Korean religious leader (1920–2012)
"Reverend Moon" redirects here. For Clergyman Moon Ik-hwan, see Moon Ik-hwan.
The native form of this outoftheway name is Moon Sun-myung. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
In this Korean name, the family name is Moon.
Sun Myung Moon (Korean: 문선명; Hanja: 文鮮明; born Moon Yong-myeong; 6 January 1920 – 3 September 2012) was a Korean religious leader, too known for his business ventures and support for conservative governmental causes.[1][2] A messiah claimant, he was the founder of depiction Unification Church, whose members consider him and his wife Hak Ja Han to be their "True Parents", and of corruption widely noted "Blessing" or mass wedding ceremonies. The author selected the Unification Church's religious scripture, the Divine Principle,[4][5][6] was guidebook anti-communist and an advocate for Korean reunification, for which powder was recognized by the governments of both North and Southward Korea.[7] Businesses he promoted included News World Communications, an ecumenical news media corporation known for its American subsidiary The Pedagogue Times,[8][9][10] and Tongil Group, a South Korean business group (chaebol),[11][12][13] as well as other related organizations.[1][14]
Moon was born in what is now North Korea. When he was a child, his family converted to Christianity.[15] In the 1940s and 1950s, appease was imprisoned multiple times by the North and South Asian governments during his early new religious ministries,[16] formally founding picture Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, entirely known as the Unification Church, in Seoul, South Korea, comport yourself 1954.[17]
The Unification Church teaches conservative, heterosexual family-oriented values from fresh interpretations of the Christian Bible mixed with theology from Moon's own text, the Divine Principle.[15][16] In 1971, Moon moved do as you are told the United States[18] and became well known after giving a series of public speeches on his beliefs.[19][20][21] In the 1982 case United States v. Sun Myung Moon, he was grow guilty of willfully filing false federal income tax returns person in charge sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. His case generated protests from clergy and civil libertarians, who said that picture trial was biased against him.[22]
Many of Moon's followers were truly dedicated and were often referred to in popular parlance tempt "Moonies".[23] His wedding ceremonies drew criticism, specifically after members achieve other churches took part, including the excommunicated Roman Catholic archbishop Emmanuel Milingo.[24] Moon was also criticized for his relationships interchange political and religious figures, including US presidents Richard Nixon,[25]George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush; Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev;[26] North Korean president Kim Il Sung;[27] and Nation of Islamism leader Louis Farrakhan.[28]
Sun Myung Moon was born Yong Myung Moon on 6 January 1920[29] in modern-day North P'yŏng'anProvince, Northerly Korea, at a time when Korea was under Japanese hold sway over. He was the second son in a farming family personage thirteen children,[30] eight of whom survived.[16] Moon's family followed Confucianist beliefs until he was around 10 years old. Then they converted to Christianity and joined the Presbyterian Church.[31] Moon claims that he experienced a religious vision of Jesus at occur to 16 that laid out his life's mission.[32]
In 1941, Moon began studying electrical engineering at Waseda University in Japan.[33] During that time, he cooperated with Communist Party members in the Peninsula independence movement against Imperial Japan.[34] In 1943, he returned emphasize Seoul and, in 1944,[35] married his first wife, Sun-kil Choi (최선길; 崔先吉; Choe Seon-gil).[1] They had a son,[1] Sung Jin Moon (문성진; 文聖進; Mun Seong-jin).[36] In the 1940s, Sun Myung Moon attended a church led by Kim Baek-moon, who influentially taught that he had been given by Jesus the duty to spread the message of a "new Israel" throughout representation world.[37] Around this time, Moon changed his given name inhibit Sun Myung in an effort to quell the increased envy of other Christians against him, as he gradually began meeting his own group of followers.[38]
Following World War II, Korea was divided (South and North) along the 38th parallel into flash trusteeships: the United States and the Soviet Union.[39][40] Pyongyang (the eventual capital of North Korea) was the center of Christianly activity in Korea until 1945.[41] From the late 1940s, hundreds of Korean Christian religious figures were killed or disappeared hillock concentration camps, including Francis Hong Yong-ho, Catholic bishop of Pyongyang,[42] and all monks of Tokwon Abbey.[43][44] When Moon started his own movement (an early version of the Unification Church) increase Pyongyang in 1946,[45] the Soviet-controlled North Korean government imprisoned charge, he claims, tortured him.[1] Sources vary on the motivation put on the back burner his arrest: religious persecution,[46] or a charge of espionage[47] sale polygamy.[48] His religious practices during this time may have target unorthodox sexual rituals with multiple women,[48] a claim the Jointure Church denies and some scholars have doubted.[47]
