The Unification Church: Cult, New Religious Movement, or Something Else — Capstone Paper from May 2024

         “The Moonies are a cult!” “They’re brainwashing our kids!” “Guilty!” “Our cherished hopes are for unity…” The 1970s began in an immense period of turmoil in American history. Amid the Cold War against the Soviet Union, rapid cultural, legal, and racial changes occurred domestically. Civil rights were finally legal for all, while the hippie movement engaged in full gear, dismantling traditional societal norms for both men and women. A vast appearance of new religious movements also began to spring up in the United States of America: the Church of Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, and the Unification Church…all of which spurred an uproar in the United States. In particular, the Unification Church, now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), became a chief opponent of the informal, broad anti-cult movement. Labeled as a cult, the Unification Church’s activities, including mass weddings, fundraising, witnessing, and following their founder, Reverend Moon swept America like wildfire, despite such a minimal amount of members. Reverend Moon, claiming to be the 2nd Advent of Christ, and his wife, Hak-ja Han Moon, claiming to be the Only Begotten Daughter, have had a host of accusations levied against them and their church. Chief among them: the Moons are two cult leaders who founded an insidious cult. Do these accusations hold up to the definition of a cult? Is the Unification Church in fact, just a new, harmless new religious movement? Or, is the Unification Church an entirely new category of movement? Through examining the definitions of cult and new religious movements and comparing them to the teachings, traditions, recruitment practices, and scandals hitting the church, the Unification Church most-accurately may be described as a messianic-family movement, unique to the field of new religious movements, cults, and faith traditions as a whole.  

Cults and New Religious Movements

To properly assess the Unification Church, an understanding of new religious movements and cults serves as the foundation for such discussion. Within modern academia, the category of new religious movements specifically applies to religious movements in the middle twentieth century and beyond. In the words of Harvard’s William Swatos: “When the term NRM is employed…[it includes] nontraditional and nonimmigrant religious groups, began with first-generation converts as their primary membership base, [and] attracted among their converts higher status young adults.” New religious movements break away from tradition. The traditions in question primarily lie in religious, theological, and denominational traditions. The example of Christianity, especially with the Unification Church’s relation to it, offers clear traditions. Religiously, Christianity, no matter the denomination, places Jesus Christ at the forefront of one’s faith. Jesus Christ, known in all traditional denominations as the Messiah and Savior, occupies every part of theology. Theological traditions, however, vary to an extraordinary degree. One such variance is the theology of the nature of Jesus Christ, with some theologies giving Jesus one hundred percent divinity, others stating Christ is only human, while other mainstream theologies believe he is both. As a result of theological differences such as the nature of Christ, hundreds of denominations have and still exist today. Therefore, a new religious movement sprouting out of Christianity, such as the Unification Church, must place someone or something other than Jesus at the center of the faith, creating concepts that go beyond the current theological landscape. For this reason, “the extraordinary diversity of NRMs is captured by the number of traditions represented in their ranks,” including the Unification Church. 

Beginning in the 1960s, many new religious movements were deemed cults, which in the Encyclopedia Britannica’s eyes, means a “usually small group devoted to a person, idea, or philosophy.” Coinciding with an idolization of a figure or set of teachings are “notions that new religious adherents are brainwashed, spiritually deceived, or mentally ill.” As the Cult Education Institute describes it, “many of the cults enforced a rigid communal life that required members to cut off all ties to their pasts, including contact with their families,” resulting in “a wave of deprogramming.” Such characteristics, which are found in many new religious movements, insinuate that members of cults become coerced to stay a part of it, rather than of their own, free and unhindered will. In the history of new religious movements, Douglas and other scholars agree that such accusations are accurate in some cases, but in others lack any foundation besides fear of the non-traditional. Douglas, for his part, is what Allen would call a cult apologist, underscoring an intense divide on the study of cults within academia. Douglas asserts that such generalizations “are not only problematic from an empirical standpoint, but erect significant barriers to understanding these fascinating social movements more fully.”

The diversity in new religious movements becomes more polarized and confusing when some new religious movements become identified as cults. In Douglas Cowen’s Cults and New Religions: A Brief History, he gives immediate notice to the fact that “what constitutes a ‘cult’ or ‘new religious movement’ is often highly contested and emotionally charged.” New religious movements disrupt religious norms and, by extension, the norms of millions of people within a society. People, with firm beliefs in attachments to their religions, often take personal and even national offense to violations of these norms. In America’s early history, the Puritan society of the American colonies serves as the first of many examples of such distaste for nontraditional religions in the United States, (even though Protestantism and Calvinism were around one hundred years old at the time) with ostracisation and criminal punishment given out frequently in response to such violation of religious norm. 

