Talk:Unificationism

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It's fairly obvious that a coordinated attack is not the same as "providing legitimate information". If the two gentlemen I block have reason to give credence to the sources supplied, I wonder why they felt it more important to repeat their changes than to explain them. --Ed Poor Talk 11:31, 30 April 2008 (EDT)

What's "94% voluntary dropout rate" mean? Does it mean that only 6% of the Church is left, or that 94% of dropouts are voluntary? I'm confused.-LawrenceA 10:53, 14 November 2008 (EST)
Out of more than 100,000 full-time members who had ever lived in US church members for at least 6 months, only 5,860 remained in 2001. So 6,000 out of 100,000 were left. Simple math. --Ed Poor Talk 10:56, 14 November 2008 (EST)

What these extraordinary figures mean, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, is that the church never had an effective mind control technique. People just kept walking away, probably due to the high demands on their time.

Rev. Moon had actually suggested that church leaders take better care of members and not overwork them, but many of them didn't listen. --Ed Poor Talk 10:58, 14 November 2008 (EST)

Old complaints

Removed from article:

Moonies are also accused of separating members from their families, and pressuring members to work long hours and hand over what they earn to the "Church".

This is really three separate complaints. Each has a measure of truth, but each also obscures the reality. Like a Catholic monastery, a Unification Church witnessing center in the 1970s and 1980s was populated by full-time religious people. They lived and worked as brothers and sisters, apart from their natural families. Also, as in the Catholic monastic tradition, Unification Church members followed a schedule of activities from early morning to late at night. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, church members who lived in centers did have outside employment and nearly all chose to donate their earnings to the church. Organized fundraising replaced that, and all funds received by church members from donors had to be reported and turned in; to do otherwise would have been a violation of law. --Ed Poor Talk 12:14, 29 November 2008 (EST)

Weird sentence:

"Sun Myung Moon in South Korea in 1954, and who remained its head until late 2009, when he turned over official leadership to his sons."--something might be amiss: a missing verb in the first clause, perhaps? Either way, if somebody knows WHAT Sun Myung Moon did in Korea in 1954, could he please put it in the article? AlexWD 09:28, 19 December 2009 (EST)

Sloppy research

I think the article suffers from haphazard research, both in simple facts and in point of view.

For example, the reported Easter revelation from Jesus, which launched his mission, was written as occurring in 1936. But the next source I checked (for something else) gave the year as 1935. Apparently some sources understand that Rev. Moon reckons his age in Korean style, where the unborn child's 9 months in the womb is considered the first year of life (hence, a newborn baby is "one year old"). Rev. Moon was 16 (by Korean age reckoning) in 1935, when by the Gregorian calendar he had been alive for 15 years, 3 months.

I note also that the "development" section runs counter to the church's account, saying that "a variety of sources" including P.M. Kim and Y.O. Kim contributed to the church's theology. Moon says he came up with the theology while studying the Bible and praying, attributing the new ideas to revelation. In particular, Y.O. Kim joined the church in 1954, and I've never heard of any ideas of her own being added to the church's teachings. Nor have the church's teachings changed in any significant way since then. --Ed Poor Talk 09:26, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Who says what

The bit about "calling himself the Lord of the Second Advent" is misleading. This is not how Rev. Moon has presented himself, but is the (uncredited) viewpoint of church opponents.

One of the arguments against the church is assertion that its founder pretends to be the Messiah. This is damaging for two reasons:

  1. Any true claimant would be so humble as not to exalt himself this way (i.e., Jesus told his followers not to go around calling him the Messiah)
  2. The Bible specifically warns Christians not to take up with anyone claiming to be the second advent

It was only after many decades of Unification Church history that the "Messianic secret" was dropped, when Moon's right hand man, Bo Hi Pak, mentioned it in a theological conference. Of course, everyone has always known that church members considered the founder to be the Messiah, but that is vastly different from saying he is self-proclaimed.

The article needs to explain more about the church's idea of the role of John the Baptist. It was John's mission to proclaim that Jesus was the Christ, and (the church teaches) John's failure to convey this point which led to the crucifixion (which, the church teaches, prematurely ended Christ's mission on earth). --Ed Poor Talk 09:40, 14 February 2011 (EST)

You might want to chat with Daniel1212, who appears to be the only other user who has substantially added to the article in a long time. DouglasA 09:54, 14 February 2011 (EST)
It was not Daniel who added the problematic text. I'm torn between deleting it outright, or methodically correcting each error. --Ed Poor Talk 10:25, 14 February 2011 (EST)

Proposal to expand

While Unificationism might remain the umbrella article - or even evolve into a portal - I think we need separate pages for Unification Church, Lovin' Life Ministries, UCI, Theology of the Unification Church, Unification Thought (philosophy based mostly on the church's idea of the Principle of Creation); as well as biographical articles on church founders and major leaders. --Ed Poor Talk 11:26, 15 September 2011 (EDT)

Christian?

Do they claim to be Christian? I think whether they do or not is pretty important, and either way should be mentioned early in the page to give some context.Cmurphynz 03:58, 17 July 2012 (EDT)

Controversies

It's okay to mention controversies, but the "conquer and subjugate" quote turned out to be a translation error, rather than a gaffe. Feel free to mention legitimate criticisms, though. --Ed Poor Talk 19:51, 2 September 2012 (EDT)