The Unification Church Scandal: Assassination of Abe Shinzô and Religio-Political Collusion in Japan

Introduction: The Assassination

It is shortly before noon on July 8, 2022 and former Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzō is just about to speak at a political rally of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Nara, Japan. A forty-one-year-old Yamagami Tetsuya, former member of Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JMSDF), is also attending the rally, but his plan is not to listen to Abe’s speech. Once Abe started speaking, Yamagami approached him from behind and fired a homemade shotgun. The first shot missed Abe, but the second one was fatal.   

Yamagami, who is now awaiting trial for the assassination, soon explained everything. Immediately after his arrest, Yamagami stated that he targeted Abe because of the immense resentment he harboured towards the Unification Church—a South Korean religious organisation founded in 1954 by Reverend Moon. In fact, Yamagami’s mother had brought the entire family to ruin by donating virtually all of her savings to the Church. Thus, Yamagami could not afford to attend university, so he enlisted in JMSDF but did not stay long there. In 2005, he tried to kill himself (allegedly in an effort to help his disabled brother with medical bills), but in the end, it was his brother who committed suicide ten years later (Arita 2023). After Yamagami had fully realised his family’s complete ruination, he decided to exact revenge on the Church.

How does former Japanese prime minister relate to all this? As a matter of fact, Yamagami did not originally plan to murder PM Abe. His primary target was Moon’s wife, Hak Ja Han, who took over the Unification Church after Moon’s death in 2012. Yamagami had been preparing for the assassination for several years, but his plans were foiled by Covid. Everything changed in 2021 when a video message from PM Abe during an event hosted by the Unification Church in South Korea was leaked to the public. After watching this short video in which Abe paid tribute to the Church, Yamagami decided to exact revenge directly on him.

This article aims to dissect the Unification Church scandal which was unleashed by Abe’s assassination. While combining references to academic literature with news media sources, the article focuses closely on the following issues:

• the link between the Unification Church and the assassination of Abe
• the collusion of religion and politics in Japanese history
• scandals and controversies related to the Unification Church
• the reaction of the politicians, the Church, the media, and the public to the scandal
• the heroisation of the assassin

The Unification Church

Description

The Unification Church was founded in 1954 by the self-proclaimed Korean “reverend” Son Myung Moon (1920-2012). At the age of 15, Jesus Christ allegedly appeared to Moon and ordered him to become the messiah who will restore the lost purity of humanity (Moon officially declared himself a messiah in 1992). The Unification Church was led by Moon until his death on September 3, 2012. After that, Moon’s wife Hak Ja Han and her sons Hyung Jin and Kook-jin took over the leadership of the Church.

By the time of Abe’s assassination, the Church had a world-wide membership between one and ten million (McCormack 2022). However, real numbers are expected to be much lower. In the 1990s, the Church had at least 600,000 members and operated in over 100 countries (mainly South Korea, Japan and the USA). The number of official Church members in Japan is estimated at around 60,000, but this number has since declined (Kingston 2023; The Diplomat 2024). Japan was always the most important country for the Church because Japanese followers exemplified the dictum of absolute faith and obedience (Mickler 2022: 26). Japanese devotion has been crucial to the Church’s survival as a global enterprise because the majority of the financial funds for the Church’s activities comes from Japan (see below). 

Today, the Unification Church is best known around the world for holding spectacular mass wedding ceremonies—a tradition which goes back to 1975. In 2009, Moon married 45,000 people worldwide in his first large-scale mass wedding in years (Reed 2012). In February 2023—almost one year after Abe’s assassination—some 13,000 Japanese women had married Korean men through mass weddings, while more than one half of these women immigrated to Korea (Asahi Shinbun 2023). To be sure, there are controversies surrounding the wedding ceremony as well. For instance, some couples were allegedly selected by Moon based on photo comparison alone, while the whole event had a pyramid structure: those who wished to receive the wedding blessing had to bring three other fully committed members to the Church.

The basis of the Church’s teachings is Moon’s book Divine Principle from 1952, which represents a mixture of Christianity, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shamanism, and anti-communist bile. The book portrays human history as a constant struggle between two opposing forces: God (Abel) and Satan (Cain). Moon then applies this insight to the geopolitical situation, arguing that our planet is divided into a Cain-type communist world and an Abel-type democratic world. Moreover, Moon’s book portrays Korea as the superior “Adam Nation” and Japan as the subordinate “Eve Nation.” In other words, the doctrine is antagonistic to Japan, declaring it should be subservient to Korea as the “divine country.” The Church then argues that financial donations are owed by the Eve Nation of Japan to the Adam Nation of Korea as repayment for Japan’s invasion of Korea (McLaughlin 2023:213).

On the outside, the Church appears friendly and welcoming, but its membership is definitely not for everyone. The Church members voluntarily submit to strict discipline: they must remain celibate before marriage, abstain from alcohol and smoking, and work up to 16 hours per day without earning money (e.g., Reed 2012). Moreover, the Church intervenes in choosing marital partners and imposes demands that are out of synch with prevailing social norms (Kingston 2023:9). Once the new members embrace these restrictions, the Church becomes virtually their whole life and their only “family.” Anyone outside the Church (including one’s biological family) is an instrument of Satan (Yamamoto 2016). This is also why the Church has been classified since the 1970s as a “cult” in some Western countries.

The label “Unification Church” (Tōitsu Kyōkai) is not being used anymore. Since 2015, the Church is officially known as “Family Federation for World Peace and Unification” (Sekai Heiwa Tōitsu Katei Rengō). Japanese media usually refer to the sect as “Former Unification Church” (Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai), while the foreign media often use the term “Unification Movement.” Nonetheless, many people call the sect simply “Moonies” (based on the founder’s surname). In this article, I will stick to the sect’s original name (“Unification Church”) and its abbreviated version (“the Church”).
 
History

The Unification Church was founded by Moon and his followers in South Korea in 1954 in the wake of the devastation of the Korean War. It quickly spread to England (1954), Japan (1958), and America (1959), and by the turn of the 20th century it established its presence in some 185 nations (Mickler 2022:2). Importantly for our context, Japan became the Church’s success story. It served as the source engine that fueled the Church’s global advance.

If we look deeper into Japanese postwar history, we find that Moon’s Church established itself in Japan mainly through his strong ties to the Japanese far right. After the war, Moon met Sasakawa Ryōichi—”the world’s richest fascist” (Reed 2012) who was imprisoned by the Americans as a Class A war criminal (Sasakawa reportedly stated that he was “Moon’s dog”). Another important contact was Kodama Yoshio, an extreme right-winger and yakuza boss who was organising fascist secret societies (ibid.). It was Kodama who, along with Kishi Nobusuke, founded the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1955. Kodama allegedly declared that without his money, Moon would never become the messiah. However, Moon’s most important contact was Kishi Nobusuke (the grandfather of Abe Shinzō). Kishi was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal after the war and then served as Japan’s prime minister between 1957 and 1960. In fact, it was Kishi who invited Moon to Japan after being impressed by his strong anti-communist stance. According to Kingston (2023:3), Kishi rolled out the red carpet for the Unification Church. Here is the tragic irony: it was PM Kishi who helped Moon to start the Church in Japan—and it was PM Abe, Kishi’s great-grandson, who was assassinated for his contacts to the Church.