Nevertheless, the Unification Church has been identified as a cult by some due to accusations of idolizing the founders, Reverend and Mrs. Moon, engaging in sociologically manipulating recruitment practices and forced participation in brainwashing activities. To assess the veracity of these accusations, a consultation of the founders' words and official teachings, compared with testimonies from both current and former church members provides a more accurate picture than what cult fighters and apologists alike may offer. 

A Brief History of the Unification Church

The Unification Church, founded in 1954 as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, began in South Korea amid the aftermath of the Korean War. Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the church’s co-founder along with his wife, Hak-ja Han Moon (who, in 1992, Reverend Moon stated was “the second co-founder”), expanded the church into Japan beginning in 1958 and to the United States in 1959 and presently has locations in around two hundred countries. In 1996, the official name of the church changed to Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. The term Unification Church also encapsulates the hundreds of scientific, interreligious, business, and political organizations founded by the Moons. Expanding rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s, amidst intense societal pushback, the Unification Church held massive rallies, mass weddings, and countless workshops and fundraising campaigns in which members participated. Notably, in 2020, eight years after Reverend Moon died in 2012, Mrs. Moon once again changed the official name of the Unification Church to Heavenly Parent’s Holy Community.   

Reverend Moon claimed that at age fifteen (sixteen in Korean counting): “Early Easter morning, after I had spent the entire night in prayer, Jesus appeared before me. He appeared in an instant, like a gust of wind, and said to me, “God is in great sorrow because of the pain of humankind. You must take on a special mission on earth having to do with Heaven’s work.” This mission, he states, is to be the 2nd Advent of Christ (in Christian teaching, Christ comes again at the end of history). Mrs. Moon recounts a similar Messianic calling in her memoir, claiming that she was born as God’s Only Begotten Daughter, and together, with Reverend Moon, they “would rise to the position of the True Parents,” fulfilling the Christian prophecy of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and together, saving humanity from sin. Adherents and members of the Unification Church believe that Reverend and Mrs Moon are such figures, and follow their main teaching, the Exposition of Divine Principle, and their words, compiled in numerous published books. 

Categories of ‘Cult’ and ‘New Religious Movement’ Concerning Official Unification Church Teachings

The main teachings of the Moons and the Unification Church are founded in numerous published compilations of their speeches and sermons over the decades. Nevertheless, Exposition of Divine Principle (DP), first published in English in 1973 and written by former church president Hyo-won Eu under Reverend Moon’s supervision, is still regarded by scholars and church members alike as the most complete text on the Moons’ teaching (although, as of 2023, Mrs. Moon as asked some parts of it be emphasized less when doing church activities). In DP, there are three parts, giving three categories of teachings respectively. Firstly, DP teaches “Principles of Creation,” which explain God’s nature and the original way human beings must live. The second part, detailed in chapter two of part one, serves as the foundation for the core traditions of the church and the role of “True Parents” that Reverend and Mrs. Moon identify as. DP states: “The Adam and Eve story signifies a sexual act: the root of sin was not that the first human ancestors ate of the fruit, but rather that they had an illicit sexual relationship with an angel (symbolized by a serpent). Consequently, they could not multiply God’s good lineage but instead multiplied Satan’s evil lineage.” It is from this point that the third part of DP, “Restoration,” forms: “For Unificationists, the Fall of Man occurred along two interconnected axes – a vertical dimension that tainted the relationship between God and humankind….and a horizontal dimension that divided humanity against itself.” The teaching of the Fall of Man story certainly violates traditional Christian norms. Common interpretations of the story range from the literal to the purely metaphorical. No traditional denomination, however, asserts that the story involves sex. Notably, however, many scholars give similar conclusions to the Fall of Man story, with many other scholars such as Richard M. Davidson of Andrews University dispelling them. While such teachings violate traditional religious norms, the scholarly debate surrounding the subject indicates that the categorization of a ‘new religious movement’ cannot fit within the church’s teaching of the Fall of Man.  

