Politics and religion interwoven

Updated June 4, 2023

Sun Myung Moon: “church and the state must become one”

March 2, 2003 Hoon Dok Hae. Washington, D.C., Sheraton National
Translation by Tim Elder; Notes by Michael Jenkins

“… To recreate Israel, the church and the state must become one as Cain and Abel. Instead they became one with Rome and captured and killed Jesus. They united with Rome. Who are the Jewish members here, raise your hands! Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed six million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents. Even now, you have to determine that you will repent and follow and become one with Christianity through Rev. Moon. …

To unify Korea we must unify church and state. We must establish a political party and then unify church and state. We must be able to unify the UN and deal with the Cain type countries. The current administration in America must be guided by the religious leaders. If you follow Rev. Moon, you will not go down. In the future those who hear my words and believe will go to heaven, those who don’t will not. Even if you have to take the skin off of your body and offer it to God. It is worth it. Once everything is offered to God then that nation will be able to come into the kingdom of heaven.”

https://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/SunMyungMoon03/SM030302.htm


Contents
1. Shadows on Rev. Moon’s beams. Politics and religion interwoven.
    Chicago Tribune – Sunday, November 10, 1974

2. Howling at the Moon – Chicago Reader Weekly  Friday, November 22, 1974

3. Messiah Sun Myung Moon on the Run

4. The Unification Church: Christian Church or Political Movement?
– by Wi Jo Kang (1976)

5. Moon’s Sect Pushes Pro-Seoul Activities – by Ann Crittenden
.   The New York Times,  May 25, 1976

6. Panel Told Seoul Used Followers of Sun Myung Moon for Protests
.   The New York Times,  June 7, 1978

7. Unification Church Protected by the Regime in South Korea
.    週刊ポスト  Shūkan Post magazine  October 15, 1993

8. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit
in the House of Bush
– by Kevin Phillips (2004)

9. Missing Pieces of the Story of Sun Myung Moon
– by Frederick Clarkson (2012)

10. Sun Myung Moon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
It seems the manufacture of Moon’s ‘Autobiography’ was an attempt to promote Moon for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the publisher of the book was jailed for four years for fraud – for buying books from stores to push the book up the best-seller list, and for other financial crimes.

11. ‘Privatizing’ Covert Action: The Case of the Unification Church
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bale   Lobster #21.   May 1991
Introduction


1. Shadows on Rev. Moon’s beams. Politics and religion interwoven.

Chicago Tribune – Sunday, November 10, 1974

By John D. Marks

John D. Marks is an associate of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington and co-author of “The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence.” This article is excerpted with permission from The Washington Monthly magazine.


This is a cut down version. Full article HERE on pages 17-18


Sun Myung Moon interweaves politics and religion in the best tradition of the medieval popes. His Unification Church operates a vast network of affiliate organizations in more than 40 countries…

With the formidable task of selling a new messiah to the world, the Moonies (or “the Family” as they call themselves) are extremely media-conscious. Perhaps for this reason the American branch of the Victory over Communism effort has taken on the less strident title of the Freedom Leadership Foundation (F.L.F.).

POLITICAL ACTIVITIES in this country are not nearly as developed as those in South Korea, where Moon operates a training school to which the government annually sends hundreds of thousands of civil servants, local officials, and military men for a course in militant anti-Communism.

Even as other Korean religious leaders have turned increasingly against President Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian rule, Moon has stayed an enthusiastic backer of the regime. Moon’s avowed interest is in fighting Communism, not preserving democratic niceties, and, as F.L.F. Secretary General Gary Jarmin asserts, “Even if Park got more dictatorial, we would support him.” Jarmin is a 24-year-old ideolog…

POTENTIAL CONVERTS come to the sect largely from the ranks of disaffected young people, and there is no shortage of those. They exist all over the country—chafing under an unhappy lifestyle and looking for meaningful purpose in life.

So far, at least, only the young have been willing to make the full-time commitment that the sect demands and move into the communal living centers where the Family lives in all 50 states.

Being a Moonie is not easy: forbidden in practice, if not by formal rule, are smoking, alcohol, and drugs. Absolutely taboo is premarital sex, which Moon rails against as “fornication.”

For what do [members] make these sacrifices? Nothing short of “the kingdom of heaven on earth,” as promised to it by its leader, who claims to have found the way through a series of revelations he received from Jesus Christ between his 16th and 26th birthdays. The sect’s bible, called “Divine Principle,” is the fruit of these “revelations,”…

“Many of us believe that Reverend Moon is the messiah, but we consider this a personal matter.” Moon, for his part, is perfectly aware that “many” of his followers regard him as the messiah, and he has apparently never made any attempt to convince them that this is not the case.

“Divine Principle” is more explicit about the reasons for the sect’s fierce opposition to Communism… In a lecture on the doctrine, Michael Beard, one of their preachers, explains that there are only two major blocs on earth, “The Communist and the Free World,” and they are locked in a “Cain and Abel-type” conflict, and that Communism represents the forces of Satan.

The fact that Moon’s “revelations” reflect this early Cold War simplicity may be accounted for by the virulent strain of anti-Communism to which he was exposed in Korea for more than 20 years and also by Moon’s own imprisonment by the North Koreans for several years prior to 1950 (Just as the “Divine Principle’s” reliance on intricate diagrams and concepts like “the law of polarity” to explain all relationships may reflect Moon’s training as an electrical engineer).

FOR WHATEVER reason, the sect’s Freedom Leadership Foundation opposes detente and works to “roll back the Iron Curtain.” …

Lobbying. According to Jarmin, the F.L.F. is “already spending a lot of time” on the Hill trying to influence” congressmen and senators on national security issues.

Since the F.L.F. (as well as the Unification Church) is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s rules, it is forbidden to actually lobby for specific legislation, but Jarmin states it carries on “educational” programs especially for legislative aides. …

He says there are 5,000 F.L.F. members, including the 2,000 hard-core Moonies whose names were automatically inscribed on the organization’s rolls when they joined the Unification Church.

Several rank-and-file Family members with whom I talked had no idea that they also belonged to the F.L.F., and indeed were almost totally ignorant of the movement’s political side. In listening to roughly 12 hours of religious lectures at a weekend workshop designed to attract new recruits. I heard no mention of any of the group’s political activities.

When I questioned Jarmin on why the political aspect of the movement was not mentioned, he admitted the omission was no accident: “People who attend the workshops have more concrete ideas about politics than about religion.” he said. “We try to avoid politics. If we came on strong about Viet Nam, it would chase people away. Our anti-Communism is religious, so until we convince people of a belief in God, it is to our disadvantage to politicize.”

THAT MOON’S religion comes complete with its own brand of rightwing politics seems to bother only outsiders. Once newcomers are fully converted, they are all-accepting about every aspect of the sect.

Presumably in keeping with “Divine Principle,” Moon took out an immigrant visa and moved permanently to this country in 1972. Working out of a posh, 22-acre estate in Tarrytown, N.Y., he apparently intends to use America’s potential as the Free World’s most powerful and god-blessed nation as his base for establishing the “kingdom of heaven on earth.” His effort moved into high gear last October when he launched a 21-city speaking tour, and his followers believe he is now making great progress in winning American hearts and minds.

In Korea Moon is a virtual conglomerate holding, besides the tea business, air rifle, pharmaceutical, titanium, and still other companies. His empire is worth well over $10 million, but William Torrey (the sect’s 25-year-old financial adviser) insists that all profits go into the Unification Church and affiliate organizations.

TORREY MAY well be correct, but there are those who do not think so, especially in the Korean exile community. Lee Jai Hyon, who was a top diplomat in South Korea’s Washington embassy until opposition to the Park regime caused him to detect to the U.S. in June, 1973, equates Moon with another Korean messianic leader, Park Tae-seon, who, Lee says, also raised large sums of money from fanatic believers and grew rich from his business holdings.

Lee and his colleagues in the Korean democratic opposition see Moon as an opportunist who has supported the present government in return for personal gain.

The Park regime of course welcomes the backing offered by Moon, but its interest in his movement may well extend into the murky world of espionage.

According to both Lee and State Department sources, the Korean government is actively concerned about improving its dictatorial image in this country, and they do not doubt that its intelligence organization, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), has on occasion secretly subsidized ostensibly private organizations for this purpose just as the American CIA has done for the last 26 years.

If there is any intelligence connection between Moon and the Park regime, it is almost certainly limited to the very top level of the Moon organization in lobbying or public relations work for the Korean government and not intelligence collection.

