Joint Declaration Concerning the Moon Organization

September 26, 1997

Endorsed by the following:

Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Secretary General National Network of Lawyers Against the Spiritual Sales

National Parents Association of Victims of the Unification Church

The United Church of Christ in Japan Liaison Committee on Unification Association Issues

We oppose the mass communal wedding ceremony of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, i.e, the "Unification Church" or the"Moonies." We call on all peoples of the world to comprehend and join with us in dealing with the problems and dangers caused by and associated with such mass weddings.

The Unification Church is advertising that, on November 29, 1997 at the Robert Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C., it will conduct a mass communal wedding ceremony in which 360,000 heterosexual couples will participate. In its international advertisement campaign to draw participants, the Unification Church purposefully did not use its own already notorious name but used the names of cover organizations such as the Family Federation for World Peace (FFWP) and the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP). In the planned ceremony, Unification Church leader and self-proclaimed messiah Sun Myung Moon and his third wife Hak Ja Moon are to bless the participating couples. The Unification Church teaches that this ceremony is the sole way to wash away the sins if the human race and of the ancestors of the participants and to enable the participants' children to be born free of original sin. The Unification Church believers are inculcated with the idea that as long as they do not receive the blessing of this ceremony, it will be their fate and the fate of their ancestors to suffer in hell for their sins eternally, even after death. The believers are obliged to participate in the ceremony as the sole way by which they can save themselves (so the participants are made to believe). In addition, Sun Myung Moon and his wife are putting pressure on the believers to fulfill their responsibility in soliciting just one or more persons to participate in the ceremony.

However, the mass communal wedding ceremony is opposed to social norms and morals, and generates illegal conduct. Evidence of this is described below;

