Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom (Hardcover)

by John Gorenfeld (Author)
Key Phrases: family federation, can smash the whole world, love organ, Reverend Moon, Unification Church, Washington Times (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"No American reporter knows more than John Gorenfeld about Sun Myung Moon's hidden influence and megalomaniacal ambitions. His investigations have explored Moon's deep penetration of the religious right, the conservative media, and elite political circles from the Bush family to Capitol Hill. This fascinating book brings the story up to date - and explains why you should still worry." -- Joe Conason

"a well-documented piece of reportage but also an engaging and skillful piece of writing..." -- Firedoglake.com, March 22, 2008

Review
BAD MOON RISING is a riveting investigation into how a cult leader has guilefully infiltrated and exploited the very heart of our democracy. John Gorenfeld lays bare the real story no one else has dared to tell. -- Sarah Posner, God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters "???"

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 329 pages
• Publisher: PoliPointPress; 1st edition (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979482232
• ISBN-13: 978-0979482236
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #176,178 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Things you didn't want to know, March 25, 2008

By	Katrs (Michigan USA) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent and well written book. The facts and details are well researched. It's the kind of book that makes you wish you could bury your head in the sand. There are couple of slow parts but that's to be expected in a book that has to layout some detail and background information. It's well worth the time and money spent just to have an understanding of the inner workings and failings of our political system and how greed can create a whole flock of silent sheep.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Pied Piper of Pusan, March 31, 2008

By	Gordon Neufeld (Calgary, Alberta) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When looking to explain the ascendancy of the paleo-conservatives in U.S. politics, few commentators have remarked upon the sinister and seminal influence of the enigmatic and unfathomably wealthy Sun Myung Moon. Who else has the resources to unflinchingly lose billions on a newspaper, The Washington Times, merely to champion conservative causes, in the teeth of all evidence and in defiance of all flagrant hypocrisy? John Gorenfeld in Bad Moon Rising chronicles the rise of a pseudo-Messiah to the point of fooling a brace of senators and congressmen into crowning him "King of Peace" at the Senate Dirksen Building in 2004, in a wide-ranging account that moves back and forth from Moon's early years in Korea in the 1950s to his dotage claiming imaginary converts from among the ranks of dead U.S. presidents.

This is the story of a man who would not be deterred, even by his failure to live up to his own teachings, from aspiring to the title of "King of Kings" and leader of all the world. The fact that he must make this claim by subterfuge, by staging events that appear to mean one thing to the general public but another to his own disciples, means little to him. Appearances are all to this would-be Messiah.

If I was to fault this important book in any way, it would be for minor errors of fact. I was a member of Moon's Unification Church from 1976 to 1986, so I know what I'm talking about. In particular, Gorenfeld's claim on page 13, which he repeats on page 75, that the American branch of the Unification Church reached a "one-time peak of thirty thousand members" is simply untrue. The 30,000 figure was a goal that I often heard the members being urged to attain in the late 1970s, when achieving that level of membership was considered crucial to Moon's success in America. When this goal could not be reached, members took to claiming that it had anyway by including people who had merely attended a Moon-inspired lecture or shown mild interest in the ideas of the "True Father". In truth, even at its peak, the Moon movement likely never exceeded 5,000 full-time, committed members in America.

Another reviewer has complained of the confusing structure of this account, which moves associatively from personality to personaltiy, instead of providing a meticulously chronological record of Moon's rise, fall and (seeming) resurrection. This structure, which works well enough in a magazine article, is indeed confusing in the context of a book. On the other hand, there are 53 pages of notes, which more than answers the claim that the text is insufficiently annotated.

These are quibbles. This book deserves 5 stars because it exposes the heinous influence of a rarely acknowledged foreign influence upon American politics -- one which has provided bottomles cash contributions to conservative causes, and which has in consequence helped to puff up the hubris of the Bush presidency to the point where it may fairly be likened to the Roman imperium.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Money talks..., June 10, 2008

By	Phelps Gates (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had thought Rev. Moon was old news, long forgotten since his disgrace and prison term. But he's still at it, and livelier than ever! And rolling in money, which he liberally hands out (mostly to right-wing politicians). Gorenfeld examines the rather murky sources of his money, which isn't from US kids selling flowers any more. It seems to come largely from Japanese widows who are buying their husbands out of hell (really!). And he gives a lot of attention to who's getting it. As an NPR producer told the author, politicians are all whores, but I hadn't realized the extent to which preachers were, too (Jerry Falwell got several million from this guy). The accounts of Moon's coronation in Washington, with politicians in attendance, and of his endorsements by 36 former US presidents (from the "spirit world") are jaw-dropping and would be hard to believe if they weren't available right on the Moon web sites themselves!

My only quibble with the book is that it could stand some editing: some sentences are garbled, and there are minor errors of fact (Inchon! grossed $5.2 million, not $5200, for example). But it's a book that deserves a lot more attention than it's been getting. The corruption Moon generates with his money is absolutely staggering (he's sunk a billion dollars into the Washington Times so far).