This post is a DeepL translation (partially revised by the blog administrator) of the following article.
本投稿は以下の記事のDeepL翻訳（一部、管理人修正済み）です。
A Former UC member and now minister who helps people leave the church talks about his "handkerchief-selling" days and his feelings of atonement
Article posted on 2022/09/04 06:00
Editorial Department, Josei Jishin
Mr. Itaru Takesako, a former member of the Unification Church and minister who continues to provide support the members.
"This place used to be a 'shelter' that sheltered people who had fallen into poverty and victims of domestic violence. Of course, there were believers and so-called second-generation residents staying here as well."
A corner of a residential area in Shirakawa City, Fukushima Prefecture. Itaru Takesako, 55, a minister of the Shirakawa Church of Christ in Japan, pried open the front door of the old house, which is now dilapidated and no longer used as a shelter.
The shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 8 has once again brought public attention to the "Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (former World Christian Unification Church, hereafter referred to as Unification Church). As Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, the suspect who attacked the former prime minister, described his motive, he mentioned the former Unification Church by name.
According to his statement, the suspect's mother was a devoted believer who donated approximately 100 million yen and went bankrupt, leading to the collapse of her family.
The Unification Church was founded in Korea in 1954 and was approved as a religious corporation in Japan in 1964.' In the '80s and '90s, "Spiritual Sales" became a social problem, in which people were sold expensive items such as vases, fomenting anxiety that their ancestors were related to them and that they were possessed by spirits. "Mass Weddings," in which a group of men and women matched by a religious group are brought together, also attracted strange attention.
In fact, Minister Takesako himself was a member of the Unification Church in his late teens. He left the church and became a minister at the age of 25. For the past 30 years since then, he has been confronting the issue of cults based on his own experience. In particular, he has counseled more than three-digit number of former Unification Church members, and has led many of them to leave the church.
■ The "video center" of the Unification Church was the first group he joined after being offered "unlimited movie viewing.
Mr. Takesako was born in Akita Prefecture in 1967.
"When I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, I saw "Star Wars" and was shocked. Since then, I was obsessed with the thought, 'I want to make movies, too'."
Continuing to yearn for film, he took the entrance exam for the Nihon University College of Art, which has a film department. It was the very day he took the exam. After the exam, he stopped by Ikebukuro, which turned out to be a turning point for him. Mr. Takesako, who was only 17 years old.
He said, "I was approached in front of the station. They said, 'We are a circle to study life by watching movies."
He thought that sounded suspicious. But the invitation, "For a monthly membership fee of 2,500 yen, you can watch as many movie videos as you want," swayed his mind.
"I thought it was a better deal than renting videos. Later, I went to visit the facility myself."
The facility turned out to be the "Video Center" of the Unification Church.
"At the time, I didn't know it was a religious facility. But all I could see were Christian movies such as 'The Ten Commandments' and 'The Creation. When I thought I didn't understand what they meant, they said, 'You need to know the Bible to understand, so why don't you study the Bible?'"
From there, they started showing me all kinds of videos.
"After about three months, they told me, 'We are a group called the Unification Church."
He also participated in a two-day seminar.
"During the seminar, I was told, 'God exists and the Messiah is real,' and I wanted to know who the Messiah was. By the time I was told that it was a man named Sun Myung Moon, I wanted to work as a servant of the Messiah."
After one year of studying, Takesako entered the College of Arts and Sciences at Nihon University. However, upon entering the university, Mr. Takesako ran away from home.
"When I was doing that, my parents were worried and came to take me back. Then the organization told me, 'Your house is against us, and you should go to Hokkaido until the situation cools down'."
It was a secret caravan that traveled around Hokkaido, sleeping in the cargo area of a one-box car.
■ They sold a set of three handkerchiefs for about 3,000 yen, while you can but the relevant ones with 500 yen, lying that the proceeds would be used to support children.
"We go door-to-door and sell handkerchiefs. "We go door-to-door and sell handkerchiefs for 3,000 yen for a set of three handkerchiefs, which are actually about 500 yen. They lie and say, 'The proceeds go to support underprivileged children. It was a complete scam."
However, Mr. Takesako fell down during he was working at the caravan sales team. He broke his left ankle and was forced to return to Tokyo.
"I was supposed to receive treatment at the Unification Church hospital in Ikebukuro. But the handkerchief sales were top-secret even within the church, so I guess they were afraid of being found out. They told me to go home and get well, and sent me home."
When he returned home for the first time in several months, he found that in addition to his parents, there was a group of people who were well-informed about the inner workings of the Unification Church.
"While I was away from home, my parents were making preparations to have me leave the church. I was unable to move freely due to an injury to my leg, and for a week I was persuaded in the can while being shown articles and materials containing scandals about the organization."
Still, Mr. Takesako's hearts was not moved.
"When they showed me the scandal, I thought, 'So what?' I was still not moved. I just felt that sometimes illegal activities are necessary to save the world."
■ 'Lying and saying he would quit' and return to the UC, he was treated as a "spy" and subjected to violence.
He was also taught by the UC that if he received any hard persuasion, he should lie and say he would quit and run away.
"I also told them that I would quit. My parents asked me, 'What about your friends?'"
Takesako had actually recruited seven of his high school classmates.
"When I answered, 'I will encourage them to quit, too,' my parents, worried about letting me go alone, sent a minister with me. He was a watchdog."
