Sun Myung Moon

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, b. Jan. 6, 1920, is a Korean religious leader and founder of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Unification Church). After a profound religious experience in his teenage years, Moon began an intensive study of the Bible and launched his public ministry in North Korea in 1945. He summarized his spiritual beliefs in the Divine Principle (1952) and established the Unification Church in 1954. Moon was arrested several times by Communist authorities in North Korea and was released from a prison camp by UN forces during the Korean War. His movement won numerous converts in Korea and Japan, and, during the 1960s, in the United States.

Many Americans regarded the movement with suspicion and referred to Unficationists derisively as "Moonies." Nevertheless, Moon's conviction of tax evasion by as U. S. court in 1982 and his subsequent imprisonment triggered protests by a broad coalition of religious groups, including the National Council of Churches, which viewed his prosecution as harassment.

Bibliography:

Chryssides, George, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon (1991)
Gullery, Jonathan G., ed., The Path of a Pioneer: The Early Days of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church (1986)
Sontag, Frederick, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church (1977)