Singapore - Shincheonji
My Journey in the SG branch of Shincheonji
“By looking through any lens, everything can be rationalized to the individual.“
So far, all the online testimonies from “ex-Shincheonji members” in Singapore (articles posted by MothershipSG and Straits Times) are from those who left even before completing the bible study that lasts around 4-6 months. To be honest, Shincheonji does not even consider them as “members” yet. They are considered “students” or “fruits”.
Here is how the structure of their group bible study goes: Introduction -> Intermediate -> Advanced (Book of Revelation)
Also, there is a term called Passover which is when the student transitions from the bible study to join the church and be an official member. This is when he begins to attend services twice a week and on other days, be heavily involved in its activities, primarily evangelism.
*My observation: Normally when a student has Passover, it is very rare that he will leave the church. If a student were to leave, it is likely during the bible study, not after he has become a member.
For me, not only did I complete their bible study which lasted 4 months, I officially joined the church and was involved in their activities for another 1 year.
So, here is the account of my experience. To be fair, I shall be as objective as possible when it comes to facts.
My journey ever first began when I was walking along the NUS Faculty of Science. 2 ladies approached me to inquire the nearest Christian bookstore so they can purchase a bible for their “friend” who was also in NUS. The conversation quickly moved on to me telling them that I’m a Christian as well and us chatting about different churches. They got my number and suggested to have a meal one day.
The meal happened 3-4 months later. As I was really interested in the Bible, I ended up raising to them many Bible questions that I had. Coincidentally, the questions were mainly about Genesis, which SCJ has a unique way of interpreting. Eventually one of them raised up in the conversation about her male mentor who was very knowledgeable in the Bible.
Soon, I started attending personal Bible studies with that mentor and one of the 2 ladies(who was a member posing as a real student). In SCJ, we call such a fake student as a “donkey”.
After a few lessons with just the 3 of us, my donkey got switched out to a guy for some reason (which was a lie or what they rationalize to be “wisdom”). He claimed to be a final year NUS Business student.
A while later, the mentor announced to me and the fake student about a group bible study that was happening soon, which I agreed to attend.
All along the way, from the time that the 2 ladies approached me and through the one-to-two bible lessons, there were strange behavior and inconsistency in their words. I noticed them but put them aside. Because heck, the lessons were really interesting.
Just 2 days before the start of the group Bible study, at night time, my mind started to make associations between the “weird” behavior of the different people that appeared that led me to this group bible study. Revelations came up one by one, which mostly turned out to be true. This went on from 10pm all the way till the next morning. By then, I was convinced that they were all in cahoots.
A few hours later, I was supposed to meet my mentor for lunch. Even though I was still shocked from the realizations, I also felt quite emotionless as I was really tired from the sleepless night. I did not voice my suspicions to him. In fact, he even informed me that the first “fake student” who accompanied me will also be attending the bible class tomorrow with another 2 friends, and I should minimize conversation with her as the purpose of the group bible study is to learn the Bible, not to socialize. It didn’t even came as a shock to me anymore.
Hours before the class started, I started to feel very frightened as my mind starts to imagine the different scary things that they may do to me and other students. I was even considering to leave our group chat and forget about them. However, another part of me really wanted to know what they have to teach. Even if it was a cult, I was curious to know how it is like and perhaps help the other real students out of it.
Eventually, I went. The class was held in a small, rented room around a 5 minutes walk from Fort Canning MRT (it was no longer held here months afterwards). They made the environment comfortable. The teachers and fake students were friendly. Most importantly, the lesson was great. These somehow made me slowly drop the suspicions.
So, other than me, my class had 3 other female students(real students). So the 4 of us are considered classmates. Our class was Class 132.
During the lessons over 4 months, many things happen but I shall keep it brief here. For me, the first half of the Introduction was clear. Then, the teachings start to be ambiguous: their interpretation of a verse is not really clear, perhaps a bit out of context; it is a possible interpretation, but better ones exist. I started to struggle a lot with their teachings mentally. Intermediate had more and more unambiguous teachings. Revelation was the killer for me. Some of their interpretation of Revelation appear to be clearly out of context. I was so dried out during those Revelation lessons.
