The Reverend Moon, the AR 15 Church, and the Republican Party
Back in the early 1990s, the Unification Church demanded an apology from a brash real-estate mogul they accused of using the church as “a scare tactic” in a “morally reprehensible” effort to get Palm Beach, Florida, officials to grant his zoning wishes. But that religious sect, founded by Sun Myung Moon — and thus often derisively called the “Moonies” — has apparently since made amends with that owner of Mar-a-Lago. Now his son is leading a dangerous movement in MAGA Nation through his church--which often features AR 15s in worship rituals.
Brian Kaylor, Word&Way Editor & President since 2016, is an award-winning writer and sought-after expert on issues of religion, politics, and communication. He also hosts the award-winning podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective.”
In addition to articles and editorials for Word&Way, his writings have been published by CNN, Houston Chronicle, Kansas City Star, Louisville Courier-Journal, Religion News Service, Roll Call, Sojourners, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post, and many other outlets.
A Strange Unification: https://wordandway.org/2022/02/17/a-strange-unification/
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What are the connections between peer-to-culture and race?
Why does purity culture work so hard to disembody people, make them feel as if they're not living in their own skin?
And what do these things have to do with each other?
Well, we're incredibly excited to announce our next Straight White American Jesus Seminar, Purity Culture, Race, and Disembodiment.
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Our seminar is going to run in May, every Thursday, and you can find all the information at StraightWhiteAmericanJesus.com under the Seminars tab.
Amen.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center, UCSB, and here today with an amazing guest to talk about a fascinating, fascinating topic.
And I'll tell you, friends, I do this, as you know, on a weekly basis.
I read a lot.
And there's just times you come across a topic that is not only incredibly relevant for our public square and our contemporary political situation, but You were just personally like, hey, what is going on there?
And that is what we're going to talk about today with Dr. Brian Kaler, who is the editor and president of Word and Way, is a Baptist minister, has a PhD in political science communication, has written everywhere from CNN, Houston Chronicle, Kansas City Star, St.
Louis Dispatch, all over the place, is a highly sought-after commentator.
a podcaster and host and all kinds of things.
Has written a number of books, including Vote Your Principles, Party Must Not Trump Principles, Sacramento Politics, and so on.
So first, let me just say, Brian, thanks for joining me.
Well, I think Brad is a longtime listener, first time guest.
So this is exciting.
Well, it's flattering to know you listen, but super glad that you're here.
And we're here today to talk about the Unification Church.
Now, some folks out there are like, what is the Unification Church again?
And you all might've heard about it when you were younger, the 90s, the 2000s, as the Moonies.
And it's not a word that's used as much anymore, but the Moonies are a church that the Unification Church starts in Korea.
Some of you might remember they're known for mass weddings, that there's these images of like thousands of people getting married at the same time.
But let me just start at the beginning, Brian, just so we make sure everyone listening kind of has a baseline.
Like, what is the Unification Church and what makes it kind of distinct from, say, what we might understand as mainstream evangelicalism or mainstream Protestantism in the United States, in Korea, or anywhere else?
Yeah, it's important to really get a sense of where the Unification Church started.
Although the organizations that lead to the Unification Church really don't start until the early 50s, the origin story, like with a lot of religious groups, the origin story goes back further before there's any sort of formal institution.
So the origin story goes back to 1936, to an Easter Sunday, and this is the way that the late Reverend Moon, who founded The Unification Church would tell the story later that he had an experience on that Easter Sunday as a 16-year-old with Jesus.
And the way he would tell the story was that Jesus told Moon that Jesus hadn't intended to die.
That wasn't supposed to be the plan.
And that instead, he had come to create the true family with his perfect bride, and things went awry.
And so then, the second part of that story then, is that Moon was supposed to be the second Messiah, if you will, the second attempt to make this right.
And needed to find the true mother so he could be the true father as the true parents.
And so with that foundation, we can quickly see why this is, from the beginning, been a very controversial group among Christians.
Because there's the implication that Jesus was a failed Messiah, and that there is a second Messiah who is needed.
I'll just tell you, I was telling you this before we started recording, that I grew up as an evangelical in the 90s, and I remember there being tracts and literature that basically warned us about the Unification Church, and said it's in line with what our leadership considered to be quote-unquote cults, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, like the Latter-day Saints, like this, you know, fill in the blank, and you know, One can see, theologically, the kind of unorthodox facets here, as you just said.
That if you, in a Christian context, ever start talking about Jesus as a failed messiah, Jesus as wanting to have a spouse, and then someone else becoming a second messiah or something close to it, You're in territory that's going to lead a lot of Christians theologically to say, nope, beyond the pale, we can't accept this, that's not going to work, right?
But that has not stopped the Unification Church leadership from wanting mainstream acceptance in religious life.
Can you give us some examples of kind of Maybe their attempts at that, and then how along lines maybe that I just outlined, they've kind of been considered outside the Christian mainstream and not allowed in the fold of mainstream Thanks for listening to this free preview of our Swadge episode.
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