COMMENT: Sun Myung Moon has finally expired, 92 years too late. Head of what is generally viewed as a “cult,” Moon actually headed a powerful, international fascist organization with strong ties to the GOP, the Bush family, elements of the CIA.
The Moon organization appears to be an extension of the Japanese patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies–the vehicles for the elimination by assassination of opponents of Japanese fascism, imperialism and militarism. The societies thus became the primary vehicle for the elevation of fascism in Japan.
The recently rebroadcast FTR #291 sets forth some of the most important considerations concerning the Unification Church. Listeners/Readers are emphatically encouraged to examine this show and the description for it at some length.
(FTR #428 also contains discussion of the Japanese patriotic societies, as does AFA #7.)
EXCERPT: The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed Messiah from South Korea who led the Unification Church, one of the most controversial religious movements to sweep America in the 1970s, has died. He was 92.
Moon, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia in August, died Monday at a hospital in Gapyeong, South Korea, church officials announced.
Although greeted as a Korean Billy Graham when he arrived in the United States four decades ago, Moon gradually emerged as a religious figure with quite different beliefs, whose movement was labeled a cult and whose followers were mocked as “Moonies.” At the height of his popularity, he claimed 5 million members worldwide, a figure that ex-members and other observers have called inflated. Those numbers are believed to have fallen into the thousands today.
Moon offered an unorthodox message that blended calls for world peace with an unusual interpretation of Christianity, strains of Confucianism and a strident anti-communism. He was famous for presiding over mass marriage ceremonies that highlighted Unification’s emphasis on traditional morality.
What also made Moon unusual was a multinational corporate vision that made him a millionaire many times over. He owned vast tracts of land in the U.S. and South America, as well as dozens of enterprises, including a ballet company, a university, a gun manufacturer, a seafood operation and several media organizations, most notably the conservative Washington Times newspaper. He also owned United Press International. . . .
Looking Back from 1984
David Jang, the next Rev. Moon? He is a S Korean preacher who calls himself “Second Coming Christ”. You may think its funny, but apparently this guy now owns Newsweek.
http://observer.com/2013/08/moonies-messiahs-and-media-who-really-owns-newsweek/
Moonies, Messiahs and Media: Who Really Owns Newsweek?
Is it controlled by a controversial Christian preacher?
By Peter Sterne 8/04 1:00pm
David Jang CTOn Saturday, news broke that IBT Media, a company that runs the online business (at least, in theory) newspaper International Business Times, had purchased Newsweek from IAC. So IBT Media now owns Newsweek. But exactly who controls IBT Media?
IBT Media’s corporate leadership site lists two cofounders: Etienne Uzac, the company’s CEO, and Johnathan Davis, its chief content officer.
But some say that the company is actually controlled by—or at least has very close undisclosed ties to—someone whose name appears nowhere on the site: David Jang, a controversial Korean Christian preacher who has been accused of calling himself “Second Coming Christ.”
A story in The Tennessean about Olivet University, a university founded by Mr. Jang, lists IBT as one of Mr. Jang’s businesses. A deeply reported investigation into Mr. Jang’s church by the magazine Christianity Today also lists IBT as among Mr. Jang’s enterprises. (That investigation, incidentally, was named one of the “Best Long Reads of 2012″ by The Daily Beast, which had partnered with Newsweek.)
IBT’s two cofounders seem to have ties to Mr. Jang as well.
Before founding IBT, Mr. Davis was the journalism director at Mr. Jang’s Olivet University. Christianity Today reports that Mr. Davis, IBT’s ostensible cofounder and chief content officer, was invited but declined to take part in a meeting with leaders of Mr. Jang’s other businesses. Mr. Davis reportedly wrote an email stating that he could not take part in the meeting because, “My commission is inherently covert.”
Mr. Uzac, IBT’s other cofounder, is married to Marion Uzac, the former PR director of the World Evangelical Alliance, a Christian group that has become closely associated with Mr. Jang. Ms. Uzac now works as IBT’s finance director. A former IBT staffer told The Observer that the relationship between her and Mr. Uzac was not disclosed to IBT Media employees and the company went to some lengths to hide it. According to the former staffer, the nameplate on Ms. Uzac’s door read “Marion Kim,” rather than “Marion Uzac.”
