Moon Sun-myung, the founder of the Unification church known globally as the Moonies, has handed over control of the movement to his Harvard-educated youngest son in what is being seen as an attempt to broaden the controversial religious organization’s appeal.
In a ceremony near Seoul last week, 28-year-old Moon Hyung-jin was anointed chairman of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the name the church has used since the late 1990s.
“I hope everyone helps him so that he may fulfill his duty as the successor of the True Parents,” Moon, 88, said, in a characteristically immodest reference to himself and his wife.
Moon the younger, who was born in the state of New York, promised to “develop the church and to connect as many people as possible” to his parents.
“I will do my best to bring the love of the True Parents and God to every corner of the world,” he said.
Experts say Hyung-jin, the youngest of seven sons, who has five children of his own, is being groomed to secure his aging father’s legacy more than 50 years after he founded the Unification church in South Korea, declaring himself the new messiah with the aim of establishing a single world government under his leadership.
The new leader, a philosophy and theology graduate, practiced Zen Buddhism and lived in a Catholic monastery, and has been described as the “most spiritual” of Moon’s children.
In his book, A Bald Head and a Strawberry, he writes: “I was the youngest boy of the family and probably the most nutty.”
“[Moon] has been grooming his three sons for a bigger role for three years,” said Timothy Read, a spokesman for the Unification church in London.
“The Unification church is not just a church these days, but an international organization with many interests. Religion is just one aspect of that. The reverend decided a while ago that it would encounter difficulties if it was simply known as a church and decided to broaden its activities,” he said.
Under Moon’s leadership, the church has built a worldwide membership estimated at 250,000 — although the church claims more than 10 times as many followers — often using questionable methods to recruit followers and secure their loyalty to an movement that critics denounce as little more than a personality cult.
Its presence is particularly strong in the US, South Korea and Japan where, former followers say, members have used recruitment methods such as palm-reading and routinely take out loans to meet fundraising targets.
Despite last week’s apparent transfer of power few expect Moon Sr, who was convicted in the US of tax evasion in 1982, to loosen his grip on power.
“He may have appointed his son, but Moon is constantly giving orders and people do as they’re told,” said a former member. “He is unlikely to transfer any actual power to his sons.”
Experts say Moon’s eldest son, Hyo-jin, might have been a more obvious choice as successor but was overlooked after scandals over drugs and extramarital sex. He died of a heart attack last month, at 45.
The former disciple, who left several years ago in protest at Moon’s increasingly narcissistic behavior, said he expected the church to step up its fundraising activities under Hyung-jin and to forge alliances that go well beyond its pseudo-Christian origins.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”