The Anti-Unification Church Movement in Japan. 1. Christian Pastors and Opposing Parents

Clergy who viewed Unificationists as heretics and parents who thought their children had been brainwashed formed the initial opposition.

By Shunsuke Uotani

September 2, 2025

Article 1 of 3

The three anti-Unification-Church groups.

The anti-Unification Church movement in Japan is generally split into three groups: Christian pastors, the “Opposing Parents Association,” and left-wing forces. Initially, these groups had no common ground and each opposed the Unification Church independently. However, since the early 1980s, they identified reasons to unite, and now they have collaborated with the shared aim of “destroying the Unification Church” (see my “Rebuttal to Yoshihide Sakurai and Hiroko Nakanishi’s book ‘The Unification Church,’” Sekainipposha, 2024, pp. 564–65). I will explain these three elements in more detail. This first article covers the Christian pastors and the “opposing parents.” In a second article, I will discuss the left-wing forces.

The first group consists of Christian pastors. A fight against heresy drives their opposition. From their perspective, the Unification Church is a heretical faith, and they believe its members cannot be saved unless they are compelled to renounce their faith.

The first person to carry out forced conversion (deprogramming) involving abduction and confinement in Japan was Pastor Satoshi Moriyama of the Ogikubo Glory Church, which is part of the Evangelical Church of Christ in Japan. This denomination is a descendant of the Holiness Movement and is affiliated with the Japan Evangelical Alliance. It occurred in the early spring of 1966.

Pastor Moriyama explains his motivation for opposing the Unification Church in his book: “If they did not call themselves Christians, there would be no need to make this a problem. However, they call themselves Christians, promote Sun Myung Moon as the Second Coming of Christ, and lead people astray with their absurd interpretations of the Bible, so we cannot ignore them” (“Christian Heresies in Modern Japan,” New Life Publishing, 1981, p. 132).

In 1976, Pastor Moriyama hosted a “Seminar on Countermeasures Against Heresy” at the University Seminar House in Hachioji, Tokyo. Drawing from his ten years of experience, he taught other evangelical pastors how to “persuade” members to leave the Unification Church using physical isolation. Subsequently, cases of forced conversion began to increase.

Pastor Moriyama and the pastors he trained in 1976.

Pastor Moriyama and the pastors he trained were “evangelicals” who interpret the Bible literally. However, not all pastors opposing the Unification Church are evangelicals. Some belong to the United Church of Christ in Japan (UCC-J) and support liberal theology. Others are Christians who follow a left-wing ideology. Even if they are all called “opposing pastors,” their theological and ideological views are not necessarily the same.

The UCC-J was formed from the merger of existing denominations and is one of the few such united churches worldwide. People with left-wing beliefs began to infiltrate the UCC-J, and by the 1980s, they started to take control of the denomination’s executive board. These left-wing individuals were called the “rebels,” a term derived from Mao Zedong’s words, “rebellion has reason.” It was these “rebels” who issued an anti-Unification Church statement in March 1988 (see Gentaro Kajikuri, ed., “The Japanese Detention Camp Archipelago”, Kenjinsha, 2010, p. 183).　

Anti-Unification-Church pastors of the United Church of Christ in Japan.

The second group is the “Opposing Parents Association,” whose official name is the “National Association of Parents of Victims of the Principle Movement.” The early Unification Church in Japan was called the “Genri Undo” (Principle Movement). This was because the CARP (Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles) movement spread among university students and became widely known as a student movement that believed in the “Genri” (Principles).

From the perspective of parents whose sons or daughters joined the Unification Church, all they could think was that their children had been deceived or “brainwashed” by the church, so they started campaigning against it, crying out, “Give us back our children!”

The background to the formation of the “Opposing Parents Association” against the Unification Church was reports in the media. An article titled “The Principle Movement That Makes Parents Cry” was published in the evening edition of the “Asahi” daily newspaper on July 7, 1967, and caused anxiety among some parents of Unification Church believers. They eventually got involved with the “Opposing Parents Association” and began to receive education from them.

Pastor Moriyama and the pastors he trained in 1976.

The activities of the “Opposing Parents Association” include: 1) spreading negative information about the Unification Church throughout society; 2) contacting parents of Unification Church members and providing them with negative information about the church; 3) persuading parents that their children’s lives will be ruined if they do not “rescue” (actually confine) them and help them leave the church; and 4) introducing them to pastors and deprogrammers who perform forced conversions.

Source: bitterwinter.org