The Picture Everyone Knows
Many people know this movement from one picture: thousands of brides and grooms in a stadium, blessed together by Sun Myung Moon and his wife. Fewer know what that ceremony is believed to do, or what it says about Jesus.
Moon founded the movement in Seoul in 1954 as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Since 1994 it has been the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, though most people still say the Unification Church. It has claimed millions of members, and critics have put the number far lower (Associated Press, 2012). Its people are often idealistic. They prize chastity, marriage, family, and peace, and we should honor that. They have often been called Moonies, a label many consider derogatory. We do not use it.
The central question is whether Jesus finished what He came to do. The movement's main text says, “Jesus did not come to die on the cross.” It teaches that He left His mission incomplete, and that Moon and his wife are the True Parents who complete it.
We regard this teaching as a cult in the sense defined in What Is a Cult?: it preaches another Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel (2 Corinthians 11:4). The word is a theological category, never an insult. We weigh the teaching from the movement's own books, and we leave every member's heart to God. Christ died for every member, and many of them have given their lives to what they sincerely believe is true. We wrestle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12).
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For Deeper Study
- Unification ChurchAmazon J. Isamu YamamotoA short volume in the Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements, setting the teaching beside Scripture. Evangelical.
- The Making of a MoonieAmazon Eileen BarkerA British sociologist's careful study of how and why people joined. She writes as a sociologist, not as a Christian teacher, and she challenges simple brainwashing claims.
- The Genesis RecordAmazon Henry M. MorrisA verse-by-verse commentary that reads Genesis as history. Evangelical and young-earth.
- Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of ChristAmazon Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed KomoszewskiA clear, positive case from the whole New Testament that Jesus is God. Evangelical.
- Exposition of the Divine PrincipleThe primary source, in the authorized 1996 English translation, free at tparents.org. Read what your friend actually believes before you answer it.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is a Cult?
A cult, as this section uses the word, is a group that uses Christian words while denying the Gospel or the God it reveals, preaching another Jesus, another spirit, or another gospel.
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