the Spirit Watch

   The  Unification Church 

By Rafael Martinez, Director, Spiritwatch Ministries

A recent spate of articles in many a newspaper hail the "comeback" of the self-proclaimed spiritual leader the "Reverend" Sun Myung Moon as he once again climbs into the national limelight on his 50 state speaking tour which has taken him across the nation in the past month.  The truth is, however, Moon never went away. He has simply been reinventing himself. Moon has been quietly distancing himself from the storms of controversy his political, business, and religious ambitions spawned in the 1970's, when his Unification Church's storming of America and the West from his homebase in South Korea, by recasting his public image and his organizational emphases. 

His Unification Church entity has taken a new corporate title, that of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, to reflect Moon's goal of wading into the mainstream of Christian life in America, as well as into the political arena. A dizzying array of organizations working under Unification auspices now actively network and offer millions of dollars of their money and hundreds  of their personnel to the non-Unification labors of community leaders across the nation who are engaged in social programming aimed at arresting our culture's slide into immorality and shattered families. With the advent of President George Bush's new emphasis on federal aid to "faith-based" programs that help the needy, the sick and the homeless, Moon's massive organizational presence in the halls of power in Washington - alongside organizations like the Christian Coalition - assures that he will have a voice and a stake in the billions of dollars that could be involved. He is now regularly hailed by Christian leaders, from Jerry Falwell, Billy McCormack, T.L. Barrett,  and Robert Schuller - as a man of great ideals and vision. Indeed, Schuller holds that Moon's presence and sponsorship at a January, 2001 pre-inaugural interfaith prayer luncheon was part of a great spiritual move of God in that despite diversity, "there is an overriding unity. And the only way I can explain it in my theology is the Holy Spirit [and that] Jesus Christ has really diversified His investment portfolio."  (click here to read a collection of articles on this luncheon).

But aside from his assumption of the imprimatur of religious rhetoric from those outside of his sphere of influence, Moon and his mission still haven't changed. They still seek to spread what Moon calls, as many other do, "the restoration" of Christianity into perfect unity with world religions and temporal  government.  He still presides over massive "Blessing" ceremonies where thousands of couples are jointly married, he still preaches that his Divine Principle revelation is the light through which all mankind will come to understand God's ways again, and his theology still asserts the kind of claims that we share below: 

Many people rattle off words about God’s absoluteness, omnipotence and glory. Nonetheless, through my lifelong search for truth, I have found that to be way off the mark. God lost His loving children as a result of the first ancestors’ Fall. If your children are imprisoned, can you live in glory? God’s heart is in the deepest pain. What’s more, God had to give Satan the beautiful creation that He made for His children. From the moment He lost His object partner of love, the God of true love became the God of loneliness.

The Fall of man was a watershed event to Moon on so many fronts, but first and foremost, it established the brokenness of mankind that resulted in a permanent heartache for God, a heartache Moon believes God has called him to bring and end to through his Unification work. As we have said,  Moon's avowed aim is to bring  a "restoration" of the divided worlds of man's religion, politics and science and he has expended untold billions of dollars to that end for the past 50 years or so. His work as seen above convened an "Assembly Of The World's Religions" in 1985, a step towards realizing his ecumenical dream based upon his Unification theory. We simply don't have time to analyze this aspect of his work, which is vital to understanding Moon's worldview and work, but will confine our remarks on his work to what  we feel is a Biblical critique of Moon's basic teachings on spiritual salvation and the nature of God.

Nor will we have time to discuss Moon's Unification political agenda, which aside from a strident anti-communism and a passionate desire to see his "fatherland" Korea reunited since its' division into North and South entities after the Korean War, is quite simple to understand in brief: he quite literally expects the world to some day bow before him and his Unification juggernaut: 

My dream is to organize a Christian political party including the Protestant denominations, Catholics and all the religious sects. Then the communist power will be helpless before ours. We have to purge the corrupted politicians and the sons of God must rule the world. The separation between religion and politics is what Satan likes most. ...Upon my command to the Europeans and others throughout the world to come live in the U.S., wouldn't they obey me? Then what would happen? We can embrace the religious world in one arm and the political world in the other. With this great ideology, if you are not confident to do this, you had better die! 

However, with Moon's close ties to the presidential Bush families, both father and son, and Moon's longstanding political influence in Washington since the Nixon administration, it is obvious to anyone with eyes and ears that he is far more than just the harmless moral crusader and Korean immigrant industrialist he makes himself out to be. Moon is still a  powerful figure in the religious world, and one that we feel fully justifiable as characterizing as not only cultic but antichristian to the core.   

What are our concerns? How can we justify  such a seemingly intolerant statement? We will demonstrate this as we examine the following issues:

The resurgence of Sun Myung Moon's Unificationism and its many operations -  it's not just for "Moonies" anymore, and how it stands to grow into the 21st century

A brief look at the teachings of Unificationism, what "new expression of truth" Sun Myung Moon really believes, and what message his 50 state tour brings to the Church 

What kind of "family values" the Moon family actually practices, as well as among the extended Unification family under the rule and command of the  "True Parents" 

How the Moon organization is working today, how deeply it still impacts the world, how many Christian leaders deliberately embrace it, and how Christians should be responding

For more information on the Unification Church:

Unification Theology And The Cross of Christ - by Bryce Pettit 

(a 4 part series courtesy of Mr. Pettit & EMNR with a Christian perspective on Unificationism)

 For our perspectives on the resurgence of Sun Myung Moon and Unificationism, click on:

New Moon Arising How The Moon Became The Son
The True Family's Real Values Floating Down The Mainstream

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