ASSOCIATED PRESS-IOWA 06/08/87 APia 06/08 1036 Iowa Focus-Moon Trip QC Rev. Moon Host

ASSOCIATED  PRESS-IOWA  06/08/87  APia 06/08 1036 Iowa Focus-Moon
Trip QC


	Rev.  Moon Hosts Iowa Minister Visit to Orient
   By LINDA COOK

   Quad-City Times

   DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- The Unification  Church,  led  by  the
controversial Rev.    Myung  Sun  Moon,  has taken some Quad-City
ministers on trips to  the  Orient  in  an  apparent  attempt  to
bolster its image.

   Two  Quad-City  ministers  who  made the trip this spring came
away convinced that the church is not a cult.

   But two other  local  ministers,  who  rejected  overtures  by
Unification  church  members,  disagree and said Moon's church is
dangerous  and  uses  sophisticated  tactics  for   good   public
relations.

   The Rev.   Paul Bigby, a member of Progressive Baptist Church,
Davenport, and the Rev.  Roy Cheers,  pastor  at  Olivet  Baptist
Church,  Rock  Island, both went on trips sponsored and partially
paid for by the Unification Church.

   The Unification Church, which is attempting to start  a  local
church  in  Davenport, has been sponsoring the trips for the past
year.  Its members are often referred to as "Moonies."

   Cheers, accompanied by his  wife,  visited  Japan  and  Seoul,
Korea, "at very little cost" and said he was impressed.

   "I think  they're  doing  good  work.  I don't think they're a
cult," he said. "But I'm not a backer."

   Cheers,  as  part  of  a  large  group,  visited   Unification
churches, factories and businesses.

   The Rev.   Al Vander Meer, of Christ's Family Reformed Church,
Davenport, was visited by a Unification church member and invited
to go on one of the trips, but refused.

   "They're a cult.  They claim to be the true church,  and  they
say they can prove that the second Messiah will be in Korea."

   "They  bribe people," Vander Meer said. "There's a hook in it.
They bait people.  That's how all cults work."

   But Bigby came away from his trip impressed.

   He said he was most impressed by a performance of the  "Little
Angels,"  a  private  school  that  develops  talents  of  gifted
children. "They spared no expense in terms of  the  theater  that
was  built  or the children in terms of staging, equipment, props
or costumes, all of it  coordinated  in  such  a  high  level  of
professionalism,"  Bigby  said.  "It's the kind of thing you feel
like coming away from and saying `That's what we need to do.' "

   Bigby first heard about the trips when  a  Unification  member
visited  the Quad-Cities Ecumenical Ministerial Alliance, a group
of clergy who are primarily miniorities.

   Bigby said he wasn't recruited to become a church  member  nor
does  he  believe,  as  some  do,  that the Unification Church is
trying to take over other churches.

   "I just can't give any credence to that kind of thinking,"  he
said. "I don't think they're a cult."

   But the  Rev.    Pat Bell, of Grace Lutheran Church, certainly
does.  He was approached in May by  a  local  Unification  church
member  who asked Bell to participate in spiritual renewal in the
community and to help combat communism in America.

   "I called them a cult, and he didn't like that," Bell said.

   Bell said the Unification Church members  are  "well-coached."
He  thinks  the  church  is  making  a  general  effort  to  gain
respectability.

   "They're very sophisticated," he said. "They  want  people  to
say they're part of the Christian Church."

   Jack  Corley,  head  of  the  Iowa  Unification  Church in Des
Moines, said the trips have been going on for about a year.   The
trips are subsidized by the church, he said, but the ministers do
have to pay some of the cost.

   And he said the trips are not for recruitment.

   "If  people  want  to  join our church, of course I am happy,"
Corley said. "But you're not going to give up your belief  on  an
11-day trip to the Orient."

	[SUBMITTED BY PBRYANT. MY REFERENCE: \CULTS\87060801.TUC]