100 years ago--The birth of false messiah Sun Myung Moon

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, Matthew 24:24a (also Mark 13:22a)

Rev. Sun Myung Moon was born in what is now North Korea on either January 6 or February 25, 1920, and was raised in a Confucianist family who converted to Christianity when he was a child. He was imprisoned in a North Korean labour camp in the late 1940s, but escaped to South Korea in 1950, his internment having hardened him in to a staunch anti-Communist.

In 1954, Rev. Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity--popularly known as the Unification Church--in Seoul. He proclaimed that Jesus Christ was divine but no God, and had redeemed man spiritually, but because he hadn't married, had not therefore redeemed man physically. Rev. Moon taught that he and his second wife Hak Ja Han (he had previously been married and divorced) were humanity's "True Parents" who had come to link married families to God; the Unification Church became internationally known for its blessing ceremonies--often referred to as "mass weddings" for married couples.

Rev. Moon moved to the United States in 1971, retaining his South Korean citizenship, and founded numerous front organizations and sponsored conferences featuring high-profile speakers, some of whom claimed unawareness of the true identity of the sponsor. The Unification Church's members, derisively referred to as "Moonies," practiced the doctrine of "heavenly deception," meaning that it was permissible to lie in order to serve the interests of Rev. Moon and the Unification Church.

In 1982, Rev. Moon was convicted of conspiracy and filing false income tax returns in the United States, and served 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence. I remember reading reports at the time of his receiving support during his imprisonment from American evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, but I don't remember reading that he received support from organizations such as the National Council of Churches, American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. (the denomination that brought you such "Christians" as Tony Campolo and Ron Sider), National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. These groups have never been known for supporting the rights of Bible-believing Christians, which leads this blogger to regard their support for Rev. Moon as very suspicious. Rev. Moon also founded the Washington Times newspaper in 1982, using it to spread his views.

On March 23, 2004, Rev. Moon was honoured by a dozen members of the United States Congress in a ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, in which he delivered a speech reiterating his claim to be the Messiah. When news about the event was revealed three months later, some of the lawmakers present claimed to have been misled about the true nature of the ceremony when they accepted the invitation.

Rev. Moon appeared to be correct in predicting the eventual fall of Communism, but was very wrong in claiming to be the Messiah and the Second Coming of Christ. The true second coming of Christ will occur when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to Earth (see Matthew 24:30-31; Mark 13:26-27; Luke 21:27; Revelation 19:11-21). Rev. Moon died in South Korea on September 3, 2012 at the age of 92; he has been quiet since then, and is most likely still in his grave.

See also my posts:

Evangelicals and Moonies Together? (March 11, 2011)

30 years ago: 2,000 couples participate in Moonie mass wedding in New York (July 3, 2012)

40 years ago: California Court of Appeals rules in favour of Moonies against parents (April 11, 2017)