Cultish: Shincheonji - Infiltrating the New Heaven New Earth Cult

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

What's up, everybody? It's the Super Sleuth here coming at you with some exciting news. Get this, Koltish has our very own

00:06

YouTube channel. It's been in the works for a while, but now it is here and we want you to be a part of it.

00:11

You can go to koltishtv .com where you'll be redirected to our YouTube channel page. You can subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications.

00:18

Not only are we going to be releasing shorts and special clips from previous episodes, but we have special content that we are going to be creating specifically for this channel.

00:27

So be there, don't be square. We don't want you to miss out. Go to koltishtv .com, get redirected to our

00:34

YouTube channel today, subscribe and hit the bell. See you there, guys. All right.

00:41

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Koltish, entering the kingdom of the Kolts. My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here.

00:46

I am going solo today. Andrew, the Super Sleuth of the show, is away spending time with his family, mainly because this is the very first time we've done

00:54

Koltish on a Saturday. But very super excited. So we have with us Steve. You came all the way from California.

01:01

So I appreciate you working your way to be here. Great to be here. I've been a fan for a long time. You're doing a great work to get the word out.

01:07

Awesome. Sounds good. And we're also here with Chris. And how are you doing, man? Doing good. Coming from Seattle, Washington, and I really appreciate the work that you're doing.

01:16

Awesome. California, Seattle. So definitely a lot of broad variety there in contrast to Arizona.

01:21

But we are talking today about a cult that I've seen videos. You've made sort of the rounds on other small

01:28

YouTube channels, but it's called Shinchonji. And tell us just about, we're going to talk about this cult today.

01:34

Tell us just one, just about yourself, about your interest in this cult, and just yourself in general.

01:40

I mean, you do have a good variety of knowledge about a lot of cults in relation to Christian apologetics.

01:46

We'd love to hear more about that. Yeah. So my story goes back to when I came pretty close to join the

01:51

Mormon Church. I had a burning in the bosom. I was two weeks away from getting baptized in the

01:56

Mormon Church, and the Christian took the time to witness to me so I can testify that apologetics did open my eyes to this.

02:04

From there, I've gone on to study a whole bunch of cults, and I'm definitely all about studying a lot of the newer emerging cults like we're talking about today.

02:11

And I'll often have the saying that it's not just about the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses anymore. If Kingdom of the

02:17

Cults was to be written, Walter Martin's book today, it would look very, very different than it was back then because a lot of the cults have changed.

02:24

There's a whole bunch of new cults. Everything's changed a lot. So we kind of got to get up on what the new challenges of the church are.

02:32

The cult that I'm most worried about right now, for example, is the World Mission Society Church of God. You guys have covered that before.

02:38

Now you've got Hebrew Israelites. You've got these Asian groups coming in, a whole bunch of these different groups.

02:45

So I've studied a lot of these groups, and I'll talk about it a little later. I'm starting to put out more and more content, and we've got some big plans for that as well.

02:53

Awesome. Awesome. And then, so this is going to be very interesting because your relationship with this specific cult,

03:00

Shin Chan Ji, you're dealing with it from an apologetic side, knowing it, confronting it, dealing with it.

03:06

Infiltrating it. Infiltrating it, which we're going to talk about. Yes. Shin Chan Ji has these several -month lessons in order to learn what they believe.

03:14

And I was able to go right through all the classes, right from the beginning to immediate, the advanced, the newcomers classes, right through the entire classes to get a real inside view and know their theology and history really well to be able to speak out against them.

03:28

So it's basically taking one for the team. Who's going to want to spend eight, nine months of their life, hours and hours a week to really learn a group really well.

03:34

Right. So you infiltrated it, and then you were infiltrated by it, if we want to put it that way. Tell people about, explain that real quickly, and we'll jump into that.

03:41

Yeah. So basically I'm an ex -cult member of a group named Shin Chan Ji. I was recruited by an ex -girlfriend. I'll get into that a little bit later when we talk about the deceptive practices of this group.

03:51

And basically I left around July of 2021 and Steve reached out to me eventually through the internet.

03:57

We got connected and because of him, he introduced me to sound Christian theology. And I realized that SEJ is pretty weak when it comes to the theology.

04:06

But when I was in it, I didn't know my stuff. I barely understood a Trinity and et cetera.

04:11

So because of that, I was susceptible to it. And I'm going to be honest, there are a lot of Christians who say, Oh, I know the

04:16

Bible really well. But reality is that it's normally the people who think they know the Bible really well, who are normally the most susceptible to it.

04:24

It's the people who are humble and say like, Hey, I need to learn more. They're the ones that are more strong against.

04:29

Okay. And you said SEJ, is that an abbreviation? Yeah. So SEJ or Shin Chan Ji or New Heavens, New Earth or Zion Mission Center.

04:36

Okay. Real long name. Yep. Gosh. Okay. The real long name is Shin Chan Ji Church of Jesus, the

04:41

Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony. A lot of the Korean cults like really long names. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously.

04:47

So this is very interesting. So let's start, maybe let's start at a phase one. So you said they're from Korea, they're

04:53

Korean based cult. Super hardcore. Yeah. So yeah. So I would call this, I always call this group like a high demand, secretive, apocalyptic group.

05:03

And cults have really changed a lot. Like when you think about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, you're not talking about a group that's as much into the whole mind control, the

05:10

PTSD when you leave. These groups, these Asian groups are coming at it from a whole new level. World Mission Society, Church of God, that's another good case in point.

05:18

When you leave the Mormons after five years, you say, Hey, I was deceived. I believed in the wrong Jesus. A lot of that kind of language.

05:24

When you leave these high demand groups, you say it's like 11 years of my life are gone. They vanished. It's like I never existed.

05:30

So these groups are very heavy and they've taken your time, your money, separation from family, manipulation by fear, guilt, and shame.

05:38

So they get you in by love bombing you in, then they manipulate you by fear, guilt, and shame.

05:43

And then they leave. And when you leave, you're cut off, you're excommunicated. And that's like, you're totally shunned.

05:50

It's kind of like the Jehovah's Witness disfellowshipping, Scientology disconnection. You lose all your friends, everybody you've had association with, it's all gone.

05:57

So this is a hardcore group. So I think Christians sometimes have missed the boat in, you know, cult apologetics, because a lot of time we'll only look at it, you know, theologically saying they deny the

06:07

Trinity, the deity of Christ, you know, salvation by faith that works, the bodily resurrection of Christ.

06:14

But there's also a behavioral psychological definition we have to take into account. Some groups are really bad in one way.

06:21

Other groups are really bad in the other way. This group is really bad in both, as are a lot of these newer emerging

06:27

Asian groups. Both in the theological distortions and the bite model. Absolutely. Yes. They do a lot of damage to people.

06:34

And like Chris's story is that when you come out of these groups, you have trouble picking up a Bible. You have trouble praying or going to church because you're so spiritually wounded.

06:42

You don't even want to open up a Bible anymore. So it takes a period of healing often for people before they can land on their feet.

06:48

Yeah. No, definitely. So with Korea, it's just very interesting because we've covered the World Missing Society Church of God.

06:53

I know that's one of your passion topics. What is it about the area of Korea where these cults specifically come from that area?

