Sun Myung Moon is the
KoreaKorea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
n founder and leader of the worldwide
Unification ChurchThe 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 . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects. Among of the best-known of these are
News World CommunicationsNews World Communications, Inc., is an international news media corporation. It was founded in New York City, in 1976, by Unification Church founder and leader, Sun Myung Moon. Its first two newspapers, The News World and the Spanish-language Noticias del Mundo, were published in New York from...
, an international media conglomerate which published
The Washington TimesThe Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
and other newspapers, and the
Tongil GroupTongil Group is a South Korean business group associated with the Unification Church. It was founded in 1963 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the church...
, a South Korean business group or
chaebolChaebol refers to a South Korean form of business conglomerate. They are global multinationals owning numerous international enterprises. The term is often used in a context similar to that of the English word "conglomerate"...
with business interests world-wide. Moon and his wife
Hak Ja HanHak Ja Han or Hakja Han Moon is an influential member of the Unification Church and the wife of the church's founder, Sun Myung Moon. They married in April 1960 and have 13 children and 20 grandchildren...
are also famous for holding
blessing ceremoniesThe Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church is a wedding or marriage rededication ceremony sponsored by the Unification Church. It is given to married couples. Through it, members of the Unification Church believe, the couple is removed from the lineage of sinful humanity and engrafted into...
, often referred to as "mass weddings".
Moon has claimed, and it is generally believed by Unification Church members, that he is the
MessiahA messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
and the Second Coming of Christ and is fulfilling
JesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
' unfinished mission. He has been among the most controversial modern religious leaders, both for his religious beliefs and for his social and political activism..
Name and titles
Moon was born Mun Yong Myong. In 1953 he changed this to Mun Son-myong (also spelled Moon Sun Myung). In a speech Moon explained that the
hanjaHanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
for
moon (문, 文), his
surnameA Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both North Korea and South Korea. In the Korean language, 'ireum' or 'seong-myeong' usually refers to the family name and given name together...
, 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 nameA Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both North Korea and South Korea. In the Korean language, 'ireum' or 'seong-myeong' usually refers to the family name and given name together...
), means "bright." Together,
sun-myung means "make clear." So the full name can be taken to mean "the word made clear." Moon concluded: "My name is prophetic."
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 him Father or True Father. He is also sometimes called Father Moon. Similar titles are used for his wife: Mother, True Mother, or Mother Moon. Dr. Moon has also occasionally been used, especially in connection with the Universal Peace Federation, because Moon received an honorary doctorate from the Shaw Divinity School of
Shaw UniversityShaw University, founded as Raleigh Institute, is a private liberal arts institution and historically black university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest HBCU in the Southern United States....
.
Early life and education
Moon was born in 1920 in modern-day Sangsa-ri (上思里, lit. "high-thought village"), Deogun-myon, Jeongju-gun,
North P'yŏng'an ProvinceThis article describes the historical development of Korea's provinces . For detailed information on current administrative divisions, please see Administrative divisions of North Korea and Administrative divisions of South Korea....
,
North KoreaThe Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
. His birthday was recorded as January 6 by the traditional
lunar calendarThe Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...
(February 25, 1920, according to the
Gregorian CalendarThe Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...
). Korea was then
under Japanese ruleKorea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
. He is one of thirteen children and the second son to Kyung-gye Kim, a homemaker, and Kyung-yoo Moon, a scholar. During his childhood, Moon was heavily affected by his elder brother Yong-Su Moon's deep faith. Moon and his family went into bankruptcy when his grandfather's elder brother, Rev. Yunguk Moon, gave most of the family money to an independence movement from Japan.
In Moon's family, there was a tradition in the form of a superstitious belief that held that if the second son was to receive a Western-style education, he would die early. As a result of this, Moon received Confucian-style elementary and middle school education, not receiving his first Western-style education until he was 14 years old. Previously, Moon's family followed traditional Confucianist beliefs; when he was around 10 years old, they converted to
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and joined the Presbyterian Church, where he taught
Sunday schoolSunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
.
