Unification Church’s matrilineal turn finds growing acceptance

The succession of the widow of Sun Myung Moon, Hak Ja Han, as leader of the Unification Church has brought a strong feminine and maternal dimension to church doctrine—a change that members are gradually accepting, according to Minyoung Moon of the University of North Carolina. Moon presented a paper on these changes in Unificationism at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Denver, which RW attended. Since Sun Myung Moon’s death, his widow has been introducing and emphasizing the teaching of her being “God’s only begotten daughter” as a complement to the teaching of Moon’s divine sonship. 

The researcher finds that members have adjusted and in many cases adapted to this change in church teachings. Moon finds that one group of members views Han in relation to Sun Myung Moon’s divine sonship, saying that she draws her divine authority from the founder. But another group in the church increasingly views her role as God’s only begotten daughter as being independent from Moon’s divine authority and believes that she is to be the final savior in the end times. Moon finds that American Unificationist members are more open to this egalitarian teaching. But even among more conservative Asian members, “doubt is turning into acceptance…Many are not leaving the church and are trying to find a way to reconcile their beliefs” regarding Sun Myung Moon and the maternal authority of Han.