User:Steve Dufour/The Unification Church of the United States

The Unification Church of the United States is the group of people in the United States of America who follow Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon (see also Unification Church). Although it has always had relatively few members, it has played a role in many public events since its founding in the 1950s and has been the subject of much media and public attention.

Early history
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Unification Church missionaries were sent from South Korea and Japan to the United States in order to establish the church there. Among them were Young Oon Kim, Sang Ik-Choi,  Bo Hi Pak, David S. C. Kim, and Yun Soo Lim. Missionary work took place in Washington D.C., New York, Oregon, and California. By 1971 the Unification Church of the United States had about 500 members. In the next few years it expanded to several thousand members, with most of them being in their early 20s. Some commentators have noted that this period of Unification Church growth in the United States took place just as the "hippie" era of the late 1960s and early 1970s was ending, when many American young people were looking for a sense of higher purpose or community in their lives.

Sun Myung Moon visited the United States in 1965 and 1969 and decided to move there in 1971. He then asked church members to help him in a series of outreach campaigns in which he spoke to public audiences in all 50 states, ending with a 1976 rally in Washington D.C. in which he spoke on the grounds of the Washington Monument to around 300,000 people. During this time church members left school and careers to devote their full time to church work. Mobile fundraising teams were set up to raise money for church projects, often giving candy or flowers in exchange for donations. Moon also brought members from Europe and Japan to work in the United States. Church buildings were purchased around the nation. In New York State the Belvedere Estate, the Unification Theological Seminary, and the New Yorker Hotel were purchased. The national headquarters of the church was established in New York City.

Political involvement
Moon, who was born is what is now North Korea and had been imprisoned by the North Korean communist government during the Korean War, had long been a advocate for anti-communism. In 1974 he asked church members to support President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal when Nixon was being pressured to resign his office. Church members prayed and fasted in support of Nixon for three days in front of the United States Capitol, under the motto: "Forgive, Love and Unite." On February 1, 1974 Nixon publicly thanked them for their support and officially received Moon. This brought the church into widespread public and media attention.

The Unification Church of the United States sponsored other anti-communist activities during the 1970s and 1980s, including the student organization Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) and the multi-national organization CAUSA. In 1982 Moon founded the conservative newspaper The Washington Times, in Washington D.C.. Although never a financial success, the Times was well-read in conservative and anti-communist circles and was credited by President Ronald Reagan with helping to win the Cold War.

Criticism, opposition, and controversy
The Unification Church of the United States was met with widespread criticism begining in the early 1970s. The main points of criticism were the church's unorthodox theology, especially its belief that Moon is the second coming of Christ; the church's political involvement; and the extreme lifestyle of most members, which involved full-time dedication to church activities often at the neglect of family, school, and career.

During this time, some parents of members used the services of deprogrammers to remove their children from church membership and the activities of the church were widely reported in the media, most often in a negative light. In 1978 and 1979, the church's support for the South Korean government was investigated by a Congressional subcommittee lead by Democratic Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota. (see also: Fraser Committee)

In 1982, Moon was convicted in United States federal court of willfully filing false Federal income tax returns and conspiracy. In 1984 and 1985, while he was serving his sentence in Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, Connecticut, American Unification Church members launched a public-relations campaign claiming that the charges against him were unjust and politically motivated. Booklets, letters and videotapes were mailed to approximately 300,000 Christian leaders. Many signed petitions protesting the government's case. Among the American Christian leaders who spoke out in defense of Moon were conservative Jerry Falwell, head of Moral Majority, and liberal Joseph Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. (see also: Sun Myung Moon tax fraud and conspiracy case)

Changes in the 1980s, 1990s. and 2000s
On July 1, 1982 a large number of the members of the Unification Church of the United States were married by Rev. and Mrs. Moon in a Blessing ceremony (sometimes called a "mass wedding") in Madison Square Garden in New York City. Soon after other American members were married in ceremonies in South Korea. Most who took part were matched with their future spouses by Moon. Many couples were international or interracial. Before this most American church members had been single and living celibately. (The total number of American church members is estimated by most sources to have been around 5,000 to 10,000 from the mid-1970s to the present. )

Unification Church business interests, which had began in the 1960s, expanded in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Church owned businesses in the United States include media and entertainment, fishing and sea food distribution, hotels and real estate, and many others. Many church members found employment in church owned businesses while others pursued careers outside of the church community.

Also expanding were church sponsored interdenominational and cultural projects. In 1991 Moon announced that church members should return to their hometowns in order to undertake apostolic work there. Massimo Introvigne, who has studied the Unification Church and other new religious movements, has said that this confirms that full-time membership is no longer considered crucial to church members.

On May 1, 1994 (the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Unification Church in Seoul, South Korea) Moon declared that the era of the Unification Church had ended and inaugurated a new organization the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) which would include Unification Church members and members of other religious organizations working for common goals, especially on issues of sexual morality and reconciliation between religions, nations, and races. The FFWPU co-sponsored the Million Family March in 2000 as well as Blessing ceremonies in which thousands of non-Unification Church married couples were given the marriage blessing previously given only to Unification Church members.