Persons to be married at the mass wedding ceremony do not know or are not informed of who their marital partner will be until just prior to the ceremony itself.
The Unification Church believers are told that their partner in marriages at the mass communal wedding ceremony will be chosen by Sun Myung Moon. Those who strongly believe that they will be saved if they marry a person of the opposite sex whom the "messiah" has chosen for them, come to feel that they are able to accept that person in marriage. There is absolutely no room for an individual to choose a partner based on his or her own will. Moreover, most believers, until just prior to the wedding ceremonies, do not know the name, nationality and so on of their marital partners to be. In past mass communal wedding ceremonies, there were many people at the ceremony places who were holding pictures of their future partners whom they had never met and for whose arrivals they were waiting. Men and women of different nationalities who are unable to understand each other's language and who meet each other for the first time at the wedding ceremony cannot be expected to build a harmonious family life. In Japan, two homicides have resulted between two such couples; one couple of a Japanese woman and a Korean man, and one couple of a Japanese woman and a Filipino man. Such marriages also give rise to severe family problems in Japan.
Although the Unification Church advocates its work in building ideal families, in reality it had led to the destruction of families and homes throughout the world.
Decisions of persons to participate in the wedding ceremony are not based on their free will or freedom of thought.
Believers of the Unification Church have undergone an education based on fraud and intimidation. "Video centers" are the facilities at which the teachings of the Unification Church are inculcated in the minds of people. However, the Unification Church lures prospective followers by lying to them that the video center is a place to learn about love and truth and not about religion. In many other instances, the Unification Church conceals its real identity and uses skillful methods to get close to people. Some of these methods include soliciting people under the name of conducting a written survey in an open public space, dressing up as a salesperson and making door to door visits. After people has been going to a video center for a while, they stop doubting the "passionate" and "kind" Unification Church workers and are made to think that they are responsible for saving their ancestors who are suffering in hell for sins they have committed. They feel as if they can hear their ancestors in hell calling out and asking them for help. They are made to think that unless they provide that help, they too will have the same unfortunate fate as their ancestors. At this point, they are shown the only way which they can save themselves and their ancestors. After that in moving circumstances the believers reveal Sun Myung Moon is the "genuine messiah" and the only person to preach this way of salvation.
Further, people are made to believe they will not be saved if they do not practice the teachings of Sun Myung Moon. Everyday, they are driven to collect money through solicitation and merchandise sales, under the instructions of the main branch of the Unification Church. A person's entire estate becomes the possession of, or rather should be donated to, the Unification Church. Recruitment and money collecting are daily responsibilities. Believers (man of whom live together in a commune) begin to think that it is a sin to doubt Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church even a little. That is, the Unification Church, by using the most malevolent and destructive mind control techniques, turns people into the robots of Sun Myung Moon.
In this way it would be difficult to conclude in many cases that the decision to participate in the mass communal wedding ceremony is a decision based on free will or freedom of thought when one has become a slave of Sun Myung Moon and when Sun Myung Moon decides who one's partner in marriage is to be.
Methods and means of Money Collecting Participants in the mass communal wedding ceremony are requested to pay an exorbitant amount of money as both a fee for participation and as a donation. It has been that indicated for 100,000 participants will be Japanese nationals. Each of these people are ordered to pay 300,000 yen as a participation fee and 1,400,000 yen as an obligatory donation paid in order to receive a special blessing. To come up with this excessive amount of money, many participants have lied to their family and friends, taken on difficult or hard physical labor jobs or committed illegal acts.
For the upcoming wedding ceremony, already married elderly couples have been persuaded to receive the blessing of Sun Myung Moon again for which they must pay a large sum of money. Also, in Japan, many elderly people who have lost their spouses are being made to pay large sums of money under the pretext that this money is to renew their wedding ceremony with their spouses now living in the spiritual world.
In Japan, since 1980, about 10 billion yen was collected each month through "spiritual sales" (of religious objects) - an illegal practice of selling items such as marble vases and ginseng extract at exorbitant prices.This money was sent to Sun Myung Moon. Much criticism, however, has risen since then over these ways and means of collecting money. Consequently, collecting money has become difficult.The mass communal wedding ceremony has become now an important event by which money can be raised.
A number of men who are unable to find a wife have been drawn to the Unification Church so that by becoming a member, they will be assigned a wife. These men also pay a large amount of money to the Unification Church.
The Unification Church has instigated illegal family or marriage registration and illegal residence to foreign countries.
Courts in Japan have passed legislation that the registration of a spouse to whom a Japanese national was married at a mass communal wedding is invalid. The judgments were passed following approximately 40 suits filed by former Unification Church believers.
The Unification Church makes the partners of an international marriage register their marriage in both countries so that its believers may work unpaid, live a long time and enter freely into foreign countries, not so that its believers may build their new families. In fact, legally this is a crime of perjury of an official notarized document and/or the crime of being an accomplice to that act.
At present, more than 10,000 Japanese women are being dispatched around the world. Due to the absence of these women, their homes, their young children, elderly parents and husbands are suffering. For these women believers, disobeying the instructions of Sun Myung Moon is more frightening than the destruction of their own homes and families. These women are intimidated indirectly with such threats as : "If you do not follow the order of Sun Myung Moon, you will die by the curse of the spiritual world," and "If you get married by any other way than that provided by the Unification Church, then you will not be able to bear children. If you do become pregnant, your child will be born deformed."
These women live in foreign countries and solicit people to participate in the mass communal wedding ceremony. In reality, however, they lie to such people and say that they are working as volunteers for the FFWP or the WFWP. This fact has come to light and has been broadcasted to other countries. In November 1996, a Japanese woman who was sent abroad against her will became depressed and committed suicide.
Should we support this mass communal wedding ceremony which is rife with allthese serious problems?
Former U.S. President George Bush has been co-operating with various events of the FFWP i.e. the Unification Church. Mr. George Bush has been invited to participate in the events of these organizations. Other politicians (most of whom have retired from front line politics) and other famous people have participated also as a result of Bush's example.
It is unclear whether or not these persons know that the money used to invite them to receptions and so forth came from Japanese citizens vis-a-vis illegal means. In Japan, there are several hundred people who are suing the Unification Church, at this time.
People who borrowed money from financial institutions for the Unification Church as a result of lies and threats, are suffering now due to their inability to pay back those loans. Over the past 10 years since 1987, we lawyers have heard complaints from about 18,000 people who were claiming sums totaling 67,900,000,000 yen. Still these people represent only a fraction of all those who have become victims of the Unification Church.
For Sun Myung Moon, his teachings and his abundant wealth are more important than the victims he has created and the sufferings faced by his believers.
We caution you not to be taken advantage of by the Unification Church, as Mr George Bush has been, and to take care not to become a victim of the Unification Church mind control.
We would like to gain your understanding that the mass communal wedding ceremony sponsored by the Unification Church is against society, is illegal and should be prohibited. We declare our opposition and strong protest to the fraudulent ceremony.