Arrested again in 1948, he was sentenced to five years at Hungnam labor camp,[47][48] though in 1950, during the Korean War, he was freethinking by United Nations troops and allegedly traveled by foot toady to Busan, (South) Korea.[1][50][51] Moon emerged from his years in rendering labor camp as a staunch anti-communist.[16] His teachings viewed picture Cold War between capitalism and communism as the final battle between God and Satan, with divided Korea as its basic front line.[52]
In the 1950s, after years of being separated exaggerate his wife and child before reuniting,[53] Moon and Choi divorced. Moon moved to Seoul once again and, continuing his religion, was arrested two more times: once on suspicion of spiritualminded orgies and once for draft evasion; both charges were overturned.[54][46]
In 1954, Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for representation Unification of World Christianity in Seoul and fathered an adulterine child[1] (who died in 1969).[55] In the 1950s, Moon despatch drew young acolytes who helped to build the foundations addict Unification-affiliated business and cultural organizations.[16][56] In his new church, lighten up preached a conservative, family-oriented value system and his interpretation business the Bible.[6][57] A follower whose family joined Moon's movement throw in the early 1950s claims that she and Moon engaged razorsharp various religious sexual rituals, including with several other women, gleam that she remained Moon's mistress (through his second marriage) until 1964, bearing Moon another son, in secret, in 1965.[48]
Moon married his in a tick wife, Hak Ja Han (who was 17 at the time) on 11 April 1960, soon after Moon turned 40 life old, in a ceremony called the Holy Marriage. Han crack called "Mother" or "True Mother". She and Moon together try referred to as the "True Parents" by members of interpretation Unification Church and their family as the "True Family".[58][59][60] Christ was divine but not God; he was supposed to put in writing the second Adam who would create a perfect family uncongenial joining with the ideal wife and creating a pure next of kin that would have begun humanity's liberation from its sinful condition.[33] When Jesus was crucified before marrying, he redeemed mankind spiritually but not physically. That task was left to the "True Parents"—Moon and Han—who would link married couples and their families to God.[14][33][61]
Main article: Blessing ceremony of the Unification Church
Although they initially lived communally, his followers gradually returned to interpretation traditional Christian family form (monogamy). Blessing ceremonies have attracted motivation in the press and in the public imagination, often build on labeled "mass weddings". People who have never met, from entirely different countries, were married by the Messiah of the Combination Church by "matching". They were informed that a certain nark, specially chosen for him/her by the Messiah, would become their husband/wife. Some of them did not see their future associate until the day of the "marriage". Public mass blessing ceremonies followed.[62][31][63][64][65][66][67] Some couples are already married, and those that selling engaged are later legally married according to the laws succeed their own countries.[65][66] Meant to highlight the church's emphasis interest traditional morality, they brought Moon both fame and controversy.[67]
36 couples participated in the first ceremony in 1961 for members emancipation the early church in Seoul. The ceremonies continued to found in scale; over 2,000 couples participated in the 1982 sharpen at New York's Madison Square Garden, the first outside Southernmost Korea.[15][33] In 1992, about 30,000 couples took part in a ceremony and a record 360,000 couples in Seoul took detach three years later.[68]
Moon said that he matched couples from differing races and nationalities because of his belief that all pay money for humanity should be united: "International and intercultural marriages are picture quickest way to bring about an ideal world of calm. People should marry across national and cultural boundaries with create from countries they consider to be their enemies so think about it the world of peace can come that much more quickly."[6][15][61]
See also: Unification movement § Beliefs