07:00

Is there something just within the culture or just that area just not being as literate in the essential

07:05

Christian doctrines? Well, actually, there are a lot of churches in Korea, a lot of churches. And that's one of the things about Shincheonji, like, you know, they're pretty well known in Korea, but now that they're starting to go into other countries where people don't know who they are, this is the problem.

07:19

So in Korea, they've already earned that bad reputation. If you go into a lot of the lobbies of the

07:24

Korean churches, they have signs saying Shincheonji out, because it's such a problem. We're going to learn today how they're coming to churches to recruit, actively sheep steal.

07:32

This group is active. They're out to get Christians. They're not out just to get non -Christians and like other cults are.

07:39

So the whole Korean mindset is often about the concept of a master disciple, respecting the elder.

07:44

It's almost like that two class system. And, you know, the whole way, the manipulation, a lot of times, that whole dedication, that fanatical dedication, it's a subculture fanaticism, a dedication that you don't see in these other groups.

07:56

I think that's really important to understand that whole subculture. You don't have that same subculture in Mormonism, for example, but the way these

08:02

Asian groups will really grind on you and just, you know, make you feel guilty all the time and all that stuff.

08:08

That's a whole different kind of game. Yeah. And so how do they start? Who's their leader? And when did this whole movement start? Well, we could start on that.

08:16

It's going to take a little time to explain all that, but it's interesting stuff. I just sort of want to mention one more thing. If you ever come across like HWPL, Chris, you want to have a quick word about that?

08:25

That's their kind of peace organization that they try to market. And a lot of people don't know they're Shinchanji and it's just an extra way of getting recruited.

08:31

I just sort of want to hit that before we... Yeah, totally. So HWPL is their peace front group. It's similar to what the Moonies did back in the day.

08:37

And they're claiming that they had peace in Mindanao, like in 2014, Lee Man -Hee, who's the leader in the

08:43

Philippines, he said that he brought peace to Mindanao in 2014. And since then, they've been having like a celebration of a peace day.

08:51

When you actually start looking into the conflicts that have been going on there, you can clearly see that since 2014, there have been plenty of conflicts since then.

08:58

And that officially, the Philippines do not recognize their peace holiday, which is supposedly in January.

09:05

And then they are enticing different political leaders throughout the world. Like there's another guy in Romania who actively joins

09:10

HWPL peace events. So they're saying like, hey, we're in peace. It's a front group. And really by peace, they mean everybody unifying underneath Lee Man -Hee.

09:19

That's the ultimate goal of HWPL. So this is just one of the many deceptive ways that SEJ recruits.

09:26

Hey, what's up, everyone? We love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis.

09:31

But this program cannot continue and wouldn't be possible without your support. So if you want to go to thecultistshow .com,

09:38

there is a donate tab. You can either support us one time or you can become a monthly partner with us that will allow us to continue this program, allow us to continue to be salt and light to the kingdom of the cults.

09:49

So please go to thecultistshow .com forward slash donate and you can support us one time or monthly.

09:55

Also, make sure you check out our merchandise store. Go to shopcultist .com. You can see all of our great designs.

10:02

A lot of you have gotten merchandise from us already. So again, either go to shopcultist .com and check out all the awesome merch back to the show.

10:11

Yeah, maybe I went ahead of myself. So most of the time anyone who's listening to this episode has any familiarity with them is probably has come into con has gotten into contact with them by way of them recruiting.

10:21

So one of the aspects of a cult just real quickly is deceptive recruiting practices. You think about Steve Hassan's testimony where he went to this weekend retreat.

10:28

He wasn't being told at that time that he was going to all of a sudden become a true believer in Sun, young moon, that he was the, you know, the, the

10:35

Messiah. However, they viewed him as a messianic figure. He got worked into that. And that's, you always see deceptive recruiting practices, whether it's that or Scientology, how do they do it?

10:44

So they love to use like front group names. So, you know, you've talked about the world mission side, church of God, they have the

10:50

Elohim Academy. You know, the seven thunders, the McKessony Bible study, they used to use different names, same as Shin Chan Ji.

10:57

They'll say sometimes we're new heavens, new earth. They'll say, you know, the power of Christo in England.

11:04

They have so many names in this, like, if you don't know who they are, you just don't go with any old Bible study. Someone comes up to you and say,

11:09

Hey, you want to study the Bible with me? You got to ask smart questions. Like, who are you? Who started your group? You know, we need to Google and do some research before your kids.

11:17

If your kids are involved in Bible study, you know, they go after young people a lot between 20 and 35. So when you're, and it's just like the

11:24

Boston church of Christ, the ICC, you know, international churches of Christ, some of these groups, they really target young people, church,

11:30

God, if your kids or people, your church, or in this Bible study outside your church, you're trying a little bit about who they are.

11:35

Just don't be naive and automatically go, you know, you might be zealous for the Lord, but that doesn't mean everybody's going to teach you the truth.

11:41

These groups use front names, they don't let you have their books. So, you know, in my course of studying, you know,

11:47

I was able to get all of the books, you know, of Shin Chan Ji in English. And, you know, they don't want you to even have these books.

11:54

So this is stuff that, you know, when you get them, it's a lot easier to expose them. Okay. Yeah. And so the, so the name of the, what's the name of their leader?

12:02

And he's, he's old man, he's 20 years old. They really revere this guys we're going to get into.

12:08

When they do recruit you, I'll say they do do these three levels of classes, beginners, intermediate, and advanced.

12:14

Beginners classes, they're teaching about the parables of the Bible. They say the parables is what you need to know to be able to understand the

12:20

Bible. God hid his truth. He sealed up the kingdom of heaven, the secrets of kingdom of heaven for 2000 years where nobody could understand anything to Lee man.

12:28

He came along, Blaine, excuse me, explain the definitions of the parables. And then now by understanding the parables, we can understand the book of revelation because we're now in the time of fulfillment when this stuff's happening.

12:38

So basically just as the apostle John, you know, gave predictive prophecy of, you know, the things that were coming to pass in revelation,

12:45

Lee man, he is the new John or the promise pastors explaining how this stuff is actually working.

12:51

And only through him, you know, you can get that level. So he has a special understanding that no one else has.

12:57

He has seen and heard the events of the book of revelation. He was there. And I've never heard a claim like that ever before.

13:02

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. You know, I just wanted to add one more thing. He's seen and heard all the events of revelation in the spring of 1980.

13:10

Yeah. So that's an important detail because there's failed prophecies. Okay. Let me ask you this. So there's a huge emphasis on revelation.

13:17

If I understand it correctly, this group is all about the book of revelation. The book of revelation is the new covenant to them. It's the new covenant.

13:23

This is the gospel of prophecy, they call it. So they're absolutely into a lot of that stuff.

13:29

Wow. Very interesting. Yeah. So have they, did they eventually kind of work their way over to the

13:36

United States or did they have a focal point in Korea? You know, a lot of times they have a catalyst which launches them here.

13:43

They've got that bad reputation in Korea, but they're spreading out across the world. They're very ambitious and missionary minded.

13:48

They're setting up shop in the U S and the Philippines and parts of Africa. And they're, they've got no insight for what they want to do.

13:55

Is there any part, what about church? Are there specific churches they infiltrate, they try and infiltrate one versus another or it just doesn't matter?

14:02

Yeah. We'll get into some of this infiltration a little bit more detail later, but that'll spin your head. This is going to make it an interesting episode.

14:08

Okay. Very interesting. Well, where do you, where do you think is the next step to go from here? Cause a lot of people are just really taking this in for most people.