After the war, Kishi, Kodama, and Sasakawa (also known as the “Manchuria gang”) were arrested as suspected Class A-war criminals, but thanks to the “reverse course” of the American GHQ, all three were released and reintegrated into society. Moreover, Kishi would enter politics and become PM, while Kodama and Sasakawa would turn into powerful right-wing fixers. More importantly for our context, all three would later become active supporters of the Church’s political arm, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism (Kokusai Shōkyō Rengō) (Tokumoto 2023). The goal of this Federation was to fight and defeat communism, but in fact, it only deepened the collusion of religion and politics in postwar Japan (see the section, Collusion of Politics and Religion).

In 1960, Moon sent his first missionary to America and married Hak Ja Han, who has since borne him 13 children (Yamamoto 2016). Four years later, Moon’s Church gained the status of “religious corporation” in Japan (shūkyō hōjin). Owing to this, the Church enjoys enormous tax benefits and has immunity from official oversight and prosecution. Moreover, the Church took on the qualities of a highly structured corporation: the Tokyo headquarters was organised into bureaus, departments, divisions, and committees (Mickler 2022:23).

In the 1970s, Moon’s “corporate Church” began to enjoy considerable fame and fortune. Moon built an industrial empire in Asia and the Church’s income grew phenomenally (see the next subsection.). Japanese tabloids found that up to 70 percent of the Church’s operating funds came from Japan, where young cultists were convincing Japanese widows to free their “evil” ancestors from hell by buying overpriced religious items. Japanese women should marry Koreans and fully devote themselves to them, which is the only way to atone for the sins of colonisation.

Moon invested the money thus acquired in American businesses—including a shipbuilding firm, a cable television company, and the 34-story New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. The Church’s other business ventures include an art gallery, pharmaceutical company, printing company, investments in the seafood industry, and the sale of ginseng. In South Korea, the Church owns a famous ski resort, soccer team, travel agency, and numerous factories (McGill 2022:5). In North Korea, Moon founded an automobile company, which he later bequeathed to Kim Il Sung, and he operated a weapons factory, which he dedicated to the development of the automatic rifle, M16.

Moon’s “will to power” did not stop here. Within a relatively short period of time, he managed to build a global media empire that included the Japanese daily Sekai Nippō (1975), the American daily The Washington Times (1982), The Middle East Times (1983), and the Korean daily, Sege Ilbo (1989). In 1978, Moon founded the World Organisation of Journalists, whose dedicated members were quick to attack any criticism of the Church in the media. Three years later, Moon invested 46 million dollars into an epic war film, Inchon (1981), which starred Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, and Toshiro Mifune. The film was specially advised by Moon, but it became a commercial disaster and was labeled by critics as one of the worst films ever made (McGill 2022:15).

Obviously, Moon’s Church did not limit itself to gaining religious believers while generating cash. It also aimed at promoting its geopolitical agenda (see McGill 2022; Mickler 2022). In the US, Moon’s sect was intensely intertwined not only with business but also with high politics. Noone else is said to have spent as much money lobbying Washington as Moon (Reed 2012). He supported the Republicans and they in turn supported him. For example, during the Watergate scandal (1974), Moon’s people held a rally on Capitol Hill called “God Loves Richard Nixon” and bought full-page newspaper ads in support of the scandalised politician. Another staunch Republican, Ronald Reagan, stated that Moon’s The Washington Times is the only newspaper he reads every morning.

Needless to say, there is a dispute over whether the Church is more a business enterprise than a religion. Indeed, Moon’s immeasurable ownership points to the non-religious origins of the Church’s activities. These activities (including sales quotas and funding goals) seem to overshadow any spiritualism. In other words, the whole complex of Moon’s organisations is rather corporate-economic in nature. Moon was aware of the fact that the government could not interfere with his business because of the freedom of religion. Moreover, Moon argued that the Church’s business activities are not for profit: they are only the economic basis for fulfilling the Church’s mission to return to the world with Moon as the new messiah.

Controversies

Multiple controversies have mired reverend Moon since the beginning of his activities. In 1946, Moon was accused of polygamy in North Korea and sent to prison for five years, and in 1955, he was arrested over allegations that he participated in “purification” sex rituals. As part of the pseudo-Christian practice of “blood separation” (chiwake), the reverend was allegedly sexually “evangelising” married women in order to restore their purity (e.g., Reed 2012; Mickler 2022). The women would then have sex with their own husbands in order to pass on to them (and their offspring) the purity received from the messianic leader. Although there were only a few testimonies linking the Church to these sex rituals, a rumour has spread that Moon’s Church had originated as a sex cult whose holy mission was to purify humanity of the seed of Satan through the sexual intercourse of female converts with the messiah.

In Japan, the Unification Church became a target of media scrutiny at least since the 1960s. From its beginning, the Church was focusing on young people, so the first controversy was related to students. In July 1967, Asahi Shinbun wrote about the Church-affiliated student organisation “The Principle Study Group” (Genri Kenkyūkai) in an article titled “The Religion That Makes Parents Weep” (Mickler 2022:24). This Group became a serious “social problem” in Japan (shakai mondai), resulting in multiple incidents, lawsuits, and broken families. Asahi revealed that after joining the Group, many students abandoned their studies and stayed at Church-related facilities while refusing to go home. This problem was not limited to students: all around Japan, converts with various backgrounds abandoned families and carriers for the sake of the Church (Mickler 2022).

Another controversy concerned Moon’s views on homosexuality. In one of his speeches, Moon likened homosexuals to “dirty dung eating dogs” who will be eliminated in a purification ordered by God (Moon 1997). Needless to say, gays are not accepted as Church members and are strictly forbidden from attending the Church ceremonies. The Church has also been accused of discriminating against women (e.g., Moon described American women as descended from prostitutes) and supporting right-wing extremism (e.g., Moon supported Jean-Marie Le Pen’s French National Front) (e.g., Reed 2012). To the Church, the issues of sexual minorities, same-sex marriage, and gender equality are condemned as “cultural communism” derived from Marxism (Kokusai Shōkyō Rengō 2024). This has a direct impact on Japanese gender politics: the infiltration of the Church in politics is one of the reasons for the lack of progress on the issues of gender diversity in Japan today (TBS News 2022a).      

Moon’s geopolitical controversies go back to postwar American politics. In 1976, Congress accused him of being part of a secret operation by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) to influence US policy towards Korea. This became known as the “Koreagate scandal”: Moon was accused of bribery, bank fraud, illegal kickbacks and arms sales (McGil 2022; McCormack 2022). However, he survived the scrutiny, as he was just at the height of his power. He enjoyed enormous popularity in the U.S.—hundreds of thousands of Church supporters were demonstrating for him across America. The investigation into Moon’s illegalities was dropped when Ronald Reagan, Moon’s close ally, was elected president in 1980 (Reed 2012).

