Michael Breen is a consultant and writer, who first went to Korea as a correspondent in 1982. He covered North and South Korea at different times for The Washington Times, The Guardian and The Times. He was the president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club for three years during South Korea's period of democratization, and has traveled widely in North Korea. He is married with three children, and lives in Sussex England.
Sun Myung Moon, The Early Years, 1920-53
By Michael Breen
Contents: Acknowledgments 8
Preface 9
Note on Korean names and spelling 121. The Moon Village 15
2. The Conversion 28
3. The Crying Church 38
4. Emoto Ryumei 47
5. The Second Israel 61
6 . Jerusalem of the East 72
7. Death Camp 89
8. Forty Days in Pyongyang 113
9. The Refugee Trail 120
10 The Rock of Tears 138
The Communist regime in North Korea probably provided the most straightforward answer in 1948 when it found Moon guilty of, among other things, of "bringing disorder to society." As the founder of a new religious movement, Moon, like other such religious figures, disturbs society. The North Korean response was to sentence him to five years in a labor camp. Conditions in the prison were so severe that hundreds died of exhaustion and starvation. Describing this period, Moon has said that his constant prayer was, "God, don't worry about me." His sense was that, if God could free him, he would. Since God couldn't, to remind God of his suffering and plead for help would cause God anguish. And so there are two Sun Myung Moon's, the widely known disturber of society, and the man who doesn't want to hurt God's feelings. This book is about the lesser known man And it should be, for if religious leaders are remembered, it is for their faith, their convictions and how these were expressed in their life and in the lives of their followers, not for the people they upset.
It is my conviction that, when the dust has settled, Sun Myung Moon will be remembered primarily for one lesson. That is, that God has passion. Moon's views are premised on a belief that God is not the comatose creator or thoughtful intellectual of some modern belief, nor the brute of ancient faiths. His God feels, acutely, and longs for a full and independent relationship with each person While this view may not be original, Moon is unique in the way he has brought it to center stage in his personal spirituality. Since his late teens, he has pursued to the point of obsession one overriding goal: to free God from what he perceives to be a cosmic agony, caused by his wayward creation, humankind. Moon has sought to mend God's broken heart, to be his devoted child, and his healer. His message is, of course, that we should endeavor to be the same. Until we are, God is miserable, he believes.
This book does not seek to persuade the reader of this notion . Rather, it was conceived to explore how Moon's views of God developed and were given expression in the earlier period of his life before the founding of the Unification Church in 1954.
It is an unauthorized work. Stories among Unificationists that Moon had once taken a hammer to a statuette made of him by a follower, and declined to cooperate with a request by a Japanese follower to do a biography, convinced me not to seek any input from the subject. Thus, both the official biography and the full story of this period of Moon's life remains to be written.
In the early stages of research, I ignored written Unificationist sources, because most of the material about Moon is in the form of transcripts of speeches by leading followers. As these were given for the purpose of uplifting or converting audiences, they are suspect as history. The information in this book is based mainly on interviews, which were conducted over several years. The sources included Moon's family members, fellow prisoners, and early followers, some of whom are still with him and some who later opposed him. All the sources were primary. In other words, I took no account of commentators who did not have first hand experience of what they were testifying about. Primary sources, of course, present their own set of problems. One is dishonesty. Some sought to exaggerate their importance in Moon's life or to understandably minimize incidents which placed them or their family members in a poor light. One frustration was that some who had left Moon had forgotten the details of incidents which were significant for our story, but which now meant little to them.
I should note that personal recollections, especially of events which took place decades earlier, do not submit to precision. In some cases, sources contradicted each other. The judgment on relative credibility is mine and, where I am unsure, the differences are explained in endnotes. Where sources were unavailable, the text relies on previously published information, as indicated by endnotes.
Early on in the research, one elderly Korean follower expressed polite irritation at my insistence on detail, and proposed that I pay closer attention to the meaning of Sun Myung Moon's experience. I am aware that some Unificationists may consider that, in ignoring this advice and presenting the details with a minimum of comment, the narrative may detract from the meaningfulness of Moon's life. To this, I can only say that this is the work of a journalist. It was not written with a conscious view to making Moon's spirituality more accessible to his followers. However, it does occur to me in my own defense that the ordinary details do make a spiritual man human, and that his humanity makes him accessible. Having said that, I apologize if any should take offence at any part of this book, for none is intended. While I have striven to maintain objectivity in order to avoid hagiography, I am not required to remain neutral. This book is conceived as a friendly biography about an extraordinary man.
At the same time, I am also aware that many non Unificationist readers have serious and genuinely held concerns about the impact of Moon's teachings. I will have failed in my task if these readers find that my approach comes across as hagiography in thin disguise. While I would not claim to have produced a comprehensive interpretation of Moon, I do hope that this work sheds at least partial light on the formative and least known part of his life, in a way that will help readers in making their own assessment.
Seoul, September 1997
Notes on Korean Names and Spelling
Korean names are difficult for readers of English at the best of times, and are downright confusing when they appear as frequently as they do in this text. The reader may wish to consult the list of names, at the end of the book (p. 188), of people who figure in the narrative.
Korean names start with a one syllable or, in rare cases, a two syllable family name. The two syllables which follow are the given name, for example, someone named Kim Kyung Ja would be called Miss Kim in formal circumstances and Kyung Ja by her friends. Of these two .syllables, one is a generational name shared by siblings and cousins. So, Kyung Ja's cousin might be called Kyung Mee. Sometimes given names only have one syllable. In the west, many Koreans invert their names. Moon is known in Korea as Moon Sun Myung. In the west he is known as Sun Myung Moon. I have maintained this inverted form as readers will be more familiar with it. However, in the text I have hyphenated the first two syllables to maintain consistency with other Korean names, and to re mind readers that his given name is 'Sun Myung', not 'Sun', as he is sometimes mistakenly called. An exception has also been made, for the same reason of familiarity, with Syngman Rhee, the first south Korean president. In Korea he is Rhee Syng Man.
There is no uniformly accepted system or rendering Korean words into the English alphabet, so I have transliterated for accuracy and simplicity. Where necessary, simplicity has been sacrificed for accuracy; For example, in the place names Heungnam, Heuksok dong and Dok heung ri, the 'e' could be dropped. However, it is retained to distinguish the vowel, which is like the 'u' in the southern English rendering of 'hurt', from the 'u' in 'hung' Long words have been broken up by hyphens to make them easier to read. With well known names, the author has accepted the common spellings. The city of Pusan, for example, should be and often is spelled 'Busall' Iikewise, Syngman Rhee should really be Lee Seung Man [12]
Sun Myung Moon, The Early Years, 1920-53
By Michael Breen
Chapter 1
The Moon Village
A few miles to the west was Jeongju, a town of just under ten thousand inhabitants and a stop on the country's main railway. It carried travelers and freight north to the Manchurian border and south to the capital Seoul, and on, down the length of the peninsula, to the southern port city Pusan. Jeongju county sloped gently down from the mountains and spread over five hundred and fifty square miles of fertile coastal land. It was the leading rice producing county of North Pyong-an Province and also had a thriving fishing industry. The plains were rich in peat and in the mountains there was gold.
The county town and its small surrounding villages had their share of prominent sons. During the Yi dynasty, before the Japanese annexed the country in 1910, more students from Jeongju county passed the prestigious higher civil service exam than from any other area of Korea, including Seoul. Two prominent literary figures of this century, the poet Kim So Wol and the writer Lee Kwang Su, were locals. Remains of the Moon home in Sangsa-ri in present day North Korea (HSA-UWC, Seoul) Market day in Jeongju, the town near Moon's village, in the early part of the century The families in 'Moon Village' and neighboring Morum Village farmed the land, growing rice, millet, corn, beans, cabbages and radishes. At least half rented their fields, surrendering half their produce as payment to the landowners. The best quality rice was not for the eating, at least not at local tables. After the Japanese took over, it was taken to Jeongju, where there was a market every five days, processed into brown rice and sent to Japan. The villagers mostly ate millet in place of rice, with corn, beans and pickled cabbage and radish. They kept chickens for their eggs, and ate beef, pork or chicken on special occasions usually birthdays. It was a difficult life but nobody starved.
Other villages nearby also consisted almost entirely of clans. One cluster of two hundred households was known as the Lower Chun Village. Another settlement consisted of fifteen Chun families. Further down the road were two Cho Villages. Sangsa-ri was a nondescript village with no particular meaning l in contrast to other more distinguished sounding places nearby like 'Knowing-the-Tao-Village' and 'Giving-Pure-Water-Village.' One of the Cho villages was a yangban, or upper class, settlement. A yangban person, whose claim to superiority rested with his forbears' success in having once passed the civil service examination in the days before Japanese rule, rarely worked with his hands. To do so was beneath his dignity. He often preferred to live in abject poverty and appear, at least, to concern himself with moral self cultivation. Commoners were supposed to stoop in a gesture of respect when they walked by yangban individuals or even their villages.
The Moons of Sangsa-ri were commoners, descended from a clan which traces its origins to the fifth century and one Moon Da Song, who lived in Nampyong near the South Korean city of Kwangju. 2 The best known ancestor is Moon Ik Jum who, according to the standard school history texts in South Korea, was the person who introduced cotton to Korea. He was the secretary to a Koryo dynasty diplomat and in 1363 smuggled the first cotton seeds across the Chinese border inside his writing brushes. His father in law planted the seeds and built a gin and spinning wheel to make the cotton, which became the standard material for clothing, replacing the rough hemp which Koreans had used until then. Sun Myung Moon's family is descended from Ik Jum's third son, who moved to the north-west to take up a government post in the late fourteenth century.
Aside from the record of the names of the male ancestors in the clan book, little else is known about Sun Myung's forbears until the mid 1880s when they settled in Sangsa-ri. Sun Myung and his cousins were told that their great grandfather Jong Ul was noted for his kindness. He was known as 'Sun Ok', which means 'virtuous jewel'. 3 It was said that, in Jong Ul's time, the Moons did not have to take their rice to market as other farmers did. Apparently they gave such generous measures that customers would come to them. They made less money but they earned a good reputation, so much so that their children were high on the matchmakers' lists of marriage candidates. Beggars were also treated well at Moon Jong Ul's house. One poor woman used to go round the county selling dried fish which she carried in a basket on her head. Jong Ul used to give her rice for free. Villagers remember hearing a story that Jong Ul once bought a duck and set it free on the way home from market.
"If I hadn't bought it and set it free someone would have eaten it," he is said to have remarked. 4 It was common in old Korea for people to buy birds, fish, and even turtles, and set them free in the hope that the kindness would be repaid. The point of this anecdote to Koreans is not that Jong Ul was nice to animals, but that he sought good fortune for his family. An even more significant act, at least as far as his descendants are concerned, was the construction of an ancestral shrine and burial ground. He sold a two acre plot, despite the family's relative poverty, to buy the ground. From the viewpoint of Confucian ethics, such an exemplary act of filial piety ensured that his lineage would be blessed.
When Jong Ul died in 1918 Chi Kook, the eldest of his three sons, took over as head of the family, assuming responsibility for the Confucian ancestral observances. Chi Kook appears to have been, above all, a man of intuition. He was the first to recognize that his second grandson, Sun Myung, was special, and instructed the family to support his education, an important decision in a country where most children did not receive even primary schooling. 5 Sun Myung's cousins still recall the judgments grandfather passed about him. "He will either be very great or very evil, " he said when word came in the 1940s that the Communist authorities had thrown Sun Myung in prison.
Grandfather Chi Kook said that the family should not join the exodus northward to Manchuria to escape Japanese oppression during the twenties and thirties. "In the future, America and Japan will fight," he predicted, citing the ancient Korean book of prophecy, the Chung-gam-nok. 6 He said the family should move South, either to the mountains of Kang won Province, or to Mount Gye ryong in South Chungchong Province, which is still considered by some religious sects to be the spiritual capital of Korea. His youngest brother and the younger men of the family took his advice, as we shall see, but Chi Kook stayed put. He was still alive, in his eighties, when the Communists took over North Korea and the border was sealed. In their old age, Chi Kook and his wife lived with their eldest son, Kyung Yoo. The house was built in four sections around a court yard. 7 There were rooms for grandparents, parents, the eldest son and his family, and two for the children. In addition, of course, there was a kitchen, toilet, store rooms and a small barn for the farm animals. Kyung Yoo was responsible for the sa-dang, the special room where the names of the ancestors were written and where the Confucian ceremonies were performed. Kyung Yoo's brother Kyung Bok and his cousin Kyung Chun, were his next door neighbors. 8
Kyung Yoo, who was Sun Myung's father, was a gentle round faced man. Although a farmer, he had received some schooling and was well versed in the Confucian classics. He was fond of the sayings of sages. The Moon cousins say they never heard him say a cross word to anyone in his life, not even to his own children. Korean fathers in Kyung Yoo's day usually left child rearing and family matters to their wives and became involved only in major decisions about marriage, education and employment; particularly if they concerned the eldest son. Fathers tended to live on the periphery of family life, drinking with friends and worrying alone about the farm and the future. But Kyung Yoo was more devoted to his family than most. He did not smoke or drink. He was kind to the beggars who came round and even invited them to rest in his home. 9 Sun Myung Moon referred to this himself in an address to Unificationists:
"My own family had this kind of tradition They never let anybody leave our home with an empty stomach. Our home used to be like a beggars' gathering place: all the poorest people of the vicinity knew they would be treated well, so they came to our home. Not one was mistreated. My mother served our grandparents and she also served the passing beggars. She would feed them whenever they came by. This was a heavy physical ordeal for my mother. On one occasion she did not feed a beggar, so my father took his own meal and gave it to him. So my mother had to feed the beggars, otherwise my father would be hungry. 10 While Sun Myung's father was somewhat scholarly and measured in his actions, his mother acted with spontaneity. "My mother intuitively decided what was good, while my father waited and reasoned everything out slowly before making decisions," he once said. So they were always in some conflict over decisions. 11
Kim Kyung Gye, Moon's mother
(HSA-UWC, Seoul)
In both character and appearance Sun Myung took more after his mother than his father. A tall handsome woman, Kim Kyung Gye was born in a nearby village in 1888, 12 one of twelve children. 13 She joined the Moon household in a marriage arranged between the two families around 1905 when the Russians and Japanese were at war over Korea and Manchuria. That she was sixteen and her husband only twelve when they married was not unusual. In fact, it was typical. In those days it was not uncommon to see wives waiting outside school to take their young husbands home after class.
Of her twelve children, eight survived. Two daughters died of illness before Sun Myung Moon was born. In the absence of modern medicine there was always worry about disease. During her sixth pregnancy, the influenza epidemic of 1918, which took some twenty million lives around the world, struck eighty per cent of the population of north-west Korea, killing many. When she was carrying Sun Myung, there was an outbreak of cholera and a poor harvest due to drought, to add to her fears.
Several months before Sun Myung's birth, the fortune teller 'Pak the Blindman', who lived in the next village, had predicted that 'a great man' would be born in the Moon clan. The local shaman, who went by the unusual and resounding name of Dong Bang Chang Bong, concurred.' 14 The seven Moon households, which were in a permanent baby boom, did not know which pregnant mother was being referred to and did not argue the point. Hope was scarce and the Soothsayers, who tapped a mysterious and feared world, were appreciated for the encouragement they provided. For his mother, a prophecy that a baby would survive would have been comfort enough.
The villagers were accustomed to signs and prophecies. Early one morning in the Moon Village, one of the women noticed a gold colored crane in the trees near her house. The next day it appeared again. No one saw where it nested. In fact, it may not have been a real bird at all. Moon's cousin, Yong Gi, describes it as a real bird, while his brother Yong Sun, says it was "a phenomenon" which their mother "saw". They remember being told that every day for three years, it flew off eastward and appeared the next morning. In early 1919 it stopped coming. Villagers took it as a sign, stirring within them a sense that they were not forgotten by God. Whether it was real or imagined, the unusual bird may have especially inspired Grandfather Chi Kook's youngest brother, Yoon Kook, who was the local Presbyterian minister, and one of his elders Lee Myong Nyong. Both men were fervently opposed to Japan's colonial subjugation of Korea and longed for their country's freedom. They were typical of the religious activists who were to assume the mantle of moral leadership, lost by the emperor and the nobility after they signed away the country, without a struggle, to Japan.
Moon Yoon Kook, the minister, had been a school teacher when he converted to Christianity in 1910. This year Korea became a Japanese colony and was renamed Chosen. In 1918, at the age of forty, he graduated from the Union Theological Seminary in the city of Pyongyang, and became the pastor of three churches, the Dok Heung Presbyterian Church in Morum village and the nearby Dosung and Yunbong churches. Elder Lee Myong Nyong was the wealthiest man in Morum village and was to become one of the country's best known nationalist figures.
For the Japanese authorities the Christian churches presented a looming threat. The churches were the only independent organizations left in the country after the Japanese takeover, and believers became imbued with the foreign ideas of liberty and personal freedoms introduced by western missionaries. The inevitable clash came in l911, when a hundred and five people were tried on a trumped up charge of plotting to assassinate the Japanese Governor general. Ninety eight of the defendants were Christian, half of them from the town of Jeongju. The incident became known as the Conspiracy Case, and it singled out the north-west as a strong center of Christian resistance.
On March 1st 1919, Christian, Buddhist and Chondo-kyo 15 leaders took the authorities by complete surprise by declaring Korea's independence. The thirty three signatories of the Independence Declaration, who included Elder Lee Myong Nyong were immediately arrested. But in the weeks that followed over two million Koreans from all social strata backed their call in hundreds of demonstrations throughout the country. It was the greatest mass movement in Korean history.
The Japanese responded to it with savagery. According to nationalist figures, 7.500 Koreans were killed, and 50.000 arrested. "In Tyungju (Jeongju) people were shot down and run through with bayonets like pigs," the Korean Independent newspaper reported. The pastor of the Presbyterian church in the town was "beaten almost to a jelly and his church burned, according to a missionary report. Rev Moon Yoon Kook led a rally of 10.000 at the Osan Academy, according to a handwritten life story discovered years after his death. The school was ransacked by police and set on fire.
The national uprising was crushed. It had neither sapped Japanese morale nor won anything more than sympathy from the Christian nations. But despite this political failure, something had changed. Seventeen million oppressed Koreans, dulled by a strict, centuries old caste system, bullied throughout their history by stronger powers, and now deprived of their nation, had struck out with a single voice. Korea had rediscovered its soul. 16
Rev. Moon Yoon Kook was arrested, tortured and sentenced to two years in prison. on his release, he returned to the village and resumed preaching. His passion for Korea's independence burned more strongly than before, and would continue to get him into trouble with the Japanese authorities. In the aftermath of the uprising, independence activists had split, some turning to guerrilla activity and some to the new ideas of the Russian, Chinese and Japanese Communist parties. Yoon Kook threw his lot in with the provisional government set up in April of 1919 by nationalist exiles in Shanghai, China.
The exiled politicians badly needed funds. Yoon Kook felt the family should give everything it had to support the independence cause, but knew he would not be able to convince them. He decided to trick them into making a donation. He persuaded his eldest brother, Grandfather Chi Kook, to sell the family land, saying they should invest the money in a coal mine in Kang won Province. Chi Kook agreed, much to the disgust of his daughter in law, Sun Myung's mother. She secretly put some of her own money down on some land near her family's village a few miles away. Sure enough, Yoon Kook's alleged mine never came through and the family fortune, seventy thousand Won, a considerable sum, was lost. 17 Sun Myung Moon's mother sold her new land and the family was able to buy three plots, about six acres, near the house. She had saved them from destitution. As a result of this incident, she would always look back on the strange golden crane as a harbinger of misfortune. Yoon Kook, once the respected Presbyterian pastor, was now no longer trusted by the family. "He was always looked upon as a fool," one of his relatives remembered. Under constant police surveillance, he resigned from his three churches and, in 1928, left the village to hide from the authorities, returning occasionally to see his wife and three children.
It was not until 1965 that the truth of Yoon Kook's story came out and he was vindicated. The Moon cousins in South Korea discovered that their great uncle Yoon Kook had in fact escaped to the South before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, and died in a remote village as a penniless calligraphy teacher in 1959. He left behind a handwritten account of his life from which these incidents are taken. 18 In his testimony, the old Christian independence fighter describes how he found himself up against a new enemy:
"I was separated from my wife, my children and my relatives. With tears in my eyes, I walked toward the South and pledged to God: 'I am separated from my elderly wife and my young son. I pray to you, and will follow the clouds to the South. I will endure and will work for democracy in this country. Even if they kill me, I will never follow the Communists in North Korea.' After a long journey across mountains and rivers, I finally arrived at my cousin's house."
The family fool became the family hero. The Moons petitioned the Seoul government to have Yoon Kook recognized for his contribution to the independence movement. Government investigators were able to substantiate all the main elements of Yoon Kook's story, except for the donation to the provisional government, which did not record and issue receipts for such gifts. Yoon Kook was designated a Special Patriot, and is now buried in the Unification Church Cemetery in Paju, near the border with North Korea.
Sun Myung Moon was born, halfway through his great uncle Yoon Kook's prison term, on February 25, 1920, which in that year was January 6 according to the lunar calendar by which Koreans record their birthday. 19 He was named Yong Myung. He was to change his name to Sun Myung in the 1950s after his escape to the South during the Korean War. 20 That first summer, his mother nursed him and laid him on the floor, fanning him and watching his growth as the weeks went by. In the winter, he sat strapped to her back, wrapped in quilted cotton, quietly taking in the wider world. By the time he was taking his first steps, his mother was already pregnant again, and he was given over more and more to the care of his elder sisters. "Yong Meng!" they called him in the local accent. "Yong Meng A! " and he would come running, his face beaming, burned brown by the summer sun.
As a child, he was strong and wild, just like the stereotypical Pyongan Province character, who is said to be like 'a tiger coming out of the bushes.' This tiger proved difficult to control. In fact, his parents felt that he controlled them. His mother told one of his followers years later, that she had never been able to discipline him. A cousin remembered that she did smack him once when he was about six years old. She hit him so hard, he fell down and lost consciousness for a while. It shocked her so much she never did it again.
Villagers said they recognized that from the age of five he had an unusual character. 21 When he had tantrums, he would thrash around so much on the rough floor that he would scrape the skin off the back of his hands or the back of his head. When he cried, he would continue for hours or even days. Once, his uncle Kyung Chun, who was considered the village elder, came into the house after watching Sun Myung playing and said, "That boy will either become a king or a terrible traitor." The family understood his meaning, that under colonial rule it was impossible for a Korean to become king, so Sun Myung would probably end up becoming an underground leader and cause a lot of trouble for the Moon clan.
Moon himself has not talked a great deal about his early memories. But he recalled in one talk that as a young child he was intuitive about people and could see them as they were spiritually. 22 He has also said that he felt an acute rage at injustice from an early age. 23 He developed a love of nature. He has told followers that once, as a young boy, after praying outdoors, he felt as if the grass and trees were appealing to him, telling him they were abandoned by mankind. 24 His life was that of the typical poor, farming family. With most villagers being part of the extended family, relationships were close. As an indication of the earthy intimacy of the atmosphere in which he was raised, he once talked in a sermon to Korean followers how, as a very young child, he would identify the feces of his parents and siblings in the outhouse. 25
Villagers wore traditional, homemade white clothes. The men had a waistcoat, jacket, and baggy trousers, while the women wore long dresses. In winter a cotton lining was sown in. The nature of rice farming, and the irrigation and transplanting involved, meant that they had to work together. Some of the best times would be when there was joint project like building or thatching someone's house. All the relatives would join in. There would be much horseplay, and many contradictory orders barked, more out of self assertion than strategy. In the kitchen, women would joke and curse and keep the food and drink flowing. The children scampered around, stopped at times to help or get in the way and then break for wrestling. The children played tamachigi, a game with beads, and batchi, in which you stack up bits of cardboard and try to win your opponent's stack by throwing a coin on them. If you miss, he gets the money.
Until he was around ten years old, Sun Myung was mischievous and wrestled a lot with other boys. They didn't pick fights with him because he was strong and they were afraid he would beat them. Once when he was around nine years old he got into a serious scrap with a village boy called Lee, who was three or four years older. 26 It began as horseplay and developed into a brawl, with Lee getting the upper hand. The villagers gathered round to watch, knowing Sun Myung's character, and curious as to how he would handle a beating. Although he was underneath, Sun Myung refused to concede and he kept on wriggling and kicking. Lee couldn't let go and he couldn't stay where he was. He looked at the adults, hoping one would step in and stop it, but no one moved. Lee began to cry and let his opponent go. Unleashed, Sun Myung jumped astride the older boy, grabbed his ears and began banging his head on the ground. At that point the adults stepped in to stop the fight.
Shortly after this incident, Sun Myung stopped fighting. He became more thoughtful and laconic. "He seemed to weigh his words and be thinking deeply about things," his cousin Seung Gyun remembered. Sun Myung was close to his elder brother, Yong Soo. "I have a wonderful brother who really loves me," he told American followers in 1965. "He has had some spiritual experiences. In fact, he is the (only) one in my family who even dimly understood my mission " 27 Yong Soo began to feel that his younger brother was very special and later was to share his religious fervor. Once, Yong Soo remonstrated with Sun Myung's first wife for complaining about his devotion to his religious work. "You don't know about him. You don't understand him," he told her. "He will be a great man." 28 As the elder brother, Yong Soo was destined to inherit the farm and did not receive the education which Sun Myung had. He stayed with his parents when the Communists took over in 1945. When Moon returned to North Korea in 1991 for the first time since the Korean War, Yong Soo's widow told him he had been killed during the Korean War when an American plane bombed the village and partially destroyed the house. 29 Sun Myung's early schooling was the traditional instruction in Chinese characters, which had been taught in Korea for centuries. The classroom, or so-dang, had no desks or chairs. Students sat on the wooden floor and were instructed in the Confucian texts. Cousin Yong Sun, who was six months younger than Sun Myung was a classmate. "There were about forty children in our so-dang," he recalled. "We started around eight or nine o'clock in the morning, and went till around five p.m., with a break for lunch. We brought our lunch in a box." If the weather was too hot or too cold, they would get the day off and go fishing, or, in the winter, skating. Otherwise it was school seven days a week.
The so-dang education lasted seven years. 30 For the first year, they were taught by Moon Hyong Chong in the so-dang, attached to the church in Morum village, where great uncle Yoon Kook was still the minister. There Sun Myung started to learn the basic one thousand Chinese characters, 31 studying for four years under Pak Chang Je and Chong Shin Taek at the so-dang next to Pak-the-Blind-Man's house. He then studied for two years in Sangsa ri under Pak Ki Ho. By the time he was thirteen, he knew the essential Chinese characters by heart and had studied the sayings of the sages. The study of the philosophical sayings and of history and literature was, in theory, intended to make the pupil an ethical young citizen, and equip him for social advancement rather than a job. He learned that, in the Confucian view, the family rather than the individual is the smallest social unit. That the virtues that characterize the ideal man are loyalty, fidelity and other virtues that manifest in relationships, rather than individual qualities such as bravery or humility. Confucian morality, he learned, focused upon proper relationships. The core of the system was filial piety. As the 19th century Korean scholar Chong Yak Yong put it: "The studies of the Confucian gentleman begin with attending parents and end with the attendance of Heaven." Whether Sun Myung Moon was a proper little Confucian gentleman as far as his teachers were concerned is another matter. According to cousin Seung Gyun, who studied with him, Sun Myung was the star pupil in calligraphy. He was often asked to show the class how to write a particular Chinese character properly. He one upped his fellow scholars by mastering two original techniques holding the brush in his mouth and between his toes. "One day we were messing around and he wrote some characters with the brush in his teeth and toes. The other kids wrote by hand and then took the work to the teacher for grading. 'Who's is this?' the teacher asked. This is so and so's, they answered. And this one is Yong Myung writing with his toes: The teacher got angry and scolded him." He grew to be a sturdy adolescent. "Like an Alder tree," said one villager. The picture that emerged in interviews was of a child who was highly active, always running, never walking, and into everything. He used to stick his hands into holes in the thatched roofs, searching for birds' nests. In fact, catching birds was a major pastime. At night, the Moon boys would sneak up to firewood Piles where sparrows nested. One would throw a net over one end of the stack while the others banged the wood at the other end to frighten a bird, which flew straight into the net. There was then a problem of how to hold the bird while they looked for the next one. If they put it in the pocket of their tunic it would fly out. The solution was to put it inside their baggy trousers, which were tied at the ankles. At the end of the evening they would cook the sparrows for the younger children. 32 Once, Sun Myung caught a pair of birds and put them in a cage to watch them mate. "I wanted to watch them Sing and express their love for each other," he said. "Of course, later I came to realize that genuine love can only be fulfilled in a natural environment, not in a cage. This was one of the naughty things I did in my childhood . . . The natural world taught me a more fundamental kind of knowledge than school did." 33 He also invented his own gun for shooting birds. It was a barrel made from an umbrella and had a long wooden handle. He put match ends into the barrel and used buckshot. Another prank was to sneak into his uncle's honey melon field. Instead of just eating one melon, Sun Myung in his haste would rip up the vine and hold it up so he could see the melons. When his uncle came to the field in the morning, he knew who was to blame. Sun Myung and his cousins were scolded. 34 When they went collecting chestnuts, he always tried to get the nuts at the top of the tree, just for the challenge. He tied sticks together to reach them. Then he gave the nuts to the younger kids. One day when he was about ten or eleven years old, he followed a weasel all night, tracking it through the snow, before he caught it. He returned home in the morning. His parents' anger was tempered by the fact that they could sell the weasel for the equivalent in today's money of about $150. In the summer, the local children used to catch fish in a shallow stream. They used a net, but the fish moved so fast it was difficult to catch them. On one occasion, he asked his cousin Seung Gyun to run through the water behind him with the net. This way Sun Myung disturbed the fish, which regrouped behind him just in time to be scooped up by Seung Gyun. With this new technique, they outsmarted the fish and caught two or three with every run. However, the best display of Sun Myung's youthful ingenuity was in the way he caught eels. It was possible to net them, but that was too simple. He liked to grab the small eels, squeeze them till their mouths opened, stick his thumb in their mouths, and then fling them out onto the bank. Another method was to block all the holes they went into, except one, and grab them as they came out. But by far the best technique, for style, was catching them in his teeth. "He would put his head underwater with his mouth near the eel hole," Seung Gyun recalled. "The eel would come out tail first and he grabbed it in his teeth. Then he held my head under while I did it. I protested that it made my gums sore and suggested we use a net, but he said it would be too easy." A warning to Seung Gyun to be careful, in case the eel darted down his throat, didn't encourage him much. In this way they could catch twenty eels in a day. They would string them on a wire, take them home and stink the village out.
Chapter 2
The Conversion
The conversion of the Moon family to Christianity was precipitated by a spate of disasters which struck around 1931. It began when Sun Myung's sister, Hyo Shim developed some kind of mental sickness. The cause of the illness is not clear but her relatives believed it was spiritual. They said it began with the shamanist ceremonies held by her in-laws to appease the spirit of a tiger which had killed one of their ancestors. The rites involved putting dog meat on an altar as an offering to the tiger. This was all too superstitious for Hyo Shim who, out of cynical bravado, once ate some of the meat during a ceremony. The deep seated fear of spirits, which shamanism had instilled in most Koreans, must have risen and ravaged her mind. The locals said the spirit of the tiger got her. The family brought a Christian healer, an elder Sohn, from the Nam so myon church in Jeongju, where her sister lived, and she began to improve. 1 When she recovered, the 'tiger' got Sun Myung's older brother, Yong Soo. He developed the same symptoms. He couldn't control his emotions and he went around frightening people. He became so disturbed for a while that he had to stop work. He was also taken to the same faith healer and cured.
