ABSTRACT

In 1984, Eileen Barker published The Making of a Moonie. Here she introduced readers to the Unification Church, with a view to helping scholar and novice alike consider the available data and decide whether followers of Sun Myung Moon were making informed choices or being brainwashed. That was the same year I graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Like most newly minted scholars, who reflect from time to time on their educational journey, I knew first hand about the twin pillars of ‘choice’ and ‘brainwashing’. Delighted to participate in this Festschrift, I have chosen to appropriate not only selected words from Barker’s famous title, but also the tradition of challenging what seems like ‘common sense’ with social scientific data. For both the rhetoric and the reality surrounding the issue of abuse in religious families need closer scrutiny.