While one of the church’s main teachings does not fit well with other new religious movements, the next two certainly give rise to such claims. On the foundation of DP’s explanation of the Fall of Man, DP claims that, since Satan’s lineage propagated due to sinful sex, “Christ must return in the flesh and find his Bride” and bring back God’s lineage by “form[ing] on the earth a perfect trinity with God and become True Parents both spiritually and physically.” The True Parents, on the foundation of the Fall of Man teaching and Restoration, become the central focus of church teachings. The True Parents save humankind by ridding people of Satan’s lineage. Since Reverend Moon and Mrs. Moon claim to be the True Parents and claim to be fulfilling Jesus’ mission, it is Reverend and Mrs. Moon who stand as a focal point for church believers. The teaching of True Parents widely ruffles traditional Christian theology on the role of the Messiah and places the church in the category of a new religious movement. In traditional theology, the Messiah is one man, Jesus Christ, and no other. The Unification Church’s theology, based on Adam and Eve's sexual relationship giving rise to sin, ascribes the Messiah to two people: one man, the 2nd Advent, and one woman, the Only Begotten Daughter. In particular, Mrs. Moon's role in the church’s theology introduces an entirely new idea to Christianity: women, rather than being mothers of great men, servants, or even prophetesses, play an equal role in saving the world for men. 

The theological focus on Reverend and Mrs. Moon fits the definition of a cult. Members must view them as the Messiah and as God-like figures, precisely what Allen and Kulik warn about. However, when discussing the Unification Church’s teaching of the True Parents, the academic definition of cult requires further analysis. New religious and cult scholars in the United States, who inhabit a Christian cultural and political sphere due to the Christian origin of the U.S’ political and social structure, are innately biased against Christianity being labeled a cult. For over a thousand years, after Rome’s official recognition of Christianity as a state religion in 392 C.E., Christians dominated Europe and, later, the Americas. Although Christianity believes Christ is both God and human, from an academic perspective, Christians idolize the person of Jesus Christ. Christians worship and give praise to Christ in every religious tradition. Those denying Christ as an individual savior become defined as non-believers. The Romans and Jews, persecuted Christianity for hundreds of years, for this very reason, along with their non-traditional rituals and practices. Historians, such as Chris Wickham, Michael Maas, and Francis Group, observe the past, rather than the present record of Christianity, and understand this history of Christianity. An important bias within the research on cults lies in the common acceptance of Christianity. Therefore, to identify a new religious movement as a cult, the entire definition must be met, rather than merely the fact of idolizing a specific person (or in this case, a married couple). Just like the Romans and Jews, the anti-cult movement additionally looks to the church’s non-traditional practices as proof of cultism.

The teaching of “tribal messiahship” also brings the adoration of Reverend and Mrs. Moon (and of Christ) into question concerning the definition of a cult. Within Cheon Seong Gyeong (both the 2006 and 2014 versions), an entire book is devoted to the topic. Reverend Moon explained the following: “The fact is that I have declared that you are tribal messiahs. This means that when you fulfill your responsibilities on behalf of me, the spirit world will support you.” Reverend and Mrs. Moon, as the Messiah, meaning True Parents, claim to be the first, but not only, True Parents. Reverend Moon calls each follower to fulfill the same responsibilities, or mission, as himself. Specifically, Reverend Moon calls on each follower to give the Blessing to others within their hometown to attain the position of true parent and tribal messiah. From there, each follower can be a messiah to their newly formed group of people who received the Blessing, the basis for salvation. Therefore, not just Reverend and Mrs. Moon, but all believers are to attain the same status within the Unification Church. In fact, within the Gospels, Jesus Christ also gives a similar teaching: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Both Christianity and the Unification Church, however, become labeled as cults due to members’ refusal or difficulty in following this key teaching. In the Roman Catholic Church, a hierarchy formed between believers, priests, cardinals, and up to the pope, who himself always stood in a lower position than Christ. The organizational structure of the Unification Church, while having a dedicated department for tribal messiahship, also has formed a hierarchy of church officials that blurs the reality of this teaching. However, since 2013, Mrs. Moon has called out this structure numerous times, and made tribal messiahship a central focus of the movement from 2013-2020, giving all members a goal to give the Blessing to 430 couples within that time. Since the implementation of this teaching has not fully taken place, academic scholars correctly identify the Unification Church’s reality, while also failing to take into account this core teaching.