At the same time, there was a series of mishaps in the house of one of Sun Myung's uncles, named Kyung Koo: the dog chewed off one of the baby's ears; then a large pot fell on the dog and broke its back. A chimney, a large hollowed out tree trunk, toppled over and smashed all the earthenware jars where the food was kept. The family's animals all died: the ox, the horse and in a freak accident, the seven pigs which gotten out of the pen one night drowned in a shallow well. Faced with so many apparently inexplicable disasters, they must have believed that either a disturbed ancestor or a host of spirits had it in for them. It must have seemed that the Moon's brother, Yong-Soo, whose surviving family in north Korea allege was killed during an American air raid in the Korean War (HSA-UWC, Seoul) ancestors they venerated in Confucian ceremonies at home, were either angry or powerless. Sun Myung's family, and his two uncles and their families started attending church on the advice of another uncle, Kyung Chun, who lived next door and whose family had been Christian for many years. As the Presbyterians disapproved of the traditional observances, Sun Myung's father handed over the responsibilities for ancestral rites, which he bore as the eldest son, to his brother Kyung Bok. Sun Myung and his brother, by now recovered from his illness, took to the new religion with a zest. They attended church regularly and began to say grace before meals. Often they would walk into the hills to pray. Thus began Sun Myung's spiritual journey into which he characteristically threw his energies. If the story of the Moons' conversion reached the American Presbyterian missionaries in nearby Soonchon, none appears to have written about it. It is not surprising. It would have been only one among hundreds that year, for the north-west was the fastest growing Christian region in the country. This was considered by Protestant churches, after almost fifty years of mission work, as a miracle of growth. 2
About a third of the villagers in Sangsa ri and Monum were churchgoers. Early converts had established the church in Morum village around the turn of the century. In 1930 it had been rebuilt four hundred yards down the track toward Sangsa ri, about two hundred yards from the Moons' house. Under principles adopted by Protestant missions shortly after their establishment at the end of the 19th century, churches were built and operated with funds provided by the congregation, not by the mission headquarters. Despite the problems it created for some churches, this principle was later seen as a key factor in the overall growth of Korean Christianity. It created a sense of ownership among the believers at a time of colonial rule, when everything else was being taken away from them. New practices and rules were being imposed on them by a foreign power. Fortunately for the Christians in Morum and Sangsa ri, the church elder and independence activist, Lee Myong Nyong was a wealthy landowner He supplied most of the money for the reconstruction. The young minister at the church was Rev. Gye Hyo On, who had replaced Sun Myung's great uncle, Yoon Kook, in 1927. Shortly after his family's conversion to Christianity, Sun Myung's younger brother and youngest sister fell sick. 4 With the lack of medical treatment at the time their illness was not even diagnosed. They were given herbal medicines, but both died. The bereavement took the family beyond the original motive for conversion, which had been to seek the backing of the powerful Christian God. They were hoping to end the run of bad fortune and deepen their new faith. His own grief, and the pain of seeing his parents grieve for their children, underscored for the young Sun Myung Moon what was later to become his core teaching: that of God as the grieving parent of a lost mankind. God too, has lost his sons and daughters. This response to the perceived feelings of God would inform his faith far more profoundly than the concerns for personal salvation or national liberation which fired the Christians with whom he later associated. Around this time, he completed his seven year Confucian education. He then attended a school called the Unyong Institute in nearby Wonbong-dong for one year. The hundred or so students at the school could not afford the western style elementary school education The standard was below average. After a year he left, and enrolled at the age of fourteen in the third grade of the Osan Elementary School where he learned new subjects - Korean script, geography, history, mathematics. The school, founded by a prominent Christian nationalist, Lee Seung Hoon, was considered the best in the region. Every day, he and his cousin Seung Gyun, who was in the second grade, walked the six miles to the school, leaving at seven o'clock every morning to get there by the time classes started at nine. Seung Gyun's recollection of the daily hike provides an insight into Sun Myung's tough, dynamic character as a boy: "He walked very fast. I had to run to keep up with him. When I caught up with him, he would pull ahead again. It was across country and we passed some houses on the way. Most people couldn't afford to send their children to school and sometimes students would be attacked by poorer boys on the Lee Myong Nyong, and elder at the village church, was one of the 33 signatories to Koea's 1919 thwarted declaration of independence (Lee Dae Young) way to school. But they didn't pick fights with him because he was strongly built." 5
After a year at the Osan School, they switched schools again and enrolled in the state run Jeongju Elementary School. Moon has said the decision to change was his, not his parents'. Japanese was not taught at Osan, and he wanted to learn the language in order to "know our enemy." 6 He entered the fourth grade and completed the fifth and sixth grades before graduating. Education, which was not compulsory in Korea at the time, was divided between the Confucian and modern styles. At the state school, however, the study of Japanese ethics, introduced after the independence protests of 1919, was mandatory. There were fifteen hundred students at the school. Sun Myung was older than most of the boys in his class, although some of the students were in their twenties and had children of their own. During the summer vacations he attended courses at the village church, where about twenty five village boys, mostly those who didn't go to school, studied reading, writing, mathematics and Japanese. The school was taught by Rev. Gye and a high school student, Kang Dosun. In his early teens, Sun Myung began to develop a longing to do something great and meaningful. "I had a strong desire to live a high life, a life of high dimension," he told an American audience in 1965. Such idealism was not unusual in itself, but its scope and expression were remarkable in that they were not limited by awe of saints, nor even of Christ himself. At thirteen, he said, he began praying for extraordinary things. "I asked for wisdom greater than Solomon, for faith greater than the Apostle Paul, and for love greater than the love Jesus had." 7
As his faith developed, a nascent desire to free the world from suffering crystallized within him. Around him he saw material hardship and spiritual suffering. People were not joyful or fulfilled. At the ancestral shrine on the hill above the village he wondered about his ancestors and felt that they, too, had suffered, and that their spirits still suffered. Death did not bring perfection. In the spiritual world, a man continues as he is in life. His descendants too, would struggle with the same problems for generations, unless liberated. On April 17, 1935, he was praying on South Hill, 8 which was half a mile from his home, when Jesus appeared to him. 9 Addressing Moon's youthful ambition, Jesus asked him to make its fulfillment his life's work. He refused. To dream is one thing, but to promise to God is something else altogether. He was not one to make promises lightly out of a desire to please or in the awe of spiritual experience. Jesus asked him again "This is my work, my mission and I want you to take it over." Moon refused again. Jesus asked him a third time: "There is no one else who can do this work." His meditations of a world in perpetual suffering returned to him. From the comfort of his youthful ideals, he peered over the abyss of the difficulties that would lie ahead and decided. "I will do it!" he promised.'' 10
With this pledge, his life was forever changed. While, like any normal child, he studied, fished and played sports with his friends and cousins, he lived an inner life he could share with no one. None would have understood the mission he had resolved to undertake. Had he revealed it, his family and friends may have tried to tease or persuade him to be more down to earth, and thereby destroyed his developing dream, as easily as a tree is crushed underfoot when it is still a seedling. To find a standard for his faith, he read and prayed about the biblical figures and Christian saints. He studied how they related to their environment. He was curious about their motivations and their goals. "All of these great men started their life of faith centered not on themselves but on God," he told American followers in the early 1970s. 11
He learned that they all experienced a struggle between their life of faith and the practical reality of their circumstances, a struggle they resolved when they sacrificed their own desires and focused on God's will. In his prayers, he met spiritually and spoke with Jesus and the disciples. He did not trust them, " he said. "I was analyzing their revelation of truth. Through this period of analysis I came to know the situation and heart of Jesus more than anyone." 12
He wanted to know what was real and true. "I have studied science. I am a very scientific person and l do not want any blind faith. I do not want the God of concept. I want the God of life, and God is life; life itself. That God I seek. The God who can govern life itself and who can be the real, true backbone of the world." 13
He realized that no system of thought, no religion, not even Christianity with its promise of salvation. had provided mankind with a complete way out of hell. No Christian had reached perfection after Christ. Why not? he asked. If we fell away from God and no one has climbed back, then something is missing. What is it that blocks us from God? What should our relationship to God be like? Why did God create us? How did we fall? How are we saved? Why among the millions of books published none has the answers to these things? Why doesn't anybody know? The questions tumbled over each other. There had to be a reason, too, why answers could not just pop into his head. If the human dilemma were purely intellectual, thinkers would have found the solution centuries ago. The problems, he found, were spiritual. It was as if the human spirit was diseased. To find the cure he would need to continue travelling the path of spiritual growth Jesus had traveled. He would have to become one with God. As Jesus said, "You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." This effort invited all manner of temptations and unanticipated struggle. In his prayers he battled with dark forces. At times great waves of black fear billowed through his soul. He once tried to explain the experience of these years but could not find the words. "If you knew what it was like, your heart would stop," he said. Faith kept him going. "I knew that God was living. I knew that God had chosen me for this mission Therefore, I believed that this was the only way for man to go, including myself. I couldn't quit." 14 Over the years, the inner search through the lives of the main actors in biblical history led him to empathize with them: "When I came to the fall of Adam and Eve I felt as if it were my own business. I felt the sorrow of God to see Adam's fall. I felt Adam's sorrow in himself. In each event I put myself in the position of those involved and felt with them and with God, all through the history. It is not someone else's history, but my own life." 15 He saw that the life of God's people is one of suffering. That God's experience throughout human history has been one of grief, sharing the suffering of his children. In the journey into the heart of God's experience, he too, found pain and loss. "I have shed so many tears. I not only understood the principle, but lived it." 16 Moon has said that revelations came to him both through intuition and in the form of symbols, which he had to interpret. In 1965 he explained the process in some detail in a question and answer session with some young American followers and their guests: "Although I will explain this to you, you may not understand fully unless you yourself have had a spiritual experience. To find the highest truth you must have the most even conscience. This is an oriental expression You would say 'clear' conscience, but our term is 'even' conscience, meaning not biased or prejudiced. This is a horizontal level. Then the heart of God or the spirit of God will work in a vertical way and a 90 degree angle is made. If the conscience is not even, the angle formed is not 90 degrees and you will receive the wrong message or revelation If the 90 degree angle is maintained, when you face a problem you immediately know whether it is good or bad. The reflection is very accurate. When you meet people and hear them talk, you know immediately which is wrong and which is right. This is very important [in order] to receive anything." "Then suppose you want to know about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is it? Up to a certain level, spirits can tell you what it is. But for the highest truths, spirits cannot help you. They will not tell you because they don't know. And God will not tell you outright. Therefore you have to search, to find out by yourself. So, from this 90 degree position, you may ask God, 'Is this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil a real tree?' You immediately know that is not right. It is something else. You continuously inquire and eventually find out what it is. Then, quite naturally, you will know that the tree has something to do with staining our blood." "In other words, when you become one with God, you can know the answers. You will guess answers to your questions and bring them to God, saying, 'Is it not this?' When it is correct, you will know. In that way I discovered the crime of Satan." 18 What was the crime of Satan? The key to this question lay in the opening verses of the Bible which tell the story of the first man and woman. Myth or fact? That modern man began with a single set of parents was more plausible than the idea of spontaneous evolution in different places. That our forbears should remember for us who these first parents were is somehow less likely. But perhaps it is this remembering, rather than the historical detail, that is meaningful for us. Perhaps the story still lies at the root of our culture because it says as much about us today as it did about our tribal ancestors. Then what might this story of the Garden of Eden and man's fall from God mean? What happened? Did it really all begin with eating fruit? The idea was too ridiculous. In church, the ministers sermonized about Adam and Eve's disobedience. But surely God, as a loving father, could forgive disobedience over something as trivial as eating food. The story had to be figurative. Moon felt that for it to be so devastating and final, the fall of man had to involve love, the heart of God's creation. Like any children, Adam and Eve had to grow, spiritually and physically, to maturity They were supposed to become one in heart with God, as individuals, before being blessed in marriage and having a family. The two trees in the garden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, symbolized Adam and Eve in maturity. But before they reached maturity, evil had already entered God's creation, in the spiritual world with the archangel Lucifer's fall. The archangel tempted the immature Eve into a sexual, but spiritual relationship with him. She then offered the 'fruit' to Adam and they began a physical sexual relationship. Through this premature act, they destroyed God's ideal for the maturation of their love. At the same time they came under the spiritual domination of the fallen Lucifer, who became known as Satan. God appeared to be powerless, unable to reach and rescue his own children. From their immature union, Adam and Eve's children were born. The children bore children, and their descendants were forever under the domination of Satan. Their first child, Cain, murdered his brother. Thus, at least in the mythology of the Judeo Christian and Islamic cultures, began the human race. As Moon read and re-read the Bible, praying and meditating on its contents, it seemed to him that the central events after Adam kept coming back to this story of Adam's family. The lives of Noah, Abraham and Jesus seemed to be an echo of Adam. Why? The first family, Adam's family was to be the model for God's purpose for creating man, but it became a model for failure. If God was still trying to save his children, and both the Christian teaching and personal spiritual experience convinced Moon that he was, then God would still be trying to achieve today what he had hoped to achieve with the first family. The emphasis on men in biblical history suggested that this process began with the man as God's providential focus. It seemed He had been trying to find one true man, the Messiah. A man who knew the truth and lived by it, a true man with a God like personality who could overcome evil through unwavering faith and whose heart could become one with God's heart. Such a man would begin the process of bringing the world back to God. He would become the perfected Adam, the Tree of Life, the ancestral parent of humanity. Jesus was the first person since the fall of Adam and Eve to become one with God. But he was executed before he was able to fully reveal his teaching. Had Jesus lived - Moon came to believe - he would have married, raised a family, and been the living founder of the Kingdom of God on earth. His premature death prevented God's offering the world the path to completely redeemed personhood. During his silent, agonizing search, Moon became extremely sensitive. When he was a student in Japan, he once embraced a cedar tree and burst into tears. 19
"On another occasion, according to early followers, he read in a newspaper that a student had committed suicide because he could not find truth . He wept uncontrollably his friends came to the house where he was lodging and noticed water dripping through the tatami floor of his second floor room. His tears had soaked through. He had been crying for three days. At the end of his long spiritual struggle, when he was sure of the truth he had discovered, he sought confirmation before he started his public mission. 20
He began a forty day fast. He was said that, during this period, he met spiritually with Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed. Jesus and other religious leaders in the spiritual world. Although he came from a background of Protestant Christianity, Moon recognized that all the major faiths contain truth. In his spiritual communion with the founders of the major faiths, they gave their approval to his discoveries. Moon's search for the Principle, he has stated, lasted for nine years from his encounter with Jesus in 1935. 21 At the end of this period, Moon has explained to his followers, he had to confront Lucifer the archangel, who he believed had caused the fall of Adam and Eve, before he could be satisfied with his interpretations of his revelations. He claims that during this experience, Lucifer accepted everything except the interpretation of the fall of man. At this point, Moon took Lucifer before God. It was said that, at the time, God could not be seen, but that his voice could be heard. God manifested himself in the form of waves and mountains. God posed different explanations for the cause of man's fall. He asked whether the fall had occurred because of the fruit of a tree, because of freedom, because of illicit love, or because of something else. Moon said it was illicit love. Then came one of the most devastating experiences of all. God denied what he said and told him it was wrong. At that point, a spiritual force struck Moon so hard, he said, that if he had not been physically standing up at the time he might never have been able to get up. Convinced of the truth of his conclusions, he insisted and God denied him again. When Moon stated the cause a third time, God acknowledged it as the truth and the evil force fled from him. Lucifer admitted that it was the truth. 22
The test of rejection had been necessary. For Moon to not simply believe, but to become one with God and embody the principles he had discovered, and to teach others to follow the same path, required such monumental conviction and determination that he even had to argue his case with God. It also meant that he could not be accused by Satan of acting only on spiritual inspiration or impulse from God. Rather, he had searched this truth out himself, and felt it to his bones. But there may be a deeper explanation for this experience of rejection and abandonment that goes to the core of Moon's view of the broken heart of God. If God suffers from rejection by his children, as much as Moon claims, why should God then trust a man who claims he is different, that he is a child who sympathizes and cares? The suffering heart of God will demand that he prove it. Moon has not fully described this experience, nor explained how long it lasted, nor said if there were other similar painful episodes. The path he had followed since his call by Jesus had brought him to a point where he felt that, like Jesus, he had explored the heart of God. He knew his mission was to heal God s profound grief. He was prepared for the struggle that lay ahead.
Chapter 3
The Crying Church
In the spring of 1938 Sun Myung Moon graduated from Jeongju Elementary School. It was customary at such events for graduating students to read a short speech of thanks to their teachers. The 8 year old Moon was the last on the rostrum.
"There is something I would like to say," he began. He launched into a criticism of the education system. The assembled guests, who included the police chief, the county magistrate and other district officials, shifted in their seats. Then, to the amazement and embarrassment of the headmaster and staff, he started criticizing the teachers, one by one, analyzing their characters, pointing out the consequences if they were allowed to continue teaching in the way they did, and suggesting that they resolve to change. After finishing with them he took on the country's leaders and called on them to lead the nation properly. It lasted for a whole hour and the students loved it. The police noted his name. 1 He hoped to attend the Normal School in Pyongyang and become a teacher himself. He studied hard for the entrance exams but was rejected because of color blindness. 2
He decided to go to Seoul, where he enrolled in the electrical engineering department of the Kyongsong Institute of Commerce and Industry, 3 a middle school for boys in the district of Heuksok dong on the south bank of the Han River. Seoul in the 1930s lay mostly north of the wide, lazy river, but in recent decades has sprawled south. Today the southern area which was once rice paddies, melon groves, and scattered farming villages is home to half of Seoul's ten million people, and over twenty bridges link the two parts of the city. That development began with Heuksok dong an neighboring Sangdo dong and Noryang jin, which had grown out of the first two road and rail bridges that spanned the river. When Moon moved to the area many Japanese colonial officials and teachers and their families were living in the better houses in Heuksok dong. The street names and signposts were all in Japanese. The school had been founded in 1934 by its Japanese headmaster Doi Sanyo. The forty or so teachers were Japanese, except for the gym master, and all classes were in Japanese. Doi Sanyo taught perseverance and achievement. "If something doesn't happen, make it happen," he would say. "If you don't have something, do what is necessary to get it." The 1,900 students, like all school children in pre war Japan, were taught to do the work that was expected of them and not waste their breath making excuses for failure. The boys wore a military style tunic and trousers that came down to just below the knees. The trousers had no side pockets, only back pockets. Gloves were not allowed, so when they were cold, they walked with their hands thrust in their back pockets, in a posture which pushed out their chests in a soldierly fashion.
In his first year Sun Myung Moon lived in three different lodgings. The third was a self catering place he shared with Kwon Duk Pal who had graduated from the school two years earlier. He was the young lay preacher at the local church and a fellow student, named Yoo Koo Hok. In the second year, his cousin Seung Gyun came to study at the school and joined them at the lodgings. Sun Myung and Kwon Duk Pal shared a room. Each Moon's middle school protrait (HSA-UWC, Seoul) A Seoul street in the 1920s during the Japanese occupation (Kukusho Kankokai Co., Tokyo) lodger paid twenty two won a month. School fees were five won and food came to about ten won. Their staple diet was rice and soup, and they ate lots of biscuits. Some months they went without food for one or two days and when their money arrived from home they treated themselves at a rice cake shop.
Many of the students in other lodgings were unhappy living at close quarters with people they did not particularly like. Such problems were worst in the lodgings where the students did their own cooking. But the two Moons and their friends got on well, a fact which Seung Gyun attributes to a rule introduced by his cousin. They had a pact by which they were forbidden to complain about anyone else's cooking: "Kwon ate in the church and didn't cook at home," said Seung Gyun. "Sun Myung, Yoo and I took turns in cooking. We cooked in a single pot over a wood fire. The rice was cheap. We had to pick the grit out of it. We made a soup of tofu and sliced onions and red pepper. For side dishes, we would have maybe onions, small fish and pollack. If the soup was too watery or too salty we had to keep quiet. Yoo and I would slice things up neatly but Sun Myung just chucked everything into the pot. We couldn't complain, though. In the evenings Sun Myung and his friends would sometimes go up the hill behind the village. There they would lie on their backs and gaze at the stars and talk.
Among his peers a boy's reputation depended largely on how well he could fight. 5 Although he was good at wrestling, Sun Myung was in the soccer club. 6 In the second year his cousin Seung Gyun bragged to his friends that his "big brother" could easily win the wrestling if he went in for it.7 He challenged the school wrestling champion, Cho In Bok, who was his class president. Cho accepted. Seung Gyun tried to persuade Sun Myung, who was more reluctant.
Moon was at school in Seoul from 1938- 1941. Moon at right, takes his turn to cook for fellow lodgers. From left, Yoo Koo Bok, Moon's cousin Seung Gyun and Kwon Duk Pal, the lay preacher at the church which Moon attended. (HSAUWC, Seoul) "Why should I fight him. He's a kid," Moon said. Cho came up to Sun Myung and formally challenged him. "Do you think you can beat me? Why don't you try?" "I don't want to fight you," Sun Myung replied. "Go on You could beat him," urged his cousin, who was eager not to lose face. "O.K., then " Cho was already in his wrestling shorts. Sun Myung was in his school uniform. He took off his small backpack. A crowd gathered. It was to be the best of three throws. The fight began Sun Myung won the first throw, then the second and third. Word spread. and he became the unofficial school champion Every day, Sun Myung walked down to the Han river to bathe. There he would see the beggars and poor families who lived on the river bank under the bridge. Often he would cut their hair for them. One summer, his cousin Seung Gyun became ill with malaria. Every day for almost two weeks, the fever would break out at around noon.
"Let's go to the river for a swim," Sun Myung said one hot day. "I can't. I've got a fever." "I know how to cure this," Sun Myung announced. He didn't want to go swimming by himself "Oh?" his cousin asked. "Yes. It depends on your mental attitude. Come with me and I'll show you," he said. Sun Myung led him to the edge of the Han River. "Take your clothes off and get in the water." Seung Gyun tried to resist, but Sun Myung insisted and pushed him into the water, and then jumped in himself. Seung Gyun was shivering when he came out the fever got worse. 8 In the summer and winter vacations when he went home, Moon's family saw that being away in the big city had not dampened his religious fervor. On one visit home he said grace for the family before a meal and got so absorbed in his prayer that, by the time he had finished, everyone except his brother was asleep. When the villagers sat outside in the summer evenings, they would see him go off to nearby South Hill to pray. He was so intense that the village children would come and tell his mother he was wrestling with the trees and the long grass on the hillside In his first year away from home, he attended services at the Pentecostal church in Heuksok dong. The church was one of six established by the denomination since the arrival of the first American missionary, Mary C. Rumsey, in 1928. 9
It had been set up a few years earlier when Pak Kyong Joon, a deacon at the first church in the south west suburb of SoBing go, moved across the river to Heuksok dong.10 The minister, Pak Song San, held services in SoBing go in the morning and at Heuksok dong in the afternoon. Already in 1936, the congregation which included a growing number of the school students who lodged locally, had moved to a larger room which cost thirty won a month to rent. In 1938 church officers decided they should get a bigger place. As there were no rich members in the congregation, they figured they should get the money from the missionaries. Rev. Pak and six church officers met with two missionaries, one American and one Briton, at the house in downtown Seoul where the missionaries lived. Translating was Henry Dodge Appenzeller, an American who was the director of the Paichai (pronounced Pay chay) School, founded by his father, who had been the first Methodist missionary to Korea. "We want to enlarge the church but we need money." Their main position was, 'If you don't give us money, we will leave'," said Kim Hee Son, one of the young deacons, recalling the meeting forty seven years later. 11
The two missionaries, both middle aged women were in a difficult situation. The tradition established by Protestant missions in Korea was to not fund church construction, but to insist that congregations be self supporting. Furthermore, they did not have the money. "OK, go then," the American missionary said. "No, we mustn't break up," the British woman said, dissolving into tears. In the emotional atmosphere, the Koreans resolved to change denominations. The next question was, which denomination to join, Presbyterian or Methodist or another? Rev. Pak, smarting from the clash with the foreign missionaries, said they should join the new Jesus Church, because it was the first denomination started by Koreans. Few in the congregation knew much about it. The Jesus Church had formed around the charismatic evangelist Lee Yong Do. Lee was born in Hwanghae Province in 1901 as the second son of a poor farming family. 12
He was imprisoned in 1919 for two and a half years, for independence activities. As a marked activist he was unable to graduate from high school. In 1923 an American missionary helped him enter the Union Methodist Seminary in Seoul where he majored in English. After graduation in 1927, he went to Dongchon, Kang won Province. There he rose at four every morning to pray. It was there, his later followers said, that he received the spirit and became a preacher. When he got inspired, he would sometimes speak for seven or eight hours. If inspiration didn't come, he might not even speak at all. although he had been invited to do so. He earned the pen name 'Shimuon,' meaning 'one who only speaks when words are necessary'. On one occasion, it is said, he was praying and saw Satan spiritually. He followed Satan to a believer's house where Satan tried to kill the family members. He confronted Satan and demanded that he leave. Another story described how Lee came across a Christian believer in the countryside who was being attacked by a snake. Lee picked up a stick to kill the snake but it slithered into a pond. Church group in Seoul. Moon is standing second from right. Elder Kim Hee Son is at the top. Kwak No Pil, who was arrested with Moon as a suspected communist, is seated bottom right. (HSA-UWC, Seoul) Charasmatic Jesus Church preacher, Lee Yong Do taken in 1932. (Lee Ho Bin)
Lee prayed for hours, crying profusely during his prayers. He prayed for the poor and was very generous to beggars. Once, some ministers in the northern city of Pyongyang who had invited him to speak were waiting for him at the station. They naturally expected the famous preacher would be a well dressed, commanding figure. When he came off the train, dressed in his usual poor clothes, they did not notice him. Not expecting a welcoming party, he made his own way to the church and prayed there for two or three hours before the ministers found him. Lee Ho Bin, a close friend and a fellow seminary graduate, who later became the leader of the denomination, recalls how Lee's fame spread: "His sermons were very creative and original. He was very versatile, he was a musician, poet, playwright and a preacher. Whenever the YMCA wanted a good revival meeting they would ask him to come because he always attracted many believers from different churches." Kim Young Oon was a Methodist in her home town of Haeju when Lee Yong Do came and held revival meetings. "Some elders in the church started to criticize Rev. Lee after members of the congregation stayed in the church and prayed all night and had spiritual experiences, speaking in tongues and going into trances and prophesying. I was one of the ones who stayed all night. The church became divided. Those who were for Lee Yong Do began to hold separate meetings which I attended." Lee Ho Bin estimates that by 1932 around thirty churches and six thousand believers considered themselves to be followers of the charismatic preacher. Jealousy of Lee Yong Do grew in ministers of other churches. They spread tales that the believers who said they were praying all night were actually holding orgies. These rival clergymen asked the Japanese authorities not to allow Lee to hold his revival services. But the Japanese had no desire to help out the Christian establishment, which they resented because they were protected and supported by foreign missionaries. Ministers openly persuaded their congregations that Lee Yong Do's followers were evil and told them not to greet them even on the street. In July 1932, Lee was invited by a teacher at the Martha Wilson Women's Bible Institute in the north eastern port of Wonsan to attend morning chapel. 13
The teacher, Baek Nam Ju, was also a controversial figure. He and a group of ten believers had for two years been holding services together, rising at four or five in the morning to pray. In the winter they would walk around barefoot as a form of spiritual training. He taught that the church's interpretation of the second advent of Christ and the destruction of the world in the Last Days was wrong. The Bible, he said, was to be interpreted spiritually and not literally. Faith has to do with heart and life, not ceremony and appearance, he said In December that year. Baek and his group were expelled by their local church for heresy. They continued to hold services, and the group expanded. The Japanese police, thinking it was an independence group, kept a close watch. At the same time, the pressure was building in the Methodist church against the charismatic Lee Yong Do. He was expelled a few months later. He was trans-denominational and did not like the idea of creating another denomination. But without official registration meetings could not be held. In June 1933, an official in the Japanese governor-general's office offered to help the expelled ministers get a license to hold services. 14 The Japanese clearly wanted to encourage the development of a church that had no connections to foreign missionaries. The ministers accepted the unexpected offer and decided to call themselves simply the Jesus Church. Lee Yong Do was appointed chairman. The core founders were Lee Ho Bin and Lee Hwan Shin, Yong Do's seminary fellows; and Baek Nam Ju and Han Joon Myung from the Wonsan group. The new church declared its founding day retroactively to be January 3, 1933. By this time however, Lee Yong Do was ill with Tuberculosis. In October he died, aged thirty two. Lee Ho Bin replaced him as chairman . Within the new church, there was a lot of spiritual activity associated with the Wonsan members, who were led by Baek. For example. someone in the group claimed to have received a revelation that they had to link up with another spiritual group led by a woman on the west coast. Baek is said to have walked the 130 mile journey barefoot to meet her. 15
Later, in the winter of 1934, the new Jesus Church expelled Baek for committing adultery. 16 Although this incident was down played by his friends, it appears to have been linked with rumors of messianic claims. Since the revival which had swept like a bush fire through Korea in 1907, spiritual people had been receiving revelations that the Messiah would come to Korea in the flesh. One such spiritual woman was Kim Bom Joon. She prophesied that Korea was the new Israel and that one day missionaries would go out from Korea to the world. She said that Baek would conceive a child with a virgin, and that the child would be the Messiah. A child was born, but when the news leaked out, the Christian establishment accused Baek of heresy. Kim cried and prayed, "What shall we do, Jesus is being crucified again. All is finished." Then she received another revelation telling her that because Baek's mission could not be fulfilled, another child had been prepared and was already born in Pyongyang She prepared to go to Pyongyang, but her family, thinking she was crazy stopped her. 17
The leaders of the Jesus Church denied any messianic role. Such spiritual women were rebuked, but for a few years the intense spirituality that attracted such people persisted. The Jesus Church was born out of persecution and was founded by inspired spiritual leaders. But it lacked clear goals and organization. Its leaders were non denominational and moved more according to inspiration than to any plan to expand numbers. The church grew from 1930, though its official founding in 1933, until about 1935. Then its spirituality rapidly declined and it came under increasing oppression from the Japanese authorities. 18
By 1938, the year when Sun Myung moved to Seoul, the Jesus Church had thirty two churches in Korea. They were all in the northern half of the country. The only services held in Seoul were in the house of Kang Suk Kyong, a wealthy Jesus Church member who had moved from Pyongyang. Occasionally, church leaders and revivalists would hold meetings in her home. They cried and yelled so much during their prayers that neighbors reported them to the police. It was decided that a new church should be established in Heuksok dong, in Seoul where two of Kang's daughters lived. But there was no money to send a full time minister to the city. It was at this time that the Pentecostal congregation in Heuksok dong came looking for a new church to join. Rev. Pak Song San asked the Jesus Church if it would take his flock from Heuksok dong. They agreed and a new Jesus Church, called the Myongsudae Worship Hall with some hundred and twenty members, began holding services. Kwon Duk Pal, the young lay preacher from the Pentecostal group was put in charge. He conducted such emotional services that the new church became known locally as 'The Crying Church' For the last year of his three years at middle school, Sun Myung attended this church. During this time he and his three companions lodged at the home of Lee Kee Bong, and briefly at the house of her sister, Lee Kee Ha. The two women were the daughters of Mrs. Kang, who had financed the church.
After school every day Sun Myung went to the church to study and pray. He kept the nature of his intense search to himself; but those around him sensed he was different and felt his deep spirituality. A school friend recalled: "He was an exemplary Christian. He would often go to the hills to pray. Lots of Christians did that, but none of them would stay out praying all night as he did." 19 He was given the job of taking Sunday School for the thirty or so children. He taught them the Bible and about God, and occasionally took them on outings. 20 He was popular with the children, who called him Big Mr. Moon and his cousin Little Mr. Moon. Lee Kee Bong's nine year old daughter, Im Nam Sook, felt he had a special antenna to God and was somewhat in awe of him. One day he grabbed her and twisted her arm behind her back. "Don't call me mister," he said playfully. "Call me your brother." 21
Often after the services, which were held every Sunday and Wednesday, he would invite some of the church deacons to his room and they would share food and sing and pray and talk late into the night. "Six or seven people would sing and pray," recalled Kim Hee Son, the deacon. "We would pray in turn, one after the other. One round would take us to the early morning." On other nights they would sometimes just drop round to share some soup and talk.
The Jesus Church members went into Seoul, and sometimes to the nearby villages, to evangelize. Sometimes when a crowd gathered, the police would Moon is standing second from the left. Seated right is his landlady, Lee Kee Bong. (HSA-UWC, Seoul)
Sunday school group in Seoul. Moon is second from right in the top row of boys. (Pak Kyong Do) come and try to stop Moon from preaching. "What's the crime in witnessing about God?" he would protest. One Sunday afternoon in March 1940, he was returning from a service in a new Jesus Church in Sangdo dong, the neighboring ward, with some of the church members, when they came upon a middle aged man lying in the road. The man said he was sick and that he was trying to get back to his home in Pyongtaek, a town forty miles south of Seoul. One of the deacons cut a walking stick for him. "You need to get to the train station at Noryangjin. It's about a kilometer from here," the deacon said.
"But I don't have any money to buy a ticket," the man said. "We will carry you to the station, " said Moon. On the way he asked people for money. The ticket cost one won and ten chon. Moon collected two won and fifty chon, bought a ticket and used the rest to buy the man some tea. The man was so moved, he cried. "You must tell me your address so I can repay you," he said. "Don't worry about our address," deacon Kim Hee Son said. "Just go to the Jesus Church and believe in Jesus." By the time they returned over the wooded hill to Heuksok dong it was dark. "When we help people like that we feel a deep satisfaction, even though we missed our meal," Moon remarked. Moon standing below the clock, with fellow students in Bible study group in Seoul. Picture taken February 1940. (Pak Kyong Do)
Chapter 4
Emoto Ryumei
The Journey from Seoul to Pusan took seven hours. 1 The afternoon train clattered through the fields and around the mountains of the southern provinces, passing the huddled villages where peasants cheerlessly observed its passing. The fields reeked of human feces, spread to fertilize the crops. Sun Myung Moon had graduated from middle school in Seoul. Having obtained police permission to study overseas he was on his way to Tokyo to enroll in the technical high school affiliated with Waseda University. 2
It was March 31, 1941 and Sun Myung was leaving Korea for the first time; for the land of the oppressor. As Japan geared up for war against the West, Koreans were being conscripted into the military and drafted to work in Japan and in its colonies. 3
Thousands of teenage girls were rounded up and shipped off to front-line brothels. Christians were being imprisoned by the hundreds for refusing to worship at Shinto shrines. According to Shinto myth, the Japanese people and especially the emperors, are descended from the sungoddess Amaterasu and thereby divine. The militarists had revived the old religion in the 1930s to justify their imperialist goals. Colonial subjects in Korea and China were being forced to participate in ceremonies at the shrines which had been built in occupied cities and towns. By 1941 war preparations were mounting and missionaries were forced to leave Korea. In 1942, denominations were banned and the Protestant churches forced to unite under the name of the Chosen (Korean) Division of the Japanese Christian Church. Ministers who objected to this and the forced worship at Shinto shrines were imprisoned, removed from their jobs, put under house arrest or driven underground. 4
Korea was being suffocated, its culture and even its language smothered. By 1944 native Koreans were being arrested in their own country for speaking Korean instead of Japanese In their final effort to stomp on the identity of their unhappy subjects, Japanese authorities forced Koreans to take new, Japanese names. Sun Myung was travelling under his new name, Emoto Ryumei. 5 Passengers alighted at each stop, a sense of oppression dulling their motion. Some Japanese business men and officials and their families were traveling on the train. Their manners contained an assumption of superiority which some Koreans aspired to, but which most loathed. His nationalism notwithstanding Moon did not hate the Japanese. In this respect he was quite different from most, except for the collaborators or the other-worldly. 6 His struggle as he saw it, was with evil, and evil was more subtle than to associate itself with nationality. During the journey a sense of his own mission and Korea's future overwhelmed him. He prayed for God to protect Korea. He pulled his jacket over his face so the other passengers could not see that he was crying. It was dark when he arrived in Pusan. The next day he left Pusan on a Japanese ship, the Shokei Maru. In Tokyo, he enrolled in the electrical engineering department of the technical high school. He found lodgings with the family of an official of the city government, Mitsuhashi Kozo. 7
Two other Korean students lodged with the Mitsuhashis and each had separate rooms on the second floor. Koreans were accustomed to being treated as second class citizens. But the Mitsuhashis, who had five children, were very kind to their lodgers. His landlord did calligraphy as a hobby, an interest he could share with Sun Myung. He was very kind "like a Korean," one of Sun Myung's fellow students recalled. Among the hundreds of Koreans studying at universities and technical colleges in Tokyo, some sought to pass themselves off as Japanese, the natural path of upward mobility. But most, conscious of their role as students, which since the 1919 independence outbreak had cast them in the forefront of resistance, longed for their country's independence. Twice a year they organized a meeting, named the Yupchon Meeting (after the Korean square brass coin with a hole in the middle), when about fifty students would meet to eat, talk, sing and get to know one another. A Japanese plain clothes policeman who understood some Korean used to attend the meetings, which prevented the students from discussing the subject which most concerned them - independence. At his first meeting, Sun Myung stood up, introduced himself and began to sing in Korean pansori style. He sang in a high voice half singing and halfshouting in such a way that the policeman could not follow the meaning. "The Korean people have a big mission. Let's help our country and become the hard-working leaders of our people" he sang. The patriotic sentiment and the risk taken to express it electrified the audience. 8 Sun Myung Moon became a leader among Christian students in Tokyo and favored the government in exile in Shanghai led by Kim Ku. 9 His two closest friends however were Communists. Kim Chang Soon who was in the same lodging and Chang Bong Hee who lodged nearby, both studied economics at Waseda University. Kim was the leader of Korean underground activities in Japan. Chang later had to go into hiding to escape the police. He disguised himself as a beggar and let himself become infested with lice to make the disguise convincing. The three were as close as brothers. They would argue at length and end up embracing one another. In just a few years the ideological differences they represented would cleave their country, but for now Japan was the common enemy. Although his friends' atheism pained him, Sun Myung saw how Marxism gave them a utopian goal, a purpose a historical role to play, a framework to explain everything and a consequent fervor to improve the world that the Christians seemed to lack. Aum Duk Moon, an architecture student at the Waseda technical school recalled that Sun Myung stood up for his communist friends "He told me they were good people. He did not try to persuade me against Communism and for Christianity. He explained that Koreans should be united and work together." 10
At this point in his life while Sun Myung was still formulating his theology he did not discuss his deepest convictions about life and God with his friends. His unexplained behavior made them wary of him. Sometimes in class he would continue asking questions until the teacher ran out of answers. The teacher's discomfort embarrassed the other students. On one occasion his friends saw him making a speech in the street to passers-by criticizing the times and urging young people to take responsibility. 11 In his room he kept three Bibles one in Korean, one in Japanese and one in English. He studied them continually. On Sundays he went to church. He began to study his own capabilities and train himself to think that he could do anything. Sometimes he would eat one mouthful of his meal and throw the rest away telling himself he had to forget his hunger and love God more than food. 12
One day he called his friends together and announced that he was going to see how many bowls of rice he could eat. "I reckon you could eat ten bowls " one said. "O.K., as it's your birthday you eat what you want and I'll pay." joked another. They went to Takadanobaba street where there was a row of restaurants. He managed to eat seven bowls of chicken-and-egg rice. He was so stuffed he could hardly move. Being stuffed with food, he found was more painful than being hungry. 13
He also disciplined himself to avoid sexual temptation. In particular he resisted the submissive allure of Japanese women who Korean men say make the best wives in the world. Sometimes he would walk down the street with his eyes down to avoid looking at women. In another conscious effort to fight temptation he made himself unattractive. He wore cheap second-hand clothes and didn't oil his hair as his friends did. 14 This didn't work for one of his landlord's daughters who was infatuated with him. He pretended not to be aware of her feelings and ignored her as much as he could. On night one of Sun Myung's friends was waiting in his room for him at 2:00 a.m. Sun Myung had still not returned and the friend decided to leave. As he came downstairs he noticed the girl in a downstairs room. He went into the room and shut the door and in the pitch dark began touching her under the bed clothes. Thinking it was Sun Myung she didn't resist. The next day she went upstairs to his room to continue what she thought had been the start of their new relationship. When he rejected her she was devastated. In 1945 two years later he returned to Korea. She contracted an illness and died at the age of nineteen. 15 The young Moon didn't fool around or socialize much with other students and he didn't frequent the student coffee-shops or go hiking on weekends with other students. Classes at the technical high school were in the evenings between 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. which left him free during the daytime. 16 He was very strict with his time and did only what he felt God wanted him to do. Often he went to the nearby industrial city of Kawasaki to do laboring jobs. His motive was not for the money, which he frequently gave to his friends but to make a conscious effort to love Japan. 17 The work also gave him much broader experience than student life. "When it snowed or there was a typhoon, I didn't go to classes. I went to a laborers' canteen to work. I felt great at those times. It would howl and blow and my hands would get black with dirt and I held them out in the rain and washed the filth run off them. I worked sweating in such places. Once on the Kawasaki-Yokohama ferry there was a real bad guy. He used to cream a percentage off the workers' wages, but I refused to give him mine. He surrendered when I hit him." 18 He sometimes took jobs such as delivering coal. His style would be to ask the regular workers how long the job would take and then try to do it in three quarters or half the time. He pushed himself in this way to dominate his environment and situation as a laborer rather than be dominated by it. On one occasion, after lugging a trailer of coal to a house the housewife gave him a tip. The simple gesture moved him to tears. On another occasion, he saved up his money and stayed in the Imperial, one of the plushest hotels in Tokyo at the time. He once visited a prostitute in the Shin ju-ku area of the city and asked her to tell him her life story. 19 He wanted to see how the rich and the poor lived, what made them happy and what made them sin. 20 He chose to remain hungry. "It wasn't because I didn't have any rice," he said. "If you are always full you lose that connection to God and the situation of the people."21 By this time Japan was now at war against the United States the democratic allies. Korean students in Japan were planning to protest the forced conscription of' Koreans into the Japanese army in a effort to provoke an uprising at home. But the police managed to squash the protests in the planing stage and no major demonstrations occurred. Sun Myung was under surveillance by the Japanese police and was called in once a month to report at the police station in Takadanobaba Street. Later, when he planned to return to Korea the police cabled the authorities in Korea to tell them he was coming. By 1943, students were being drafted for the war effort. His course was shortened by six months and he graduated on September 18, 1943. His friend Aum Duk Moon, who graduated at the same time, stayed in his room on their last night in Japan "I guess I will have to get married when I get home but I am a bit worried who my parents will match me with," Aum said. "Can you suggest someone?" As the Christian student leader, Sun Myung had photos of many Korean Christian friends. "What about her?" he said, holding out a photograph. Aum put the photograph in his pocket. The next day they left for home.
