Moonies: (Moon's Unification Church)

The Doctrine of Salvation in the Unification Church

Sex plays a strange as well as decisive part in the doctrine of salvation of the Unification Church. According to Rev. Moon, the "Trinity" does not consist of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, but of man, woman, and God. Originally, Adam and Eve were supposed to form a "triad" together with God, but Eve was tempted by the snake, i.e., Satan, with whom she had intercourse. That caused the spiritual fall. Later on, she had illicit intercourse with Adam, causing the physical fall.

Therefore, a physical as well as a spiritual salvation was called for, and that is why Jesus was born. However, Jesus' mission did not succeed because the disciples betrayed him. The idea was that Jesus should have married and thus instituted marriage, or salvation. However, he did so in Heaven, where he married the Holy Spirit and thereby guaranteed the spiritual salvation.

However, physical salvation was not accomplished. Therefore, we now need a new Messiah, the Lord of the Second Advent, who is able to constitute the triad at the physical level just as Jesus did at the spiritual level. Rev. Moon calls himself the new Messiah and claims to have contracted a "marriage of the Lamb" with his present (and third) wife, Hak Ja Han, in 1960.

Young people, of course, spend much of their time and energy finding a spouse, then marry and have children. They do not have to do that in the Unification Church, because here Rev. Moon plays the part of the matchmaker. In fact, this is the essential element in his followers' salvation: these arranged marriages are the entrance to "the holy family".

Rev. Moon selects the couples. Only in a few exceptional cases does he respect the choice of partners made prior to joining the Unification Church. After the selection, the couples are allowed a short time of reflection, and if they agree to the match, they then bow to Rev. Moon as a sign of acceptance.

Having married, they may be sent to any part of the world, disregarding the question of children that need to be taken care of. All the followers are totally occupied with the great goals of the movement, which leaves no time to cultivate a private life.

The actual wedding is combined with a holy wine ceremony where hundreds of married couples drink wine mixed with Rev. Moon's own blood (sacrament-imitation), and sprinkled with water (baptism-imitation). The last part of the wedding is the ceremony of atonement where the Devil is beaten out of the body. This is accomplished when the couples beat each other three times with a stick. Afterwards, often after a long period, a three day ceremony starts as a compulsory introduction to marriage and marital relations. All this means that they are adopted into Rev. Moon's family, and they and their children will share the so-called sinlessness of his family.

Return to top of page.

Return to Cults and False Doctrines page.

Return to Reading Room.