14:13

This is the first time they've heard of it. What's, what's our other really important aspects for that, for our audience to fully understand as we begin to unpack this?

14:21

Well, let's see here. Steve talked about how they're aggressively recruiting HWPL. They do a lot of volunteer work through a lot of the front groups of like blood drives, park cleanups, you know, they're trying to, every time they do a good deed, they always try to get some sort of news to call the media, like the world church or God.

14:38

When I was in a group, that was my job as I was in, I was supposed to reach out to the media. So whenever we did a blood drive, whenever we did a park cleanup, anything, instead of just doing it for the glory of God, we did it so that other people can say like,

14:48

Oh, look how great we are. So, you know, obviously this contradicts Jesus's teachings. And even when I was indoctrinated in this group,

14:54

I'd ask like, wait, aren't we supposed to just do this only for the glory of God? You know, you pray in secret so that, you know, you don't spray on the streets so that everyone can see you.

15:02

Right. You know, I mean, things like that. Um, I think another really important part is how does this group actually view

15:08

Jesus? Cause that's the core essential doctrine of Christianity and they pretend to be Christians, but really they're not.

15:14

So I'll make this very clear. They do not believe that Jesus is God, but they will lie to you and say, yeah, we believe that he's

15:20

God or yeah, we believe in the trinity. They deny the trinity. They believe that it was a made up concept that was officially instantiated in the council.

15:27

Yeah, of course, as is tradition. Common line for cults. Yeah. Literally every cult says that, um, they denied a trinity, they deny

15:34

Christ's pre -existence and that he only came into existence in the birth of Mary. You know, when he was born in a woman,

15:40

Mary, they deny Christ's body resurrection. So what that means is at first he was initially resurrected physically, but then when he returned to the father, you know, he was covered in cloud and Acts chapter one, he became a spirit body.

15:54

A little different than Jehovah's witnesses who said his body was turned to gases. Yeah. So they said he was physical resurrecting, but then he became a spirit creature as he said.

16:02

Right. Yep. And that's very important because then Jesus begins his work in spirit of fulfilling revelation or basically returns in spirit in 1966 to a group of seven men in South Korea.

16:13

And, uh, that another part of the thing is that he, Jesus established his millennial kingdom, the thousand year reign in 1984 at the start of the

16:21

Shincheonji, even though we're in a thousand year reign right now, there are older leaders who have either defected, died, et cetera, even though that they're supposed to be in a place where Jesus and God are at.

16:31

So that's an issue. Yeah. They don't look forward to any future second coming of Christ. They say Christ has already come in Korea in 1966, not physically, but in the spirit of teaching

16:40

Lee man, he, and bring his truth back to Korea that way. So we don't have any way thing to look forward. So they deny the incarnation, they deny the bodily resurrection and deny a glorious future second coming.

16:51

So Christ wouldn't be a physical person. It was just an embodiment of truth that was revealed to their leader, perfect being who did atone for our sins as far as the return of the second advent.

17:00

No, that was just, uh, you know, this teaching is back in Korea in 1966. And then in 1984, that's when the millennium, basically the thousand years started.

17:09

And just to make it clear too, they have something like forward to called the first resurrection where basically the people of SCJ will be united by the spirit of a martyr.

17:17

So basically their bodies will kind of co -host and that's when they'll become a mortal, right? Yeah. Interesting.

17:24

So yeah, one thing real quickly, and this is just an example when Walter Martin would say, don't, you don't have to become an expert on every single aspect of the cult, but you become familiar with who

17:33

Jesus is. So this is the very first time that I've really heard about their doctrine, but being familiar with the person of Christ and the deity of Jesus, I'm like red flag, red flag, red flag.

17:43

That makes sense. So yeah, why don't, yeah, I appreciate that elaboration on top of that too. Of course, they don't tell you this right off the way.

17:50

They normally tell you this at the very end after you go through the whole class, because you know, if you go to a Christian and say, Hey, Jesus isn't

17:56

God, we denied attorney. You know, a lot of people be like, well. Yeah. And you know what? A lot of people right now will not encounter

18:03

Shin Chan Ji, but there's going to be people watching this in the future whose churches get infiltrated, who's going to have loved ones pulled into this group.

18:11

And we're doing this video for you guys, because this is a, you know, resources I always say that lives on in the internet and you're making great digital resources available.

18:20

And there will be people looking at this months, years from now and saying this, I needed this video.

18:26

This is exactly how I need to reach my loved one. Yeah. So there's, there's a lay, I have a question. This is, there's sort of layers that kind of given our outlines.

18:33

The first thing is you're kind of talking about their, their eschatological cult and their apocalyptic eschatological cult.

18:41

How do they, how does it integrate with how they view themselves versus other churches? Well, we'll, you know what we definitely, why don't we hit the history first?

18:48

Because we got more than a mouthful to say what they think about us. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So, um, everything comes centered around Lee Ban Hee.

18:57

Uh, he's this Korean guy that they say, you know, as a child started having these amazing visitations with these balls of light that would come to him.

19:05

And, you know, he was like some kind of remarkable guy in 1957, he goes and joins a cult in Korea called the olive tree movement, started by a guy called

19:14

Park Tae -sun. And he's part of this group for 10 years. Um, and then the story kind of changes a little bit because in 1966, you know, life goes on in Korea until, you know, the, you know, there's a guy called, uh, uh, you,

19:31

Mr. You, and he's you, uh, senior to the Shin Chan -ji people. One thing that's interesting about Shin Chan -ji is they've, they talk about, you know, these seven messengers that we're going to cover and they, they don't, they don't want you to know who they are in their books and their public talks.

19:45

But your classes, they have all the pictures, the names of the people, because they don't want to get sued in Korea by their families.

19:51

So they're kind of covering a lot of that up. But, um, with Mr. You, so they were holding a

19:56

Bible study in 1966 with seven men in Korea. And one day, suddenly the voice of Jesus appears to them in the room, kind of, we've heard this a lot of for different cults, right?

20:05

So basically he's saying, I'm choosing you guys. You guys are going to be the seven messengers in the book of revelation in chapters two and three.

20:14

So, you know, Jesus suddenly calls these people and they're, they're the angels of revelation one, 16 and 20.

20:21

So he said, I'm going to restore my true church to you guys. So then he decided, you know, we're going to go up to the mountain for Mt.

20:28

Cheonggye over there, uh, in Gwacheon, Korea, where all this started. They, for a hundred days, they're going to get a specialized training right from Mr.

20:36

You, who's being taught revelations and visions by Jesus. So they're going over there and some really weird stuff had happened over there.

20:43

I mean, they got, you know, they would cut into their hands, the arteries of the wrists basically, uh, and you know, shed blood and stuff and they're making some of their, you know, covenants up there.

20:54

And they actually started the church, uh, over there in Korea. Um, they, you know, while they're in Korea, actually in March 14th, 1966, that's called a foundation.

21:05

Well, it's the foundation day of the, what became the Tabernacle Temple. That's the church they started. So they go out there, they start this other church called

21:12

Tabernacle Temple. And, you know, through apostasy, what they call the

21:17

Stewardship Education Institute and the Nicolaitans, they came in and they destroyed the church from within.

21:23

And it created a cycle of apostasy and destruction that needed, required salvation. And in 1967,

21:31

Lee Man He was guided by a star, another glowing ball of light, kind of, you think about an angel light, right?

