The Followers of Sun Myung Moon in Our Community (circa 1972-1997)
By Gustavo Azevedo
A mansion sits on the corner of North Sheridan Road and West Fargo Avenue. Built in 1912, the 6,600 sq. ft. home has six and a half baths, two sunrooms, an open eat-in kitchen with an island, a formal living room, and a basement decked out with an exercise room and a wet bar. Typically, a home like this would house a family, and in some ways, it did.
In the early 1970s, the mansion was purchased by the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity—most commonly called the Unification Church— and used as the headquarters for its operations in the Chicagoland area.[1]
Pat Skalka, a former Rogers Park resident who lived near the mansion, remembers the “Moonies,” a pejorative name for those involved with the Unification Church. In the early 1970s, especially in America, the Unification Church received its label as a cult. Skalka was not necessarily aware of their ideologies or goals but still avoided interaction.
All that most people in the neighborhood knew or saw of the Moonies was the younger participants soliciting in the streets. Many were young Americans, away from their disapproving parents, following a doctrine from half a world away. They would sell trinkets, from bracelets and suncatchers to roses. The profits would return to the church to maintain its multimillion-dollar structure of media conglomerates, mass weddings, and leaders with lavish lifestyles. Yet, many did not (and still don’t) understand the Unification Church’s ideals and its cunning rise to power. And those who do remember wonder if the Moonies are still around.
“They were a secretive bunch. I don’t recall that they ever made an attempt to interact with the neighbors or the neighborhood,” said Skalka. “I didn’t really want to get too close because I didn’t want to get pulled into that sphere of lunacy or have them at my door like proselytizing Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do they still exist?”
Reverend Sun Myung Moon: The Perfect Man?
Born in 1920 in a village then controlled by Japan but now part of North Korea, Sun Myung Moon was raised in the Presbyterian Church. According to Moon, as a teenager, he was greeted by a life-changing vision of God. Birthing the Unification Church’s goals, God tasked Moon with completing Jesus’ work on Earth.[2]
In 1946, Moon began preaching his beliefs and doctrines to anyone who would listen. And soon enough, those same beliefs started to get him in trouble. He was excommunicated from the Korean Presbyterian Church for heresy, and in 1948, he was imprisoned by North Korean authorities for his eccentric beliefs and preaching.
By 1952, Moon was free, married and published his first book in South Korea, “The Divine Principle.” In it, he could weave his doctrine with the church’s already established scripture.
To further cement his “glorious” path, Moon divorced his wife in 1953, alleging that she couldn’t accept his religious beliefs and, consequently, was unfit to carry out God’s plan. In 1954, he founded the Unification Church in Pusan, South Korea.[3]
According to Moon, the purpose of God’s creation is for us to experience the joy of love. However, Adam and Eve’s initial sin led to selfish love—sex without the intention of reproduction—taking over in our time. Jesus laid down the tracks for our salvation but was killed before marrying and having children, which Moon believed was the final step to complete God’s plan.[4] And so, God tasked Moon to finish his plan for humanity.
Working to “clean” humanity of the initial sin, Moon established the concept of the “Ideal Family.” In 1960, seven years after his divorce, Moon married Hak Ja Han, who he considered to be the “perfect woman.” To followers, Moon and Han were “Father” and “Mother” and came to symbolize the perfect union. As he came to raise his “ideal” family, Moon was seen by his followers as the Messiah, continuing Jesus’ work.
An “Ideal Family” must consist of sinless members who avoid adultery, sex before marriage, drugs and alcohol, greed, and other vices. Spreading the concept would lead to a cleaner humanity, rid of the original sin. The couples married in the church were the first to be cleansed so their children could be born into this world “blessed” and sinless. This second generation of followers would then live the entirety of their lives within Moon’s teachings, and once they married and had children, the cycle would continue. The Moonies believe this was God’s plan, a generational cleansing of the sins of our origin that slowly takes over the world.