None of the American Moonies would be likely to know of any intelligence relationship. Their interest in the movement comes from Moon’s charismatic appeal and the message of salvation he preaches.

IT WOULD be wrong to take the Family too seriously as a political movement, but the ease with which its young members have overlooked or accepted the group’s political aims may have its importance.

The standard complaint against movements like Guru Maharaj Ji’s is that they distract people from all political concerns. But as Moon’s story shows, politics can chase them down and, when they’re not looking, put them on the wrong team. When you can’t even count on religion to ignore politics, then it is time to pay attention to the political beliefs of the religious.



2. Howling at the Moon

Chicago Reader Weekly – Friday, November 22, 1974

… Last April when Park saw his government [in Korea] was endangered by Christians, students, and newspapers, he imposed restrictions that were permitted under the Constitution he wrote in 1972. Pure and simple, it declared that dissenters could be punished with death and, further, “any person who defames the present emergency measures shall be punished by death, life imprisonment or imprisonment for not less than five years.” It’s funny how democracy works sometimes, and its even more frightening when it’s hooked into the spirit. …

Moon’s followers refuse to deal with the political world as distinct from the spiritual. They prayed on the Capitol steps for Nixon because God meant him to lead the United States and only God should remove him. The Christians in South Korean jails are either communists or leftists. There is no contradiction in their slick use of the media in this country while similar freedoms have eroded in Korea. And if hecklers appear at a Moon rally to question his moral acquiescence to Park (only four such souls at the Arie Crown), there are only whispers about communist conspiracies. 
LINK page 19



3. Messiah Sun Myung Moon on the Run

World Anti-Communist League Rally at the Budokan Hall, Tokyo, Japan in September 1970. It was sponsored by the IFVC (International Federation for Victory over Communism). The Freedom Leadership Foundation is the American affiliate of the IFVC.

Moon fled from Korea to America in December 1971. There were fears for his life in Korea. In 1978 he fled to London to escape Donald Fraser’s investigation. Years later, when he was not succeeding in America, he moved many assets, and Japanese members, to South America.    LINK


Allen Tate Wood:

September 1970 – Japan
“Mr. Kuboki [President of the UC in Japan] and I got along nicely, speaking as well as we could through an interpreter, usually Miss [Young-Oon] Kim, who had arrived for the [WACL] conference [in Tokyo]… Kuboki told me that President Park [of South Korea] was one of the sponsors of the conference. He also told me that Moon was in some fear of the Park regime and that there was even talk that he was marked for assassination, for religious oppression was the order of the day in the new South Korea. One of the aims of the conference, said Kuboki, was to reassure Park that his aims and Moon’s coincided.

I could hardly doubt that Moon’s strategy had succeeded perfectly. His political aims were perfectly enmeshed in his religious goals…”
From Allen Tate Wood, Moonstruck, a memoir of my life in a cult, page 112

In the 1970s there were growing problems for Moon in South Korea. Unification Church leaders were arrested for tax evasion at Il-hwa, etc. and at least one was jailed. Nansook Hong’s father was jailed. LINK

Moon fled from Korea to America.

On December 11, 1971 Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han arrived in the U.S. (Los Angeles?) but were refused entry, and had to fly on to Toronto. The reason seems to have been that Moon was suspected of being a communist. (Perhaps due to his 1944 arrest in Seoul by the Japanese authorities who discovered Moon had been active with communists in Tokyo in 1941-1943. Moon had other communist friends up until 1950 when he fled to South Korea.

“On the road [just outside Heungnam on October 15, 1950], Moon met up with one of his followers in the [labor] camp, Moon Jong-bin, the young Communist party official. … the two men left together on foot for Pyongyang.” Moon and his follower stayed together for two months. Moon Jong-bin only parted on their journey south at the house of Pak Chong-hwa in Mangil-ri in mid-December. Michael Breen, Sun Myung Moon, the early years, pages 112 and 118-19.)

Evidence that Moonies Jump-Started the North Korean Nuclear Program that Now Threatens the US


▲ Moon and Hak Ja Han in Toronto. Also in the group were Won-pok Choi, Young-whi Kim and Mr Ishii (head of UC business in Japan)

December 12-18   Moon and Hak Ja Han in Toronto, Canada (while visa sorted)

Franco Famularo (Canadian National Leader): “In 1971, True Parents journeyed to the United States to begin their ministry there, but U.S. officials initially denied Father entry. Suddenly the Canadian family, which had fewer than a dozen members at the time, learned that True Parents would be arriving in Toronto [on December 12]. Although Father would explain the spiritual significance of visiting Canada, the practical purpose was to obtain a visa for entry into the United States.

Father’s visa situation was resolved on December 17. The following day, he and his party departed for Washington D.C.

In 1976, Father said the following to an American audience: “… vividly remembered my arrival in America on December 18, 1971…. I did not have a visa to enter America from Korea, so I came to Canada instead. Our members in America were very persistent in asking the State Department, “Why won’t you issue a visa to Father?” Ironically, officials kept telling them that I was a communist, so I was undesirable in this country.” (True Peace magazine, October 2014, page 24)

“Senator Strom Thurmond continued to help the Moonies on the Hill. When Moon was having trouble getting into the country in 1971, Thurmond had intervened and Moon was admitted.” Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean scandal by Robert Boettcher (1980) pages 156-7

“The Park [Chung-hee] government has pushed [the church] to arm’s length again and put their relationship on hold. Church members have trouble getting visas to leave the country now, they say, and they now talk darkly of expected repression. As this book went to the publisher, these fears were confirmed by the arrest of some of the church’s leaders in Korea on charges of income-tax evasion.”  (Prof. Frederick Sontag’s book Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, page 199)


April 1978 – from a newspaper report by Diana Patt, Washington, DC:
Unification Church tried to keep Mr Nixon in power during the Watergate crisis
Mr Fefferman claimed he did not know why Mr Salonen, head of the Freedom Leadership Foundation as well as of the Unification Church in America, had said the Watergate Project could help improve the standing of the Unification Church with the South Korean Government.
But a speech by Mr. Salonen, which appeared in New Hope News, a Unification Church publication, read as follows: “When Father came to the United States his primary purpose was to do things to make him influential in Korea. The Day of Hope tour and specially the rallies in support of President Nixon were far more significant due to the impact they had in Korea than their impact here… If it was important in Korea and if it helped to bring the government and our church close together then it was more important than anything else.”

In 1978 Moon flew to London under a false name to avoid a Donald Fraser US Government Investigation subpoena

Robert Boettcher:
“Bo Hi Pak, as ever the quintessential Moonie, intended to serve as a shield for Moon. Fraser’s volumes of interviews, KCFF files, financial records, and intelligence reports were highly damaging to Moon’s image. But he must not allow Fraser to drag Master into the hearing room as he had been. If necessary, he would be the sacrificial animal at Fraser’s pagan rite. That would be his ultimate act of service to God and Moon. Pak would lay down his very life to avoid having Master degraded by public interrogation.

With so much evidence pointing to Moon, however, Fraser reluctantly concluded he should be questioned. After the ordeal with Bo Hi Pak, he dreaded the prospect of going through something worse with Moon. Moonie intransigence had caused the investigation to spend much more time on the Moon organization than planned. Other important matters were not getting the attention they deserved.

Moon’s lawyer, Charles Stillman, turned down Fraser’s request that Moon be questioned informally by the staff. Stillman then made a counteroffer. Moon would consider a request to meet informally with Fraser and the other Congressmen on the condition they come to his estate on the Hudson, and that they conduct the meeting “in a manner befitting the dignity of a spiritual leader.” Fraser was not at all interested in making a pilgrimage to Belvedere for an audience with the new Messiah. The subcommittee had already issued a subpoena for Moon, and Fraser was prepared to use it. He informed Stillman that Moon had two weeks to agree to answer questions voluntarily. If he still refused, Fraser intended to serve the subpoena. Moon would then be required to appear as a witness at a hearing scheduled for June 13.

Two days before the two weeks were up, on May 13, 1978, Moon flew to London on the Concorde using a false name. Like Tongsun Park two years before, he skipped the country when things got hot.

Bo Hi Pak was furious over Fraser’s suggestion that Moon’s exit had anything to do with the subpoena deadline. The Reverend Moon had long planned to carry his personal missionary work to Europe, Pak insisted. The reason for going at that time was to officiate at a mass marriage of 180 church couples in England. As for the subpoena, Master would fight it in the courts when he returned. Moon might consider accepting the subpoena under one condition: that Fraser also subpoena Pope Paul, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and the heads of the Baptists, Jews, Methodists, and others. Moon never returned for the announced battle. He remained abroad, in England and Korea, until November 1978, one week after Fraser’s investigation ended.

