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
Heung Jin Moon was a providential act allowed by God in order to protect [Sun Myung] Moon's calling", and that there was a karmic connection between the two events: A week later Sun Myung Moon taught that Heung Jin Moon "had a new mission and was free to travel between his spirit world and our physical world". He also "proclaimed that Heung Jin became a leader to Jesus in the spirit realm". Longtime president of the Korean Unification Church Young Whi Kim wrote: "They all refer to Heung Jin Nim as the new Christ. They also call him the Youth-King of Heaven. He