Chapter 5
The Second Israel
When he arrived home the whole village came out to welcome him. "We saw your telegram saying you were coming on the ship that went down," they said. The ferry, the Kwon-non Maru, had hit a mine and sunk in the Korea Strait and hundreds of passengers drowned. "They printed the names of the survivors in the paper but your name wasn't there." "I didn't take the ship. I changed my mind," Moon said. He explained that he had bought a ticket for the ferry, but on the way he had such a strong premonition of danger that his legs went leaden. "I waited for the next one." When she heard about the accident, his mother had been in such a panic that she ran to Jeongju for information, forgetting to put on her shoes. When she couldn't find his name on the list she fainted. It was only when he sent another telegram that they knew he was safe.1 She had been so anxious that it was only after she came back home that she realized her foot was sore. This image of his mother rushing to Jeongju without her shoes struck him very deeply and stayed with him through his life.2 "Is this how God loves his children?" he asked himself. How strong and natural a mother's love is. He considered how difficult it must have been for Jesus to go against his family in order to do God's will; and he hoped that his parents would not stand against his mission in the future. If they did, he would have to put his mission first. He had become practiced over the years in denying his own emotions in this way, cutting off his feelings when his heart pulled him away from God's will. In November 1943, Sun Myung Moon married. According to custom his bride, Choi Sun Kil, was found through arrangement between the couple's parents. For Koreans of this period, and even for many modern young Koreans, the decision to marry comes first and the search for the partner follows. Given this, it's unclear why he decided at this point in his life that it was time to marry. He may have Choi Sun Kil, Moon's first wife (Pak Chong Hwa) simply accepted his parents' suggestion that it was time, out of a natural Korean sense of filial piety. Or additionally, he may have accepted because he saw marriage as the next stage of his spiritual path. The answer depends on the extent to which Moon had already developed his view of marriage as a profoundly religious relationship. It should reconstruction as it were in his own life, the relationship between Adam and Eve as it should have been. For, later, Moon would teach his followers that God-centered marriage is the central sacrament of the faith, that it is necessary for a full and Godly life, and is the therapeutic means by which sinful people can heal their spiritual and emotional scars. Man was made for woman and woman for man by divine design. A man who understands God's suffering heart should approach his wife as if she were God's lost and precious daughter, Eve, and vice-versa. Four years his junior, Choi (pronounced Chay) was an attractive, intelligent girl with a strong character. Moon's cousins would consider this last attribute an understatement. Asked to describe her, one of them referred to a saying about the alleged intensity of the Choi clan: "If Choi sits on a blade of grass nothing will grow on the spot for three years. She is the Choi of Chois. She is stubborn and headstrong. Once she's decided a certain way, she doesn't give in."3 Her family was relatively well-to-do and were members of the Jaegun Church, a fundamentalist Presbyterian Church in Cheolsan, North Pyong-an Province. The Jaegun (Reconstruction) Church believers claimed that Satan had taken control of the established churches, and had no tolerance for other denominations.4 Moon nevertheless invited Rev. Lee Ho Bin, the leader of the Jesus Church to officiate.5 He came up by train from Pyongyang, and conducted the wedding ceremony in the courtyard of her family's house. The couple spent their wedding night at Moon's family's home in Sangsa-ri and according to one Moon cousin, she fell ill. The villagers were not impressed with the bride who got sick on the first day of her married life.6 Meanwhile, the war in the Pacific was intensifying and more students were being graduated early to go to the front line. As an engineering graduate Lee Ho Bin, first head of the Jesus Church (Lee Ho Bin) Moon was exempt from active military duty but was required to find work with a company contributing to the war effort. He had arranged a job with the Mansho Electric Company in Hailar in Japanese-controlled Manchuria, near the Mongolian-Russian border.7
But after several weeks in Seoul he changed his plans and stayed in the capital, where he took a job as an electrical engineer with the Kashima-gumi Construction Company.8 The newlyweds settled in Heuksok-dong, renting a room from his old Jesus Church landlady, Lee Kee Bong.9 After the first year of their marriage, she was still not pregnant. But, instead of recriminating her, as might have been customary, he doted on her. "He loved her so much, we were all jealous," says Im Nam Sook, one of their landlady's daughters, who had been his Sunday school pupil years before."10 He wanted to build an inviolable love with her so that they could deeply love God as a couple. He knew that, because of the nature of the mission which lay before him, his wife would experience difficulties. He expected he would be away for long periods. In particular, he felt the first few years of the marriage would be fraught with spiritual struggle. "You should be able to make a living in case something happens to me," he told her. In late November 1944, a student friend from Tokyo, who was a Communist and who had visited him in Seoul had been arrested trying to avoid conscription and Moon's name had come up during the police interrogation. Police came to his lodgings and searched his room. He was taken to the Kyong-gi Province central police station in central Seoul where ideological suspects were held.11 "You are a Communist," his interrogator charged. "I am a Christian," he replied. "Who are your friends in the Communist underground?" "I am a Christian." The police beat him and began routine torture to force a confession. They held him down and poured water laced with red pepper down his nose. They pulled him up, tied his wrists behind his back, hoisted him in the air and thrashed him in a form of torture known as the 'airplane.' He refused to confess. Mrs. Lee the landlady was allowed to visit him. He asked her to bring some hot sauce to induce diarrhea. Before the next torture session, he emptied his bowels and made himself vomit to empty his stomach so that the pepper water would pass straight through him. His wife meanwhile, had contracted typhoid fever and went to her in-laws' home in North Korea to recuperate. Moon's mother came to Seoul when she heard he was in prison and stayed at Mrs. Lee's house. A week later, the police pulled in another friend, Kwak No Pil, a Christian who lived in Heuksok-dong and who had graduated from the same middle school. They were held in separate cells. Mrs. Lee came every day with food for the two prisoners. In the end, the police concluded the two men were Christians as they had claimed. Kwak was released and a week later, after sixty days in prison, Moon was also freed. He went straight to Kwak's house. "I feel responsible because you were taken too," he told him. "No, no, they knew my name already," Kwak said. The two men talked over the experience and cried together. Moon recovered quickly and returned to work. A few weeks later, when spring came, he visited his family in north Korea. His twenty-year-old cousin, Yong Gi, was being called up into the Japanese army and confided that he planned to desert. "You don't need to. Don't worry," Moon told him. "In April, Germany will surrender and in August, Japan will be defeated. But you should not stay in the North afterwards. A cold culture is coming." Yong Gi was impressed, thinking that a college education somehow opened the way for someone to know such things. He was drafted in May and assigned to a base in Taejon, South Korea and saw no action. He did not understand the foreboding about Communism at the time, but he later took his cousin's advice and escaped south before the Communists solidified their rule in North Korea.12 In August, when the Japanese finally laid down their arms, there was jubilation in Korea. The people took to the streets and the hysteria of liberation took over. Sun Myung Moon marks the day of the Surrender, August 15 - celebrated as Liberation Day by Koreans - as the beginning of his public ministry.13 Since his encounter with Jesus in 1935, he had spoken to no-one of his new understanding of God. Now the defeat of Japan meant he could act free from police surveillance. Korea was free from its colonial masters and the Christian nations had triumphed over fascist evil. The time was propitious. One of the first things he did at the end of the war was to help several of the local Japanese residents escape. He heard that some of his friends were planning to get even with a Japanese policeman. He pleaded with them: "Japan is finished. It has failed. The country has lost its power and God will punish them. You don't need to take revenge." They dropped the idea. He quietly advised many of the Japanese who remained in Heuksok-dong to leave before they were hurt, and helped a few pack their belongings."14
Moon has said that he foresaw tremendous struggles ahead for Korea, and found it difficult to join in the independence celebrations. In a talk, he once described how he could not join in the jubilant shouts of "Mansei!" ('Long live Korea!' literally, 10.000 years!') "My hands just would not go up," he said.15 Indeed, Korean elation was short lived. Within weeks, as the complexities of the political situation became apparent, Korean leaders began to realize that, besides their own divisions the major powers were not going to go away and leave them alone. Russian and American troops poured into the country taking the Japanese surrender. Stalin's forces had moved rapidly through Manchuria and into northern Korea. The Americans, more concerned with the future security of Japan than Korea, moved in quickly, fearful that the Russians might take the entire country. They met, as had been previously agreed, at the thirty eighth parallel just north of Seoul. The Cold War had come to Korea. Exiled Korean nationalists were returning home. Some had fought the Japanese with the Russians, some with the Chinese Communists, others with the nationalist Chinese. Others came from Japan, Hawaii, and the mainland of the United States. Characteristically, no one faction predominated. Nor did the government-in-exile, which had been based in Shanghai, carry much weight. It had not been recognized by a single foreign government in its twenty-six years of existence. There was similar factional diversity among political groups within Korea. In those first few weeks, the only semblance of political order was offered by the leftist-dominated People's Committees which had sprung up all across the country within days of the liberation. The American army, under orders to recognize no group nor person as the legitimate representative of the Koreans, set about dismantling them in the South. In their place, they established the American Military Government which ruled for three years. In the North, the Soviets, facing strong opposition to Communist rule, were shrewd enough to appoint the chairman of the People's Committee of North Korea, Christian nationalist Cho Man Sik, as head of the interim government. Later, the Americans and Russians would propose a four-power trusteeship for Korea, similar to that which governed Austria. In retrospect, it was the only chance the country had of remaining united, but the Koreans protested strongly against it and the superpowers dropped the idea. In the North, Cho was interned, and a young guerrilla leader, Kim Il Sung, rapidly assumed power under Soviet tutelage. Non-Communist nationalists began fleeing to the South. The two halves of Korea lurched inexorably towards permanent division. Within three years, separate governments would be set up in Seoul and Pyongyang.16 In this rapidly changing political situation, Moon sought the Christians who could accept his teaching. During the Japanese occupation, numerous spiritual groups had started and many, branded heretic by the Christian establishment, had received revelations which pointed to the return of Christ. Fearful of persecution from the Japanese authorities and from other Christians they had worshipped separately and in many cases, secretly. Among more orthodox Christians there was a rift between those who had obeyed Japanese orders to worship at Shinto shrines and those who had refused and suffered greatly as a result. With such divisions, Moon thought, Christianity could not bring God's kingdom. He believe God wanted a spirit of harmony within Christianity as a foundation to end animosities between all religions and cultures. To this end he hoped to first attract the spiritual groups to his teaching, and then seek to unite with the Christian establishment. For his protection, he first sought to establish personal connections with people in high positions.17 As one of an educated elite in an undeveloped country, where advancement had traditionally been under patronage, this would have not been difficult. Church, family, school and hometown provided him with strong connections to people whose help could prove to be crucial, particularly considering the uncertainty and instability of the country. Had the family not been estranged from his greatuncle, Moon Yoon Kook - who had links with the Christian independence figures who would assume power in South Korea - doors would have opened more easily. Shortly after the liberation, Moon went to North Korea and experienced a second and unexpected imprisonment. He was in Kwaksanmyon not far from his home village with his cousin Yong Gi. They went into a shop to buy an apple. "What's this?" the shopkeeper asked, looking at the money he just had been handed. "What do you mean?" "Why are you trying to pass off false money?" "It's not false. It's South Korean money," he said. The shopkeeper reported them to the police, and they were arrested and held for a week. By fortunate coincidence, the captain of police had been Sun Myung's elementary school teacher and he arranged their release. An instance of the timely benefits of patronage. In October 1945, Moon and his wife moved from Heuksok-dong to the neighboring ward of Sangdo-dong. Their new home had one room and a kitchen and was next to the company where he worked. Sun Kil was now pregnant. A son, Sung Jin was born in April 1946.18
Around the end of 1945, Moon started going to a church in Sangdo dong attended by several members of the Jesus Church, which he had attended as a student. The church was run by a small spiritual group led by a thirty-fiveyear-old minister called Kim Baek Moon. Rev. Moon Yoon Kook, the Presbyterian minister at the Moon's local church, in 1918 seminary graduation portrait. (Presbyterian Seminary, Seoul) Kim came from the southern city of Taegu. When he was seventeen, he went to stay with his brother who was working in the northern port city of Chongjin. They found new lodgings in Hoeryong, where Kim was converted by the landlady, a middle-aged woman called Kim Nam Jo. She was associated with the two charismatic preachers Baek Nam Ju and Lee Yong Do.19 After his conversion Kim had enrolled in seminary in Seoul. A quiet, scholarly man, he was very devout. His conversion in the 1930s coincided with a period of widespread spiritual activity in Korean Christian groups. Thousands had begun speaking in tongues and having revelations they could not understand. During revival meetings, many participants became ecstatic, as if drunk in the spirit. Kim observed that the phenomena, far from helping people, actually led many believers into immoral behavior and ultimately destroyed their life of faith. He questioned why the spirit of God came in this way. What was the purpose if it wreaked such havoc? After much prayer, he received an answer: the spirit came to prepare the way for the Lord, to cleanse the souls of those it came to, not to excite their senses. But, above all, it came because God wanted to find one man. To bring his kingdom God needs to start with one person, like a new Adam. The purpose behind the spirit's coming was to make one perfect man. Kim began to teach in the late 1930s. Most of those who came to hear him were Jesus Church members. He taught that Korea was the Israel of modern times, where the second coming of Christ would take place. In 1943 he started a retreat in Supchol-ri, in Paju County in the countryside north of Seoul. As Japanese oppression of Christians increased, he taught secretly. In September 1945, the month after the end of the war, he formally established the Israel Jesus Church by setting up a church in Sangdo-dong, Seoul; and a small prayer center in Supchol-ri.20 Two men and ten women joined Kim at his retreat where they lived a celibate life of faith. Two years later he began a three-year seminary course. Kim came to Seoul once a week to preach. The congregation was small, around fifty people, but comprised many intellectuals and other influential figures. If Kim ran into opposition from the Christian establishment for his heretical views, he would be able to call on powerful allies. One of the deacons was the wife of the owner of the Chosun Ilbo, Korea's main daily newspaper. Her daughter was one of the celibates at Kim's retreat. Another woman among the faithful was the wife of Lee Bom Sok, who in 1948 was to become South Korea's first prime minister. She had joined the church through one of the elders who had been an elementary school friend. Lee himself was a Korean nationalist who had fought the Japanese for years in guerrilla warfare in Manchuria. A graduate of the Chinese military academies he had held a general's command in the Chinese army and had served on the staff of Chiang Kai Shek, the nationalist Chinese leader. He had returned to Korea in 1945 with the backing of an American general, Albert C. Wedemeyer, who had been an advisor to Chiang.21 In 1946 Lee formed the Korea National Youth Association, which enjoyed the support of the Department of Defense in Washington and which he envisioned as a basis for a future Korean Army. It grew rapidly and soon had 1,300,000 members nationwide. Pro-western and anti-Communist, its members supplemented the police and fought Communist guerrillas in those highly unstable times. When he became the prime minister, Lee was responsible for the redistribution of property held by the Japanese. He used this position to arrange the transfer of a firm in Inchon, the Aegyong Company, which made soap, perfume and candles, to Kim. The profits were used to fund the retreat.22 Moon took an unassuming role when he visited Kim's group, and did menial tasks. His wife did not approve of Kim Baek Moon and did not attend the church with him. In fact, she complained of Moon's devotion.23 The other members began to recognize his deep spirituality. Kim Yong Jin, who was one of the two men at the retreat, recalled: "Moon studied the Bible in Kim's church as I did. The special thing about him was Kim Baek Moon's group around the time Moon began attending the services. Kim is in the top row wearing glasses. (Pak Kyong Do) that although he had not received a formal theological education, he asked Rev. Kim many detailed questions, unlike the ordinary questions which the others asked." Hong Yi Sun, one of the female celibates, remembered: "Sun Myung Moon prayed very much." Another member, Pak Sul Nam, recalled that Moon once was praying in the church with the others when his head suddenly jerked so forcefully that it dented a plank of the wooden wall. They saw it as evidence of his spirituality. Rev. Kim told his followers that Moon had profound spiritual wisdom. Several months after Moon joined the group, Kim placed his hand on Moon's head in blessing and said the wisdom of Solomon was with him.24 It was around this time that there occurred a phenomenon which Kim's later followers would consider to mark the real beginning of the history of the group. They say that on March 2, 1946 the Holy Spirit came down. Jesus is said to have appeared and Kim began receiving continuous revelations concerning Korea's apparent role as the new chosen country. He received the revelation "You are Israel." He asked God what this meant, and received the answer that he had the mission in the future to spread the new teaching throughout the world.25 From the perspective of the Unification Church, Kim's recognition of Moon was the providential event, the precondition for the group to receive the Holy Spirit. Kim should naturally have recognized that Moon embodied the goal of Kim's search and should have led his followers to understand that Moon was the new Adam, the Christ that they had been waiting for.26 He should have become Moon's leading follower. Moon would have provided the substantial core to the theology that Kim had developed in framework. Had this happened, Moon would have sought, through Kim's sect, to integrate the Christian spiritual groups and then to create a revival within Christianity aimed at unifying the denominations. Such a movement, in Moon's plan, would have provided a basis to create harmony between the major religions. From the perspective of Kim's followers Moon failed his mission by going it alone. Clearly, had there been unity at the time of this encounter, both men would have fulfilled the goals and needs of the other: Moon, indeed had the key to Kim's unanswered theological questions and Kim had both the intellectual qualities to formulate Moon's thought and the organization to begin the work of building bridges within the religious community. What we do not know is how seriously Kim acknowledged Moon's 'wisdom.' Did he see Moon as a gifted student - clever, but inferior to himself? Or did he not even see Moon as a 'student'? After all his probing intensity, Moon was only able to make a part-time commitment. He was not one of Kim's resident celibates but was a married man with a job. On the other hand, was Kim perhaps too consumed by his own spiritual search to recognize the spirituality in Moon, which had impressed the other members of the group? Or did he indeed recognize it and feel threatened by it? Or, in the end, was there just a predictable clash between two inspired men? Kim's group recalls that their leader asked Moon to leave. Whether this was actually the case and why, is not clear. Whatever the cause, Moon realized after a few months that he would not be able to work with Kim's group.27 He would have to continue alone. The events that followed are unclear. The commonly accepted Unificationist story is that Moon received a revelation while he was out buying rice that he should go immediately to North Korea. The more detailed version has Moon on his way by truck to get rice with the intention of stopping by Supchol-ri to say goodbye to Kim, possibly to soften the break, when this experience occurred. It is possible however, that Moon may have wanted to go to North Korea anyway. With the Communists beginning to crack down on religious activity in the North, Moon felt a pressing sense of urgency to contact spiritual groups in North Korea which he believed had also been prepared by God to receive his teaching.28 In June 1946, Kim was planning to take some followers to North Korea for a revival meeting in Pyongyang. He did not want Moon to go along with him. "It is getting more difficult to travel north," he said. "Perhaps you should stay here. It may be dangerous."29 Moon decided to go anyway. On June 5, when Kim was to take the train north, Moon put some things in a rucksack and told his wife he was going to North Korea to buy rice.30 He said he would be away for about fifteen days.31 He traveled up to Munsan where Kim was preparing to leave with Na Choi Sup, one of the female celibates in his group and two or three elderly women. Na's father had been a prominent elder in the Jesus Church and had died in prison during the Japanese occupation. The party would stay with Na's mother at the family home in Pyongyang. They took the train to Kaesong. There they waited till nightfall and sneaked across the border to the next station and caught the train for Pyongyang.32 Later Moon's wife tried several times, with the baby to come up to join him, but was stopped at the border. It would be six years before they saw each other again. Chapter 6 Jerusalem of the East Pyongyang in 1946 was still a dynamic center for Korean Christianity. Denominations which had been banned by the Japanese had re-established themselves. There were churches everywhere. Christians called the city the Jerusalem of the East. But the writing was on the wall, as the Soviet-backed authorities began breaking up Christian power.l Kim Baek Moon stayed in the city for a few days and held revival meetings in the Na's home in the Northern suburb of Kyongchang-ri before returning to the South. Sun Myung Moon visited some relatives who lived in Chong-up, Pyongyang and then stayed on at the Na's house. He began holding services there. A few days after his arrival in Pyongyang he met Kim Chong Hwa and her husband, who lived nearby. She was the women's group leader at the Somunae-pak Church one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the city. She would become his main follower in North Korea. "A great preacher has come from Seoul," she told her husband's cousin, Kim In Ju, also a Presbyterian. "Why don't you come and hear him."2 On June 11, the two women went to the Na family's house where a few people had gathered for a worship service. They noted that the room was not divided, men on one side and women on the other, as in the established churches. As the service began, they were further surprised by the unorthodox style. Instead of the one-hour meeting they were used to, with a few hymns and a short sermon, the service seemed to have no form. The believers, mostly middleaged women, sang the same hymn over and over again. They also sang some Korean folk songs as well as hymns which, for the orthodox visitors, bordered on the revolutionary.3 As they sang, they noticed the young preacher's eyes were full of tears. Kim Baek Moon, founder of the Israel Jesus Church (Pak Kyong Do) When Moon prayed, his prayer was different from anything they had heard in the churches. He prayed with such intensity and feeling that the sweat and tears seemed to pour from him. "I had never been so deeply struck by anyone's prayer in my life," Kim In Ju recalled. Moon read a passage from the Bible and began preaching. His sermon was on the fact that Jesus' death on the cross was not God's original plan. Jesus should have lived much longer on earth in order to realize God's salvation providence. As he preached he wept out of sorrow for Jesus. The two women were jolted by the idea that Jesus' death was not destined. They had understood that salvation was possible by virtue of Jesus' death on the cross and had never considered otherwise. It had never occurred to them that he should not have died so young, but should have accomplished God's salvation work through a much longer life. Kim In Ju found herself crying. That night, she dreamed that she was travelling through a dark tunnel. At the end of it she met Moon. A funeral procession was passing. Fluid from the decomposing body was leaking from the coffin and fell on her clothes. She was afraid. Moon wiped her clothes clean and told her to go to a garden. There, amid beautiful flowers she met Jesus, who took her hand and guided her as she walked. Previously, she had dreamed of Jesus only after many days of early morning prayer. She started attending Moon's services in the hope that she would dream of Jesus more often. She also began to prophecy. She would get up in the morning and words would start pouring out of her mouth. Sometimes she saw visions of the spiritual world and heard God's voice as clearly as if she were listening to a radio. She felt she was experiencing God not just as an abstraction but as a concrete reality. In one sermon, Moon taught that Korea was the second Israel and that the return of Jesus would take place in Korea. But, he said, the return would not happen in either the spiritual or supernatural way that Christians tended to expect. He said that, just as the mission of the Old Testament prophet Elijah passed in the time of Jesus to John the Baptist, so the mission of Jesus would pass to another.4 After this sermon, In Ju prayed to ask God where in Korea the Lord would come. In her prayer she had a vision. Jesus appeared, walked into the room and bowed his head and began to pray: "This daughter of yours has to go a very long and difficult way. Let her complete this journey without going astray." The voice was Moon's. As Jesus finished praying and said "Amen," she looked up but it was no longer Jesus. The face had changed to Moon's. She felt the answer to her prayer had been given. Moon was the Christ. Sometime later, she felt directed by God to read the prophecies of God's kingdom in chapter 60 of Isaiah in the Bible and heard a voice within her say, "This is the chapter that preacher Moon is to fulfill." The next morning, she went to see Moon, and before she could open her mouth he asked, "Didn't God tell you last night to read Isaiah 60, and didn't he say this was the chapter to be fulfilled now?" Kim In Ju had several such encounters with Moon. Such spiritual experiences, far from being unusual were common among the early followers. A few weeks later, Kim In Ju took her eighteen-year-old nephew Kim Won Pil, to a service. He was shy and overawed by the others in the congregation who were very spiritual and who asked questions he didn't understand. "You meditate a lot, don't you?" Moon asked him. "Your meditation should have some focal point."6 The simple, perceptive advice made a deep impression on Kim. He began coming regularly to the services. He did not have spiritual experiences like the others. He didn't understand the sophisticated concepts, and felt inadequate because he was not able to bring himself to cry like the others did in their prayers. But he found himself feeling peaceful in Moon's presence and he trusted him. He took notes from Moon's sermons and talks and studied them. "Please remember, our group is very unique," Moon told him one day. "It is totally unlike anything in the past or anything that will develop in the future. In all history there is only one group like this." In these first few weeks Moon established the routine of his new role as spiritual leader. Before each 10 a.m. Sunday service, he would pray for hours. Some of the spiritual women would pray overnight, and others would arrive early Sunday morning to pray. In this way they prepared themselves for the service. When people just dropped in out of curiosity, Moon found he had difficulty preaching, but if the congregation had prepared as the spiritual women instructed them, the inspiration would come. Sometimes the services would last for hours and the believers became so inspired that they would stand up and dance around. As the Na's house faced the road, the noise began to attract attention. Those who attended without their husband or wife began to experience problems at home. After hearing Moon's explanation that the fall of man had been sexual and how God's heart was broken by the loss of his children, many felt impure and stopped sexual relations with their spouse. Suspicious husbands and wives came to find out what was going on and would see many men and women in the same room, singing and talking together for hours. This was very unusual, given the strict Korean customs prohibiting contact with the opposite sex. Rumors of orgies spread. One husband became convinced that the handsome young preacher was having an affair with his wife and reported him to the Communist authorities.7 On August 11, 1946, in response to the complaint, agents came and took Moon to the Daedong security police station. It was 11p.m. when they arrived and the other prisoners in the crowded cell were asleep. His experience behind bars in Seoul made him mindful of the social code among prisoners. The first rule was that, whatever his job or crime, the new arrival is at the bottom of the ladder. He accordingly took a space by the toilet.8 In the morning, the cell chief, the prisoner who had been there the longest, looked him over. "Let this man come and sit here next to me," he instructed the others in the cell. "He is someone special." To everyone's surprise, when Moon sat down beside him, the man bowed respectfully. "Now I have met the man I wanted to meet," the man said. He introduced himself as Mr. Hwang, and explained to Moon that he was a member of a religious group which had received revelation that they would meet the Lord in prison. The leader of the group, a spiritual woman, Huh Ho Bin, and the other group leaders were in neighboring cells. "Last night I dreamed that I saw her bowing to someone, and when I woke up this morning I saw the person was here in this cell. It was you. "Why are you being held?" Moon asked. "They say that if we deny our revelations they will let us go, but the leaders are refusing to do it," he explained. The man recounted the history of Mrs. Huh's group. The story began in Cheolsan, the home town of Moon's wife, with a woman called Kim Song Do. She was an uneducated believer who had converted to Christianity after being cured of a mental illness by a faith healer.9 The woman found that she had a healing ability and laid hands on her son and cured him when he was sick. As her faith deepened, persecution from her Confucian husband increased. He tore her clothes to prevent her from going to church. The husband finally decided to leave his wife and died shortly afterwards. She continued going to church. In 1924, Kim's church minister was arrested for adultery.10 She was shocked and prayed deeply about how a man of God could make such a mistake. Satan appeared to her and mocked her. Then Jesus appeared in her prayers and told her that adultery was the root of sin. He also said that his crucifixion had been the result of the mistrust of his own people. That the Second Advent of Christ would occur through another man and that he would appear in Korea. She wrote Jesus' words out on twelve large strips of paper six foot long by one foot wide. She was told to teach what she had learned. Her minister said it was the work of the devil, but her story got round and soon many Christians began to visit her. As interest grew the Presbyterian Church expelled her. Kim began holding services at home, teaching that believers should repent for the death of Jesus as if they had killed him themselves. She received revelation that men and women should prepare themselves for the coming Lord, that single people should not marry, and that married couples should refrain from sexual relations. People came to see her from all over Korea, and she taught them to prepare for the coming Messiah. Her group expanded to nearby towns and to Jeongju, Anju, Sukcheon, Pyongyang, Wonsan, Haeju and Seoul. The services were very noisy and ecstatic. In 1934, the Jesus Church held joint services with Kim's unregistered group to protect them from the Japanese authorities. As we saw in chapter three, the Jesus Church was rapidly expanding. This relationship lasted for three years. The Jesus Church, upset by the group's heretical belief that the Lord would return in the flesh and by claims of some of the believers that Kim was the Lord, severed ties. Baek Nam Ju, who had been expelled from the Jesus Church for adultery, helped Kim set up her group independently and suggested the name, Holy Lord Church. Her eldest son Chung Suk Cheon was registered as the nominal leader. Some of Kim's group believed she would never die. Mrs. Kim more realistically, began to prepare her daughter-in-law - the daughter of a minister - to inherit her mission. She instructed her son and daughter-in-law to refrain from sexual relations. Suk Cheon was not so taken with the idea, and he objected. Later, half his body became paralyzed, which believers saw as a judgment from heaven for his disobedience. In 1943, one of Kim's young followers told a person to whom he was witnessing that Japan would decline and Korea would become an advanced power in the future. He didn't realize he was speaking to a policeman. Kim and her two sons were arrested and tortured severely. They were freed without charge a hundred days later. Weakened by torture, Kim Song Do died the following April at the age of sixty-two. Her mission, Moon's cell-mate explained, passed on to another woman, Huh Ho Bin, who was the leader of the Holy Lord Church in Pyongyang. Huh and her husband, Lee Il Duk, were such fanatical followers that they would go to Pyongyang train station to wait for Kim to arrive, even after she had died. Every time Mrs. Huh received a revelation her stomach would move as if she were pregnant. This unusual experience was cited by the followers as further evidence of the truth of Kim's teaching. That contrary to common Christian belief the Lord would be born in the flesh. Huh's group became informally known as 'Bokjung-Kyo' literally the In-the-Belly Church. Jesus is said to have appeared to Huh and told her details of his suffering life that are not in the Bible. She claimed Jesus told her that his mother had neglected him, that Joseph did not love him and that he was never given good food or decent clothes even on his birthday. As he confided in her, Jesus said to her, "You are my mother." He would be her teacher, and wanted to experience from her the love of a mother and a wife, he said. In an original and remarkable expression of devotion, Mrs. Huh and her followers made a set of Korean and western clothes for Jesus for every three days of his life from birth to the age of thirty-three. A room was specially set aside for the task. For each item they bought only the best Kim Song Do, founder of the Holy Lord Group (HSA-UWC, Seoul) material. They did not barter the cost and in hand sewing they tied off every third stitch. When this labor was complete, Jesus told her to do the same for the coming Lord. "The new Lord is twenty-six and you must serve him well, as you have served me," Jesus said. Some three hundred people helped her in this endeavor, providing money and time. Discipline was very strict. Her husband obeyed her instructions, even on one occasion in winter when she ordered him out of the house barefoot, in a symbolic rejection of the archangel who defiled Eve. "Don't come back for six months. You can live by begging," she said. As he totally followed the penance, she accepted him back after six days. Huh received a revelation that Japan would surrender on July 7, 1945 by the lunar calendar (August 16 by solar calendar). She spoke out confidently about this, and subsequently was arrested by the Japanese colonial authorities. At her trial she was asked, "Who is higher, God or the Emperor." "God!" she shouted. She was sentenced to death, but Japan was defeated a few days before the sentence was to be carried out. In prison, she had received a revelation that the Emperor, whose voice had never been heard, would broadcast to the people. Her followers believed her, and the prophecy came true. Then she told her followers that God had said she would meet the new Lord when Japan falls. When she was released her followers were ecstatic in anticipation. They began again to prepare clothing for the Lord. She then received a revelation that the people should not pray, but should bow to God as if he were there. Moon's fellow prisoner, Hwang, said one night he bowed five thousand times. As expectation mounted, they bought a beautiful house in Pyongyang for the Lord, assigned twelve disciples and seventy apostles. Huh's sixteen-year-old daughter was prepared as a bride. Huh said they would meet the Lord when they had gathered in one place. Later she clarified the message, saying that she had received a revelation that she would meet the Messiah in prison like Choon Hyang - the heroine in an old Korean folk tale who is unjustly imprisoned for spurning the advances of a corrupt governor. In the tale, Choon Hyang's faithful lover comes to the prison in beggar's rags, having apparently fallen on hard times. After she pledges her true love to him, he reveals his true role as an undercover investigator for the king, and rescues her. In 1946, leading members of the In-the-Belly group gathered, thinking they would meet the Lord. Instead, they were arrested by the Communist authorities and imprisoned. As the group lived on donations and many members had sold their property and donated the money, the authorities accused the leaders of fraud. However, during the interrogations, the police were unable to find evidence to corroborate the charge. They decided on a face-saving pretext to release them - the leaders should deny the belief that Huh's belly moved as if with child every time she had a revelation. They refused, despite torture. Hwang told Moon that Mrs. Huh's brother had already died from beatings. "Your group is specially prepared by God," Moon said to his cellmate. "I will take all responsibility if you deny to the authorities your experiences. Just deny the facts and you will be released. Please tell Mrs. Huh to do the same." When the prisoners were gathered at midday to eat, Hwang conveyed the message to Huh. But she refused to accept what he told her. Hwang himself denied the revelations at his next interrogation and was released11 Shortly afterwards, Huh's husband was transferred to the same cell as Moon. Moon gave him the same advice as he had given Hwang, but he said he would follow his wife. Moon then tried to smuggle a note to her. The message, written with mud using a fish bone as a nib on a piece of white cloth, said: "The writer of this note has a mission from heaven. Pray to find out who he is. If you deny everything you have received, you will be released." After Huh read it, the note was discovered by a guard. Moon was exposed as the culprit and was severely tortured. This incident happened on September 18. He had already been held for almost six weeks, during which time his interrogators had tried to get him to confess to being a spy for the American Military Government which was ruling in South Korea. They demanded to know why he had come from Seoul and been living in Pyongyang without an identity card. He explained that he had come to preach the word of God and that he was not a spy. The North Koreans had inherited the Japanese torture methods and added some Soviet refinements. For several days during the interrogation, Moon was not given food and not allowed to sleep. When he began to fall asleep, a guard would shout or hit him. The guards were on three-hour rotation duty. After a couple of days, he devised a way to totally relax his nervous system for a few minutes at a time while keeping his eyes open. He was also beaten savagely. He steeled himself to endure each time. With each blow he imagined God's blessing would increase.12 Moon was eventually interrogated by a Soviet investigator and declared innocent. On October 31, authorities notified his followers that they could come and collect him. His chief follower Kim Chong Hwa, and her husband Chong Myong Sun, came to the prison with the young Kim Won Pil and Na Choi Sup, the daughter of his landlady. They were shocked when they found him. He had been thrown out into the yard, half dead from the beatings, his clothes stuck to his body by clotted blood. As they took him home, he was vomiting so much blood that they thought he would die. There was talk of preparing a funeral. Kim Won Pil went to a Chinese clinic at the bottom of Mansudae Hill in the center of the city and bought some Chinese medicine. After three weeks Moon began to recover. Soon he was teaching again. In December, Kim Chong Hwa's brother-inlaw, Cha Sang Soon and two women, Ok Se Hyun and Chong Dal Ok, became followers. Ok was a wealthy, middle-aged woman, who had received revelations that the Lord would come. One of the first things Moon did when he had recuperated was to ask thirty-seven year old Cha, a longtime Presbyterian, to find out what had happened to Mrs. Huh. Mr. Cha visited Huh's mother, who told him that the members were still in prison. She seemed happy to meet him. "I had a revelation yesterday that an important visitor would come." she said. Cha asked her how she thought the Lord would return "He will have a good character, be good-looking and educated and my daughter is going to meet him in prison," she said.13