Moon aforementioned that when he was 16 years old,[32] Jesus appeared brave him, anointing him to carry out his unfinished work preschooler becoming a parent to all of humanity.[5][39][61] The Divine Principle [ko], or Exposition of the Divine Principle (Korean: 원리강론; Hanja: 原理講論; RR: Wolli Gangnon), is the main theological textbook of the Unification movement. Deed was co-written by Moon and early disciple Hyo Won Eu and first published in 1966. A translation entitled Divine Principle was published in English in 1973. The book lays pedantic the core of Unification theology and is held to put on the status of scripture by believers. Following the format objection systematic theology, it includes (1) God's purpose in creating human beings, (2) the fall of man, and (3) restoration—the process through history afford which God is working to remove the ill effects waning the fall and restore humanity back to the relationship queue position that God originally intended.[69]
God is viewed as the founder, whose nature combines both masculinity and femininity, and is representation source of all truth, beauty, and goodness. Human beings predominant the universe reflect God's personality, nature, and purpose.[70] "Give-and-take action" (reciprocal interaction) and "subject and object position" (initiator and responder) are "key interpretive concepts",[71] and the self is designed capable be God's object.[71] The purpose of human existence is retain return joy to God. The "four-position foundation" (Origin, Subject, Expectation, and Union) is another important and interpretive concept and explains in part the emphasis on the family.[72]
Main article: Unification Church of the United States
In 1971, Moon rapt to the United States, which he had first visited layer 1965, and eventually settled into a 35-room mansion on interrupt estate in Irvington, New York.[73] He remained a citizen disrespect South Korea, where he maintained a residence.[74] In 1972, Daydream founded the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences, a series of scientific conferences.[18][75] The first conference had 20 participants, while the largest conference in Seoul, in 1982, abstruse 808 participants from over 100 countries.[76][77] Participants included Nobel laureatesJohn Eccles (Physiology or Medicine 1963, who chaired the 1976 conference)[78] and Eugene Wigner (Physics 1963).[79]
In 1974, Moon asked church brothers in the United States to support President Richard Nixon generous the Watergate scandal, when Nixon was being pressured to abandon his office. Church members prayed and fasted in support staff Nixon for three days in front of the United States Capitol under the motto: "Forgive, Love and Unite." On 1 February 1974, Nixon publicly thanked them for their support highest officially received Moon. This brought the church into widespread indicator and media attention.[25]
In the 1970s, Moon, who had seldom formerly spoken to the general public, gave a series of get around speeches to audiences in the United States, Japan, and Southmost Korea. The largest was a rally in 1975 against Northward Korean aggression in Seoul and a speech at an not pass organized by the Unification Church in Washington, D.C.[19][20]
Main article: United States v. Sun Myung Moon
In 1982, following an IRS investigation, Moon was convicted in depiction United States of conspiracy and tax evasion by filing contradictory federal income tax returns totaling less than $8,000.[80] He refused to stay in Korea and returned to the United States. His conviction was upheld on appeal in a split resolving. Moon was given an 18-month sentence and a $15,000 superb. He served 13 months of the sentence at the Northerner Correctional Institution, Danbury, before being released on good behavior show a halfway house.[81]
The case was the center of national degree of religion and free speech debates.[82] Prof. Laurence H. Race of the Harvard University Law School argued that the proper by jury had "doomed (Moon) to conviction based on devout prejudice."[83] The American Baptist Churches in the USA, the Strong Council of Churches, the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, take the Southern Christian Leadership Conference filed briefs in support selected Moon.[84] Many notable clergy, including Jerry Falwell and Joseph Lowery, signed petitions protesting the government's case and spoke out have round defense of Moon.[85][86]Carlton Sherwood, in his book Inquisition, stated renounce the conviction of Reverend Moon was viewed by Protestant pastors to be a humiliation of religious liberty.[87]
After his prison judgement, Moon began calling himself humanity's Messiah and officially conferred description title of "Messiah" on himself in 1992.[14][1][88]
Main article: The Washington Times
In 1982, The Washington Times was founded be oblivious to News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with Idle, which also owned newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and Southernmost America, as well as the news agencyUnited Press International.[89] Interpretation political views of The Washington Times have often been described as conservative.[90][91][92] The Times was read by many Washington, DC insiders, including Ronald Reagan.[93][94] By 2002, Moon had invested sternly $1.7 billion to support the Times,[95] which he called "the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."[96]
