Talk:Unification Church of the United States

Numbers of members

We actually have more reliable numbers, and much better sources, for the U.S. church membership than for the world membership. The most reliable numbers are from Melton, who is not only widely respected as one of foremost experts on this issue (membership in new religious movements), but actual did some of his own empirical investigation of the U.S. numbers. Stark is also a respected researcher. I'm adding the references. Let me know what you think of the phrasing. -Exucmember (talk) 04:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks that helped a lot. I moved the information out of the intro to the body of the article. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

DYK Concerns over Original Research

copypasta from Wikipedia:DYK

• ... that the Unification Church of the United States, despite being the object of intense media and public attention for over 30 years, never had more than 5,000 to 10,000 members? -self-nom, --Steve Dufour (talk) 04:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"despite"? Maybe the "intense media and public attention" drove people away? BTW, "5,000 to" seems unnecessary. --74.13.130.46 (talk) 05:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree that this "despite" sounds odd - what does the first part of this sentence have to do at all with the second part? Has this sort of comparison been made in any independent WP:RS/WP:V sources - or is this conclusion being made for the first time in this sentence? Seems to be pushing something. Cirt (talk) 09:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• Source doesn't agree with the hook statement anyhow, source says between 5,000 and 50,000 members. Gatoclass (talk) 09:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
• nomination withdrawn -Sorry. Although 5,000 to 10,000 is the real figure there is no way to sift out the inflated estimates. My point was that the church made a big public impact with very few people. Steve Dufour (talk) 00:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

• Well perhaps there's a way to reword it then? I wouldn't give up quite yet! --JayHenry (talk) 04:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. If I come up with some other way to express it I might give it another try. Steve Dufour (talk) 01:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• Renomination ... that in a Blessing ceremony for Unification Church members held on July 1, 1982 in Madison Square Garden, New York City, 2,075 couples were married by Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon; even though the total number of adult members of the Unification Church of the United States was only 5,000? -Steve Dufour (talk) 21:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• 289 character hook. Art LaPella (talk) 23:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• ... that in a 1982 Blessing ceremony in New York City for Unification Church members, 2,075 couples were married even though the total number of adult members of the Unification Church of the United States was then only 5,000? better? :-) Steve Dufour (talk) 05:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• Look, I'm sorry, but you have cherry picked your sources in the article now to claim that the Church has never had more than 5000 members, when in fact you have several sources saying they have tens of thousands of members. Neither the new hook you have submitted nor the article as it currently stands is eligible in my opinion, as you have effectively engaged in original research. It also makes me wonder how accurate the other claims in the article might be. Struck last statement as it appears the changes to the article itself were made by another user. Gatoclass (talk) 08:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 14:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I wrote the article because I am interested in the topic. BTW I am a Unification Church member and took part in most of the events mentioned in the article. If you feel that there is anything inaccurate or left out, please make whatever changes you like. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[User:Steve Dufour|Steve Dufour]] wrote above: "there is no way to sift out the inflated estimates." This is not true. Melton and Stark are respected researchers in this field. There is no well-known sociologist of religion who has published a paper which merely repeats the inflated numbers put forward by church leaders (though some cult detractors have done this). Would it be "cherry picking" references to cite what neurological researchers have found about the brain, while ignoring the claims made about the brain by gurus and athletes (except perhaps to mention them since they're widespread falsehoods, explained in the published articles by the researchers)? Of course not. The 5000 member figure is well-sourced by the most respected researchers in the field. Perhaps the adherents.com reference needs to be dropped - it seems to muddle the issue and doesn't actually add anything of real value. -Exucmember (talk) 06:15, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Reposting from Steve's talk page:

Please don't dramatize. I am not accusing you of being a "liar". You may simply have made a misjudgement. But when someone says to you that a hook statement isn't supported by the sources, it isn't a solution to change the hook statement to make it conform even less to the sources. I also thought at the time you had also altered the content of the article to promote the "5,000" number, but I see that was done by another user.

It might still be possible to resurrect the article for DYK - which is why I put a "possible vote" symbol on it rather than an "ineligible" symbol - but there needs to be some sort of consensus about the numbers, and the hook cannot make an absolute statement about the numbers, as it does now, when there are clearly other estimates. I'm going to repost this at the article talk page, where I think the discussion is more appropriate. Regards, Gatoclass (talk) 06:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Would it be possible for someone to collate the different refs and estimates at adherents.com and post them here? It's kind of hard to get an overall picture since quite a few of the refs are repeated ones. It might help to get a better picture of who actually estimated what, from which we might be able to make some progress. Gatoclass (talk) 06:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Belated answer about church population: I daresay a large proportion of the US members who were blessed, received international matchings. For example, American man and Japanese woman. Also, foreign couples (as in two Asians) might also have participated in that mass wedding. So the number of couples isn't precisely indicative of US church membership at the time.

I can always ask Tyler Hendricks, who served as vice president for personnel before he was selected US church president. He'd have the old database. All I know is that in 2003, we had around 5,600 to 5,800 adult ("first generation") members on file at church HQ; I know, because Hendricks gave me the list then.

