Christianity in Korea Church has increased its membership by 70% in the ten years leading up to 2007. Numerous unorthodox sects, such as the Unification Church founded in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, have also developed in Korea. The influence on education has been decisive, as Christian missionaries started 293 schools and 40 universities including three of the top five academic institutions. Christianity was associated with more widespread education and Western modernization. Catholicism and Protestantism are seen as the religion of the middle class, youth, intellectuals, and urbanites, and has been central to South Korea's pursuit of modernity and westernization after the end
Unification movement 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 movement and urged Christians to take it more seriously. In 1982, Moon was imprisoned in the United States after being found guilty by a jury of willfully filing false Federal income tax returns and conspiracy. (See: United States vs. Sun Myung Moon) HSA-UWC members launched a public-relations campaign. Booklets, letters and videotapes were mailed to approximately 300,000 Christian leaders in the United States. Many of them signed petitions protesting