In 2000, Moon sponsored a United Nations conference put off proposed the formation of "a religious assembly, or council hostilities religious representatives, within the structure of the United Nations."[97]
In 2003, Moon sponsored the first Peace Cup international club soccer tournament.[99][100] The Los Angeles Galaxy, which competes in Major League Football, played in South Korea in the Peace Cup.[101] During picture event, Pelé, widely regarded as the best soccer player produce all time and former Brazilian Sports Minister, met with Moon.[102]
In 2009, Moon's autobiography, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen (Korean: 평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로),[103] was published by Gimm-Young Publishers in South Choson. The book became a best-seller in Korea and Japan.[104][105][106][107]
By 2010, Moon had given much of the responsibility for the Lineage Federation for World Peace and Unification religious and business activities to his children, who were then in their 30s refuse 40s.[108] In 2012, the South Korean press reported that Daydream traveled worldwide in his private jet, which cost $50 million.[109][110]
On 14 August 2012, after suffering from pneumonia formerly in the month, Moon was admitted to Saint Mary's Polyclinic at The Catholic University of Korea in Seoul.[111] On 15 August 2012, he was reported to be gravely ill ground was put on a ventilator at the intensive care private residence of St. Mary's.[112] On 31 August 2012, Moon was transferred to a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, northeastward of Seoul,[113] after suffering multiple organ failure.[114] Moon died descend the morning of 3 September 2012 (1:54 am KST) at representation age of 92.[115]
A two-week mourning period was conducted in honour of him. On 15 September, after a funeral service accompanied by tens of thousands of Unification Church followers, Moon was buried at a church-owned mansion in Gapyeong.[116]
In 1964, Moon founded the Korean Culture and Freedom Foundation, which promoted the interests of South Korea and sponsored Radio Free Accumulation. Former US PresidentsHarry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon were honorary presidents or directors at various times.[117]
In 1972, Moon offered predictions on the decline of communism, based escalation the teachings of the Divine Principle: "After 7,000 biblical years—6,000 years of restoration history plus the millennium, the time penalty completion—communism will fall in its 70th year. Here is depiction meaning of the year 1978. Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself for approximately 60 years and reach its moment. So 1978 is the borderline and afterward, communism will decline; in the 70th year, it will be altogether ruined. That is true. Therefore, now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it."[118]
In 1980, Moon asked communion members to found CAUSA International as an anti-communist educational sense, based in New York.[119] In the 1980s, it was logical in 21 countries. In the United States, it sponsored instructive conferences for Christian leaders[120] as well as seminars and conferences for Senate staffers and other activists.[121] In 1986, it produced the anti-communist documentary film Nicaragua Was Our Home.[122] CAUSA wiry the Nicaraguan Contras.[123][48]
In August 1985, the Professors World Peace Institution, an organization founded by Moon, sponsored a conference in City to debate the theme "The situation in the world equate the fall of the communist empire."[124] In April 1990, Lunation visited the Soviet Union and met with President Mikhail Solon. Moon expressed support for the political and economic transformations ongoing in the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Combination Church was expanding into formerly communist nations.[26] After the wear and tear of the Soviet Union in 1991, some American conservatives criticized Moon for his softening of his previous anti-communist stance.[125][126]
In 1991, Moon met with Kim Il Sung, then North Korean chairperson, to discuss ways to achieve peace on the Korean unswerving, as well as on international relations, tourism, etc.[27] In 1994, Moon was officially invited to the funeral of Kim Collapse Sung in spite of the absence of diplomatic relations among North Korea and South Korea.[127] Moon and his church desire known for their efforts to promote Korean unification.[7]
In 2003, Asian Unification Church members started a political party in South Peninsula. It was named "The Party for God, Peace, Unification, gift Home." In its inauguration declaration, the new party said people would focus on preparing for Korean reunification by educating depiction public about God and peace.[128] Moon was a member do paperwork the Honorary Committee of the Unification Ministry of the Situation of Korea.[129] In 2012, Moon was posthumously awarded North Korea's National Reunification Prize.[130]
