MARRIAGE WITH GOD Kirsti L. Nevalainen

selves as the new divine family in God’s direct bloodlineage. 6The Unification Church or The Holy Spirit Associationfor the Unification of World Christianity was born inNorth-Korea at the end of the 1940s. Officially the UnificationChurch was founded by the Rev. Sun MyungMoon 7 in 1954 in Seoul, South Korea. The teaching ofthe Unification Church is uniquely Korean. It is a synthesisof Korean old religions Shamanism, Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism. In addition to these easternreligions the Unification Church doctrine has adoptedChristian teachings. It is a typically eastern practice ofpursuing several religious traditions simultaneously. InKorea a religious seeker can be attached to many religionsat the same time. Rev. Moon’s family convertedto the Presbyterian Church when he was ten years oldand so he became influenced by the Christian doctrine.Rev. Moon began to preach and attract followers inNorth-Korea in 1947. Mainstream Christians rejectedRev. Moon and therefore he began to associate himselfwith some new Korean Christian sects on the fringesof Christianity. These groups were highly spiritualistic,they were prophesying, speaking in tongues, receivingvisions, sinking in trances and consulting with spirits. At6 Flasche, Rainer, The Unification Church in the Context ofEast-Asian Religious Traditions in Acta Comparanda II, Antwerp:Faculteit voor vergleijkende Godsdienstwetenschappen, 1987, p.27.7 Sun Myung Moon’s original name was Mun Yong-myung.Yong means “Dragon”. He was born in a village called Sangsa-rinear a small town Jeong-ju in North Korea on 6 January 1920 as ason of the farming family.13