Everything in Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s sprawling religious enterprise is about family.

His Divine Principle, the core of his religious teachings, posits that Rev. Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han Moon are humanity’s True Parents. They were placed on earth by God to rescue humanity from war and want by creating exemplary families that will through behavior and example show the way to world peace and unification. Rev. Moon claims that Jesus did not succeed in his mission to save humanity, because he did not marry. Jesus has therefore anointed Rev. Sun Myung Moon as the true Messiah. In the heavenly realm, Rev. Moon asserts that evil men like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin have repented and have now declared Rev. Moon as the true Messiah. Rev. Moon’s Unification Church’s proper name is the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Mr. Moon and his wife have 14 children. As you may expect, they are described on the Unification Church website as having raised exemplary families. They are accomplished religious leaders (many of them are referred to as “reverend”), business executives, community organizers, artists, and of course, peace advocates – though no mention is made of Moon Young-jin, who died of suicide in 1999.

Naturally, with so many talented children, many of them have found their way into employment in the family business. In fact, all the critical management positions in the Moon conglomerate are held by his children – an arrangement as nepotistic as it could possibly be, though conceivably justifiable since the companies are privately owned by Moon.

More after the jump.

Rev. Moon is turning 90 this year and has decided to retire to the Garden of Eden, as he refers to a private resort he is building in Hawaii. He therefore announced his successor to be Moon Hyung-jin, age 30, known as Sean. Technically, Sean Moon has been named head of religious missions, but that is the “whole enchilada” when it comes to ultimate authority and power in a church whose founder is the Messiah, sent to deliver salvation for you and me.

This appointment has not set well with Preston Moon (Moon Hyun-jin), who is head of International Operations, which includes primarily management of The Washington Times, Rev. Moon’s conservative mouthpiece founded in 1984. Preston Moon has expressed his unhappiness by going rogue – two weeks ago he fired the top management of The Washington Times, had them escorted out of the building by security guards, and confiscated their laptops and cell phones. This has left the newspaper in turmoil, with a lot of speculation as to whether it can survive this upheaval. The newspaper has run deficits from the beginning, and is supposedly suffering dearly in this recession.

What Preston Moon expects to achieve from this coup is unclear. His newspaper has survived only on the subsidies from profitable Moon businesses, especially True World Foods, which provides over 75% of all sushi to US restaurants, and counts 9,000 customers currently. Preston Moon’s recent title as head of International Operations may give him control over the fisheries business, though that is unclear because in the past Rev. Moon himself has kept his hand firmly on this, his biggest money earner.

Another possibility is that Preston Moon has an ally in his brother, Justin Moon (Moon Kook-jin), age 39, responsible for what are described as Korean Business Ventures. This includes a variety of activities in South Korea, as well as the largest commercial hotel in North Korea (Rev. Moon is as close to Kim Jung-il as he is to George H.W. Bush, on whom he has lavished hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees). Justin Moon also manages another lucrative franchise, Kahr Arms, located in Blauvelt, NY. This company manufacturers handguns and automatic weapons, and business has been booming since the election of Barack Obama. The church explains this investment in armaments as necessary to effect world unification, though the truth is probably to be found in Justin Moon’s biography. He founded Kahr Arms with money from his father, and he has had a love affair with handguns since age 14.

If Justin Moon is helping his brother, it is being done quietly. For the moment, the official line from the church this week is that Preston Moon operated in an “unprecedented” manner. This was the description provided in a press release issued by Rev. Moon In-jin, Tatiana Moon, who is head of the Unification Church in the US. She said that press reports claiming there was a feud underway between Preston Moon and Sean Moon were completely untrue. Instead, what had happened is that Preston Moon had acted unilaterally and without authority from True Parents.

True Parents are heartbroken and dismayed over what has happened, especially in light of the fact that they have been guiding our movement worldwide, over the last several months, specifically to remain united with their spiritual leadership.

In other words, according to the church, it is time for Preston Moon to come back into the fold, in obedience to his parents. It is easy to imagine Rev. Moon as “heartbroken”. Obedience to one’s parents is the prime virtue in Korean culture, and Rev. Moon is suffering considerable shame from this disrespect. The losses he has piled into The Washington Times have been a small price to pay for the influence he achieves from this newspaper. It is all part of a pattern of subsidies to conservative causes, like his investment in Timothy LeHaye’s Left Behind series, or the millions spent in keeping Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University afloat. Preston Moon’s action may have damaged the paper irrevocably, and Rev. Moon may be forced to fire him for insubordination.

But if it comes to that, what sort of Messiah is Rev. Moon if he cannot control his own “exemplary” family? All of these children mentioned have been born and raised in America. They all attended Harvard or Columbia (Harvard has profited nicely from the Moon family), and they may be more American than Korean. Someone has to run the business empire when Rev. Moon dies, and Preston Moon may feel his business experience trumps the religious credentials of his much younger brother, Sean Moon. In fact, Sean’s credentials aren’t all that sterling – he left the church for a while after his brother killed himself, and Sean became a Buddhist before returning to his True Parents.

Perhaps the crux of the problem is that it is not clear what Rev. Moon is leaving behind. Is it a religion, or a multi-billion dollar business? These two things are not necessarily incompatible – look at any televangelist today (especially the exceptionally wealthy Pat Robertson). But for the two to work together, you need one person projecting an image of religious sanctity and evangelism, while running a corporate empire in the background. By splitting up his empire, giving each child a business to run, and leaving the least-business like child to carry on the religious mission, Rev. Moon has failed to create a structure that blends business and religion. And if you can’t do that, what’s the purpose of having a religious cult in the first place?