The Unification Church
Also known as the Moonies: The Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1954. Born Jan. 6, 1920 in Korea.
Founder
Headquarters: Korea
Membership: approximately 3 million worldwide.
Origins: Moon was born to parents who adhered to Confucianism until their conversion to Presbyterianism in 1930. Moon claims that in 1935 Jesus appeared to him on a mountain in Korea and told him to finish the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. By 1945 he had written down the precepts of his new system in the book, Divine Principles. He went to North Korea to preach and was imprisoned in 1946. In April of 1948 he was again sentenced to longer 5 year sentence in Hungnam. In 1950 he was liberated from the prison by the Americans involved in the Korean War. On May 1, 1954, in Seoul, Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. In 1958 he sent missionaries to Japan and in 1959 to America. Moon moved to the United States in 1971. He has been invited to the White house and spoken to Congress.
Practices: Mass weddings. In August of 1992 in Seoul Korea, Moon presided over a mass wedding of 30,00 couples.
Teachings: 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 cross is the symbol of the defeat of Christianity." The Bible is considered scripture along with Moon’s work "Divine Principles." 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 Holy Spirit is ‘the True Mother,’ or ‘the Second Eve." 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.
Notes: Has over 300 financial institutions all over the world including publishers, jewelers, and clothing stores. Moon has spent time in a US prison for tax evasion. Moon claims to receive revelations from God. He has been involved in séances and other occult practices like clairvoyance, trances, etc.
Publications: Divine Principles, a 536 page work by Moon. It is considered divinely inspired and scripture.
Comments: Moon uses an anti-communism stance, many legitimate businesses, and philanthropic endeavors all over the world to garner support and influence for his one world religious system. Through his political social outreaches he has deceived a great many people into believing his self-exalting and self-serving theology. It is a dangerous group.
