Tongil Group Tongil Group Tongil Group is a South Korean business group (chaebol) associated with the Unification Church. (“Tongil” is Korean for “unification,” the name of the Unification Church in Korean is “Tongilgyo.”) It was founded in 1963 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon (following the purchase of a surplus Japanese lathe in 1962) as a nonprofit organization which would provide revenue for the church. Its core focus was manufacturing but in the 1970s and 1980s it expanded by founding or acquiring businesses in pharmaceuticals, tourism, and publishing. In 1998 Tongil Group was about 35th in size among South Korean business
Unification Church of the United States Church against charges made by its critics, including parents of some members. In 1977, church member Jonathan Wells, who later became well known as the author of the popular Intelligent Design book "Icons of Evolution", defended Unification Church theology against what he said were unfair criticisms by the National Council of Churches. That same year Frederick Sontag, a professor of philosophy at Pomona College and a minister in the United Church of Christ, published "Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church" which gave an overview of the church and urged Christians to take it more seriously. In an interview with