On April 17, 1935, when Moon was 15, he said that he had a vision of
JesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
while praying atop a small mountain. He said that Jesus asked him to complete the unfinished task of establishing God's kingdom on Earth and bring peace to the world. Three years later, Moon criticized Japanese rule over Korea and Japanese education in his high school graduation ceremony speech, which made him a focus of police officers.
Moon attended a boys' boarding school in
SeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
for his high school years. Later, he briefly lived in Japan and studied
electrical engineeringElectrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
at Waseda Advanced Engineering School. During this time, he studied the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and developed his own interpretation of it.
1940s
After the end of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Moon returned to Korea and began preaching his message. 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. Sung Jin Moon married in 1973 and now has three children.
The beginnings of the church's official teachings, the
Divine PrincipleThe Divine Principle or Exposition of the Divine Principle -in Korean, 원리강론/原理講論- is the main theological textbook of the Unification Church. It was co-written by church founder Sun Myung Moon and early disciple Hyo Won Eu and first published in 1966. A translation entitled Divine Principle was...
, 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.) The book lays out the core of Unification theology, and is held to have the status of scripture by believers.
Following the format of systematic theology, the
Divine Principle discusses: [1] God's purpose in creating human beings, [2] the fall of man, and [3] redemption - the process through history by which God is working to remove the ill effects of the fall and restore humanity back to the relationship and position that God originally intended. The
Divine Principle is based on the Jewish and Christian
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, but calls for the unity of all religions. It draws parallels between
Jewish historyJewish history is the history of the Jews, their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Since Jewish history is over 4000 years long and includes hundreds of different populations, any treatment can only be provided in broad strokes...
, as recorded in the Bible, and later Christian history; controversially saying that
JesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
should have been accepted as the
MessiahA messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
during his lifetime.
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
HŭngnamHŭngnam was the third largest city in North Korea.It is a port city on the eastern coast, in South Hamgyong Province, on the Sea of Japan . The city covers an area of 250 square kilometers...
labor campA labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
, 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.
1950s
After serving 34 months of his sentence, Moon was released in 1950, during the
Korean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
when
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
troops advanced on the camp and the guards fled. He traveled south and built his first church from mud and cardboard boxes as a refugee in Pusan.
In the early 1940s Moon had cooperated with
Communist PartyA political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
members in the
Korean independence movementThe Korean independence movement grew out of the Japanese colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. After the Japanese surrendered, Korea became independent; that day is now an annual holiday called Gwangbokjeol in South Korea, and Chogukhaebangŭi nal in North Korea.-Background:In...
against Imperial Japan. However after the war and his imprisonment he became an outspoken anti-communist. He was a supporter of the World League for Freedom and Democracy, an international anti-communist organization based in
TaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
. Financial support for Moon's early anti-communist activities came from
Ryoichi Sasakawawas a Japanese businessman, politician and philanthropist born in Minoh, Osaka. He was accused but acquitted of being a Class A war criminal after World War II, was a self-proclaimed fascist, kuromaku , and the founder of The Nippon Foundation...
, a Japanese billionaire and former war criminal.
In 1954, Moon founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in Seoul (more often called the
Unification ChurchThe 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 . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
). 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 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.
In 1955, Moon himself had been arrested and acquitted of charges that the church calls fabricated. And in 1960, in what Moon calls the "climax of persecution," fourteen students and two professors were dismissed from Ewha Women's University in Seoul on the grounds that their participation in the faith was immoral.
Rumors of
polyamoryPolyamory is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved....
made it into early U.S.
Defense Intelligence AgencyThe Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
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 SherwoodCarlton Sherwood is an American journalist who produced the anti-John Kerry film Stolen Honor. Sherwood served on two news teams which were responsible for the award of the Pulitzer Prize and the Peabody Award to their organizations....
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."
In 1993, an early disciple of Moon, Chung Hwa Pak, in his book
Tragedy of the Six Marys, released in Japan as "Roku Maria no Higeki", charged that Moon practiced during the church's early years sex rituals with, among others, six married female disciples ("the six Marys"). Pak subsequently rejoined the church and recanted, publishing a 1995 confession,
The Apostate, in which he said he had lied about Moon out of jealousy.
