I love sushi, so I noticed this article in Time Magazine of November 18, 2013. According to this article, True World Foods of Elizabeth, NJ is apparently the largest supplier of fresh fish to sushi restaurants. Yet, nobody can seem to figure out how the company works. It is “associated” with the Unification Church.
The Unification Church preys on young, idealistic people who are disillusioned with the status quo of their religion. While any person of any religion can be a good “victim,” the dogma of the Unification Church targets Christians the most.
The first step is to draw the person in, provide comfort, camaraderie and a true sense of “family.” For any lost soul from a broken home, any runaway, or any youth who has simply lost the connection with his own religion, the Unification Church is like a home finally found. Everyone is genuinely happy, upbeat, straightforward, honest and “clean.” There are no drugs. There is no alcohol, no smoking, no sex of any type. As the recruits learn the church’s teachings, they eventually figure out, almost as a climatic revelation, that (the now late) Sun Myung Moon is the second coming of Christ, and that the Unification Church is God’s instrument for the reconstruction of the world and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
What a mission to be associated with!
Recruits give up their possessions, careers, friends and families, join the church, and start living under monastery conditions. They sleep in dormitories which are no more than empty halls where dozens of people, strictly separated by gender, spread out bed rolls and night. They take all their meals in communal dining halls. They share in food preparation and clean up and all other chores and daily tasks. They sing the church’s hymns together before meals. They pray out loud in large groups. Even the private conversations with God are heard by those sitting nearby. They study the church’s Divine Principles, their de-facto “bible.” With Moon being Jesus, he has ultimate power over them. They will to anything to help re-establish God’s kingdom on Earth, and recreate the Garden of Eden to what it was before Adam and Eve messed up.
Moonies are engineers, scientists, artists, architects, psychologists, bank tellers, construction workers, and retail clerks. Any profession at all. The church runs “legitimate real-world businesses” like True World Foods. The workers put in 40 to 80 hour weeks. Sometimes they work several jobs. They do not get paid when they work for church businesses. Their rewards will come in heaven. For substandard and no-privacy room and board, they will work normal jobs in ordinary-looking companies, to make money for God.
That’s how a raw fish distribution business can become dominant in the market. It has no labor cost in a labor-intensive business.
How do I know all that? I was a Moonie once, when I was not yet twenty years old, looking to make a difference in the world.