The most essential ritual of the Unification Church, the Holy Marriage Blessing, otherwise known as mass weddings, links the Fall of Man and the theology of True Parents directly to believers. In 2020, Mrs. Moon described the Blessing: “As the True Parents, beginning at the lowest position, the fastest way and greatest blessing that can bring humanity back to the bosom of the Creator, our Heavenly Parent, is the Blessing Ceremony. This is why many blessed families reside in the world’s one hundred and ninety countries.” The Blessing gives members the lineage of God from the True Parents. In so doing, members pledge to become God-centered families. Already, another line of traditional Christianity has been crossed. In almost all Christian denominations, a person can only be saved by Christ. Specifically, one must declare belief and following of Christ to be saved. The Unification Church, centered around Reverend and Mrs. Moon, offers the same thing. Douglas Cowen details the ceremony: “The Blessing itself is a lengthy, five-step process, beginning with the Chastening, in which partners ceremonially scourge each other three times to purify themselves of historical sin. Next, the Holy Wine ceremony effects Restoration on the individual level.” Linking the teachings of the Fall of Man, Restoration, and True Parents, the Blessing actualizes all the teachings into physical reality. This includes the chasining ceremony, which Allen asserts falls into the category of questionable and unsafe sexual rituals. Allen’s perspective, however, ignores the safety of this sexual ritual. The act of sex within the entire Blessing ritual only happens after the actual marriage section of the ritual. Orgies, sexual assault, and other common activities attributed to cults do not exist within the confines of the Blessing. The core teachings of the Unification Church revolve around fighting against what it deems sinful sex. Instead, the church teaches to have sex only within the confines of marriage. This is why DP teaches that Adam and Eve were supposed to have sex after the appointed time (once they were mature). In Reverend Moon’s several descriptions of the ceremony, nowhere does unsafe or unfaithful activity exist. Unfortunately, many scholars confuse the sex-based parts of Unification theology to justify the church's label as a cult. 

Even the adoration of Reverend and Mrs. Moon, a correct feature in the labeling of the Unification Church as a cult, comes into question once again with the teaching of “tribal messiahship.” Within Cheon Seong Gyeong (both the 2006 and 2014 versions), an entire book is devoted to the topic. Reverend Moon explained the following: “The fact is that I have declared that you are tribal messiahs. This means that when you fulfill your responsibilities on behalf of me, the spirit world will support you.” Reverend and Mrs. Moon, as the Messiah, meaning True Parents, claim to be the first, but not only, True Parents. Reverend Moon calls each follower to fulfill the same responsibilities, or mission, as himself. Specifically, Reverend Moon calls on each follower to give the Blessing to others within their hometown to attain the position of true parent and tribal messiah. From there, each follower can be a messiah to their newly formed group of people who received the Blessing, the basis for salvation. Therefore, not just Reverend and Mrs. Moon, but all believers are to attain the same status within the Unification Church. In fact, within the Gospels, Jesus Christ also gives a similar teaching: “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Both Christianity and the Unification Church, however, become labeled as cults due to members’ refusal or difficulty in following this key teaching. In the Roman Catholic Church, a hierarchy formed between believers, priests, cardinals, and up to the pope, who himself always stood in a lower position than Christ. The organizational structure of the Unification Church, while having a dedicated department for tribal messiahship, also has formed a hierarchy of church officials that blurs the reality of this teaching. However, since 2013, Mrs. Moon has called out this structure numerous times, and made tribal messiahship a central focus of the movement from 2013-2020, giving all members a goal to give the Blessing to 430 new and already married couples within that time. Since the implementation of this teaching has not fully taken place, academic scholars correctly identify the Unification Church’s reality as fitting into the definition of a cult, while also failing to take into account this core teaching.

Overall, based on the official teachings and main traditions, the categorization of a cult does not accurately fit the Unification Church. While the Unification Church does idolize two specific individuals, the church does not do so in extreme difference to other monotheistic religions. The chief example is Christianity, which claims the man Jesus Christ is the Messiah and God Himself. However, like Christianity, the Unification Church teaches that all people should strive to attain equal status and position as the idolized persons(s). Unfortunately, the use of the church’s teachings and traditions to justify accusations of being a cult stems from its Korean origins. With its traditions stemming from Korean culture, it became a minority within the United States ethnically, not just religiously. While the church’s teachings and traditions do not put it in the category of cult, a majority of them do classify the Unification Church as a new religious movement.