One of the Moonies’ most notorious practices is mass weddings. These ceremonies consist of thousands of couples getting married simultaneously, with some meeting for the first time on their wedding day. According to an American former member of the Unification Church, she and nearly 500,000 others were married simultaneously in Seoul, South Korea, in 2005.[5] Donning their standard-issue wedding attire, couples from around the world blended into the crowd, creating a sea of followers ready to devote their lives to Moon and his teachings.
With Moonies all over the globe, these husbands and wives could be from drastically different backgrounds and may speak different languages, unable to communicate with each other. As impractical and uncomfortable as it is, this cross-cultural matchmaking was a crucial belief in what Moon taught to his followers:
“Marriage creates a relationship between two families, and it brings reconciliation between clans and countries,” Moon wrote in his autobiography. “When a Korean and Japanese marry, it contributes to reconciliation between the two countries; when a white person and a black person marry, it contributes to reconciliation between the two races.”[6]
And so, these mass weddings, over time, would create an international bond glued together by the Unification Church.
The Unification Church and The World
In the 1990s, the Unification Church expanded its presence in over 100 countries.
Back in Rogers Park, the church’s trinket-selling branch did its part. Each volunteer sold around $400 worth of trinkets per day. Some—if not most—were the “blessed children,” or “second gens” as they were informally called. This means they were the children of a couple married at one of the mass weddings years earlier. Other volunteers were recent converts (or “first gens” if they stuck with the cult), selling trinkets to display their loyalty and commitment to the church.
Even today, before leaving for college, some second gens still attend the Generation Peace Academy, a year-long program. Founded in 1994, the Academy’s website describes its activities as “fundraising, evangelizing, Divine Principle proficiency, and engaging with related groups, such as the Pure Love Alliance (PLA), which promoted the message of chastity before marriage.”[7] During the year, second-gens travel, participate in church-mandated lectures, and are further indoctrinated into Moon’s beliefs. Under high pressure for most of their youth, second gens are expected to be as sinless, if not more so, than their parents. In Moon’s eyes, they are the first step in finishing God’s plan.
The final part of the Generation Peace Academy curriculum is trinket selling. After being indoctrinated, second gens to go out into the world and put their faith into action. They wake up at 7 a.m. to start their soliciting, with short breaks for food and water throughout their standard 12-hour shift. Because of the Moonies’ past notoriety, many second gens refrain from mentioning the Unification Church or Moon in their pitch, focusing solely on raising funds.[8]
With plenty of wealth to invest, the Moonies curated a diverse international portfolio still in existence, including factories that produce paint, ginseng tea, machinery, and armament, schools, universities, hospitals, ski resorts, dance academies, a soccer team, mansions, and hotels.[9]
Some of the purchases made by the Unification Church are as peculiar as they are luxurious. For over $2 million, they purchased the Manhattan Center, an event venue, in 1976.[10] The church bought and renovated the nearby New Yorker hotel the same year using member volunteers as laborers. They opened the hotel as a private Mission Center in 1980, but in 1994, it was reopened to the public.[11]
In 1982, Moon founded a newspaper in Washington, D.C., under the Unification Church’s media conglomerate, News World Communications Incorporated. With the Washington Times, an American conservative newspaper, Moon sought to anchor himself in American media. It soon became a favorite among conservative Americans. Allegedly, President Reagan read it daily.
The same year he founded the Washington Times, Moon was charged with tax evasion, fined $25,000, and sentenced to 18 months in prison, which he served in 1984.[12]
In 2000, News World Communications Inc. bought United Press International (U.P.I.) for an undisclosed sum. The 93-year-old wire service used to offer direct competition to the Associated Press, but after a series of unsuccessful owners and rising debt, it was home to only 157 employees. News World Communications Inc. stated that there will be no interference from the Moonies on the wire service.[13] U.P.I. continues to operate today from its headquarters in Washington D.C. and Boca Raton, Florida, under News World Communications ownership.
