The Unification Church: Truth and Error Compared
This article is part of a series examining what various religious movements teach on seven foundational doctrines, compared with what the Bible actually says. Source material for cult positions is drawn from Keith L. Brooks and Irvine Robertson, "The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error" (Moody Press, 1985).
The Unification Church was founded by Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) in Korea. Known formally as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, Moon's movement claims to complete the unfinished mission of Jesus Christ by establishing the ideal family — the "True Parents" — through which humanity's original sin can be eliminated. Moon explicitly taught that Jesus failed His mission by being crucified before He could marry, and that Moon himself (or another "lord of the Second Advent") would come to finish what Jesus started. The movement is characterized by large mass wedding ceremonies ("Blessing"), aggressive recruiting, and the use of Christian terminology with entirely different meanings. Citations below use abbreviations from the original source: CIC = Christianity in Crisis (Moon); DP = Divine Principle (Moon); DUTA = Declaration of Unification Theological Affirmations at Barrytown, New York, October 14, 1976.
1. God
What the Bible Teaches
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). God is one, eternal, omnipresent, and distinct from His creation (Deuteronomy 4:35; Isaiah 44:6; John 4:24). He is personal but not male-female in the sexual sense. Man is not God incarnate, nor is God merely the invisible counterpart to visible man.
What The Unification Church Teaches
"God Himself told me that the most basic and central truth of this universe is that God is the Father and we are His children" (CIC, p. 9). There is "one living, eternal, and true God, a Person, beyond space and time . . . source of all truth, beauty, and goodness . . . creator and sustainer of man and the universe" (DUTA). However, "God, being the First Cause of all creation, also exists because of a reciprocal relationship between the dual characteristics of positivity and negativity. . . . We call the positivity and negativity of God 'masculinity' and 'femininity' respectively" (Moon, Divine Principle, p. 24). "God existed as the internal masculine subject, and He created the universe as His external feminine object" (DP, p. 25). "Man is the visible; and God is the invisible form. God and man are one. Man is incarnate God . . . as important in value as God Himself" (CIC, p. 5). "God is just like you and me. All human traits originate in God" (CIC, p. 4).
2. Jesus Christ
What the Bible Teaches
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus is the eternal, incarnate Son of God — not a perfected man. He is not merely a sinless Adam. His death on the cross was not a failure or a satanic takeover but the planned, substitutionary atonement for sin (Isaiah 53; 1 Peter 2:24; Romans 5:8). He rose bodily from the dead and is coming again in glory — not to be born again as a physical man (Acts 1:11; Revelation 1:7).
What The Unification Church Teaches
"As a man [Jesus was] no different from us except for the fact that he was without original sin" (DP, p. 212). "He was the one who lived God's ideal in fullest realization" (CIC, p. 12). "He 'attained' the purpose of creation" (DP, p. 290). "In light of his attained deity he may well be called God. Nevertheless, he can by no means be called God Himself" (DP, pp. 210–11). "The death of Jesus was neither his will nor his fault. [It was] murder, and his body was taken by Satan" (CIC, p. 104). "He will come again as the third Adam, the lord of the Second Advent. The Kingdom of God will gradually appear" (DP, p. 506). "Jesus came as the sinless Adam, or perfected Adam. His first mission was to restore his bride and form the first family of God. But he was crucified. Jesus Christ must come again to consummate the mission he left undone 2,000 years ago" (CIC, p. 27). "Christ will be born in a country in the East . . . and will place a seal on the foreheads of the 144,000" (DP, p. 520). "Korea should be the nation that can receive the Lord of the Second Advent" (DP, p. 520). "Even in the spirit world after his resurrection, he lives as a spirit man with his disciples" (DP, p. 212).
3. Holy Spirit
What the Bible Teaches
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead — divine, personal, and equal with the Father and Son (Matthew 28:19; John 14:16–17; Acts 5:3–4). The Spirit is not female, nor is His role to compensate for Eve's sin in a gendered redemptive scheme.