Here's a source that says the church had 3,000 members in 1974. [1] There hasn't been much population growth since then. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Fall off in membership

In doing background reading for List of Unification Church affiliated organizations, I came across this Washington Post article: Stymied in U.S., Moon's Church Sounds a Retreat, that talks of a membership crisis in the US. Coming here, I find that Moon at Twilight, which the article cites, also gives this issue prominence -- yet the article itself makes no mention of it. How is this WP:DUE & therefore WP:NPOV? Admittedly, these articles are now a decade old -- but it was obviously a major issue at the time, and this trend (and whether it continued or was reversed since) requires coverage. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to introduce the issue if you like. I have not noticed a drop off in membership myself. It has remained about 5,000 adult members since the late 1970s. Of course many people have come and gone over that time and higher estimates of the number have been promoted by both church sources and outsiders. Steve Dufour (talk) 06:33, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Did a bit more background reading -- one of the sources the WP piece cites, Fredrick Sontag, seems to have a solid body of work on the subject (dating back at least to Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church) & seems to be on friendly terms with them (e.g. see this piece published in Journal of Unification Studies), so his quote of "There's no question their numbers are way down. The older members complain to me that they have a lot of captains but no foot soldiers." would seem reliable & neutral. So I'll make the centrepiece of addition. If you can RS some contrary opinion (of 'no drop off'), you might wish to add it for balance. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 07:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

What's down is the number of people working full-time for the church. The article already mentions this. Steve Dufour (talk) 12:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Neologisms

The article states: "The Unification Church of the United States has introduced a number of neologisms into the English language". However:

• "Moonies" & "love bombing" were introduced about the church, not by them.
• The UC usage of "indemnity", appears to have no use beyond the church, so is hardly a "neologism" (more a 'term of art'). "Crazy for God" likewise does not appear to have little currency outside the UC -- where the more general phrase is Foolishness for Christ

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 06:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That's why it says "directly or indirectly." "Love bombing" was, I am fairly sure, coined by Mrs. Durst. Steve Dufour (talk) 17:55, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"Indirectly introduced" is not synonymous with "introduced by somebody else about them". The former would imply something like that they'd paid somebody else to introduce it. I've striken "love bombing". You haven't addressed "indemnity" or "Crazy for God". Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 18:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"Crazy for God" was used by Christopher Edwards as the title for his book about the UC. "Indemnity", it is true, is only used related to UC topics. I'm not sure how many people have to use an expression before it becomes a neologism. Maybe they all should be removed since none have gone much beyond their origins. Well, once in a while you hear someone called a "moonie", meaning he or she is fanaticly focused on one pursuit (but not a UC member).Steve Dufour(talk) 18:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

This would seem to imply that "Crazy for God" has failed to escape into general conversation, and cannot be considered a neologism. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 01:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Steve and Hrafn are quibbling about how to classify these new terms. "Moonies" is short for "Moon children", both media creations. The church adopted Moonies (as in in word), and it still enjoys some minor internal currency (compare the N-word).

I have to agree that indemnity (as Unification Church theology) has not emerged from our ivory tower. My thanks to Hrafn for labeling it a term of art. (Nice ring to that! :-) No one says "crazy for God"; it's just a phrase that guy (Chris Edwards?) took for his book title from a random "Moonism".

I wonder about love bombing. It might not be specific to our church.

But hardly any of these is of great importance. Let's spend more time describing Unification thought or Divine Principle, or how church teaching impact the daily life of members. We might even write more about church-related organizations: PR type (like the Little Angels Korean Folk Ballet troupe), educational, and ecumenical. Then there are all the various God-centered conferences on science, media, international relations and so forth. That should keep us busy during the new year.

Peace out, dawgs! --Uncle Ed (talk) 00:14, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest we rephrase the intro for this section to state: "A number of neologisms have been introduced by or about the Unification Church of the United States." Then list "love bombing" and "moonies". (In response to Ed, I'd say that "love bombing" refers to a particular form of (purported) psychological manipulation -- and would be used whether or not it's in relation to the UC.) The other two really aren't in general enough usage to qualify. Anybody have problems with this? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 01:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Steve Dufour (talk) 09:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree also. And I'd love to see a list of neologisms and/or terms of art, along with concise definitions. What in the world is "indemnity", anyway? --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

"Indemnity" is neither. It is a regular (though obscure) word in English used in insurance, legal affairs, etc. It is a good example, along with several other poor translations (i.e., "give-and-take action," "foundation of substance") of the inherent constipation and "that's the way we've always done it" conservatism that one might expect to find in Catholic theology, but not in the polity and processes in a vibrant young church engaged in leading a movement to change the world. There was a great opportunity to fix these poor choices for the 1996 translation, but it was squandered because of internal politics, even though Sun Myung Moon had already been told by his own English speaking children that "reparations" or some similar word was better (but "older members" were used to "indemnity"). I know of a case where Rev. Kwak overruled educated native speakers of English who knew Korean who tried to advise him that his translation of a phrase into English was ungrammatical and misleading; he preferred his own revision of the English language. As long as the membership allows blatently misguided leadership decisions like this to continue (as part of a perverse interpretation of Cain and Abel, perhaps?), the church should not expect to be successful in the West. Specific translations of words and phrases may not be very important, but the inability to correct them is symptomatic of the ridiculous and backward (pre-industrial Korean) leadership patterns within the church. -Exucmember (talk) 07:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. The King James Version of the Bible is not written in normal English, and I have been told is not really true to the spirit of the original Hebrew and Greek text since they were written in the ordinary, everyday language of the times, yet it has served the churches that use it well over the years.Steve Dufour (talk) 14:19, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

