Mass weddings and cult accusations: Who are the 'Moonies' and what is the Unification Church?

• The assassination of Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked renewed scrutiny of the Unification Church.
• The religious organization has in the past been accused of being a cult, which the group has denied.

The shocking assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month has prompted renewed scrutiny of the Unification Church after the suspected gunman cited the politician's alleged ties to the religious organization as a motive for the killing.

A 41-year-old man was arrested on July 8 after authorities said he used a homemade gun to fire off two deadly shots at Abe while the former prime minister was campaigning for a fellow member of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party in the city of Nara.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, police said the suspected gunman admitted to holding "a grudge" against a "certain group" to which he believed Abe had ties. Authorities offered no further details at the time.

Suspicion subsequently began to swirl around the Unification Church — a global religious organization that has in the past been accused of being a cult — after the Japanese branch of the group gave a press conference confirming that the suspected shooter's mother was a member.

Japanese media earlier this month reported that the man was angry about a "huge donation" allegedly made by his mother to the church more than two decades ago that left the family in financial despair. The church has since condemned Abe's assassination while working to distance itself from the suspected gunman's allegations of financial manipulation.

Once a worldwide religious phenomenon battling accusations of cult-like behavior, the Unification Church and its members — colloquially referred to as Moonies — are once again on the defense.

The Moonies' Origin

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, more commonly known as the Unification Church, was founded in 1954 by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in South Korea. As a 15-year-old boy, Moon claimed to have a vision in which Jesus Christ instructed him to finish his mission on Earth and create a state of "sinless" purity for humanity.

Moon was a fervent anti-communist — a political ideology that would inspire his efforts to build relationships with powerful conservative politicians around the globe.

Though influenced by traditional Christian theology, the group instead followed the self-proclaimed messianic Moon until his 2012 death. Moon wrote a book called "Divine Principle" which serves as the primary guiding text for the church.

The organization quickly expanded throughout the 1950s and 60s, with early members playing the role of recruiters in efforts to boost the group's membership numbers. In just a few years, the church had grown from about 100 missionaries to nearly 10,000 members, according to The Guardian.

The church established a Japanese branch in the late 1950s, finding common ground with the country's right-wing politicians over a hatred of Communism. Abe's grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobuske Kishi, had early ties to the church.

Cult accusations

At its peak in the 1980s, the church claimed to have 3 million members throughout the world, including significant populations in Japan and the United States.

Throughout the years, the group has attracted global recognition and influence. Several high-profile Republican US politicians, including former Vice Presidents Mike Pence and Dick Cheney, as well as former President Donald Trump, have spoken at church-affiliated events.

The church became primarily known for holding mass wedding ceremonies in giant sports stadiums. The practice, known as the Holy Marriage Blessing Ceremony, is administered to married and engaged couples who are told the act removes the couple from humanity's history of sin and bestows any children born of the union with a clean moral slate. The practice often involves couples who are meeting each other for the first time.

But as the organization's membership expanded, so too did questions surrounding the church's business practices and recruiting methods.

Cult activists have long accused the organization of soliciting funds from members who they saw are "brainwashed." Defectors from the church have written critical books accusing the organization of being a cult, all the while Moon maintained that members joined and stayed by their own free will.

Steven Hassan, a leading expert on cults and former "Moonie" himself, has been an outspoken critic of the Unification Church, accusing the group of employing deceptive recruiting methods, abusive practices, and manipulative financial techniques.

The Unification Church was at the center of a 1989 Supreme Court ruling in which the top court refused to block the church from a lawsuit filed by two former Moonies who said they had been brainwashed and tricked into joining and donating to the group, allowing their lawsuit seeking punitive damages to move forward. The case was ultimately settled out of court.

From 1973 to 1986, at least 400 members were abducted by their family members and forced to undergo "deprogramming," according to The New York Times' 2012 obituary for Moon.

The term most often associated with the church's members — Moonies — rose to prominence during this time as a way to describe the flock. The term was used by members of the church and even Moon himself for some time, but the church now considers the term to be derogatory.

It's unclear how many members of the church remain worldwide, but many experts believe the church's population has significantly shrunk in recent decades, especially after Moon's 2012 death, which led to a leadership schism between Moon's wife and son, the latter of whom started his own gun-worshipping church.

Despite declining membership, the church is still active today. A group of Japanese lawyers representing former church members at a press conference earlier this month said they are still in the process of helping people who say they've been scammed or coerced by the organization. A representative for the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales cited a 2020 Tokyo court decision ordering the church to repay a member approximately $34,000 in past donations on the grounds that "the demand for donations was made through an unfair method of stirring up anxiety and fear," the Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reported.

Courting conservative politicians

Moon's stringent anti-communist beliefs led the organization to regularly seek out relationships with powerful conservative politicians around the world, including in Japan and the US. Abe's grandfather, Kishi, who served as Japan's prime minister from 1957 to 1960, had a friendly relationship with Moon.

More recently, Abe himself appeared as a paid speaker at Unification Church-related events. In September 2021, the former prime minister delivered a virtual congratulatory address at an affiliate event for the Universal Peace Federation.

Abe had faced previous criticism for participating in church-affiliated events. The National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales filed a letter of protest following Abe's 2021 address and urged other politicians to abstain from showing support for the church.

The group's propensity for attracting high-profile conservative guests extends beyond Japan. Former President Donald Trump spoke at a 2012 conference organized by Moon's widow Hak Ja Han Moon, and praised the controversial church.