The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
March 24, 2001 Saturday Final Edition
Section: DAILY BREAK, Pg. E3

Rev. Moon visits Norfolk to share unity message
From Staff and Wire Reports

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the controversial Unification Church, visited Norfolk this week as part of a 50-state tour soliciting attention to his bedrock theme of ending racial and religious division.

Moon canceled an appearance at the MacArthur Memorial on Monday, but later in the day spoke to a large crowd of supporters at the Sheraton Waterside.

According to organizers, the tour reflects the growth of the American Clergy Leadership Conference, a group of 120 American clergy that Moon organized the last year to promote the need to rebuild the family, communities and the nation.

Members of the Unification Church believe that Moon, 81, is a divine prophet on an equal level with biblical prophets such as Ezekiel. Moon has also gained notoriety for mass weddings, called blessings, involving hundreds of couples. He was imprisoned for a tax evasion conviction in the 1980s.

His critics include Virginia Beach-based evangelist Pat Robertson, who warned this month that President Bush's plan to fund faith-based charities was flawed because it could channel federal money to groups like the Hare Krishnas and the Unification Church.

Such criticism is rejected by Moon supporters like Milton A. Reid and Thelma Brown, both of whom are active in the American Clergy Leadership Conference.

Reid, pastor of Gideon's Riverside Fellowship church in Norfolk and a former publisher of the New Journal and Guide, said that in the 20 years he has collaborated with Moon he has seen no sign that the church brain-washed members, as critics have charged.

Brown, with Miracle Tabernacle Church in Portsmouth, said she embraces Moon's vision of spurring Christian clergy to collaborate in rebuilding the family structure.