The most agonizing thing for me was that all the other students seem to accept them very well, which made me think that the problem might be with myself. Thus, I kept on re-reading the passages that they went through to see how their interpretation makes sense. I was thinking that “Perhaps there’s something that I missed out or not understand fully?”
Thankfully, such social pressure did not drown out my thoughts. But that also means that I will continue to struggle with the teachings and ultimately, being a member of SCJ for the next one year. Basically, I was struggling all my way through as a member. A member with weak faith. I really tried my best to believe.
I was doing things which I was more sure were wrong than right.
Eventually, our class “Passover-ed” to join the church and this is when we get to see all the other members who weren’t in our class. It was held at a 2-story apartment, at 65 Niven Road, 3 minutes walk away from Little India MRT. (Even after the MHA investigation, I believe the lease is not revoked until now because some of the Korean members who came to Singapore still need a place to stay.)
In the church, I was known to have never wept over any of their teachings. For instance, most members would weep over some heartbreaking story of the promised pastor (ie. man hee lee). For instance, he was beaten up by some of the church leaders because he was continuously telling them to repent. Some of the teachers thought that my heart was hardened. The thing is, I have doubts towards those teachings in the first place. If I believe them to be true, I would definitely be touched and weep. In fact, I did cried privately. The truth was that there were numerous times at home when I will kneel and pray, crying to God for me to understand and accept their teachings, if they were really true.
Even though the doubts were constantly haunting me when I’m alone, doing things with some members did temporarily eased those doubts. As a member, I evangelized regularly, as was expected of us. Going on the streets (mainly to universities and nearby our various rented locations) to talk to strangers, and follow-up meetings with the potential recruits. I was also a fake student for one of them (This was held at in a building near Tai Seng MRT. Mother God also holds its services at one of the buildings nearby. Our services were also changed to be held there). I did most of these things with one of my classmates which was pretty enjoyable.
Also, I brought my brother in around end 2018. Afterwards, my brother brought his friend in. They did not struggle with the teachings.
However, around April-May 2019, things took a turn. As school was also putting stress on me, I started to reduce my evangelism and spent more time in school to study. However, the doubts were tormenting me that I spent a great deal of time in school reading the Bible, mainly Revelation. All along, my cell leaders tried to help me with my doubts and even got me to meet the church head to answer my questions.
Unfortunately, the more I read, the more doubts I have towards their teachings. Finally, I decided to be more open about my doubts to other members. Primarily, my brother. There was a period of days when I kept raising my doubts to my brother. And he couldn’t understand some of my doubts. For others, he could understand but believed that the church head has the answers to them. Until one day, in regards to one of my questions, he was annoyed and said that he will go check it out (specifically, the timeline of the events of Revelation). He realized a flaw in the timeline that doesn’t match up. Very soon, he started to see flaw after flaw in their doctrine. It was as though he could start thinking critically about the teachings. Previously, he could think critically about everything except SCJ!
Accept all that SCJ feeds but be critical about everything else! Whatever new and ridiculous teaching or information that SCJ tells a member, with just a very simple explanation with some logic, the already-believing member is bound to accept it.
This happened similarly for my brother’s friend, over a week. So now, it’s the 3 of us who can see the flaws in this place. This is like how SCJ would describe as “having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and having our eyes opened”. To be honest, I find it a really apt way to describe it.
Then, we decided to attempt getting others out from this cult. However, we have to do it so discreetly because every member has been taught the importance of reporting anything strange or wrong to the higher-ups. People like us exist in the Korean branches of SCJ. In fact, there are even mini-sects in those branches!
Our plan is very simple: raise the doubts (ie. contradictions) in their doctrine to other members. In fact, this was what I had always been doing. But now, we are doing it to get members to see the flaws in the doctrine.
There was no point in telling them this place is a cult hence they should get out. They already know that it is a cult in the eyes of the world and have accepted that the truth always end up getting persecuted. Think about it: Jesus was a cult leader in his time!
Interestingly, some of the members, who had completed bible study, were not even sure of the teachings of Revelation that we couldn’t even raise the doubts to them.
We actually decided that by August, we will leave regardless because I needed to focus on my studies. Unfortunately, it was postponed much earlier.