Huh eventually died in prison. The other leaders of the group were all sent to a labor camp when the Korean War broke out in 1950, and are believed to have been killed. Had Huh simply prayed about who had sent her the note, Unificationist elders teach, God would have showed her and she would have denied her revelations to the interrogators simply to obtain release.14
Again, as with Kim Baek Moon's Israel Church, we can only speculate on the development of Moon's mission if the In-the-Belly group had joined him. Where Kim would have formulated the doctrine and provided influence, Huh and her followers would have brought ceremony and disciplined spirituality to a new movement led by Moon. Although they had prepared Huh's daughter as a bride for the Christ, Moon would not have married her, of course, as he was already married. The preparation was an act of devotion and obedience to Huh's revelations. As a postscript to this encounter, however, it should be noted that when Moon's wife left him and he remarried, his new bride was the daughter of the only known survivor of Huh's group. Had the encounter with Huh had a happier outcome, in the worsening political climate Moon may also have taken his new following to South Korea, instead of staying in Pyongyang, where he would shortly face a second arrest. In January, 1947, he moved to the house of Kim Chong Hwa and her husband Chong Myong Sun, who had become the leading members of his small group. He told the Na sisters the move was necessary because their house was too near the road and the services attracted too much attention. Ok Se Hyun, a follower from Pyongyang (HSA-UWC) But he may also have doubted their commitment to him, for Choi Sup was already becoming disturbed by the spiritual experiences of other members of the group that equated Moon with Jesus. "I prayed very much to see if what he said was true," she said. "I prayed so hard I couldn't eat. Finally I decided it was false. I believed in him just as a good Bible teacher." She and her sister went to South Korea, where they enrolled in Kim Baek Moon's new seminary course. "Why does he say that?" an annoyed Kim asked in a sermon, after the Na sisters reported that Moon was saying that Kim should follow him, not the other way round. In another sermon, he told his group that Moon was claiming to be the new Christ."15 Moon's new landlord, Chong Myong Sun, worked at a nearby sock factory which was run by his brother.16 He supported Moon, and his wife made Moon's clothes and did his washing. There, for the next year, Moon held services which, by the end of 1947 were being attended regularly by around forty people. During the day he would take care of members, and pray and study the Bible. He invested himself completely in his followers. Many had been led directly through revelations. He fasted three days and sometimes seven days, for each new person. In 1947, he wrote a hymn for the congregation to sing. He called it 'Song of the Victors' The first verse went: Sing a loud hosanna to the Lord. Offer everything with humble heart. Come attend the Lord, o rejoice in him Who brings new life to all the world. Let us go determined to seek and find All the promised glory of the Lord. There we'll sing new songs in the garden fair, Songs of freedom bright with happiness.17 One day in 1947, a middle-aged woman, Chi Seung Do, walked in at the end of a service after hearing the hymn-singing as she was going by. "Where are you from?" Moon asked her. "I've just come from the service at the Sangjon-hyon Church." "How long have you been a Christian?" "For 24 years." "Then God must have given you some special revelations in that time." "In 1943, God told me I would find the Messiah in five years if I prayed. Now God has led me here." "Well, if God leads you so well, you should pray more." In her prayers over the next week, God showed her signs that convinced her Moon was the Lord.18 In the meantime, the Christian churches were running into more and more difficulties with the government. The Communists had been obliged to tread lightly with the churches at first in view of the Christian contribution to the anti-Japanese movement. Not only had they been more effective than the Communists during the occupation years, but also at independence. Christianity was the single most influential force in the country. Furthermore the North, and especially Pyongyang, was the strongest Christian area. There were around three hundred thousand Protestant believers and fifty thousand Catholics in North Korea in 1945. Ironically, the Communists had been stronger in South Korea than in the North at the time of independence. Chi Seung Do, who joind Moon in Pyongyang (HSA-UWC, Seoul) The first open confrontation was not long in coming. It followed the establishment in 1945 in Shin-uiju, North Pyong-an Province, of the Christian Social Democratic Party as the first political party in North Korea.19 The founders were two Presbyterian ministers, Yoon Ha Yong and Han Kyong Jik. In a Communist raid on a local church committee meeting to plan the party's inauguration in Yong-am-po twenty-three people were killed. This lead to a major protest in Shin-uiju by Christian students. In Pyongyang, Christian leader Kim Hwa Sik and forty others were arrested the day before the planned inauguration of a Christian Liberal Party. The turning point came when Christian clergy refused to attend a Communist ceremony marking the anniversary of the March 1st (independence) Movement. About sixty ministers were arrested, but Christians went ahead and held their own ceremony with ten thousand people in Jangdae-hyon Church in Pyongyang. The church was raided by security police during the service, and protesters took to the streets. Faced with such massive opposition, the authorities turned to more subtle tactics, exploiting divisions and infiltrating churches. To co-opt the powerful Christian leaders, the Communists enrolled Protestant minister Kang Yang Uk, a maternal uncle of Communist leader Kim Il Sung, to try and persuade Christians to abstain from politics. His pro Communist Christian League, set up in the spring of 1946, met with little success at first. He had been one of the ministers who urged Christians to worship at Shinto shrines during the Japanese rule, and was not popular. But by 1949, ministers and laity were being coerced to join the League. Those who refused were arrested. At the same time as the League was set up, the government confiscated property belonging to fifteen thousand Buddhist temples, Christian churches, and other religious organizations under a land reformation law. In August, when heavy industry was nationalized, the government took the opportunity to confiscate all remaining properties, thereby leaving religious groups totally reliant on donations from their members. Education was also brought under government control and Christian-run schools were taken over. On November 3, 1946 Christians, organized by the Five Provinces Presbyterian Association, boycotted the general election which was held on a Sunday. The boycott brought intensified pressure from the government. Despite the mounting oppression many religious believers, through otherworldliness or simple naiveté, failed to grasp the seriousness of the antireligious drive. Many meekly acquiesced to Communist pressure or simply tried to ignore it. The colonial experience blinded many Koreans to their fundamental divisions. "I was not so concerned about the Communists - they were Koreans," said Han Joon Myong in an interview. Han, who was one of the founders of the Jesus Church said: "I thought we disagreed in politics but that in heart we were brothers. I was wrong." During the Korean war he miraculously survived a massacre of some three hundred ideological offenders by Communist authorities in a cave in October of 1950. It took this experience he said, to convince him that the Communists did not look upon him as their brother.20 The Communists were also able to make use of inter-religious and interdenominational rivalries. No Christians are known to have objected to the arrest of the In-the-Belly Church members, for example. In actuality, it appears they welcomed such moves, seeing God's hand moving in divine retribution against heretics. Similarly, Sun Myung Moon could expect no support for his right to preach from the Christian establishment for whom he represented a growing nuisance. He was attracting good Christians away from their churches. Several of his followers were prominent lay figures and their ministers resented their abrupt departure and the loss of the weekly donations.21 Kim Chong Hwa, for example, had been the women's leader at the Somunae-pak Presbyterian Church, a huge church with thousands of members, which ran two mission schools. Kim In Ju's father, Kim Chi Joon, was an elder of the Jangdae-hyon Presbyterian Church, the city's biggest church. Ok Se Hyun's husband was an elder at the Jangdong Presbyterian Church. Chi Seung Do was a member of the Sangjon-hyon Presbyterian Church. Chong Dal Ok was the daughter of a Methodist minister. However, the main challenge as far as the churches were concerned was that Moon was teaching heresy. He was convincing people that the second coming of Christ would occur in Korea. Several ministers visited him to thrash out some theological issues but gave up when he politely countered with biblical explanations.22 He fielded questions about his own role by telling people they should pray about it. After coming out of prison, he told followers they should pray in the name of the new Christ. Some people believed, on the basis of revelations and spiritual experiences, that he was himself the new Christ. Others, such as Kim Won Pil, came to a similar conclusion from listening to his teaching and observing his lifestyle and behavior.23 The criticism and angry opposition from their families and churches made even the most spiritual members doubt at times, but as they so solved their difficulties their faith grew. They discussed their problems with Moon. He sometimes offered interpretations of their spiritual experience, but otherwise he rarely talked about spiritual phenomena. Moon's attraction for the small group of Christians that grew up around him lay in his passion for and his new insights about God, not in any supernatural arts. He never referred to his visions, nor did he make bold prophecies or perform healings. He listened to his followers' problems and advised them on their life of faith.24 The followers were not always so sensitive to one another. The more spiritual types testified impulsively, without letting others discover Moon's teaching and its significance for themselves. One lady in a service declared that she had seen Jesus in Moon's heart. Another spiritual woman announced to the other members that Moon himself was the Christ. Those who had received similar revelations were further inspired, but for others such pronouncements by the spiritualists were disturbing. Attempts by some followers to convince outsiders that Moon was the Christ soon ended any hope of reasonable consideration of his teachings from established church officials. Almost all those who continued to follow him had to endure some measure of persecution. Ok Se Hyun was beaten by her husband. Kim Won Pil was thrown out of his home by his family, and took lodgings in Ok's house. Kim In Ju was told by her parents that she was in the grip of Satan. They believed that Jesus would return literally on the clouds as the Bible said, and were convinced that their daughter, who was talking about Christ returning as another man was completely possessed. "We must drive Satan out to rescue you from the anti-Christ," they said. They regularly beat and whipped her. She was forbidden to go out to attend what was being called the 'Moon House.' Sometimes after she had been whipped, she looked outside her window and could see two or three of the members dressed in white standing in the street, praying. She knew that Moon had sent them and felt comforted. On one occasion her parents visited the house of their nephew Chong Myong Son, where Moon was staying. When he saw Moon her father grabbed hold of his hair and began yelling at him. "You think you're Jesus? You think you're Jesus?" He wouldn't let go. Moon didn't move. In the melee, Kim Chong Hwa kicked In Ju's mother. One of the members a woman called Chong Deuk Eun, bit In Ju's father's hand. "Look what kind of person you are following," he said to her later at home, holding up a bruised fist.25 Matters were not helped when the woman who had told Kim In Ju's mother that In Ju had been sneaking off to the 'Moon House' went blind, and the church elder, who had been telling her father not to allow her out to attend Moon's meetings, had a stroke and became half-paralyzed. An even more serious case of what the followers interpreted as retribution involved the husband of another follower, an ardent Christian called Pak Ul Nae. Pak's husband sometimes came to the house and shouted obscenities through the window of Sun Myung Moon's room. One night after doing this he suddenly died of a heart attack. These incidents added to the sense of controversy which surrounded the dynamic young preacher. Moon tried to defuse some of the animosity sending Cha Sang Soon to explain his teachings to a number of Christian figures. The move met with little success. At the Jangdong Church where he tried to see Choi Pil Gun, the minister and president of the Pyongyang Seminary, Cha was bodily thrown out of the church by six or seven officials.26 The churches realized that without government power they would not be able to prevent Moon from preaching. They began to write formal protests against him. By early 1948 his followers say, the Communist authorities had received some eighty complaints that Moon was swindling Christians, breaking up families and committing adultery. In order to investigate the allegations the police sent a spy, a woman who stayed for a few days and asked many questions. Meanwhile, in mid-February 1942, Chi Seung Do said she had received a revelation that March 1st would be a special day for Heaven. Moon, who was always responsive to his followers' spiritual experiences, said they should prepare to celebrate the day and asked Cha to go to Jeongju and invite his family. Cha took the train and stayed at the Moon's home in Sangsa-ri for three days. At dinner the whole family, including the relatives, gathered and Cha told them that their son was the returned Christ. Cha felt that Moon's grandfather accepted what he had told them, but that the other relatives were sceptical.27
In fact they were critical. They had expected Moon would become some kind of leader, and now that Korea was freed from Japanese control he could become a politician without getting into trouble. He could even be the president one day, some relatives thought. But what was he doing claiming to be the Messiah? The Messiah was coming in the clouds, as the Bible said. It had never even been suggested the Messiah could be a person other than Jesus. It was as if he was disposed to cause trouble. They grumbled against him: "We were expecting him to become a traitor, but he's become a traitor in the religious sense." But still, he was family and they were worried about him. Cha returned to Pyongyang on February 2nd with Moon's mother and brother, to find that Moon had been arrested by the police on February 22.
The followers said the police had come about two hours before the Sunday service was due to start. Kim Chong Hwa, Ok Se Hyun, Kim Won Pil, and a young woman who had come to a service were arrested at the same time. The woman and Won Pil were released after two days of interrogation. Ok was released after nine days. They were not beaten, but suffered sleepdeprivation. Kim Won Pil concluded from his interrogation that the authorities figured that Moon was deceiving believers to get them to donate their money to him. The police questioned Won Pil's primary school children to find out what he was teaching them. Ok was asked if Moon was a South Korean spy. The trial was set for April 3rd, and then delayed to April 7th, so that Communist police and other officials could attend. It had been billed as the trial of 'Jesus who had come down on the clouds to save the people.' 28 Many Christians came to the court.29 Most of the followers came except for Kim In Ju who was being confined to her home by her parents. Sun Myung Moon, his head shaven, was brought in with other prisoners whose cases were being heard that day. Among them was his follower, Kim Chong Hwa. Moon's handcuffs were removed and he sat down on a bench opposite the judge. Then he stood up, stretched and sat down again.30 The other prisoners kept their heads hung low, their eyes on the ground. Some of the followers sitting in the back began to pray aloud. He stood accused of spreading falsehoods. Deceiving innocent people for their money and using those people to get more money from others. He was also charged with destroying the family and institutions; and bringing disorder to society. "How did you come down to earth?" the prosecutor asked him. "By cloud or by plane?" The Christians in the courthouse laughed. He didn't respond. "What were you wearing when you came down from heaven? Jesus had a thorny crown. How about you?" He kept silent. "What did you study at college?" "I majored in electrical engineering." "Please explain how electricity is produced." The question was designed to show that God, like electricity, is invisible but man-made. He explained the principles of electricity in detail. Eventually the judge interrupted. "OK, that will do." The defense lawyer, who had agreed to defend him at his followers' request, made an appeal for leniency. But given the nature of the system and the political importance of the trial in the context of the antireligious drive, the gesture was useless. During the course of the trial some people yelled out threats and calls for capital punishment. "He should be killed!" someone shouted from the gallery. "He should be beaten to death!" shouted another. The trial lasted four hours and was over by lunch time. When the judge read the verdict, Moon requested he delete the part about spreading falsehoods and deceiving people The judge ignored the request and announced his decision. Moon was sentenced to five years. Kim Chong Hwa was given eighteen months. The crowd of Communist and Christian onlookers seemed quietly pleased with the outcome. The handcuffs were put back on. His followers were able to hand him a lunchbox. He held the box in the cuffed hand and as he was taken away, he smiled, lifted his free hand and waved. Chapter 7 Death Camp Sun Myung Moon was taken to a holding cell in Pyongyang on April 10, before being transferred to a labor camp to serve out his sentence. Mindful of his position as the new arrival, he walked straight to the spot nearest the toilet and sat down. A prisoner eyed him for a while and then told him to come over and sit next to him. "What are you in for?" the man asked. Mindful of another rule among prisoners - don't ask too many questions - Moon wondered whether the man was an informer. He said nothing. "What is your crime?" the man persisted. Moon began to tell him his story, in the third person, using the English name Lawrence. He told him how Lawrence' had searched to find God's will and had ended up in prison. The prisoner listened intently, nodding occasionally as if the tale confirmed something for him. When Moon had finished the man told his story. His name was Kim Won Dok.1 He had been in the cell longer than any other prisoner and was therefore the cell leader. "I graduated from the Japanese Military Academy," Kim began. "I am a major in the People's Army." Kim explained that he was not a Communist but that he was an aide to General Mu Long, a North Korean officer with close ties to the Chinese Communists.2While the general was away on a trip to China, intelligence agents discovered that Major Kim had connections with South Korean officials. He was arrested, accused of being a spy, judged guilty and placed in the holding cell to await execution. One day while asleep in his cell, Kim had dreamed someone was calling his name. Twice he ignored the call. The third time he responded. In his dream an old man dressed in traditional Korean clothes appeared and assured him he would not be executed. The old man told Kim that he would soon meet a young teacher from South Korea. A few days later he was summoned and Kim Won Dok, Moon's fellow prisoner and follower. (HSA-UWC Seoul) informed that his sentence had been commuted to five years. General Mu Jong had heard of his case when he returned from China and petitioned on his behalf. Some nights afterwards, the old man appeared again in his dream, chiding him for his complacency and instructing him to prepare to meet the young teacher from the South. Then his deceased father appeared and led him along a corridor to some steps. At the top of the steps was a throne, so bright that he could not see who was sitting on it. When Moon arrived in the cell and they began talking, Kim intuitively knew that this was the person he had been told to prepare for in his dream. On the strength of this experience he became Moon's follower.3 On May 20, 1948 Sun Myung Moon and Kim Won Dok were among a contingent of prisoners transferred to a labor camp beside the village of Dong-ri near the east coast industrial city of Hungnam. The four hundred villagers took little interest in arrivals as none were locals.4 It was an indifference the authorities cultivated. Prisoners from the western provinces were imprisoned in camps in the east away from the clan support system and where they would be less likely to try to escape.5 Prisoners received less visits than if they had been jailed locally as relatives were discouraged by the long and often difficult trips. Of the labor camps in North Korea at the time, the Aoji Coal Mine in North Hamgyong Province was considered the most severe. Hungnam was next, then Bongung which was nearby and where conditions were somewhat better. One prisoner, a clerk in Wonsan Station arrested for distributing anti-government leaflets, had heard before being sent to Hungnam that you had to be over fifty kilos to qualify for work in the Aoji mine. In the holding cell, he drank only water for twenty days and brought his weight down to forty-two kilos. While two fellow activists were sent to Aoji, he was sent to Hungnam.6 The first intake of nine hundred prisoners had arrived at the Hungnam camp on February 4th 1948. On that first day when they began to fill up the chilly buildings of the former Japanese prison, there had been a boisterous atmosphere mixed with apprehension.7 Guards had pushed them into cells. Each cell had twenty to twenty-five inmates. Uniforms were distributed with kyo, the first syllable of kyodoso, meaning prison camp in red paint in Korean characters on the back. "Whoever painted this has worse handwriting than me, " a prisoner joked. "Do you think this red lettering matches the blue of my uniform?" said another. The ordinary criminals among the group joked and giggled. The political prisoners maintained a tense silence. "Shut up!" Four guards kicked open the door of the cell. "Strip to your underclothes and face the wall." The guards painted the red letters on the back of their underwear and the criminals began giggling again. After the guards left the inmates began chatting about their crimes. "I live near the thirty-eighth parallel," one seventeen year-old boy said. "One day I went fishing and the further I went downstream the more fish I was catching. So I continued down. Then I was captured by a police agent." The boy was sentenced for trying to escape to South Korea. "Then we'd better call you a reactionary element," said one of the criminals. "I was sent here but I'm innocent," said a twenty year-old putting on an innocent look. "A pretty girl in my village loved and tempted me. So I made love with her for our mutual enjoyment. But I was arrested for rape." "Show us what happened," said one of his cell-mates. The prisoner stood up and began gyrating as if to imaginary striptease music. The prisoners laughed. "Don't stop. You're getting me excited," someone said. An old man confessed: "I worked at construction sites. I tried to hide a few nails and bits of wood to repair my house. They arrested me. Do you know what they called my crime? Plunder of government property." The stories continued, but the real hard-core criminals and the serious political offenders kept quiet. As one prisoner was telling how he had been seized for refusing to accept a citizenship identity card from the Communist authorities on religious grounds, a guard shouted at them to stop talking. The prisoners fell silent and within a few minutes were asleep. The next morning a piercing siren announced the new day. Guards began shouting, "Get up! Get up!" Breakfast was passed into the hut in noisy metal howls. The prisoners looked at the salty soup and realized how hungry they were. Even the common criminals were quiet. In thirty minutes the entire camp was assembled outside. The commandant an army captain, addressed them. "This is the Hungnam Special Labor Camp. The purpose of our camp is to supply labor for the Korea Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory," he announced. Armed guards divided the prisoners into work-teams of ten. Ten teams formed a work party. It was a two-mile march to the plant. The prisoners walked by several houses in the cold morning. A small boy came sleepily out of one house, rubbing his eyes and urinated on the ground. Hungnam's industrial site seemed to stretch for miles. It was in fact the most extensive basic chemical and light-metals production complex in East Asia. It was dominated by three huge plants, the Korea Nitrogen Explosives Factory, the Korea Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory and the Bogun Chemical Factory. Several smaller plants made leather, bullets, grenades and other products. When the convicts reached the fertilizer factory, they found it bustling with activity. Smoke belched from chimneys. Trains shunted back and forth on the tracks. During the Japanese occupation, it had been known as the Chosen Nitrogen Fertilizer Company and had developed from its establishment in 1927 to become the world's second largest fertilizer works. The file of prisoners was led to a mountain of ammonium sulfate which had solidified and had to be broken up and bagged in forty kilogram sacks. The work would keep them busy for over two years. Each ten-man team was told it had to do seven hundred bags in an eight-hour work day. Back at the camp that evening, prisoners were frisked individually and then pushed into their huts. Supper arrived - a handful of boiled grain and the same salty soup. After the meal, they looked at the skin of their fingertips which had peeled off from exposure to the fertilizer. The day was not over. At 7.30 p.m. the prisoners were ordered to have a 'newspaper reading meeting' in each cell. They didn't know what it meant. A short while later, a guard distributed the Rodong Shinmun, the Korean Workers' Party daily. A prisoner who could read was ordered to read the paper's editorial aloud. Then they had to discuss it. The convicts were silent, not knowing what to say. "You should criticize your work performance, and confess the crimes you were sent here for," a guard said. They discussed dispiritedly, their minds on fatigue and hunger. Sometime later the siren sounded. A guard went from hut to hut banging the walls with a stick shouting "checking." He looked into each hut to check that none had escaped. "Sleep!" he ordered. The prisoners, lying head to foot on reed mats, with one blanket for four persons, fell into a deep sleep. The next morning the siren sounded again, the same watery soup came, and the prisoners assembled outside as before. "Any prisoners wish to report sick?" the commandant yelled. Half of the assembly stepped forward. Guards closed in. "Where do you feel ill," a guard asked an old man. "Here. My hip hurts. I don't think I can work today." The guard smashed his baton down viciously on the man's hip. After a few blows the prisoner fell to the ground. "This is how ill you need to be to go to the sick bay," the guard shouted. "If anyone is really ill, step forward." The prisoners returned to their ranks. They shuffled to the plant where they were told the daily quota had been increased to thirteen hundred bags.9 If a team failed to meet the new target they had to stay on, missing dinner if necessary!10 Recalling this day, Kim In Ho wrote: "From this day on began our miserable forced labor. The message seemed to be, 'If you can't endure, die'" The prisoners worked through the bitter winter, their starving bodies braced against the cold. With the first blow of spring warmth and the painful softening of the land around, their bodies relaxed and the weaker prisoners fell sick. When Sun Myung Moon and Kim Won Dok arrived in May 1948, a pall of misery hung over the barracks. The place had the look of a death camp. The inmates now numbering fifteen hundred, and crammed forty to a cell, were emaciated and lifeless. Every day men died and new prisoners arrived to replace them. Initially, around ten per cent of the inmates were political offenders and another ten per cent were soldiers or officials sentenced for dereliction of duty. The rest were criminals. But the numbers of political prisoners steadily increased. They were now being kept in separate huts, and on separate work-teams in the factory. But the definition of political offender was loose. Almost any crime near the thirty-eighth parallel, even trying to sell an ox across the border, was considered political. One ideological offender, a brigade commander in the People's Army, had been sentenced to five years for placing a 'Long Live Kim Il Sung!' banner in a field as a target for shooting practice. "There was nothing else to shoot at," he explained to his cell-mates.11 Real opponents of the Communist regime had to be careful who they confided in. Prisoners who considered the real anti-Communists to be dangerous sometimes informed on conversations overheard in the cells. Moon was put in barrack two, cell five. A board outside the hut listing each occupant's number, crime and term, identified his cell-mates as political prisoners. His number was 596. He drew strength from the fact that it sounded like the word for 'unjust suffering.'12 God had given him this number, he said to himself Taking stock of his fellow prisoners, he saw that some had given up the fight, and figured that they would soon die. If once-healthy men were dying after only a few months, how could he endure a five-year sentence? He realized that he too, had been sent to die. It was useless to try to escape and equally futile to try to maintain dignity through open defiance of the prison guards. A defiant prisoner would be singled out immediately for severe punishment. In his determination to survive Moon saw only one way. His defiance would be spiritual. He resolved to fight as if all men's salvation depended on him, indeed as if God's single hope for the world rested on his victory. The battle was spiritual and he was called on to defeat Satan, to defeat the spiritual forces that drove men to evil. His weapons would be prayer, discipline and love. He determined to maintain a loving attitude to God, to his fellow prisoners and to the Communist guards regardless of how miserably he was treated. That spiritual will, which had borne him through an earlier prison experience, was to face in Hungnam its ultimate test. If his love for God weakened he would be gripped by the same passion that consumed most of his fellow prisoners, sheer desperation for survival. His immediate challenge was to handle the starvation diet and avoid falling victim to the obsession with food which distracted almost all the prisoners. He decided to give away half of his three hundred gram grain ration to one of the men beside him, reducing his ration to equal that of the men in the sickbay. He did this at every mealtime for two weeks. Then he began eating the whole ration again, viewing the doubling of his food as a gift from God. He dispassionately studied the reaction of his own mind and body to see if he could desire God's love as much as men desired food. He concentrated more upon comforting God than upon his desire for food.13 "I realized very clearly how God loved me and knew how much I was suffering. Since he knew it I could not ask him to relieve or remove the suffering. Unless there is a condition made for God to save one from such difficult circumstances, he cannot do it. Therefore, if I had prayed to God to take such suffering from me, it would have given him more pain. I did not pray (for) this. I prayed: 'God, do not worry about me.' I did not say, 'Help me, Father.' Therefore, under (no) circumstances (did) I betray God or deny him, but only trusted him and never worried him. I examined myself to see if I could be grateful under such circumstances and could carry on the high ideals of establishing his kingdom on earth. "Under such circumstances, one might long for worldly things, an easy life. Those things (came) into my mind, too. Although I had a family who loved me and whom I could depend on, I always looked for greater things. My sole desire was to obtain the victory in the battle of good and evil. To achieve this I was willing to pay indemnity. I knew the secret of overcoming evil (was to) let the evil strike me first. I could overcome it later."14 He determined to throw himself into the work so that it became a source of fulfillment. He fell into the prison routine - 6 a.m. siren; 7 a.m. breakfast; and at 7.30 a.m. a hand bell would ring, guards opened the cell door and the men lined up outside.15 The commandant would address them from a dais, barking instructions. No smoking, no escaping. In the first few months, two men tried to escape. Their bodies were displayed as a warning. Four others, who were captured, received an extra year on their sentence. The two hundred and fifty guards assigned to the camp watched the prisoners constantly. Each morning the fifteen hundred prisoners walked to the plant in two columns of four men abreast, their hands linked and their eyes on the ground to prevent thoughts of escape. If a man looked up he was beaten. They arrived at the factory at 8 a.m. The prisoners' leader would meet for ten minutes with the fifteen work party leaders and give the days' assignment, and work began. A civilian worker was assigned to each team to check the weight of the sacks. Otherwise the prisoners worked and ate separately from the regular workers at the plant. At noon, the siren sounded for lunch. The lunchroom had long wooden tables and benches. The grain and soup was put at each place. Armed guards stood at the door making sure the men didn't look at each other. When a starving man watches another man eat after he's finished his own food he masticates, an unconscious phenomenon which speeds up the starvation process.16 Many prisoners nevertheless had their eyes glued to others who had not yet finished eating. Sometimes during the meal a starving prisoner would collapse and die and other prisoners would fight over the grains of rice in the dead man's mouth. After lunch there was a thirty-minute rest period. The guards made prisoners sing or perform. Those selected could never muster the feeling to do it well. Moon was never chosen to perform. The afternoon work began at 1 p.m. and lasted till 5 p.m. A team which failed to meet the quota no longer had to stay behind but had to make up the shortfall the next day The prisoners filed back into the camp through the gate where the leader of the prisoners and a guard counted them. A medical officer and three inmates, who were doctors, tended the sickbay. It was always full. But most of the men who died never made it there. They died in their huts. Moon's job was to fill the sacks with fertilizer and lug them to the scales. He attacked the work with a vigor that made the others curious. "Why do you work so hard, Mr. Moon?" asked Kim In Ho, a nineteen yearold anti-Communist guerrilla in his cell. "If I work hard it means less work for the others, doesn't it?" Moon replied. Kim had noticed that Moon never flopped down exhausted at the end of the day like the other cellmates, but always sat upright with a calm expression on his face. He wondered why. He was also curious why, after work, Moon never washed off the grime and fertilizer dust in the factory effluent water with the other prisoners. One morning Kim got up early at about five o'clock to go to the toilet. He sat up and as his eyes focused, he saw Moon sitting in the corner of the cell, praying. Hearing the movement Moon opened his eyes. "Mr. Kim, you're up early," said Moon. They whispered so the guards would not hear them.17 "Do you always get up so early? Don't you feel tired?" asked Kim. "It's my habit. I feel uncomfortable if I oversleep." Moon took off his shirt. He dipped a flannel in the remains of his drinking water and began to clean himself. "Don't you feel cold?" Kim asked. "If you catch cold you'll. . ." "I don't wash in the factory water. I clean myself like this," Moon explained. After washing he prayed again. Once, Moon was discovered exercising in the early morning when he should have been sleeping and was confined in a punishment cell for a week. After that, he continued his routine but would pretend to be asleep when the guards passed. Through this kind of discipline, Moon was able to avoid the plunge into despair. Each day he woke with the anticipation that something new would happen. He looked forward to the small incidents and exchanges which made each day different. In this way he sustained his vision of a future world of peace amid the misery of the labor camp. On the long tramp to the factory each morning, he would tell himself he was walking to an ideal world. One day a new man, number 919 joined Moon's work-team. As he was unused to manual work, the team leader18gave 919 the job of holding open the sacks while Moon and another prisoner shoveled in the fertilizer. He couldn't manage that properly, so Kim put him on tying up the sacks, the simplest task on the team, but even here he was having difficulty. Prisoner 919 whose name was Pak, was disoriented with hunger and was slowing the team down, and the other prisoners were getting anxious that they would not make the quota."19 For the next few days, Moon took care of him. After filling each sack, Moon patiently helped him tie it up until he could do it properly himself. The man was moved by the kindness and felt he could trust Moon. Pak had bought some fish liver oil with some of the money he had, and shared it with some of the more emaciated of his cell-mates. "Don't help everybody," Moon advised him. "You may be helping Satan." "What do you mean?" "Some of the prisoners here are innocent and should be helped. But others are here because they are paying for crimes they committed. If you interfere with their indemnity you are not really helping them. Please ask me which ones to help." A few weeks later Pak came to talk to him. "The camp commandant has asked me to be the camp leader. What do you think? I told him to give me two days to think about it."20 The overall leader's job was to supervise the fifteen group leaders, who did not work.21 The previous leader had finished his sentence and Pak, as an army officer, was respected by the guards and seen as an acceptable choice to replace him. "There is a special meaning in this. Please accept it," Moon said. Pak was introduced by the commandant at the morning assembly. "Prisoner 919 is your new leader You must do what he says." That night Pak had a dream. An old man in white traditional Korean costume shook him: "Do you know who that man is who helped you for those few days?" He said he didn't know. "That young man is the one you've been looking for since your childhood. He is the Messiah. Jesus said, why do you look at me, I'll come back as you saw me go. That man is the one," the old man said.22 Pak, who had attended a Christian school and served as a deacon in a church in Pyongyang, was profoundly moved by the dream. He lay awake for two nights wondering about his experience. If the dream was true and this man is the second Lord, what was he doing here? Two days later he sat behind Moon at the morning assembly. Moon turned round, "You had a dream two nights ago, didn't you?" he asked. Pak was stunned. He started working with Moon's team again to watch him. Pak arranged for Moon to have some time off so they could talk. Once they were alone, the two men formally introduced themselves for the first time and told their stories. "I am Pak Chong Hwa," Pak began. "I am from South Pyong-an Province. I was in the army and was imprisoned for abuse of authority and negligence." "I am from Jeongju, North Pyong-an province. I am Moon Yong Myung. My prison number is 596. I was conducting evangelical activities in South Korea. God revealed to me that I should return to North Korea. I was arrested for disturbing society." Pak, who was thirty-five, explained he was a lieutenant-colonel in the North Korean military police and had been sentenced after a captain in his command was found to have been helping South Korean merchants smuggle goods across the border. In addition, he had been accused of incompetence and disobeying orders, by allowing his border unit to engage in skirmishes with South Korean forces without permission. After a few days in the camp, he said, the hunger had started driving him crazy. At lunch time, prisoners received a radish each with their grain and soup. When he saw someone else with a Pak Chong Hwa, Moon's fellow prisoner in Hungnam, who later travelled with him to South Korea during the war (HSA-UWC, Seoul) bigger radish it took him all day to overcome the anguish. Now, as the leader, prisoners would give him some of the food brought by their relatives in exchange for favors. Their talk came around to the Bible. "If you've studied the Bible, then you know who John the Baptist is?" Moon asked. "Yes, he was a great prophet. He wore camel hair and fasted and lived on locusts and honey." "He did those things, but he could not fulfill his responsibility. That was the reason why God could not prevent King Herod from cutting off his head," said Moon. "That's not true," Pak said. "He was a great man of God. It says so