Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:19, 16 August 2006

Multimillion-dollar Moon family estate

Cut:

the multimillion-dollar Moon family compound

If I recall correctly, in 1995 the Moons lived on the Belvedere Estate. The church bought it for a mere $625,000 in the early 1970s. --Uncle Ed 20:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops, no, I got the ownership correct, but the dates of residence wrong.

• I don't even have one home of my own to dwell in. You may think I have East Garden, but that's the Church's property. Do you want me to have a home of my own?

The church owns East Garden. I'm sure it cost more than a million dollars to purchase the land and build the conference center.

Phyllis Kim had a small house there, and Rev. Moon's youngest son (the bald-headed 'monk' guy) had an even smaller one. The main building had quarters for Rev. & Mrs. Moon upstairs. --Uncle Ed 20:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Ed, I always thought you were fair-minded and honest with yourself and others in your edits, but I think your on the verge of pulling a Korean-style con-job here (where you get to fool yourself too). Both Belvedere and East Garden are opulent estates with mansions typical of the Irvington-Tarrytown area. The new Korean-style mansion on the East Garden property cost, I think I remember, $24 or $26 million. The bathrooms have expensive Italian marble facing on the walls floor-to-ceiling. The dining room has a living garden with a brook flowing through it. Like the first mansion that came with the property (which you didn't mention in the phrase "purchase the land and build the conference center"), that second mansion is residential (Moon family) except for the huge room that constitutes the "conference center." Adding that some servants or private tutors also live on the property may not strengthen the case that you seem to be making, that Rev. Moon and his family don't really live in luxurious surroundings. Or perhaps you had another unspoken reason for emphasizing the point that the property is church-owned (which seems irrelevant to me). If you can make a good argument that there's a difference between living in a mansion (or on an estate) that is personally owned versus owned by a church over which Rev, Moon has complete control, I'll happily put the "church-owned" phrase back in the article myself. Btw, I never liked the word "compound" to describe East Garden; though technically correct because there are multiple mansions and other buildings on the property, I think detractors with anti-cult sentiments like to use it because it's reminiscent of the Branch Davidians at Waco. -Exucmember 05:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've always been sensitive to claims that I might be unconsciously biased in favor of my church, even from anonymous claimants. I therefore take your criticism seriously. I welcome constructive criticism.

The reason to emphazise "church-owned" is to counter the accusation made by church opponents that Rev. Moon is wealthy, that he got rich "off the hard work of others", etc. The UC view likens Father Moon to the RC church's Holy Father. He's given luxury and convenience so that he can focus on his God-given mission.

I've been all over the $625,000 Belevedere Estate and in all building but the main house, and it doesn't look opulent to me. It's quite run-down, and a number of church families reside there other than the Moons. If it's worth anything like tens of millions now, all the better for its owner: the church.

I won't revert at all, because it's been my policy for 5 years at Misplaced Pages never to edit-war over church-related articles. I think we can work this out through discussion. --Uncle Ed 15:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Heir apparent

Source for "heir apparent" claim is Nansook Hong herself:

• "Peter Kim, the Rev. Moon's personal assistant, was assigned to tutor the young heir apparent." (P. 57, Shadow)

Most of the book sounds like Nansook with slight rewording, but occasionally a phrase is jarring to Unification Church members because it sounds so unike her. I remember a phrase along the lines of "Moon's minions" or "Moon and his minions" and thinking it didn't sound like her at all; I never saw any evidence that she had that kind of attitude toward the members. So also a clever phrase like "heir apparent" sounds more like Eileen McNamara than like Nansook Hong. But Ed, you are going way too far out on thin ice on this "heir apparent" issue. See my comments on the issue on the Talk:Hyo Jin Moon page. -Exucmember 05:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Date of Rev. Moon's Easter revelation

Hong gets the date of Rev. Moon's Easter revelation wrong, a sure sign that she cribbed her introductory matter for someone else, or that she had a sloppy ghostwriter.

• All that changed on Easter morning in 1936, when Sun Myung Moon was sixteen. He had been deep in prayer on a mountainside when, he says, Jesus appared to him . . . (p. 18, Shadow)

It also shows that whoever wrote this passage was not Korean, or they would have known about the Korean age system, whereby a man born in 1920 would be 17 in 1936. Moon's Easter encounter took place when he was 16 (in Korean age), thus obviously in 1935.

Only an outsider could make such a simply blunder, leading me to wonder how much of her book Nansook Hong actually is responsible for. She clearly didn't write the first 20 pages of "background". (I heard that Chryssides made plagiarism accusations, but I forget how that turned out.) --Uncle Ed 20:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Unlike you, I read the whole book, and my eye for detail found about a half-dozen mistakes. Most of these were mistakes that a Korean would not have made. They were clearly made by her unnamed collaborator, and apparently Hong didn't catch them. This weakens her case because many members are looking so hard for some way to ignore the horrendous ordeal she endured for many years by discrediting her on the basis of various small matters. Members who read the book, if they are honest with themselves, will realize that her experiences ring true (Dan Fefferman's phrase describing the book was something like this) and that it is her story. -Exucmember 05:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the phrase "unnamed collaborator" as a neutral alternative for "ghostwriter".

I have no doubt about any instance in the book where she says Hyo Jin Moon mistreated her or committed sins. A friend reported being present at a public "confession".

Dan's a peach. He's been a stalwart supporter of "conscience" and has maintained positive contact with ex-member Steve Hassan. I'm too much of a hot head. ;-) --Uncle Ed 15:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism, or what

• McNamara and Chryssides apparently relied on the same primary-source materials, although King says McNamara's words follow Chryssides's more closely than they do the primary sources.

Ed, I always thought you were fair-minded and balanced in your edits, but I read the article at the URL immediately above, and I have to say that your title for this section is misleading (contrary to the conclusion of the author of the article), and in addition you chose the one sentence to quote that most suits the claim of plagiarism you are repeating here (whereas almost everything else in the article runs counter to it). -Exucmember 05:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if my edit was misleading then I've made a mistake. Thanks for catching it. :-) --Uncle Ed 15:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)