Re-Unification Church
By vorjack on March 2, 2010 in Cults.
by VorJack
Sun_Myung_Moon_4
NPR has a story about the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the problems it’s having with losing members and the attempts it’s making to win them back.
Basically, the American wing of the church has always been modest in number, and those numbers have been declining:
No one knows how many Unificationists there are worldwide. In the U.S., estimates range from 15,000 to 25,000. But the numbers have dropped since the 1970s, in part because many “blessed” children have left the fold. Jason Agress left when he was 14, after he began dating a girl over his parents’ objections.
“Everything was a system of control,” he says. “That’s what it seemed to me like. They were kind of breeding us to be a certain way. And if you weren’t that way, there was something wrong with you.”
D.F. Spratt agrees. She asked that her full name not be used because she worries the stigma of being once associated with the church could hurt her career. Spratt says she used to have nightmares about being married in a mass blessing to someone she didn’t know. The pressure of being blessed, and so different from her peers, drove her away — though with some trepidation.
“Back then, if you left the church, you fell off the face of the earth,” she says. “It’s the worst thing you could do. One person told us at Sunday school once that blessed children who fall out of the church go to a box underneath of hell.”
The decline isn’t surprising in a country were more and more young people are drifting away from religion. The Unification Church in particular must be suffering from the reputation brought on by the antics of its founder – the famous NYT ad announcing his status as Messiah, the bizarre coronation ceremony at the Capitol. Then there’s his status as the crazy uncle of the Republican party, which has become increasingly unpopular after the war … come to think of it, how does the Unification Church still exist?
Anyway, the church seems to recognize its problems and is not currently focused on finding new members. Instead, it hopes to win back the young members who have dropped out. To do this, it’s emulating the flashy, rock-n-roll style of the modern mega-church. Music and technology, bells and whistles, all geared towards bringing back those kids of today with their internets and their tweeter and their starbucks coffee.
However, last word goes to one of the apostates from above, who has a wonderfully practical view of the situation:
For her part, D.F. Spratt, who is happily married to a non-Unification member, sees no reason to return.
“I don’t believe in the theology,” she says. “And I don’t think there’s necessarily anything missing or wrong in my present life. So if I felt there was a void and I needed to fill it, maybe that would help. But I don’t.”
http://unreasonablefaith.com/
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