in the Bible." "He should have become Jesus' leading follower and testified to him," Moon said. "He did testify to Jesus. In the Bible it says that, when he baptized Jesus, the dove descended, and he testified," Pak argued. "He just had a spiritual experience, but then he just continued on his way," Moon asserted. "Why didn't he follow Jesus?" They talked most of the day with Pak firing off questions and challenging Moon's claim that John the Baptist had failed to really follow Jesus, despite having apparently recognized that Jesus was the Messiah. Moon stated his points quietly, not wishing to engage in argument or make Pak angry. He wanted Pak to intuitively understand that he was talking to him, not about history, but about what he saw as Pak's own mission. "Perhaps the best thing is for you pray about it, and tell me what you feel afterwards," Moon said. Pak was unsettled by their disagreement. Moon had annoyed him so much that he even lost his desire for food. Again, he could not sleep properly for Sketch of the Hungnam labor camp by Pak Chong Hwa. three days. Pak prayed and intuited that his spirit was rattled because he had not believed the old man in his dream. When he saw Moon he apologized to him for not having heard him out. "I believe you now," he said. Moon explained some of his personal experience with Jesus, and tried to help Pak consider Jesus' situation realistically as it might have been at the time, rather than from the perspective of two thousand years of Christian worship and doctrine. "It is easy to believe in Jesus now, but when he was alive, it was almost impossible for ordinary people to understand and accept him," Moon said. "So God prepared people like John the Baptist to testify to him, and help others recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. But it was difficult for John to believe what God showed him about Jesus. He had known Jesus as the illegitimate son of Mary. If Jesus had been born in a palace, think how much easier it would have been for people to accept him. But Jesus was something of an outcast, even in his own family, due to the unusual circumstances of his birth. It was a terrible burden for him to overcome. Jesus had a miserable family life. This was his mother's fault," he said. "What?" said Pak. "Don't you think that if Jesus' early life had been happy, and that if his family had recognized his special character, the Bible would have recorded it? His early life is shrouded in mystery because it was a period of unhappiness. His family neglected him." "I can't believe that," Pak fumed. "Why do you think Jesus asked, 'O Woman, what have you to do with me?' when Mary spoke to him at the wedding?23 It meant something. She had fulfilled a providential role in bearing him, but she had not. . . "What are you talking about?" Pak walked away from him, furious at the assault on his beliefs. Pak was so worked up that he could not sleep at all that night. His soul felt tormented, and even his body was wracked with pain. The discomfort lasted a week, and eventually convinced him that his attitude was wrong. "I am sorry," he said to Moon. Moon smiled at him. "I was thinking of giving you a hard time for another ten days, but now you've repented, it's OK"24 On a third occasion, Pak became angry when Moon told him that Jesus had been deserted by his disciples and that Judas had betrayed him out of jealousy.25 That night the old man appeared again in his dream and said, "From now on, you follow him. Don't doubt him anymore."26 Pak began to call Moon Sonseng-nim (Teacher), and Moon called him by his first name, Chong Hwa. Given that Pak was the prisoners' leader and was seven years older than Moon, this was unusual in the context of hierarchical Korean relationships. It may be compared in a western context with a teacher and his young student reversing roles. Pak offered to assign Moon the easiest job on the work-team which was tying up the sacks, but Moon refused. "If I do the easiest jobs, Satan can attack our work to build God's kingdom.27 We have to start with the most difficult job." "Well, loading the sacks is the hardest," Pak said. "Then from now on, I will do that," Moon said. On August 15, the third anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule, Moon was awarded a prize as the best worker in the prison. There was a ceremony and the commandant presented him with a certificate which said: 'Prisoner 596 has worked hard and is of upright character'. The assembled prisoners applauded, uncritically. Moon felt as if Satan himself had acknowledged his determination to prevail. The award was given twice a year, on January 1 and on August 15. He won the next two awards.28 "See how we do this terrible work," Moon said to Pak one day, with quiet intensity. "Our fingers bleed and even after months the mountain of fertilizer seems no smaller." "Yes, I know." "One day, all this work could be done by one man controlling a machine. One man could do in three hours what it takes all of us all day to do!" "Well, maybe," Pak said. "But we are in a prison, and no one is going to bring us a machine." "But think about the future. Where will you be thirty years from now? Will you be here? Of course not. You know, one day the world will be one. The world will be God's kingdom. It will be unified in the love of God. There will be no barriers between races and nations and ideologies. We will speak the same language. People will work not to survive, but because they would be bored not working. People will work maybe for three hours a day Everything will be automated. This is God's kingdom. We cannot just think about it, we must work to build it. We must promise to Go that we will follow this goal. Do you see?"29 "Yes." Pak looked at him. He had scribbled notes on bits of paper.30 He was inspired, more by how a man could have such vision in such circumstances than by the vision itself. "Yes, I see," he said again. Moon asked Pak to find twelve others who could share their vision, who could be disciples, as Jesus had. Pak informed seven of the fifteen group leaders about his dream, and explained about Moon to them. Moon witnessed to five other prisoners himself. Of these twelve, most were attracted by Moon's character, rather than by the kind of spiritual experience of Pak and Kim Won Dok.31 Of these prisoners, the one who may have had the deepest understanding of Moon was Kim Jin Soo, who shared Moon's cell and was one of six Christian ministers in the prison.32 Kim, 48, was already well known for his activities during Japanese rule, having been imprisoned several times by the colonial authorities. At the time of his arrest, he was the chairman of the Five Provinces Presbyterian Association. His wife visited him every month. She had moved to be near the camp and every day watched him from a hill walking to the plant. He had attended Soongshil School in Pyongyang, the same as Pak. Every few months the commandant, out of respect, would call him to his office for a chat and give him several bowls of boiled rice. The minister brought the food to the cell, prayed over it and distributed it to his cell-mates, refusing to take any of it himself When Pak was struggling with Moon's teaching, Kim told him, "Even though you are the leader, he has an extraordinary theology and spiritual experience, so you should listen to him." Against Moon's advice, Kim accepted transfer to nearby Bongung camp with Kim Won Dok, where he was executed in a massacre of prisoners, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War. Moon's other followers included Moon Jong Bin, a Communist party member and county official in his late twenties who had been sentenced for negligence in his duties and Ju Heung Shik, one of the work-team leaders. Ju had been transferred from the Aoji mine, the prison near the Soviet border. He claimed to have been a provincial representative of a nationalist organization called the Bekeuidan, or the People-in-white group, a reference to the white clothing traditionally worn by Koreans.33 Although not involved in the incident, he said he had been arrested after the organization's members tried to blow up a train on the Daedong River bridge on April 27, 1947. The target was Colonel General Terenti F. Shtykov, the Soviet representative of the joint U.S.-Soviet Commission, which had been formed to oversee Korean unification and the proposed five-year four-power trusteeship. Shtykov had arrived in Korea as commander of the Soviet 28th Military Group. The Communist leader, Kim Il Sung, had been a major in his command. 34 But apparently, the guerrillas blew up the wrong train. Ju arrived in Hungnam with a fascinating tale of buried treasure. A dying prisoner in Aoji said he had returned to Korea from India with jewels and money, which he had buried near the cemetery in the South Korean town of Yosu. Ju gave the map to Pak. Whether the treasure ever existed or not was never proven, but at least the map earned Ju a position as a non-working work party leader35 One of the other prisoners, who was said to have been Moon's follower was Chong Choon Shik a businessman, who was sentenced for being a reactionary, and who was later killed. The fate of the others remains unknown. They were: Kim Nam Seon, Moon's work unit leader and a government official who was jailed for neglect of duty; Kim Yeon Ok, another government official, who had been accused of being a reactionary; Cho Jung Soo and Kang Shim Heun, both members of the antigovernment Democratic Youth Association; Pak Myeong Hwan, who had a fishery business and had been labeled a reactionary; and Kim Seung Tae a fisherman, charged with fraud. Meanwhile, throughout 1948, the struggle between left and right for control of Korea had intensified. North Korea had issued instructions to its operatives in the South to block the United Nations-supervised general elections on May 10. Elections were held separately in the South, except for Cheju Island, which was wracked by a popular Communist-led uprising. On August 15, the American Military Government, whose rule had been characterized by ignorance and lack of preparedness, handed over power to Syngman Rhee, the first president of the newly-established Republic of Korea. Three weeks later, on September 9, North Korea was formally set up as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with Kim Il Sung as premier. Prison sentences were halved to mark the occasion. Moon's fiveyear term was reduced to three years. When each day's work was over and the inmates had shuffled back to the camp, the numbers of those who had visitors would be announced over the loudspeaker. Prisoners were allowed one visit a month. They would go to the visiting room where they could meet their visitor for ten minutes. Three to five meetings would take place at a time over a long table, under the eyes of a guard. They would sit down and talk and receive clothing and most importantly, rice powder. A prisoner was allowed a four-gallon tub of rice powder. Without the rice powder to supplement the prison diet, they died. The poorer convicts, about one third of the total, received no rice powder. Those who did, among the ordinary criminals, would keep it to themselves. But political prisoners, who tended to receive more family visits, shared. Usually at least one person each night in each cell would get rice powder. One night while everyone slept, someone ate half of Moon's rice powder. When the loss was discovered the next day, other prisoners jumped on the thief and were ready to beat him. Moon intervened. "Don't hit him," he said. "Let him go." They did as he said, but reluctantly. "Think how hungry he must be to have to steal. If I leave it lying around, the same thing will happen again, so let's share it out." He distributed the rest.36 Apart from the thirty-five people who worked in the kitchen, and who were well fed, most prisoners were skin and bones. Pak, as the leader, received a lot of rice powder in return for giving inmates easy jobs. He used to give it to Moon, who shared it around with other prisoners. Moon's mother used to bring his rice powder. But in another sense, her visits were probably the most difficult experiences of his imprisonment. His struggle to maintain his dignity in the death camp and endure what he saw as the most severe test of his faith, depended on his ability to focus his concern away from himself to God and to other prisoners. If anything was likely to wrench his heart away and turn him inward on his own suffering, it was his mother's tears. "When your sentence is over you must stop preaching and think of your family. You shouldn't keep getting into trouble. You must come back home," she implored him.37 "I must continue God's work when I get out. I have a mission to do. " "But you'll just get into trouble. We want you to come home," she pleaded. "If you are going to cry for me, please do not come here again, " he said, concealing his agony. He picked up the clothes and rice powder she had brought for him and gave them away to other prisoners in front of her. She returned to the village and beat the ground with her hands and cried. "Why does my son give me such distress? He gave all the food away. That's the last time I go to see him.38 But the next month, she prepared honey, bean curd, rice cakes and fruit. "This time he'll eat it all himself," she told the family before taking the train. Again, he gave the food away in front of her. Back home, she cried in rage and muttered to herself, "I made everything for you and you gave it away." For a week she was angry. In the autumn she made socks and warm clothes for him, but he gave them away, and she came home and cried. Once, she stayed for three weeks with Ok Se Hyun in Pyongyang, on her way back from Hungnam. She said that when he was released, she would never let him leave home again. Ok explained a little about his preaching and his mission. She did not object to anything Ok said, but did not seem to understand.39 In Pyongyang, his followers did not keep in contact with each other. The only member who could have held the others together in Moon's absence was Kim Chong Hwa, who had been sentenced to eighteen months in prison at the same time as Moon, but she had been unable to reconcile her faith in Moon with God's apparent inability to prevent him from being sent to prison. She was released after one year and was no longer interested in him or his followers. Only Ok Se Hyun and the young Kim Won Pil continued to hold services together. Kim Won Pil kept a calendar, marking off the days to Moon's release. He visited him twice. Ok visited five times. Each time, some of the visitors who arrived with her were told their son or husband had died, and she wondered each time whether Moon would still be alive. One time the guards refused to let her give him some socks she had made. She imagined it was because they looked too expensive, so she made some more socks using her own hair, which she was allowed to give him next time. The guards would hurry the visitors out, after they had handed over the food and clothing. At 6 p.m. the visits would be over. Prisoners sat in a Kim Won Pil, the young follower who came South with Moon to Pusan (HSA-UWC) circle in their cells to eat. They were not allowed to sleep until the 10 p.m. siren. The evening was the only time in the whole day that they really had to talk, but talking was forbidden in the hut. There were no books, so they whispered quietly among themselves. Pak, who was permitted to move freely before 10 p.m., came to Moon's cell and they spoke quietly about the Bible and Moon's teaching. Pak did not speak to the others in Moon's cell, because he knew that there were informers in each hut, trading information with the guards in exchange for food.40 At 10 p.m., everyone slept. Moon prayed and washed his face with his towel and slept at 10.30. On Sundays they did not work. They sat in their cells and ate the same three meals. They were not allowed to sleep, so they talked quietly and shaved with bits of broken bottle picked up in the factory. Smokers saved butts they had picked up off the factory floor during the week and rolled cigarettes, rubbing cotton and strands of rope together to light them. About once every six months, inmates were ordered to write 'reflections' and hand them in within the next week or two. They had to write about their revolutionary development and repent for their 'crimes,' and list any complaints about prison facilities.41 Forbidden to walk around the camp, they knew only their own hut. Each hut was made of cement and had wooden floorboards and Pillars and a thick wooden door. The roof was tiled and one small glass window, with bars on the outside, allowed some light to penetrate the gloom. A squat-style toilet, in one corner of the room, afforded no privacy. But at least it had a lid, for which the man sleeping closest to it was grateful. During the bitter winter, steam pipes provided heat in the cells. Each man had one blanket to lie on and one to cover himself As the huts were so crowded, they slept close together and kept warm. There was no heating in the factory, but even in winter, they sweated because of the work. Summer was unbearably hot. They wore the same clothes all year, unless visitors brought extra clothes. Moon caught malaria and became sick but refused Pak's pleas that he go to the sickbay. "I did not come here because of any crime42 but for my mission," he said. He continued working and recovered after a week or two. Four times a year - the lunar new year, Kim Il Sung's birthday (April 15), Labor Day (May l) and the anniversary of the founding of North Korea as a state (Sept. 9) - were holidays. On one such occasion, smiling guards told prisoners they had slaughtered a cow for the next day's food. There was great excitement in the camp. "Comrade Kim Il Sung has kindly allowed you to have beef today," the commandant said to the assembled prisoners, after a long speech extolling the country's leader. When the soup came, it looked no different from the usual soup. "Did a cow walk through this soup with its boots on?" an ordinary criminal in the cell moaned. "There's not even a cow's hair in it." "There are some slices of meat in it," a work-team leader said encouragingly. After that, prisoners did not get so excited about the extra food on holidays. On another occasion, whale meat was added to the soup and by nightfall, most prisoners were experiencing stomach cramps and diarrhea. Some more serious cases collapsed and their hair began to fall out . "What was in it?" Pak asked Moon. "The meat was rotten. We all got sick because we are so hungry. Don't worry, people will get over it in a few hours. You should report it to the authorities, but don't worry. Worry instead about how to spread the Principle." Prisoners were given two days off work to recover. In the spring of 1950, the prison authorities began classifying the inmates according to their crime and length of sentence. Many ordinary criminals were summoned by the commandant and released. Pak later concluded they had been drafted. In fact, they had been offered a choice of joining the army or serving out their sentence.43 Blackout screens were put up in the huts. "Can I get you some rice powder?" Pak asked Moon one day rather apprehensively, afraid he might be accused of tempting him with food. "Don't worry about me," Moon replied. "Soon special things will happen. Worry about your own health." Moon wrote a song using one of the labels for marking the weight of the fertilizer sacks. He called it 'Garden of Restoration' and sang it to the tune of a Japanese naval march and asked Pak to memorize it.44 In this world embittered with hate, Through the thousands of years, Father was searching to find One triumphant in heart; There, where He struggled, Behold, footprints stained with blood; Such love is given to us in His providence, Such love is given to us in His providence. Here we find the flower of joy In the freedom of God; His garden blesses the world with the blooming of hope; Fragrant perfume of His will Fills us all with joy; Such life fulfils all the dreams of our Father's desire, Such life fulfils all the dreams of our Father's desire. Fresh bouquets of happiness grow, Gently tossed in the breeze; Our home eternal and true is a haven of joy; Here in such beauty divine, We shall always live; Such is the gift of the Lord, Father's heavenly land, Such is the gift of the Lord, Father's heavenly land. God's eternal providence is the Kingdom on earth; On earth He wanted to see His true Garden in bloom; Filled with perfume of the heart, Spread His glorious joy; Such is the glory to come, crowning all of the world, Such is the glory to come, crowning all of the world. One day, some of the factory workers who used to check the weight of the sacks told Pak that North Korea's forces were preparing to attack the South. The fertilizer which had been left by the Japanese, was going to Russia to pay for weapons, they said. "What do you think will happen?" Pak asked Moon. "Now the time is coming," Moon answered with confidence. "I told you the satanic world would be destroyed. Soon the kingdom of God on earth will be established. Have you memorized the 'Garden of Restoration'?" They hummed the song together. In the tense atmosphere which pervaded the camp that spring, Pak found himself singing the song to calm his nervousness. A few days later, the head of the medical unit at the prison told him that weapons were arriving from Russia and that travel was being restricted.45 On June 25, 1950, North Korean tanks rumbled across the border in a massive attack which took the ill-equipped South Korean forces by surprise. Within three days Communist forces were in Seoul. Prisoners in Hungnam aged from twenty to twenty-five with sentences under seven years were drafted, except for political offenders. Conditions in the camp deteriorated. Within days, the first American troops, which had pulled out of the South in 1949 were back on the peninsula, this time under the United Nations' flag. Sixteen nations sent forces to fight for the South in the American-led UN forces. For ten days from July 7, a formation of nine or ten B-29 bombers flew over Hungnam and dropped bombs, which took out the city's bridges and other key targets. Each morning, over twenty thousand of the city's hundred and eighty thousand people took refuge in the hills and returned home after the bombers had left.46 US military planners soon turned their attention to Hungnam's industrial complex.47 When it was learned that one of the chemical plants was processing elements used in the Soviet nuclear program, the commander of UN forces, the American general Douglas MacArthur ordered special missions against the site. A request by military planners to use incendiary munitions was rejected by political leaders in Washington, fearful that fire raids would cause undue civilian casualties. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff also instructed that warning leaflets be scattered before the air strikes to give civilians time to flee. These considerations may have saved the lives of Moon and his fellow prisoners. On July 30, shortly before 10 a.m., a massive sortie of forty-seven B-29 bombers flew over Hungnam in 'V' formations. Their mission, dubbed Nanny Able, was to take out the Korea Nitrogen Explosives Factory. The lead squadrons, flying above the clouds, pounded the factory, setting off huge fires. Flames leapt into the sky so high and intensely, they burned away the cloud cover so that the last squadrons could aim their bombs without radar. Two days later, in the morning, a reconnaissance plane flew over the fertilizer plant. "The bombers will be here soon. We should move to the canteen," a prisoner, a former army captain said to Pak. At noon, the sirens went off. The thirty thousand workers moved to underground shelters. Prisoners took shelter where they could. Forty-six B-29s appeared in the clear sky in the same V-Formations and bombed the factory for three hours. Their five hundred-pound bombs set off explosions which rocked the aircraft flying at sixteen thousand feet. The last squadron had to switch on its radar to see the target area through the clouds of black smoke which billowed up from the crippled plant. Operation Nanny Baker, as it was called, had put the plant completely out of operation. "Weren't you hurt?" Pak asked Moon after it was over. Moon had been working in the area where empty sacks were stored when the bombing began. "God said that no one would be hurt within a twelve-meter radius of me. While the bombing was going on, I was praying and communicating with the saints in the spiritual world," Moon replied. Pak, elated that they had both survived, began singing the 'Garden of Restoration' song. After a body count, the guards announced that two hundred and seventy people had been killed during the raid.48 That night Moon gave some of his rice powder to three prisoners, who were dying of starvation. Pak was due for release the next day and spent most of the night talking with Moon in his cell. "What should I do when I get out?" "Go to Kyongchang-ri in Pyongyang and tell my followers there not to worry about me." "I should not leave before you," Pak said, with tears in his eyes. "This is nothing. It's just a short time. We have so much to accomplish. Go to Pyongyang and tell them I will be released soon." In the morning, Pak was freed. He went to the fertilizer plant and saw Moon from a distance. Then he left for Pyongyang. The following day August 3, the B-29s returned and destroyed their last major industrial target in Hungnam, the Bogun Chemical Factory. Hungnam after US bombing raids (Imperial War Museum, London) With the fertilizer plant out of operation, prisoners were ordered to stay in their cells.49 The remaining common criminals were drafted into army auxiliary service. That was leaving about five hundred political prisoners, who on several occasions over the next few weeks were taken into Hungnam to help rebuild houses destroyed in the bombing. Meanwhile, the Communist advance south had been checked and, after the landings of United Nations' troops at Inchon and the recapture of Seoul in September 1950, the North Korean forces were being routed. As the retreat began, prison authorities planned to execute anti-Communist prisoners and evacuate other political offenders to camps further north. Meanwhile, South Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel on September 30, and headed up the east coast for Wonsan.50 Large-scale massacres began at prison camps in Wonsan and Bongung, near Hungnam. One night in the second week of October guards stopped outside each cell in Hungnam prison, and shouted out several numbers. They ordered the prisoners whose numbers had been called, to come outside. "What's happened?" one prisoner asked a guard through the cell window later that day. "I don't know," the guard said. "I just saw they had a big sign hanging around their neck with their prison number written large. Their hands were tied. They were probably shot." The guards came around and called out more numbers. Around ten prisoners were left in Moon's cell. Before the third roll call, South Korean forces had attacked an area near where many of the prison guards lived. The guards left to help their families escape and returned the next day, October 14. The remaining hundred and fifty-two prisoners were assembled and each was given a bag of rice to carry. They filed out of the camp heading north-west towards the city of Hamheung in groups of about twenty. Seven or eight armed guards accompanied each group. By nightfall, after several hours march in the rain, Moon's group reached a hill outside Hamheung and stopped. "We are supposed to take you to Aoii," the chief guard said. "The tracks have been bombed so we cannot go by train. There are no ships available. We should walk." Aoji, the mining town in the north-east, near the Soviet border, was almost four hundred kilometers from Hungnam. The prisoners, weakened from years of hard labor and prison diet were in no state to make such a trek. "We cannot march that far," some prisoners said. "Why don't you just set us free?" The guards agreed that the trek North would be almost impossible. They discussed the situation among themselves. After some time, they asked each prisoner to confirm his name, address, crime and how much of his sentence remained. When the list was complete, the chief guard addressed the prisoners. "Do you promise that when the war is over, you will come back and finish your sentences?" he asked. "Yes, yes," the prisoners promised. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. "All right," the guard said. "If any officials ask you what happened, I will take responsibility. You are free to go home."51 The prisoners began setting off in twos and threes. Moon walked down the slope into Hamheung with Hahn Byoung Ku, a young anti-government student, who had been in his cell. When they reached the city center, Moon asked Hahn to go west with him, but Hahn declined. "I should go home. My village is only a few hours north of here," he said. They parted in the city center.52 On the road, Moon met up with one of his followers in the camp, Moon Jong Bin, the young Communist party official.53 Jong Bin decided against going to his home and the two men left together on foot for Pyongyang. Two days later South Korean troops took Hungnam and Hamheung and continued their drive North. The tide of the war turned before the Southern forces reached the Aoji camp. It was never liberated. The fertilizer plant in Hungnam where Moon was a prison laborer from 1948 to 1950. These photographs were taken in the 1930s when the factory was run by a Japanese company. (Nippon Nitrogen Fertilizer Co., Tokyo) Chapter 8 Forty Days in Pyongyang It took ten days for Sun Myung Moon and his companion Moon Jong Bin to reach Pyongyang. With their shaven heads they were on several occasions mistaken for fleeing North Korean soldiers, but were able to convince South Korean troops and villagers along the way that they had just been released from prison.1 In his pocket Moon carried the remainder of his prison rice powder. He was saving it as a gift for his followers in Pyongyang. The two men lived off rotten vegetables which lay in the fields along the way. Seven days out of prison, he composed a song of gratitude to God, which he called 'Blessing of Glory.' Now the light of glory arises Like the sun that shines on high; Now awaken into freedom. O revive, you spirits, o revive! Wake the mountains and the valleys; Bring alive the springs of the earth. Light the world forever with the light of your rebirth. Light the world forever with the light of your rebirth. We are called to bring back the glory To the life of God above; Now the Lord in His greatness Fills the universe with tender love, Ever seeking souls awakened, Ever calling them to be free. How shall I attend Him who is calling to me? How shall I attend Him who is calling to me? From the dark of death I awaken And rejoice to live in grace; When the one who came to save me Holds me tenderly in His embrace, I rejoice to feel the comfort Of the love He has for me What a blessing of Glory, to rejoice eternally! What a blessing of Glory, to rejoice eternally! Now He lifts me up to embrace me In the blessing that is mine; What a blessing to receive Him In a love so tender and divine; How can I return the blessing? Though in all my life I will try, I can never stop feeling how unworthy am I. I can never stop feeling how unworthy am I.2 When they arrived in Pyongyang they went to the house of Sun Myung Moon's aunt, where he learned that some of his cousins had already gone to South Korea, but that his family was still in Sangsa-ri. They did not want to leave the family's land and hoped that, after the war, things would settle down. It would only have taken him three days to walk home, but he ignored his own longing to go home and instead looked for his followers. God had brought these people to him and he was responsible to God for them. The choice would have painful consequences. Six weeks later, when the Chinese forces poured into North Korea and began driving the United Nations forces back Southwards, he would join the refugee trail South. He never saw his parents or his beloved brother again.3 He knew that, as he had arrived unexpectedly, any followers still in the city would feel guilty that they had not prepared a welcome for him. Indeed, years later, after more than thirty years as a leading disciple, Kim Won Pil said that he felt negligent for not having ignored the personal risk and gone to Hungnam to wait for Moon to come out of prison.4 With this in mind, Moon decided against simply turning up on the doorstep. He asked Moon Jong Bin if he would go and tell Ok Se Hyun, who had visited him in prison, and Kim Won Pil, who lodged with her, that he was in Pyongyang. Kim came immediately. He found Moon wearing the same clothes that the followers had given him during a prison visit, over two years earlier - ragged and torn, with cloth sown inside the lining for additional warmth. Although not emaciated, he looked ill. He coughed continuously. They went to Ok's house in the Northern part of the city, near the Daedong River. There Moon mixed his rice powder with water, and cooked rice cakes in a pan for them.5 Many of the others who had attended Moon's services before he was sent to prison, had joined the Christian exodus and gone to the South. But some were still in Pyongyang. He asked Kim Won Pil and Mrs. Ok to tell them that he had returned. Some, they found, had lost confidence in Moon after his imprisonment. One refused to accept his letter from Kim Won Pil. Others, like Cha Sang Soon, were glad to hear that he was safe, but were unable to join him immediately because they had other priorities - how their families would survive the war.6 Kim also visited the In-the-Belly Church. He found that most of the group's members had been sent to labor camps or killed, but some remained in Pyongyang, where they believed their leader would one day return. One of the group's elders came to see Moon but there was no lasting contact. Moon sent Kim Won Pil and Moon Jong Bin to Mangil-ri, a village near Daepyong, four miles west of the city, where Pak Chong Hwa lived. The former prisoner's wife said he was staying at his cousin's house in the Pyongyang suburb of Sangsuku-ri where, on October 28, they found him nursing a broken left ankle. "Sonseng-nim7 is in Mrs. Ok's house in Kyongsang-gol," Moon Jong Bin said.8 "He sent us to find you." Pak clambered into a cart and they pulled him along. When they arrived at Kyongsang-gol, a wealthy area on a hillside with seven or eight houses with large grounds, Sun Myung Moon came down the hill to greet him. "You thought you were going to die, didn't you?" he said to Pak. But why would you die if I was coming to find you?" Pak burst into tears. "I thought you had been released and I know you promised to contact me, but I thought you weren't going to. I thought if I couldn't trust you, I couldn't trust anyone in the world," Pak said. As they pushed the cart up the hill Moon held Pak's hand. Pak explained what had happened since his release. "It took me four days to get to Pyongyang," he began. He had walked and hitch-hiked on military trucks. When he arrived in the city, he went, as Moon had asked to the house of Moon's follower, Kim Chong Hwa. He found it empty. She had already left for South Korea. He went home to his village where his wife and her parents had been taking care of their five children, and he started working there, in his cousin's rubber factory. "As the UN forces approached, the Communists hid. Local hooligans formed a patrol to catch them, and they got hold of me and beat me up. That's how I broke my leg. When the UN troops arrived, they asked for the three worst Communists, and I was handed over." "There were over a hundred people in the cell. Three or four got called every night for interrogation. I don't know what happened to them. They didn't come back, so we figured they were shot. After about two or three weeks, I was called with two other people. Well, I thought this was it. Now it was my turn. At that moment I didn't think of my family. I thought if only I could meet Sonseng-nim one last time. I felt forsaken by God, like Jesus on the cross. But the UN soldiers, who were South Koreans, decided that because I had been in Hungnam prison, I was all right, and I was released with the other two. I didn't want to go back home straight away, because I thought it might still be dangerous, so I went to stay at my cousin's house." Moon listened intently to the story. "The other two were released thanks to you. They were able to benefit from the protection God gives you for following his will," he said. The four men stayed at Mrs. Ok's house. Ok and her two youngest daughters, Woo Jong Soon and Woo Jong Ae, cooked their meals, and did their washing. Most of the time the men rested, recovering slowly from their long prison ordeal. Every evening, they held a short service, and Moon would speak to them about prison life, and about the future, and the coming kingdom of God. When Ok's husband, who had gone to Seoul and been drafted into the South Korean army, returned, and her seven other children came to stay, the guests left. They took a rented room in Sosong-ri, in the western part of the city, from an old woman whose family had moved South. On November 26, Chinese troops began pouring across the Korean border in support of the North Koreans. The United Nations forces started falling back. Once again the tide of the war was turning. Religious believers, landowners, anti-Communists and ordinary North Koreans fearful of the massive American bombing raids over North Korea joined the refugee trail South. The order went out to evacuate Pyongyang. Many young men, fearing reprisals by the Communists or worried that they might be drafted into the North Korean army, fled. They left their families behind expecting to return in a few months when the hostilities were over. On December 3, Pak Chong Hwa's cousin turned up at the house. She said she would take him to her home and arrange for Pak's son to come and fetch him. "I'll wait till my leg gets better and then come South," Pak told Moon and his companions. "O.K., we'll see you in South Korea," Moon said. She pulled Pak away in a two-wheeled cart. Before he left, Moon wanted to track down one of the last members of his old congregation. Kim Won Pil eventually found the follower, an eighty year-old woman, ill and near death. He had to yell in her ear to make her understand that Moon had returned from prison. She appeared to be pleased at the news. When Kim arrived back at the lodging house with the news that he had found the woman, Moon stood up. "That ends our work in Pyongyang. It is now time for us to leave," he said. At 3 p.m., Mrs. Ok arrived with the news that her son, a second lieutenant in the South Korean military police, had arranged for the family to go in an army truck. "You must come too, but we must hurry. They're waiting at the Sudokyo Bridge," she said. Moon, Kim Won Pil, Moon Jong Bin and Ok arrived at the bridge one hour later. Ok's son was not happy to see that his mother had brought Moon. Her family who were Protestants had resented her association with Moon from the start.9 "Can the person who destroyed our family ride on this truck?" he said. "Impossible." He refused to let Moon on board. Ok was upset and embarrassed. "It's all right," Moon said. "You go, and we will see you in the South." Mrs. Ok climbed aboard and the truck drove off. The three men were now left with no choice, but to walk to South Korea. Moon felt unsettled about the trek. There would have been some symbolic justice in being driven to safety by the family of one of his Christian followers. After all, it was the Protestants whose opposition had led to his ordeal in prison. It would also have been safer, as Ok's son was a South Korean soldier. But now, three young men travelling without wives and children, could easily be mistaken for infiltrating Communist soldiers. They walked to Pak's cousin's house in Sangsuku-ri. Pak was still there. His cousin helped them prepare food and money for the journey. That night, they were unable to sleep because of the noise of explosions. United Nations troops blew up their ammunition supplies before fleeing the city. One blast broke the windows. The city glowed with the fires caused by the explosions. In the morning, Moon stood at the porch looking down the slope over the city. He called the others over. "I came to make Pyongyang the Second Jerusalem, but it rejected me and sent me to prison." He was crying as he spoke. "Pyongyang will fall into the hands of Satan and so we have no choice now but to leave." They tied packages of rice and other necessities on the frame of a delivery bicycle. Kim carried a rucksack with extra food. Almost all soldiers and police had already left the city. UN planes bombed the iron bridge, the pedestrian bridge and another makeshift bridge across the river to slow down the advancing Chinese. Moon and his followers left at 9 a.m. and with no place to cross the river, headed west for Pak's village, taking it in turns to push Pak on the bicycle. After nine hours' walking, they arrived at Pak's house in Mangil-ri, where there were about thirty relatives and friends, many travelling South, staying overnight. Moon prayed about the journey that lay ahead. The four men were given dinner in Pak's room and prepared to spend the night. "Even though we're tired we should cross the river tonight," Moon said. "But he's got a broken leg," Pak's father said. "He can't travel like that. " "No, it's OK, father, I should go with them," Pak said. He had learned to trust Moon's intuition from his experience in prison. Pak's daughter offered to come with them but Pak's father overruled her and said she should stay. "Don't worry, we can take care of him," Moon said. Moon turned to Jong Bin. In his prayers, Moon had felt that he should travel in a group of three, not four. He asked Jong Bin to stay at Pak's house. "Alright, I'll come South as soon as I can," Jong Bin said. Pak told his wife he would return soon, but thinking back to Moon's words at his cousin's house that morning, he wondered how long it would be."10 It took Moon, Pak and Kim only ten minutes to walk to the river. Pak's cousin had arranged for a boat with a friend. They rowed across to Horamri, a small village on the other side of the river and headed South. Refugees scramble over damaged Daedong River bridge in Pyongyang during the Korean War (Yonhap News Agency, Seoul) Photo of the Korean War (Yonhap News Agency, Seoul) Chapter 9 The Refugee Trail As Sun Myung Moon and his two companions sat down at the side of the road and ate some lunch, a few miles to the north, Communist troops were marching into Pyongyang. After a brief rest, the three men unaware that the city had a]ready been taken, continued on their way. In the late afternoon on that first day they stopped at an abandoned house. Kim and Pak were anxious about the uncertainties that lay ahead. "It may seem dangerous, but don't worry," Moon said. "Because we are united as a trinity, God is with us. The path we are travelling now is a historical road which will lead to heaven. We must go with a joyful and a peaceful mind." They prayed and slept. In the morning, they rose early and cooked enough rice for breakfast and lunch. During the first week they traveled only seven or eight kilometers a day. The weather was bad and pushing Pak on the bicycle was difficult. As there was