Unification Church

The Unification Church
of the United States is a new religious movement officially founded in 1954 by
Sun Myung Moon (which has led to the referring of his followers as
"Moonies") and moved to America in 1959, where he established his
international headquarters. Since its founding, the church has expanded
throughout the world with most members living in Korea, Japan,
the Philippines,
and other nations in East Asia.

In the 1970s and 1980s,
the Unification Church became noted for its political activities, especially
its support for United States president Richard
Nixon during the Watergate scandal, its
support for anti-communism during the Cold War,and its ownership of
various news media outlets and newspapers which tend to support conservatism.

Unificationist beliefs
are derived from the Christian Bible and are explained in the church's
textbook, the Divine Principle, which was published by Moon in 1956. Divine
Principle is considered to be the "third testament" of the Bible, and
superior to the Bible.

Unification theology
asserts that God has both masculine and feminine qualities based on the
universal fact of polarity. It teaches that The Fall was the result of sexual
sin: Eve had sexual relations with Satan (the spiritual fall) and then with
Adam (the physical fall). Therefore, salvation requires a physical redemption
which involves “Blood cleansing”, which is female members of the church
were required to have sex with him to cleanse themselves of Satan's influence. The Blessing is the most
remarkable Unification ritual. Moon matches up each couple a month (or less) in
advance, selecting from among the Church membership.

In the
1970s, Moon gave a series of public speeches in the United States, including
one on the grounds of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., where Moon spoke on "God's
Hope for America" to 300,000 people. In 1975, the Unification Church held
one of the largest peaceful gatherings in history, with 1.2 million people
in Yeouido, South Korea. In 1982, the first large scale Blessing
ceremony held outside of Korea took place in Madison Square Garden in New
York City with
2075 couples. In 1988, Moon matched 2,500 Korean members with Japanese members
for a Blessing ceremony held in Korea, partly in order to promote unity between
the two nations.

In the 1970s the
Unification Church was accused of "brainwashing" by the newly-active
anti-cult movement that human subjects are indoctrinated that causes “an
inability to think independently and a disruption of beliefs.”

Philip Zimbardo
discusses mind control as "the process by which individual or collective
freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify
or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioural outcomes”, and he
suggests that any human being is susceptible to such manipulation.

On the other hand, James
Richardson observes that if the new religious movements (NRMs) had access to
powerful brainwashing techniques, one would expect that NRMs would have high
growth rates, yet in fact most have not had notable success in recruitment.

In The Making of a
Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing?(1984), Barker writes that she rejects the
"brainwashing" theory as an explanation for conversion to the
Unification Church. Barker spent close to seven years studying Unification
Church members using in depth interviews and questionnaires.

## Editors

* Cayenne
* Bakim

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