Claim. Hendricks asserts that the Unification Church was founded on a populist organizational model, evidenced by Sun Myung Moon’s emphasis on home church and family church as primary activities.
Elaboration. “Populist” here means decentralized, organizationally flat, and oriented toward direct empowerment of ordinary members rather than mediation through a clerical hierarchy ([^footnote-1] in thesis-apply-reverend-moons-thought-to-church-growth). Hendricks’s evidence is structural rather than doctrinal: the practices the founder emphasized — home-based gatherings, family-as-unit-of-worship — fit the populist pattern. Hendricks frames this as a strong foundation for the church to continue (or recover) a populist trajectory rather than drift toward a denominational form.
This is a historical / sociological claim about UC’s organizational pattern, distinct from doctrinal claims about what the UC teaches. It will need cross-checking against the historical record once primary sources (early SMM speeches on home church) are ingested.
See also. believers-responsibility, populist-church