Categories of ‘Cult’ and ‘New Religious Movement’ Concerning Unification Church Recruitment Practices

In distinguishing a new religious movement from a cult, scholars often look toward a group’s recruitment practices to determine the likelihood of the presence of coercive practices; namely, brainwashing. According to Professor Alldridge of the Criminal Law Review, brainwashing includes: “Methods used to induce this change include isolation, monopolization, debilitation and exhaustion, drugs, torture, enforcement of routine, and hypnosis.” In 1978, during the height of the Unification Church’s activities, David Frank Taylor of the University of Montana researched the recruitment practices of the church by actively participating in their activities. Arguing that the church indeed used brainwashing, Taylor observed and recorded the programs and behaviors of the church staff in detail. First, Taylor notes how “The next organizational requirement, of recruitment, is social control, achieved primarily by sustaining participants' total involvement.” Additionally, the “routine rules and procedures are maintained by members' consensual unity, thus serving the system of social control.” Taylor observed that church staff sought to control members by seeking total involvement from them. Specifically, total involvement included leaving their old life: school, work, family, etc, in favor of the church center or activities base. Notably, Taylor believes such actions occurred consensually. Members were not isolated, tortured, hypnotized, or drugged. Yet, enforced routine seems to have occurred. Taylor observed throughout his paper that every program operated on a strict schedule, which also included “prearranged scenes like intense group prayer, constant singing, and other displays of exuberance.” Everything was planned meticulously to “engross the prospect,” in an emotional experience. Therefore, the strict and pre-arranged schedule was designed to move members emotionally to the point where they not only consensually united with the church event’s schedule and routines but also fully joined the church. 

The church’s fulfillment of an aspect of the definition of brainwashing once again draws notable comparison to its traditional counterpart of mainstream Christianity. In the catholic mass, for instance, a strict program of certain songs, chants, prayers, and homilies (sermons) exists, all in adoration of Jesus Christ. The main difference is that the voluntary conversion that occurs in Catholicism differs from the Unification Church in the degree of commitment. Unification Church members commit to the church in totality. Yet, early followers of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and many more commonly accepted religions did the same. Again, the Unification Church’s status as a new, minority religion stemming from Korea has led to many connotating its followers’ voluntary actions as actions based upon brainwashing. Taylor’s observations of church activities and routines all hold; yet, are immediately connotated as brainwashing techniques rather than merely the common characteristics of monotheistic religions. 

Although the Unification Church’s use of strict routines and schedules fits common monotheistic religious norms, rather than merely an aspect of the definition of brainwashing, the Unification Church’s use of “love bombing” in recruitment does not exist within such norms. Not only Taylor, but former, dissatisfied members of the Unification Church such as Elgien Strait, testify that church members will begin “manipulating you with showering you with love to basically bring you on side.” While the concept of love bombing does not explicitly fit within Alldrige’s definition of brainwashing, many argue it is a form of emotional hypnosis, another tactic in making an extremely emotional experience for new converts. Yet, love bombing and other methods, even if accepted as true brainwashing techniques, must be extremely poor methods. Cowen, for example, notes that the major flaw in brainwashing theory concerning the Unification Church is that “new religions overall were largely unsuccessful in attracting and retaining significant numbers of adherents.” Even love bombing, which former members attest to receiving, had such a low success rate as to remove it as a potential point of brainwashing by the church. The vastly low conversion rate highlights the ineffectiveness of its techniques on most potential converts. Many converts, such as Sandra Lowen, cite personal, spiritual reasons for joining the Unification Church. Lowen, for example, claims that she “felt this revelation, that the Spirit of God, telling me that I was destined to meet the Messiah in my lifetime…at five years old.” Many other current church members recount similar spiritual phenomena, as well as being convinced to join the Unification Church by its teachings in Exposition of the Divine Principle. Both current and former members’ testimonies, as well as researchers who actively observed church events all attest to the fact that no brainwashing, as defined by Alldrige and other scholars, played a part in the Unification Church’s recruitment efforts. Therefore, from the perspective of recruitment practices, the Unification Church does not fit the definition of a cult. Additionally, since the definition of a new religious movement does not focus on recruitment practices, they do not inform the accuracy of such a categorization.

