Unification Church

This paper explores the distinctive funerary tradition of the Unification Movement, a globally active South Korean new religious movement founded in 1954. Its funerary tradition centres on the so-called Seonghwa (formerly Seunghwa) Ceremony, which was introduced in January 1984. The paper traces the doctrinal context and the origin narrative before delineating the ceremony itself in its Korean expression, including its preparatory and follow-up stages, as well as its short-lived adaptation for non-members. Notably, with more and more first-generation adherents passing away-most visibly in respect to the leadership culminating in the Seonghwa Ceremony of the founder himself in 2012-the funerary tradition has become an increasingly conspicuous property of the Unificationist lifeworld. This paper adds to a largely uncharted area in the study of East Asian new religious movements, namely the examination of their distinctive deathscapes, as spelled out in theory and practice.

Aug. 16, Sept. 5, Sept 7, 1982

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the Korean word wonli meant. Principle made no sense in the context. I opted "doctrine" in the end at that time. Teachings would be another possibility. But it now seems to me that the option of theory is probably the best.

As it is used by the Unification movement, wonli  is between theory and doctrine. But it is theory without the ordinary languages sense of tentativeness. It is tentative for the person learning it, while the claim is that it is in some sense a set of revealed truths.