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). His church does not regard this as infidelity, because Sun Kil Choi is said to have 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
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
to avoid legal complications for Moon. There she was either raped or seduced by a Japanese man, and due to shame did not return to Moon.
1960s
Moon married his wife,
Hak Ja HanHak Ja Han or Hakja Han Moon is an influential member of the Unification Church and the wife of the church's founder, Sun Myung Moon. They married in April 1960 and have 13 children and 20 grandchildren...
, 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. 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 CeremonyThe Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church is a wedding or marriage rededication ceremony sponsored by the Unification Church. It is given to married couples. Through it, members of the Unification Church believe, the couple is removed from the lineage of sinful humanity and engrafted into...
for 36 couples, the first of many such ceremonies.
In 1962 Moon and other church members founded the Little Angels Children’s Folk Ballet of Korea, a children's dance troop which presents traditional
Korean folk dancesDance in Korea began with shamanistic early rituals five thousand years ago and now ranges from folk dance to newly created and adapted contemporary dance.-Overview:Korean traditional dance originated in ancient shamanistic rituals thousands of years ago...
. He said that this was to project a positive image of
South KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
to the world.
1970s
In 1971, Moon moved to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, which he had first visited in 1965. He remained a citizen of the Republic of Korea and maintained a residence in
South KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
.
In 1972 Moon founded the
International Conference on the Unity of the SciencesThe International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences was a series of scientific conferences sponsored by the International Cultural Foundation, an organization founded by Sun Myung Moon, the founder and leader of the Unification Church...
, a series of scientific conferences. The first conference had 20 participants; while the largest conference, in
SeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
,
South KoreaThe Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
in 1982, had 808 participants from over 100 countries.
In 1974 Moon supported President
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
during the Watergate scandal. Church members prayed and
fastedFasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
in support of Nixon for three days in front of the
United States CapitolThe United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
, 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.
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,
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and South Korea. The largest were a rally in 1975 against North Korean aggression in
SeoulSeoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
and a speech at an event organized by the Unification Church in Washington D.C. that also featured fireworks and music. These talks were highly visible and brought Moon into greater public attention. In 1975, Moon sent out missionaries to 120 countries around the world.
In 1977 and 1978 the Fraser Committee, a subcommittee of the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
led by Congressman
Donald M. FraserDonald MacKay Fraser is an American politician from Minneapolis, Minnesota.-Early life:Donald Fraser played a critical role in making human rights an important part of U.S. policy. Fraser was born on 20 February 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Everett and Lois Fraser. His parents were émigrés...
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." 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
propagandaPropaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
campaign for the Republic of Korea. The committee also investigated possible KCIA influence on the Unification Church's campaign in support of
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
during the
Watergate scandalThe Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
.
The committee also reported that the
Tongil GroupTongil Group is a South Korean business group associated with the Unification Church. It was founded in 1963 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the church...
, a business group owned by the Unification Church and then South Korea's 35th largest industrial conglomerate, was involved in weapons manufacture and was an important defense contractor in South Korea. The report said: "It is involved in the production of
M16 rifleThe M16 is the United States military designation for the AR-15 rifle adapted for both semi-automatic and full-automatic fire. Colt purchased the rights to the AR-15 from ArmaLite, and currently uses that designation only for semi-automatic versions of the rifle. The M16 fires the 5.56×45mm NATO...
s, antiaircraft guns, and other weapons." Tongil's other enterprises include: Pharmaceuticals, tourism, publishing,
ginsengGinseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....
and related products, real estate and building materials. The Tongil Group funds the Tongil Foundation which supports Unification Church projects including schools and the Little Angels Children’s Folk Ballet of Korea.
1980s
In 1980 Moon asked church members to found CAUSA International as an anti-communist educational organization, based in New York. In the 1980s it was active in 21 countries. In the United States it sponsored educational conferences for evangelical and
fundamentalistChristian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...
