Outside Korea - My experience with Shincheonji
Hello there, the purpose of my post is to just to share what happens when you're involved with
Shincheonji, or SCJ for short, and the nature of this group.
For myself - to make my personal story short and not too long - how I became involved was that I was
approached by an individual on an university campus during my studies.
I remember this person asking me a general question about Christianity, the same person offered to
teach me about the Bible and after a couple weeks of one on one lessons this person then offered
me the chance to join a course to learn more deeply about the Bible at a centre where other people would be studying.
Fast forward a couple of months later I learn that this course is run by SCJ and that at the end of this
course (which is for roughly 8 months) you graduate where you officially join SCJ.
I left before graduating for reasons I'll state later on.
A few things to note is that all people are approached in the same way by SCJ, meaning nobody
knows that they're being taught by SCJ until months later when the teachers of this course reveal
themselves.
SCJ never reveal themselves publicly, it's always under a pretense of a social event or a bible study.
They also operate under the name of HWPL, a NGO dedicated to peace.
Another very important thing is that in these courses which they teach, roughly half of the people
studying at their centres are already members of SCJ who pretend to be studying for the first time,
and the reason for this is that these undercover people are assigned to actual new students as a kind
of study partner or "leaf" as they call it, so of course I also had a leaf/study partner.
Basically, these "leafs" act as a sort of guide for the actual first-time students/recruits.
The reasons I left is that the founder of SCJ, Manhee Lee, is dishonest about his past and he does this
so that this made up version of his life story, which SCJ teaches, fits in with the prophecies of the
second coming.
There is enough information about Manhee Lee's background on the internet if anyone is
determined enough to find the truth.
The other major reason is that while I was there I saw that they put a lot of pressure on people to
evangelize, meaning to go out on the street and try to recruit people for SCJ using deception.
They also suggested to try to evangelize friends and family.
I saw that this was quite cunning because anybody who does this for them will be quite emotionally
invested with SCJ once they evangelize for them and I didn't want to cross that line.
Last thoughts about my experience, which is sort of like advice, is that you cannot argue with the
people who teach the course, even if you use scripture because they'll simply reply with the answer
that "... This is the open era ..." (i.e. the last days, where prophecies are being fulfilled) and therefore
their ways are justified.
It also not useful to try to tell other people who are also studying at their centres, because that
would start a long battle that one would have to be prepared for and you are only one person.
So this is the best I can do and I pray that others still with SCJ leave soon and I welcome any follow up
questions.
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