Categories of ‘Cult’ and ‘New Religious Movement” Concerning Unification Church Scandals

So far, through examining official teachings, main traditions, and recruitment practices, the Unification Church does not fit into the category of a cult, while fitting more accurately into the category of a new religious movement. Since scandals, like recruitment practices, do not fall within the discussion of new religious movements, scholars mainly use the church’s scandals as justification for its categorization as a cult. Throughout the Unification Church’s history in the United States, four scandals stand out as putting the legitimacy of Reverend and Mrs. Moon’s status as religious leaders into question. The first of these scandals is known as “Reverend Moon’s Tax-Evasion Scandal.” On May 18, 1982, in United States v Sun Myung Moon and Takeru Kamiyama, Reverend Moon was found guilty of falling to “report more than $100,000 of bank-account interest and $50,000 of stock on his tax returns.” The main question, summarized by Arnold Lubash of the New York Times, was whether “the bank accounts and stock held in Mr. Moon's name belonged to him personally or to the international Unification Church movement,” of which Reverend Moon and his lawyers alleged the latter, as is common for pastors and heads of churches. Carlton Sherwood in his book Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, asserts that the trial, occurring after the acquittal of Reverend Moon in the “Koreagate” special senate hearings, was part of a larger, target effort to persecute Reverend Moon based on race and religion by the United States government. Sherwood, using internal church documents, court records, and senate hearing transcripts, reveals the exaggerative nature of both the charges and eventual sentencing of Reverend Moon. However, seeing the racially and religiously motivated nature of the case, once Reverend Moon entered prison in 1984, religious freedom rallies around the country were held in conjunction with “a coalition of Christian leaders including author Tim LaHaye; Robert Grant, of Christian Voice; and Joseph Lowery, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” Additionally, prominent minority Christian church leaders such as “Greg Dixon and Everett Sileven, leaders of a coalition of independent, fundamentalist churches” supported these rallies as well. Rather than proving the Unification Church as a cult, the Reverend Moon Tax-Evasion scandal prompted other Christian churches to recognize the reality of the church’s targeted discrimination as a minority religion. This scandal galvanized support for the church’s legitimacy not just as a new religious movement, but as an officially recognized mainstream religion by American society at large.

The second major scandal involves Nansook Hong, the former wife of Reverend Moon’s eldest son, Hyo-jin Moon. In 1998, Hong published a bombshell book, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family, in which she detailed the abusive behavior of Hyo-jin Moon and alleged complicity by Reverend Moon. In one instance, Hong recounts how she “was terrified one evening” because Hyo-jin, minutes before an event in Manhattan, “began screaming and throwing things around our room,” shouting, “‘I’m going to kill you, you bitch.’” Journalists and scholars alike at the time, such as James Beverly, generally regard these allegations as true. No libel case was ever filed. Rather, Nansook Hong was granted legal custody of their child and court ordered to stay away from her family in Nansook Hong MOON V. Hyo Jin MOON. Unlike Reverend Moon’s Tax Evasion Scandal, religious and racial persecution of the Unification Church did not play a role in this matter. Hong’s personal and tragic story raised numerous questions as to the authenticity of Reverend Moon as a religious leader; namely, how a man preaching family values produced such a dysfunctional and corrupt family. Hong even wondered if “Leaving the orbit of Reverend Moon would put us in physical danger too?” Hong felt that Reverend Moon refused to do anything about his son’s behavior. Theologically standing as a True Parent, or a model for all humanity to follow, such corrupt behaviors present a major challenge in legitimizing Reverend Moon as a truly religious man. Reverend Moon, based on this scandal, may be deceiving believers entirely, forming a basis for the church’s categorization as a cult.

The final major scandal relevant to the church’s categorization as a cult is the shocking assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022. The shooter, Tetsuya Yamagami, targeted Abe due to his affiliation with the Unification Church. During interrogation, Yamagami revealed that his mother gave all her money as donations to the Unification Church, sparking numerous investigations into the church’s donation practices, including allegations of coercion and manipulation by the Japanese branch of the church. These investigations have led to calls to dissolve the church entirely by the Japanese government. The church, for its part, alleges this “is clearly religious discrimination.” However, the Japanese church has acknowledged various malpractices in raising funds, even offering USD 67 million as compensation for victims. The alleged coercive donation practices by the Japanese government are not denied outright by the church and fit the definition of a cult from the perspective of manipulating its members. For example, Yamagami alleges that he grew up extremely poor without his parents at home due to the church’s insistence on donations. While the Japanese government uses such facts to justify its calls for the dissolution of the church in Japan, it still at the same time violates guarantees for freedom of religion in the country, putting the issue of the church being a cult or not in the center of the world stage. The coercive practices of the Japanese Unification Church, despite whether it should be protected as a religion under Japanese law, fit the category of cult.