Christian leaders as well as seminars and conferences for
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
staffers,
Hispanic AmericansHispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...
and conservative activists. In 1986 it produced the anti-communist documentary film
Nicaragua Was Our HomeNicaragua Was Our Home is a 1986 documentary about the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua and their asserted persecution at the hands of the Nicaraguan government, filmed and produced by Lee Shapiro, a member of the Unification Church with funding from CAUSA International...
.
In 1982 Moon sponsored the movie
InchonInchon is a 1982 war film about the Battle of Inchon, considered to be the turning point of the Korean War. The film was directed by Terence Young and financed by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon. It stars Laurence Olivier as General Douglas MacArthur, who led the United States surprise...
about the
Korean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. It cost over 50 million dollars and was a critical and financial failure.
In 1982 in the case United States vs. Sun Myung Moon, Moon was convicted by the U.S. government for filing false federal
income taxAn income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
returns and
conspiracyIn the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
. His conviction was upheld on
appealAn appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
in a split decision. He was given a prison sentence and spent 18 months in the
Federal Correctional Institution in DanburyThe Federal Correctional Institution Danbury is a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, north of downtown Danbury and from New York City...
,
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. Many individuals, organizations and religious figures protested the charges, saying that they were unjust and threatened
freedom of religionFreedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
and free speech. Based on this case, reporter
Carlton SherwoodCarlton Sherwood is an American journalist who produced the anti-John Kerry film Stolen Honor. Sherwood served on two news teams which were responsible for the award of the Pulitzer Prize and the Peabody Award to their organizations....
wrote the book
Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
On January 2, 1984 Moon and Han's second son,
Heung Jin MoonHeung Jin Moon , also referred to by members of the Unification Church as Heung Jin Nim or posthumously as Lord Heung Jin Nim:, was the second son of church founders Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han. At the age of 17 he died in a vehicle accident in New York State...
died in a vehicle accident in New York State. Three months later his parents conducted a spiritual wedding ceremony between Heung Jin Moon and Hoon Sook Pak, daughter of church leader,
Bo Hi PakBo Hi Pak is a prominent member of the Unification Church. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a major leader in the organization, running projects such as newspapers , schools, performing arts projects, political projects such as the anti-communist organization CAUSA International, and was...
. He is officially regarded by the Unification Church to be the "king of the spirits" in
heavenHeaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
(ranking higher than
JesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
). After Heung Jin Moon's death, some church members claimed that they were
channellingIn spirituality, channelling or channeling is the belief that communication of information occurs by or through a person , from a deity, spirit or other paranormal entity outside the mind of the channel...
messages from his spirit. In a 1988 a church member from
ZimbabweZimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
, named Kundioni, claimed to be the incarnation of Heung Jin Moon. His acts of violence against church members were a source of controversy within the church. Heung Jin Moon is now believed by church members to be leading workshops in the
spiritual worldThe English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
in which spirits of deceased persons are taught Unification Church teachings.
In Washington D.C., Moon found common ground with strongly anti-communist leaders of the 1980s, including United States President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. His international media conglomerate
News World CommunicationsNews World Communications, Inc., is an international news media corporation. It was founded in New York City, in 1976, by Unification Church founder and leader, Sun Myung Moon. Its first two newspapers, The News World and the Spanish-language Noticias del Mundo, were published in New York from...
, founded with Unification Church funds in 1976, founded
The Washington TimesThe Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
in 1982. By 1991, Moon said he spent about $1 billion on the paper (by 2002 roughly $1.7 billion), which he called "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world".
In August 1985 the Professors World Peace Academy, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in
GenevaGeneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
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 WallThe Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
.
1990s
In April 1990 Moon visited the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and met with President
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
. 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. Massimo Introvigne, who has studied the Unification Church and other
new religious movementA new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s, has said that after the
dissolution of the Soviet UnionThe dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
in 1991, Moon has made anti-communism much less of a priority.
In the 1990s Moon's ownership of major business enterprises, including
The Washington TimesThe Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
, the
United Press InternationalUnited Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
, and Pyeonghwa Motors was noted in the media. A small sampling of include computers and religious icons in Japan, seafood in
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, weapons and ginseng in Korea, huge tracts of land in
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, a recording studio and travel agency in Manhattan, a horse farm in
TexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and a golf course in California. In a 1992 letter to
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, author Richard Quebedeaux, who had taken part in several Unification Church projects, criticized Moon's financial judgment 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."