Downfall
In New York’s Hudson Valley, the Moon family lived in East Garden, just one of the several large mansions owned by the Unification Church in the area. The 18-acre estate included a ballroom, two dining rooms, and a bowling alley. To their inner circle, the Moon family’s hypocrisy was clear to see. They were not the “ideal family.”[14]
In 1998, Reverend Moon’s daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong, published an exposé of how life was lived amongst the leaders of the Unification Church. The explosive exposé had a critical effect on the Moonies. Hong writes about her husband, Moon’s first “blessed child,” quenching his thirst with alcohol and fulfilling his lust with prostitutes. Hong even goes a step further, stating that adultery, drug use and physical violence were found throughout the Moon family.
This revelation started a chain of events that, as a consequence, saw a large number of followers leave the cult. Shocked by the duality of its leaders, who preach and enforce doctrines of perfection while silently feeding their greed and hunger for power, devoted followers lost their faith.[15]
Around this time, the homophobic philosophies of the Unification Church were becoming more controversial to some followers. The church taught that same-sex marriages were incompatible with the notion of the “perfect marriage,” and so, highly prohibited. Rev. Moon himself had harsher views, comparing the LGBTQ+ community to “dirty dung-eating dogs” and prophesying that by God’s orders, they would all be eliminated. Such discriminatory rhetoric revealed a darker side of the cult’s values, alienating some followers who decided to leave.
Still Around
In 2012, at 92 years old, Reverend Sun Myung Moon died. The Unification Church, however, did not perish with its Messiah. Although Moonies have relatively less power and notoriety than in the 20th century, they can still be found all over the globe.
One of the last times the Moonies appeared in the Chicago Tribune was in 2018. At the time, the gaze was turned to a small church on a windy road in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles from Scranton. This Moonie off-shoot is called Sanctuary Church, led by Pastor Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon, one of Rev. Moon’s own “blessed children.” Pastor Sean argues that, out of his ten adult siblings, he was tasked with continuing his father’s work. His mother, Hak Ja Han, claims it was left to her. This led to the rift that landed Pastor Sean in Pennsylvania with an “evolved” set of beliefs.
Pastor Sean preaches to his congregation of over two hundred believers the importance of carrying and owning an AR-15. Known as “the most popular rifle in America,” Pastor Sean’s obsession with semi-automatic rifles came from the Bible. While reading the Book of Revelations, he noticed the many allusions to Christ ruling his holy kingdom with a rod of iron, which Pastor Sean interpreted as a firearm. From then on, the AR-15 has become a staple of the Sanctuary Church.
What received national attention was a week of activities the group held in February 2018. The gathering included “an arts festival, a survival skills contest, and a goat-butchering demonstration.” The event was also used to display the firepower of the armed protectors of God’s holy kingdom, for Pastor Sean asked those in attendance to bring their own AR-15s “or equivalents.”[16]
The next day, on February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, with an AR-15 and killed 17 people, students and staff of the school.[17] Other than horrible timing and America’s most popular semi-automatic rifle, there is no connection between the shooting in Parkland and Sanctuary Church. Pastor Sean and Sanctuary Church remain active to this day. As recently as October 2024, USA Today reported on the group’s Rod of Iron Freedom Festival featuring speeches by former General Mike Flynn and other outspoken supporters of Donald Trump.[18]
In 2023, the Japanese branch of the Unification Church offered $67 million in victim compensation. It did so to avoid being shut down by the Tokyo District Court for its fraudulent donation tactics. This came to the public eye when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an avid Moonie, was assassinated in broad daylight. His killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, said his mother had donated over $650,000 to the Unification Church, ruining their family’s finances.[19]
The church closed its Rogers Park headquarters in 1997 and has faded from the neighborhood’s zeitgeist. The empty mansion stood Moonie-free for at least a decade before its sale in 2016 to a real estate investment group. After years of being on the market, the real estate company sold the mansion in 2019 for $1.25 million.[20] Now, the mansion has become a Center for Discovery for eating disorders, a residential treatment program for people 18 years and older.[21]
In a desperate attempt to clean its slate, the Unification Church has been renamed (or “evolved,” as their website states) to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. With younger generations maturing, the Moonies and their impact have faded through time. It is rare to bump into someone who remembers them, even rarer to find someone who recalls their presence in Rogers Park. However, Moon’s Washington Times is still being published with ideas similar to its conception, and the Moonies still hold most of their vast investment portfolio.