The Koreagate scandal was not the only Moon’s controversy in the 1970s. In 1976, the American Jewish Commission issued a warning that Moon’s Church was strongly anti-Semitic. The Commission documented that Moon’s Divine Principle from 1952 contained more than 125 anti-Jewish and anti-Christian references (White 1976). Moon was asked to remove the problematic passages in the book, but the Church denounced the accusations as frivolous and hateful.

In the second half of the 1970s, reports began to emerge in Japan about the possible use of psychological manipulation in connection with the Church (Reed 2012; Mickler 2022). The Church communities were accused of brainwashing, indoctrinating and failing to give members enough sleep. This accusation was confirmed in the documents of the anti-Church group “Society Concerned about the Movement,” founded in 1978 by former deans of Tokyo’s Waseda and Sophia universities, investigative journalists, historians, and representatives of the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament. These erudite critics pointed out for the first time that the Church had “siphoned” so much money from Japanese believers that many of them had gone bankrupt—just like the assassin’s family.

Another scandal came in 1984, when the US court found Moon guilty of tax evasion. Moon’s trial exposed the shady financing network of the Unification Church in America and Moon was sent to prison for 18 months, but the Church launched a $30 million campaign to overturn Moon’s conviction. Moon served only 13 months, receiving five months off for “good behaviour” (Yamamoto 2016). This campaign effectively portrayed Moon as an innocent martyr prosecuted for unconventional beliefs.

In the 1980s, a major media campaign against the Church was launched in Japan. This campaign was kicked off by the leading liberal newspaper, Asahi Shinbun, which introduced a new term “spiritual sales” (reikan shōhō) and framed it as a major social problem. It had come to light that members of the Church were selling various “sacred” items (marble vases, holy books, ivory seals, miniature pagodas, kimonos, paintings, furs, ginseng) for astronomical sums (e.g., TBS News 2022b). These magical items were presented as remedies from bad karma that could save one’s ancestors from burning in Hell. Some Church missionaries were even scanning obituaries to identify the recently bereaved, who were then offered special communication channels to the spirit world in return of a sizable donation (Fisher 2022; McGill 2022:4-5).
Originally, the Church members sought common employment in Japan—they were involved in the door-to-door collection of newspapers, magazines, bottles, and old clothing, to be resold to junk dealers (Mickler 2022). Eventually, the Church decided to raise money by selling flowers and candles, but this never generated significant revenue, so the Church shifted to the over-priced, miracle-working trinkets (Arita 2023).

The profits from the spiritual sales were immeasurable. In the 1980s, Moon’s Japan-based ventures were sending 10 billion yen per month to the Church headquarters in South Korea (McLaughlin 2023, 212). The annual fundraising target for the Church in Japan in the two decades before 2017 was estimated at 30 billion yen (McGill 2022:3). Over the past thirty years alone, the Church has been involved in the sale of spiritual goods to the tune of over 120 billion yen. This led to coercive and deceptive methods to hit the target, frequently impoverishing Japanese donors (Kingston 2023:7).
Following these revelations, thousands of Japanese seniors came forward claiming that they too had been cheated out of their life savings by Moon’s followers. In 1987, Asahi Shinbun reported that there had been at least 15,000 complaints since 1980 of Japanese citizens being defrauded by the Church (McGill 2022:2-3). Since then, the Church has been sued virtually nonstop. Currently, spiritual sales are banned in Japan, but the LDP government has been criticised for ignoring these unfair practices. As a result of the LDP’s negligence, victims can feel desperate and abandoned—just like Yamagami must have felt prior to killing Abe.

The media lynching of the Church was joined in the 1980s by Yoshikazu Soejima, the Church’s former PR head and editor of the Church’s Japanese newspaper, Sekai Nippō. In 1984, Soejima blew the whistle: he published a devastating 18-page critique of the Church’s funding in the Bungei Shunjū magazine. In the article, Soejima confirmed that the Church had transferred huge sums of money (over 200 billion yen in total) from Japan to Korea during the 1970s. Thus, the Church’s inner workings were fully exposed to the Japanese public, but Soejima almost paid for this scoop with his life: he was attacked by Church followers and stabbed all over his body. Soejima survived only by a miracle.

In the 1990s, Moon’s daughter-in-law, Nansook Hong (the ex-wife of Moon’s eldest son) joined the media lynching of the Church. She has left the Church, divorced Moon’s son (whom she described as a wife-beating cocaine addict), and published a devastating memoir In the Shadow of the Moons (Hong 1998). In addition, Hong appeared on the popular American TV show 60 Minutes, where she reaffirmed that in private, the Moon family lived in complete contradiction to the teachings of the Church.

Conversion Methods

Nansook Hong and many others pointed out how the Church recruits new members via elaborate manuals and mind control systems (e.g., Gouro 1993; Yamaguchi, Takimoto & Kitō 2004; Yamamoto 2016; Kingston 2023). In the first phase, nicely dressed and smiley young people approach potential converts on college campuses, at airports or in shopping malls. These “recruiters” hide their true identity: they conceal the name of the Church or explain that they are not from a religion. Some of them even pretend to be disabled in a wheelchair. In this “heavenly deception,” the Church can lie without guilt because lying is “good” if it advances the kingdom of God (Yamamoto 2016). The recruiters aim to hit on the strangers’ personal worries and family/financial misfortunes by telling them, for example, “I am studying palm reading. There are stress lines in your hand that indicate a transition” (McGill 2022, 4). In Japan, it is especially the elderly and housewives who are particularly vulnerable to a strategy that employs fortune-telling and ancestor worship (ibid).

In the second phase, the newly captured recruits are introduced to a “video course”, whose content includes serious social issues (war, hunger, adultery, crime, AIDS). The video then shows that human history is a repetition of the history of the Fall, and a return from the Fall to the original state. The fear is thus instilled in the confused newcomers that if one continues to live a corrupt life, he/she will end up in hell. The existence of messiah Moon is then revealed as a means of liberation from this fear. What is important here is that there is a fee to participate in the course: the target person is asked to pay about 50,000 yen, and if he/she does not have this amount of money at the moment, a binding loan is offered (Yamaguchi, Takimoto & Kitō 2024).

In the third and final phase, the indoctrination itself takes place. After watching the video course, the seminar attendees are invited to join the Church, which urges, cajoles, and pleads with them. If the conversion is successful, the newcomer is expected to surrender all his/her possessions to the Church within the first couple of weeks (Gouro 1993). The newcomer’s desire to belong is artificially created, while the desire to be alone is condemned as an expression of fear and alienation. Dependence on the Church and distrust of the outside world is thus fostered in the newcomers, which is intended to lead to a gradual alienation from parents, friends, and society as such. The Church becomes a “surrogate family” to which the newcomer must fully attach himself/herself in order to be protected from Satan. Moreover, newcomers are commanded to raise money by soliciting donations and selling flowers or candies. If they try to leave the Church, they are threatened with spiritual death and Satan taking possession of their body (e.g., TBS News, Jul 14, 2022).