I was street evangelizing with my classmate in Bugis, when we met my brother’s friend Apparently, my brother had told her that he was trying to get people out of a cult. The friend recognized me and casually mentioned it in front of my classmate.
After the friend left, I put on an act in front of my classmate by pretending that I didn’t know anything about it and even suggested that my brother might have lied to the friend for some valid reason. (In retrospect, I feel that I should have just been honest to her because I really didn’t want to lie to her, even though being honest to her also means that she will see me differently instantly. But at least she won’t be personally offended. I can only imagine my lies replaying on her mind now…)
Afterwards, she reported it up. In fact, she had suggested for me to tell my cell leader about it. It was totally understandable. I mean, if you genuinely believe in that place, then you will have to report it up. Otherwise, you risk being kicked out of the church. That is equivalent to going to hell.
Everything happened really fast afterwards…
Two days later, I met with the church head for my questions to be answered, which was planned much earlier on. However, as he suspected that I was involved in trying to get people out of the cult, he spent the first half an hour giving me a choice to either confess or be kicked out of the church. I tried to separate myself from my brother by suggesting that my brother had schemed plans I was unaware of. It did not work.
I did not confess, and I gave the church head an inaccurate story. For 2 main reasons: I did not want my classmate to know for sure that I lied to her. I did not want the members to know for sure that I schemed plans and was doing the work of the devil, which will make it harder for them to leave because one of the Korean leaders had been saying that it was the period of deception for the entire SCJ.
Of course, you may think that I have nothing to lose, so why not just get kicked? But, I did have things to lose: the friends I had made inside.
And so, I was kicked on that night. That was start of June 2019. It was quite sudden for me. When I stepped out of the church door, and then during the long bus ride home, there was this unexplainable feeling. It was as though a part of my life has came to a pause.
We were without doubt painted very black to the church members afterwards. These are what they use to describe betrayers (or more formally, apostates):
- dogs and pigs
- the empty house that an evil spirit left and brought 7 evil spirits who were more evil back to that house
- the reality of people described in this verse: “For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.” (Hebrews 6:4-6)
- bad fish that were thrown back into the sea
- sons of the devil
- and many more…
I’ve read about what happens when members leave a cult. There will be many issues that they may have to face. Usually, a member has to spend at least half the time he/she spent in the cult in active recovery. A member who has been in a cult for a year would have to spend 6 months to recover actively. The foremost thing is to realise that the doctrine is false. They are not destined for hell because they left. And then, the rest are the emotional and practical aspects.
Some of the Korean members in the SG got found out by their parents that they are in Shincheonji. Hence, their parents got worried and insisted that they leave. From the perspective of the member, Satan is working through their parents to persecute the member and if he leaves, his eternal life is at stake. That is why they left their families and come to Singapore to hide. I feel that if such member were to realise that SCJ is a lie, they may crumble emotionally out of guilt and regret towards their loved ones and even consider suicide. Perhaps it would be personally better for them to never realise it, because they have literally given up everything for this. The real truth that SCJ is a lie can be too much more them to handle.
Even right now, almost a year after I’ve left, I still feel a deep nostalgic feeling whenever I think back on those memories.
They are nice people; I really appreciate the things that some of them did for me, especially one of them whom I spent the most time doing things with and I hope to talk to again.
They are just deceived people who go on to deceive more people, believing that they are doing the right thing; serving God’s purpose.
What is not nice is the cult leader man hee lee. And his made-up doctrine that was still being revised/updated during my time inside!
From my mind now, I can recall a few of such “updates” while I was inside: 1. Previously, it was taught that only 144,000 will take part in the 1st resurrection. But it was then updated that the great multitude will also get to take part in it. (Obviously because the number of people in SCJ has far exceeded 144,000 and members may be worried if they are not one of them. Then they may have less “reward” to look forward to)
2. Previously, the “river of water that was spewed out of the serpent’s mouth” in Revelation 12:15 only refers to the slander that Mr Oh(the serpent) had towards Junior Yu(the woman). Then, there was an official update that it also refers to something else(I can’t recall what it is oops) now.
These are updates to the unabsolute and ever-changing “Truth”.
Tags/Keywords: scj singapore, shincheonji singapore address, hwpl shincheonji, shincheonji 144,000, shincheonji covid 19, mha shincheonji
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