Before their downfall, the Moonies could be seen on the street selling roses and converting others into their cult. Now, they operate inconspicuously, pulling strings from afar. In times like this, it is vital to understand the role of influence even when those behind it are not in the spotlight. In the public’s eye, the Unification Church faces society’s judgment. But away from the spotlight, its influence is the same, and its goals are unchecked.
Sources Cited in this Article
[1] “Unification Church Headquarters in Rogers Park sells as a house,” by Bob Goldsborough, Chicago Tribune, December 27, 2019.
[2] “Unification Church,” by J. Gordon Melton, Britannica, last updated: September 5, 2024.
[3] “Sun Myung Moon,” Britannica, last updated: August 30, 2024.
[4] “Unification Church,” by J. Gordon Melton, Britannica, previously cited.
[5] “From mass weddings to sex rituals, life inside the controversial Unification Church,” by Yoonji Han, Business Insider, July 31, 2022.
[6] “Here’s what growing up in the Moonies ‘cult’ was like.” By Yoonji Han, Business Insider, July 29, 2022.
[7] “A Brief History,” Generation Peace Academy.
[8] “Here’s what growing up in the Moonies ‘cult’ was like.” By Yoonji Han, Business Insider, previously cited.
[9] “Sun Myung Moon,” Britannica, previously cited.
[10] “Rev. Moon’s Church Will Purchase Manhattan Center.” by Edward Hudson, New York Times, September 9, 1976.
[11] “The History of Our Manhattan Landmark Hotel,” The New Yorker: a Wyndham Hotel.
[12] “Sun Myung Moon,” Britannica, previously cited.
[13] “The Unification Church’s News Affiliate Buys U.P.I.” by Christopher Marquis, New York Times, May 16, 2000.
[14] “Here’s what growing up in the Moonies ‘cult’ was like.” By Yoonji Han, Business Insider, previously cited.
[15] “Ex-members speak out about life inside the Moonies ‘cult,’” by Yoonji Han, Business Insider, July 30, 2022.
[16] “Praise the Lord. Now pass the semi-automatic rifles.” Chicago Tribune, June 3, 2018, p. 31.
[17] “17 killed in mass shooting at high school in Parkland, Florida.” By Elizabeth Chuck, Alex Johnson, and Corky Siemaszko, NBC News, updated: February 15, 2018.
[18] “Trump vows to go after his enemies if elected. Meet two enforcers ready to carry that out”, USA Today, posted October 24, 2024.
[19] “’Moonies’ church in Japan offers $67 million in victim compensation,” by Lucy Craft, CBS News, November 8, 2023.
[20] “Unification Church Headquarters in Rogers Park sells as a house,” by Bob Goldsborough, Chicago Tribune, previously cited.
[21] “Chicago Eating Disorder Program,” Center for Discovery.
About the Author: Gustavo Azevedo
Gustavo Azevedo, a student intern with RPWHS, loves telling stories, and during his internship, he is eager to spotlight some of the more noted residents of Rogers Park and West Ridge. He moved to the United States from Brazil in 2013 and to Rogers Park in 2022 after a year abroad. Gustavo is a Multimedia Journalism major at Loyola University Chicago. He loves films, games, and photography, After graduation in December 2024, he hopes to work in video production. Before beginning work on this article, he had never heard of the "Moonies" or the Unification Church.