Former Unification Church Member Lisa Kohn Describes Childhood in the Church in Upcoming Memoir

Lisa Kohn, author of the forthcoming memoir “To the Moon and Back: A Childhood Under Influence,” describes growing up as a member of the Unification Church in New York City, a group she says followed the self-proclaimed Messiah, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. In a commissioned personal essay, Kohn writes that as a best friend of Reverend Moon’s children she spent her summers trying to convert new members. She says she found the idea of knowing the “truth” intoxicating, which made it harder to leave a church she considered safe.

Kohn says her parents had her and her older brother by the age of 20 and separated when she was three. She lived with her mother in East Orange, New Jersey, and describes that household as one with a macrobiotic diet, homemade clothing, “not talking days,” and at least one abusive boyfriend. She spent some time with her father in New York City, whose lifestyle she describes in harsh terms. She says she felt no safer there.

When Kohn was about ten, her mother joined the Unification Church full-time, leaving the children with their grandfather, who was in poor health. After he was hospitalized, the children moved in with their father in the East Village. Children left without steady care need someone to speak up for them (Proverbs 31:8-9). Kohn says she understood and agreed with her mother’s decision at the time because the family had joined the Church together. In retrospect, she describes the Church’s strict rules and structure as a haven for her.

Kohn describes the Church’s teachings as she was taught them, including the Divine Principle, which she characterizes as a mixture of Judeo-Christian and Eastern philosophies. She recalls preaching on Sunday afternoons in Times Square, attending a rally at Yankee Stadium, and traveling cross-country with a witnessing group. She says she later learned that her mother had sent her away for a time, a fact she did not understand as a child.

Kohn says her belief began to crack between her senior year of high school and her junior year of college, and that leaving took years. She writes that she struggled with anorexia, cocaine addiction and abusive relationships, which she considers attempts to punish herself for leaving. She says she later began eating again, stopped using cocaine and left an alcoholic fiancé. She also writes that she still struggles at times and that she has come to trust her own judgment rather than a single “Truth.”

Kohn’s memoir is scheduled for release on September 18, 2018.

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