A Review of
In the Shadow of the Moons:
My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family

by Nansook Hong
reviewed by Kim Krecek

I just finished reading "In the Shadow of the Moons" by Nansook Hong. I had read a book review of it and it has received excellent reviews.

Nansook Hong is the daughter of two people who were lifelong Moonies. At 15, she was sent from Korea to be the bride of Hyo Jin Moon, oldest son of Sun Myung Moon. She chronicles what it was like to be in the "True Family" - or at least an in-law of them - and to bear the "True Children" who were destined for heaven. She finally fled the Moons with her five children to get away from her drugged-out, alcoholic, abusive, cruel & sadistic husband. Her parents had earlier left the Moons as had her older brother (who was married to a daughter of the Rev. Moon).

Some of the parts that struck me in the book:

"It is easy for those outside the Unification Church to scoff at the idea that anyone would have believed such a thing in the first place....I was born to my faith. Just as children of more mainstream Christian religions are reared to believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, sent to earth to redeem the sins of mankind, I was taught in Sunday School that the Reverend Moon had been chosen by God to complete Jesus'mission to restore the Garden of Eden. The Reverend Moon was the Second Coming."

"...Accepting the Reverend Moon for the fraud I now know him to be was a slow and painful process. It was only possible because that realization, in the end, did not shake my faith in God. Moon had failed God, as he has failed me and all his idealistic and trusting followers. But God had not failed me..."

"...Was I doing the right thing? Was leaving truly a manifestation of God's will or was it a sign of my own failure?" Why had I been unable to make my husband love me? Why had I been unable to change him? Should I stay and pray that my son, once grown, might one day return the Unification Church to a righteous path?"

"...Most members of the Unification Church get no closer to the True Family than the distance between the stage and their seats at some rally..."

Put this on your "must read" list. I finished it in a day and a half. I was shocked, saddened, encouraged and elated by this book. Shocked and saddened at the amount of deception, fraud, callousness in the Unification Church. The "Moonies" had always had a "stay away" code in my mind, this book confirms it. I was encouraged and elated that people, even those born to a cult, can see the fraud for what it is and eventually break free. But not without a price. There's always a price.

"Two snaps and a circle" <In Living Color>
Or, for those who don't recall that wonderful show, "Two Thumbs Up". :)

©1998 by Kim Krecek <kc_starr@hotmail.com>. All rights reserved.