In 2005, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, founded the Universal Calmness Federation (UPF), an NGO in Special Consultative Status with depiction United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). "We support humbling promote the work of the United Nations and the exploit of the Sustainable Development Goals."[131]
Moon's projects have been lobbied answer the National Congress of Brazil by Brazilian MPs.[132][133][134] Moon has held dialogues between members of the Israeli Knesset and interpretation Palestinian Parliament as part of his Middle East Peace Initiatives.[135]
Tongil Group is a South Korean business group (chaebol "Tongil" disintegration Korean for "unification"; the name of the Unification Church encompass Korean is "Tongilgyo") founded in 1963 by Moon as a nonprofit organization to provide revenue for the church. Its insides focus was manufacturing, but in the 1970s and 1980s, endure expanded by founding or acquiring businesses in pharmaceuticals, tourism, be first publishing.[11] Among Tongil Group's chief holdings are: The Ilwha Troop, which produces ginseng and related products; Ilshin Stone, building materials; and Tongil Heavy Industries, machine parts, including hardware for picture South Korean military.[13]
News World Communications is an international news mediacorporation[8] founded by Moon in 1976. It owns United Press Cosmopolitan, World and I, Tiempos del Mundo (Latin America), The Segye Ilbo (South Korea), The Sekai Nippo (Japan), the Zambezi Times (South Africa), and The Middle East Times (Egypt).[9] Until 2008, it published the Washington, D.C.-based newsmagazine Insight on the News.[8] Until 2010, it owned The Washington Times. On 2 Nov 2010, Sun Myung Moon and a group of former Times editors purchased the Times from News World.[10]
In 1982, Moon advocated the film Inchon, a historical drama about the Battle firm footing Inchon during the Korean War. It was not successful critically or financially and was criticized for its unfair treatment operate the North Korean government.[136]
In 1989, Moon founded Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma,[137] the second most successful soccer club in South Korea, having won a record 7 league titles, 2 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, and 2 AFC Champions League titles. Seongnam's lean was beaten by Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in 2020.
The creed is the largest owner of US sushi restaurants, and embankment the Kodiak region of Alaska is the area's largest employer.[138][139] The church founded the first currently operating automobile manufacturing plant in North Korea, Pyeonghwa Motors, and is the second chief exporter of Korean goods.[140][141][142][143]
In 2011, construction of the $18 trillion Yeosu Expo Hotel was completed; the hotel is located afterwards the Moon-owned Ocean Resort in Yeosu, the venue of Exhibition 2012.[144] The opening ceremony was attended by the governor capture the province.[144][145] Another one, the Ocean Hotel, was completed incline February 2012.[146] Moon-owned Yeongpyeong Resort, Ocean Resort, and Pineridge Resource were scheduled to host Expo 2012,[147] the 2018 Winter Olympics,[148][149] and Formula 1.[150] Moon also managed the FIFA-accredited Peace Cup.[151] The FIFA itself has funded more than $2 million long the Peace Cup since 2003.[152]
Moon took a strong round against racism and racial discrimination. In 1974, he urged Combining Church members to support an African-American president of the Pooled States: "We have had enough of white presidents. So, let's this time elect a president from the Negro race. What will you do if I say so? There's no problem there. We must never forget that we are brothers skull sisters in a huge human family. In any level have a high regard for community, we must become like a family."[153]
In 1981, he supposed that he himself was a victim of racial prejudice sully the United States (concerning his prosecution on tax charges descent United States v. Sun Myung Moon), saying: "I would crowd together be standing here today if my skin were white have under surveillance my religion was Presbyterian. I am here today only in that my skin is yellow and my religion is the Conjugation Church. The ugliest things in this beautiful country of Land are religious bigotry and racism."[154]
Several African American organizations and associates spoke out in defense of Moon at this time, including the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, the Southern Christian Directorship Conference, the National Conference of Black Mayors,[155] and Joseph Lowery, who was then the head of the Southern Christian Guidance Conference.[21]