no railway line at the point where they had crossed the river, they abandoned any thoughts of jumping on a train. They traveled on byroads, to avoid the main road, which was jammed with soldiers and refugees. The pace was unhurried. They would leave in the late morning, and start looking for a place to spend the night by around three or four o'clock in the afternoon. Pak was the organizer. He planned the food rations. Kim cooked, always measuring out slightly larger portions than Pak had instructed. If Pak noticed, he didn't say anything. On the seventh day they came to a spot between the towns of Heug-gyo and Hwangju, where the road rose steeply up a hill. They stopped, unable to push Pak on the bicycle any further. Pak sat down on the side of the road. "It is impossible for you to get me up this hill," Pak said. "Why don't you go ahead, and do your mission without me? You have so much to do. Because of me, you won't be able to reach the South yourself. I'll try to find some way to manage." "No," Moon said. "Won Pil, you push the bike and I'll carry Chong Hwa." They made it up the hill, Moon carrying Pak on his back for part of the way and dragging him up the rest. That night Moon said, that to keep God's protection they had to stick together and not contemplate separating, whatever the circumstances. "We must unite as a trinity. Then God can be with us. This is just a small tribulation compared to what is to come in the mission ahead. So we must overcome this," he said. On the tenth day they reached the town of Sariwon where they expected to join the main road to Seoul. But the road was being restricted for military use and refugees were being diverted along the coastal route, which ran through the town of Haeju. The road was jammed with a mass of escaping refugees, who pushed slowly, but anxiously onward. Parents strapped babies and possessions to their backs. Many older children became separated from their families in the crush. American planes attacked the columns of refugees three times. They've been following intelligence reports that North Koreans, who by now were in control of the area, were using the refugee flow as cover for infiltrating behind the lines. With each attack three to four hundred people were killed.1 The refugees stepped over the bodies, and pushed on Southward. In one attack the people directly in front of Moon and his companions were killed. Moon tried to calm the other two. "Heaven is protecting us" he said. In Hungnam, God promised that no one would be harmed near me. Don't worry." With the United Nations forces in full flight, local Communists were already reasserting control of towns and villages in preparation to welcome North Korean forces. Pak had served in the Sariwon area and knew the road well. He was worried that they might be turned back. "There is a point in Haeju where this road narrows so that just four soldiers could block it," he said. "I think we should go another way, by Cheongdan. It would be safer. " They decided not to follow the flow to Haeju. Later they heard that the refugees who went to the town, were sent back to their villages by the Communist authorities. On the way to Cheongdan, they heard some escapees were planning to go to Yongmae Island to take a boat to Inchon. Moon said they should go there. He had a friend from his student days in Japan whose family had a fishing business on the island. When they arrived at the shore, they found at low tide that they could walk the few hundred yards across to the island. Moon told Kim to go ahead with the bicycle, and he put Pak on his back and carried him across to the island. They went to the house of Moon's friend and found it deserted. They spent the day there and ate little balls of rice with salt and cooked up some rice for the next day's journey. The family had left a boat behind, which the three men decided to use for their escape to Inchon. They slept the night in the boat and in the morning, on the incoming tide it began to float. Other refugees began to appear, and soon there were about a hundred and fifty people on board. Before they could cast off, South Korean soldiers came and requisitioned the boat to evacuate soldiers and policemen and their families. They were ordered out. Shattered, they walked back to the mainland and headed for Kaesong. On a back lane near Cheongdan, four peasants blocked the road. "Where are you going?" one asked. The men were armed. "We are refugees. We're going South." "We have to check you out. You, show us your ID, " he said, looking at Moon. With his shaved hair still not fully grown back, they must have thought he was a soldier. "I don't have any," he replied. "Come with us. You, too," the man said, pointing at Kim. Pak stayed with the bicycle, and the men led his two companions away. He waited. The thugs were probably self-appointed police, he thought, antiCommunist peasants with guns, who robbed refugees and, no doubt killed any they considered to be Communists. He became worried. They were on an empty road that ran through fields, and there were no houses in sight. An hour and a half later, Moon and Kim returned. Won Pil had tears in his eyes. "They beat him," he said. The men had taken them to a nearby village and questioned them. Moon had told them he was a minister, and that he had just been released from prison but they didn't believe him, even when they found his Bible in his pack. Finally, one said: "If you're a minister, what is John 16:1?" He recited the verse and the vigilantes, convinced he was telling the truth, let them go. "If I had a gun, I would shoot them," Pak said. "You don't need to think of revenge," said Moon. "We must be patient in heart. This is just a small tribulation. In one more day, we will come to a place where we will be served wonderful food." Pak thought he was just trying to make them feel better. The next day, they came upon a house situated by a pond. In the distance, they noticed a man going in and out of the house as if he was looking for someone. As they approached the man called at them to come in. Inside, a table of food had been prepared, with a sheet of white paper over the food to keep the dust off. The man and his wife courteously invited Moon to sit where the under floor heating was warmest. Normally, Pak, being the eldest, would have been given the honored spot, but the couple, who said they were deacons at a local church, explained that they had both dreamed two days earlier that some important guests would come and that they should serve them well. The three men were exactly as they had dreamed, they said. They knew that Moon had to be treated as the elder. Kim and Pak were amazed at the story. They deepened their resolve to trust Moon. For Pak, a natural administrator accustomed to leadership, the experience was humbling. Kim, who had always been in awe of his spiritual leader, felt that his own faithlessness and his need for constant encouragement had somehow been the cause of Moon's beating the day before. During the journey he came to the simple realization that Moon suffered the same hunger and discomfort as everyone else. "I didn't realize you had the same feelings as ordinary people," he told Moon one day. "If I had been one of Jesus' followers two thousand years ago, I might have felt the same about him, and if he were hungry, I might not have offered him any food to eat. I would have supposed he never needed food, and maybe because of me he would have died of starvation." They stayed the night at the Christian couple's home, and continued their journey in the morning. Each night when they stayed in an empty house along the way, Kim made a fire to warm up the under floor heating. One night, he used the poles of a stretcher which he had found beside a nearby hillside tomb, to set the fire. The family he thought, had most likely used the stretcher to carry the body to the grave, and just left it there. While Kim stoked up the fire the other two lay down to sleep in the next room. "What is that wood you're burning" Moon called out to him suddenly. "I looked everywhere for something to burn, but there wasn't even any dry grass. Then I found these poles by a tomb on the hill . They were part of a stretcher." "Not all wood should be used as firewood," Moon said. He knew, Kim thought, that the wood had come from a grave site. They began travelling with increasing urgency. Pak was still unable to walk and had to be pushed on the bicycle, but they were nevertheless able to cover fifteen to twenty miles a day. One night, after supper in an abandoned house in Jangdan, a town close to the Imjin River and the United Nations' lines, Kim and Pak flopped down exhausted and slept. "Wake up. We have to go." Moon shook Pak. "Can't we just stay here tonight?" Pak asked. He had been asleep for less than an hour. "No, we must go." Won Pil was in a deep sleep and was difficult to wake. "We must go now or something terrible will happen," Moon said urgently. Both men believed him. They quickly gathered what little they had and left. They hurried along in the freezing, early morning air, and soon reached the river. It had not completely frozen over, but they were able to float across to the Southern bank on a wide ice flow. On the other side, an American guard stopped them, and took Moon and Kim away for interrogation. Pak waited for over an hour on the bicycle. They returned wearing United Nations-issue gloves. South Korean soldiers had told them of a plan that morning to erect barriers to prevent North Korean and Chinese troops from crossing the river. They were told they were the last refugees who would be officially allowed across. "Now do you understand why I woke you up?" said Moon. They made their way to Munsan, then on to Seoul. On Christmas Eve, they crossed the Han River and arrived in Heuksok-dong, where Moon had attended school ten years earlier. Pak and Kim were shocked at the devastation of the ruined city. For both it was their first experience of Southern Korea. "I have many friends here, friends of faith," Moon said to encourage them. He took them to the house of Lee Kee Bong, his former landlady. Some of her family were in the courtyard, as Moon stepped through the gate. "Where are my wife and son?"2 he asked, without any formal greeting. "Look who it is. Come in. She's in Pusan," they said. Moon and his companions stayed for one week, but as the two room house was too crowded, they moved to the empty house of his old friend, Kwak No Pil, who had taken his family to Pusan. They spent the next four nights in the house. By now they had run out of food. Kim knocked on the door of several houses. All were empty. He broke into them and, in one found some rice. Elated, he returned to Kwak's house and began to prepare the food. "Where did you get this?" Moon asked. "In an empty house," Kim replied. "If you take something from somebody, you should determine to return to him three times as much as you took," Moon said. "If you make this North Korean refugees are screened by American soldiers in South with mine detectors (Yonhap News Agency, Seoul) promise to yourself, you may take the food but you should still try to give it back substantially at some point." On New Year's Day 1951, some policemen came and took Moon and Kim away. The government was conscripting able-bodied men, particularly refugees, to form local volunteer army units. Because of his broken ankle and his age Pak was exempted. Kim was told to present himself for a medical check-up and Moon was taken to a police station near Piwon in downtown Seoul for questioning. Once again, his short hair aroused suspicion. He was held overnight and in the morning interrogated again. In the morning Kim came to see him.3 "If I cannot see you any more, how can I continue? How can I maintain my faith? What can I do by myself? Please give me advice." Kim asked, fearing that they would be separated. "Follow your mind, your original mind," Moon answered. "Your original mind will guide you, and you should direct your life according to it. Kim tried to explain to one of the policemen that Moon was his teacher, and that he had been jailed by the Communists and that they had come South together as refugees. The policeman looked at the gentle Kim with his wide lips and smiling face and high-pitched voice and wondered if he wasn't a woman, probably the prisoner Moon's wife, dressed as a man. "Come here" he said, leading him to an empty room. "Take off your shirt." Kim obeyed. Satisfied with the story, the police released Moon and ordered both men to sign up for the army. The application process began with a medical check-up. Soldiers instructed those who were sick to line up separately. Moon, although a fighter in his childhood and no stranger to physical hardship, knew his mission would be finished if he shed blood in warfare. He joined the sick line and called Kim over. Kim had a bad back, the result of a fall from a roof when Moon was in prison in Pyongyang but he doubted the excuse would convince the examiner. In front of them a man with one eye and another with hemorrhoids were drafted. Moon explained his recent imprisonment and poor condition to the soldier and was declared unfit. Kim explained about his back and to his surprise, was also deemed unfit. In fact, neither man had needed to exaggerate. Both were extremely run down and exhausted from their escape, and in far worse shape than the other city dwellers and refugees in the line who had come South by train. They were issued with disqualification certificates. "You would have worried too much about us if we'd been drafted, but fortunately heaven helped us," Moon said when they saw Pak Chong Hwa. Other young men recruited into the National Defense Corps from among the refugees that winter were less fortunate. Much of the money for the five hundred thousand-strong force was misappropriated, with the result that supplies never reached the troops. Thousands suffered from exposure and several hundred are estimated to have died from starvation. In the spring of 1951, leaders of the Corps were tried and shot.4 The three men went to the police station with Mrs. Lee as a witness, and obtained proper papers which identified them as refugees. Chinese and North Korean forces meanwhile, were closing on Seoul. The jittery South Korean authorities began executing prisoners and political opponents.5 The capital, bombed out and hardly functioning, was about to change hands for the third time. On January 3, UN troops pulled out of the city. A visitor dropped by Lee's house. Moon recognized the voice and came out to greet him. It was Kim Hee Son, who had been the deacon at the Myongsudae church which Moon had attended as a student. "Do you still go to the church?" Moon asked him. "No, I stopped." Kim had fallen out with the minister, Kwon Duk Pal. "Rev. Kwon used to get so angry with people for being late. He'd lock the church door after the service started. He's gone North now."6 "We are going to Pusan. Will you come with me?" Moon asked him. "I can't. I've got nine family members to take care of," Kim said. He helped make some documents, showing that Moon had been a resident of Heuksok-dong. They left, taking quilts and food from Kwak's house.7 The main route went South through Suwon, but they traveled south-east through Ichon, Yoju, Wonju and Jechon where one of Pak's sisters lived. They fell into the same pattern as the first leg of the journey, except that there were fewer empty houses along the way. Many old people were staying in their homes. They had to ask if they could stay and had to carry or buy their own food. Pak's sister's house was empty and they spent one night there. The further South they traveled, the more frequently they were asked to show their identity papers. Even in the small villages patrols had been organized. Refugees without proper papers were sometimes beaten and killed. From Jechon, they took the old road, which used to be the main communication link from Seoul to the south-east in the days before the railroad. It took seven to eight hours one day to struggle over the Moongyeong Pass, at the boundary of North Chungchong and North Kyongsang provinces. Kim carried the bicycle, and Moon carried Pak up the steep, icy track which was covered in fresh snow. At the top of the pass, they walked through the ancient gate. They stopped at the town of Caun. Pak's leg was improving and from here he was able to ride the bicycle without being pushed. The next day at Jeomchon, Moon asked Pak to go to a nearby house, offer the family some money and ask them to make some rice cakes. Pak told the people they were refugees and that they had been traveling for two months. The people made enough rice cakes for ten. They were so hungry they ate the lot. They stayed in the town for four days, before continuing their journey. At a place called Yeongcheon, Moon produced a letter from inside his coat. He explained he had written it in Hungnam to a follower, who was in prison in Pyongyang, but that it had been returned unopened. Ok Se Hyun, on one of her visits to him in Hungnam, had told him the person had refused to accept the letter. He had kept it for almost three years, hoping the follower might change and accept it. He prayed and tore the letter up.8 At a few towns, Moon used some of the meager money they had brought, or begged on the way to buy fruit. Occasionally, in small villages, people offered them dinner. One particular evening they arrived at an empty house. They cleaned out a pot to cook the rice in and Kim went off to look for firewood. He returned a little while later saying he couldn't find anything to burn. Moon closed his eyes for a moment. "Go up the hill past some bushes and you'll find some," he said describing a location nearby. Kim returned with some wooden planks. They cooked the rice. "How did you know?" Pak asked after they had eaten. "The wood came from a burial site," Moon said. He explained that the spirit of the man who had been buried there came and told him. "If a person has not done enough good deeds on earth, it is much more difficult for him in the spiritual world to make his spirit grow. People in the spiritual world try to grow through people who are alive, who have physical bodies. Many people in the spiritual world cooperate and help me in order to achieve spiritual growth." With Pak now able to walk, they traveled rapidly Southwards through Andong, Uiseong, and Yongcheon. They arrived one evening at Koncheon near the historic town of Kyongju. Pak was looking for a house to stop in and he saw a church. He approached a large house thinking the occupants would be Christians and more charitable. He told the owner they were refugees and asked if they could use a room for the night and cook their rice. "Please come in the man said. "I am a deacon at the church. Two days ago I dreamed that three important guests would come. Please come in." He showed them to a room, and there was food already prepared. "I will be your host and will serve you well." he said. The next day they went on to Kyongju, arriving at night. They found a room to stay in, but had no light, no candle or electricity. Kim went out to buy cuttlefish and made soup with it in the dark. "Seeing as we have such nice soup, why don't you take some to the owner of the house?" Moon said. Kim took some to him and came back. After they had drunk the soup, the owner came to the room with a candle in his hand. "What kind of soup is this?" he asked. "It's cuttlefish. We bought it and made it here." "Before you cook it you're supposed to remove the ink. Look." He held the candle over the soup so they could see. The soup was black. They all laughed. After they had spent four days at the house, the owner who was a carpenter, told them they would have a very difficult time in Pusan, because the city was now overflowing with refugees. "Why don't you two young people go on to Pusan and Mr. Pak stay here and I'll take care of him?" the man suggested.9 Moon agreed, and he and the young Kim Won Pil continued on to Pusan, a fishing port on the east coast. There they bought train tickets and traveled the last fifty kilometers of their journey to Pusan in two hours. As there was no room in the passenger coaches, they rode up front, clinging on to the front of the engine with the warmth of the steam engine on their backs and a biting winter wind freezing their faces. They arrived at Choryung Station in Pusan cold and hungry, on January 27, 1951. Chapter 10 The Rock Of Tears Throughout the freezing winter of 1950-51, refugees fleeing the advancing Communist forces, poured into Pusan. By the end of January, the attacking Chinese and North Koreans were checked sixty miles South of Seoul and by mid-March, the capital was retaken for the South by UN forces. But as long as the outcome of the war remained uncertain, the refugees still kept coming. Pusan was the safest place, or at least the farthest the Communists would have to come. Its sixty or so refugee camps bulged. In the scramble from the North, ninety-one thousand people had been evacuated by ship from Hungnam. Hundreds of thousands came by truck, train and on foot. Offshore from Pusan, Koje Island housed over a million refugees and a compound of a hundred and thirty thousand North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war. There were food short ages, exacerbated by hoarding. A black market thrived and crime was rampant. Yet amid the ramshackle life the proud Koreans maintained a dignity. Schools were started. Local officials and gaily dressed girls were trooped out to welcome visiting US ships. Recovering from the panic of the initial outbreak of the war, the South Koreans were more confident that UN troops would drive back the North Korean army. The most telling symbol of this hopeful dependence was the erection along the airport road of hoardings to shield the squalor of the camps from the view of visiting foreign officials. Citizens politely applauded the foreign soldiers who marched past them to the front. Wondering privately by what means or motive, what intervention divine or humanitarian, so many foreigners came to their aid. Few bothered to speculate about the future and ask whether, as in earlier times in Korean history, the foreign forces would later be reluctant to leave when the conflict was over. Sun Myung Moon and Kim Won Pil arrived at the Pusan train station in the dark and spent the first night squatting beside a fire they made in an empty butter-can left by UN troops1 In the bitter cold morning the sun rose revealing the bustling squalor of the wartime city. Moon began to seek out acquaintances whom he knew to be in the city. He found Kwak No Pil, the school friend whose empty house he had recently used in Seoul, in a small rented room, where he was living with his wife and baby daughter.2 They greeted each other warmly and sat up all night talking about religion. Moon tried to convince Kwak that God was going to rescue mankind from evil. For Kwak, it was all a bit airy-fairy. A Christian, he was having doubts about his childhood faith. He had been in his first year studying politics at Yonsei University in Seoul when the war broke out and both his studies and the brutal reality of war led him to question his beliefs. "God's existence is a philosophical problem for me. I'm not even sure he exists," Kwak said. "You're asking the wrong question," Moon said. "You should not be thinking does God exist or not. It's too theoretical. Ask instead, why does God exist? What does he exist for? If there's an answer to that question, the question about God's existence answers itself " "That's easy to say. How does it get round the basic question? Either God exists or he doesn't," Kwak insisted. "What I mean is, if you figure out why God exists, everything falls into place, including the fact of God's existence. Pondering God's existence by itself misses the point. The question is, does the relationship exist, the relationship between God and man." Kwak was not convinced. In the morning Moon began to talk of his own future. "All religions will be united one day," he said. "We have to unite the different faiths." He said he was going to write a book and that his teaching had to be spread throughout the whole world. "One day Korea will be a great nation. Christians will come here from around the world to learn this teaching," Moon said. Kwak listened in silence thinking to himself: "Korea? Great? At the moment Pusan is all that remains of Korea. He is crazy."3 One afternoon, just after their arrival in the city, Moon was walking up a stairway by Pusan station. It was raining heavily. There were forty steps. At the top he saw a figure he recognized. It was Aum Duk Moon, his old college friend. At first Aum thought the person looking at him, though vaguely familiar was a beggar. Moon, unshaven and soaked was wearing a traditional-style white shirt, turned gray with grime, khaki trousers and black rubber shoes. "Moon! " Aum shouted in recognition. They embraced.4 Moon said he had escaped from North Korea. Aum had been working in the city as an architect when the war started and was now working on a hospital construction project. "When did you get here? What are you doing?" Aum asked. Moon smiled and did not answer. "Where are you staying?" Aum asked. "I just arrived yesterday, so I don't have a place to stay, " Moon said.5 As Kim Won Pil had found a job as a waiter and been provided with lodgings by the restaurant owner, Moon was on his own and homeless. "Come and stay with me," Aum said. "I don't want to cause you any trouble," Moon said. "Don't worry. Come and stay," Aum insisted. "O.K., but I'll just stay for three days," Moon said. Aum, his wife and two children were renting the second floor room of a private house in the Bumin-dong area of the city. Aum gave Moon some dry clothes. "There's no heating here. It's really freezing. Let's go out and have a drink," Aum said. He remembered that Moon didn't drink and said that Moon could have something to eat at the bar. "I'd rather not go there," Moon said. "O.K.," Aum said. Aum's wife, Ko Hee Yong, prepared dinner for them and washed Moon's clothes. During dinner, Moon told the story of his journey with Pak Chong Hwa and Kim Won Pil from Pyongyang. "Since you were reading the Bible so faithfully during our student days in Japan, let's talk about Christianity," Aum said. As Moon began to speak, Aum felt a powerful warmth within. Moon taught Aum his views of God and his providence over several days. Raised a Buddhist, Aum had no understanding of Christianity but respected Moon and did not challenge his views. One night, he had a dream in which a woman appeared to him, claiming to be Jesus' sister. The woman said that Jesus resented his own mother and that Moon had the key to freeing Jesus from this resentment. Aum told Moon about the dream and Moon explained about Jesus' suffering life, which he claimed, even Christians did not understand. Aum dropped his familiar attitude and began calling Moon Sonseng nim. As a courtesy marking his new respect, he gave Moon the silver chopsticks, which he had previously used himself and asked his wife to serve Moon first at mealtimes. Aum and his wife felt their lives being transformed. Moon, they believed, possessed some special connection to God. One day, Aum's wife fell down the stairs and passed out. Aum wanted to take her to hospital but Moon picked her up and laid her out on the floor and prayed over her intensely until she came back. That Sunday, Kim Won Pil and Ok Se Hyun came to the Aums' house and they held a small worship service. Moon and Kim had found Mrs. Ok through Rev. Han Sang Dong, a refugee minister whose services she had attended in Pyongyang.6 Moon also found Mrs. Lee, his former landlady in Seoul. She gave Ok some material to make Moon and Kim some clothes, but they later sold the material to pay for rent. Shortly after the first Sunday service, Aum's elderly landlady said she wanted Moon to leave. She thought it unnatural that Moon was living with Aum, his wife and two children in such cramped conditions and was irritated by their talking, which went on into the early hours. Aum stopped her from ordering Moon out directly and in retaliation, she threw the whole family out. They found other lodgings with two rooms, where Kim Won Pil joined them, the men sleeping in one room and Aum's wife and children in the other. After a week, they were thrown out again. Aum sent his family to find a place in Masan, a town along the coast from Pusan. Aum then slept in a friend's car. Moon, meanwhile, had located Kim Won Dok, the North Korean army officer he had met in prison. After his transfer from Hungnam, Kim survived a massacre of prisoners by retreating Communist guards during the Korean War. He escaped to South Korea where he became a policeman.7 Moon stayed with him and his newly-married wife for two weeks. Moon sometimes brought Kim Won Dok and Aum Duk Moon to the restaurant where Kim Won Pil was working. Won Pil would ask the owner if he could serve them food. It was only when he noticed how Moon wolfed down his food that he realized how hungry he must have been. In fact, Moon frequently had no food to eat and in April had nowhere to stay. Some days he went to the Pusan docks to find work and he would work through the night and sleep in the open in the warmth of the day. But there was hope that circumstances would change, for Moon still carried with him the treasure map that Pak had been given in prison. In the summer of 1951, Moon took Aum to the coastal town of Yosu to search for the treasure. Yosu had gained some notoriety as the site of a Communist uprising a few years earlier, and the victims had been buried in the public cemetery. It was there that, according to the tale Moon had heard in prison, the Korean traveler returning from India had buried his jewels. They checked into an inn near the cemetery and began searching for a small post with the markings 'nam-hae-bo' (South sea treasure) in the cemetery. After two days, they gave up and returned empty-handed to Pusan.8 Moon and Kim took a room in a boarding house for laborers, opposite the Choryung station. Moon had started writing down his theology at Kim Won Dok's home, but the atmosphere of the new place was hardly conducive to continuing this work. The paper walls accorded no privacy or escape from the noisy nightly drinking sessions of other lodgers. After ten days they decided they should look for a place to build their own house and they moved in July to Pomne-gol, a hillside in the district of Pomil-dong, on the edge of the city."9 With Aum and Kim away at work during the day, Moon did most of the construction himself to make a level foundation, he built up the site with stones, which he collected from around the hillside and carried in a wooden, A-frame strapped to his back. He dug up soil and carried it in sack loads to the site. He covered each layer of stones with soil and poured water on it, and then laid another layer. The walls and roof were built of wood and cardboard boxes from shops. He made a window and covered the roof with paper. Because of the heavy summer rain, the first two efforts to make the foundation failed. The third time the construction was solid. The threeby-two-meter, one-room house was finished in September. "In our eyes, that hut was like a palace," Aum recalled."10 Moon, Kim and Aum slept there on a mat, head to toe, and ate their meals outside off an apple crate. From the hillside at night, they could see over the city to the harbor where the American and United Nations ships docked, bringing troops and supplies. Moon would sometimes ask Aum to sing, and they would talk and sing until the early hours. Twenty yards down the hillside there was another refugee-built house in which sixteen members of a family, called Song, lived. The Songs, once well-to-do Buddhists in North Korea, had come by freight train from Pyongyang.11 One of the Song children, twelve-year-old Moon Kyu, led a gang of thirty refugee boys in the area who had occasionally helped Moon and Kim Won Pil with the construction of the house. One day Moon, whom the boys called 'Big Uncle,12 called out to him. "Follow me up the hill," he said. Song Moon Kyu followed. "Do you know who Jesus Christ is?" Moon asked suddenly. "I don't know," Moon Kyu answered. "Do you know where Israel is?" " No." "You don't know, but next time, son, I will tell you," Moon said. The boy was not so interested, but he was impressed with Big Uncle. The shack Moon built with ration boxes in Pusan in 1951. (HSA-UWC Seoul) After building the house, Moon dug out the nearby spring to make a well, which the Song family used. One night in the typhoon season, the Songs' roof blew off. In the morning, Moon brought them some hot soup. The Songs rebuilt their house as Moon had done his, with a foundation of stones and clay Often Moon would take young Moon Kyu up the hill to a large rock and ask him to wait while he, Moon climbed the rock. Moon disappeared sometimes for hours. Although fidgety and curious, Moon Kyu waited as he had been told. He later learned that Moon was writing his theology. One windy day, Moon Kyu reluctantly agreed to let Big Uncle have a go of his kite. Moon Kyu, the gang leader, had tied bits of broken glass to the string, so that if it touched other kites it would cut them. Moon ran the kite right out and after some time in the strong wind it broke and blew away. The boy was heartbroken. He couldn't say anything to Big Uncle, who had been kind to him before, so he vented his anger by yelling at his gang members. The neighbors became close. Moon Kyu's father invited Moon several times to come and have a drink with him, but Moon declined. His mother and sister sometimes helped Moon and Kim prepare and cook meals. Some years later young Moon Kyu, his father, sister and another gang member became Moon's followers. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ok Se Hyun would come twice a week to cook for them and wash their clothes. Later she spent more time taking care of Moon, Kim and their guests. a commitment which created more friction with her family. Aum later left the house to rejoin his family.l3 Before dawn, Moon would climb the hill to pray. Sometimes he would take Kim Won Pil and ask him to stop at one spot and pray while he went to another rock to pray. Moon spent a lot of time at this place, which later became known to his followers as the 'rock of tears' Moon's prayers in those days were always tearful. In the middle of the night, Kim would sometimes awake to the sound of Moon sobbing or singing quietly as he prayed on his knees. Moon spent much of his time writing down the Principle. After writing several pages, he would ask Kim to read them back to him and then make corrections. When ideas came to him he would scribble them on the walls or ceiling of the house. Early one morning, he woke Kim up and asked him to light the kerosene lamp. He dictated the entire chapter about the return of Christ at one go.14 Kim Won Pil, by now, was working as a painter's assistant at an American army base. He arranged for Moon to get a one-month carpentry job on the base. One of Kim's fellow workers used to do paintings for the American troops, of wives and girlfriends and family members from photos. One day, to repay Kim for covering for him while he moonlighted the work-mate subcontracted Kim to do some of the portrait work. "The first order he gave me was a photo of a black girl. Until that time, I had never in my life seen a black person. Because it was a black and white photograph, I was completely at a loss about what color to tint her face in the painting. After trying really hard for four hours, I finally finished a small picture. With uncertainty, I brought the picture to work the next day, thinking that I would have succeeded if my coworker was happy with it, even though he might not think it was good enough to pay for. To my surprise, he really liked the portrait and said I was very good. He not only paid me more than I expected, but gave me more orders. Then I turned professional."15 By the time Kim arrived home from work at around six o'clock, Moon would have the paints and brushes ready. As more orders came in, they would spend anything up to six or seven hours working on the portraits. Kim, the artist would sketch the figure and Moon would color the clothes and fill in the background, until they were mass-producing at the rate of one every twenty-five minutes. Kim would give his earnings at the end of each month to Moon. Moon bought rice, wood and kerosene and food for side dishes. One morning he apologized to Kim that he had run out of money and meticulously reported how much he had spent on food or given as transport money to the visitors, who were coming in increasing numbers. Years later, Kim's published talks of these experiences of his early years living in close intimacy with Moon would have a great influence on a new generation of Moon followers. One incident concerned Kim's jealousy of another follower, which became so bad that one day he refused to speak to Moon. "Over and over, Father said, "You have to speak to me, please speak to me." But I refused to answer. After Father repeated this to me over and over, in my heart I felt very sorry, but my pride prevented me from answering him. Finally, Father began to cry, pleading with me, "Please speak." Because Father was crying, I was moved and I also began to cry. Then I could speak to him." "Father listened to what I had to say and then told me, "If you have a problem or feel bad about something, don't hold it inside you for more than three hours. You must solve it within three hours."16 On May 10, 1952, Moon completed the writing of the Principle. On that same day a twenty-five year-old Presbyterian seminarian named Kang Hyun Shil made her way up the muddy slope where Moon lived in Pomne-gol, to meet him. Her intention was to convert him, but instead she was to become the first evangelist of the as-yet unnamed Unification Church. Miss Kang came from a strong Christian family.17 Her father was a church elder who had been jailed by the Japanese for refusing government orders to worship at a Shinto shrine. Weakened by torture, he died a few weeks after his release. Kang dedicated her life to God and after the defeat of the Japanese enrolled at Korea Theological Seminary in Pusan. The founder, Rev. Han Sang Dong had been in prison with her father. The seminary was strict and fundamentalist in its approach. She attended church in Pomildong. "At that time I was crazy for Jesus. I was determined to witness until all of Korea was converted. I prayed for hours every day. Also I visited terminal TB patients in hospitals, whose families would not even go close for fear of infection, and prayed and cried and embraced them to save them."18 When a member of the congregation in her church told her there was a young man teaching about the fall of man and salvation in a different way, she prayed for a week for guidance as to whether she should go to save Kang Hyun Shil, the first evangelist of the Unification Church him. On May 10, it was raining and, instead of visiting church members, she went to the church to pray. There she had an inspiration to go and see him. With some difficulty, she found Moon's ramshackle home and was invited in by Mrs. Ok. Sometime later, Moon arrived. He was wearing dirty Korean-style trousers without the usual ankle ribbons, an old chestnutcolored fur jacket, rubber shoes and US army-issue socks. She thought he was a laborer. "Hello. Where have you come from?" Moon asked."19 "I am from the Presbyterian church down in the village," she answered. "I am an evangelist." Moon put a dirty mat on the floor and invited a hesitant Kang to sit down. "God has been giving you so much love for the last seven years," Moon said. The comment was so unexpected that it threw Kang. Instead of getting down to the business of why she was there, she found herself trying to figure out what he meant. She remembered that it was seven years since she had first dedicated her life to God. "Today is a very special day, and you are very fortunate to be here," Moon said. He would later tell her that he had finished his manuscript earlier that day and had just returned from the hilltop, where he had been praying for God to send him disciples. Moon began talking about the return of Christ. As he warmed to his theme, he began to speak energetically and at such volume that the young Christian lady began to feel embarrassed. She leaned away from him against the wall and looked at his face. His eyes seemed to be blazing and he kept taking swigs of water from a bottle. "The messiah will come from Korea," Moon said. "It would be a wonderful idea," Kang said. "Korea is a very poor country with so many troubles. Also, it would be so fortunate if the messiah were to come with a fleshly body like ours. But it is impossible to believe that kind of thing." After three hours Moon stopped. Kang relieved, rose to leave but Moon insisted she stay for dinner. He presented a meal of barley, sour kimchee and bean curd on a small pine table. "Would you pray?" Moon asked before they ate. Kang, still unable to collect her thoughts after the three-hour bombardment, declined. Exhausted and irritated, she had dropped any idea of converting this heretic. Moon closed his eyes to say grace. He began a prayer of consolation to a suffering God and, as he did so, he began to cry. "I would like to solve your grief. I would like to console you. Heavenly Father, you have been longing to find someone who can fulfill your will. I want to fulfill your will and bring the world back to you." Kang was startled. In these words, she saw a stark contrast between his attitude to God and hers. She had been praying for hours every day, for the congregation and for Korea, but her fundamental approach was an appeal to God to help her and give her what she needed. But this strange man on the hillside was saying to God, "Don't worry, I will take care of you." She had never come across such an attitude to God. She was profoundly moved. She realized that he was the one who should be teaching her about faith, not the other way around. "Have you said everything you want to say to me?" she asked him after they had eaten. "If I want to really speak to you, it will take all day and all night for several days," he said. "Everything I am talking about is new." "Then I have to come back again," Kang said. "Even though this room is so shabby and unpresentable, I am opening this door for all mankind. I know that so many people have lost their way and don't know what to do. So many people are suffering. We have to help them. So I keep my door open twenty-four hours a day." Moon accompanied her back to her church in the dark. Kang returned the following week and Moon explained his views on the purpose of God's creation. On her third visit, Kang was so absorbed in Moon's talk that she stayed until 3.45 a.m., which was quite improper for a young woman of her age in Korean society. She hurried back to her church to lead the daily 4 a.m. prayer meeting, worried that she had prepared nothing for the congregation. She addressed the meeting spontaneously and was quite taken aback when people began crying, thumping their chests and repenting their sins. The experience with Moon had filled her with inspiration and new zeal, but she could still not figure where it was leading. She asked Moon, expecting him to tell her that she should just believe what he was telling her or she would go to hell. "Don't you want to know whether this teaching comes from God or man? You should find out," he said. "But how can I get the answer?" she asked. "God loves you so