In the mid-1990s, former U.S. President
George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
accepted millions of dollars from Moon's Women’s Federation for World Peace to speak on Moon's behalf around the world. In 1994 the
New York Times, in a review of a PBS
Frontline documentary on the Unification Church, said that, "outside investigators and onetime insiders … give a picture of a theocratic powerhouse that is pouring foreign fortunes into conservative causes in the United States." In 1998 the Egyptian newspaper
Al-AhramAl-Ahram , founded in 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya . It is majority owned by the Egyptian government....
criticized Moon's "ultra-right leanings" and suggested a personal relationship with conservative Israeli prime minister
Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...
.
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
lesbianLesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s 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 gay people as "dung-eating dogs." 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
SatanSatan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
lauds it.
In 1998
Nansook HongNansook Hong , is the former wife of Hyo Jin Moon, first son of Unification Church founder and leader Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hakja Han Moon. They divorced in 1995...
, whom Moon married to his son
Hyo Jin MoonHyo-Jin Moon was the eldest son of 14 children of Sun Myung Moon and Hakja Han Moon. For ten years he was head of the Unification Church-owned Manhattan Center Studios recording facility in New York City...
when he was 19 years old and she 15, published her autobiography,
In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family, which the
New Yorker Magazine called Moon's "most damaging scandal". . Hong says that the Moon and his family live a "lavish" lifestyle and that he is treated like a god. The "tell-all memoir" openly challenges Moon and his wife's role in church teachings as "True Parents". 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." 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.
On October 28, 1999, Moon's son Young Jin Moon fell to his death from the 17th floor of a hotel in downtown
Reno, NevadaReno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area...
, in what the
coronerA coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
reported as a
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. His sister, Yeon Jin Moon, states that he developed
depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
and
anxietyAnxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
.
A spokesman for the Moon family asserted their position that they thought the death was not a suicide. Young Jin Moon had finished two years of classes studying East Asian civilizations at
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and had wanted to study hotel management. At the time he had been married for two years.
2000s
In 2000 Moon was criticized by conservative Christians for his sponsorship of a
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
conference which proposed the formation of "a religious assembly, or council of religious representatives, within the structure of the United Nations." Religious movements represented at the summit were Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Bahai, and Native American religions. In the same year, he joined with
Nation of IslamThe Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
leader
Louis FarrakhanLouis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...
in sponsoring the
Million Family MarchThe Million Family March was a rally in Washington D.C to celebrate family unity and racial and religious harmony; as well as to address other issues, including abortion, capital punishment, health care, education, welfare and Social Security reform, substance abuse prevention, and overhaul of the...
in Washington D.C., a follow-up event to the
Million Man MarchThe Million Man March was a gathering of social activists, en masse, held on and around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1995...
held in 1995. In January 2001 Moon sponsored President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal. Later that year he presided over the wedding of now-
excommunicatedExcommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
Roman Catholic
ArchbishopAn archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
Emmanuel MilingoEmmanuel Milingo is a former Roman Catholic archbishop from Zambia. In 1969, aged 39, Milingo was consecrated by Pope Paul VI as Bishop of the Archdiocese of Lusaka....
and Maria Sung, a Korean
acupuncturistAcupuncture is a type of alternative medicine that treats patients by insertion and manipulation of solid, generally thin needles in the body....
. In 2003 Moon sponsored the first
Peace Cupthumb|right|400px|The opening ceremony of 2003 competitionThe Peace Cup is an invitational pre-season friendly football tournament for club teams, currently held every two years by the Sunmoon Peace Football Foundation. It is contested by the eight clubs from several continents, though 12 teams...
international club
footballAssociation football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
tournament. George H. W. Bush's youngest son
Neil BushNeil Mallon Bush is the fourth of six children of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush . His five siblings are George Walker Bush, the former President of the United States; Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida; Robin Bush, who died of leukemia in 1953 at the age of...
accompanied Moon on a speaking tour of Asian countries in 2005.