M. proposal

It was suggested on its talk page that the article Moonie (nickname) be merged here. I support this because the other article is really about a controversy which took place in the US involving the Unification Church. The article was never about the word itself, which would be against WP policy anyway. Kitfoxxe (talk) 05:20, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I support the merge. As I said on the other page it is really about the events, not the word, and this is the place to relate them so they are in context.Steve Dufour (talk) 17:33, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and merged, since there did not seem to be any support for keeping the old article.Kitfoxxe (talk) 04:05, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Disorganized, confusing article

This article is disorganized and contains no information about the church's beliefs or links to other relevant articles, such as the main unification church article, the moonie article etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.183.128.195 (talk) 13:56, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Unification Church of the United States/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I just started the article. I think it is mid class in importance and B in quality. It could use some input from other points of view. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 04:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 09:32, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Criticisms are not Critical

The "criticisms" section in this article are uncritical, or have been practically edited out of existence.

The first paragraph starts with: The main points of criticism were the church's unorthodox theology, especially its belief that Moon is the second coming of Christ; the church's political involvement; and the extreme lifestyle of most members, which involved full-time dedication to church activities often at the neglect of family, school, and career. That's fine, but none of these things are really expanded on. It ends by mentioning criticisms from "leftists" including a wacky student political group having a smoke in, as if to dismiss it all as hippy nonsense.

The next paragraph has three sentences, all of which are about the church being defended from criticisms.

The next paragraph has one sentence on the US congressional investigation, but not the findings that the church had "systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws."

Instead it mentions how a Minnesota law was overturned as unconstitutional. This makes it seem like the church was somehow proven innocent, which isn't really the case. 

The last paragraph is about how Sun Myung Moon was sent to prison for tax evasion. A simple statement of the fact, with no background or history, followed by a list of people defending the church, and ending with the note that his conviction "was a good thing" for the church. Somehow a criminal conviction is presented as positive.

These aren't criticisms, these are weasely negations of criticism. Beyond this, the most well known criticisms aren't even here. Notably absent are:

• Starting out as a sex cult.
• Messianic claims.
• Random arranged marriages between strangers.
• Owning a far right newspaper. Which loses money, implying it's more of an organ of propaganda than a business.
• Funding and lobbying conservative politicians.
• Connections with the Korean CIA.
• Moon's illegitimate kids and their illegitimate kids.
• Power struggle in the True Family after Moon's death.

A lot of that could in Moon's page, but since the True Family is central to the church, it belongs here as well. Whether or not the criticisms are valid, they deserve to be included. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.28.92.166 (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

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The term "Unification Church" does not refer to a church

See page Unification Church -- some content on this page needs to be altered to clarify that the term "Unification Church" does not refer to a singular entity or organization but is a broad movement of entities and people inspired by or founded by Sun Myung Moon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PineSky (talk • contribs) 00:55, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to merge with Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity

This article gives several misperceptions because it portends that the "Unification Church of the United States" is a monolithic and united entity, yet this is not the case. See page Unification Church.

Since 90% of this article is actually about the organization called Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, I suggest we move the content there and make this page a redirect to the page Unification Church. -PineSky (talk) 23:35, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. None of the sources say that there is a distinct entity called "The Unification Church of the United States." PopSci (talk) 15:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

The merge target would now be Unification movement since that is where the other page has been merged with. I would be more inclined to support deletion for this article rather than merging. For one thing most of the material is already in the other article. More than that there was never an organization called "The Unification Church of the United States." Also the sources, as far as I could tell, do not talk about it but about the UC in general. It was original research by which the original author of this article put things that happened within the USA together to create a topic.PopSci (talk) 14:58, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

I would support a merge to Unification movement. That way the history would be kept and no info be lost. Duplicated material could be cut. 2601:648:8400:8349:413C:A12:A818:6535 (talk) 13:53, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose to merge Moonie (nickname) into this article. Readers are probably looking for information on the people, the "Moonies", more than on the word itself. Why not put both in the same place? PopSci (talk) 15:34, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much interest. I checked out the contributors to both articles and most of them are no longer active. To me it seems clear that WP should not have 2 articles, one on the topic and one on the name. I will keep an eye on what's happening for a week or so. If anyone objects I will not make the merger, since there should be consensus.PopSci (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I removed the merger tags after not getting any feedback. I am going to try the merger now. If it doesn't seem to work please, anyone, feel free to revert my edits back to how it was.PopSci (talk) 15:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)