Young Oon Kim was a leading theologian of the Unification Church

Unification Church

The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...

 and its first missionary

Missionary

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Kim was a professor of religion at Ewha University in Seoul

Seoul

Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

. After she joined the Unification Church, church founder Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon is the Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. He is also the founder of many other organizations and projects...

 sent her to the United States as a missionary in January 1959. In the 1960s, while a missionary in Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

 and California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, she worked to promote Unification Church theology to mainstream Christian churches. She was also the first person to translate the Divine Principle

Divine Principle

The Divine Principle or Exposition of the Divine Principle -in Korean, 원리강론/原理講論- is the main theological textbook of the Unification Church. It was co-written by church founder Sun Myung Moon and early disciple Hyo Won Eu and first published in 1966. A translation entitled Divine Principle was...

, the basic textbook of Unification Church teaching, from Korean to English. From 1975 to 1988 she was a Professor of Systematic Theology at the Unification Theological Seminary

Unification Theological Seminary

The Unification Theological Seminary , is the main seminary of the international Unification Church. It is located in Barrytown, New York and with an Extension Center in midtown Manhattan. Its purpose has been described as training leaders and theologians within the Unification Church. The...

 in Barrytown, New York

Barrytown, New York

Barrytown is a hamlet within the town of Red Hook in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is within the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, and comprises four of the Hudson River Valley estates: Edgewater, Messina, Rokeby, and Sylvania...

, and the first Unification Church member on the faculty there.

External links

• Unification Theology, Young Oon Kim, 1980
• The Reverend Sun Myung Moon I Know, Young Oon Kim, 1988
• The Early Unification Church History, Galen Pumphrey