Revival of religious stereotypes as Japanese authorities base their oppression of large religious minority on historic prejudices used in witch hunts since medieval times
Julian Gray. Photo: Private
Part 2 of a series written based on a report by Julian Gray, former editor of the FFWPU publication Today’s World, currently translator for the Family Federation‘s new international administrative HQ, known as Cheon Mu Won, located in Gapyeong, South Korea.
One contributing factor to the British government’s retreat was the mounting criticism of its witnesses and methodology. Scholarly observers raised significant doubts about the reliability of the evidence submitted by former members and anti-Unification Church activists.
Investigative journalism on persecution of Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church: “Inquisition” by Carlton Sherwood, published 1991 by Regnery Publishing, 705 pages.
Sociologists and religious studies scholars who had observed the Church firsthand testified that the government’s characterization of the Unification Church was often exaggerated or distorted. They noted that the portrayal of the Church as inherently deceptive, coercive, or immoral did not align with their empirical observations or broader religious studies frameworks.
Moreover, they pointed out that former members – while often sincere in their criticism – were not necessarily objective or disinterested parties. Some had left the Church in highly emotional or contested circumstances and might not be credible witnesses in a court of law.
This skepticism regarding witness reliability undermined the government’s case in the UK and could do the same in Japan, where much of the action is based on similar types of testimony.
Several notable scholars took time to write lengthy affidavits. They addressed specific points of the government’s complaint against the Unification Church based on their vast experience with new religious movements (NRMs).
These are the objective voices of people who study new religions (and older ones), and who also monitor and analyze the public response to these faiths and their adherents. They did not gain any personal benefit through signing an affidavit but wished to support the cause of religious freedom.
One of the scholars who submitted affidavits was Bryan Ronald Wilson (1926-2004), Reader Emeritus of Sociology of the University of Oxford. He served as President of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (SISR), 1971-1975.
In his first affidavit, he writes on the history of stereotyping,
“4.0 Religion is a frequent subject of stereotyping throughout the world. A stereotype is a constructed model or image of a social group or class (or of some other phenomenon) to which the stereotype uncritically ascribes certain stock descriptions which are one-sided, exaggerated, or biased.
The ascribed attributes may or may not be empirically validated, but even where they exist in fact the stereotype presents them in an exaggerated and/or distorted form to which fixity is also ascribed. The stereotype conforms to prevailing prejudices, reflecting and reinforcing them. For this reason it is resistant to change, even in the face of disconfirming factual evidence.
Stereotypes are most frequently used with respect to social groups or movements groups or movements about which there is widespread ignorance, and which differ from conventional assumptions. Typically, the stereotype presents a simple but biased image of a complex phenomenon.
Stereotypes of unfamiliar or new religions have almost always been negative. Religious bodies which today have acquired respectability in the public eye were regularly presented as alien, harmful, deceitful or evil in the early days of their development. It sometimes took many decades or even centuries before negative stereotypes were abandoned.
Colored version of the “Whore of Babylon” illustration from Martin Luther’s 1534 translation of the Bible. The term refers to both a symbolic female figure and a place of evil as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. She is described more fully in Revelation 17:5 as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth”. Leading reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox taught that the figure represented the Catholic Church. Author: From the workshop of Lucas Cranach. Public domain image.
4.1 Thus, the movements which are stereotyped change over time, although the stereotype itself may not. For example, in the 19th century, Scottish and American Presbyterians sought to prove that the papacy (‘the whore of Babylon’) was seeking to take over the world.
Stereotyping Jews as trying to take over the world: Here the title page of the 1920 British publication of the anonymous edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemittic fraudulent publication describing an alleged Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Photo: Eyre & Spottiswoode / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image
After the First World War, a new candidate for this ‘conspiracy’ stereotype was Jewry. Jews were accused of seeking a stranglehold on the world. The fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion were produced by anti-Semites as evidence of such a conspiracy. Today, various new religious movements including the Unification Church, are subject to stereotyping.4.2 New Religious Movements (NRMs) are those which have newly emerged as separate organizations, outside the mainline churches, or as new styles in devotional practice within those churches (of this latter type, Charismatic Renewal in many churches, Catholic and Protestant, and Opus Dei, in the Roman Church, would be examples).
NRMs today are numerous and highly diverse in form, belief, organization, ritual, and provenance. None the less, such is the ignorance involved in stereotyping that all NRMs are frequently lumped together and labeled as ‘cults’. Even when NRMS are differentiated, however, ignorance about individual movements is still fully evident in the stereotypes that are projected.
4.3 Prejudicial stereotypes used historically to characterize new or unpopular religions, include the accusations of loyalty to a foreign power: the amassing of wealth; irregularity; deception; enticing or kidnapping children; and sexual irregularities. Catholics were long accused of being disloyal, their true alliance being to the Pope.”
Featured image above: Stereotyping Catholics as trying to take over the world: Here, the “Whore of Babylon” by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) in the September 1522 publication of Luther’s translation of the New Testament. The “Whore of Babylon” mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament is here depicted wearing the papal tiara. Public domain image. Cropped
Colored version of the “Whore of Babylon” illustration from Martin Luther’s 1534 translation of the Bible. The term refers to both a symbolic female figure and a place of evil as mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. She is described more fully in Revelation 17:5 as “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth”. Leading reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox taught that the figure represented the Catholic Church. Author: From the workshop of Lucas Cranach. Public domain image.
Stereotyping Jews as trying to take over the world: Here the title page of the 1920 British publication of the anonymous edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemittic fraudulent publication describing an alleged Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. Photo: Eyre & Spottiswoode / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image
