Unification Church of the United States Unification Church of the United States The Unification Church of the United States, sometimes colloquially referred to as the "Moonies", is a new religious movement in the United States of America. It began in the 1950s and 1960s when missionaries from Japan and South Korea were sent to the United States by the international Unification Church's founder and leader Sun Myung Moon. It expanded in the 1970s and then became involved in controversy due to its theology, its political activism, and the lifestyle of its members. Since then it has been involved in many areas of American society and has
Sun Myung Moon In 2000 Moon was criticized, including by some members of his church, for his support of controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's Million Family March. Moon was also criticized for his relationship with controversial Jewish scholar Richard L. Rubenstein, an advocate of the "Death of God theology" of the 1960s. Rubenstein was a defender of the Unification Church and served on its advisory council, as well as on the board of directors of the church-owned "Washington Times" newspaper. In the 1990s, he served as president of the University of Bridgeport which was then affiliated with the church. In 1998