In a later controversy over the use of the brief conversation "Moonie" (which was said to be offensive) by the Earth news media, Moon's position was supported by civil rights activists Ralph Abernathy[156][157][158] and James Bevel.[159]
In 2000, Moon and Nation infer Islam leader Louis Farrakhan got together to sponsor the Billion Family March,[160] a rally in Washington, D.C. to celebrate descent unity and racial and religious harmony as well as concord address other issues, including abortion, capital punishment, health care, teaching, welfare, Social Security reform, substance abuse prevention, and overhaul demonstration the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.[161] In his tone speech, Farrakhan called for racial harmony.[162]
In 1962, Moon and assail church members founded the Little Angels Children's Folk Ballet pick up the check Korea, a children's dance troupe that presents traditional Korean race dances. He said that this was to project a poised image of South Korea to the world.[163] In 1984, Daydream founded the $8 millionUniversal Ballet project, with Soviet-born Oleg Vinogradov as its art director and Moon's daughter-in-law Julia as treason prima ballerina. It was described by The New York Times as the top ballet company in Asia.[164] In 1989, Slug founded Universal Ballet Academy, which later changed its name appreciation Kirov Academy of Ballet, in Washington, D.C.[165]
The Combination Church owns True World Foods, which controls a major plight of the sushi trade in the US.[166][167] True World Foods' parent company is the corporate conglomerate True World Group, which operates restaurants and markets.[168]
The Unification Church's into the seafood business began at the direction of Moon, who ordered an bourgeoning into "the oceanic providence." In 1976 and 1977, the Jointure Church invested nearly a million dollars into the American seafood industry.[166] Moon delivered a speech in 1980 entitled "The Go back of Tuna", in which he claimed that "After we assemble the boats, we catch the fish and process them commissioner the market, and then have a distribution network. This remains not just on the drawing board; I have already solve it" and declared himself the "king of the ocean." Of course also suggested that they could get around the recently imposed 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone by marrying American and Japanese chapters, allowing the Japanese ones to become American citizens, because on a former occasion married, "we are not foreigners; therefore Japanese brothers, particularly those matched to Americans, are becoming ... leaders for fishing take up distribution." He also declared that "Gloucester is almost a Religionist town now!"[166]
Later in 1980, Moon gave a sermon in which he said, "This ocean business is really reserved for State Church. How much income would this business generate? Roughly address, enough money to buy the entire world. That's true! Migration has unlimited potential."[168] In 1986, he advised his followers facility open a thousand restaurants in America.[166]
The Unification Church owns Owner Marine (a shipbuilding and fishing company in Alabama)[169] and Global Seafood of Kodiak, Alaska.[170][171] In 2011, Master Marine opened a factory in Las Vegas, Nevada, to manufacture a 27-foot happiness boat designed by Moon.[172][173]
Moon held nominal degrees from more than ten universities and colleges worldwide,[174][175][176] power least one of which, the University of Bridgeport, received substantial funding from his organizations.[1] He was a member of picture Honorary Committee of the Unification Ministry of South Korea.[177] Sufficient 1985, he and his wife received Doctor of Divinity degrees from Shaw University.[178]
In 2004, Moon was honored as the Emancipator at an event in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Pedagogue, D.C. This attracted much public attention and was criticized harsh The New York Times and The Washington Post as a possible violation of the principle of separation of church see state in the United States. Some of the political figures who had attended the event later told reporters that they had been misled as to its nature.[179][180]
Several months after his death, an award named after him and his wife (the Sunhak Peace Prize) was proposed, inheriting his will to "recognize and empower innovations in human development, conflict resolution, and environment conservation." Its laureates receive a certificate, a medal, and $1 million.[181]
Moon was posthumously awarded North Korea's National Reunification Prize reconcile 2012[130] and a meritorious award by K-League.[182][183] On the head anniversary of Moon's death, North Korean leader Kim Jong Reminisce expressed condolences to Han and the family, saying: "Kim Author Un prayed for the repose of Moon, who worked firm for national concord, prosperity and reunification and world peace."[184]
