JAPAN - Revokes Unification Church’s Legal Status
Japan’s government has asked a court to revoke the legal status of the Japanese branch of the Unification Church.
Education Minister Masahito Moriyama said the probe had found that the Japanese branch of the church has “long restricted many of its members’ ability to freely make decisions, and forced them to make donations and purchase goods, while they were not in a condition to make sound decisions.”
The Unification Church, known officially as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, was founded in 1954 in South Korea by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a self-proclaimed messiah and staunch anti-communist.
The Unification Church, meanwhile, slammed the government’s decision as a “stain on Japan’s constitutional history.” A dissolution ruling against it would strip the church of legal status and tax breaks, but allow it to continue to operate in Japan.
-www.npr.org, 13 October 2023
Arno's Commentary
Of Japan’s 124 million inhabitants, only 1.5% are listed as Christian. Amazing is their life expectancy, at 85 years. Japan can be categorized as one of the super-successful developed nations.
Japan is generally not in favor of foreign culture—in this case, religion. The World Factbook lists 97.9% of its population as Japanese, with only 0.6% Chinese.
The Church expresses its official identity in the statement, “The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.” That, according to Bible prophecy, is not going to happen; though it will for a short time, under the rulership of the god of this world and his false messiah and false prophet. The prophet Daniel identifies him: “Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things” (Daniel 11:37-38). Honoring “the God of forces” is the military, but the aim is quite clearly revealed: “for he shall magnify himself above all.”
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
