Peddler of paradise.(Reverend Sun Myung Moon)

Recently I witnessed a spectacle unlike anything I have seen in twenty years: a mass wedding celebrated by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. On April 27, 2002, in the ballroom of a large hotel on the fringe of America's capital, I watched as Moon formalized the wedding vows of--or so he claims--some 144,000 couples. What made the ceremony doubly striking was the claim that at least one partner of all the couples involved was a member of the clergy of a vast range of faiths and denominations.

The occasion inspired an overwhelming feeling of deja vu; just twenty years ago, I…