Fraser was not the only one closing in on the Moonies. The Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation had been barred from soliciting contributions in New York after 1976. The State Social Welfare Board had discovered that less than 7 percent of the funds collected by KCFF for the Children’s Relief Fund could have been used for that purpose.”

From Gifts of Deceit by Robert Boettcher, pages 320-321

The Korean background of the UC / FFWPU by Young-Bok Chun


4. The Unification Church: Christian Church or Political Movement?

by Wi Jo Kang (Professor of Missions and World Religions, Concordia Seminary in Exile, St. Louis, Missouri.) in Japanese Religions Vol. 9   July 1976   No. 2
A magazine issued by the NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, commonly known as the Unification Church, is a typical new religion. One distinctive characteristic of the “new religions” is a conglomeration of different religious concepts and doctrines. The Unification Church officially acknowledges this aspect of the movement and writes: “A new religion, which will serve as the basis for the new civilization, would be a fusion of Christianity and Oriental philosophy.”1

In advocating such “a fusion of Christianity and Oriental philosophy” the teachings of the Unification Church reflect the yin-yang thought of ancient China. According to this ancient Chinese thought, God always works through a male, positive force and a female, negative force in His creative activities and in all His works. As the Divine Principle, the official and basic book of Unification Church doctrines, states:

A creation, whatever it may be, cannot come into being unless a reciprocal relationship between positivity and negativity has been achieved, not only within itself but also in relation to other beings. For example, particles, which are the essential components of all matter, have either positivity or negativity, or a neutrality which is caused when the positive and negative elements neutralize other.2

Since all things are created and exist through “a reciprocal relationship between the dual essentialities of positivity and negativity,” God created not only man but also woman. This dual harmony is expressed in His created order. But Eve had illegitimate relations with Satan and the stain of Satan’s blood was transmitted to all the descendants of Adam and Eve. Thus the harmony was broken and the world of men became the place of Satan.
Such theological formulations involving a “fusion of Christianity and Oriental philosophy” are not inherently wrong. It is an imperative and positive task of theologians in Asia to utilize traditional Asian philosophy in developing an indigenous theology. Christian theology in the West also incorporated Greek philosophy and other cultural elements of the West.
However, the task of new theological formulations is not to distort the central message of Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, but rather to affirm it. The weakness and error of the Unification Church rests precisely in its departure from the centrality of Christ as “the way, the truth and the life.” The Unification Church teaches that God uses the power of male and female also in His redemptive activities as well as in His creative works. Jesus was God’s chosen prophet to redeem mankind and restore man to his original sinless state. But Jesus Christ was murdered by the Jews and Jesus never had the opportunity to have a family. He failed to leave descendants through whom he could transmit pure blood to mankind. The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, says:

When God created man, He placed Adam and Eve, man and woman, in the garden of Eden. They both united with Satan and became sinful, thereby leaving God isolated. In the process of restoration God must restore both Adam and Eve. Jesus came as the sinless Adam, or perfected Adam. His first mission was, therefore, to restore his bride and form the first family of God. Jesus came, but he was crucified. He was not given a chance to restore his bride. And this is why Jesus promised his second coming. Jesus Christ must come again to consummate the mission he left undone, 2,000 years ago. …3

Thus the redemptive work of Jesus and his mission to the world remain unfinished. But God now continues His work of redemption through the blood of the “true parents” of mankind, who “ascend from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God,” just as is prophesied in Revelation 7: 2-7. The true parents are The Reverend Moon and his young wife, who is honored as the “Mother of the Universe.”
In 1960, when the “Mother of the Universe” was married, she was an eighteen year old high school girl, a very young age to be married by Korean standards, while Moon was forty-one years old and had had previous marriages. The children born between them are said to be children without original sin. To belong to the true family under the “true parents” is an important religious concern of every member of the Unification Church. The Unification Church emphasizes the importance of belonging to the “true family” to the extent that it degrades the Holy family of Jesus Christ. It is an unacceptable heresy and blasphemy to say that Christ’s mission was left undone because he failed to have a wife and have children to transmit pure blood to mankind.

According to the teachings of the Unification Church, the death of Christ was untimely and even unnecessary, for “Jesus did not come to die on the cross.”4 Therefore the Unification Church is not a Christian movement but Moon’s movement, or a new religion with a certain Christian coloring. For the followers of the Unification Church Moon is superior and more important than Jesus. A Korean Professor of sociology in a prominent Korean University, who was a follower of Moon in his early years of developing the Unification Church, demonstrates this point eloquently:

Moon, therefore, is superior to Jesus Christ, because he fulfilled the mission which Jesus could not accomplish. Jesus is no longer one of the Trinity, the Holy Son, because of his failure in his original mission. But Moon is not only the founder of the Church but also he is the Messiah of the Second Advent, one of the Trinity, a living God.5

Hence no Christ-centered theologian or Christian can take the Unification Church seriously as a Christian movement. However, the real danger of this movement is not its theological heresy, but rather lies in the area of its political involvement. The appeal of the Unification Church and its impact are mainly felt in the area of its political activities, and its followers are greatly attracted by its commitment to fight against communism. Of course all Christians should be concerned about the influence of Marxism and communism in the modern world as a challenge to the expansion of Christianity. But Christian involvement in political activities should not work for a particular political ideology, party, nation, or block of nations. Christian participation in political activities in witness of Christ’s truth in the world against injustice, poverty, ignorance, oppression and unjust war should rather be the expression of Christian conscience and love toward fellow man transcending any political party lines and national boundaries.
Thus Christian participation in political activities is not for the sake of politics, but for the cause of Christian truth prompted by the love of Christ. In this sense, Christianity is for politics and against politics. In other words, Christianity should not use any one political line. Christianity has lived under all kinds of government and political systems in its history. Whenever Christianity has identified exclusively with any one existing political power, it has weakened the real meaning and purpose of Christianity: to be true salt and light to shine in the darkness of the world.
The Unification Church, however, has closely identified itself with the political line of anti-communism, the security of South Korea and the destiny of the United States. An offical declaration of the Unification Church, published widely in Korean newspapers, stated the following:

The Unification Church movement is a movement of national (South Korean) survival. Communism is the enemy of mankind and the enemy of God. The communism that denies the existence of God should be defeated by the Christianity that believes in the existence of God. The principles derived from the teachings of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon prove the truth of the existence of God and the falsehood of the materialism originated by Marx and Lenin. The precious unification thought provides the truth and the confidence of the people of the world for the victory over communism. This is why the communists throughout the world are afraid of the Unification Church. The Unification Church is playing the leading role in the fight against communism in the free world. This movement is, within the nation (Korea), a movement that directly contributes to the national defense and national survival. Externally it is a movement to save the world and give hope in this world of chaos.6

Therefore the Unification Church teaches that the greatest task in which the Christian Church should engage in this world is the fight against communism, which it explains in these words:

Communism is a providential ideology which emerged at the end of the world to take the Cain position of thought in the dispensation of restoration. Human history started with the struggle between good and evil. Cain, who represented Satan, slaughtered Abel, who represented Heaven. Therefore, according to the law of indemnity and separation, God is going to conclude the evil history by separating good and evil worldwide. God (Abel) will subjugate evil (Cain). Communism appeared in this sense as the Cain ideology.7

Then why does God allow such evil ideology to exist and even to advance? The Unification people explain that God allowed the trend of thought leading to Communism to develop “for the sake of restoring the human environment in the dispensation of restoration.” The official source of the Unification Church reads:

God allowed the expansion of the communist ideology as a chastisement to warn the democratic bloc, which is the Abel side, and to direct it toward good. In the Old Testament Age, to awaken the rebellious tribes of Israel, God chastised them through the Gentiles. Today, in order to awaken the Christian nations which stand in the position of the modern Israel, God allowed Communism to emerge in the role of the modern “Gentile.”8

Now, however, Communism is doomed to fail, according to this church movement. But the doom and demise of Communism from the world must come from a vigorous fight against the Marxist movement. Therefore, the followers of the Unification Church go out into the streets and preach the “evil ideology.” Typical preaching one hears in the streets of the United States is:

In North Korea, school children are required to bow down to statues of North Korean dictator Kim Il-Sung, and are given their choice of praying to the statue or praying to God. If they pray to God, they get no rice for lunch, but if they pray to Kim Il-Sung, they get a full portion. Children who consistently refuse to bow to Kim Il-Sung and call him their “beloved” Father have been shot, along with their entire families, as examples to the “bourgeois and un-proletarianized elements in North Korean society.”9

The Unification Church’s many organizational fronts in fighting against Communism are the International Federation for Victory over Communism, the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, the Freedom Leadership Foundation, the World Freedom Institute, the American Youth for a Just Peace, the International Cultural Foundation, the One World Crusade, the Project Unity and the Little Angels Korean Folk Ballet.