21:36

A glowing ball of light. He guided Lee Man He to come join, you know, this Tabernacle Temple group.

21:42

And, you know, things didn't go so well. 1971, he leaves, he goes back to his hometown. But then in 1977, you know,

21:50

Lee Man He is going to visit a friend and by a bridge, Jesus appears to him and, you know, calls him and says, you need to write the letters of Revelation chapter two and three.

21:59

The word that's the letters of Revelation two and three were actually Lee Man He, you know, reaching out to these, you know, seven messengers and tell me to repent.

22:09

And, you know, they had to overcome. So he went back and then 1980, an angel appears to Lee Man He wearing

22:17

Korean clothes for some strange reason, right? And he gives him the little book of Revelation chapter 10 that he had to swallow.

22:24

When he swallows this book, that gave him the understanding, the enlightenment to understand and master the whole book of Revelation.

22:30

So now he's seen and heard all the events of apostasy, destruction. And in a nutshell, what

22:36

Shin Chan -ji teaches is that, you know, all the events of the book of Revelation have basically been fulfilled in South Korea in the last few decades through these seven messengers in this church called the

22:47

Tabernacle Temple. And, you know, Lee Man He had to, that church had apostasy and Lee Man He had to come in and restore the church as Shin Chan -ji as the true church, another church.

22:59

And we can only have salvation by understanding the parables, being a registered member of Shin Chan -ji and, you know, being sealed by him for eternal life and believing in him.

23:09

It's pretty crazy stuff. Yeah. And so with that, with, with their tying in their, their end times beliefs, their apocalyptic beliefs that they would view all churches as apostate, right?

23:20

Yeah. We'll definitely get to that, but I do want to say one thing first, maybe Chris can hit this one.

23:26

So basically, as is the case with a lot of cults, you have the official story and then you have the real story of what really happened.

23:35

So yeah, he did, he was part of this, you know, uh, for sure. Yeah. Let Chris could take it away on, you know, he was really a three -time cultist.

23:43

He's a three -time cultist. So what we mean is when we go to Lee Man He, he always says, I was never evangelized by any other pastor or church before really doing his thing with the

23:50

Tabernacle Temple and Shin Chan -ji. So a lot of members are not aware of his involvement with the Olive Tree.

23:56

And actually when you start looking at the Olive Movement, a lot of the teachings that are found in SEJ are found from that cults, including the 144 ,000, the hidden manna and all these other details.

24:06

Is Olive Tree, is that a Korean cult as well too? It was a, yeah, it was a Korean cult that he joined in 1957. Yep. And then on top of that, there's actually a third cult that this guy joined called

24:15

Box, uh, Box Free Creation Sect in 1977. Yeah. So, you know, there's a -

24:20

Right at the time he was supposed to be sending the letters, you know, to the seven messengers to repent. And yeah, so basically the, the

24:27

Tabernacle Temple was a Korean cult. They tried to glorify it as God's restored amazing church, but it was full -on culty as was, you know, the

24:34

Olive Tree Movement and the recreation church. Right. Yep. So they'll, so in other words, they'll claim that their ideas came from private revelation, but in reality it didn't come out of a vacuum.

24:43

They had influence from previous groups. Exactly. I mean, if you look at the previous teachings, uh, of these different groups, that's where most of SJ got it from.

24:51

Yeah. Okay. And then Lee Man -Hee made it his own. So Lee Man -Hee, you know, is, can we, can

24:56

I share a little bit about him? He's like, he's super overly revered. So if you've, viewers who watch this show, you hear all the time how certain cult leaders are overly revered.

25:04

Oh yeah. I don't think anyone, I've cited all these different groups, new and old, there's nobody revered like Lee Man -Hee out there in the world of cults.

25:12

So he writes himself in the scripture all the time, especially the Book of Revelation.

25:17

He's 71, he's 91 years old. Uh, he thinks he's, a lot of the members say he's never going to die.

25:23

God's fulfillment is going to happen, you know, and he's waning. Um, you know, so their view is he is the promised pastor, just as, um, you know,

25:32

Abraham was a full, you know, he kind of predicted a promised pastor who was fulfilled in Moses and the

25:38

Old Testament prophesied a coming promised pastor was filled in Jesus. The promised pastor for the end of the type of fulfillment is

25:46

Lee Man -Hee, new John promised pastor. So they often call him that inside the church. So as we said, he has seen and heard all the events of Book of Revelation.

25:53

He was there in Gwacheon, Korea, watching all these things transpire. And they say he's the one who has mastered the entire

25:59

Bible. When you, when you study your lessons with Shin Chan -Ji and you have your graduation, then you've said to be mastering the

26:05

Book of Revelation, but he's mastered the whole Bible. So here's some of his titles. They say he, just like the Jehovah's Witnesses, he's the faithful and wise servant of Matthew 24.

26:13

Right. Um, just like whether it's Baha 'i or Islam or different groups, uh, he is the, uh, the comforter, the advocate of John 14 to 16.

26:22

Um, he's also the tree of life in the Bible and, um, he will sit on God's throne.

26:28

But the mind boggling part is how he writes himself in the Book of Revelation. So I made a list here. He's the messenger mentioned in Revelation 1 .1.

26:35

He's the one who overcomes in Revelation 2 and 3. He is the one, he's the pillar in God's temple,

26:41

Revelation 3 .12. The one who went up to heaven in Revelation 4 .1. In Chapter 5, he is the one who was before the throne of God.

26:48

In, uh, Chapter 7, he's the one who's sealing the 144 ,000 in the kingdom of God. Uh, he's the golden censer of Revelation 8, 3, and 5.

26:56

He's the one who eats the little book in Revelation 10. He's the one of the two witnesses in Revelation 11.

27:02

I mean, he's really writing himself in, right? He's a one man marching band. He really is. Uh, he's, he's the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11 .15

27:09

following the male child born in Revelation 12. He's, he's the one who rides, he's the white horse that Jesus rides in Revelation 19 .11.

27:17

Jack of all trades. It's amazing. The Swiss army knife of cultists. Wow. One thing I was going to say at the beginning is this, this cult gives other cults a bad name.

27:26

It's like the Moonies call them and say, Hey, stop giving us a bad name. You're ruining it for us. So he's a messenger.

27:33

He's a bride of Christ in Revelation 19 .21. He's a messenger who speaks in Revelation 20 .16,

27:39

and he established a kingdom on earth and seals, you know, seals of believers for salvation.

27:45

Hey everyone. If you are watching us right now on Apology of Studios YouTube channel, you need to know that cultish would not be possible if it wasn't for this studio.

27:54

So if you want to support Apology of Studios, which also makes cultish a possibility for you to enjoy every single week here on YouTube, go to Apologyofstudios .com.

28:04

You can become an all access member and you will also get a lot of great additional content, which will also help support the studio, which will allow cultists to be a possibility as well on a weekly basis.

28:15

So we thank you all for watching us. And now back to the episode. Well, yeah, even like it seems like a lot of modern cults are really trying to utilize

28:23

PR in such a way to try and rebrand themselves. But it seems from, from my understanding, just kind of looking at the recruiting practices and even how they present themselves, it's either like maybe like a lack of self -awareness as far as how people would view cults.

28:37

And it seems in contrast to being sly and discreet. It seems like it's almost in some sense, like a bull raging through a china shop.