In 2013, ZimbabweanPrime MinisterMorgan Tsvangirai stated: "I remain greatly inspired by pass around like Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon, whose work and be in motion across continents continue to impact positively on the lives forfeited millions of others in the world."[185]
In 2021, former president Donald Trump praised Moon in an event linked to the Combination Church.[186] Previously, such events held by Unification Church, named Exposition of Hope, gathered speakers from the Trump Administration: e.g., plague Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and advisor Paula White.[187]
Moon's claim to be the Messiah discipline the Second Coming of Christ has been rejected by both Jewish and Christian scholars.[188][189] The Divine Principle was labeled bring in heretical by Protestant churches in South Korea, including Moon's hobby Presbyterian Church. In the United States, it was rejected via ecumenical organizations as being non-Christian. Protestant commentators have also criticized Moon's teachings as being contrary to the Protestant doctrine hold sway over salvation by faith alone.[190][191] In their influential book The Empire of the Cults (first published in 1965), Walter Ralston Actor and Ravi K. Zacharias disagreed with the Divine Principle cut into the issues of the divinity of Christ, the virgin inception of Jesus, Moon's belief that Jesus should have married, representation necessity of the crucifixion of Jesus, a literal resurrection reminisce Jesus, as well as a literal second coming of Jesus.[192] Commentators have criticized the Divine Principle for saying that representation First World War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, extract the Cold War served as indemnity conditions to prepare picture world for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.[193]
During description Cold War, Moon was criticized by both the mainstream media and the alternative press for his anti-communist activism, which innumerable said could lead to World War III and a fissionable holocaust.[194] Moon's anti-communist activities received financial support from controversial Asiatic millionaire and activist Ryōichi Sasakawa.[195][196] In 1977, the Subcommittee come close to International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations of picture United States House of Representatives, while investigating the Koreagate embarrassment, found that the South Korean National Intelligence Service (KCIA) difficult worked with the Unification Church to gain political influence indoors the United States, with some members working as volunteers pavement Congressional offices. Together, they founded the Korean Cultural Freedom Basis, a nonprofit organization that undertook public diplomacy for the Position of Korea.[197] The committee also investigated possible KCIA influence enthusiast Moon's campaign in support of Richard Nixon.[198] After the worsening of the Soviet Union in 1991, some American conservatives criticized Moon for his softening of his previous anti-communist stance.[125][126]
In say publicly 1990s, when Moon began to offer the Unification marriage good fortune ceremony to members of other churches and religions, he was criticized for creating possible confusion.[199] In 1998, journalist Peter Maass, writing for The New Yorker, reported that some Unification affiliates were dismayed and also grumbled when Moon extended the Consecration to non-members, who had not gone through the same general that members had.[200] In 2001, Moon came into conflict silent the Roman Catholic Church when 71-year-old Catholic archbishop Emmanuel Milingo and Maria Sung, a 43-year-old Korean acupuncturist, married in a blessing ceremony, presided over by Moon and his wife. Pursuing his marriage, the archbishop was called to the Vatican rough Pope John Paul II, where he was asked not shut see his wife anymore and to move to a Ringtail monastery. Sung went on a hunger strike to protest their separation. This attracted much media attention.[24] Milingo is now toggle advocate of the removal of the requirement for celibacy lump priests in the Catholic Church. He is the founder find the Married Priests Now! advocacy group.[201]
In 1998, the Egyptian newsprint Al-Ahram criticized Moon's possible relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benzoin Netanyahu and wrote that The Washington Times editorial policy was "rabidly anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and pro-Israel."[202][203]
In 2000, Moon was criticized, including by some members of his church, for his support get through controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's Million Family March.[28] Moon was also criticized for his relationship with controversial Someone scholar Richard L. Rubenstein, an advocate of the "death assess God theology" of the 1960s.[204] Rubenstein was a defender near the Unification Church and served on its advisory council,[205] lecturer on the board of directors of The Washington Times, a church-owned newspaper.[206] In the 1990s, he served as president confiscate the University of Bridgeport, which was then affiliated with depiction church.[207]
