The Life and Times of the Late Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon and his wife
at a mass wedding at Olympic Stadium, Seoul
(photo from the Guardian)

Sun Myung Moon, the self-annointed priest and leader of the Unification Church, died recently in South Korea.

Moon neatly fit into an epoch that featured a parade of odd ball personalities. If nothing else, the South Korean figure understood the power of self-propaganda, the nuances and exploitation of cult behavior, and the clout multinational financial enterprise offered.

Moon's extensive business ventures would have made even a Mormon corporate raider proud. The New York Times' obit of Moon sketched the range of commercial activity Moon and his corporate minions pursued. He was able to leverage his financial empire into spiritual activities centered around the notion that Moon himself was the true Messiah.

The late South Korean's religious activities, as well as those of the Unification Church, ranged from unquestionably bizarre to probably felonious. The church has been dogged over the years by accusations of kidnapping and brainwashing. Followers were "encouraged" to contribute heavily to the Unification Church's fiscal well being. Mass weddings of couples paired at random, such as one that took place in Madison Square Garden in 1982, contributed to an ominous sense of the emergence of a creepy cult.

None of these activities stopped a number of prominent American political conservatives from contributing editorial copy to the Moon-funded newspaper The Washington Times. Right-wing commentators didn't seem to note the incompatibility between defending individual liberty and Moon's ruthless, Stalinist-style elimination of such freedoms in the Unification Church. It's difficult to imagine right-wing Fox News contributors applauding mass weddings or even being associated with them. Yet, Moon's Washington Times became a inside-the-Beltway pulpit for political conservatives. The Unification Church's religious freak show was simply ignored.

Does anyone care who the Unification Church's next spiritual leader will be? Will Mitt Romney or Ayn Rand cultist Paul Ryan say a few words of condolence to the Unification faithful? Or did the Sun Myung Moon Show just close?