Unification Church

==== Rebranding ====
In 1997, the Japanese Unification Church applied to the [[Agency for Cultural Affairs]] (ACA), a department directly under the [[Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology]], to change its name from "The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity" (世界基督教統一神霊協会) to "Family Federation for World Peace and Unification" (世界平和統一家庭連合). According to the then chief of the Religious Affairs Division, {{ill|Kihei Maekawa|ja|前川喜平}}, the application was rejected by the ACA because the church was involved in civil lawsuits under its old name at the time. In 2015, while [[Hakubun Shimomura]] was [[Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology]] under the [[Third Abe Cabinet]], the Unification Church again submitted an application to change its name and this time it was approved. Shimomura denied any involvement in the approval process, explaining that the decision was made by the head of the ACA, but acknowledged he had received reports about it and that this was unusual. The 2015 head of the ACA confirmed Shimomura's description of events.<ref name="annn 20220728 rename">{{citation
|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2CBATeYvRA
|title=旧統一教会トップと国会議員らがアメリカで面会…目的は？開示された名称変更の理由示した文書は黒塗り…政治家の関与は不明のまま
|work=[[Tokyo Broadcasting System]]
|via=YouTube
|date=2022-07-28
|access-date=2022-08-10
|language=ja
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Name change by Unification Church a baffling issue years later |url=https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14686350 |access-date=2023-03-07 |website=[[The Asahi Shimbun]] |language=en}}</ref>