much. He will give you the answer," he said. She began to pray every morning for the answer. At first, she began to have doubts about Moon. There have been a lot of theological theories through history she thought, but nothing has really changed. This teaching is logical and reasonable, but it's probably just a passing fad. As she pursued this train of thought, she felt blocked from God, unable to pray. She developed headaches and chest pains. "This is hell," she thought. "Hell is not a place, but the lack of communication with God." On the fourth day of this torment, a Bible verse dropped into her mind: "If any one says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."20 She began to repent her lack of trust in Moon and felt her heart open once again to God's spirit. "Where have you been?" Moon asked, when she went to see him. "Actually, I have been to hell," she replied angrily. "What do you mean?" he asked. Kang recounted her experiences. "Before I met you, I had no problems," she said. "Everything was O.K. But now I have pains and headaches. My heart is confused and filled with troubles. I have never been unable to pray before. You have to repay me in some way for the damage you are doing me." Moon looked at her sadly. Her complaints troubled him and he went off to pray, leaving Mrs. Ok to counsel her. "He is really a great man. God loves him so much,'' Ok said. "Why do you always brag about him? He is just a man," Kang snapped. "I understood who he is through a revelation from God," Ok said. "What do you mean, a revelation from God? Did God actually speak to you?" "Yes, I heard the voice of God talking to me," Ok said. "What does it sound like, the voice of God?" Kang asked. "Well, it sounds similar to a man's voice," Ok said. "I have been a Christian for a long time, and I have never heard the voice of God. So next time you hear him, why don't you invite me," she said. "When God speaks to a person, it is a spiritual experience for that person," said Ok. "At the time only that person can hear it." "How can I hear the voice of God then?" asked Kang. "If you throw away your selfish thoughts and pray with a sincere heart and just open yourself up to God, then he can speak to you," Ok answered. After several days' prayer, Kang was startled to hear a loud voice saying a line from the Bible: "But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."21 She was in her church, alone, when she heard the voice. The verse was repeated three times. She looked around for the source of the voice, but could see no one. "Are you going crazy?" Moon asked when she told him. "What do you mean? I'm just trying to understand," she said. "Don't worry," he teased her. "If you're going crazy for God, that's OK." One day, she was sitting in the dingy house with Moon. She looked around at the walls, stained by leaks, and at the scraps of canvas covering the floor and said, "Here we are sitting in this little, dirty hut and you are talking about unifying Christianity and all religions and building God's kingdom on earth. Before you start talking about that, don't you think you should get a decent house, where you can invite people?" "Open your Bible, he said. "Anywhere." Before she could see which page she had opened, he said, "It's Matthew 14.31. Read it." Amazed, she read: "Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, 'O man of little faith, why did you doubt?'" "Why did you doubt?" Moon repeated the lines in a loud voice. Kang felt God was talking to her. Another day, Moon asked her to start witnessing. "You are going to meet somebody tomorrow he said. "I cannot witness. I don't know how to teach your Principle. With the Bible it was very easy, but this is very complicated," she protested. "Just talk," Moon said. "Say anything." The next day, after the dawn prayer service, Kang invited Kim Je San, the leading evangelist at her church, to her home.22 Unlike Kang, Kim Je San had a wide experience of spiritual phenomena. When she was very young, she thought that God was like the sun and had once sneaked out of her house before dawn to meet him. The whole village came out to search for her. In her twenties, her husband once beat her for tithing to her church, and she was in a coma for three days, during which time, she said, she met angels, Saint Peter and Jesus and asked them where she could find God. For five years, she prayed from midnight to 5 a.m. for Korea's liberation from Japanese rule. She had a vision of World War II before its outbreak and later, before the Korean War, had an experience in which Jesus appeared in front of her and told her to move her family from Seoul to Pusan. There she joined the same church as Kang Hyun Shil. "We both believe in Jesus, but our purpose is to meet the Lord when he returns," Kang said. "Let's pray about it." After they had prayed, Kim said she had seen three light bulbs, then three rose of Sharon flowers (the Korean national flower), and then the face of Jesus. "This means the light will come to Korea," she announced. The following day, they prayed together again, and Kim Je San had another spiritual experience. In her prayer, she said, she saw Jesus beckoning her from a hilltop. She climbed up the hill and an angel appeared, holding scales on which was a pear which turned into a sun. He appeared to be trying to tell her something. "There is only one sun," she said to the angel. "And it's in heaven. It's God. Is there another on earth?" The angel put the sun down and led her down the hill to a house. "Perhaps Satan is trying to trick me," she thought. She opened the door a little and saw a man in the house. "Today my prayer was not successful," she told Kang. "I saw an angel, a house and a person, but it didn't make sense." On the third day, Kang took her to meet Moon. As she approached Moon's house, Kim said she recognized it as the one she had almost entered in her vision. She stepped inside and saw Moon in the small room and burst into tears. "How was it possible for you to come here?" Moon asked. "I'm sorry?" said Kim, not catching his meaning. "Your ancestral heritage enables you. You gave life to many people who were dead," he said. "It was Jesus, not me," Kim said. "You have suffered so much," Moon said, his voice thick with emotion. When she explained the recent visions which led her, Moon said that they were for Kang's, not for her own benefit. "It is so difficult for Hyun Shil to trust anything," he said. Meanwhile, Moon learned that Kim Baek Moon, the leader of the Israel Jesus Church whose services he had attended in Seoul in 1946, had escaped to Pusan with some followers. Moon sent him a gift of rice and went to see him, but was rebuffed. Kim's large and influential following disintegrated during the war and he would later rebuild the group, although it never regained its former stature.23 Four or five of Kim's followers came to see Moon. One was Lee Kee Hwan whom Moon had known when he was a student.24 A deeply faithful woman, she was surprised when Moon asked her to pray about him.25 That night in her prayers, she felt God telling her that he loved Moon more than the rest of mankind. When she told Moon, he said she should ask God whom he loved more, Jesus or Moon. As a devout Christian, she was reluctant to pray in such a blasphemous manner. But, recalling the answer to the first prayer, she went ahead. By way of response, she received a vision in which Jesus and Moon appeared before her, with God standing, in spirit, between them. God moved toward Moon and faded into him. On the basis of this profound experience, she became a follower. Another of Kim Baek Moon's followers was Pak Kyong Do, one of Moon's former Sunday school charges from Seoul. He was now a translator for the US 2nd Infantry. For the next seven or eight months, Pak was a regular visitor and sometimes stayed overnight.26 He took Moon to visit Rev. Pak Song San, who had led the Pentecostal Church in Heuksok-dong, Seoul, and asked him if they could hold a joint revival meeting. Moon explained that, as his house was not an official church, his services were beginning to attract attention. The minister refused. One day in Pusan, Pak Kyong Do saw an American soldier handing out leaflets in English and Korean, inviting people to a local church. Pak stopped to talk to the man and invited him to Pomne-gol. The soldier accepted, evidently with a view to proselytize.27 He introduced himself as Clayton O. Wadsworth and said he worked in the administration of the army hospital in Pusan. With Pak interpreting, Moon spoke to him about his views on God's purpose for the creation and about the fall of man. Ok Se Hyun urged Pak to tell the American that Moon was the Messiah. Although not convinced of the fact himself, Pak did so when Wadsworth visited Moon's home for the third time. Wadsworth visited on two more occasions, but then said he didn't want to come any more. "Please pray about it," Pak asked. "I don't need to," Wadsworth said. "There are many people like that in America too."28 In December 1952, Moon had a visit from a thirty-six year old Christian evangelist called Lee Yo Han. Lee was from Sonchon, a few miles from Moon's own home in North Pyong-an Province. He had attended seminary in Japan and been expelled for refusing to participate in Shinto ceremonies. He had first heard of Moon four years earlier, in October 1948 when he was in Seoul and Moon was in prison in Hungnam. Some of Moon's followers, including Mrs. Ok, had come to Seoul and talked about the young preacher, who said that all churches should become united.29 When the Korean War broke out, Lee went with a group of Presbyterian refugees to Pusan and later to Cheju, a large island between Japan and Korea. Lee tried to persuade fellow Christians that belief in salvation was not enough. "We should use the Bible to develop our personality and overcome our fallen nature and bad habits," he said.30 It was also his view that they were living in the last Days, the prophesied time of the return of Christ, and that Christ would return as a man. For this, Lee was denounced from the pulpit in front of four hundred refugee worshippers, as a heretic. One of his Christian neighbors noticed that the pages of Lee's Bible were heavily underlined, which was unusual. He was also considered strange because he prayed with his eyes open. The neighbor wondered if Lee was a Communist but was stopped from reporting him to the police by his wife.31 The peril of such a suspicion should not be underestimated. Cheju Island had been the site of the worst anti-Communist brutality in modem Korean history, when a popular, Communist led rebellion broke out in 1948 and was mercilessly suppressed. By various estimates, from ten to twenty-five per cent of the island's three hundred thousand inhabitants were killed by police and militias of antiCommunist youth groups from North Korea. In September 1952, Lee returned to Pusan, and formed a group with Christians who had received revelations about the return of Christ. In November, he met Mrs. Ok, who told him again about Moon. She said he was teaching about the Last Days and that his services were very inspired. The day he came to Pomne-gol, Lee was given some money by Moon and asked to go out and buy some groceries.32 Given customary Korean sensitivities about status, Lee might have taken offence and walked out, there and then. After all, he was an evangelist with followers of his own not an errand boy. But, if Lee felt any slight, he did not let it get in the way of his reason for visiting Moon. What would later be interpreted by other Unificationists as a 'test' of his humility was, for the self-effacing Lee himself, probably no more than what it was -- a request to buy groceries. Lee Yo Han, who joined Moon in Pusan Lee was inspired by Moon's talks on the fall of man and the life of Jesus. But it was his teaching on the patterns of God's providential history that convinced him it was true. He joined and moved in with Moon. He was struck by Moon's uncanny insight and even detailed knowledge of a person's past. "You refused to worship at the Shinto shrine, didn't you?" Moon asked one day. "Yes. I was kicked out of the seminary for it. How did you know?" Lee asked. If it was because Mrs. Ok had told him, Moon didn't say. Lee assumed God had told him. Moon now faced a new and painfully personal struggle from an unexpected source -- his family. In November 1952, he finally found his wife, Choi Sun Kil again. She had never given up hope that they would be reunited, and had remained faithful during the years of separation caused by prison and war. But tragically, her agony was not over. Their first meeting set the tone of what was to follow. She had met one of Moon's cousins and been given the address of the Pomne-gol house. One day she stormed in angrily while he was talking with some followers, among them Mrs. Ok and Kang Hyun Shil.33 Choi was wearing purple trousers, a gray sweater and sports shoes. Their son Sung Jin, who was by now six years old, was dressed in baggy trousers and a multi-colored striped shirt. "You're alive," she yelled. "Why didn't you say anything for all these years? I've suffered so much. I had to eat barley and give the good rice to the baby and take care of him as well as I could." Moon sat there, saying nothing. Slowly, the others in the room stood up and left. Mrs. Choi had been working in the international market in Pusan.34 When Moon had left for North Korea, his company had paid his salary to her for three months and then stopped the payments. After that, she worked in Seoul's Dongdaemoon market, selling fruit and other items. She had tried several times to go to North Korea to join Moon, but had been stopped at the border by Soviet soldiers. In 1946, she was grabbed by South Korean border guards who, suspecting she might be a Communist, detained her and tortured her with cigarette butts before letting her go.35 She moved in to the Pomne-gol house, but was unable to find time alone with her husband to rebuild their relationship and unburden herself of the painful loneliness and bitterness of the last few years. People were there, all the time, even at night. Kim Won Pil was so innocent and unworldly that it did not occur to him that Moon and his wife might like to spend their nights alone. In later talks with Unificationists about this period, Kim would anguish over his ignorance, partially blaming himself for the failure of the marriage. Moon, he has explained, could not ask him to leave, nor ask other followers to give him free time to be with his family, because it would have meant putting himself before his followers' spiritual needs. It was therefore Kim's own responsibility to leave and perhaps find lodgings elsewhere. This he failed to do.36 Choi's past resentment soon began to be replaced by annoyance at Moon's present life as a pastor. Educated and capable, he would have been able, even in wartime Korea, to find work which would bring in more money and enable them to build a normal life together. Why was he choosing to live in poverty and keeping his door open to so many people? She could not understand. Every day it seemed, she would burst into fits of yelling. Moon would try to reason with her. Don't you remember I told you when we were engaged that you should be prepared to spend seven years alone and then marry me?" he said.37 "I told you that you would need to be able to find work and make money, in case something happened to me. So why are you behaving like this now? It turned out as I said it would." Moon had known that his wife, in the context of her spiritual role as eventual co-leader of the messianic movement with him, would be put through an arduous course of spiritual suffering by God. He understood this would be a seven-year period. But his pleas did little to calm her. The friction became so intense that Moon left his wife in Pomne-gol and moved to another part of the city, called Sujong-dong, in order that he could continue his teaching. On March 14, 1953, Kang Hyun Shil, who was staying in her home town, Kimchon, North Kyongsang Province, turned up at the house in Pomne- gol. Moon had written to invite her to celebrate his birthday. In his letter, he had described the current difficulties with his wife as being a 'family crucifixion.' Kang had been unable to arrange the money for the fare and missed the birthday.38 She arrived at the train station late at night and police stamped her hand with authorization to be out after curfew.39 As she did not know the exact location of the new house in Sujong-dong, she went to Pomne-gol where Moon's wife and child were alone. Moon's wife pounced on her. "Where did you hide my husband?" she demanded, swearing at her. An embarrassed Kang spent the night in a tent which had been erected beside the house for use as the kitchen It was bitterly cold and she sat up all night, pummeling her legs to keep warm. At 4.30 a.m. she left, lugging two suitcases. When she stepped off the bus at Sujong-dong, she was stopped by police, who thought that she might be a North Korean agent. The men took her to a police station and searched her luggage. Kang slipped the letter with Moon's address into her sock. After she showed them her seminary identity card, they let her go. At about 10 a.m., Kang saw Lee Yo Han on his way out to evangelize. He told her Moon had left the house at 4 a.m. to go to a nearby hill to pray. In the late afternoon, Moon's wife and child arrived with Ok Se Hyun's son, the military policeman who had refused to let Moon and his companions on his truck during the evacuation of Pyongyang. He had two colleagues with him. They pushed Kang inside the house. Moon's wife cursed her. "You said you didn't know where he was," she yelled. She ripped up Moon's Bible and started hurling the crockery and cutlery against the walls. The police agents stood and watched. Outside a crowd of onlookers gathered. "I'll kill you, you bitch!" she screamed at Kang, who, as the only other young woman there, had become the target of Choi's attack. "Excuse me, I think I need to go to the toilet," Kang said. A gentle and inoffensive woman, she thought it would be prudent to disappear. She slipped out of the house and down the street, where she met Mrs. Ok and Kim Won Pil, who was on his way back from work. "We have to get the money before they find it," Kim said. His wages were hidden in the beams of the house. It was a reasonable fear that if the money was discovered, Moon's wife would claim it as her own, or the policeman would simply pocket it. But the police blocked them from entering their home, and the three of them went to stay overnight with a friend in the Yongju-dong district of the city. Moon, meanwhile, had been watching the scene from the hillside. After some time, he could see that it would not be resolved until he showed up himself. He walked down to the house. When she saw him, his wife began screaming and cursing, startling the crowd in the street with her vulgar language. The police led him away. One follower, a Mrs. Song, accompanied him."40 By fortunate coincidence, Kim Won Dok, his former cell-mate in North Korea and whose house he had stayed at earlier in Pusan, was working at the police station and was able to secure his release the following day. Mrs. Ok, Mrs. Song, Lee Yo Han, Kim Won Pil and Kang Hyun Shil returned the next day to the Sujong-dong house. "Quickly. Hide," Moon said to Kang, as soon as he saw her. "If she sees you, she'll start again." But she was too slow. Moon's wife came out, saw her and thumped her on the arm. Kang ran off and hid in a nearby barley field. Inside, Moon and his followers tried to reason with his distraught wife. They talked for several hours. Moon tried to explain that he was not just behaving selfishly in wanting to teach his followers. She had great difficulty understanding. Because they had married before Moon had shared his theology with anyone and before he had started his religious ministry, she had no idea what he was teaching these people, nor of his conviction that he had a providential mission given by God. "I am not just doing what I want to, and acting humanistically. I am working for God's will," he said. "Just live with me and don't try to stop my work, and I will take care of you and do everything for you." She agreed. "Now you should apologize to Mrs. Ok," he said. She said she was sorry for having become angry and rude. Kim Won Pil, who had taken the day off work because of the crisis, came out to find Kang. "It's all right. She's repented. You can come in," he said. "What do you mean she's repented? I don't want to go in there." Kang was reluctant at first, but she relented and stepped nervously into the house. "You should say you are sorry to Kang Hyun Shil, " Moon said to his wife. "I've already said it once. Do I have to say it to everyone?" she grumbled. "Yes," Moon said. His wife looked over at Kang. "I'm sorry. I was wrong," she said. "From now on, please live in harmony and be like older and younger sister together," Moon said to the two women. Then he prayed and everyone, including his wife, cried. A few days later, Moon's wife went to Seoul to collect her belongings. When she returned, they bought a house in Sujongdong where the group lived communally. However, Sun Kil's struggle was far from over. She never attended Moon's worship services nor did she sit in on his talks to members or show any interest in the Principle. As a result she could never figure out why people kept coming. "Why do so many people like my husband?" she said on several occasions. "He's my husband." It was clear to the followers that she loved Moon with a passion. But, as long as she tried to dissuade him from continuing his religious work, he appeared to keep her at arm's length. The followers noticed that he did not treat her especially as his wife in front of them. In fact, he treated her like everyone else, which added to her frustration and jealousy. "Why do you follow my husband?" she demanded of Kang Hyun Shil, throwing sticks of firewood at the door. Kang sat in the kitchen, saying nothing and thinking the woman was raving mad. After each outburst, she would apologize. At this time, Moon was also being hounded by the brother of a recent convert, Kim Song Shil. She was a relative of the Pyongyang Kims, including Kim Won Pil, who had been the main followers in North Korea, and her father-in-law was a prominent educator.41 Her brother believed that Moon had wrecked his family and was determined to have him arrested, and his work stopped. The pressure from the families of followers, and from Christian officials, which began in Pyongyang was to gain momentum through the 1950s with the rapid growth of Moon's following in South Korea. In March 1953, Moon formally changed his name from Yong Myung to Sun Myung. According to Pak Chong Hwa, who actually did the paperwork for Moon's identity documents, the main reason for the name change was because Christians could use the name Yong, which means 'dragon', as evidence that Moon was the antichrist. A more practical reason for the timing may have been to try to avoid the families of members, who were pestering the police to arrest him.42 Around this time, two of the women who had attended Moon's services in Pyongyang, Chi Seung Do and Chong Dal Ok, rejoined him.43 Another visitor was Moon's cousin, Seung Gyun, who was now married, and had learned from his brother-in-law that Moon was in the city.44 At Moon's suggestion, Seung Gyun worked with Kim Won Pil as a sign-painter at the US 8th Army's 8069 unit, where UN soldiers arriving in Korea were briefed and kitted out before being sent to the front. The two men lived at the base during the week. On weekends Kim would return to the Sujong-dong house. Kim explained to him about Moon's teaching, and the two men would go to the Yongnak Church, a Presbyterian church established by refugees from north-west Korea. Seung Gun was convinced his cousin was a heretic. He recalled his father's prediction that Sun Myung would either be a great man or a traitor. It was true: Sun Myung had become a traitor to Christianity. He kept his concern to himself. Nevertheless, when he visited, he would be inspired by his cousin's wisdom. "You know, in studying the Bible, you have to look at the alpha and the omega," Moon told Seung Gyun. "Otherwise it's impossible to interpret the meaning. People try to untie knots in the middle but it doesn't work. You have to go from Genesis to Revelation." Moon talked about his vision of the future. The world, he said, would be unified by the Principle, centering on Korea, Japan, America and Germany. "We have to learn English," Moon said, telling his cousin that it would take five years to become proficient in the language. As his cousin spoke, usually for four or five hours at a stretch, Seung Gyun was reminded of the claim of Cha Sang Soon, the follower from Pyongyang who had visited Moon's family in the village years earlier, that Moon was the returned Christ. "It's impossible," thought Seung Gun. "He's my big brother."45 As Moon talked of unifying the world, Seung Gun remembered their exploits as children. A thoughtful and practical man, Seung Gun did not reject the idea outright as preposterous or blasphemous. He considered it over a period of time, before making his mind up and becoming a follower. From his study of the Principle, he came to believe that contrary to what he had been taught as a Christian, the Christ would have to return in the flesh. "Where is the law that says your big brother can't be the second coming of Christ" he asked himself.46 By now it must have become apparent to Moon that there was little likelihood of his wife assuming the role he expected. But he kept his agony of his failing marriage to himself. In September, 1953, he moved to Seoul and she stayed in Pusan. In her jealous rages, Sun Kil had accused him of adultery with his female followers, which, had it been proven true, would have resulted in his arrest.47 She later took out divorce proceedings and the marriage was legally ended in 1958. In the summer of 1953, the international peace talks, which had dragged on for months, finally produced a truce. An armistice was signed on July 27. The Korean War was over - well, almost over, for the South had refused to be a party to the armistice. Furthermore, the rival governments of Kim Il Sung in the North and Syngman Rhee in the South remained intact, which meant that the hot war had merely entered a period of cold war. The terrible conflict had cemented the division of North and South with a bitterness that would last for decades. In July, just before the truce, Moon told Kang Hyun Shil he wanted her to go, by herself, to Taegu, a city sixty miles North of Pusan, to teach the Principle. He explained that, as it was the strongest Christian center in South Korea, there would be many people ready to hear God's word. Unlike previous requests to followers to spread the word, this marked a new form of evangelizing. "You must go for forty days," he said. "Make it forty days exactly. If you come back after thirty-nine days, I won't open the door for you. You have to endure for forty days." One of the members gave Kang two sets of extra clothes, but Moon took one set away, saying, "One is enough." He gave her enough money for a one-way train ticket and only two kilos of rice. "You will have many lonely and hard times," he advised her. "But whenever you pray and whenever you call on God, he will be there to help you with his love." She left on July 20. Moon prayed with her before she went: "Please, Father, be with this little daughter, who goes out now, and help her to establish a good foundation in Taegu." As she walked down the hill from the house, Kang looked back. Moon was standing there, watching her, his eyes filled with tears. To Kang, the thin, poorly dressed figure of Moon looked so miserable and sad. How sad it was that he had so few people, that he had to rely on someone as inexperienced as her, she thought, her heart breaking. In August, Moon sent Lee Yo Han to join her in Taegu and their small following started to expand rapidly. During this time, an elderly woman in the Taegu group, Lee Jae Gun, was asked by a Christian which church she belonged to. "The Unification Church," she said, making the name up on the spot. In the following year, Moon chose as a legal title for his group, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. 48 In creating his association, Moon still hoped that the Principle and his growing following would serve to renew, and have a unifying effect on, Christianity. He did not expect it to be identified as a separate denomination. But in effect, that is what it became for, not surprisingly, the informal name stuck. Reverend Sun Myung Moon with early followers. Moon top left, Eu Won Hyo top right, Kim Won Pil bottom center (HSA-UWC Seoul) Myung Moon conducts an outdoor worship service in South Korea in the early 1950s. (HSAUWC Seoul) Notes Chapter One, The Moon Village 1. Some Unificationists, attributing the Chinese characters sang (upper) and sa (thought) to the name, have declared the meaning to be, providentially, 'village of heavenly thought' This is a case of over-interpretation. 2. There are 275 Korean family names and 3,349 clans. All Koreans with the surname Moon belong to the same clan. There are around 400,000 Moons in South Korea. Sun Myung Moon is the leader of this clan at the time of writing. 3. Korean men are usually given a pen-name in their middle age if they have reached a good social position. The name may be given by a senior person such as a clan leader. Close friends will then call the person by their penname. 4. See article 'Jeongju-eso Somun-nan Bo1z-padul Jib' (The House in Jeongju that was Rumored to be Blessed) in Tongil Segye, the Korean Unification Church monthly, February 1983, p. 30, quoting Kim Heung Bok, then aged seventy-one, who lived in a nearby village. 5. School enrolment increased considerably under Japanese rule, but even by 1945 only twenty percent of Koreans had received any formal schooling. A 1944 survey revealed that nearly half the seventeen million population was illiterate. See Korea: the Politics of the Vortex by Gregory Henderson, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, p.89. 6. The book was written by Lee Dam in the early 1600s. 7. The address was 2221, Sangsa-ri, Dokon-myon (township), Jeongjugun (county), Pyong-an Buk-do (province). No. 2221 was a myon or townshiplevel number 8. Kyong Bok's three sons and two of Kyong Chon's sons now live in South Korea. 9. The Moons' reputation was confirmed by Lee Yong Chul, who lived in the neighboring village before his escape to South Korea during the Korean War. Author's interview. 10. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'Textbook of Love,' Feb. 5, 1984, HSA-UWC, New York, p.11. HSA-UWC is an abbreviation for the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, the official name of the Unification Church. 11. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'Individual Course of Life,' Jan. 20,1980, HSAUWC, New York, p. 8. 12. According to their tombstones in North Korea, Moon's mother was born on Oct. 25,1888, and her husband on July 11, 1893. These dates are by the lunar calendar, which runs around a month behind the solar calendar. He died on Oct. 11, 1954 and she on Jan. 7,1968, by the solar calendar. 13. Her family's home was 207, Daesan-dong, Dokon township, Jeongju county. 14. This is a rare example of a two-syllable sumame. 15. Chondo-kyo, or Religion of the Heavenly Way, is a native Korean faith, which developed in the nineteenth century as an alternative to Roman Catholicism. Originally known as Tonghak (Eastern Learning, as opposed to Western learning), it was anti-foreign and nationalistic. Although still in existence, it has little influence in modern Korea. 16. Some South Korean historians see the 'March the 1st Movement' as marking the birth of modern Korea. See, for example, the History of Korea by Han Woo Keun, Eul Yoo Publishing Co., Seoul, 1970, pp.477-8. 17. The currency was the Japanese yen. In Korean rendering, the Chinese character is won. 18. The document was made available to the author by Sun Myung Moon's cousin, Yong Gi, who claimed Yoon Kook had appeared to him in a dream and given him an address in a mountain village in South Korea. Yong Gi wrote to the address and received a reply that Moon Yoon Kook had indeed lived there, but that he had already been dead for several years. 19. In other words, Moon celebrates his birthday on January 6, lunar. This day falls on a different day each year by the solar calendar. 20. See chapter 10, note 42. 21. These details are from interviews with Moon's second cousin, Seung Gyun. In the 1960S, Seung Gyun changed his name to Seung Yong on the advice of a fortune-teller on the grounds that 'Yong' would bring him better health and fortune. 22. Moon" "from childhood, was clairvoyant and clairaudient. I could see through people, see their spirits." From a question-and-answer session with American followers and invited guests during a US tour in March 1965, published by The Unified Family, Washington DC, 1967. Ref: MS-I, p. 1. 23. See Unification Theology, revised edition, by Young Oon Kim, HSA-UWC, New York, 1987, P.15. 24. Ibid. 25. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'Our Church and Korea seen from the Providence of God,' Feb. 19,1989, Seoul. Author's notes. 26. Incident told to author by Moon Seung Gyun. 27. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'The Blessing of God Through History,' Feb. l3, 1965, Oakland, California, p. 4, The Unified Family, Washington DC, 1967. 28. Moon's cousin, Yong Hyon, in interview 29. As yet, it has been impossible to verify this claim. There may be another explanation which his widow was afraid to reveal publicly in the presence of local Communist officials and Moon's entourage. In an interview, one neighbor, Lee Yong Chul, who stayed until the last moment, escaping from advancing Communist forces in November 1950, said the Communist authorities used to refer to Morum and Sangsa-ri as 'ee-nam bu-rak' (second South Korean villages) because many Anti-Communist Christians lived there. Such a reputation suggests that Yong Soo and others who remained may have been victimized by the regime after the war. 30. I here is some discrepancy here between sources. Moon Yong-sun says seven years. Moon Seung-gyun says it was four years, and that the boys did not start school until they were ten years old. 31. Although their languages are different, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese can communicate through the common linguistic root of written Chinese. South Koreans learn Sino-Korean characters (i.e., Chinese characters in Korean pronunciation). 32. Details from author's interviews with Moon Seung Gyun. 33. See Today's World, a monthly published by the World Mission Department, HSA-UWC, New York, May 1986, p. 8. 34. This and incidents below from interviews with Moon Seung Gyun Chapter Two - The Conversion 1. Interestingly, American missionaries may have been aware of the incident involving Hyo Shim, but not of the resulting conversion. The nearby Syenchun (spelling of Soonchun at the time) mission reported a strange case of a woman in a place called Syengmyen who was apparently possessed by a demon. Church elders offered prayers and the dearting spirit announced it was going to a certain house in a place called Samyen. Could this be a reference to Nam (south) So-myon where Hyo Shim was healed? A church worker later visited this house to see if all was well and was told that one of the women of the house had recently become "possessed of a demon." Ref: 'Syenchun's Triumph in Christ,' typewritten station report for 1931-2, Chosen Mission of the Presbyterian Church, USA. 2. For accounts of the development of Christianity in Korea at the time of Moon's childhood, see Wildfire: Church Growth in Korea by Roy E. Shearer, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, History of the Korea Mission, Presbyterian Church USA 1884-1934 edited by Harry A. Rhodes, published by the Chosen Mission, Presbyterian Church, USA, Seoul, and Mission to Korea by George Thompson Brown, Board of World Missions, Presbyterian Church, USA. For a charming account of the early missionary work in northern Korea, see Gold in Korea by William Newton Blair, Presbyterian Church of the USA, New York City, l957. For a more comprehensive history, see A History of the Church in Korea by Allen D. Clark, Christian Literature Society of Korea, Seoul, 1971. 3. Rev. Gye was living in California in the 1980s, but declined to be interviewed for this book. 4. The brother was called Yong Gwan . According to cousin Moon Yong Gi, the sister's name was Yong Ho. 5. Author's interview with Moon Seung Gyun 6. Sun Myung Moon, sermon at Chongpa-dong Church, Seoul, Dec. 30, 1990. Author's notes. 7. Question-and-answer session with American followers and their invited guests during a U.S. tour in March 1965, published by The Unified Family, Washington DC, 1967. Ref: MS- I, p. 1. 8. South Hill is Namsan in Korean. Moon's cousin, Seung Gyun, said this was where Moon used to pray. This rise, unnamed in local maps, was overshadowed by a larger hill, called Myodu Mt., which was identified in one official publication as the place where Moon encountered Jesus. Ref Footprints of the Unification Movement Vol. l, l HSA-UWC International, Seoul, 1996, p.20. 9. Moon was fifteen years old at the time. However, by Korean reckoning, by which a baby is one year old at birth, he was sixteen. Many accounts, for this reason, assume the event occurred in 1936. The date is also frequently referred to as Easter Day. In fact, Easter fell on April 21st in 1935. Yu Kwang Yol claims that Jesus revealed to Moon that April 17 was the real date of the resurrection. See: History of the Unification Church, Vol. I by Yu Kwang Yol, HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1978, p .13. 10. This is the standard explanation in the Unification Church of Moon's encounter with Jesus. However, in an interview with the author, Lee Yo Han, director of the church seminary in Korea and a longtime follower, suggested that Moon's description of the events is a summary and that, in fact, the mission would have been given over a period of time, not all at once. "There is suffering and experience, then prayer and exchange with God, then more suffering and experience," he said. "For Father (Moon) there was a period of realizing his mission. It didn't happen overnight. There was a questioning development. Revelation is conditional, not absolute. It is a reservation, not a ticket. 11. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'Faith and Reality,' printed in New Hope, HSA-UWC., New York, 1973, p. 2. 12. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'Men are Destined to Co the Road of Restoration,' March 14, 1965, p. 6, 'The Unified Family, USA, 1967. 13. Ibid. 14. Op. cit. MS-I, p. 4. 15. Op. cit. MS-3, p. 13. 16. Ibid. 'The Principle' refers to Moon's teaching. The theological texts used by the Unification Church have been written under Moon's guidance by followers. The first was Wolli Haesul (Principle Explanation) published in Seoul in 1957. The second, Wolli Kangron (Principle Discourse) published in Seoul in 1966, was translated into English as Divine Principle in the United States in 1973. A more widely used text is Outline of the Principle - Level 4, published in the United States in 1980. A new text, Exposition of the Divine Principle, was published in the United States in 1996. 17. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was one of the two trees in the Garden of Eden, as described in the Book of Genesis. 18. Op. cit. MS-I, p.3. 19. Sun Myung Moon, 'Sonseng-nimeui long-gyong Yoohak Shijeol' (Teacher's Student Days in Tokyo), a speech to Unificationist students at Waseda University, Tokyo, on October 8,1965, translated from Japanese in Moon Sun Myung Sonseng Malseum Seonjib ('The Sermons of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon'), Vol. 15, HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1986, pp. 180-4. 20. Two points of the Principle were developed later. Moon has said that it was several years before he arrived at the view that God could not intervene to prevent the fall because he had created man free. Although he referred in the early 1950s to the 'dual characteristics' of God and the creation, the specific notion of internal character and external form as one of the pairs of dual characteristics first appeared in 1957 in Wolli Haesul, written by Eu Hyo Won. For this point the author is grateful to Kang Hyun Shil. 21. See Question-and-answer session with Rev. Lee Sang Hun, a close disciple, and director of the Unification Thought Institute in Seoul, and seminar participants, in Unification Thought Quarterly, No. 7, Seoul, 1984. 22. Ibid. 23. An interesting, and unresearched, possibility is that several others on the fringes of Korean Christianity were having similar experiences to Moon. Lee Yo Han told the author that, while he believed that Korea had been 'chosen' by God' because of its tradition of filial piety, the person to bring God's new truth could have been one of several. Lee, who was a Christian pastor before meeting Moon in the early 1950s (see ch. 10), said that in 1945 there were around seventy 'messiahs' in Korea and that in the early 1960s they rapidly declined. Chapter Three - The Crying Church 1. Sun Myung Moon, op. cit., Waseda speech. 2. Moon's second cousin, Seung Gyun, in interview with the author. 3. In Korean, Kyongsong Sang-gong Kang-seup Hag-won. In February 1939, it was renamed Kyongsong Sang-gong Shilmu Hak-kyo (Kyongsong Practical Business School for Commerce and Industry). Kyongsong was the word for Seoul during the Japanese occupation. The building was destroyed by fire in 1965. The middle school on the premises at the time of writing is affiliated with nearby Joong Ang University 4. Author's interview. 5. Fighting usually meant Korean ssirum wrestling, similar to Japanese sumo, where the idea is to throw your opponent on to the ground. 6. The boys could choose between soccer, basketball, and ssirum wrestling clubs which were held after school. 7. It is common for male cousins and friends in Korea to refer to one another as 'brothers.' 8. Told to the author by Moon Seung Gyun. 9. Rumsey was joined in 1932 by another American, T. M. Parsons, and two British missionaries, E. H. Meredith and L. Vessey. By 1938, there were six churches and 192 believers. After this peak, the numbers dwindled. The missionaries were forced by the Japanese authorities to leave by the end of 1940. Ref: The Christian Encyclopedia, The Christian Literature Press, Seoul, 1980, p. 1181. 10. According to Pak's brother, Pak Kyong Do, in interview with the author. 11. Author's intervieuw with Kim Hee Son 12. 'This account of Lee Yong Do and the Jesus Church is compiled from interviews with: Lee's daughter-in-law, Chun Chul Ja; founding Jesus Church figures, Han Joon Myung and Lee Ho Bin; Lee long Sun, the director of the Joong Ang Seminary in Seoul, founded by the Jesus Church; and Unification Church theologian Kim Young Oon. 13. The institute was in the Kwangsuk-dong area of the city. It had been founded by two Canadian Presbyterian missionaries, both sisters, who named it after their mother 14. The bureaucrat was Kim Dae Wu, a Korean in the social affairs section of the Governor-general's office. 15. See chapter six for history of the west coast Holy Lord group. Han Joon Myung told the author that Baek was accompanied by Lee Ho Bin and Han's sister and that he walked part of the way barefoot as an act of discipline. 