28:43

He's like an uncontrollable narcissist actually. And in this book, this is their main book.

28:49

This is their commentary, a kind of revelation written by Lee Man He. He says on pages 10 and 11, he says, this means that no one can come to Jesus, gain eternal life or enter heaven except through the one that overcomes.

29:05

Today, revelations being fulfilled and salvation can only be obtained by the promised one who overcomes. Basically, unless you believe in me, you don't have salvation.

29:13

Right. So pretty, pretty incredible stuff. Yeah. But even, even this, just reading the very second paragraph, I had the book here where it says people who deny this and do not believe

29:22

Jesus or his words are controlled by evil spirits. You picked the right passage to read. Yeah.

29:27

So immediately, if you're reading this and you're already sort of seeing credibility, this person is in touch with God to even question him is to be controlled by an evil spirit.

29:35

And we don't want to be, I don't want to be controlled by an evil spirit. And actually just to add onto that too, if you criticize them, their immediate view is persecution.

29:42

If you like, as a former member of me speaking out, I'm committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, just like every other cult.

29:48

And it's just like, it's amazing to see how sensitive these guys are. Yeah. If you disagree with them, you're not, it's persecution.

29:56

And, and like, you know, you said a minute ago, what do they say about us as Christians? Well, there's few groups that have more hatred in horrible terms than these guys do.

30:05

So they say, we add and take away from the book of revelation because we don't understand the things, you know, as revealed by promised pastor.

30:13

We are the denomination of traditions who are drunk with the maddening wine of adultery. Our churches are being run by Satan's pastors who commit adultery with a prostitute.

30:22

They say that Babylon churches are the kingdom of demons, the sons of hell, that we're married to Satan.

30:28

And they say that our commentaries are the cup and the hand of the great prostitute in revelation 17.

30:34

Have you ever thought of that? We read revelation 17, that these are the commentaries of Christ in them. That's what these guys say. Really?

30:40

And so what I think what I was going to tie in, I'll just jump in here a second, just where I was going when it comes to how they view other churches is the aspect of deceptive recruiting practices.

30:48

Because when you infiltrated them, which I can't wait to hear about is that they probably don't say that up front.

30:54

Absolutely not. Right? How do they incorporate that? When's the bait and switch? Well, why do

30:59

I say this? And Chris can comment like Chris, when Chris joined, they were the more secretive phase. I wasn't actually in a very important time as I was in the first class where they became open and their definition open wouldn't be like ours.

31:11

So now what they used to do when Chris joined is you might not hear for months the name of the group and they're going to hide it from you.

31:18

They're going to say, oh, this is a true Christian church. We're just like, you know, Korean origin. And now they're trying to say right off the bat,

31:24

Hey, this is Shin Chan Ji. This is what happens to earth. So they're trying to make an effort. They're trying to put the videos in YouTube.

31:29

But as he said, there's a lot of stuff they hide. They make it impossible to get their materials and definitely signs of a cult.

31:37

And then on top of that, there are still reports of people being deceptively recruited the same way that I was, which was, they don't mention

31:43

Shin Chan Ji until the end of a six month or year long Bible study. So, I mean, they're being pseudo open as well.

31:49

I like to call it. Yeah. Let me, let me ask you this. Cause I mean, people are kind of hearing that, I mean, that's all brand new information to a lot of people.

31:56

Some people will be listening in either now or at some point who kind of are going to, or maybe we're going through what you went through.

32:03

So tell us a little bit about your back. Did you have a Christian background growing up? So, yeah, I did have a Christian background growing up.

32:08

And then probably when I went to college, when I was 18, I started questioning things and it kind of fell away, became more agnostic.

32:14

And then, uh, later on in life around 25, that was when I began more interested in like, Hey, you know, I want to give

32:19

Christianity another chance. And then is it okay if I kind of tell my story? Cause I think when

32:25

I tell my story, it'll show how deceptive this group is. Long story short, I met a girl on a dating app. We dated for a few months.

32:31

She invites me to a Bible study saying that, Hey, you know, my friend also invited me to this. Let's go ahead and go together. The Bible study starts out once a week with me, my ex -girlfriend or my then girlfriend and a teacher.

32:42

And then it goes to twice a week for three hours per session. And then it went to three times a week for three hours per session as well for a review.

32:48

So you can tell that slowly over time, they start taking up more and more of your time during this time. It turns out that half the people in that Bible study were current

32:57

SCJ members who were basically pretending to be new members so that I can spy and report on you.

33:03

And then it turns out that my girlfriend and I, she was a member all along and that she was lying to me our entire relationship so that she could recruit me into this group.

33:13

And I'm not mad at her. I think she was just trying to save me, but that's the type of culture that SCJ kind of permits.

33:19

Such betrayal. I mean, could you imagine how hurt you'd be by dating a girl to find out that she was just basically not who she said she was just trying to, you know, love you into the cult.

33:31

That's pretty bad. Which is just real quickly, I'm just real quick. But so interesting is that you think about, you know, the time when

33:37

Walter Marr was in ministry and how cults were recruiting them. They always adapt and they always evolve.

33:43

So in the same way how cults adapt and evolve, we have to figure out ways to adapt and evolve and to counteract that. But so crazy that of all things, a dating app, no one expects that.

33:51

We're going to get into that when we talk about infiltration methods. I mean, these guys are the most devious, underhanded, sheep -stealing cult that you've ever come across in a league of their own.

34:02

And I just want to make this clear with my girlfriend. She only, well my ex now, she was only doing it because she thought she was saving me.

34:08

So I'm not mad at her. It's okay. I understand. I'm more upset at the organization that claims to be the highest truth from God.

34:15

And yet they have a very long, well -documented history that's still happening today of them using deceptive practices to recruit.

34:21

Yeah. Yeah. And even, even we mentioned about the whole classroom, we have members in there agreeing with you.

34:26

Like that is exactly what Steve Hasen talks about with that whole story of undue influence. They've done case studies where if you, you'll do two plus two equals five.

34:34

And if you have a whole majority of the class who are pre -planned to give it the wrong answer, the rest of the class feels pressured to go along with that.

34:43

Exactly. And if you're doing that. Now imagine doing that for an entire year, two or three times a week for three hours per session.

34:49

You know, they're going to get you, you know? And was there anything as far as like steep sleep deprivation or more control of your time?

34:56

Like how did it progress for you? Oh yeah. So then you join, you have the book of life, you sign it. Steve will get more into the oath that you sign.

35:02

And then it went from, you know, a few days a week and there's Wednesday and Sundays are mandatory services. If you miss four or five of them with unexcused absences, you can get thrown out.

35:10

And then they throw tests at you every other week. And if you fail a test, there's a chance of you getting thrown out.

35:15

They call it not having enough olive oil in your jar. Olive oil, meaning like their word of testimony, your jar being your heart and your mind.

35:22

So that's a lot of pressure too. And you need to recruit. If you don't recruit someone, you can be cut off and thrown away.

35:27

They make reference to John 15 with the branches and stuff like that too. And then at that point, there was a point when

35:33

I was in this group where I was doing it seven days a week, getting four or five hours of sleep each night. And you know, you're talking about sleep deprivation.

35:40

There you go. And this is crazy. Yeah. And eventually you come to a point where you just sort of, you don't, you have a certain, you know, you have behavior control.

