Talk:Sun Myung Moon

I am considering starting or copying an article about the Unification Church's founder. When I was at Wikipedia, back when Larry Sanger knew me there, this was not considered a problem. I had a reputation - then - for being able to write impartially on topics which I had strong viewpoints about. Whether trust earned then and there translates to "instant trust" here is not something I intend to take for granted. What's the best way to proceed? --Ed Poor 18:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's not really worth bothering with a speedy deletion. May as well start a stub on Rev. Moon. Better a stub than a red link. --Tom Morris 19:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Theology

I removed the sentence "To all but Unitarians, this is heresy", because it simultaneously takes too narrow and too broad a view. Firstly, it's not clear if Unitarians, who do not believe in the divinity of Christ at all, are properly considered Christians. They're an Abrahamic religion (discounting the merger with the Universalists), but not really Christian (except culturally). On the other hand, believing that Jesus was born purely a man, but became God, makes the Unification Church some sort of Christian, in a way which Mormons are, but Jews and Muslims and Unitarians are not. Lastly, to any non-Abrahamic religion, the question of Jesus' divinity is unimportant, and not something which could be considered heretical.

There should be a more detailed discussion of Moon's theology, but it probably belongs in Unification Church, not here, unless there were specific events/revelations in Moon's life which led him to adopt certain theological ideas. Anthony Argyriou 20:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, for Unificationists, the relationship between Rev. Moon and the Unification Church would parallel the relationship between Jesus and Christianity - only with fewer denominations. ;-)

I was raised Jewish and Episcopalian (nominally, anyway); became a Unitarian-Universalist as a teen; joined the Unification Church as an adult (if 18 years old is adulthood). So I'm interested in how the ideas of all those religions relate.

The UC, however, does not teach that Sun Myung Moon "became God", although I wonder if this is merely a verbal quibble. We say he reached "full maturity", or that he attained the Completion Stage of spiritual growth (see Stages of growth). Sorry for the red links; perhaps a Glossary of Unification Church terms is in order. I can copy one out of a book, and I'm quite sure that I can get the publisher to donate it (or any amount of text for that matter) under a free license.

More important, though, is the theological distinction between UC ideas and similar-sounding ideas of traditional Christianity and Judaism. I'm not much of a writer, but I do like to make distinctions between things which people lump together.

When we classify religions as "Christian" or non-Christian, we need to have clear criteria. Or at least we need to say whose criteria we are using. I've heard it said that for any Christian sect, you can always find another sect that calls them non-Christian. Now I'm not trying to remove the stigma of labels from anybody - that would be advocacy, and I promised Larry I would remain neutral. But I'd like to clear up any 'fog' about who's saying what about whom. --Ed Poor 12:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)