What The Unification Church Teaches
"The Holy Spirit is a female Spirit. She also cleanses the sins of the people in order to restore them, thus indemnifying the sin committed by Eve. . . . the Holy Spirit, being female (negativity) in working on earth" (DP, p. 215). "There must be a True Mother with the True Father, in order to give rebirth to fallen children as children of goodness. She is the Holy Spirit" (DP, p. 215).
4. Sin
What the Bible Teaches
"There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sin is rebellion against God and its penalty is death (Romans 6:23). The fall of Adam and Eve was real, and its remedy is Christ's atoning death — not the establishment of a new family.
What The Unification Church Teaches
"Adam and Eve . . . were tempted by the archangel Lucifer into illicit and forbidden love. Through this, Adam and Eve willfully turned away from God's will and purpose for them, thus bringing themselves and the human race into spiritual death" (DUTA). "Evil is the emergence of selfishness into this world. God's principle of unselfish giving was twisted into an ungodly principle of selfish taking. The origin of evil is Satan" (CIC, pp. 16–17).
5. Redemption and Salvation
What the Bible Teaches
"We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7). "By grace are ye saved through faith . . . not of works" (Ephesians 2:8–9). Christ's death was sufficient, complete, and fully accomplished atonement: "He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man" (Hebrews 2:9). No second coming savior is needed — "it is finished" (John 19:30).
What The Unification Church Teaches
"God's will that all people be restored to Him is predestined absolutely, and He has elected all people to salvation." "[Jesus] must come again to consummate the mission he left undone 2,000 years ago. He was crucified . . . not given a chance to restore his bride" (CIC, p. 27). "Christianity may be considered the most advanced and progressive religion because it teaches this sacrificial love and duty in supreme form" (CIC, pp. 17–18). "Christ will come as before, as a man in the flesh, and he will establish a family through marriage to his Bride, a woman in the flesh and they will become the True Parents of all mankind. Through our accepting the True Parents (the Second Coming of Christ), obeying them and following them, our original sin will be eliminated and we will eventually become perfect" (DUTA). "Marriage is the most important means of establishing God's kingdom on earth" (CIC, p. 25). "God intended to make Adam and Eve one in heavenly matrimony. Then they would have borne sinless children and become the true mother and father for all mankind . . . establishing the heavenly kingdom on earth" (CIC, p. 26).
6. Resurrection and Eternal Life
What the Bible Teaches
Christ rose bodily from the dead (Luke 24:39; John 20:27). Believers will be bodily resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:20–23). "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27) — not a cycle of spirit-world progression.
What The Unification Church Teaches
"The invisible world was not created after the fall . . . it had been created before the creation of men, so that their spirits, after they had accomplished the purpose of creation, might go and live there forever, once they had discarded their flesh, after their physical life on earth" (DP, p. 168). "Physical [death] is not a result of the fall . . . spiritual death signifying the degradation to Satanic dominion, is the real death caused by the fall" (DP, p. 169). "The human body, once it is dissolved into dust, cannot be resurrected to its original state. It is not necessary for a spirit man to resume his flesh, when there is a vast spirit world where he is supposed to go and live forever" (DP, p. 170). "'Resurrection,' means the phenomena occurring in the process of man's restoration. . . . When we repent of our sins, making ourselves better and better, day by day, we are coming closer to resurrection" (DP, p. 170). "Paradise is the region of the spirit world where those spirit men who have attained the life-spirit stage by believing in Jesus while on earth go after death, and stay until the gate to the Kingdom of Heaven is opened" (DP, p. 177).
7. Reincarnation
What the Bible Teaches
"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). There is no biblical warrant for reincarnation or for the idea that departed spirits return to accomplish unfinished earthly missions through living people.
What The Unification Church Teaches
"The spirit men who left their missions unaccomplished on earth descend to earthly men . . . and cooperate with them for the accomplishment of the will. . . . In this case, the earthly man is the 'second coming' of the spirit man. . . . John the Baptist . . . had to accomplish the mission Elijah had left unaccomplished" (DP, pp. 187–88).
All Bible quotations are from the King James Version. Cult citations are taken directly from the source documents as reproduced in Brooks and Robertson.