Unsurprisingly, the Church claims that in reality no such things are happening, while complaining that it is the Church members themselves who have been persecuted throughout postwar history. For instance, the Church complains that in Japan there are frequent abductions of the Church believers by their family members for the purpose of religious deconversion. There is some truth to this complaint, because in 2013 it was reported that more than 4,000 Church followers had been subjected to confinement over the previous four decades (Mickler 2022, 25). The kidnapped Church members were kept in isolation and forced to change their beliefs, for which they later sued their own family. Japanese courts, however, usually refuse to find anyone criminally responsible in these cases, both on the basis of lack of evidence and because these issues are “family matters” that do not violate the Constitution.

Collusion of Politics and Religion

After killing PM Abe, Yamagami revealed that he wanted to draw attention to the deep ties between Abe’s LDP and Moon’s Church. In other words, Yamagami wanted to challenge the infamous collusion of politics and religion in postwar Japan. He literally said, “Nobusuke Kishi (Abe’s grandfather) had brought the Unification Church to Japan. That’s why I killed Abe.” (Tokumoto 2023). This chapter maps the past and present of religio-political collusion in Japan.

Historical Development

Since Abe’s assassination, the collusion of religion and politics has become a controversial issue in Japan. However, if we look at the earliest recorded period of Japanese history, we find that the unity of religion and politics has been promoted since the beginning of the country’s rule. For this unity, the term saisei icchi has been preserved, in which Japanese governance (sei) is to be unified (icchi) with religious rituals (sai). As a result, every Japanese ruler was obliged to formulate policies that reflect the will of the deities (kami). This will was manifested through oracles and natural phenomena, and can be recorded as early as during the reign of Empress Himiko (2nd century AD). Throughout Japanese history, the rule of the local king and the rule of Buddhist law were intertwined, and this collusion was seen as legitimate and beneficial.

Until the end of World War II, the Shinto tradition, which centred on reverence of kami, was designated a civil duty for all imperial subjects, no matter their religious commitments (Mullins 2022; McLaughlin 2023). During Japan’s expansion on the Asian continent in the 20th century, the collusion of politics and religion provided an effective platform for the aggressive ideology of a nation fighting a divinely sanctified war. The Shinto ideology was central to the political conception of the Japanese nation, while the religious cult of the emperor, militarism, imperialism, and nationalism were closely intertwined.
After Japan’s surrender in World War II, the aforementioned doctrines were suppressed and religion seemed to be a politically irrelevant issue. However, soon after the Allied Occupation ended, Japanese conservative religious and political actors began to form a neo-nationalistic restoration movement. An example of this movement in the 1950s was a joint lobbying of the LDP politicians and Shinto leaders for the restoration of state support to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine (Mullins 2022:8).

Japanese religious organisations may have lost their original populist fervour after 1945, but they still retain enthusiastic lay participation compared to institutional Buddhism and Shintoism. Despite the fact that the majority of Japanese have no personal religious faith, the “new religions” (shinshūkyō) have proliferated in Japan—there are at least 180.000 groups registered with the government (Kingston 2023:8). With as many as 8.27 million households, the largest of these religions is the Buddhist sect Sōka Gakkai (“Society for Value Creation”), which was led since the 1960s by another “messiah,” Ikeda Daisaku.

Sōka Gakkai

If we want better to understand the collusion of politics and religion in Japan, we should briefly mention the role of Sōka Gakkai. The sect’s main mission was to lift the Japanese people out of poverty, sickness, and loneliness, and this mission was very successful. By the mid-1960s, Sōka Gakkai under Ikeda’s leadership had already more than three million sympathisers—mainly urban workers who had been uprooted from their rural communities during rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. These workers have formed the core base of Sōka Gakkai.

Since the 1960s, Sōka Gakkai became a target of intense criticism from civic groups, rival religions, the government, and tabloids. For instance, the sect became scrutinised for its aggressive conversion methods (shakubuku), intimidation of opponents, cult-like characteristics, and financial misconduct. This is why Japan was quite taken aback when the sect founded in 1964 its own political party, the Komeito (“Clean Government Party”). The sect apparently did not care that this move violated Article 20 of the Constitution, which guarantees the separation of politics and religion (seikyō bunri). The Article literally says, “No religious organisation shall exercise any political authority” (e.g., McLaughlin 2023, 210). Nevertheless, Sōka Gakkai is a tightly knit organisation that has a highly disciplined vote-getting machine throughout Japan. Thanks to the sect, Komeito can count on eight to ten million votes in every election, because its members consider electoral activities an essential part of their religious commitments.

The infamous collusion of politics and religion was strongly manifested here. Ikeda has made no secret of the fact that his goal was a “fusion of politics and Buddhism” (ōbutsu myōgō), which would ideally lead to an utopian regime of “Buddhist democracy” (buppō minshushugi). However, after much criticism from all sides, Ikeda backed away from the radical Buddhist rhetoric and promised in 1970 to respect the constitutionally enshrined principle of seikyō bunri . Nevertheless, this move did not affect the operation of the aforementioned electoral machine of Sōka-Komeito, which still functions effectively today. Without having Komeito as a coalition partner, the LDP may hardly rule the country now.

The Unification Church

Let me now return to the Unification Church. In the past, organisations affiliated with the Church have always backed the LDP candidates in their election campaigns, while the LDP leaders were actively supporting various events held by these organisations (e.g., The Asahi 2023b; The Diplomat 2024). Many LDP politicians have signed endorsement agreements in which they explicitly declared their support for the Church, while others have been frequently speaking at Church-sponsored events.

Owing to the great persuasive power over its members, Moon’s Church was particularly valuable for the LDP because it could offer a group support and vote in blocs for a particular politician (George Mulgan 2022). The Church has particularly sympathised with the right-leaning LDP faction Seiwa-kai (otherwise known as the “Abe faction”), which was headed by Abe Shintarō during the 1980s, and briefly by Abe Shinzō before his assassination. When Kishi died in 1987, Abe Shintarō inherited connections with the Church that were formed in the 1950s (The Asahi 2023b). All these connections have established Moon as a “kingmaker” of Japanese politics (Kingston 2023: 4).

Important for the religio-political collusion was the year 1968, when Moon established the International Federation for Victory Over Communism (Kokusai Shōkyō Rengō). This was basically a political arm of the Unification Church. Its alleged aim was “beating communism” (shōkyō), which is why Kishi, Kodama, and Sasakawa backed the Federation. More importantly, the Federation came to play a critical role in the LDP’s success in national elections (The Asahi 2023b).
A year later, Moon further deepened the collusion by establishing the Shinto Political Federation (Shintō Seiji Reimei) as a political arm of the National Association of Shrines (Jinja Honchō). This powerful federation, known today as Shinseiren, was recruiting Diet members to support its conservative agenda. The agenda included re-nationalisation of Yasukuni shrine, restoration of patriotic and moral education, revision of the 1947 Constitution, and strengthening of support for the Emperor (Mullins 2022).