Between 2002 and 2006, Moon and his wife were banned from entry into
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the other 14 Schengen treaty countries. The
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and a few other Schengen states let Moon and his wife enter their countries in 2005. The ban has since been lifted in Germany and other countries as of 2007. Statements by Moon about the Holocaust, that its victims were paying indemnity for the
crucifixion of JesusThe crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
, were reported in a number of sources, including in the official record of the
Parliament of the United KingdomThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. In 2003, Unification Church spokesperson and webmaster Damian Anderson defended Moon's statements against critics saying: ""The fact is that the Jewish people committed a grievous sin in rejecting the Lord, and the world is today committing a grievous sin in rejecting the Lord. I will not water down what Father said to please liberal constituencies within his own church." Some commentators, including
David G. BromleyDavid G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. He has written extensively about "cults", new religious movements, apostasy, and the anti-cult movement.- Education and career :Bromley received his...
, a sociologist and expert on new religious movements, have suggested that Moon's statements are a reason for the Unification Church being "considered anti-Semitic". The Unification Church has also been criticized for saying that the First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
served as indemnity conditions to prepare the world for the establishment of the
Kingdom of GodThe Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is a foundational concept in the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The term "Kingdom of God" is found in all four canonical gospels and in the Pauline epistles...
.
In 2004, at a March 23 ceremony in the
Dirksen Senate Office BuildingThe Dirksen Senate Office Building is the second office building constructed for members of the United States Senate in Washington, D.C., and was named for the late Minority Leader Everett Dirksen from Illinois in 1972.-History:...
, in Washington D.C. Moon crowned himself with what was called the "Crown of Peace." Law makers who attended included Senator
Mark DaytonMark Brandt Dayton is an American politician, the 40th and current Governor of the state of Minnesota. Dayton previously served as United States Senator from Minnesota from 2001 to 2007 in the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses...
(D-
Minn.Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
), Representatives
Roscoe BartlettRoscoe Gardner Bartlett, Ph.D. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Republican Party, and a member of the Tea Party Caucus...
(R-
Md.Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
) and
Elijah CummingsElijah Eugene Cummings is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1996. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes just over half of Baltimore City, as well as most of Howard County...
(D-
Md.Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
) , 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
Unification Church of the United StatesThe Unification Church of the United States is a new religious movement in the United States of America. It began in the 1950s and 1960s when missionaries from Japan and South Korea were sent to the United States by the international Unification Church's founder and leader Sun Myung Moon...
at that time. On June 27, 2004 the
New York Times editorial board criticized the ceremony and the participation of members of Congress. The
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
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." 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.
On September 12, 2005, at the age of 85, Moon inaugurated the
Universal Peace FederationThere are a number of organizations founded, run, or supported by Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church. Commentators have mentioned Moon's belief in a literal Kingdom of God on earth to be brought about by human effort as a motivation for his establishment of groups that are not...
with a 120-city world speaking tour. At each city, Moon delivered his speech titled "God's Ideal Family - the Model for World Peace". In April 2008, Moon appointed his youngest son
Hyung Jin MoonHyung Jin Moon is the international president of the Unification Church.He is the youngest son of Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han Moon. He was born September 26, 1979 in the United States...
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."
On July 19, 2008, Moon, his wife, and 14 others were slightly injured when their
Sikorsky S-92The Sikorsky S-92 is a four-bladed twin-engine medium-lift helicopter built by Sikorsky Aircraft for the civil and military helicopter market. The S-92 was developed from the Sikorsky S-70 helicopter and has similar parts such as flight control and rotor systems.The H-92 Superhawk is a military...
helicopter crashed during an emergency landing and burst into flames in Gapyeong. Moon and all 15 others had survived the incident with minor injuries, and were treated at the nearby church-affiliated Cheongshim Hospital.
Experts from the United States
National Transportation Safety BoardThe National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine...
, the United States
Federal Aviation AdministrationThe Federal Aviation Administration is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the U.S...
, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, and
General ElectricGeneral Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
assisted the South Korean government in its investigation of the crash.