Among them, the Freedom Leadership Foundation and the One World Crusade are the most vigorous of those organizations engaged in the anti-Communist movement in the United States. The official publication of the Unification Church explains the Freedom Leadership Foundation:

The Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF) is a nationwide, non-profit educational organization, established in 1969 by a group of young men and women who were deeply concerned about the influence of Marxist thought in America and the consequent erosion of national purpose and will. It is the American affiliate of the IFVC, (International Federation for Victory over Communism), which was founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1967.10

The Freedom Leadership Foundation identifies with such political activities to oppose Communism in terms of its “religious ideals.” One of the main goals of the foundation is “to proclaim that the materialistic, anti-democratic doctrines of Marxism-Leninism constitute at present the greatest single barrier to the fulfillment of world freedom.”11

The members of the foundation are in the forefront of the campus movement throughout the United States and conduct rallies, demonstrations and prayer vigils. The foundation also publishes a bi-monthly newspaper, The Rising Tide, intended to offer “a nationwide youth-orientated alternative to the left-wing underground press.” The “Rising Tide Bookstore” is situated in the nation’s capital in Washington to provide “students, educators, researchers and congressional aides with the latest books, magazines and newspapers dealing with the problems of Communism.”12 The foundation also sponsors foreign students studying in the United States, and young visitors.

The most visible mark of the presence of the Unification Church movement in the United States is made under the name of “One World Crusade” which was organized by Moon in 1972. The crusade units travel with groups of young people from Europe and Asia and conduct many rallies, give lectures, appear on local and national media for the cause of anti-Communism throughout the cities in the United States. “One World Crusade” teams are working at this time in practically all fifty states.

The Unification Church groups believe that the United States is the specially favored nation of God, chosen to play the leading role in the Unification Church movement and to oppose Communism. In one of his talks to an American audience, Moon asked: “Have you ever thought which nation should be restored first? The leading nation (the United States)! If we restore your nation, one sixth of the globe will be restored.”13

The United States is, therefore, important for the special fulfillment of God’s purpose on earth. The Unification Church talks about America with favorable words of praise:

America’s existence was according to God’s providence. God needed to build one powerful Christian nation on earth for His future work. After all, America belonged to God first, and only after that to the Indians. This is the only interpretation that can justify the position of the Pilgrim settlers.14

The Unification Church further argues officially that God has a definite plan for America. He needed to have this nation prosper as one nation under God. God wants to have America as His base, America as His champion. And America was begun in the sacrificial spirit of pursuing God’s purpose. America may consummate her history in the same sacrificial spirit for God’s purpose. America will endure forever.15

America will endure forever because “America is the center of those God-fearing free world nations. America has been chosen as the defender of God….”16

America’s destiny is inseparable from the destiny of the world. America’s well-being affects the plan of God. “This is a country that loves God.” God, who loves the United States so much and who frequently encountered Moon since he was sixteen years old, appeared to him again on January 1, 1972. God told him “to go to America and speak to the American people.”17 With this sense of mission and in obedience to God’s command he came to the United States and established his headquarters.

On another occasion he told his American audience:

I know that God sent me here to America. I did not come for the luxurious life in America. Not at all! I came to America not for my own purposes, but because God sent me …. The future of the entire world hinges on America. God has a very [big] stake in America.18

The effects of this type of preaching were soon evident. A Newsweek magazine of October 15, 1973 issue reported:

Dr. Moon has recently shifted his international base of operations from three rented rooms in a poor section of Seoul to a lush 22-acre estate in Tarrytown, N.Y. …, which his disciples purchased last year for $850,000. The estate includes a luxurious mansion for Moon … (p.54).

Despite the recognition of the importance of the United States and God’s favor on her, Moon and his followers were aware of the political crisis concerning Watergate. To seek God’s help in solving America’s “Watergate” problem, Moon went back to Korea in November, 1973, where he spent much time in prayer and meditation in search of an answer.
God gave him the answer, which was “to forgive and love President Richard Nixon.” And he wrote a statement, “Answer to Watergate,” which read:

I bend my head and place my ear upon the heartbeat of America. I hear no one seeking the solution from above. We keep on criticizing, and the nation sinks — we criticize some more and the nation falls even further, deep into greater peril. Now is the time for America to renew the faith expressed in her motto “In God We Trust.” This is the founding spirit that makes America great and unique. God blessed America because of this spirit. Furthermore, America is fulfilling a vital role in God’s plan for the modern world. God is depending on America today. Therefore, the crisis for America is a crisis for God.19

The statement further read:

I have been praying specifically for President Richard Nixon. I asked God, ‘What shall we do with the person of Richard Nixon?’ The answer did come again … God spoke to me … It is your duty to love him. We must love Richard Nixon. The office of the President of the United States is, therefore, sacred. God inspired a man and then confirmed him as President through the will of the people. He lays his hand on the word of God and is sworn into office. At this time in history God has chosen Richard Nixon to be President of the United States of America.

In support of Nixon the church sponsored frequent prayer meetings and demonstrations. A headline in Washington Post on December 18, 1973, gives a good indication of this — “Watergate Day of Prayer asked by the Unification Church.” Another headline in Minneapolis Star on December 1, 1973, read “Korean Preacher Urges U.S. not to ‘Destroy President.’ ”

According to the followers of the Unification Church, President Nixon was the greatest President to be known as ardently anti-Communist. However, the Communist-influenced politicians are destroying the President with the Watergate issue. At the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 1973 over 1000 followers of the Unification Church turned out to “cheer President Nixon,” carrying signs like “God loves Nixon” and “Support the President.” Not long after this “cheering of the President,” Moon was invited to the twenty-second annual National Prayer Breakfast at the Hilton Hotel. On the following day the President invited him to an unscheduled meeting.

President Nixon further appreciated Moon’s effort to support him in the following text of a letter from the White House, dated December 11, 1973.

All the words of encouragement I received are deeply heartening to me, and I am particularly grateful for the prayers and good will that you and members of the Unification Church have expressed at this time.
I have read news of your efforts, and I share your belief that it is vitally important for this Nation to attain a sense of unity — unity that can come only from sharing our concerns about our common ideals. If we keep faith in ourselves and our faith in God, I am confident that America will remain a great symbol of hope for millions around the globe, a Nation with a rich heritage, and an even more promising future.20

Despite such an expression of gratitude by Mr. Richard Nixon, and the efforts of the Reverend Mr. Moon and his followers to save the President, the latter had to resign from office. The resignation of the President, however, did not weaken the office of the Presidency of the United States or destroy the office as the people of the Unification Church had predicted. On the contrary, the United States demonstrated to the world the strength of the democratic government and political process of the United States.
After the resignation of the President this writer frequently asked the followers of the Unification Church about the downfall of President Nixon. The usual answer was: “Our Master, The Reverend Moon,21 urged President Nixon to hold on to his office and not resign. But President Nixon was not strong enough and not patient enough to hold his office.” In any case, contrary to the hopes and desires of the Unification Church movement, the President had to leave his office.

In such contradiction lies the dangers and weaknesses of the Unification Church movement.

In spite of such contradictions and weaknesses, however, the Unification Church appeals to many frustrated people in a time of economic depression and political uncertainty. The leaders of the Unification Church strongly argue that the greatest task of Christians is to fight against communism, especially in Korea. The high ranking officers of this church explained to this writer when he visited the home office of the Unification Church in Seoul, Korea, a couple years ago that God in His providence divided the peninsula of Korea so that it could be the testing ground of Christianity against Communism. After Korea was liberated from Japan, the northern half of Korea was destined to be ruled by the Communist regime and the South Korea to be ruled by “democracy.”