In the 1970s, Kishi frequently attended events of the Church and organisations connected to it. When Moon visited Japan in 1974, he spoke at an event organised by Kishi, and he shook hands with Fukuda Takeo, who became Japan’s PM two years later (The Asahi 2023b). Of Moon’s address, Fukuda stated, “a great leader has emerged in Asia.” When Moon was imprisoned in the U.S. in 1984 for tax evasions, Kishi even wrote a personal letter to Ronald Reagan, requesting the president’s assistance in obtaining Moon’s release from prison (Tokumoto 2023).   

Since the 1980s, Moon tapped further into political ambitions and made significant inroads into the LDP. In 1986, he boasted that the aforementioned anti-communist Federation (Kokusai Shōkyō Rengō) succeeded in bringing victory to most of the 150 candidates it backed during the elections that year (The Asahi 2023b). The religio-political collusion was not a secret back then, as Moon publicly boasted how effective the Church was in helping LDP members with elections. In the meantime, Abe Shintarō was encouraging young LDP lawmakers to accept support from the Church. Even after Abe Shintarō died in 1991, the relationship between Abe Shinzō’s LDP and Moon’s Church continued. For instance, in the 1990s, many personal secretaries of the LDP lawmakers were actually Church members. The activities of these secretaries were reported to and directed by the Church (Nikkan Gendai, Jul 13, 2022).

The Japanese government’s attitude towards religious organisations tightened after 1995, when the Aum Shinrikyo sect attacked the Tokyo subway with deadly sarin gas. Prompted by this terror, the Japanese government revised laws on the “new religions” to allow for better monitoring, greater financial transparency, and stronger government powers to restrict activities. Among the public, the attack solidified popular understandings of religion in terms of fear and violence (McLaughlin 2023:211).

In reality, not much has changed after the Aum Shinrikyo attack. The Unification Church managed to continue defrauding many people even after the attack (Kingston 2023) while many politicians kept on cooperating with religious sects in order to stay in power. They ignored the constitutional separation of religion and state, being backed by Moon’s proclamation that the separation “favoured Satan” (Kingston 2023:5). As a matter of fact, Moon planned to break down the separation not only in Japan, but also in Korea and the U.S. He would then reunite these regions into an overarching religious government, and he would sit at the top of that government (Mickler 2022; TBS News 2022b).

Present Situation

The aforementioned religio-political collusion is evident to this day. For instance, some Japanese postwar ministers (e.g., Koizumi, Hashimoto, Nakasone, Abe) were officially visiting Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Class A war criminals were buried (see Mullins 2021). Former PM Kishida Fumio was more careful: he avoided visiting the shrine, but he still continued to offer symbolic support with ritual offerings. Other politicians were less careful. For instance in 2000, PM Mori invoked the will of kami when he portrayed Japan as a “land of the gods” (kami no kuni), which caused a minor scandal precisely because of its wartime associations. Further, Abe Shinzō sent in 2006 a congratulatory telegram to an event hosted by the Church, which was heavily criticised, as many people were falling victim to the spiritual sales around that time (The Asahi 2023b). Later on, Abe backtracked and said that sending the telegram was a mistake. 

Moon’s mission of recruiting LDP lawmakers to the Shinto Political Federation (Shinseiren) steadily increased in the post-disaster years of 1995 (the Hanshin earthquake) and 2011 (the Tōhoku triple disaster). Many prime ministers (Obuchi, Mori, Koizumi) belonged to Shinseiren, but the membership recorded the most significant growth under PM Abe (Mullins 2022:9). Besides, Abe was also a member of the Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi) whose representatives are radical religious leaders who share a core nationalist agenda with Shinseiren.

Abe managed to increase the number of Diet members affiliated with Shinseiren and Nippon Kaigi to over 40% of the total Diet membership (Mullins 2022:9). In 2018, almost all Cabinet members belonged to Shinseiren, which caused a steady shift to the right and support for the restorationist agenda. More importantly, in 2022, 36% of members of the current Kishida Cabinet were associated with the Unification Church (ibid.). Thus, Kishida was protecting the Church just like Abe did. Before Abe’s death, there were over 30,000 complaints against the Church, but the government refused to address the problem while the Church dismissed the complaints (Ryall 2022). The police stayed mute as well. When Arita (2023) interviewed police officers about why they had not investigated the Church, they simply replied: “politics.”

Today, some leading LDP politicians, such as Shimomura Hakubun, are intertwined with multiple sects at the same time. Shimomura uses these sects to get votes in elections, while the sects use the politician as a “publicity stunt.” In order to maintain this reciprocity, the Church sends unpaid volunteers (sometimes as many as one hundred of them) to assist in election campaigns for favoured LDP members (McCormack 2022:5). Moon himself praised these volunteers as “well-trained special forces” (Kingston 2023:4) while the politicians eagerly used them in their campaigns because the cost of proper election workers would be much more expensive (George Mulgan 2022). The Church is especially beneficial to those politicians who do not have their own support group (kōenkai) and run on limited budgets. They can save millions of yen by relying on the Church volunteers who hand out leaflets, organise rallies, and staff sound trucks. However, support by the faithful is not always a spontaneous act. For instance, the Church allegedly had to force its members to “save Japan” by volunteering in the LDP election campaign (TBS News 2022b).

Reaction to the Scandal

Let me now return to the Unification Church scandal which was unleashed by Abe’s assassination. This chapter charts how the Japanese society as a whole reacted to the scandal—including the state and its leaders, the Church and its sympathisers, the mass media and tabloids, and the public sphere. Let me first look at how the Japanese political sphere reacted to the scandal.
 
The Government
 
As expected, the government’s initial reaction was defensive. In the late July 2022, the ruling LDP declared that it had no organisational relations with the Unification Church whatsoever. Two weeks later, the government decided that the connections between the Church and politicians were related to personal political activities and therefore “did not need to be investigated” (Yomiuri Shinbun 2022a). The opposition protested. The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (Rikken Minshutō) has made a demand for a proper parliamentary commission to uncover any religio-political collusion, but the LDP flatly rejected it. In the meantime, PM Kishida swiftly announced the holding of an official state funeral to honour Abe, but once the media started revealing the cozy ties between Abe and the Church, many Japanese turned against the state funeral. Kishida proceeded anyway. 

The government’s secretive approach did not hold for long, because in the meantime, Japanese tabloid weeklies (shūkanshi) began revealing the names of lawmakers involved with the Church. Consequently, opinion polls showed a deep decline in the Japanese public’s trust in the establishment. A survey by the Kyodo news agency showed that out of 594 Diet members who answered the survey, 117 LDP members had some ties to the Church (Yomiuri Shinbun 2022b). Kishida was pushed to commission the LDP party’s executive council to investigate the scandal, and the results were shocking: nearly one in two Liberal Democrats was found to have ties to the Church. This revelation once again shook public confidence in politics: Kishida’s approval rating in 2022 dropped from 66% in May to less than 30% in October, and then to a sinister 17% in November. However, this dramatic drop was also caused by yet another scandal at the heart of Kishida’s party, namely the LDP political funding scandal (see Prusa 2024b).

