Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious Experience in the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and ...

202 Pages·2015·0.6 MB·English

by  Dawn L. Hutchinson

Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2007
Antiquity and Social Reform: Religious
Experience in the Unification Church,
Feminist Wicca and the Nation of Yahweh
Dawn L. Hutchinson
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
ANTIQUITY AND SOCIAL REFORM: RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE
UNIFICATION CHURCH, FEMINIST WICCA AND
THE NATION OF YAHWEH
By
DAWN L. HUTCHINSON
A Dissertation submitted to the
Department of Religion
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded:
Spring Semester, 2007
The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Dawn L. Hutchinson
defended on March 28, 2007.
John Corrigan
Professor Directing Dissertation
Irene Padavic
Outside Committee Member
Amanda Porterfield
Committee Member
Amy Koehlinger
Committee Member
Approved:
John Corrigan, Chair, Religion Department
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee
members.
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This dissertation is dedicated to my loving family, without whom I would be lost.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the guidance of my committee: John Corrigan, Amy
Koehlinger, Amanda Porterfield, and Irene Padavic. Without John Corrigan’s careful
tutelage, I would not have been able to complete this project. Likewise, the faculty of the
Department of Religion at Florida State University prepared me for this task. In addition,
James Strange and Dell deChant at the University of South Florida influenced the way
that I approach primary texts and religious people as subjects. I would also like to thank
the faculty of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at Christopher Newport
University, whose support and encouragement were instrumental for my progress.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the help of the library staff of the
American Religions Collection, Department of Special Collections, at the Donald C.
Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to donating the
materials I perused there, J. Gordon Melton also was able to guide some aspects of my
research.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ...................................................................................................... Page vii
Introduction …….............................................................................................. Page 1
An Historical Approach to the study of New Religious Movements.......... Page 7
Summary ................................................................................................ Page 15
Chapter 1: The Unification Church as a Restoration Movement…………......... Page 19
Existing Scholarship on the Unification Church........................................ Page 21
History of the Unification Church.............................................................. Page 24
The Conservative Movement and the Unification Church......................... Page 29
What the Unification Church Offered its Members.................................... Page 35
Explanation of Why Christianity Needed Restoration.......................... Page 35
Personal Religious Experience and Special Relationship with God..... Page 40
A Role in the Restoration of Christianity.............................................. Page 44
America’s Role in the Restoration of Christianity...................................... Page 52
Summary ................................................................................................ Page 55
Chapter 2: Feminist Wicca, a Neopagan Religious Movement…………........... Page 59
Existing Scholarship on Feminist Wicca.................................................... Page 61
History of Feminist Wicca.......................................................................... Page 65
Rhetoric of the Feminist Movement........................................................... Page 78
Rhetoric of the Re-emerging Goddess........................................................ Page 82
What Feminist Wicca Offered its Members............................................... Page 89
Explanation of Why Judeo-Christian Religions Failed Women........... Page 89
Personal Religious Experience and Special Relationship with the Goddess Page 94
The Possibility of Ending Patriarchal Oppression in America............. Page 103
Summary ................................................................................................ Page 107
Chapter 3: Nation of Yahweh, a Black Hebrew-Israelite Religion…………...... Page 111
Existing Scholarship on the Nation of Yahweh.......................................... Page 113
History of the Nation of Yahweh................................................................ Page 115
Black Power Rhetoric................................................................................. Page 121
Hebrew Identity Rhetoric............................................................................ Page 131
What the Nation of Yahweh Offered its Members..................................... Page 138
Explanation of Why Christianity Failed Blacks.................................... Page 139
Personal Religious Experience and Special Relationship with God..... Page 141
The Possibility of Ending White Oppression in America..................... Page 144
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Summary ................................................................................................ Page 149
Conclusion …….............................................................................................. Page 152
Afterward............................................................................................................. Page 163
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... Page 180
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .............................................................................. Page 192
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ABSTRACT
Although religious innovation in America historically has been the norm rather than the
exception, mainstream Americans have often viewed new religious movements with suspicion