So South Korea is a special country, not only as the land of the “true parents,” but also as the sacred battle-ground of Christianity in its struggle against communism. In fact, Moon claims that he would send one million Christian soldiers from throughout the world if South Korea were in danger of a communist take-over. According to The Christian News, Joan Meyer, a former member of the Unification Church, said that she was expected to be “willing to go to South Korea to fight, if necessary.” One of Mr. Moon’s avowed objectives is to unify Korea, “the holy land,” and there is fear among those who oppose his movement that he might plunge thousands of the youth into this “holy war” eventually.22

Such fears may not be so alarming yet. However, the political involvement of the Unification Church does raise some serious concern. A newspaper in America reported:

Mr. Moon purportedly has said that if necessary he would give the command for hundreds and thousands of his followers to move to certain areas at certain times to effect political and other objectives. Mr. Moon was said to have asserted that even with only 500 full dedicated workers in each of the States some of the objectives of his theocracy can be put into force.23

It should be noted, however, that the political activities of the Unification Church are not universally considered as ethical or desirable. The St. Louis Globe Democrat, for example, recently reported: “ … Moon is not above suggesting Watergate tricksterism, such as using beautiful young girls to try to influence senators.” Indeed Rabbi Maurice Davis of New York recently testified in the United States Senate that “… Mr. Moon has said that he wanted 300 good girls for the Senators — so watch out, Senator.”24 Such unchristian-like political activities, however sincere the members of the Unification Church may be in their opposition to communism, cannot help but alienate many of the followers of this movement, and with the eventual death of its founder it is quite possible that the impact of the Unification Church itself will die out.

1. Young Oon Kim, Divine Principle and its Application, Washington, D.C.: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1969, p.193.
2. Divine Principle, Washington, D. C.: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973, p.20.
3. Sun Myung Moon, Christianity in Crisis: New Hope. Washington, D.C.: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1974, p.27.
4. Divine Principle, p.143.
5. Ch’oi Syn-duk, “Korea’s Tongil Movement,” Transactions of the Korean Branch of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XLIII, 1967, p.175.
6. “Declaration of the Unification Church,” Hanguk Shinmun, May 3, 1975, p.6.
7. Sang Hun Lee, Communism: A Critique and Counter Proposal, Washington: The Freedom Foundation, Inc., 1973, p.233.
8. Ibid.
9. Young Whi Kim (ed.), The Way of the World: Seoul, The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1972, p.103.
10. Sun Myung Moon, The Unification Church, not dated, p.9.
11. Ibid., p.11.
12. Ibid.
13. Kim, op. cit., p.57.
14. Christianity in Crisis, p.55.
15. Ibid., p.59.
16. Ibid., p.61.
17. The Unification Church, p.1.
18. Christianity in Crisis, p.64.
19. Moon, Answers to Watergate, not dated, p.3.
20. Ibid., p.8.
21. All those members of the Unification Church who answered this writer’s questions also confessed that they truly believed that Rev. Mr. Moon is the Messiah.
22. The Christian News, February 10, 1975, p.13.
23. Ibid., March 1, 1976, p.16.
24. St. Louis Globe Democrat, December 13-14, 1975, p.11.



5. Moon’s Sect Pushes Pro-Seoul Activities

The New York Times  May 25, 1976

by Ann Crittenden

A number of individuals and organizations connected with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the wealthy Korean industrialist and evangelist, have intimate ties with and have received assistance from the South Korean Government and the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, according to former Korean and American officials and former members of the Moon organization.

At the same time, the fast growing Moon‐affiliated groups have devoted much of their efforts to building support for the South Korean Government in the United States. These efforts have taken the form of intensive lobbying on Capitol Hill, attempts to influence prominent politicians, businessmen and community leaders, the development of a dedicated group of followers from many countries who have pledged to fight in South Korea in the event of a war there and elaborate public‐relations campaigns attacking Communism and linking South Korea to patriotic American themes. …

Full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/25/archives/moons-sect-pushes-proseoul-activities-moons-sect-seeks-to-build.html



6. Panel Told Seoul Used Followers of Sun Myung Moon for Protests

The New York Times  June 7, 1978

WASHINGTON, June 6 (AP) — House investigators today quoted United States intelligence reports as saying that the South Korean intelligence agency had used the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s followers for demonstrations in this country.

“On at least one occasion Moon received Korean Central Intelligence Agency funds for that purpose,” said a summary of the intelligence reports that was read at a House hearing.

Representative Donald M. Fraser, Democrat of Minnesota, said after the hearing that Mr. Moon left the United States for London shortly before the House international relations subcommittee tried to subpoena him to testify.

Mr. Fraser, chairman of the subcommittee, said he could not be sure whether the South Korean evangelist was evading the subpoena, which called on him to testify next Tuesday.

A former agent of the Korean intelligence agency testified at the hearing that another agent told him the agency had truckloads of Moon followers brought to Washington for a demonstration in September 1974, but then called it off.

Kim Sang Keun, who defected from the Korean agency, testified that he saw an order from Seoul to stage the demonstration. But he said he did not know if Moon followers had been recruited for it.

At that point Mr. Fraser read a portion of the summary quoting American intelligence reports as saying the chief South Korean intelligence agent in Washington had “arranged with Rev. Moon’s group for demonstrations” on Sept. 14, 1974.

Mr. Fraser said the demonstrations were to be against Japan’s alleged lack of cooperation in investigating the Korean‐Japanese assassin of the wife of South Korean President Park Chung Hee. …

Full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/06/07/archives/panel-told-seoul-used-followers-of-sun-myung-moon-for-protests.html


7. The Unification Church was protected by the regime in South Korea

Pikareum emerged during the “Ewha Womans University Incident” in the early days of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

週刊ポスト  Shūkan Post magazine  October 15, 1993, pages 212 to 215

“Why did the Unification Church quit doing ‘pikareum’?” I was asking Eu Hyo-min, someone familiar with the inner workings of the Unification Church. My frank question elicited a glare, if only for a moment. Then he let out some revealing words. …

“The main reason that people who had left the Unification Church and revealed the inner workings were subsequently imprisoned was because at the time there were connections between the Unification Church and the regime.

Please look back at the history of the Unification Church mass weddings. In answer to the question, “Why did the Unification Church stop pikareum?” I will just answer that Sun Myung Moon was ordered to “Do everything, but not that [pikareum]”.

https://tragedyofthesixmarys.com/pikareum-emerged-ewha/



8. Sun Myung Moon and the Bushes

American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 
by Kevin Phillips
(September 7, 2004)

Kevin Phillips has been a political and economic commentator for more than three decades. A former White House strategist, he is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio and also writes for Harper’s and Time. His nine books include the New York Times bestsellers The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy. He lives in Connecticut.


PREFACE
This book has changed a lot—in length, indignation, and its hitherto unpublished information—since I began writing it in December 2002. My original ambition was to identify and explain the Bush-related transformation of the U.S. presidency into an increasingly dynastic office, a change with profound consequences for the American Republic, given the factors of family bias, domestic special interests, and foreign grudges that the Bushes, father and son, brought into the White House.

Unfortunately, in examining two Bush presidencies and the family’s four-generation pursuit of national prominence and power—and in doing so through a lens that highlighted elite associations, dynastic ambitions, and recurring financial and business practices—I found a greater basis for dismay and disillusionment than I had imagined. The result is an unusual and unflattering portrait of a great family (great in power, not morality) that has built a base over the course of the twentieth century in the back corridors of the new military-industrial complex and in close association with the growing intelligence and national security establishments. In doing so, the Bushes have threaded their way through damning political, banking, and armaments scandals and, since the 1980s, controversies like the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, and Iraqgate imbroglios, which in another climate or a different time might have led to impeachment.

I am not talking about ordinary lack of business ethics or financial corruption. During the late twentieth century, several other presidents and their families displayed these shortcomings, and the public has become understandably blasé. Four generations of building toward dynasty, however, have infused the Bush family’s hunger for power and practices of crony capitalism with a moral arrogance and backstage disregard of the democratic and republican traditions of the U.S. government. As we will see, four generations of involvement with clandestine arms deals and European and Middle Eastern rogue banks will do that.

American Dynasty is on the one hand a book about economics, history, and politics in the era that covers the two Bush presidencies. But it is also a portrait of four Bush (and Walker) generations—their ambitions, financial practices, scandals, and wars. It brings into focus many circumstances and relationships that have not previously been examined together and seriously discussed, for reasons that are both unusual and unfortunate. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Bush clan in a sense flew under the radar of critical biography and investigation.

… The research I did on politics and religion in writing chapter 7 was a revelation to me, as I hope it will be to readers.