35:49

You see that obviously information control. What about this contract? I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is the billion dollar contract with Scientology.

35:56

Yeah. Yeah. It's a billion year contract. Well, through all your reincarnation. So I have here a copy of the

36:01

Shin Chan Ji pledge. And this sounds like it's taken right out of Steve Hassan's book.

36:06

So they've got a newer one. It came out with some minor changes, but this is the gist here. This is the one that was pushed in front of me.

36:13

And I said, I want to sign this. I want to continue to learn. Okay. I will not betray

36:18

Shin Chan Ji, Church of Jesus, Temple of Tabernacle of Testimony, the promised messenger or the word.

36:24

So you're giving an oath. I'm not going to, you know, go against Lee Man He, the church or anything, right? I will not deny them regardless of any tribulation or persecution

36:33

I might receive. I will never return to Babylon. That's us. Never go to Christian church.

36:38

I never turned to Babylon. And that's interesting, the words return, because it kind of assumes that you came out of Babylon because they go after Christians, as we'll see.

36:46

To wall in the mud, nor will I return to my vomit. I will never allow the seven evil spirits in my heart that have been, now that have been cleansed by, which has been cleansed by the word.

36:57

Let me give you a couple other good ones here. I will never leave the 12 tribes of Shin Chan Ji and will never become an antichrist to deceive the elected, the 12 tribes.

37:05

They have these 12 tribe leaders. We'll get into that in a moment. I will never believe any slanderous words, curses, or persecution, words of the devil from the internet.

37:15

Now, this is really interesting because just like you might've heard with the World Mission Sinai Church of God, they use the exact same terminology.

37:22

They say that looking on the internet is eating the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

37:29

So if you go on the internet, you know, you're opening yourself up to deception like that. It's like Kip McKean with the

37:34

International Christian Church, Churches of Christ. He would say it's spiritual pornography to go online. Yeah. Well, same with these guys.

37:40

And the World Mission Sinai Church of God, it's the exact same terminology. Don't, don't. Yeah. So don't, you know, go on the internet.

37:45

So if any active member of Shin Chan Ji comes on our YouTube channel, they're actually in violation of the contract that they signed.

37:51

Exactly. And actually to add more to what Steve was saying, ironically is there's a great YouTube channel, Great Light Studios.

37:58

Watching the testimonies of former World Mission Sinai Church of God members and watching Pastor Mike Winger debate them and discuss them and even

38:05

Steve Matthews, I was like, wait, that sounds eerily familiar to my group. What's going on here?

38:11

And then listening to ex Jehovah Witnesses testimonies, you know, I described Jesus, basically it's the same thing almost.

38:17

And it's, my mind was just blown away when I started researching this. I was like, wait, birds of a feather. Yeah, exactly.

38:22

You know, SCJ is always like, oh, well, we're, they appeal a fallacy of, you know, appeal of novelty, logical fallacy.

38:30

We're like, hey, we're the only ones that can explain revelation. We're the only ones with fulfillment. I'm like, Jehovah Witnesses, World Mission Sinai Church of God, other groups like Eastern Lightning, they're all saying the same thing, basically.

38:40

So it's just kind of like, what's going on here? Yeah. No, definitely. What are the thoughts you have in contrast to that?

38:48

Just, I think it's really indefensible stuff. I mean, you heard Chris's testimony about the maintainers. They lie to you.

38:55

I got lied to in my class. You know, I was in there. One of the times it was really interesting. One of the staff members said a prayer for the class.

39:02

They prayed for, you know, promised pastor and the 10 tribe leaders and everything. And then he said, and we pray for the maintainers.

39:08

And I said, who, what's a maintainer? And he said, oh, we're all maintainers. Well, maintainers are those who are sitting in class, pretending that they've never taken the class before, just trying to get you sucked in.

39:18

So that's indefensible stuff. What Chris went through with the betrayal of this girl, indefensible.

39:25

You know, Shin Shinji, you could try to spin it any way you want, but I mean, what kind of group does something like that to somebody, um, you know, don't look on the internet.

39:32

It's kind of like, you know, you're a police officer and it's like, you know, you come up to me and I say, everything's good officer, but just don't look in the trunk.

39:39

Just whatever you do, don't look at my trunk. I mean, everything is good. Just, you know, there's, there's no, uh, droids over here, but just don't look in the truck.

39:47

I had to get that movie reference in for Jeremiah, but just don't look at my trunk. It's all good. Well, any group who tells you like, we're good, but just don't look us up on the internet.

39:55

You know, it's an enormous red flag. Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, what would, so you said you, you were, you actually violated their contract.

40:02

Was there, was there a point most of the time for someone to go online?

40:08

There's usually some sort of, cause you're getting sucked into the group. You have the undue influences that's taken place on you.

40:14

You're, you're taking, you're adopting your cult identity. Usually something will happen when people sort of will have a other edge of the looking glass or just that the second where he was like, wait a second, something's up here.

40:24

It's a deja vu. Like what, what was that for you? Two things. So it was December 2020. Uh, so it's been a year or being inside the group after a year of down duration.

40:33

So I'm already a part of it for two years. Essentially what's going on is I start dating another member. And, uh, so the first time around with my ex -girlfriend who got me in, when

40:43

I asked leadership about like, Hey, can we clear the air about this? This really hurts. Like, let's just talk about this, you know, because this is my ex -girlfriend.

40:50

She lied to me, et cetera. They're like, Oh, you got to suck it up. You got to overcome. You got to be a martyr for God, you know? And then when

40:56

I started dating another member in this group, they tried to break us up for some reason. They said, Oh, well you're too much of a newcomer.

41:02

Your faith is not strong enough. I'm like, why, why the dichotomy here? Why are you trying to control me so much?

41:07

That was the moment when I started being like, okay, I'm getting a little, no sleep. I'm feeling burnt out.

41:13

I'm doing this seven days a week. Obviously this is a workspace salvation. You know what? Let's go ahead and start reevaluating this group.

41:19

Why are they trying to control every aspect of my life? And at the same time in parallel, I was living with other roommates at a time and we're doing this all on zoom because of COVID.

41:28

So my roommates, they're great people. They just said, Hey Chris, you're spending a lot of time hiding away in zoom, like, or on your zoom.

41:35

And like, why don't you come out with us and hang out with us? So through that, I started really questioning things being like, why am

41:40

I spending so much time? I watched a documentary on NXIVM. I realized there are a lot of parallels of the control manipulation.

41:47

And I was like, okay, I need to reevaluate this group now. What is it? So interesting too, because I think you're talking about the

41:54

HBO doc. Yep. What was that called again? I forgot it. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but it's so interesting that while you're not allowed to watch things that are negative, a

42:02

Shin Chan Ji, however, you watch something else, but it has a similar characteristic in the same way, how people can watch

42:09

Scientology aftermath and someone who's a former Jehovah's witness will say, Oh, I see that similarity. Yeah. And that's actually, that was my way in.

42:16

It was like, okay, well, Hey, NXIVM has some similarities. Oh, Jehovah's witnesses, you know, let's go ahead and look into that. Oh, Jesus returned in spirit in 1914.

42:23

What? Hey, Jesus returned in 1966 in spirit. That's when like, it just started going down.

42:28

There's so many overlaps of behavior and doctrine among groups, the more you dig in. It's The Vow, by the way.

