Family Federation for World Peace and Unification / Unification Church

March, 2025: Japanese Court Disbands Unification Church in Wake of Abe Killing

New York Times: The assassination in 2022 of Shinzo Abe, the country’s former prime minister, led to an investigation into the group’s political ties and manipulation of its followers to raise funds.

Since 1997, the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU) is an official name for the religious movement known as the Unification Church (whose followers are commonly known as “Moonies” – a term the cult has come to denounce).

It is just one of many names of (front) groups, organizations, and businesses owned and operated by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon (Feb. 25, 1920 — Sep. 3, 2010) – a man who considered himself to be the Messiah.

Lately the church has been highlighting the name Lovin’ Life Ministries, which was founded nationally in 2009 as a contemporary ministry of the Unification Church.

Beliefs

Sun Myung Moon concocted a screwball version of Christianity that is rejected by every Christian denomination as heretical – far outside the boundaries of the historic Christian faith. Theologically the movement he founded is a cult of Christianity. Sociologically it has countless cult-like elements as well.

Moon and his wife told people that they are “the True Parents of Heaven, Earth and all Humanity. “ According to Moon, he was “was chosen by God and called by Jesus Christ to fulfill the mission of the Messiah and Lord of the Second Advent with the responsibility to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.”

In July, 2000, the FFWPU placed a full page ad in several U.S. newspapers:

Here is one conundrum they do not teach in business school: If a newspaper’s policy requires advertisements to be verifiable and accurate, what does a publisher do when presented with a full-page ad presenting the text of a Christmas Day meeting “in the spirit world” attended by Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Buddha, Martin Luther and John Harvard?

According to the ad, which was presented to newspapers around the country this month, these men and hundreds of others in attendance proclaimed their allegiance to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the Unification Church. At the spirit meeting, the ad said, Jesus hailed Mr. Moon as the Messiah, proclaiming, “You are the Second Coming who inaugurated the Completed Testament Age.” Muhammad then led everyone in three cheers of victory.

God didn’t attend, but sent a letter Dec. 28 seconding Jesus’s remarks. Lenin and other leading communists also sent messages. Lenin said that he was in “unimaginable suffering and agony” for his earthly mistakes, and Stalin added, “We live in the bottom of Hell here.”

– Decisions Differ on Religious Ad, New York Times, July 22, 2002

Moon died September 3, 2012.