That the Bushes have many qualities to commend them as a private family—community involvement, generosity to those who work for them—is not really the point. They are not a private family. They are a public family, and one that is writing a new definition of the presidency. They are bending public policy toward family grudges and interests. What matters is their policy and conduct in that emerging role. The further evidence, since 9/11, of the United States’ becoming an embattled imperium, even showing faint specklings of garrison state thinking, only doubles the stakes.

True, the dynastic trend in the United States goes deeper than the Bushes. If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2008, the failings and lingering grudges of her family’s own would-be dynasty will be fair game. And thus we may learn—for better or worse—more about the transformation and perils of American politics. This book, however, is about the dynasty we already have and what it stands for. This is the direction in which national politics and national discussion must turn first.


From Chapter 7

The American Presidency and the Rise of the Religious Right

page 226

… Bush’s religious allies also responded to the large number of top personnel and policymaking jobs given to Christian Right appointees, especially where they would deal with hot-button subject matter: church-state relations, federal aid to religion, women’s rights, birth control, abortion-related drugs, family aid, and federal volunteer programs.

As head of the Office of Personnel Management, in charge of federal workforce support, Bush chose conservative activist Kay Coles James, formerly dean of the Robertson School of Government at Pat Robertson-founded Regent University. David Caprara, made head of AmeriCorps VISTA, the federal community volunteers group, had directed the American Family Coalition, a faith-based affiliate of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. By some accounts, Caprara was one of Moon’s top grassroots organizers.38

pages 232-236

… Anthony T. Evans of Dallas, who likewise preached a worldview based on the Bible, was a speaker at the pre-inaugural Washington Prayer luncheon in January 2001 sponsored by Sun Myung Moon and choreographed by former Bush assistant Doug Wead. Identified in 2001 by the New York Times as a friend and confidant from whom Bush often sought spiritual guidance, Evans told a British journalist that for Bush in Texas, “one of the impetuses for his considering running for president was biblical teaching. He feels God is talking to him.”59

What Hayford and Evans had in common, other preachers said, was a shared adherence to “Kingdom Now” or Dominionist theology. Loosely put, it called for seizure of earthly power by “the people of God” as the only way by which the world could be rescued. Prayer and evangelism were not enough; a Christian-led political and social reformation was necessary because Christ will not return to earth until a revived church has set the scene. Evans, in particular, had written several books on prophecy and the future. A president convinced that God was speaking to him, some pundits surmised, might through Dominionism start to view himself as an agent called by the Almighty to restore the earth to godly control.

Author Bob Woodward, in his book Bush at War, had already perceived a sweeping assumption of mission in the president’s September 14 response to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden: “Our responsibility to history is already clear: To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” To Woodward, “the president was casting his vision and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s master plan.”60

In 1999, before the campaign began in earnest, George W. Bush had assembled pastors for a “laying on of hands” and told them he had been “called” to higher office.61 A year after 9/11, David Gergen, a longtime adviser to presidents, told the New York Times that Bush “has made it clear he feels that Providence intervened to save his life, and now he is somehow an instrument of Providence.”62 After an analysis of presidential rhetoric, Baptist minister and Interfaith Alliance leader Welton Gaddy concluded, “You see a growing feeling he [believes] he is, in fact, a divinely chosen leader in this moment of history. It’s as if he discovered the power of religion late in life and thinks the nation needs to [do the same].”63

If true believers were thrilled, the nation’s secular citizens were not. Before Bush, even the most religious of U.S. presidents had perused the Bible for notes of grace, not strategic mandates. Woodrow Wilson did not ponder the battlefield at Megiddo before deciding to send troops to France in 1917. Nor did William McKinley, in contemplating war with the Spanish Empire, consult the Book of Revelation. For a president to interweave international geopolitics and the Bible—to submerge realpolitik in New and Old Testament eschatology—had no American precedent.

Beyond Dominionism and hints of divine guidance, a further Bush controversy lay in making belief in Jesus fit alongside collaboration with Sun Myung Moon—a self-proclaimed messiah—and his international Unification Church. This controversial association began with the elder Bush. During 1995 and 1996, two years after leaving the White House, he made at least nine paid appearances in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Tokyo, Washington, and elsewhere on behalf of Moon. The Korean businessman and evangelist, who dismissed Jesus as a failure and styled himself “the Lord of the Second Advent,” was said to be paying the former president $100,000 per speech. The Argentine newspaper La Nacion also reported rumors that Bush and Moon might do business together in South America.64

The forty-first president, who told Argentine president Carlos Menem that he had joined Moon in Buenos Aires for the money, had actually known the Korean reasonably well for decades. Their relationship went back to the overlap between Bush’s one-year tenure as CIA director (1976) and the arrival in Washington of Moon, whose Unification Church was widely reported to be a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency.65 Within Washington councils, Bush was a powerful voice against any unnecessary crackdown on the U.S. activities of allied intelligence services. In the eighties, Moon and his newspaper, the Washington Times, prominently supported Reagan-Bush Iran-Contra activities and Republican causes.

George H. W. Bush’s praise for Moon and the conservative newspapers he ran, including the influential Times, surprised the press in Buenos Aires. The Reuters story filed on November 25, 1996, was headlined “Bush Praises Sun Myung Moon as ‘Man of Vision.’” It also reminded readers that “Argentina’s influential Catholic Church takes issue with Moon’s portrayal of himself as an incarnation of God fulfilling the mission of Christ. Critics say he brainwashes the vulnerable into joining him, and some countries, such as Germany, consider him a threat to public order and refuse him an entry visa.”

Four years later, President-elect George W. Bush allowed his onetime religious aide, Doug Wead, to arrange a Moon-sponsored Inaugural Prayer Luncheon on January 19, 2001, a Washington event that drew over 1,700 public officials, ministers, and conservative activists. Some attendees felt deceived by not having been told of Moon’s role in the event. One was Morris Chapman, the chief executive of the 18-million-member Southern Baptist Convention. “I was shocked,” he said, “to see that Sun Myung Moon was on the program and, in essence, the host. I was even more surprised on the way out to be given a propaganda book on the Unification Church.” Chapman added that the event “will serve to remind evangelical Christians that the world increasingly is filled with wolves in sheep’s clothing.”66

That Bush aides would collaborate with a group described as “wolves” by the Southern Baptist Convention worried some conservatives. Steve Hassan, a journalist who followed religious cults, had for years found Moon’s Washington acceptance just as puzzling: “Here’s a man [Moon] who says he wants to take over the world, where all religions will be abolished except Unificationism, all languages will be abolished except Korean, all governments will be abolished except his one-world theocracy, yet he’s wined and dined very powerful people and convinced them that he’s benign.”67

Whatever the explanation, radical religion had been wielding ever more political power around the world. The Mutawwa’in, the Saudi religious police, had searched out hidden church services among the millions of Filipinos, Koreans, and other foreign workers, sometimes imposing death sentences. But the Saudis were too important for Washington to criticize. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, another close U.S. ally, doubtless greeted hundreds of religious extremists during his tenure in office. However, like the Saudis—and like the Bushes fraternizing with end-times preachers and Sun Myung Moon—Sharon walked away largely unscathed.

In the United States after 9/11, only Muslim fanatics and religious extremists were generally so identified. U.S. citizens working to bring on Armageddon were not. Most Americans were too angry to care that Africans, Latin Americans, and Asians saw hypocrisy in this—and that such inconsistencies seriously damaged U.S. standing abroad. In June 2003, Washington’s Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released new spring poll results updating its huge mid-2002 sampling of what people in forty-four nations around the world thought of the United States. Few such negative measurements of American war policy—cum—diplomacy had ever been recorded.

In the 2002 Pew Survey, negative attitudes toward the United States had on the whole been confined to the Middle East and Pakistan. Following Bush’s announcement of the close of the war with Iraq, survey takers reported that U.S. unpopularity had spread to Africa and to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Some 83 percent of Indonesians had a negative view of America, up from 36 percent a year earlier. “Dislike of the United States had really deepened and spread throughout the Muslim world,” said Andrew Kohut, the Pew Center director. Majorities of those sampled in seven of eight predominantly Muslim nations worried that their nation would be attacked by the United States. In all but four of the nations polled in the spring of 2003, however, respondents said that the problem in the United States was “mostly Bush” rather than “Americans in general.”68

Americans, however, continued to assume that the extremists and terrorists loose in the world were mostly Islamic—Hamas, leftover mujahideen, Taliban, Hezbollah, and, of course, Al Qaeda. These were the names that became synonymous with death and murder. Ironically, Bruce Lincoln, a professor of divinity at the University of Chicago, studied Osama bin Laden’s words taped in early October following the destruction of the World Trade Center and found him constructing “a Manichean struggle, where Sons of Light confront sons of darkness, and all must enlist on one side or the other.”