Findings and Conclusions

Cults or organized religious groups using coercive and manipulative brainwashing to force members to idolize a person(s) or ideas, became intertwined with new religious movements, defined as non-traditional, immigrant religious groups primarily made up of first-generation converts. Most scholars place the Unification Church within the category of new religious movements due to its theological and practical differences from mainstream Christianity. Scholar’s opinions on the Unification Church’s status as a cult, however, differ on the academic spectrum, from the anti-cult movement to cult apologists. When comparing key aspects of the Unification Church to the definitions of both new religious movements and cults, it becomes clear that the Unification Church fits neither category. The church’s teachings go against theological and cultural norms, fitting the definition of a new religious movement. Nevertheless, these teachings go beyond Christian theology, introducing the Messiah as a man and a woman standing as the True Parents, with all humanity seeking to achieve that exact position as tribal messiahs. Although this teaching idolizes Reverend and Mrs. Moon, it idolizes them in the same way Jesus Christ is idolized in several mainstream Christian denominations, as well as the Budda in Buddism: a model for everyone to copy. Reverend and Mrs. Moon are not to remain idolized in Unification theology. The Holy Marriage Blessing, the main tradition in the church, is for and is inclusive of all humanity, not just the Unification Church. 

When examining church recruitment practices, while the category of new religious movement ceases in relevance, the church marginally fits within the category of cult from the standpoint of strict, organized schedules and the leaving of one’s “old life.” While no forms of coercion, brainwashing, or torture occurred in the process of finding recruits, the ineffectiveness of the church’s recruitment strategy further required that the few people who did convert to the church leave their biological families, school, and careers in favor of what many current members felt was a spiritual calling. However, some coercive practices do indeed exist within the Unification Church, particularly in Japan. Additionally, the testimony of Nansook Hong, the former wife of Hyo-jin Moon, cast doubts about Reverend Moon as an authentic religious leader. These two facts about the church align with the definition of a cult and put the Unification Church loosely in both the camps of cult and new religious movement. 

The problem in categorizing the Unification Church lies in the extreme abnormalities in its teachings, traditions, and recruitment practices inevitably went up against the remaining traditional, often racist and sexist norms of Western religion. Therefore, the Unification Church requires a new category as a meta-interspiritual movement. Its status as a meta-inter-spiritual movement was a key reason for the intense backlash it faced in its initial years in the United States. The church’s extremely non-traditional teachings, being Korean-based, led to mainstream Christians and even the U.S. government attacking the church due to its Asian origins. In the case of Christians, many feared that the church veered beyond the scope of religion entirely. Uniting the world not under Christ, but as one family, through the Holy Marriage Blessing, where everyone attains the same status, resisted the extremely narrow narrative white Christianity dominated the world with for numerous decades. Family, rather than monarchy or patriarchy, was to exist in the ideal world of the Unification Church. The church resisted the norms of a savior, believing the Christian male Messiah actually must be a man and a woman together, going beyond traditional religious gender norms. As a result, the church’s adoration for Reverend and Mrs. Moon, the cornerstone of the Unification Church’s theology, went beyond cult-like worship and Christian praises of Jesus Christ. Amidst such a radically tumultuous time in the 1970s and 1980s, amidst the Cold War and the integration of every race as equal in American society, the Unification Church’s unique, meta-spiritual proposals to building a peaceful world riled up all corners of American society, only to slowly win them over, beginning with the coalition of minority Christian churches in response to Reverend Moon’s imprisonment. Today, the Unification Church still stands in such a unique societal position. The question is: will the elements of society it went against fifty years ago once again rise against it, or will mainstream religion and systems recognize the value of an outsider’s perspective in the quest to build an equal society for all?

Bibliography - Primary Sources

“Cheong Seong Gyeong: A Compilation of True Parents’ Teachings.” Family Federation for World Peace International, 2014. https://www.tparents.org/Moon-Books/CSG14s/0-Toc.htm

 Eu, Hyo-won. “Exposition of the Divine Principle.” Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 2006. Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. "Unification Church" Statement on Japan's 

Consideration to Dissolve Sister Church in Japan.” PR Newswire, October 12, 2023, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unification-church-statement-on-japans-consideration-to-dissolve-sister-church-in-japan-301955678.html

Han, Hak-ja. “Do Not Be Like the Ten Forgotten Ones.” Family Federation for World Peace International, 2013, https://familyfedihq.org/2013/09/do-not-be-like-the-ten-forgotten-ones/

Han, Hak-ja. “Mother of Peace.” The Washington Times Foundation, 2020. 

