The book describes the religious conversion process to the Unification Church, whose members are sometimes informally referred to as "Moonies".

[1] Barker writes that she rejects the "brainwashing" theory as an explanation for conversion to the Unification Church, because, as she wrote, it explains neither the many people who attended a Unification Church recruitment meeting and did not become members, nor the voluntary disaffiliation of members.

Reviewers have quoted her conclusions: "I have not been persuaded that they are brainwashed zombies,"[1] and "Moonies are no more likely to stagnate into mindless robots than are their peers who travel to the city on the 8.23 each morning.

"[2] In 2006 Laurence Iannaccone of George Mason University, a specialist in the economics of religion, wrote that The Making of a Moonie was "one of the most comprehensive and influential studies" of the process of conversion to new religious movements.

[3] Australian psychologist Len Oakes and British psychiatry professor Anthony Storr, who have written rather critically about cults, gurus, new religious movements and their leaders, have praised The Making of a Moonie.