Reverend Moon's assistant and former president of the FFWPUI) daughter, Jun Sook Kwak, is also a significant point of continuity"
  18. ^ "The mantle is passing to Hyun Jin Nim." [1]
  19. ^
  20. ^ http://www.factnet.org/?p=186

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