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
Sun Myung Moon also drew criticism, especially after they involved members of other churches, including Roman Catholic archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. He was also criticized for his relationships with political and religious figures, including U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, North Korean President Kim Il Sung, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Sun Myung Moon was born Moon Yong Myeong on 25 February 1920, in modern-day North P'yŏng'an Province, North Korea, at a time when Korea was under Japanese rule. He was the younger of two sons in a farming family of eight