J. Isamu Yamamoto - Unification Church

The Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements comprises sixteen volumes, treating many of the most important groups and belief systems confronting the Christian church today. This series distills the most important facts about each and presents a well-reasoned, cogent Christian response. The authors in this series are highly qualified, well-respected professional Christian apologists with considerable expertise on their topics.

We have designed the structure and layout to help you find the information you need as quickly as possible. All the volumes are written in outline form, which allows us to pack substantial content into a short book. With some exceptions, each book contains, first, an introduction to the cult, movement, or belief system. The introduction gives a brief history of the group, its organizational structure, and vital statistics such as membership. Second, the theology section is arranged by doctrinal topic, such as God, Christ, sin, and salvation. The movements position is set forth objectively, primarily from its own official writings. The groups teachings are then refuted point by point, followed by an affirmative presentation of what the Bible says about the doctrine. The third section is a discussion of witnessing tips. While each witnessing encounter must be handled individually and sensitively, this section provides some helpful general guidelines, including both dos and donts. The fourth section contains annotated bibliographies, listing works by the groups themselves and books written by Christians in response. Fifth, each book has a parallel comparison chart, with direct quotations from the cultic literature in the left column and the biblical refutation on the right. Some of the books conclude with a glossary.

One potential problem with a detailed outline is that it is easy to lose ones place in the overall structure. Therefore, we have provided graphical signposts at the top of the odd numbered pages. Functioning like a you are here map in a shopping mall, these graphics show your place in the outline, including the sections that come before and after your current position. (Those familiar with modern computer software will note immediately the resemblance to a "drop-down menu bar, where the second-level choices vary depending on the currently selected main menu item.) In the theology section we have also used "icons in the margins to make clear at a glance whether the material is being presented from the cultic or Christian viewpoint. For example, in the Mormonism volume the sections presenting the Mormon position are indicated with a picture resembling the angel Moroni in the margin; the biblical view is shown by a drawing of the Bible.

We hope you will find these books useful as you seek to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15).

Alan W. Gomes, Ph.D.

Series Editor

Part I:
Introduction

I.Historical Background

A. Sun Myung Moon: Youth Through Early Adulthood

1. Sun Myung Moon was born on January 6, 1920, in the village of Kwangju Sangsa Ri in northwestern Korea.

2. According to Moon, as a young Christian he had a dramatic spiritual experience while he was deep in prayer on a Korean mountainside.

a. This vision occurred on Easter morning in 1936 when he was sixteen.

b. He says that Jesus appeared to him and asked him to complete the mission he had begun 2000 years ago.

c. When he realized that he was the only one who could save the world, he accepted the call to deliver all humanity from Satans domain.

3. Moon claims that he spent the following nine years in spiritual warfare with Satan, in which Satan tried to get Moon to either sin (and thus be unworthy to be the Messiah) or be convinced that he could not accomplish all that the Messiah must do to redeem humanity. Finally, he defeated Satan, thus fulfilling the initial demands of being the Messiah.

4. In 1946, Moon studied under Paik Moon Kim. Much of what he learned in Kims pseudo-Christian monastery became the framework for his own theological teachings.

5. In that same year, the North Korean police arrested Moon.