and occasionally with outright alarm. The question motivating many studies of new religious
movements has been “why would someone join these religions?” In this dissertation I offer at
least one answer to this often repeated query. I argue that followers of new religious movements
in the 1960s-1980s, specifically the Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and the Nation of
Yahweh, considered these religions to be legitimate because they offered members a personal
religious experience, a connection to an ancient tradition, and agency in improving their world.
Utilizing an historical approach, I consider the conversion narratives of adherents and primary
literature of the formative years of these movements which demonstrate that the religious
experiences of the adherents and a resonance with the goals of these religions propelled
individuals into social action.
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INTRODUCTION
Although religious innovation in America historically has been the norm rather than the
exception, mainstream Americans have often viewed new religious movements with suspicion
and occasionally with outright alarm. Leaders in established religions, the media, and sometimes
religion scholars have warned that these “alternative” religions are deviant and perhaps even
dangerous for Americans to join. In this dissertation, I argue that followers of the Unification
Church, Feminist Wicca and the Nation of Yahweh considered these religions to be legitimate
because they offered members a personal religious experience, a connection to an ancient
tradition, and agency in improving their world. These new religions developed in the 1960s
through the early 1980s and offered their potential members a vision of a more inclusive, more
morally responsible American society during a time of cultural upheaval and uncertainty.
Previous studies of these new religious movements have overlooked their complexity, their
humanness, and their conceptual organization of the world.
The new religious movements described in this dissertation were surrounded by social
controversy in various ways. For instance, many Americans in the 1960s and 1970s believed that
the Unification Church brainwashed its young members, forcing them to leave their families and
disassociate from the ones they loved. The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the
Unification Church, spent time in prison for tax evasion, and the media has condemned the
movement for its financial success for many years. American society also criticized Feminist
Wicca, with its links to the feminist movement, for its woman-centered ideology. Many
Americans considered Feminist Wiccans to be “man-haters” intent on using magic to emasculate
American power structures. In addition, Feminist Wicca’s links to Wicca and witchcraft left it
open to charges of devil worship by Christians misunderstanding Wicca’s ideology. Very few
people have focused on the ideology of the Nation of Yahweh, since the media was
understandably more interested in its criminal activities. Yahweh ben Yahweh, the founder of the
Nation of Yahweh, and seventeen of his followers, were convicted on charges of racketeering in
Miami, Florida in the 1980s. The charges included firebombing a Miami neighborhood,
conspiracy to commit murder, and a host of other violent crimes. While I do not wish to condone
or ignore the controversial aspects of these new religious movements, in this dissertation I argue
that members of these religions were acting in accord with religious ideologies understood in the
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context of their religious experiences. Adherents believed that their actions were part of a larger
plan to bring about a better America.
The Unification Church, Feminist Wicca and the Nation of Yahweh appealed to people
who considered themselves outsiders in American society. They were not outsiders by choice;
they yearned to be a part of American society without sacrificing their uniqueness. They would
have rejected the premise of Israel Zangwill’s World War I play The Melting Pot, whichinvoked
the sentimental notion that different races, ethnicities and religious beliefs combined in America
to make something new.1 The young Americans drawn to these new religious movements
thought that Zangwill’s vision of a “land of opportunity where race, religion, and national origin
should not be a barrier to social mobility”2 was a naïve notion. Clearly, for many of them, race,
religion, gender, and national origin continued to be barriers to social mobility. In addition, they
did not wish for the variety of ethnic, religious, and national identities evident in America to be
“melted” into a monolithic mold.3 These idealistic people, most of them young,argued that
America’s praise could not be sung in a single voice. It required harmony sung in dozens of parts,
the combination producing the necessarily nuanced chorus of their country’s diverse culture.
Each voice longed to be individually recognized, no longer overshadowed by the melody.
Many Americans discontented with what they believed was a culture obsessed with
consensus sought both secular and religious solutions. Along with the “new left,” the “civil rights
movement,” and the nascent “neo-conservative” movements in the 1960s and 1970s, emerged a
smaller, but equally zealous faction hoping to change the world through their religious visions of
what America could become. These optimistic believers chose to reject traditional religions in
order to join new religious movements which promised to make them active agents for social
change in America.
This study focuses specifically on those who embraced the ideologies of the Unification
Church, Feminist Wicca, and the Nation of Yahweh in 1960s and 1970s America. Many devotees
of these newreligions felt disillusioned by their childhood religious traditions, considering them
to be complicit in quieting their voices. While those attracted to these groups wanted personally
to reconstruct American society, they felt they lacked the individual status needed to achieve
change. Some felt too young. Some believed skin color or ethnicity disenfranchised them from
secular power. Many were overwhelmed at the enormity of their task, whether they worked
individually or together in like-minded communities.
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