Talk:Unification Movement International

Esotericism

Someone removed the material I had added in the controversy section on esotericism, that is having teachings that are secret from the public. This has been a common criticism of the UC. There were four good sources provided, one published by the Unification Seminary. Borock (talk) 14:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why it was removed. It should be there with the other criticisms. I will see if I can find more material. Kitfoxxe (talk) 16:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Here are the sources for the paragraph, mostly scholarly in contrast to the popular news media sources which you see in most of the rest of the article. I think this shows the topic is taken seriously:

• • Evangelical-Unification Dialogue (Conference series - Unification Theological Seminary ; no. 3) Richard Quebedeaux, Rodney Sawatsky, Paragon House, 1979, ISBN-10: 093289402X, pages 77-99.
  • Frederick Sontag,1977, Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, Abingdon Press, ISBN-10: 0687406226, page 185.
  • Irving Louis Horowitz, 1978, Science, Sin, and Scholarship: The Politics of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church, MIT Press, ISBN 0262081008, page 114
  • Tingle, D. and Fordyce, R. 1979, The Phases and Faces of the Moon: A Critical Examination of the Unification Church and Its Principles, Hicksville, New York: Exposition Press ISBN 0682492647, p20-21
  • George D. Chryssides, "Unificationism: A study in religious syncretism", Chapter 14 in Religion: empirical studies, Editor: Steven Sutcliffe, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004, ISBN 0-7546-4158-9, ISBN 978-0-7546-4158-2, page 232. - Kitfoxxe (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it should be mentioned, though may be not under the controversy section or may under a new "Historical controversies" section. I also read thjat the secrecy is not strictly enforced in Making of a moonie, but Eileen Barker does not use the term esotericism. It is not true that all religions have secret teachings. Andries (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe it should be mentioned. Certainly, if Eileen Barker (who has defended the organization against charges of brainwashing) mentions the secrecy in her book, then we are not being overly critical if we mention it in the article. The four scholarly sources that have been cited shows that this is notable. While there have been some gnostic religions known for their esoteric doctrines, I don't think that most Christian denominations have secret teachings that have not been published.

WP:Attack only applies to entire articles dedicated to attacking a person or organization, not to one little sub-section of an article.

If someone has access to Barker's book, we can add that the secrecy was not strictly enforced, along with anything else in the book that would be worthwhile.

I see that all of the sources that are critical were published in the late 1970's, and (according to the deleted paragraph) since the 1990's many of the esoteric texts have been published online. Unless we can add critical sources that are more recent, we should begin the first sentence of the paragraph by giving the reader some sense that these criticisms were common in the late 1970's.Dulcimermusic 03:15, 27 May 2013 (UTC)JDefauw

History section

There is already an article History of the Unification Church, linked as the main article for this section. At least some of the minor events should be removed from this section and put there if they are not already. Steve Dufour (talk) 17:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Related organizations

I am working on this section so that it focuses more on notable organizations.Borock (talk) 19:11, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Symbol as Variant of Japanese Rising Sun?

Unification Church symbol seems like a variant of the World War 2 Japanese Imperial Battle Flag, with which their doctrines are congruent as it relates to social doctrine and anti-communist orientation (anti-Comintern Axis).

Probably not. However if you can find a reliable source that claims this go ahead and mention it in the section on the symbol.Borock (talk) 16:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

"Brainwashing"

Numerous publicans and experts have roundly criticised this group as a cult. Is anyone going to raise a large objection of I insert information from these sources in here? This article seems ridiculously biased. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 09:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

I remember reading this article several years ago, and it was more balanced, with controversial facts cited with footnotes throughout the article. It looks as though these have been systematically removed, and any hint of criticism sequestered to the "Controversy" section. The lead/introduction (and every other section!) now sound exactly like what we might expect from the Unification Church's own literature. Is this similar to what happened to the article on Scientology, which was manipulated by Scientologists to be more favorable and to remove all criticism (for which they were banned)? DrSocPsych (talk) 20:38, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Looking back at the Talk pages in the Archive, this same issue that I raised has been an ongoing complaint for years of editors coming to this page, that material in this article is systematically changed to make it sound more favorable about the church. Further, these editors cite many specific instances of Unification Church members deleting material deemed negative, including well-sourced material. DrSocPsych (talk) 21:40, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

...well, they do. I'm watching it now but editing it seems pointless. Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 00:07, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

There is quite a bit of criticism in the secondary articles, which are linked in the criticism section. Part of the issue is that the main things the "Moonies" have been criticized for (religious heresy, anti-communism, and just general weirdness) are not looked at so negatively here as in the main-stream. Kitfoxxe (talk) 18:33, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I would not object if the "Controversy" section was split up and items were put into the "History" section. I'm not quite sure why the controversy section was started in the first place. Controversy has been a major part of Unification Church history all along, and it might be argued the most notable part. Kitfoxxe (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Go ahead if you want to do that. DrSocPsych seems to agree with you from what he said above. I think the controversy section was started because someone objected that the controversy was hard to find in the article. Something should also be added about it in the lede. Borock (talk) 17:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree too. I will start working on it. If someone objects my edits can be reverted. Skylark777 (talk) 05:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I will merge the "Political activities" section, for the same reasons. Kitfoxxe (talk) 06:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

This article reads like propaganda

As many other people here have noted, huge chunks of this article read like a propaganda piece. While the Unification Church of the United States article has fairly good sections on the major controversies the church went through, here all aspects which make the church look bad are either removed or lumped in further in the article, with no mention in the header or subsection titles. Meanwhile the other ~80% of the page is worded in the same way you'd expect from their leaflets. Therefore I'm putting a neutrality tag on this article until some of the main issues are resolved. Sarcastic Bob (talk) 10:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Until a few days ago there was a "Controversy" section. It was then split up and the material put mostly in the history section, which is the main part of the article. Was it better before? I don't think it makes that much difference. Borock (talk) 15:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I expanded the controversy mentioned in the lede. Do you have any suggestions for section titles? I will think about that too. Borock (talk) 15:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

One problem is that a lot of the controversy is entirely absent from the article. The controversy which is present is watered down and sounds in some cases like apologetics. It should reflect the tone and content of reliable sources, not of Unification Church literature. What Sarcastic Bob mentions above appears to be a deliberate strategy by editors who are Unification Church members. DrSocPsych (talk) 21:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)