To his followers and the world, bin Laden said: “I tell them [the Americans] that these events have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the faithful and the camp of infidels. May God shield us and you from them.”69 He exulted that America would now feel what the West had done to Islam.

The second Manichaean view came from Washington. Professor Lincoln explained how George W. Bush, in his October 7, 2001, address to the American people, approached the confrontation in a similar way but with the sides reversed: “Every nation has a choice to make in this conflict,” said Bush. “There is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.”70

Richard Neuhaus, a theologian allied with the Bush administration, nevertheless acknowledged “the hard reality of religion in defining, more and more, the lines of conflict in politics among nations. The war against terrorism is—more than it is politic for world leaders to say in public—also a war of religion.”71 History, though, does not usually explain religious wars—the eleventh-to-fourteenth-century Crusades, for example—as good versus evil.



9. Missing Pieces of the Story of Sun Myung Moon

It is rare to find an article that gives a sense of proportion and depth to the life of Sun Myung Moon. His life still seems to be a subject of mystery. He was a convicted felon, though his conviction on tax evasion did not fully convey the depth of his sick and twisted life. Recently there have been a few articles that have begun to reveal more of what  Moon embodied, and inspired in his followers. This article by Frederick Clarkson, written just after Moon’s death in 2012, covers the long criminal career of global felon Moon.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/9/8/235626/5650/Front_Page/Missing_Pieces_of_the_Story_of_Sun_Myung_Moon



10. Sun Myung Moon was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002

It seems the manufacture of Moon’s Autobiography was a desperate attempt to promote Moon for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The cover photograph shows Sun Myung Moon ready to receive the prize.

Dr. George Chryssides: “Despite its claim to be an autobiography, the book is culled from excerpts of past speeches, [written by a team of authors commissioned by Rev Kwak who were not church members, but were helped by] UC members. Of course, the compilation of autobiographies by ghost writers is commonplace, particularly when the attributed author has a busy schedule, and — in Moon’s case — prefers to speak spontaneously to an audience rather than to write down his material. However, according to rumours, Moon was not interviewed during the compilation of the volume, and did not speak directly to the author or authors in the course of the book’s preparation. …

In sum, Moon’s “autobiography” presents the sjuzet of Moon as the peacemaker from Korea. This is the window through which the reader is asked to see him. However, as I have argued, Moon has several other personae, even to his followers. One might have hoped that the authors would have presented some of these other important aspects of their leader, and that at least some of his detractors’ criticisms would have been aired and addressed.
Moon the Korean
Moon the Messiah
Moon the True Parent
Moon the Matchmaker
Moon the billionaire
Moon the shaman
Moon the King?
Moon the “controversial figure”
Moon the Peacemaker?”

LINK to a PDF of Dr Chryssides’ excellent analysis of the book:

http://www.cesnur.org/2011/dan-chryssides2.pdf
In the book many significant areas of Moon’s life were largely ignored.


The nomination of Sun Myung Moon for the Nobel Peace Prize

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Gordon L. Anderson

In 2002 Professor Nicholas N. Kittrie prepared and submitted the nomination of the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon for the Nobel Peace Prize. Rev. Moon was the Founder of the Professors World Peace Academy and many other organizations serving the cause of peace. Below are links to these primary documents (.pdf files):

Resolution for the Nomination of Reverend Sun Myung Moon
 as the First Awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize on the 
Commencement of the Prize’s Second Centenary

To the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Oslo, Norway
The Nomination of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon
 as the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for the Year 2002


Four years in jail for corruption for the publisher of Moon’s Autobiography in Korea

Downfall of Park Eun-joo of GimmYoung-sa after a ‘28 year success story’


▲ 김영사 박은주 전 사장.   Park Eun-joo, former president of GimmYoung-sa [Publishing].


In Korea a slush fund of 2 billion won was used for purchasing the Moon ‘Autobiography’ book to push it up the best-seller lists. Shame revealed in the publishing industry

FFWPU members all around the world were asked to each distribute 430 copies of the book. LINK

It seems the manufacture of Moon’s Autobiography was a desperate attempt to promote Moon for the Nobel Peace Prize.


▲ 문선명 ‘평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로’

The book was “written by a team of authors” who were not church members. Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak “commissioned the book.”


▲ Sun Myung Moon at the US launch of the “Autobiography” on October 1, 2009


Rough computer translation of parts of the Korean news article:

“In 2009 Park Eun-joo published an autobiography of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church; the slush funds used only for book re-purchasing exceeded 2 billion won.”

‘Book hoarding’ refers to manipulating publishers’ books to get them listed on the ‘bestseller list’ through a method of repurchasing their published books in bookstores.

It’s hard to deny that it is almost a crime to try to manipulate the bestseller list by hiring people to go to bookstores and buy dozens of books at once, rather than competing with the quality of published books. This is the opinion of the publishing experts.

In the Seoul Central District Court Park Eun-joo (former president of the GimmYoung-sa publishing company) was convicted on all the charges and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for embezzlement and other economic crimes under the Special Economic Criminal Penalties Act.

The judge explained: “The defendant managed GimmYoung-sa [Publishing] and embezzled 6 billion won worth of GimmYoung-sa and subsidiary funds in various ways over a long period of time.”

The re-publication of a published book
Manipulation of bestseller list
Fraudulent tax and payroll
Maintenance of an illegal slush fund
Suspected embezzlement of six billion won

The stained ending of the career of Park Eun-joo, the publishing queen.

“책사재기에만 비자금 20억원 사용” 출판계, 부끄러운 민낯을 드러내다

문선명 총재 자서전 ‘평화를 사랑하는 세계인’ 100만부 돌파<세계닷컴

[In October 2010 the FFWPU announced that] Moon Sun Myung’s autobiography ‘As a Peace Loving Global Citizen’ had exceeded one million sales.

[문선명 자서전] 출판계 ‘빅 타이털’- ‘평화를 사랑하는 세계인으로’

Moon Sun Myung’s autobiography – As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen ‘Big Taitul’ in the publishing industry
.


People were sent in to stores to buy copies of the Moon book to inflate sales and keep it on the best-seller lists – which forced stores to keep the book on display.


Here is how the Unification Church described the “Moon Autobiography” operation in Korea at launch time.

“This is an update on the biography of Father that recently appeared in Korea, particularly for those among you who are – like me – not expert at navigating the Korean web. Most of the information comes from a brother who is, and who has closely followed the developments surrounding this unexpected literary hit in Korea.

The book was originally commissioned by Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak and written by a team of authors, who were aided in their efforts by our Church, which made 20 volumes of recorded (and I assume, hitherto unpublicized) testimonies from Rev. Moon available to them.

It was published in March by the well-known and highly respected publishing company GimmYoungSa. Many people consider it the premier Korean publishing house. The female president took note of Father’s contributions to world peace when she was studying in the US in the early 90’s. According to her testimony, she realized that the bad publicity surrounding our Church is based on disinformation and prejudice. It is then that the idea of publishing an objective book about Father entered her mind. The book sidesteps religious controversy and UC theology, and focuses directly on Father’s character and his message to humanity.

The president herself is a devout Buddhist. People close to her say that before coming to the decision to accept a book for publication the president does serious soul-searching by visiting the temple and asking Buddha whether this is the right course of action. In the case with Father’s biography, she reportedly received the inspiration that this was a good and special book and that, yes, she should publish it.

The company is well-known in Korea for producing numerous bestsellers covering wide range of topics including those on historical and contemporary Christian figures. Some have even jokingly called it a “Christian publisher.” The company, however, states that its main purpose is to enlighten Korean society and in, this particular case, those under the spell of religious bigotry. Accordingly, this book, as others put out by GimmYoungSa, should be viewed as a contribution toward the creation of a fairer and more tolerant society.

The company then made the unusual decision to produce a first printing of no less than 200,000 copies. That is a staggering number, particularly for a relatively small language area as the Korean. From my own publishing experience I know that that a normal initial first-print run in Korean is in the range of 3,000-5,000 copies. Clearly, the company must have had high expectations from the start. But Internet discussion boards reveal that there was another motive: GimmYoungSa anticipated (and may also have been warned by our Church) that there might be a strongly negative reaction from the Korean Christian community. In order prevent that these people might try to sabotage the printing / distribution / sale of a needed second printing, the company chose to launch a preemptive strike by producing this enormous supply from the start.

