While Mark Jenkins’ book review on In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family (“Divorce Messiah Style” 2/19) dishes up titillating new gossip about the Rev. Moon and the problems in his family, it still only perpetuates the mainstream media’s mantra of intolerance and hostility toward the Rev. Moon and the Unification Movement. As a member of the Unification Church for the last 25 years, I have been uplifted by a Rev. Moon whose real heart and spirit I feel have never been accurately reported by publications such as yours.

Instead of responding to the divorce-spawned accusations presented by the Rev. Moon’s former daughter-in-law or to the hateful name-calling used by Mr. Jenkins (e.g., the Rev. Moon’s “wild megalomania,” the pejorative “Moonies,” the “‘rabid-right money sink the Washington Times”), I would like to make a request to Jenkins and to the editors of the Washington City Paper. That is, in the name of honest communication and mutual understanding, shouldn’t an attempt be made in the future reporting on our church to contact our pastor and/or community leaders and give them a chance to respond to allegations you might want to make? Wouldn’t the city be better served if, instead of vilifying a faith community, the City Paper sought to learn the thoughts and motivations of those who adhere to a certain lifestyle? My suggestion to the City Paper is that, in the spirit of the coming new millennium, it make a resolution to present more evenhanded and inquisitively objective articles about the Unification Movement.

Arlington, Va.