42:34

Huh? The Vow. That's the show. Oh, The Vow. Yeah. And so I found this a subreddit of ex members called r slash

42:40

Shin Chan Ji. And that's when they started like presenting more of the facts of like, here, here's the reality,

42:45

Lee, man, here, here are the doctrine changes. And we're going to get more into physical fulfillment later on. Like there are a lot of changes that happened.

42:53

Yeah. When I was a member and a lot of failed prophecies that happened in the, you know, I was there for about two and a half years and the two and a half years

42:59

I was in SEJ. There was just a ton of failed prophecies and a ton of changes. And every time I tried to bring it up,

43:05

I would get yelled at. I get rebuked. They're like, how dare you? They basically would say, how dare you question us? Because, you know, they had to prescribe, okay, you can ask us this list of questions, but don't touch this.

43:15

Right. Which is so different. Just, I mean, if you think in contrast to the gospel and like the apostle Paul, he'll go into the

43:21

Areopagus. He'll go into the arena of idea and reason with the Stoics and the philosophers in real time, face to face.

43:27

Right. And he never said, well, don't question, which is saying I'm an apostle, you know, versus in your situation.

43:32

Test all things. Yeah, exactly. Paul actually wrote. Yeah. And so one thing I would say though, too, is just like the idea of like, they say test all things.

43:39

They'll say, yeah, go ahead and question us. But they don't really mean that. They basically say like only question us in these certain arenas.

43:45

Anything outside of it, you're a bad person. How dare you? You have weak faith. You know, that type of thing.

43:51

Once you're inside these groups, it's really hard to look outside the bubble. Yep. And it's really bad. And we got a challenge to do it.

43:56

The sad part is often when you, you know, try to challenge them with scripture, they're going to say, well, scripture's secondary.

44:01

What really matters is the fulfillment of prophecy that we've gotten through promised pastor, new John, who's shows that he is the true fulfillment.

44:09

That's how we know. They'll come at the Christian and say, Jeremiah, what do you know about the Bible? Can you explain me book of revelation?

44:14

Can you explain me the parables? They'll kind of try to back you up that way and say, we can explain it. We have the full knowledge has been revealed to us at this time of fulfillment.

44:22

You don't have it. Yeah. So interesting. Yeah. So what would you say? Cause I mean, as we sort of, maybe like the last segment and we'll transition to the next one, because we really also want to focus too.

44:34

On doctrine, on what they believe. On the doctrine, but also how to, how to camp, how to counteract it. Or even in some sense, because there's that cults will also have, what

44:43

I call a siege mentality where they talk about, well, any sort of questioning or even thinking otherwise is unwarranted persecution.

44:52

Yep. Like how, what about like for yourself personally? Like how did you, your friends were sort of started asking you questions.

45:00

How did it continue to unravel? Tell us about that. Yeah. So the way that my friends approached me was that they're very respectful.

45:06

They didn't, you know, they were suspicious. They're like, okay, this sounds pretty culty, but you know, they weren't like, Chris, you're in a cult.

45:12

You need to leave. There are more just like. Which you never want to do. No, because it's like, when you do that, the cult members come back. Oh, I'm being attacked.

45:17

Satan's using you. Blah, blah, blah. Um, what they did instead was they just asked innocent questions. They would say,

45:23

Hey, Chris, grab some, let's go ahead. Gallery room, grab some food with us. We're going to make some, you know, we made hot pot.

45:28

We had some pizza. We all just, you know, do our thing. And then it was actually like, Hey, Chris, you're spending a lot of time with that church.

45:34

When is the last time that you didn't do a church related event? And I'm like, Whoa, that's actually a good point.

45:40

Yeah. You know? And slowly over time, they just kept asking more and more innocent questions. And I would try to answer them and like,

45:46

Oh, interesting. One of the big things that kept asking is like, why are you so secretive about this? Like, you know, if you have the highest truth, just, you know, you should be honest and open, you know?

45:54

And I remember these guys, my roommates were agnostic atheists, and they saw the difference between Christianity and this group.

46:01

Wow. So that's a powerful testimony. Well, just I'll let you guys jump in here. Give me your thoughts too, as we kind of wrap the segment of part one.

46:08

Is that so interesting? Because you're seeing, again, an involvement, like with our ministry of how the cults have evolved with social media, with technology.

46:16

Technology is a gift and a curse when it comes to the world, the kingdom of the cult. So you look at you being recruited through a dating app.

46:24

Yeah. But then you have a subgroup of Reddit, which is, what was the document that came out? Shiny, happy people.

46:30

There's other ones too, where people will leave the group, but then they find these tribes within these subreddits where people all of a sudden you think,

46:37

Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one. Because one of the challenges, I love to kind of hear thoughts of people up here, is that when somebody is going through the deep programming process of a cult member, it feels like you're being gaslit because you feel like you are going crazy.

46:52

You're going insane because you're the only one who thinks this way. And then when you find out there's other people, you're like, that happened?

47:00

Oh my goodness, I'm not the only one. So it's like this clarity where all of a sudden you think, Oh my goodness,

47:05

I'm not insane. Like what was the process like for you? And it's even hard for members, like a family and friends to understand what you've gone through because they didn't know that part of their experience.

47:15

And it's like, I'm still trying to put my life back together again. I'm trying to learn how to be a social person. I'm trying not to feel guilty all the time for having fun.

47:22

You know, all this kind of stuff, right? That took a while for Chris to bounce back. And I want to give a shout out to my family and my friends.

47:28

I am very grateful for them. They tried their best to be as understanding. Obviously, it's kind of hard to explain like, Hey, I was in a cult for like two and a half years, by the way.

47:36

You know, let me just like nuclear bomb that. You put it in my link in bio. Yeah, exactly. But what they did do is they answered my calls.

47:45

They would talk to me. They would hear me out, things like that. That subreddit helped us tremendously because we would collect information against SEJ, the failed prophecies, et cetera.

47:53

And just talking to other people online who understand what I went through. And even like in Seattle, I know a bunch of ex -Jehovah's

48:00

Witnesses and ex -Mormons, for example, just talking to them and just being like, Okay, hey, even though we're from different groups, we understand each other.

48:07

And then eventually I did find a very solid church. A shout out to my church, of course. They did a great job theologically as well.

48:15

Helping me kind of strain my path. Yeah. And by the way, you're in Seattle. You say you're in Seattle. I mean, it's hard to talk about finding a solid church in Seattle.

48:23

Yeah, I know. It's literally easier to find coffee than a good church. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nope. Found a great church.

48:29

They've been really supportive to even my own pastor. Actually, he had his church infiltrated by another group, which called

48:35

Eastern Lightning. And that's another crazy story itself. But even it goes to show that even though we're talking specifically about Shin Chan the fact that cults specifically will try and infiltrate churches because that's where they're going to have people who have sort of a general like -mindedness just with some of the fundamental tenets in regards to terminology.

48:54

But then they can use that, turn around, flip it on its head to make them a loyal member of their group. Yeah. And Steve, do you want to maybe talk more about the lion?

49:01

Because there's a few other parts. What do you think? We could do that maybe next week's episode. Okay. Yeah. Let me ask you this as we wrap up here.

49:07

I think this is really important because one of the challenges we've seen with our ministry is that it's both from a challenge that ex -cultists have, one with getting plugged into a solid church.

49:18

Most of them are very gun -shy, which I think there's a hesitancy, but eventually there comes a point where it's like, okay, you need to figure out a way to get there because you're actually being self -sentimental.