Their strategy has paid dividends: In just one week, the book has become a national hit. It currently occupies the number seven spot on the Korean “essay bestseller” list and is number twenty on the general bestseller, ahead of modern classics such as The Secret. It is rumored that a second printing is going to be needed very soon nevertheless.

The Christian reaction has been, as predicted, vehemently negative. The publishing company has been deluged with protests and threats of future boycott. Leading the pack has been the The Kookmin Daily, the newspaper run by the well-known Yeouido Full Gospel of Paul Young Gi Cho (presumably the largest church in the world.) The paper put out an issue with an editorial denouncing the book, the publishing company, and, of course, our Church and its founder. The publisher’s website has been inundated with posts accusing it of being bought by Rev. Moon and shameless profit seeking when it decided to go ahead with the publication. These detractors conveniently forget that the same publishing house produced many Christian bestsellers before. Of course, then none suggested it was bought by the Christian Church. Some Christian posters even go as far accusing the publishing company of selling its soul to the devil.”



11. ‘Privatizing’ Covert Action: The Case of the Unification Church

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bale   Lobster #21.   May 1991

He is a Faculty Professor in the Graduate School of International Policy and Management at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) LINK

‘You don’t investigate people for why they think but for what they do.’
– former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti (1)

Introduction
If nothing else, the Iran-Contra scandal temporarily illuminated the extent to which ostensibly private organizations have been helping secretive elements within the American government – in this case the core of the executive branch’s national security bureaucracy – to circumvent Congressional restrictions regarding the conduct of certain important aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Information that has surfaced in the course of both official and unofficial investigations of this affair has not only revealed the widespread use of ‘proprietaries’ and dummy companies by U.S. intelligence and military personnel – a long-standing practice – but also the fact that numerous formally independent organizations have willingly engaged in operations that were blatantly illegal, not to mention immoral. (2) In a few instances this aid may have been provided solely for financial or narrow political gain, but in most cases it also resulted from a convergence of the rightist political aims of both the ‘private’ groups and factions within the national security apparatus created by President Ronald Reagan and his advisors. Among the groups that have participated in these activities are the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), the Air Commando Association (ACA), the National Defense Council (NDC), Refugee Relief International (RRI), Civilian Military/Material Assistance (CMA), and Sun-Myung Moon’s cultic Unification Church (UC), to name only a few. (3) Herein I examine some of the covert and clandestine political connections of the last of the above-named organizations.

The vast majority of the existing literature on ‘cults’ falls into one of four categories: journalistic exposes; personal accounts by former members, their relatives, or their friends; social science analyses; or theological assessments. In all of these categories save the last, attention is normally focussed on the techniques used by particular cults to recruit new members and subsequently control their behavior, if not their very thoughts. This focus is somewhat understandable, for it is precisely the systematic use of these techniques – selective recruitment of vulnerable targets, initial deception concerning group affiliation and purposes, extreme forms of peer-group pressure, isolation from mainstream society, sensory overload, sleep and protein deprivation, constant surveillance, enforced lack of privacy, and ideological indoctrination – that serve to set cults apart from more ordinary organizations in modern industrialized societies. (4) And it is precisely because they are so extraordinary that they elicit such widespread personal and professional fascination. Yet this almost exclusive focus tends to distract attention from other potentially significant aspects of cult behavior, including their political interaction with the outside world.

This is especially unfortunate in the case of the Unification Church, or ‘Moonie’ cult. While most cults both engage in disreputable political activities (at least on the local level) and have noticeable totalitarian propensities and ramifications,(5) the UC has long had an explicitly political agenda. As Moon, the Korean evangelist who founded the church, has said, ‘we cannot separate the political field from the religious … segregation between religion and politics is what Satan likes most.’ (6) Given such an orientation, it is clearly necessary to consider Moon’s political activities in order to properly evaluate the role and functioning of the UC.

Many people have examined aspects of Moon’s political work; but they have often done so from an overly traditional political perspective, one which narrowly concerns itself with explicating the Church’s overt attempts to influence political decisions and policies in the countries within which it operates. Thus, for example, Moon’s attempts to support Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate crisis, raise money for a variety of anti-communist causes, and influence Congressional votes through lobbying are reasonably well known; (7) and due to the extraordinary efforts of the House Subcommittee chaired by former Minnesota Representative Donald Fraser (Democrat), some of the more sordid activities of the ‘Moon Organizations’ have also been exposed to public view.(8) Nevertheless, despite these suggestive and important findings, the general view of the Moonies remains one of either bemused distaste for a bunch of ‘religious kooks’, or, at most, fear of the UC’s purported ‘brainwashing’ abilities. (9) The degree to which Moon has been able to mislead the public and conceal the UC’s authoritarian political agenda behind a religious image – however ‘heretical’ or unconventional – is best exemplified by the amount of support he has garnered from mainstream church spokesmen in the wake of his prosecution for tax fraud. Even liberal and left-leaning ministers, as well as certain American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) officials, have adopted his view that his incarceration for illegal financial activities was a case of ‘religious persecution’.(10)

To counter this deceptive imagery, which is sustained by systematic and extensive propaganda of the most transparent sort, some of the lesser-known political activities of the organizational complex run by Moon and his right-hand man, ‘former’ Korean Army colonel Bo-Hi Pak, (11) must be sketched. It should then become clearer that Moon’s actions geared towards external social control, backed as they are by extensive economic and political resources, constitute the most serious threat posed by the UC. When compared to this external danger, the internal social control mechanism of the ‘Moonie’ cult pale into insignificance – except, of course, to the individuals it recruits and subjects to ‘thought reform’.(12)

In this study I will only cover two of Moon’s many covert political operations. First, the links between the UC and the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) will be explored. This will necessarily involve a discussion of the early history and structural features of both organizations, particularly the establishment of joint front groups. Second, the intimate connection between the UC and the World Anti-Communist League, an international umbrella organization encompassing numerous extreme right and neo-Nazi groups, will be revealed. Both of these interconnections are indicative of Moon’s authoritarian political agenda, but they by no means exhaust the range of UC covert and clandestine operations.

LINK to complete article



The Fall of the House of Moon – New Republic


FBI and other reports on Sun Myung Moon
1. FBI Report (San Francisco office) on the UC / FFWPU, September 1975
2. Chicago Tribune, Monday, March 27, 1978  by James Coates
.   “The Moonies: Government Files Trace Church from Sex Cult to Korean CIA”
3. New York Times Magazine, May 30, 1976   by Berkeley Rice 
“The pull of Sun Moon”
4. Sun Myung Moon and Takeru Kamiyama jailed in 1984 for tax evasion and forgery
5. The Moon Organization Academic Network, Fall 1991  by Daniel Junas
6.  Napa Sentinel, March-April 3, 1992  by Harry V. Martin and David Caul
.   “The Moonies – What Rev. Moon teaches the young”


United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Gifts of Deceit – Robert Boettcher

The six ‘wives’ of Sun Myung Moon

FFWPU human trafficking is despicable

The Comfort Women controversy


World Domination – Sun Myung Moon failed

In order to rule the world, Sun Myung Moon had to start with Korea.

“Moon used to play golf regularly with Kim Jong-pil”

Sun Myung Moon’s One-World Theocracy

The Political Setup of Moon’s Organization  – a 1977 Report

Fraser Committee Report on Moon org.:  “these violations were related to the overall goals of gaining temporal power.”

The Moon Organization and the KCIA – ‘Privatizing’ covert action

Sun Myung Moon’s desire to take over the League (WACL) for his own financial and political ends

How Moon bought protection in Japan

Sun Myung Moon and the United Nations

How Sun Myung Moon’s organization helped to establish Bolivia as South America’s first narco-state.

My experience within the hierarchy of the Moon cult during its years of expansion in Russia and in the CIS

Press Release on the FFWPU by the Department of Communication, Nizhny Novgorod province, Russia

Sun Myung Moon was eager to infiltrate the European Parliament

Group Founded by Sun Myung Moon Preaches Sexual Abstinence in China

Sun Myung Moon organization activities in Central & South America

Mongolia – Battleground of the Han and Kwak groups

After Moon’s help, North Korea Launch an SLBM Missile in 2019

Robert Parry’s investigations into Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

The Resurrection of Rev Moon

Sun Myung Moon – Emperor, and God

Statement of Linda Anthenin to the Fraser Committee

Notarized Statement of Linda Anthenien to the Fraser Committee

Right-wing authoritarianism is winning — but higher education is where we can fight back – Salon