On crutches and accompanied by his minister, he went around to friends' houses.
"On the surface, I thought I would leave the church but continue my faith as a hidden Christian," he said. But I couldn't say so to my friends because of the watchman. ......"
Some of his friends were shocked when they saw the materials the minister showed them. One after another, they broke under Mr. Takesako's false persuasion.
"One of them called the video center. One of them called the video center and said, 'I'm quitting because Mr. Takesako came with a minister to persuade me. Then, in the Unification Church, they said, 'Takesako betrayed us'."
Even though he had no intention of quitting, he received threatening phone calls at home. So Mr. Takesako went to explain.
"But right in front of the Unification Church building, I was surrounded by followers, who took away my walking stick and dragged me into an alleyway. They kicked me three times in the stomach, saying, 'You Spy, go home! They kicked me three times in the stomach."
It was not until he became the target of violence that Mr. Takesako "learned firsthand" why society viewed them as dangerous. In 1986, a year and eight months after becoming a believer, Takesako left the church at the age of 19.
■ After studying the Bible at university, he realized how the Unification Church had been teaching a distorted reading of the Bible.
He dropped out of college. While he was spending his days in depression, he was approached by a minister who said to him, "I'm too busy. Could you help me?'"
Many parents whose children had joined the old Unification Church came to the minister for advice.
"I went to his church in Tokorozawa every day. I began to tell my story as it was, in front of the families who came for counseling and the believers who were being urged to leave the church."
After listening to his stories, many believers decided to leave the church.
"I felt that I had become a traitor. I was convinced that I could never go back."
So Mr. Takesako decided to read the Bible again. Many people say that the Unification Church is wrong. Then I thought that if I read the Bible properly, I would understand what they meant. However, he said that the Unification Church read the Bible with their own interpretation. They conveniently bit off a lot of it to justify themselves.
"I asked my minister to 'teach the right way to read the Bible,' and after about three months of attending the church, he told me, 'There is a school that teaches the Bible correctly. That was the Christianity Department of Tohoku Gakuin University."
At the age of 21, Mr. Takesako opened the doors of Tohoku Gakuin University.
"Within six months, I realized that they had a purpose and were only misusing Christianity to achieve it."
After graduating from college, Mr. Takesako became a minister.
■ He realized that if he respected the person as a human being, the believers would voluntarily quit.
He said, "I spent 10 years at my first church in Aomori, then I moved to Shirakawa and this year it's been exactly 20 years. Since I became a minister, the number of consultations related to the Unification Church has increased even more. But when I was in Aomori, the support for ex-membership was not very successful."
According to Mr. Takesako, the mainstream method at that time was to keep believers in a half-imprisoned state and continue to persuade them to leave the church.
"But the Unification Church began to take precautions in advance, and the time required for persuasion gradually became longer. No matter how much the family members took the initiative, it would not be humane to confine them for nearly half a year and reverse-brainwash them."
After being assigned to Shirakawa Church, he continued to receive consultations one after another. It was right around that time that Mr. Takesako felt he had found a way to lead believers to leave the church.
"After coming to Shirakawa," he says, "I started to remotely involve the family members by telling them, 'Try talking like this. Then, at some point, the number of believers who quit began to increase. That's when I realized. Rather than trying to get them to stop, the first step is to respect them as human beings. We gradually realized that if we could build the right relationship between the family members, the person would stop voluntarily."
Some believers took a long time to leave the church.
"First, we encouraged them to increase communication between the family and the believer. After a few years, the believer began to open up to his family. He kept changing jobs, and the job he got didn't last more than three months. So I told his family, 'You can quit your job at any time,' and 'Even if you don't have a job, you are what you are.'"
Seven years after the initial consultation, he left the Unification Church on his own. He is now working as a social worker at a facility for the handicapped.
■ Mr. Takesako once went looking for the houses where he sold handkerchiefs.
"About two years ago, I had an aortic dissection. I heard that I was already in danger at the onset of the disease, but even during the surgery, my heart stopped for six minutes. In other words, I almost went to heaven twice. Perhaps because of that experience, I don't think so much about the future anymore."
During the 10 years after leaving the Unification Church, he also suffered from insomnia. And even now, he still has trouble without his medication.
"I feel light-headed in the mornings, probably because of the medication," he said.
In addition to being busy with his regular church work, Minister Takesako is also actively involved in support activities for believers, their families, and second-generation believers. It is not unusual for his phone calls to extend into the wee hours of the night.
How is it that he is able to do so much with so many wounds on his body and mind?
"I feel more comfortable being involved with believers and second-generation believers."
Mr. Takesako once walked around looking for the houses where he sold handkerchiefs.
"At the time, I was given a copy of a map with only the places I would visit that day. I had no idea where I was in Hokkaido. I just remembered that there was something pentagonal on the map. Later, I realized that it was Goryokaku. So I went to Hakodate several times to look for the people I had once deceived, but in the end I couldn't find any of them," he said.
Because of his sense of atonement, Mr. Takesako is determined not to let up in his support for the victims.
"But now I am helping people who are different from the people I actually caused trouble for," he said. I understand that there are people somewhere whom I have deceived, and that fact will not change. Even so, I honestly feel that I have no choice but to do what I have to do."
To be continued to Part 2: A former believer and minister who supports ex-membership: "Second-generation Unification Church members who deny their parents will not be themselves.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