Han, Hak-ja. “New Year’s Benediction.” Family Federation for World Peace International, 2013, https://familyfedihq.org/2013/01/new-years-benediction/

Han, Hak-ja. “The Course to Realize God’s Family.” Family Federation for World Peace International, 2020, https://familyfedihq.org/2020/03/the-course-to-realize-gods-family/

Han, Hak-ja. “The 60th Anniversary of True Parents’ Wedding Anniversary.” Family Federation for World Peace International, https://familyfedihq.org/2020/05/the-60th-anniversary-of-true-parents-holy-wedding/

Hong, Nansook. “In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family.” Brown Little, 1998. https://archive.org/details/inshadowofmoonsm00hong

Lowen, Sandra. “Why I Joined Podcast.” Episode 22. 2024. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lrfAPHgphGY8TmVgdpy6J

Lubash, Arnold. “Reverend Moon is Convicted of Income-Tax Fraud.” New York Times, 1982, https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/19/nyregion/rev-moon-is-convicted-of-income-tax-fraud.html

Moon, Sun-myung. “As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen.” The Washington Times Foundation, 2009. 

Strait, Elgen. “Escaping the Moonies.” Sweeny Talks Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/gr/podcast/elgen-strait-escaping-the moonies/id1539949999i=1000590563078

Moon, Sun-Myung. “Urie So Wonun Tongil.” https://www.unification.net/german/hsongs.htm#040

Bibliography - Secondary Sources

Alldridge, P. “Brainwashing as a Criminal Law Defense.” Criminal Law Review, 1984, https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/brainwashing-criminal-law-defence

Allen, Charlotte. “Brainwashed! Scholars of Cults Accuse Each Other of Bad Fait.” Cult Education Institute, 1998, https://culteducation.com/group/1948-brainwashed-scholars-of-cults-accuse-each-other-of-bad-faiths.html

Beverley, James A. "Moon Struck." Christianity Today, Nov 16, 1998, 20-21, https://www.proquest.com/magazines/moon-struck/docview/211909248/se-2.

Cowan, Douglas E.. Cults and New Religions: A Brief History. Newark: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. Accessed April 9, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Davidson, Richard. “The Theology of Sexuality in the Beginning: Genesis 3.” Andrews University Press, 1988, https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1867&context=auss

Kulik, Rebecca. “Cult.” Britannica Fact-Checking Team. ​​https://www.britannica.com/topic/cult

Lubash, Arnold. “Reverend Moon is Convicted of Income-Tax Fraud.” New York Times, 1982, https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/19/nyregion/rev-moon-is-convicted-of-income-tax-fraud.html

Owen, Tess. “Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Bought a 40-Acre Compound in Texas for Its ‘Patriots.’” VICE News, 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dp8j/gun-church-that-worships-with-ar-15s-bought-a-40-acre-compound-in-texas-for-its-patriots

“Senator Orin Hatch, Republican of Utah, and Senator Dennis DeConcini, Democrat of Arizona question Rev. Sun Myung Moon before a US Senate Subcommittee June 26, 1984 United States Senate Hearing, Washington D.C.” https://www.tparents.org/moon-talks/sunmyungmoon84/SunMyungMoon-840626.htm

Sherwood, Carlton. “Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon,” First Edition. Regnery Pub, 1991. 

Swatos, William. Ed. “New Religious Movements.” Altamira Press. http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/nrm.htm

Spring, Beth. “With Their Leader in Prison, Moonies Pursue Legitimacy. Christianity Today, 1984. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1984/september-7/with-their-leader-in-prison-moonies-pursue-legitimacy.html

Taylor, David. “Social organization of recruitment in the Unification Church.” The University of Montana, 1978. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=6585&context=etd#:~:text=The%20Unification%20Church%20is%20one,in%20America%20during%20the%201970's.

Yamaguchi, Mari. “Abe murder suspect says life destroyed by mother’s religion.” Associated Press, 2022. https://apnews.com/article/shinzo-abe-religion-japan-social-media-68f18b50c5698bb65f024ff5c5d2c3ba