In December 2022, the Japanese Parliament finally passed the Victim Assistance Law, which prohibits organisations like the Unification Church from soliciting donations through psychological coercion. The new law gives victims the right to recover money found to have been donated under duress. However, critics complain that the legislation is too weak to provide support for most victims because it does not cover damages incurred before the Law was passed. Thus, the new Law was criticised for making it even more difficult for families to recover donations (e.g. Kingston 2023).

In response to the scandal, PM Kishida changed the composition of his cabinet, removing the Church-affiliated members. Soon, however, it became clear that even the new cabinet members had some ties to the Church. Besides, some LDP legislators allegedly lied and failed to report their ties to the Church, so the total number of the “sinners” was much higher. Either way, experts say that Kishida’s efforts were not enough and that the Church could still influence LDP policy decisions. Moreover, the scandal did not have any serious consequences for the LDP: in May 2023, the LDP candidates won most of the local elections across Japan (Kingston 2023:15). A similar situation occurred during the local elections in April 2023, in which more than 90 percent of the candidates with ties to the Church were re-elected across all parties.
 
The Media
 
The analysis of the relationship between politics, religion, and society needs to take into account the role of media. They are essential because they present the image and identity of religious groups while shaping public discourse about religion. This is especially the case when a religious scandal emerges.

In order to understand how scandals are produced in Japan, I differentiate between “inside-media” and “outside-media.” The inside-media (dailies, TV, news agencies) gather data via conservative “reporters’ clubs” (kisha kurabu) and usually do not investigate scandals. They rather function as a PR for the authorities while often failing to perform the media-watchdog role. On the contrary, the outside-media (weeklies, monthlies, political/local papers, social media, foreign media) are not bound by the restrictive kisha rules, which enables them to investigate and trigger scandals. Thus, the majority of Japanese scandals are triggered from the outside. I call this process a “bottom-up mediation”: transgression is leaked via outside-media channels, and if the scandal grows out of proportion, the inside-media are eventually pushed to cover it as well (Prusa 2022, 2024a).

How did the Japanese mediascape react to Abe’s scandalous assassination? The reaction of the inside-media was relatively swift, but in the longer term, they tend to avoid the sensitive subject of religio-political collusion. While there are plenty of religious controversies that regularly appear in the weekly outside-media (Bunshun, Shinchō, Gendai), the conservative inside-media (Yomiuri, Nikkei, Sankei) tend to ignore these revelations. Even when Abe gave his salute at a video conference of the Church in 2021, the inside-media did not touch upon it. On the contrary, the outside-media—namely the Communist daily Akahata and the tabloids Shūkan Post and Friday—were quick to report on Abe’s fatal video-salute.
Among the outside-media, the tabloid Nikkan Gendai was the first to report closely on the scandal. On July 16, the tabloid confirmed that Yamagami’s mother belonged to the Church, and it published a list of 111 lawmakers who shared Abe’s links to the Church (McGill 2022:1). Among the inside-media, the more liberal dailies (Asahi and Mainichi) were relatively critical of the LDP and its links to the Church (McNeill and Hayashi 2022:20). Other newspapers did cover the event as well, but they avoided mentioning the name of the Church and instead used the term “specific religious group” (tokutei no shūkyō dantai).

Among the TV broadcast, most active in covering the issue were NTV and TBS, while on the contrary the NHK and TV Asahi have been rather passive (J-Cast, Jul 29, 2022). Some media even dropped all references to “religion” from their reports because they were worried about losing access to politicians if they touched upon the sensitive religio-political issue (McLaughlin 2023). Thus, the moral panic following the scandal was fueled mainly by the social media. The Japanese public sensed that the big media were not telling the whole truth, so many people went online instead. In the three months following the assassination, there were 350 million tweets related to Abe and the Church (McLaughlin 2023:209). 
The online reaction has triggered an intense media coverage. However, as is usually the case in Japanese scandals, the first source to publish the name of the Church one day after the assassination was not from Japan. It was the French media outlets Figaro, Les Echos, and BFM TV that opened the Pandora’s box. I perceive this as an example of “external pressure” (gaiatsu): domestic investigation into the scandal is propelled by international investigations and exposed by the foreign media (Prusa 2024c). The inside-media are thus pressured to pursue criminal cases that become revealed abroad.  
 
The Church

Let me now look at the reaction of the Unification Church. Its initial response was based on a combination of defensive and offensive strategies. Unsurprisingly, the Church defended itself as being wrongly accused of Abe’s murder. Two days after the assassination, the U.S. branch of the Church issued an official statement condemning the violence and saying that guns were incompatible with their religious beliefs. (Here, the Church officials ignored the fact that Moon was making guns from the beginning of the Church’s history). The Church dignitaries denied any relationship with the assassinated PM and sued some media outlets for defamation.

When the Church dignitaries finally decided to approach the public, they were careful to avoid talking to the outside-media. Three days after the assassination, Tanaka Tomihiro, the president of the Japanese branch of Unification Church, held a press conference in response to the tragedy. However, only the Church-friendly inside-media were allowed to enter the conference hall, while the Church-critical outside-media were refused access (J-Cast, Jul 11, 2024). According to Tanaka, the banishment of the outside-media was done for the purpose of “protecting the believers.”

In the meantime, the Church switched from the defensive strategy (mamori no senryaku) to an offensive one (seme no senryaku). In October 2022, the Church held a televised press conference in which it expressed its intention fully to challenge the government’s dissolution decree. Moreover, the Church filed a lawsuit against the TV production offices of NTV, Yomiuri, and TBS, and against three lawyers who had criticised the Church on the TV “wideshows” (Yomiuri Shinbun 2022b). Besides, the Church attempted to manipulate the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) into cancelling a press conference with a former Church believer from the “second-generation” (shūkyō nisei), allegedly because he was mentally ill (Kyodo, Oct 7, 2022).

In November 2023, the Church finally slowed down: in yet another press conference it apologised to former believers and said it would set aside funds for compensation. Since Abe’s killing, the Church has allegedly responded to hundreds of demands for compensation and paid out billions of yen. The Church is reportedly ready to set aside another ten billion for compensation, but lawyers estimate that total claims may exceed 100 billion yen (Kingston 2023:15).
If the Church is confirmed as breaking the law, it can lose its favourable religious-juridical status (shūkyō hōjin) and become a mere “religious group” (shūkyō dantai) with no tax benefits and no immunity. The Japanese public seems to be in favour of dissolution. For instance, in December 2022, members of the “second generation” of the Church (shūkyō nisei) gathered more than 200,000 signatures in order to push the Agency for Cultural Affairs to dissolve the Church (Tokyo Shinbun, Dec 9, 2022).