Mr. Jang has sought to keep Mr. Davis’s (alleged) commission covert. After the Christianity Today articles were published, The Christian Post—a newspaper (allegedly) controlled by Mr. Jang—attacked the magazine and smeared one of its reporters, spuriously linking him to child pornography.
Mr. Jang’s friends also appear to have silenced a reporter who looked into the connection between the church and IBT. Ann Brocklehurst—now an editor at the Toronto Star, but then an independent journalist—investigated IBT’s funding and eventually discovered its close connections to Olivet University. She wrote a series of posts suggesting that Mr. Jang was funding IBT, then abruptly deleted every post referencing IBT, presumably after being pressured. (Fortunately, one post was copied before being deleted.)
After the Newsweek sale was announced, Mr. Uzac and Mr. Davis told Buzzfeed that Mr. Jang had no involvement in IBT and that the two of them alone owned IBT Media. Mr. Uzac did admit, though, that he has met with Mr. Jang on multiple occasions. Mr. Davis acknowledged that IBT recruits heavily from Olivet, but claimed that Olivet’s relationship to IBT Media was no different from the relationship between Stanford and Silicon Valley tech companies.
But if Mr. Jang does control IBT, The Christian Post, and now Newsweek, he seems to be following in the footsteps of another wealthy heterodox Christian leader: the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Mr. Moon’s Unification Church (whose followers are known, pejoratively, as “Moonies”) owns The Washington Times and United Press International.
Mr. Jang, by the way, reportedly once taught in a Unification Church seminary.
Update: Shortly after this article was published, Christianity Today posted a new blog post suggesting an even closer connection between IBT Media and Mr. Jang’s network. The magazine reported that Mr. Davis, the IBT cofounder with the covert commission, is married to Tracy McBeal Davis, the president of Olivet University. It also reported that Mr. Uzac, IBT’s other cofounder, was once listed as the treasurer of Olivet University.
Here’s a quick update on the Unification Church and its relationship with the contemporary American right-wing: There have been quite a few changes to the church since Sun Myung Moon’s death in 2012. For starters, the church has splintered and now there’s the “Sanctuary Church” located in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania. The Sanctuary Church was started by the youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon, and his older pbother Kook Jin Moon. Myung Moon transferred leadership of the Unification Church to Hyung Jin Moon during a ceremony in 2008. But after he died in 2012 a family power struggle erupted between Hyung Jin Moon and his mother. And as a result of that struggle, there are now two Unification Churches. Just what the world needed.
And Pennsylvania didn’t just get a new cult. Kook Jin Moon also decided to relocate his weapons manufacturing company, Kahr arms, from New York to Pennsylvania too. And boy are those weapons important to the Sanctuary Church. Not just Kahr Arms’s weapons. AK-47s and AR-15 appear to play a critical role in this religion. It’s apparently very important to have lots and lots of guns for their religion. It’s about creating a ‘sovereign kingdom’ on Earth. A sovereign kingdom in Newfoundland, PA. And it’s so important that the Sanctuary Church is planning a ‘rod of iron’ ceremony for February 28th. As the church puts it, “Attending the blessing, either with an AR15 or alike or without, is valid, but to attend with an AR15 would be a substantial ‘perfection stage’ blessing”:
“Sanctuary Church members “have been asked by the King to participate in the ceremony on 28th February with a crown and a ‘rod of iron’ (AR 15 or AK style weapon),” a press release on the cult’s website reads. “Attending the blessing, either with an AR15 or alike or without, is valid, but to attend with an AR15 would be a substantial ‘perfection stage’ blessing.””
February 28th. Mark your calendars!
And this ‘rod of iron’ ceremony is far from the only church activity involving guns. For instance, there’s the “Peace Police Peace Militia”, where Hyung Jin trains members in martial arts, hand-to-hand knife combat and assault weapons. All very church-like activities:
But as the article notes, given the Unification Church’s long-standing alliance with right-wing political movements the “Peace Police Peace Militia” shouldn’t be seen as an exclusively church-related paramilitary force. If the order was given they could immediately become Trumpian Brownshirts:
And it’s not like the Unification Church(s) are making these overtures to the far-right without getting a response. The Sanctuary Church is holding a “President Trump Thank You Dinner” on February 24, featuring Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. And Hyung Jin even managed to get a GOP candidate for governor to appear on his Youtube show:
And that completes our update of the Unification Church: they’re still a far-right fascistic cult that’s active in politics. But now there’s two Unification Churches following the schism. So that’s new.