49:27

But I also think there's a challenge where the church has been incredibly ill -equipped to help understand and encourage ex -cultists and understand the trauma or hesitancy with anything from doing biblical church discipline, where all of a sudden there'd be a trigger mechanism where they associate that with shunning and disconnection.

49:50

There's so many layers to that. Well, explain that. What are your thoughts on that? Explain what the process is like for you. Okay. So the process for me leaving was, first of all,

49:56

I did have to get some therapy, cult specialized, because obviously I needed to kind of like, I guess you can say deprogram that part and realize all the trauma and why

50:05

I joined and kind of flush that out. The second thing is I wanted to make sure not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

50:12

So essentially I told myself, hey, I still want to give Christianity a chance just because I had this terrible experience. It does not mean that Christianity is completely false.

50:20

That means I need to start digging into scripture and try to find ways of countering them. Funnily enough, every single verse in the

50:26

New Testament that talks about false prophets and false pastors, you know, with the deception and the lying and et cetera, can directly be applied to SCJ.

50:33

So just reading that, I was like, okay, it doesn't take a biblical scholar to understand that lying is not good. Yeah.

50:39

It was very interesting because cults a lot of times will specifically try and focus on people who are emotionally vulnerable, who've recently gone through a traumatic experience and they exploit that.

50:50

So I think, uh, one of the areas in which cults actually recruit, uh, is in rehab facilities because you have somebody, yeah.

50:57

And so you think it's your lowest point of your life, right? Or like colleges when kids are away from their family, they're homesick.

51:03

Yeah. Kind of. That's when they like to go after the 20 to 35 year olds. Yeah, exactly. Did you ever hear of a show called the path?

51:09

No, I haven't. Okay. It's had, had Jesse Pinkman from ranked by Aaron Paul and it was a show on Hulu and it's like had three seasons and like the very beginning of our show, which is my name is

51:17

Eddie and I was in a cult. It's actually from that show. But then it's about this guy who joins a cult and it's kind of a, but one of the areas in the very beginning of the show is that one of the people that they recruit is somebody who just came out of a rehab facility and they're all, but they're also, there's some sort of tornado or something like that.

51:33

And they all, they're all humanitarian workers and they utilize that to help people to also help people. One person who is in a dealing with drug addiction, but also people who had lost their homes because of some sort of natural disasters.

51:44

So they come in as humanitarian workers and help them at the lowest point. You know, when they have this natural disaster, they lose their home, their possessions and everything.

51:51

And they, they took advantage of that. So it makes sense. Shin Chan Ji and the World Mission Society, Church of God have a lot of things in common.

51:57

They both are involved in blood drives. They both, uh, you know, a lot of PR work, like you said before, they're involved in beach cleanups or park cleanups is, it's just amazing.

52:06

Just like Scientology having disaster relief teams and yellow jackets. Absolutely. And one more thing I want to add, COVID -19 just happened.

52:13

Everybody's vulnerable right now. Like right now they're recruiting on social media. They have a bunch of front groups. I sell my

52:18

Instagram account where I didn't mention SCJ and we have over like 1 ,600 to 1 ,700 followers and people are vulnerable right now.

52:26

And Hey, what's the worst that can happen? A free Bible study. Sweet. Let's do it. You know, what's the worst that can happen?

52:31

Well, that's crazy because I think it's so interesting about 2020 is that I look at all the things going on in the news.

52:37

And what was it when you saw simultaneously, you saw the Las Vegas Strip, Times Square and some other places, super busy, completely empty.

52:45

Some of the headlines and what you saw, I'm like, this is all like just an archive for probably five to 10 years of awake magazines.

52:54

When we get a little, we'll do a recap on Doctrine next week, but we'll see how that whole thing you're saying plays right into the apocalyptic vision.

53:02

Think about it. All those empty cities and everything and the lockdown, this worldwide pandemic.

53:08

This is absolutely fuel for the fire for a new relationship, John G. Absolutely. And then that's one last thing as we wrap up here.

53:14

What would you say that for sure? Because you did have a process of you trying to get it plugged into a church.

53:21

What's the biggest area of opportunity that the church could improve on with helping people such as yourself who have come out of a traumatic experience?

53:28

Like where are they lacking? Where's the greatest moment of opportunity? Because I think this would be a really point for constructive conversation for those who want to know about that.

53:37

Online. Honestly, taking these cults seriously. Because a lot of churches, when

53:43

I was searching, they're just like, oh, well, it only happens once in a while. And I wish that more elders and more church pastors would learn about cults, learn about what they're doing and make more of an active duty.

53:59

Before it happens to them. Exactly. Not after it's happened to them and it's too late. That's how they usually do it.

54:04

Right, Chris? Exactly. And it's just, it's heartbreaking when I, you know, sometimes I would try to talk to people about this and they normally just ignore me or just kind of laugh me off.

54:12

It's like, oh, it won't happen to me. And it's like a better way of approaching this is, hey, this can happen to me.

54:17

How can I make sure that it doesn't? Especially as a pastor or elder of a church. Fascinating.

54:23

Well, we've covered a lot in just an hour. It's a lot of really good information. So just real quickly, where can people find out about you,

54:31

Steve, if they want to kind of find out about you? Because you have other content online. Do you have a hub base or where can people find out more about you? We are actually building out a whole platform.

54:40

It's going to be under examiningthecults .com with a podcast coming with that same name.

54:45

So we're going to not only deal with Shin Chan Ji, but all the groups, you know, everybody from Burning Man to World Beside Church of God, Mormonism, Wicca, Word Faith.

54:56

I mean, across the board, it's going to be a one -stop shop and check out the content coming on examiningthecults .com.

55:02

That's awesome because I'll just say in response to that, is that as crazy as the world is getting and is continuing to get, there's no shortage of needs for ministries like yours.

55:11

I mean, when we first started, we thought, oh, we'll maybe have a year or so and we'll be done. Right now, it's like, no, we're barely going to scratch the surface.

55:18

So there's no shortage. So praise God for that. What about you, man? Do you have like a home base where people can find you or anything you want to plug?

55:25

Well, there's like a few websites that I found really helpful. Of course, examiningthescj .com

55:31

is a great website. It has a lot of material. Part of the platform of Examining the Cults. Exactly. Along with Examining WMSEOG.

55:38

And then there's also like, there's a subreddit. Of course, it's a Reddit. Take it with a grain of salt. It's of members of, ex -members of this group called rsashinchunji.

55:47

There's a ton of great information. It's a mixture of people who are still Christian, who maybe walked away from the faith, you know, and I think those two resources are probably the best.

55:57

There's not a lot of books and literature out there yet, but stuff's coming. Okay. Yeah. Awesome.

56:03

Well, including, including our podcast, which is now in the archive of part one. So awesome. So if you all enjoyed the first part of this, definitely let us know what you thought.

56:10

You can comment on our social media and I'm sure that comment on the YouTube comments, which I'm sure is going to be full of people with their thoughts, with a positive, negative, or even people who are violating their, their oath.

56:22

Their pledge. Their pledge, giving their comments in disagreement. But all that being said, we appreciate the commentary. You're helping boost the algorithm anyway.

56:28

So that being said, I think you all listening for part one, and we'll talk to you all in part two, where we talk about shinchunji and we continue to enter into the kingdom of the cults.