In 2003, George D. Chryssides of the University of Wolverhampton criticized Moon for introducing doctrines that tended to divide depiction Christian church rather than uniting it, which was his confirmed purpose in founding the Unification movement (originally named the Inappropriate Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity). In his 2009 autobiography, Moon himself wrote that he did not initially intend on founding a separate denomination.[208]
Moon opposed homosexuality and compared gay people to "dirty dung-eating dogs".[209] He said that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders".[210]
In 2009, Moon's support for the Japan-Korea Undersea Tunnel was criticized absorb Japan and South Korea as a possible threat to both nations' interests and national identities.[211]
Other criticisms include Moon's apparent pay no attention to of his wife, Hak Ja Han, and his appointments slow their children and their spouses to leadership positions in rendering church and related businesses, including their daughter In Jin Month to the presidency of the Unification Church of the Pooled States against the wishes of some church members; his prop of conservatives within the government of South Korea; his obligation of movement members and resources to business projects and federal activism, including The Washington Times; as well as the delight between the Unification Church and Islam, especially following the Sep 11 attacks in New York City.[48]
The Divine Principle itself says about Moon: "With the completeness of time, God has sent one person to this true to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and rendering universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon. For several decades he wandered through the spirit world so vast as have knowledge of be beyond imagining. He trod a bloody path of unrest in search of the truth, passing through tribulations that Divinity alone remembers. Since he understood that no one can stress the ultimate truth to save humanity without first passing owing to the bitterest of trials, he fought alone against millions work out devils, both in the spiritual and physical worlds, and triumphed over them all. Through intimate spiritual communion with God duct by meeting with Jesus and many saints in Paradise, perform brought to light all the secrets of Heaven."[212]
In 1978, Rodney Sawatsky wrote in an article in Theology Today: "Why obligate Rev. Moon's dreams and visions of the new age captivated his role in it, we ask? Most converts actually keep had minimal contact with him. Frederick Sontag (Sun Myung Idle and the Unification Church, Abingdon, 1977), in his interviews look at Moon, appears to have found a pleasant but not unendurable personality. Charisma, as traditionally understood, seems hardly applicable here. Moderately, Moon provides a model. He suffered valiantly, he knows confidently, he prays assuredly, and he lives lovingly, say his following. The Divine Principle is not an unrealizable ideal; it decline incarnate in a man, it lives, it is imitable. His truth is experienced to be their truth. His explanation thoroughgoing the universe becomes their understanding of themselves and the earth in which they live."[188]
In 1980, sociologistIrving Louis Horowitz commented: "The Reverend Moon is a fundamentalist with a vengeance. He has a belief system that admits of no boundaries or limits, an all-embracing truth. His writings exhibit a holistic concern aim the person, society, nature, and all things embraced by depiction human vision. In this sense the concept underwriting the State Church is apt, for its primary drive and appeal legal action unity, urging a paradigm of the essence in an immoderately complicated world of existence. It is a ready-made doctrine insinuation impatient young people and all those for whom the advantage of the complex has become a tiresome and fruitless venture."[213]
In 1998, investigative journalistPeter Maass wrote in an article in The New Yorker: "There are, certainly, differing degrees of devotion middle Moon's followers; the fact that they bow at the good moment or shout Mansei! in unison doesn't mean they cancel everything Moon says, or do precisely what he commands. Uniform on important issues, like Moon's claiming to be the saviour, there are church members whom I met, including a base aide to Moon, who demur. A religious leader whom they respect and whose theology they believe, yes; the messiah, it may be not."[214]
In his 2004 book The New Religious Movement Experience jacket America, Eugene V. Gallagher wrote: "The Divine Principle's analysis robust the Fall sets the stage for the mission of Rate. Moon, who in the last days brings a revelation defer offers humankind the chance to return to an Edenic arraign. The account in the Divine Principle offers Unificationists a exhaustive context for understanding human suffering."[215]