In 2009, the Yonhap News Agency reported that Moon had plans to establish a sacred sanctuary at his birthplace. That same year, Moon's autobiography,
As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen , was published by Gimm-Young Publishers in South Korea. An English translation was published in the United States later that year. In October, 2010 it was noted that the Korean edition had sold over one million copies and had become a topic of conversation in South Korea.
2010s
In 2010 Moon declared that his main teachings are contained within eight textbooks. They are "The Sermons of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon", "Exposition of the Divine Principle", "Cheon Seong Gyeong", "The Family Pledge", "Pyeong Hwa Shin Gyeong [Messages of Peace]", "True Families—Gateway to Heaven", "Owner of Peace and Owner of Lineage" and "World Scripture".
At that time Moon and Han were spending most of their time in South Korea and had given much of the responsibility for the Unification Church's religious and business activities to their children, who were then in their 30s and 40s.
Further reading
- Sontag, Frederick
Frederick Earl Sontag was a professor of philosophy and author. He taught at Pomona College in Claremont, California from 1952 to 2009, retiring shortly before his death.-Life and academic career:...
. 1977. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. Nashville, Tenn: Abingdon Press. ISBN 978-0-687-40622-7
- Bryant, M. Darrol, and Herbert W. Richardson. 1978. A Time for consideration: a scholarly appraisal of the Unification Church. New York: E. Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-88946-954-9
- Tingle, D. and Fordyce, R. 1979, Phases and Faces of the Moon: A Critical Examination of the Unification Church and its Principles, Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press ISBN 0-682-49264-7
- Durst, Mose
Mose Durst is an author, educator, and the former national president of the Unification Church of the United States. He was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City; then an Orthodox Jewish community; to immigrants from Russia. He received a Master's degree and Ph.D while studying English...
. 1984. To bigotry, no sanction: Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. Chicago: Regnery Gateway. ISBN 978-0-89526-609-5
- Fichter, Joseph Henry. 1985. The holy family of father Moon. Kansas City, Mo: Leaven Press. ISBN 978-0-934134-13-2
- Gullery, Jonathan. 1986. The Path of a pioneer: the early days of Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church. New York: HSA Publications. ISBN 978-0-910621-50-2
- Sherwood, Carlton
Carlton Sherwood is an American journalist who produced the anti-John Kerry film Stolen Honor. Sherwood served on two news teams which were responsible for the award of the Pulitzer Prize and the Peabody Award to their organizations....
. 1991. Inquisition : The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway. ISBN 978-0-89526-532-6
- Chryssides, George D.
Dr George D. Chryssides was a senior lecturer and Head of Religious Studies at the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences of the University of Wolverhampton now working for Birmingham University....
, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon: The Origins, Beliefs and Practices of the Unification Church (1991) London, Macmillan Professional and Academic Ltd. The author is professor of religious studies at the University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom.
- Yamamoto, J. Isamu, 1995, Unification Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House ISBN 0-310-70381-6
- Hong, Nansook, 1998, In the Shadow of the Moons, Boston, Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is a publishing house established by Charles Coffin Little and his partner, James Brown. Since 2006 it has been a constituent unit of Hachette Book Group USA.-19th century:...
ISBN 0316348163
- Introvigne, M., 2000, The Unification Church, Signature Books, ISBN 1-56085-145-7
- Ward, Thomas J. 2006. March to Moscow: the role of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon in the collapse of communism. St. Paul, Minn: Paragon House. ISBN 978-1-885118-16-5
- Moon, Sun Myung, 2009, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen. Gimm-Young Publishers ISBN 071660299
External links
Official sites
Other
- Unofficial website of church member, which contains information and past speeches by Moon.
- Sun Myung Moon, The Early Years, 1920-53, unofficial biography by Michael Breen, a Seoul-based author and journalist.
- Moon at Twilight, 1998 New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
article by Peter MaassPeter Maass is an American journalist and author. He was born in 1960 in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine. He has mainly covered...
who interviewed church members in Asia and North and South America.
- 1972 TV interview Part 1 and 2
- Critical site by journalist John Gorenfeld