How Will the Unification Church Scandal Pan Out?
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On October 23, 2024, four days ahead of the general election, the journal Bungei Shunjū published an article of mine in its online edition: “Named and Shamed,” a piece detailing top-secret documents revealing LDP candidates who received support from the Unification Church in the 2021 general election. In the article, I examined the way the church mounted an organized campaign to support LDP candidates facing poor prospects in their districts, as well as LDP candidates who had marginal chances of regaining seats via party lists in the proportional representation vote. In the general election in October 2024, LDP candidates in marginal seats were voted out around the country, and only a few regained their seats via party lists. This appears to be a result connected to the former Unification Church withdrawing its support for LDP candidates.
The honeymoon enjoyed by the Unification Church and the LDP ended abruptly with the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō in July 2022. A look at the history of the two organizations shows that they strengthened their relationship during Abe’s time in office from 2012 to 2020. In fact, the true nature of the Church’s relationship with the LDP has yet to be completely revealed, with new pieces of evidence and connections still coming to light.
Let us revisit the history of the issues faced by the Unification Church and its relationship with the LDP. Beginning as religious organization started by Moon Sun Myung in 1954 and known formally as the “Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity,” the Unification Church was bolstered by the protection afforded to it by Park Chung Hee’s military government, and championed “victory over communism.” The “Moonies,” as they were dubbed, expanded to Japan in 1959. In 1968, the church established the International Federation for Victory over Communism, with support from former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke, grandfather of Abe Shinzō.
However, in 1984, the former editor of Unification Church mouthpiece Sekai Nippō revealed the existence of a secret ceremony in which a Japanese church official dressed as the Emperor of Japan bowed and scraped before Moon, causing many right-wing organizations to cotton on to the church’s anti-Japanese ideology, and turn their backs on the IFVOC. At the same time, politicians valued the way the federation provided them with secretaries and election support staff: in the 1986 upper and lower house elections under Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, Moon Sun Myung is said to have spent some ¥6 billion to have 130 pro-IFVOC candidates elected.
Later, concerns about the church’s practice of “spiritual sales” of trinkets claimed to have supernatural powers, along with mass wedding ceremonies, and covert conversion practices, caused even conservative politicians to distance themselves from the organization. This led the IFVOC to try and use the “anti-gender-awareness” movement to regain the support of conservative politicians. In 2016, the church established a global organization of elected representatives from around the world.
Kishi’s grandson, Abe Shinzō, initially distanced himself somewhat from the Moonies, of whom he was wary. I have it on good authority that when Abe found out that a prospective candidate for national politics who visited him in 2005 was on good terms with the church, Abe said it was “no good,” telling his visitor not to get too friendly with the organization. At the same time, internal church documents from the time name show that updates on the anti-gender-awareness campaign were sent directly to Abe Shinzō. Abe enjoyed extensive support from the religious right, including the Unification Church, as well as hardline right wingers with traditional views on family.
Abe would have harbored some dislike for a religious organization that espoused anti-Japanese beliefs. However, during the 2013 House of Councillors election (the first national election held since Abe took office for the second time in 2012), the prime minister asked the Moonies to help get out the proportional representation vote. At the time, I obtained an internal church fax in which Abe himself asks the church to support LDP candidates. This was supported by a photo of the prime minister talking with top church officials in the LDP president’s reception room that was published by the Asahi Shimbun in a scoop on September 17, 2024. In subsequent national elections, the Unification Church would go onto make significant contributions to the Abe government.
One of Abe’s closest advisors, former Policy Research Council chair Hagiuda Kōichi, who was present at the secret meeting, spoke at a church meeting held in his Hachiōji electorate in the run-up to the 2014 lower house election. In 2015, then Minister of Education Shimomura Hakubun, another Abe confidant, was accused of having pressured the Agency for Cultural Affairs to officially allow the church to change its name. Up against a “double whammy” in the form of the fundraising scandal and the Unification Church scandal, both Hagiuda and Shimomura struggled in the lower house elections in October 2024.
Content retrieved from: https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d01067/.