16. Han Joon Myung said that Baek "had a discipline problem" after his wife had died, and that he was expelled "because of an indiscretion committed in autumn 1934." 17. This account was related to the author by Kim Bom Joon's niece, Kim Bok Soon. Han Joon Myung said that the niece confused Baek's group with the 'In-the-Belly' group in Pyongyang (see chapter six). 18. According to Kim Young Oon, Moon attributed this decline to the introduction by Han Joon Myung of the ideas of Swedenborg. Kim said she disagreed with this opinion. 19. Author's interview with Kwak No Pil. 20. At least seven of his former charges later found their way to the Unification Church 21. Author's interview with Im Nam Sook. The children used 'Shi' (Mister) and 'Sonseng,' (teacher) in referring to Moon. 22. This episode was told to the author by Kim Hee Son. Chapter Four - Emoto Ryumei 1. Ref: History of the Unification Church, Vol. l by Yu Kwang Yol, HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1978, P.22. 2. The Japanese education system went from elementary school to middle school, high school, technical high school, junior college and university. The classes at the technical high school were taught by professors. 3. Some 723,000 Korean laborers were drafted to work in Japan, and to support the Japanese military as laborers in Japan and overseas. In 1941 there were 3,208 Koreans in the military. By 1945 there were 269,270. See Korea: the Politics of the Vortex by Gregory Henderson, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, ch. 4. 4. In the war years, more than fifty church workers were killed, two thousand ministers and church workers were imprisoned, and over two hundred churches closed. The numbers of Protestants was reduced by half to 350,000. See A History of the Church in Korea by Allen D. Clark, Christian Literature Society of Korea, Seoul, 1971, PP. 230-1. 5. Emoto is a common Japanese surname. Ryumei is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Moon's first name, Yong Myung. 6. Korean resentment ran, and still runs, deep. An instance: Cho Yong Gi, the prominent South Korean pastor who leads Korea's largest Christian congregation, the Full Gospel Church in Seoul, told a group of Japanese Christians in Tokyo in the 1970s that it took him twenty-five years to remove the hatred in his heart, and allow that God wanted to "save" the Japanese too. 7. The lodgings were at 2-chome, Tosuga-cho, Yodobashi-ku. 8. This incident was related to the author by Aum Duk Moon, who was present in the meeting. 9. According to Aum Duk Moon, the support for Kim Ku was ideological, not active, as the penalties were too harsh. For example, a student could expect a ten-year sentence simply for distributing anti-government leaflets. 10. At the time of writing, Chang, who changed his name to Chang Chol, is the Minister of Arts and Culture in North Korea. Kim went to China after World War Two but his present whereabouts are not known. 11. Sun Myung Moon, op. cit., Waseda speech. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Aum Duk Moon, who related this incident to the author, did not know what the illness was. 16. This point was made by Lee Hee Wook in an interview with the author. Lee was in Aum's architecture class, and in the same lodgings as Moon for one year. Lee said many Korean students worked in offices during the day and could earn forty to fifty won a month. 17. Sun Myung Moon, op. cit., Waseda speech. Lee Hee Wook told the author that Moon was quite poor, but once, out of friendship, bought Lee a suit. 18. Op. cit., Waseda speech. 19. The Life of Rev. Sun Myung Moon Part 1: Chronology 1920-1987, Unification Theological Seminary, Barrytown, New York, 1988, p. 8. 'This is a translation from the Japanese of History of the Unification Church Vol. 1, ed. Kachi Masayuki. 20. Yu Kwang Yol, 'Unification Church History from the Early Days,' speech reprinted in New Hope News, Oct. 7, 1974, HSA-UWC, USA. 21. Sun Myung Moon, op. cit., Waseda speech. "That's why, until I was thirty, there was not a day went by that I wasn't hungry," he said. 22. Aum exchanged photos and letters with the girl, but his parents were against the match and he eventually married someone they chose for him. Chapter Five - The Second Israel 1. Moon's cousin, and from History of the Unification Church Vol. 1, ch. 6, by Yu Kwan ol, HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1978. 2. For example: "Will you be the kind of person God will run out to meet with tears, even forgetting to put his shoes on in expectation of meeting you?" he asked in a 1979 sermon, "The Abel's Right Path from the Providential Point of View, Barrytown, New York, Dec. 30,1979, HSA-UWC, USA. 3. Author's interview with Moon Seung Gyun. 4. The author is grateful to Kang Hyun Shil for this point. Kang, a Presbyterian seminary student when she joined Moon in 1952, said Choi's mother disapproved of Moon because he was not in the Jaegun Church. 5. These details were related to the author by Lee in interview. Lee died in 1989. 6. Author's interview with Moon Yong Hyon. 7. The Life of Rev. Sun Myung Moon Part I: Chronology 1920- 1987, OP. cit., p. 9 8 The Japanese firm is now known as the Kashima Kensetsu Construction Company. 9. Im Nam-sook in interview with the author. 10. Pak Sul Nam, a female celibate in Kim Baek Moon's group, told the author that Moon "really respected women" and listened to his wife's opinions. This observation is noted in the context of Korea's maledominated society. 11. This account taken from interviews with Kwak No Pil and Im Nam Sook. 12. Moon Yong Gi, in interview with the author. 13. Moon has said the search for the Principle took nine years, which meant he would have been ready to start his mission in 1944. It is possible that he had not yet decided how to proceed or simply that he was being cautious, given his recent arrest. It could also be argued that his mission did not begin until the summer of 1946, when he first started publicly teaching the content of the Principle (see ch. 6). 14. Sun Myung Moon, op. cit., Waseda speech. 15. Sun Myung Moon, sermon at Chongpa dong Church, Seoul, Dec. 30, 1990, author's notes. Mansei is the Korean equivalent of the Japanese Banzai. The shout is made with both arms thrust into the air. 16. For more on this period, see Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-47, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1981. 17. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'The Significance of July 1,1973,' God's Will and the World, HSA-UWC, New York, 1985, p.140. Moon has not identified whom he met for this purpose. 18. The baby was born at home, with the landlord's sister, Lee Kee Yon, and Pak Sul Nam, a celibate in Kim Baek Moon's group, as the mid-wives. Author's interview with Pak Sul Nam. 19. The account of Kim Baek Moon was compiled from interviews with: Shin Hyon Shik, the elder of Kim's church in Seoul; Pak Kyong Do, a former Kim follower who joined the Unification Church; Kim Yong Jin, a Presbyterian minister in Chonju, North Cholla Province, who was a celibate at Kim's retreat; and Hong Yi Sun, a female celibate at the retreat, who later became the second ordained woman minister in the Korean Methodist Church. For comparisons between the theologies of Moon and Kim, the author relied on Pak Sang Ne, a theologian, formerly at Yonsei University, who was a member of the Unification Church for two years in the 1950s and then joined Kim's church, which he left in 1982 after twenty-seven years. Elder Shin Hyon Shik blocked several requests by the author and gobetweens to meet with Kim. Additional information was supplied by Choe Joong Hyun, a Unificationist and a scholar of Korean Christian groups. 20. The church was named the Israel Yasokyo, the retreat the Israel Yasokyo Sudowon. Israel was printed in Korean script and the rest of the name in Chinese characters. Yaso is Jesus in the Korean rendering of the Chinese characters . 21. Wedemeyer was reportedly the first choice to head the American Military Government in Korea, but was dropped as his role in north China was considered more important. See Korea: the Politics of the Vortex by Gregory Henderson, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, P. 416, note 32. 22. Lee later lost favor with Rhee and was appointed ambassador to Taiwan. He died in 1972 at the age of seventy-two. Biographical information is from the author's interview with An Ho Sang who was the chief ideologue of Lee's youth group and Korea's first minister for education. See also Henderson, op. cit., and Harold Joyce Noble's Embassy at War, University of Washington Press, 1975, PP- I 64-5,247 23. According to Pak Sul Nam and Im Nam Sook in interviews. Im said Moon's wife complained to her that during this period he would give his salary to Kim instead of to her. 24. Sun Myung Moon, lecture series, 'History of the Unification Church,' Dec. 27,1971, The Unified Family, Washington DC, p. 6. 25. According to Kim's elder, Shin Hyon Shik. Shin said that from this time, Kim began compiling his revelations into a comprehensive theology. 26. The later claim of Moon's followers that he is the second Messiah (Christ, Lord of the Second Coming) is not meant in the traditional Christian sense that he is the second person of the Trinity. For further explanation see Exposition of the Divine Principle, HSA-UWC, New York, 1996, especially Part 1, ch. 4 & 7, and Part 11, ch. 2 & 6. 27. Moon did not give up hope that Kim would recognize his teaching. See chapter 10. 28. For an explanation of Moon's view of how God had prepared such groups to be united, see his lecture 'History of the Unification Church,' Dec. 27,1971, Washington DC. 29. According to Baek Hee Suk, daughter of Lee Kee Hwan from Heuksok dong, in an interview with the author. 30. Kim In Ju, who was the second person to follow Moon in North Korea, says he arrived in Pyongyang on June 6. 31. Moon's former wife, Choi Sun Kil, in an interview conducted on the author's behalf by Im Nam-sook. Im's view was that Choi was naive to believe him: "It was obviously an excuse so she would not worry. He could have bought rice in Seoul." Kim Won Pil said that on his way to buy rice, Moon had a revelation that he should go to Pyongyang (see Kim Won Pil, Father's Course and Our Life of Faith, HSA-UWC, London, 1982, P. l 45. Other versions of this event say Moon went out to gather firewood. 32. Na Choi Sup, in an interview with the author Chapter Six - The Jerusalem of the East 1. Official Japanese government figures show Christian numbers had declined from 508,000 in 1940 to 383,000 by 1942. Buddhists increased from 538,000 to 607,000 over the same period. Some 92,000 followers of Japanese Shintoism, presumably many of them Japanese residents, were recorded in 1942. Ref: Chosen Chongdolzbu Tong-gye Yeonbo (Annual Statistics of the Korean Government-General). For more on this and the post-war period, see Allen D. Clark, A History of the Church in Korea, ch. 10, The Christian Literature Society of Korea, Seoul, 1971. 2. Author's interview with Kim In Ju. 3. Although unusual for the two Kims, this was a format common to spiritual groups and not especially developed by Moon. 4 Ref: Malachi 4:5, Matthew 17:12-13, and John 1:21. 5. Moon Sonseng in Korean. 6. Kim Won Pil, 'Father's Early Ministry in Pyongyang', Today's World. Jan. 1982, P.7. For Kim's account of this period in North Korea see also 'Testimony of Father's Life,' a speech given on Oct. 14,1979, printed by HSAUWC, New York, and a series of talks to Unificationists, translated and published in English as Fathers Course and our Life of Faith, HSA-UWC, London, 1982. 7. According to Na Choi-sup's sister, Yoo-sup, the complaint was lodged by Kim In-ju's husband. 8. This section drawn from Sun Myung Moon, lecture series, 'History of the Unification Church,' Dec. 27,1971, The Unified Family, Washington DC. 9. The story of the two spiritual women, Kim Song-do and Huh Ho-bin, is drawn from: Sun Myung Moon, 'The History of the Unification Church,' Dec. 27,1971; interview with Kim Sun-yong, Kim Song-do's daughter-in-law; Chung Soo-won, Kim Sun-yong's son and a Unification Church leader, 'Somyongha-shin Deut Kil Dara' (Following the Call of God's Providence) in Witness: Experiences of Faith, Vol. 1 (a collection of testimonies of early members of the Unification Church), HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1982, PP. 346-59; Hong Soon-ae, a member of both groups and later to become Sun Myung Moon's mother-in-law, in a talk given August 1, 1974, from handwritten notes; additional points in interviews with Lee Ho-bin and Han loonMyung of the Jesus Church and from Kim Won Pil, op. cit. Father's Course, ch.4. 10. Adultery is still a crime under South Korean law. 11. Hwang, however, was already debilitated by torture and died shortly after his release. Kim Won Pil, Today's World Jan. 1982, p.11. 12. "When I was in prison in North Korea I went through severe torture. The more severe the torture was, the stronger I would become. Every cell of mine was mobilized to fight against the pain. I would fancy that with every blow God's blessing would be multiplied. Because of this I was not afraid of the torture and I could easily endure it." Ref: Sun Myung Moon, 'May God Protect Us,' New Hope, HSA-UWC, New York, 1973, p.28. 13. Author's interview with Cha Sang Soon. 14. Kim Won Pil, Today's World, Jan. 1982, p. 11. 15. Na Choi Sup, Na Yu Sup, and Pak Kyong Do in interviews with the author. 16. The following account is drawn from interviews with Kim In Ju, Ok Se Hyun, and Cha Sang Soon. 17. This hymn is one of 47 'Holy Songs' of the Unification Church. Seven others were written by Moon: 'Garden of Restoration' (1950), 'New Song of Inspiration' (1950), 'Blessing of Glory' (1950), 'Suffering Heart'(1951), 'Grace of the Holy Garden' (1953), 'Song of the Principle Soldiers' (1959), 'Unified Soldiers' (1962). 18. Chi Seung Do, Hana-nim-eui Indo-dero (According to the Guidance of God) in Witness: Experiences of Faith, Vol. 1, HSA-UWC, Seoul, 1982, pp. 362-81. 19. Later renamed the Social Democratic Party to broaden its appeal. For more on this period, see Allen D. Clark, op. cit. 20. Author's interview with Han Joon Myong. 21. Uncharitable as the accusation may be, this was undoubtedly a significant factor. See Kim Won Pil, Today's World, Jan. 1982, p. 18. 22. Kim Won Pil, Ibid. 23. Kim Won Pil, op. cit. Fathers Course, ch. 16. 24. Kim Won Pil, Today's World, Jan. 1982, p.15. 25. "I felt terrible about this for years," Kim In Ju told the author. She said that in 1970, shortly before his death, her father wrote a formal apology to Moon. Years later, her husband heard the Principle and came to respect Moon, she said. 26. Author's interview with Cha Sang Soon. 27. This account has been drawn from interviews with Cha and Moon's second cousin, Seung Gyun. Seung Gyun's recollection is that Cha told them Moon was the Messiah. Cha denied referring to Moon as the second Christ, but said he described Moon as "a great man." It is possible that it was Moon's other followers who told the family they thought he was the Messiah, when Moon's mother and brother visited them in Pyongyang. 28. The trial account is based on interviews with Ok Se Hyun, written interviews with Kim Won Pil, and Today's World, Jan. 1982, p. 19. The author has not applied to see the trial records in North Korea, on the assumption that permission would be denied. Interestingly, however, the records may actually be in the United States, not in Pyongyang. Tons of documents were seized by American forces when they captured Pyongyang during the Korean War, and stored in boxes in the National Archives, where they remain, largely unsorted. 29. Neither Kim Won Pil nor Ok Se Hyun could recall details such as the name of the defense lawyer or the location of the courthouse. There were only two courts in Pyongyang at the time, the District Court (Chi-bang Bobwon) and the Higher Court of Justice (Go-deung Bobwon). The author has assumed that the trial was held in the former. 30. This was unusual behavior for a Korean prisoner. In the judicial systems of both North and South Korea, once arrested, a defendant loses his or her social position and is considered guilty, and has an uphill struggle to prove innocence. The usual approach is therefore to act repentful to secure the best treatment from the guards and the most lenient sentence from the judge. Acting confidently innocent does not pay. Chapter Seven - Death Camp 1. This account of Kim Won Dok is based on Sun Myung Moon, "The History of the Unification Church," Dec. 29, 1971, Washington DC, and Kim Won Pil, 'Testimony of Father's Life,' Oct. 14, 1979, HSA-UWC, New York, and author's interviews with Park Chong Hwa. 2. Mu Jong had commanded a Korean unit of Mao Tse Tung's Eighth Route Army and participated in the famous Long March with Mao. A leader of the 'Yenan' faction of North Korean Communists, he was later purged by Kim Il Sung. 3. Pak Chong Hwa claimed that the dream of the man on the throne was fabricated by early followers. The author was unable to trace Kim Won Dok to verify his story. 4. In an interview with the author in Seoul, a former villager, Kim Yu Song, said the locals were not aware of the nature of the prisoners' crimes. 5. This point made by Kim In Ho (prisoner number 424) in interview with the author. Kim, a young anti-Communist guerrilla at the time of his imprisonment, escaped to South Korea during the Korean War and became an intelligence officer involved in covert operations against North Korea. Another former prisoner, Hahn Byoung Ku, told the author that many of the political prisoners were students from Pyongyang. Hahn also escaped to the South, went to the United States to study and was a professor of mass communications at Seoul's Kyung Hee University at the time of the interview. Both men were in the same cell as Moon . 6. Author's interview with the prisoner, Lee long Kook (prisoner number 1084, later 247), now a doctor of oriental medicine in Seoul. 7. This account of the camp before Moon's arrival is drawn from Kim In Ho's autobiography, Beyond The Line of Death ch. 9-12, Jinheung Munhwa Co., Seoul, 1984. 8. Kim told the author this selection was random. 9. A former prisoner, Lee long Kook, said he thought it was eleven hundred and fifty bags. Of these, six hundred and fifty were for export to the Soviet Union and China and had to be tied off three times. The bags for domestic use were tied off once. Author's interview. 10. Kim In Ho, op. cit., p.76. 11. According to Lee Jong Kook The prisoner's name was Chon Ha Song. 12. The numbers 5,9,6 in Korean are o-koo-ryuk. The first two syllables sound like the root of the word eok-ool-hada, which means to suffer unjustly. 13. Sun Myung Moon, lecture series, "History of the Unification Church" Dec. 28, 1971, p. 1. 14. Sun Myung Moon, sermon, 'I Must be the Victor for God,' Feb. 20, 1965, The Unified Family, Washington DC, p. 7. See also 'Three Stages of Judgement' in op. cit., New Hope, p. 35. 15. The description of the prison that follows is drawn from Sun Myung Moon, 'History of the Unification Church,' Kim In Ho op. cit., interviews with Kim In Ho, Pak Chong Hwa, and six other survivors living in South Korea: Kang Sam Won, Ju Heung Shik, Hahn Byoung Ku, Lee Jong Kook, Kim Dong Ok and Kim Jong Chan. Pak is by far the most authoritative source. Although also a prisoner, as the overall leader, he enjoyed relative freedom. Other prisoners were not allowed to talk, or walk around the camp, and mostly knew each other by number. The author had several lengthy interviews with Pak, and has also drawn on notes from a speech Pak gave in Seoul to visiting American clergy on April 11, 1985. 16. This point made by Kim In Ho in an interview with the author. 17.
Prisoners were not supposed to talk. Kim In Ho, op. cit. p. 78, said that the presence of suspected informers in cells limited the amount of surreptitious conversation. 18. Moon's team leader's name was Kim Nam Seon. 19. Recalling his hunger in an interview, Pak quoted an old Korean proverb: "When our parents die we are sad, when our children and spouse die we are also sad, but the most unbearable experience of all is to starve." 20. Pak Chong Hwa said there were three commandants while he was in the prison. The first was Kim Byong Sup, who had been junior to Pak in the Democratic Youth Committee, a Communist organization. He was replaced by Hong Kee Soo, who had also been a Democratic Youth Committee member. Pak could not recall the name of the third commandant. 21. Kim In Ho told the author the work party heads were "robbers, rapists and murderers." This differs from the account of Pak Chong Hwa, who said most were government officials or soldiers, who, like himself, had been sentenced for dereliction of duty. For Kim, the anti-Communist, there may have been no distinction. 22. It was actually an angel who asked people why they were looking up into heaven for Christ to return . See 7 he Bible, Acts 1:11. 23. The Bible, John 2:4. See also Matthew 12: 46-50. 24. These conversations are reconstructed by the author on the basis of Pak's recollection of the main points. For further explanation of Moon's reasoning, see public speeches, 'God's Hope for Man,' 'God's Hope for America, 'The Future of Christianity' and 'The New Future of Christianity,' in Sun Myung Moon's, Gods Will and The World, HSA-UWC, New York, 1985. 25. According to Pak, Moon said Judas was jealous because Jesus intended to marry the woman he loved, Lazarus' sister, Mary. Judas rejected Jesus' suggestion that he, Judas, marry Mary's sister, Martha, and betrayed Jesus to the authorities. The author has left this as a footnote due to doubts about Pak's recollection. While the points about John the Baptist and Jesus' mother, Mary, have been made elsewhere, the author is unfamiliar with the point about Judas and is unwilling to attribute it to Moon. Moon may have simply said it was his view that Judas was motivated by jealousy. 26. Pak said a number of people in the prison had dreams of Moon. Kim In Ho, op. cit., notes that rumors spread that Moon had strange powers. Guards, he said, did not abuse Moon, after one guard had experienced some supernatural chastisement for doing so. Kim may have heard Pak's story second-hand and assumed he was a guard. 27. Pak said Moon used the word wonhwa-won, literally 'garden of circular harmony.' This word has not been used in his subsequent teaching. 28. The winner was chosen by camp authorities from a short-list of seven or eight supplied by Pak. Author's interview. 29. This is reconstructed from Pak's memory of discussions with Moon on two occasions, when Pak arranged for Moon to take the day off work. 30. As the leader, Pak was allowed to have pencil and paper. He kept a diary during the prison years. 31. Moon told Pak: "The fact that you had the dream is because of 'your ancestors' accumulated merit in the spiritual world. But some prisoners have evil ancestors, so it's very difficult for them even if you do help them." Author's interview with Pak. 32. The names of the followers were given to the author by Pak. Information on Kim Jin Soo from Kim In Ho, op. cit., and The Christian Encyclopedia, The Christian Literature Press, Seoul, 1980, p.295. Pak said he, Kim Won Dok and Kim Jin Soo were the only ones who understood Moon to any extent. The reader should understand, therefore, that the symbolism of the number twelve, echoing Jesus' disciples, was important for Moon, but the definition of 'follower' should be seen as being broad. 33. Ju, who later changed his name to Ju Chang Woo, was introduced to the author by Pak Chong Hwa. The author was unable to independently verify that Ju was an anti-Communist activist, as he claimed, and not a common criminal. See note 43 below. 34. In October 1948, Shtykov was appointed the first Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang. 35. In South Korea, Moon and Ju tried separately to find the treasure, but were unsuccessful. (See ch. 10). 36. Pak said he was in Moon's cell at the time, and witnessed this incident. 37. Reconstructed from the author's interview with Ok Se Hyun and from Kim Won Pil, 'Prison Life in Hungnam,' Today's World, July 1983. Both heard of the experience from Moon's mother and later from Moon. Moon has referred to this struggle in sermons. For example: "When I was in prison my parents visited me, and asked me to relinquish my mission from God, to deny my mission. Although it was like cutting me with a knife, I rejected them." See The Blessing of God Through History' Feb. 13,1965, The Unified Family, Washington DC, p. 4. 38. Author's interview with Moon Yong Gi. 39. Ok said Moon's mother stayed with her for one night, before visiting him on one occasion, and for twenty days after another visit. "She was very dedicated to him and didn't want to leave him at the prison," she said. She said his mother only went to Hungnam twice, but Moon Yong Gi indicated there were more visits. 40. Pak said one informer was assigned to watch him. 41. According to Pak, these reflections were thrown into a bucket and never read, let alone responded to. 42. The word for 'crime' in Korean is the same as the word for 'sin.' Moon's understanding of his mission was that he should not rest or accept favors. 43. Kim In Ho alleged, in an interview with the author, that Ju Heung Shik was among this group. 44. In the 1950S, a new melody was composed by a friend of Pak's. The song is now one of the Unification Church Holy Songs. 45. The medical director, Lee Moon Jae, was not a prisoner. 46. Interview with Won Jang Sup who was the police chief in Hungnam for the three months of South Korean occupation in 1950. At the time of the interview, in South Korea, Won was the director of the Hungnam office in the government's shadow bureaucracy for North Korea. 47. For an account of the strategic bombing campaign and the attacks on Hungnam, see Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea 1950- 1953, Office of Air Force History, USAF, Washington DC, 1983, PP. I83- 90. 48. Pak in an interview with the author. 49. The account of the final ten weeks in the camp are drawn from interviews with four survivors who eventually found their way to South Korea. They are Hahn Byoung Ku, Lee Jong Kook, Kim Dong Ok, and Kim Jong Chan. 50. For an official account of the drive up the east coast by the South Koreans, see History of UN Forces In Korean War, Vol. IV, Ministry of National Defense, Seoul, 1975, pp. 306-8. 51. Hahn Byoung Ku, Lee Long Kook, and Kim Long Chan were in this group. Kim Dong Ok was in a different group, where prisoners slipped out of a house, that had been requisitioned on the first night, when the guards were sleeping. 52. Pak Chong Hwa and Ju Heung Shik offer a different version of Moon's release, according to which South Korean troops liberated the camp, just before Moon was scheduled to be called out for execution. This is, in fact, the standard version taught to Unificationists. Pak had already been released, but Ju claims that he and Moon parted company as they walked out of the camp, promising to meet up again. 53. See Kim Won Pil, op. cit., Father's Course, p 93. Kim does not refer to Moon Jong Bin by name. Chapter Eight - Forty Days in Pyongyang 1. See Kim Won Pil, op. cit., Father's Course, p 93. 2. 'Blessing of Glory' is the first song in the Unification Church Holy Songs book. Moon also wrote another hymn, called 'New Song of Inspiration', during the six weeks in Pyongyang. 3. In reference to this, he later told his cousin Moon Yong Gi, "God's Providence is awesome." (Author's interview with Moon Yong Gi. ) Moon met two sisters and his sister-in-law when he returned to North Korea in 1991. 4. See Kim Won Pil, op. cit., Fathers Course, p. 94. See also Kim's 'From Pyongyang to Pusan,; Today's World, April 1983. 5. Rice cakes are traditionally eaten on holidays and special occasions. 6. At least eighteen former members of the Pyongyang group are known to have gone to South Korea. Six of them remained followers: Kim In Ju, Kim Won Pil, Chong Dal Ok, Cha Sang Soon, Ok Se Hyun and Chi Seung Do. Kim Chong Hwa, the main follower of that period, opposed Moon after her release from prison. In South Korea, Moon sent Pak Chong Hwa to meet her seven times, before finally accepting that she would not return. She now lives in the United States. The author was unable to trace her. 7. As we have already noted, this is a common title indicating respect. Korean social norms required such a title for Moon. Followers referred to him as 'Sonseng-nim' (nim is an honorific affix), meaning "teacher' or 'Master.' Attempts at translation are awkward because neither 'teacher' nor 'master' adequately conveys the social sense of someone who the speaker accepts is superior in wisdom and station. (Moon's first sermons were published for followers in America under the ill-fitting title, 'Master Speaks,'). Publicly, he is still called 'Reverend Moon' in the West. To Koreans, 'Moksa-nim' (Reverend) is rather ordinary for the founder of a church. From the early 1960s, he has also been referred to by Unificationists as Abo-nim (Father), which, unlike 'Sonseng', has a religious connotation, unacceptable to non-believers. 8. 'This account based on author's interview with Pak Chong Hwa. 9. Her husband was a Protestant church elder and became a minister in Pusan after the Korean War. 10. Pak never saw his family again and remarried in South Korea. He wrote to his old address in 1989 and received a letter from his son. Pak later learned from another refugee in South Korea, that his cousin in Sangsuku-ri had joined the exodus with her husband and three children, but had turned back because of the bitter cold. Moon Jong Bin has not been heard of since. It is assumed he did not escape from North Korea. [182] 1. Pak's estimate. This chapter is based on interviews with Pak, and Kim Won Pil's recollections in Today's World, April 1983, pp. 9-21. 2. Lee's daughter, Im Nam Sook, in an interview with the author. 3. Pak's recollection is different. He thought that Moon and Kim returned at 9 p.m. that same night. 4. See Gregory Henderson, Korea: The Politics of the Vortex, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, pp. 163-4. 5. See Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, I, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988, pp. 132-8. 6. Author's interview with Kim Hee Son. 7. Author's interview with Im Nam Sook. 8. Pak recounted this incident in an interview, but could not recall who the letter was for. 'The author assumes it was Kim Chong Hwa. Pak was unclear why Moon decided to tear it up at that time. 9. Pak earned his keep, selling the tables made by the carpenter and later rented his own room He rejoined Moon in 1953. Chapter Ten - The Rock of Tears 1. Kim Won Pil, Today's World, April 1983, P.21. Kim's recollections of the Pusan period were compiled from various speeches and published in Today's World, May 1982, pp. 9-19. 2. Author's interview with Kwak No Pil. The dialogue which follows is reconstructed with some poetic license. 'The author has also taken some license with the timing of this event. It may have taken place some days or weeks later. 3. Later, when Kwak went to the army for four years military service, Moon came to wave him off, and asked him to join him when the military service was over, an invitation which Kwak regretted that he never followed up. "I think if I had done so I would be a very important person now. I thought he was crazy then but now I think he is a great man," he said thirty years later. 4. This episode is based on Aum Duk Moon, 'From schoolmate to disciple' Today's World, June 1982, P.6, with additional details from the author's interviews with Aum. 5. Aum told the author this meeting was on January 30th or 31st. Moon might have been using 'yesterday, instead of 'three days ago' in the same vague sense as 'I just got here.' 6. Author's interview with Ok Se Hyun. 7. Kim later went into business. He joined the Unification Church and left it in 1959. 8. Aum Duk Moon, in an interview with the author. 9. Administratively, the area was Pomil-chon. Pomne-gol, which means 'Tiger Stream Valley', was the local, unofficial name. 10. Op. cit., Today's World, June 1982. 11 Today's World, Sept. 1983, pp. 16-20. 12. 'Uncle' (Ajoshi in Korean) is a polite reference to an older man Moon was 'Big Uncle' to distinguish him from Kim Won Pil, who was 'Little Uncle' 13. Author's interviews with Ok and Aum. 14. The original text of the Principle, written by Moon, was kept for many years by Kim Won Pil, and is now kept in the Unification Church headquarters in Seoul. Kang Hyun-Shil also has a handwritten version. The official text was written later by other followers. (See ch. 2, note 16.) 15. Today's World, May 1982, p. 13. 16. Today's World, May 1982, p. 16. Such simple, touching lessons had a profound impact on western Unificationists in the late 1970s, when Kim was assigned to a mission in Britain, and, to some extent, over-turned an authoritarian interpretation of Moon's doctrine which had prevailed in the early European movement. 17. Kang Hyun Shil's story is from her interviews with the author, with additional points from, 'From Evangelist to Disciple', Today's World, Aug. 1982, and an unpublished speech she gave to American Christian clergy in Seoul in 1985. 18. Author's interview. 19. Moon used the Korean phrase "Odi-so o-shos-oyo?", which is more of a polite inquiry like the English "How can I help you?" than a direct question. 20. John 4:20. 21. Philippians 3:20. 22. The unusual story which follows was recounted to the author by Kim Je San in an interview. Mrs. Kim's tale was, at times, such a mixture of vision and reality - characteristic of someone who spends the great part of her day in prayer - that the author has relied on Kang Hyun Shil for the basic outline of Kim's experience. 23. By the 1980s, Kim Baek Moon still had a small following of about fifty people, who met in a church called the Songsu Church in the Chongnung district of Seoul. He died in 1990. His theology is contained in three works:Songshin Shinhak (Theology of the Holy Spirit), 1954; Kumbon Wonri (The Fundamental Principle),1958; andShinang Inkyoron ('Theory of the Nature of Faith), 1970 - all published by the Daeji Publishing Co., Seoul. According to theologian Pak Sang Ne (see ch.5, note 19), the two men's teachings, although superficially similar in categories, are very different in content. Critics later claimed that Moon stole Kim's teaching, a charge which Pak Sang Ne rejected. 24. Lee Kee Hwan was a sister of Lee Kee Bong and Lee Kee Ha, Moon's landladies in Heuksok-dong, Seoul. This account is from interviews with her daughter, Baek Hee Suk, and with Pak Kyong Do. 25. Details according to Kim Won Pil, Today's World, May 1982, p. 15. 26. Pak Kyong Do told the author he felt guilty about leaving Kim Baek Moon, as Kim had paid for his studies. He stayed with Kim's church and joined Moon some years later. 27. This is apparent from a long letter which Wadsworth later wrote to Pak. 28. Wadsworth was pastor of a church in Maine in the mid- 1980s. He declined an invitation by American Unification Church members to visit Korea with other clergy for an introduction to Moon's teachings. 29. These details are from the author's interviews with Lee Yo Han. 30. Lee has a gift for making the biblical stories relevant to the modern individual's life of faith. Some of his lectures have been published in Faith and Life, International One World Crusade, Tokyo, 1977. 31. The neighbor, Lee Bong Eun, later became a Unificationist. See Lee Bong Eun, 'Chookbok' (Blessing), Witness: experiences of Faith, Vol. 2, HSAUWC, Seoul, 1984, p.171. Also, points about Lee Yo Han are from the author's interview with the neighbor's son, Soo Kyung, who became a prominent Unificationist. [185] 32. Kim Won Pil, Today's World, May 1982, P. 14. 33. The account of Moon's wife was told to the author by Kang Hyun Shil. 34. Im Nam Sook, in an interview with the author. 35. This detail from Im Nam Sook's interview with Mrs. Choi. 36. See Kim Won Pil, Fathers Course and Our Life of Faith, HSA-UWC, London, 1982, ch. 21. 37. It is apparent that Moon considered the early period of marriage, during this testing time, in the sense of an engagement. The key 'test' during this time would be for both Moon and his wife to put God's will before their own desires. 38. Moon's Jan. 6 (lunar) birthday fell on February 19 by that year's solar calendar. 39. The curfew was in effect from the start of the guerrilla fighting in 1946 and lasted until 1981, when it was abolished by the new ruler, Chun Doo Hwan. The curfew was mostly from midnight to 4 a.m., although sometimes it ran from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. 40. Kang, Ok and Kim were told of the events that followed their departure by Mrs. Song. She was the wife of a Salvation Army officer and had been recently introduced to Moon by Lee Yo Han. 41. According to Pak Chong Hwa, the father-in-law, Chang Hee Wook. was a former president of Seoul National University 42. This is according to Pak Chong Hwa. Pak also told the author he filled in Moon's age as 44 in order that he could avoid reserve training. Moon was fined for this false claim in 1955. Moon may have informally changed his name as early as 1951. Kang Hyun Shil recalled that when she first met him in July 1952, he was using 'Sun Myung.' 43. Chi Seung Do had moved to Seoul after Moon was imprisoned in North Korea. She was in Taegu, when she found out from her son that Moon was in Pusan. Chong Dal Ok later married Kim Won Pil. 44. The following details are from Moon Seung Gyun, in an interview with the author. 45. See ch. 3, note 7. 46. Moon Seung Gyun moved to Seoul at the end of 1953. He decided to join the Unification Church in February 1956 and formally joined on January 1, 1957. 47. When Moon was arrested in 1955, prosecutors investigated adultery charges, but failed to uncover evidence. 48. The Unification Church was formally established in 1954 as Se-gye Kido-kyo Tong-il Shilyong Hyop-hae. Korean Names The following is a list of the Korean names which appear in the text, indicating their relationship to Sun Myung Moon Aum Duk Moon, Korean student in Tokyo, joined Unification Church Baek Nam Ju, controversial co-founder of the Jesus Church Cha Sang Soon, Unificationist from North Korea Chang Bong Hee, Communist friend in Tokyo. Changed his name to Chang Chol. Currently, arts minister in North Korea Chi Seung Do, Unificationist from North Korea Cho Eung Soo, prisoner in Hungnam Cho In Bok, school wrestling champion in Seoul Cho Man Sik, Christian nationalist leader, head of interim government in North Korea Choi Pil Gun, president of Pyongyang Seminary Choi Sun Kil, Moon Sun Myung's first wife Chong Choon Shik, prisoner in Hungnam Chong Dal Ok, Unificationist from North Korea Chong Deuk Eun, Unificationist in North Korea Chong Myong Sun, Unificationist in North Korea, husband of Kim Chong Hwa Chong Shin Taek, teacher in Monum village Chung Suk Cheon, son of Kim Song Do of the Holy Lord Church Emoto Ryumei, Sun Myung Moon's Japanese name Gye Hyo On, minister at local Presbyterian church when the Moons converted Hahn Byoung Ku, prisoner in Hungnam Han Joon Myung, co-founder of the Jesus Church [188] Han Kyong Jik, Presbyterian minister, co-founder with Yoon Ha Yong of Christian Social Democratic Party in North Korea Han Sang Dong, refugee Christian minister in Pusan Hong Yi Sun, female celibate at Israel Jesus Church retreat Huh Ho Bin, leader of the In-the-Belly group in North Korea Im Nam Sook, Sunday school student, daughter of Lee Kee Bong Ju Heung Shik, prisoner in Hungnam Kang Do Sun, teacher at local church school Kang Hyun Shil, Unificationist in Pusan Kang Shi Heun, prisoner in Hungnam Kang Suk Kyong, wealthy Jesus Church member Kang Yang Uk, Protestant minister, maternal uncle of Kim Il Sung Kim Baek Moon, founder of the Israel Jesus Church Kim Bom Joon, spiritualist who prophesied Korea was the new Israel Kim Chang Soon, Communist friend in Tokyo Kim Chi Joon, Presbyterian church elder, father of Kim In Ju Kim Chong Hwa, leading Unificationist in North Korea Kim Chee Son, deacon at church in Seoul Kim Hwa Sik, Christian leader in North Korea Kim Il Sung, North Korean Communist leader Kim In Ho, prisoner in Hungnam Kim In Ju, Unificationist from North Korea Kim Je San, Unificationist in Pusan Kim Ku, nationalist leader Kim Kyung Gye, mother Kim Nam Jo, woman who introduced Kim Baek Moon to Christianity Kim Nam Seon, team leader in Hungnam prison Kim Seung Tae, prisoner in Hungnam Kim So Wol, poet from Jeongju county Kim Song Do, founder of the Holy Lord Church Kim Won Dok, follower from Hungnam prison Kim Won-Pil, Unificationist from North Korea [189] Kim Yeon Ok, prisoner in Hungnam Kim Young Oon, Jesus Church member and, later, Unificationist theologian Kim Yong Jin, male celibate at Israel Jesus Church retreat Ko Hee Yong, wife of Aum Duk Moon Kwak No Pil, friend in Heuksok-dong, arrested by police in Seoul Kwon Duk Pal, fellow lodger and lay preacher at church in Seoul Lee Bom Sok, first prime minister of South Korea Lee Ho Bin, co-founder of Jesus Church, officiated at Moon's wedding Lee Han Shin, co-founder of Jesus Church Lee Il Duk, husband of In-the-Belly group leader, Huh Ho Bin Lee Kee Bong, landlady, Jesus Church member, daughter of Kang Suk Kyong Lee Kee Ha, landlady, Jesus Church member, daughter of Kang Suk Kyong Lee Kee Hwan, daughter of Kang Suk Kyong, follower of Kim Baek Moon, joined Moon in Pusan Lee Kwang Su, writer from Jeongju county Lee Myong Nyong, local landowner, church elder, independence figure Lee Seun Hoon, founder of Osan School, independence figure Lee Yo Han, Unificationist in Pusan Lee Yong Do, Charismatic co-founder of the Jesus Church Moon Chi Kook, paternal grandfather Moon Da Dong, 7th century ancestor of the Moon clan Moon Hyo Shim, sister Moon Hyong Chon, first teacher in Morum village Moon Ik Jum, 13th century diplomat who brought cotton to Korea Moon Jong Bin, follower in Hungnam prison Moon Jong Ul, paternal great grandfather - his pen-name was Sun Ok Moon Kyung Bok, uncle and next-door neighbor Moon Kyung Chun, father's cousin and next-door neighbor Moon Kyung Koo, uncle Moon Kyung Yoo, father [190] Moon Seung Gyun, second cousin Changed his name in l960s to Seung Yong Moon Sung Jin, son Moon Yong Gi, cousin Moon Yong Gwan, younger brother who died in childhood Moon Yong Ho, younger sister who died in childhood Moon Yong Hyon, cousin Moon Yong Myung, Sun Myung Moon's original name Moon Yong Soo, elder brother Moon Yong Sun, cousin Moon Yoo Kook, great uncle and local Presbyterian minister Mu Jong, North Korean general Na Choi Sup, female celibate at Israel Jesus Church retreat Ok Se Hyun, Unificationist from North Korea Pak Chang Je, teacher in Morum village Pak Chong Hwa, follower from Hungnam prison Pak Ki Ho, teacher in Sangsa-ri Lee Yo Han, Unificationist in Pusan Pak Kyong Joon, brother of Pak Kyong Do, deacon at Pentecostal church in Seoul Pak Myeong Hwan, prisoner in Hungnam Pak Son San, minister at Pentecostal church in Seoul Pak Sul Nam, female celibate at Israel Jesus Church retreat Pak Ul Nae, Unificationist in North Korea Rhee Syng Man, (usually known as Syngman Rhee) first president of South Korea Song Moon Kyu, young neighbor in Pusan Woo Jong Ae, daughter of Ok Se Hyun Woo Jong Soon, daughter of Ok Se Hyun Yoo Koo Bok, fellow student and lodger in Seoul Yoon Ha Yong, Presbyterian minister, co-founder with Han Kyong Jik of Christian Social Democratic Party in North Korea [191]
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