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STEVE
ALLEN
STEVE
ALLEN
Steve Allen, the famous television comedian and author, attacks the UC in a book he wrote about his experience of having one of his sons join a minority religious group in Beloved Son: a study of the Jesus Cults. He has a chapter on the UC. One of his arguments is the use of the book Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean Scandal. The book says, "This thorough study, published in 1980, is a damning indictment of what is, in fact, a damnable situation. Even more than the insanity, murders and mass suicide of Jonestown, the case of the Unification group raises the most serious questions about the First Amendment and its protection of religion. Presumably every American, as a matter of principle, is in favor of freedom of religion. But is there literally nothing that a church can do, is there literally no crime or depravity it can commit, which will force the American people and their government to rethink the application of the First Amendment to churches of a a new, bizarre and dangerous sort?" Damian Anderson answers many of these charges at his website (www.Unification.net). On this charge he says, "This is blatantly false. This claim was made in the 1970s and no evidence was ever found despite years of investigations funded by millions of dollars of taxpayers' money. Give me one shred of documented evidence."
Allen asks in his book,"Does freedom of religion give Moon the right to violate the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which outlaws slavery?" This is ridiculous. To compare slavery to a voluntary religion is the height of irrational paranoia. This is witch hunt talk. Allen prides himself on being a smart person who writes books on how "dumb" the average person is and then he writes dumb things like this. Allen is so smart that he committed adultery, abandoned his son, left the Catholic Church and became an atheist. Then he blames religious leaders like Moon who offer a family that believes in God and morality. Allen's son joined a group that is very nonconformist and strict by society's standards, but his son has a happy marriage and children. Allen is just another corrupt Hollywood Liberal who doesn't understand what a religious life means. He is just another intellectual who is bankrupt intellectually.
THE UC is judged as criminal, depraved, bizarre and dangerous. Is this any different than the words used against every religion by their opponents in human history and why Jefferson pushed for the amendment because he was attacked for being a Unitarian with the exact same words that Allen accuses the UC of. The Mafia fits this description and the government is on to them. When the government put Rev. Moon in court and in jail a Pulitzer prize winning writer who specialized in corrupt religions, studied the church and wrote a book called Inquisition and shows the church and Rev. Moon to be law abiding and innocent of these hysterical charges. Allen has not done his homework and not even used his head. He prides himself on how smart and well read he is and then comes up with rethinking the first amendment.
There are no stockpiles of weapons in UC churches, offices or homes of members who are clinging to words of their master who calls for killing people when some apocalypse will come and that they should go out kill for him. He is taken out of context and you could make Jesus sound like a brutal criminal. In fact he was looked at as being everything Allen accuses the UC of. Rev. Moon has spoken about his view of being nonviolent. In an interview with a distinquished professor who studied the UC. Father said in his interview with Frederich Sontag in his book Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church that it is God’s will to fight back when attacked. Sontag asks Father what he thinks about his image that many "are fearful because they think the movement will resort to a militaristic posture and that you will command your members to go out with guns. What do you say about condoning force or violence to attain your goals?"
Father responds: "It’s been God’s principle never to attack first. God never attacks first. Evil and Satan always take initiative and try to destroy, but the heavenly side has the responsibility to defend itself." Having said that he goes on to say the Church is not focused on the military, but on education: "I preach our movement as essentially nonviolent and non militaristic. Our movement has the greatest weapon — if you use that word — truth. We also have the greatest target: the human heart." He says "We are conquerors by love, conquerors by truth, but not by violence, not by weapons."
He says that "Communism is trying to take the world by force. But God will take the world by love. We must become the embodiment of this love." He ends by saying that he is not interested in being a political leader but he supports those leaders, such as the President of Korea, in being anti-Communist and for having a strong military: "I have never met President Park ... Yet in principle, I support a strong defense, and an absolute anti-Communist policy.
