THE Moonies Cult Beliefs AND Controversies

CULTS – THE MOONIES – BELIEFS AND CONTROVERSIES

OFFICIAL NAME OF THE SECT – The Unification Church

DATE / LOCATION OF ORIGIN – 1954 – South Korea (Seoul) 

Headquarters – New York.

ALTERNATIVE NAMES – Family Federation For World Peace & Unification, Holy Spirit Association, Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity,

FOUNDER / LEADER The Rev. Sung Myung Moon though in 2009, the ageing Moon handed overall control of the sect to his son, Hyung Jin Moon. SCRIPTURE / TEXTS – The Divine Principle – first edition 1957. The work is subject to numerous revisions and difficult to gain access to for non-members of the cult. MAIN BELIEFS

Essentially Christian. Moon was raised as a Presbyterian. (The parent church excommunicated him in 1948). Moon teaches that with there is one omnipotent God, with man’s role being to raise a perfect idealized family, devoted to God in all activity. History is about how mankind gets nearer to or further from communication with God, with bad experiences reflecting distance or divine punishment for distance from God. Much emphasise is given to the expected Second Coming of Christ, to be born of perfect parents, and taking his rightful place as our new spiritual father.

PRACTICES

Spiritualism is strong in the sect, who believes in communication with the spirits of the dead. Channelling is frequently practiced, with members promised their ancestors will receive spiritual reward for their (the members) commitments to the church. Moon’s best-known spiritualist channeller being a woman known as Miss Kim.

Creating families from members in order to hopefully have one husband and wife give birth to the Christ is a major practice, and central to the mass wedding ceremonies among followers, many of who don’t meet before the wedding ceremony itself. In fact, the wedding is not fully legal, and many couples are already wed, with others taking a proper legal registered marriage at a later date. The mass wedding, with one involving 2,500 couples is often just a publicity stunt. Moon has openly claimed that he himself is the Second Coming too.

Same sex weddings are not supported by the Moonies who can be somewhat homophobic. Moon teaches that gays will face the full wrath of God for their activity – charming.

Abstinence outside of marriage is also encouraged. Unusually, marriage is followed by a honeymoon without sex, as the couple are expected to abstain from intercourse for 40 days and nights.

Communal living was introduced in the 1970’s mirroring the ashram lifestyle of many Hindu sects. Followers were expected to raise money for the sect by selling flowers and home made candy to the public, working very long hours, often in rough and violent urban districts.

ORIGINS AND HISTORY

Moon received a vision of Jesus when he was 16, and Jesus told him to start a church to complete his work on Earth. He was preaching in North Korea when he was arrested for spreading subversive, unwelcome teachings by the atheistic Communist forces there. He was released by Americans during the Korean War and quickly re-launched his mission. By 1958, the sect was strong throughout South Korea, and Moon set out to conquer Japan and in 1959, opened his first Unification centres in the US. He moved to America himself in 1971. Growth was slow in the West and in ten years, he had only amassed 500 US followers and about 100 British members.

The press coined the name Moonies for members of the cult in 1974, as a term of abuse, but the cult freely adopted it and made the name its own from then on in.

About this time, criticism arose of high-pressure mind control tactics by the sect, and some high profile well publicised exposes came out. It would take until 1984 for Dr. Eileen Barker to produce her study, Brainwashing Or Choice, where she largely set out to discredit the brainwashing hypothesis, gaining a reputation for cult apologetics.

Moon was quick to exploit any negative feedback his followers received, regarding the suffering they faced from opponents as reflecting their Christ like sense of Martyrdom.  He was keen to evangelise in Eastern bloc countries where religion was largely outlawed.

CONTROVERSIES

More than any cult, The Moonies are associated with Brainwashing. The practice was used on Korean prisoners of war by the North Koreans and by the South Koreans as well as their US /British allies.  Moon may have received some such treatment during his captivity and used the principle practices himself in his religion.

A central doctrine of the Moonies is that it acceptable to lie to people if it brings them to a greater truth later on, when they will hopefully be grateful to you. The practice has a name – Heavenly Deception, basically a doctrine that a bad means to a god end is acceptable.

Moon was highly defensive of Richard Nixon as the Watergate scandal erupted in the 1970’s. Mass weddings, Heavenly Deception, in 1982, Moon was arrested for tax fraud and given 18 months in prison. In Japan, the elderly were coerced into making donations to the Church and leaving money to them in their will. Courts found grounds to reimburse many people with the monies thus obtained.

Moonie income has been used to give Moon a great deal of power, with ownership of leading newspapers, including the Washington Post, some arms trading, and a strong anti-communist policy drive. Moon has been accused of being more interested in political power than religion.

Many Ex-Moonies have written of their experiences in the sect.

The Divine Principle is often regarded as anti-Semitic in its condemnation of the Jews for their perceived role in events leading to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Ex-Moonie, Steven Hassan has become one of the World’s experts on cults.

FURTHER READING

Eileen. Barker, 1984. The Making of a Moonie. Oxford, UK: Basil.

Erica Heftmann, 1983. Dark Side of the Moonies. New York: Penguin Books.

Nansook Hung – 1998. In the Shadow of the Moons. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Arthur Chappell