Steve Dufour comments

I.E. If the organizations makes a profit tax the people who receive the money. If not it remains tax-free.

It would be so nice to see elimination of tax-free status for all churches.*

Another way to go would be to make all corporations and organizations tax-free, not just churches, charities, and schools. This would be great for the economy and would solve the problem of some groups being favored. How would you make up the revenue? Tax the individual members of the organizations as individuals.

About the membership of the Unification Church, according to the research of Harvard university Unification Church is the only religion in the human history that has grown this big while the founder is alive

What is really remarkable is that we've done so well despite our mistakes and shortcomings.

For some, we feel God in our hearts and minds without a "middle man"

And so we have a greater responsibility.

There are certainly more than 3 million people in the world who believe in the Divine Principle, not that that makes it true -- any more than a lack of believers would make something untrue.

It sounds like the followers assume they will unify Korea(s) under their banner.

It's rather unlikely that Rev. Moon is going to establish a global theocracy anytime soon. However the reunification of Korea might come sooner than most people expect. BTW if you read Rev. Moon's autobiography (a best-seller in South Korea) you will learn that he teaches that all religions lead to God, and in fact have over 70% of their teachings in common. He also hints that he made a mistake founding a church, but that's another story.

And from what I've seen in my 30+ years of experience in the church, people of all ages donate money -- as they do to other churches and causes.

He first says he believes in peace, then states the automatic weapons for the use of killing north Koreans is a great idea.

Peaceful reunification of North and South Korea would be a much better idea.

Is there anything saying the resort is going to make a lot of money? We don't know how much rent they'll charge. They might make more just doing a regular ski season.

Are you paid by the church to follow Google alerts for online PR like this or is it just a hobby?

No they don't pay me. Actually Wikipedia frowns, rather intensely, on paid editors. I guess you can call it a hobby if you like but I think it's important that people have access to fairly presented information on our church. And of course I found the article through Google News, although I did spend about six months in Japan back in the 70s. (IOWC Global Team for fellow "Moonies." :-) )

Please Google "United States vs. Sun Myung Moon" for more information on the case. Among the people who spoke out in Rev. Moon's defense, against unjust and unfair persecution by the US government (not the IRS by the way who wanted to settle out of court as is normal in tax cases), were Joseph Lowery, who famously prayed at President Obama's inauguration, and Eugene McCarthy, former Democratic candidate for president. Representing Rev. Moon in his appeal was Laurence Tribe, who also represented Al Gore in the Florida election case.

In the actual situation in Korea now the South needs a strong military to prevent war.

Why stop at rifles? If tax-free churches want to get into the munitions business, who am I to object? And why limit it to South Korea, when the USA has a much bigger budget? So how about asking the Southern Baptists to start building Abrams tanks? And the Methodists can make Patriot missiles. And um, let's see... assign the Greek Orthodox to construct aircraft carriers. The Episcopalians ought to be good at producing ICBMs.

Members of these churches do work in the defense industry, and the military too - as do some Unificationists. The church itself, as a "tax-free" institution, does not. In general businesses pay lots of taxes. I'm sure the Tongil Group pays its share.

The Moonies have their fingers in lots of pies. I recall reading that one of the companies they own got the contract to manufacture M16 rifles for the South Korean Army.

This is true. Please check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongil_Group

Do you think the world would be a better place if the South Korean army didn't have rifles?

I should also add that we respect Islam and are actively working for better understanding between Muslims, Jews, and Christians. Please Google "Unification Church and Islam."

I'm a Unification Church member who loves Jesus. I don't think that Jesus hates people who are not Christians. We all have the right to believe what we think is true about God. I try to respect all religions and if fact have attended services in many different churches and other places of worship of other faiths. The most important thing is that God loves all of us as his children and wants us to love each other.

I think this is good advice. I think I speak for most Americans when I say that Japanese people are welcome here, as visitors or staying longer.

Part of the problem is the very poor reporting in news media about the Unification Church. It's efforts to promote international peace and understanding go unreported while any criticism from any source is made a major news story. Rev. Moon met with Mikhail Gorbachev to promote and end to the Cold War, and is now working to promote the peaceful reunification of Korea. Church members from the United States are now volunteering to work in Japan to help the people in the disaster area. These things you don't hear about in the media.