Despite the gravity of the situation, one cannot expect a concrete decision on the status of the Church anytime soon. Indeed, in order officially to dissolve the group, the matter would have to go to court. Such a case would be very lengthy, however, because the Church has already declared that it would defend itself with all its might. Moreover, it is clear that even if the Church is dissolved, it would certainly not stop the activities of the many companies and political groups associated with it (newspaper companies, travel agencies, retailers). If the dissolution order is announced, the Church might transfer its assets to its headquarters in South Korea before the finalisation of the order, leaving no legal means to claim them (The Asahi 2023a). Or, the Church may reorganise itself and continue recruiting new members under a new name—just as Aum Shinrikyo has done with “Aleph” (Kingston 2023:12).

The Public

Finally, let us look at the reaction of the Japanese public. It was a mixture of shock and grief at Abe’s death on the one side, and anger and disgust at the uncovered religio-political ties on the other side. The Japanese were divided into three main segments: supporters, skeptics and neutrals. As for the supporters, there is a significant number of people who are deeply committed to the Church’s teachings. For these individuals, the Church really “works” because they find comfort, personal growth, and a sense of community. The supporters view the Church as exclusively positive and praise its efforts to promote peace and education. They either ignore or attack any criticism of the Church. Their reaction to Abe’s assassination has been a combination of shock and sadness, but they resolutely reject any connection of Abe to the Church.

As for the skeptics, they were represented by the majority of the general public who were opposed to organised religions using their resources for political activities (Mullins 2022:10). The skeptics naturally viewed the Church with suspicion. Logically, the ranks of skeptics grew when it was revealed that Abe’s LDP used a controversial South Korean sect to win the election. Abe’s murder was seen by skeptics as a tragic symbol of the intermingling of politics and religion in Japan.

As far as the neutrals were concerned, there was a significant portion of the Japanese population that was either uninterested in the Church or unaware of their activities. The neutrals may have heard of the Church, but its existence had no bearing on their daily lives or religious beliefs. After Abe’s murder, some neutrals must have sensed a certain impropriety around the Church, but they were reluctant to comment on the issue in public (e.g., during person-in-the-street interviews ).

Conclusion: The Assassin as Folk Hero

In the immediate aftermath of Abe’s assassination, one more segment of the Japanese public emerged—namely those who openly admired Yamagami. When Abe was murdered in public with a self-made shotgun, not many people thought that Abe’s murderer would be perceived as a folk hero by admirers across the country. Nevertheless, Yamagami’s story of financial ruin and bloody revenge has won some public sympathy. Firstly, it was the Japanese antipathy to “religion” per se that has contributed to the heroisation of Yamagami (McLaughlin 2023). Secondly, the scandal backlash reflected considerable public empathy for Yamagami as he was defrauded by the Church. Some Japanese could not help but cry when they heard about the unfortunate Yamagami family (Arita 2023).

Yamagami’s heroisation was significantly fueled by the weeklies. In September 2022, the Japanese tabloid SPA! ran a lengthy eight-page article headlined “Abe’s killer is now revered,” in which Yamagami was virtually elevated from murderous terrorist to modern-day martyr (see Adelstein and Semans 2022). The main role, however, was played by the Internet. Thousands of people signed a petition on the website change.org demanding a commutation of the sentence on the grounds that Yamagami had become a victim of the Church. In online chats and comments, many fans passionately defend Yamagami and celebrate him for drawing attention to the controversial sect’s illegal collusion with the ruling party. Some fans even wore costumes imitating Yamagami’s appearance at the assassination (McLaughlin 2023:214). Besides, an experimental film Revolution+1 was released in September 2022, offering a semi-fictionalised account of Yamagami as a sympathetic underdog.  

Legally, Yamagami faces the death penalty for Abe’s murder, but for his admirers, such a penalty is unacceptable. Yamagami’s first hearing was scheduled for June 12, 2023 at the Nara courthouse, but it had to be cancelled at the last minute because someone sent a “suspicious item” to the court address. An explosive ordnance disposal unit was immediately dispatched to the court, but the Japanese public broadcaster NHK later reported that the suspicious item was a paper box containing 13,000 signatures calling for Yamagami’s sentence to be commuted.

Abe’s killer has become a folk hero for many Japanese. A girl fan base (“Yamagami Girls”) has formed online, and sympathisers from all over Japan are sending money, gifts and food to Yamagami’s prison cell. Although his actions are not really excusable, Yamagami seems to have struck a chord of admiration in Japanese culture for the self-appointed folk avengers who retaliate against corrupt powerholders.

References

Adelstein, Jake and Semans, Himari. 2022. ‘Shinzo Abe Killer Gets Worshipped as a “God” by Diehard Fans.’ Daily Beast, Sep 17. Available at https://www.thedailybeast.com/shinzo-abe-assassin-tetsuya-yamagami-gets-worshipped-as-a-god-in-japan (accessed January 1, 2024).

Ahrens, Frank. 2002. ‘Moon Speech Raises Old Ghosts as the Times Turns 20.’ The Washington Post, May 23. Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2002/05/23/moon-speech-raises-old-ghosts-as-the-times-turns-20/505334e8-8ce6-44eb-a767-ee7895107cae/ (accessed January 1, 2024).

Arita, Yoshifu. 2023. ‘Abe motoshushō shūgeki jiken to „seiji no chikara”‘ (The attack on former Prime Minister Abe and the „power of politics”). Nippon.com, Aug 24. Available at https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/c12104/ (accessed January 1, 2024).

Asahi Shinbun. 2023. ‘Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai, Kankoku no Nihonjin wa ima’ (Former Unification Church, Japanese women believers in Korea are now there).  Feb 6, 2023. Available at https://digital.asahi.com/articles/ASR24753DR1ZUTIL02T.html?iref=ogimage_rek  (accessed January 1, 2024).

Fisher, Marc. 2022. ‘How Abe and Japan became vital to Moon’s Unification Church.’ Washington Post, July 12. Available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/12/unification-church-japan-shinzo-abe/ (accessed January 1, 2024).

George Mulgan, Aurelia. 2022. ‘Japan mixes religion and politics.‘ East Asia Forum, Sep 22. Available at  https://eastasiaforum.org/2022/09/22/japan-mixes-religion-and-politics/ (accessed January 1, 2024).

Gouro, Masaki. 1993. Tōitsu kyōkai maindo kontorōru no subete (All about the mind control at the Unification Church). Tokyo: Kyōiku Shiryō Shuppankai.

Hong, Nansook. 1998. In the Shadows of the Moons. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

J-Cast. 2022. ‘Hidoi desu yo, Nihon no shinbun to terebi wa’ (Terrible, this is what the Japanese newspapers and TV stations are). Jul 29. Available at https://www.j-cast.com/2022/07/29442852.html?p=all (accessed January 1, 2024).

J-Cast. 2024. ‚Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai, kaikenba de "media senbetsu”‘ (Former Unification Church „media screening” at press konference). Jul 11. Available at https://www.j-cast.com/2022/07/11441520.html?p=all (accessed July 11, 2024).

