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Moon, Sun Myung (1920-)

Founder of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, more popularly referred to as the Unification Church. Moon was born in Korea on January 6, 1920, the son of Presbyterian parents. He later noted that on Easter Day in 1936 he was visited by Jesus and told that God had chosen him to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.

He attended Watseka University. During his early adult years he received revelations on a regular basis, and after World War II he became a full-time independent preacher in North Korea. His activities were curtailed by his arrest by the North Korean government. Released in 1950, he spent three years preaching in Pusan and then moved to Seoul and founded the Unification Church in 1953. Some of his revelations, containing the basic ideas that had been revealed to him, were published in 1957 as The Divine Principle.

Moon is seen by his followers as the lord of the second advent, who has come to complete Christ's unfinished work. His teachings strive to create God-centered families in order to make the world a better place for Christ's second coming. In 1960 he married his present wife, Hak Ja Han, who has, in bearing 12 children, helped Moon complete his messianic task. Moon hand-selects marriages between his followers which fulfills his vision of God-centered families. For example, a mass wedding was held in New York's Madison Square Garden to attain this purpose.

In 1959 Moon sent his first church leader to the United States. Moon himself came for the first time in 1965. During that visit he had a sitting with Spiritualist medium Arthur A. Ford who spoke glowingly of his work and had his picture taken with President Dwight Eisenhower. He made subsequent visits in 1969, 1971, and 1972, after which he settled in the United States. From that point the church began to grow, but also became an object of controversy as many parents were angered when their sons and daughters dropped out of college and careers to become workers in Moon's organization. The organization also reached out to speak to the influential in a variety of fields, including science, the media, and religion. As the anticult movement formed in the mid-1970s, the Unification Church was singled out as its main target. Moon was criticized from every angle. He was pictured as a power-hungry dictator who turned his followers into mindless zombies.

Finally in the early 1980s, in spite of the widespread support of the religious community, Moon was convicted on a tax violation charge and eventually served 13 months in jail (1984-85), but upon his release he immediately resumed leadership of the church.

Over the years Moon delivered lectures regularly, which have been gathered into a collected work called The Master Speaks. In prison he wrote a two-volume book, God's Warning to the World (1985). As the anticult controversy receded in the 1990s, Moon and his small church became a more stable part of a wider religious landscape.