This is the far-right Christian sect that links the Shinzo Abe assassination to January 6

On July 8, 2022, former Japanese Prime Shinzō Abe was assassinated by Tetsuya Yamagami during a political rally in Tokyo.

Yamagami argued that the Unification Church had been the source of his family’s financial ruin. His mother joined the Moonites in the 1990s and kept donating to the church, even after losing the family business and declaring bankruptcy.

While not a member, The Guardian highlights that Abe sent messages of support in events connected to the church.

As a reaction to the assassination, the Japanese government requested a court in October 2023 to strip the Unification Church of their religious status and the benefits that come from it.

The decision was taken by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his cabinet made the request following a year-long investigation into the church and how it pressures its members to donate high amounts of money.

The Guardian writes that if the Tokyo district court accepts the request, the church would lose its tax exemptions and keep public records from its donations.

However, as Business Insider writes, even if Japan manages to take away its religious status to the Unification Church, it still maintains a lot of power and resources in Asia and elsewhere.

Originally from South Korea, the Unification Church established its Japanese branch in the late 1950s where it found common ground with right-wing Japanese politicians over their hatred to Communism and trade unionism.

According to The Guardian, one of those politicians was Prime Minister Nobusake Kishi, who allegedly aided the establishment of the Unification Church in Japan.

Nobusake Kishi also happens to be the maternal grandfather of another Japanese Prime Minister: Shinzō Abe.

However, there are several reasons why the Unification Church is one of the most notorious cults of the 20th century.

Pictured: Mass wedding in Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1982.

The Unification Church, formally called The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, was founded by Sun Myung Moon in 1954.

The Unification Church is well-known for its mass weddings, bizarre teachings on Christianity controversies around the Church’s founder, Reverend Moon.

Image: @hudsoncrafted / Unsplash

Encyclopedia Britannica explains that Moon was born in what today is North Korea in 1920 and was raised within the Presbyterian Church, from which he was eventually expelled due to heresy.

Business Insider writes that when Moon was 15, he had a vision of Jesus telling him to finish his mission to Earth.

According to Moon, the purpose of creation is to experience the joy of love. Adam and Eve misused love through fornication.

Image: @_calvincraig / Unsplash

While Jesus prepared humanity for salvation, Moon’s theology argues that Christ doomed himself by not getting married and therefore not completing God’s plans.

Image: @litschigraphie / Unsplash

Who will finish God’s plan and create a state of sinless purity for humanity? Who is the new Messiah? Why, Reverend Moon, of course!

The Korean War in the 1950s deeply shaped Moon’s political outlook. According to Business Insider, he became a fervent anti-Communist and supported conservative causes throughout his life.

The Unification Church quickly grew and expanded beyond the Korea peninsula, towards Japan and the West.

Moon moved to the United States in the 1970s, where his sect continued to expand in members, real estate, and clout.

During the Watergate Scandal, Moon asked his followers to rally behind US President Richard Nixon, which earned him an official visit to the White House and a lot of media attention.

The Unification Church started to get bad press from The New York Times and The Washington Post, so Moon simply decided to start his own newspaper: The Washington Times.

The Washington Times has become one of the most important conservative newspapers in the United States, with Ronald Reagan allegedly being a daily reader.

The 1980s were the Unification Church’s heyday, with The Washington Post writing at the time that Moon’s ministry owned everything from magazines in Japan to fishing boats in Massachusetts and banks in Uruguay.

This started to take a bad turn for the Unification Church in 1982 when Moon was convicted of tax fraud and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 18 months and fined 15,000 US dollars. The supposed Messiah was released after 13 months for good behavior.

According to The Guardian, the decline continued well into the 1990s, with the numbers of believers dwindling, bad reputation in mass media, and the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 meaning that Moon no longer had friends in the White House.

Reverend Moon passed away on September 3, 2012. Although he no longer had the power and the glory of the Reagan years, he was still the head of a business empire and the Messiah of hundreds of loyal believers.

Moon’s widow Hak Ja Han (pictured succeeded him in the leadership of the Unification Church, with their children taking care of most of the administrative duties.

Their youngest child, Sean Moon, established the schismatic World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church, also known as the Rod of Iron Ministries. The “iron rod” in question? Semiautomatic rifles.

The young Moon and other members of the Sanctuary Church participated in the January 6 Capitol Assault. Reportedly, he and his followers live in a compound in Waco, Texas.