Jiji. 2022. ‘Jimin, kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai to no kankei hakkaku aitsugu’ (LDP and former Unification Church ties uncovered one after another). Aug 1. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20220806110512/https:/www.jiji.com/amp/article?k=2022073100138&g=pol (accessed July 11, 2024).

Kingston, Jeff. 2023. ‘Bad Karma? Abe’s Assassination and the Moonies.’ The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 21, Issue 12 (No. 5): 1-19.

Kokusai Shōkyō Rengō. 2024. ‘Bunka kyōsanshugi no kyōi ni tsuite’ (On the threat of cultural communism). Available at https://www.ifvoc.org/threat/c-communism/ (accessed June 11, 2024).

Kyodo. 2022. ‘Kyōdan ga motoshinja no kaiken chūshi yōkyū fakkusu de, yoteidōri ni jisshi’ (Faith group demands cancellation of former believer’s press konference by fax, to be held as scheduler). Oct 7. Available at https://www.at-s.com/news/article/national/1133883.html (accessed June 11, 2024).

McCormack, Gavan. 2022. ‘Abe Shinzo: Contentious Candidate for a State Funeral.’ In The Abe Legacy: A Compendium, edited by David McNeill. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 20, Issue 16 (No 11): 3-6. Available at https://apjjf.org/2022/16/McNeil.html#mccormack.

McGill, Peter. 2022. ‘The Dark Shadow Cast by Moon Sun Myung’s Unification Church and Abe Shinzo.’ The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 20, Iss. 17 (No. 10): 1-23. Available at https://apjjf.org/2022/17/McGill.html.

McLaughlin, Levi. 2023. ‘The Abe Assassination and Japan’s Nexus of Religion and Politics.’ Current History (September): 209-216.   

McNeill, David and Hayashi, Kaori. 2022. ‘No Friend of the Free Media.’ In The Abe Legacy: A Compendium, edited by David McNeill. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 20, Iss. 16 (No. 11): 18-20. Available at https://apjjf.org/2022/16/McNeil.html#mccormack.

Mickler, Michael L. 2022. The Unification Church Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Moon, Sun Myung. 1997. ‘The Family Federation for Cosmic Peace and Unification and the Cosmic Era of Blessed Family.’ Unification.net, May 4. Available at http://www.unification.net/1997/970504.html (assessed June 11, 2024).

Mullins, Mark R. 2022.  ‘Abe and the Revival of Shinto Nationalism.’ In The Abe Legacy: A Compendium, edited by David McNeill. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Vol. 20, Issue 16, (Number 11): 8-10. Available at https://apjjf.org/2022/16/McNeil.html#mccormack.

Mullins, Mark R. 2021. Yasukuni Fundamentalism: Japanese Religions and the Politics of Restoration. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.

Nikkan Gendai. 2022. ‘Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai to kokkai giin no „tadanaranu kankei”‘ (The "unusual relationship” between the former Unification Church and Diet members). Jul 13. Available at https://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/life/308224 (accessed June 11, 2024).

Prusa, Igor. 2022. ‘Japanese Scandals and their Production.’ Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 44 (Issue 1): 3-21.

———2024a. Scandal in Japan: Transgression, Performance and Ritual. London: Routledge.

———2024b. 'Will the LDP funding scandal change Japanese politics?’ The Japan Times, Feb 21. Available at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/02/21/japan/ldp-funding-scandal-analysis/ (accessed June 11, 2024).

———2024c. ‘The Johnny’s Sex Abuse Scandal and the Role of Media in Japan.’ Contemporary Japan, Vol. 36, Iss. 1 (January): 126-144.

Reed, Christopher. 2012. ‘The Rev Sun Myung Moon Obituary.’ The Guardian, Sep 2. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/02/rev-sun-myung-moon (accessed June 11, 2024).

Ryall, Julian. 2022. ‘Japan: Unification Church scandals haunt Kishida government.’ Deutche Welle, Oct 28. Available at https://www.dw.com/en/japan-unification-church-scandals-haunt-kishida-government/a-63584468 (accessed June 11, 2024).

TBS News. 2022a. ‘Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai no oshie ni "LGBT wa tsumi na no desu”‘ (Former Unification Church teaches that "LGBT is a sin”). Aug 5. Available at https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/116158?page=2 (accessed June 11, 2024).

———2022b. 'Kenshō daisandan‚ Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai to seiji’ kyōdan kakudai no haikei wa?’ (Verification No. 3‚ Former Unification Church and politics’. What is the background of the expansion of the Church?) [Video]. Youtube, Aug 14. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9torP6Bt3iA&ab_channel=TBSNEWSDIGPoweredbyJNN (accessed June 11).

The Asahi. 2023a. ‘Editorial: Disband order certainly not end of Unification Church.’ Oct 13. Available at https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15027574 (accessed June 11, 2024).

———2023b. 'Bonds between LDP, Unification Church date back half a century.’ Aug 17. Available at https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14693688 (accessed June 11, 2024).

The Diplomat. 2024. ‘Japan’s Crisis of Confidence.’ Jan 16. Available at https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/japans-crisis-of-confidence/ (accessed June 11, 2024).

Tokumoto, Eiichiro. 2023. ‘Boiling point.’ Number One Shimbun (August). Available at https://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun-article/boiling-point (accessed June 11, 2024).

Tokyo Shinbun. 2022. ‘Higai kurikaesanuyō kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai kaisan wo’ (Toward dissolving the former Unification Church to prevent recurrence of the damage). Dec 9. Available at https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/219042  (accessed June 11, 2024).

White, David F. 1976. ‘Sun Myung Moon is criticised by religious leaders; Jewish patrons enraged.’ The New York Times, Dec 29. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/29/archives/sun-myung-moon-is-criticised-by-religious-leaders-jewish-patrons.html (accessed June 11, 2024).

Yamaguchi, Hiroshi, Takimoto, Tarō, Kitō, Masaki. 2004. Q&A Shūkyō toraburu 110 ban—shinobi yoru karuto (Q&A 110 religious troubles—a creeping cult). Tokyo: Minjihō Kenkyūkai.

Yamamoto J. Isamu. 2016. Unification Church. Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Yomiuri Shinbun. 2022a. ‘Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai to seimu san’yaku no kankei “chōsa okonau hitsuyō ga nai”‘ (Relationship between former Unification Church and three political officials “does not need to be investigated”). Aug 15. Available at https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20220815-OYT1T50186/ (accessed June 11, 2024).

———2022b. ‘Kyū Tōitsu Kyōkai, „Miyaneya” „Hiruobi” de meiyo kison to minpō 2sha, 3bengoshi wo teiso’ (Former Unification Church sues two commercial broadcasters and three lawyers for defamation of character in “Miyaneya” and “Hiruobi”). Sep 29. Available at https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/20220929-OYT1T50275/ (accessed June 11, 2024).

Article copyright Igor Prusa.

Back to top