A major cult organization in South Korea known as The Christian Gospel Mission (JMS)’s leader, Myung-seok Chung, 78, who is currently under arrest and on trial for sexually assaulting his worshippers, has been found to be active in the United States, including Los Angeles.
The cult organization was revealed to the public after Netflix put out a documentary called “In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal,” which revealed the true nature of the cult, the cult leader, and the members of the organization.
JMS conducts proselytizing on college campuses like UCLA during soccer tournaments or Valentine’s Day events, actively reaching out to young people and the public through its English-language website.
On the 7th, with the help of the National Council for the Study of Christian Cults, we examined one of JMS’s promotional websites, Meet and Converse.
According to the website, a church called “Lord’s Light of Life Church” has been proselytizing at UCLA since early 2013. JMS has been approaching college students with the pretext of self-development and brain health, and their leader, Jung, has been emphasizing the importance of training neurological habits in his sermons. This is a similar strategy to JMS’s early days in the 1980s when they would go around university campuses to gain followers for his cult.
“After learning about the brain from Pastor Myung-Seok Jung, we decided to change the direction of our ministry at UCLA,” wrote Albert Kwach. “Every year, a club fair is held before the start of each semester, and since this is the year of evangelism, we focused on providing proof of witness through the human brain.”
“We collected 120 contacts from this event and were able to proselytize 36 people who were already interested in the Bible,” adds Kwach.
Their campus proselytism efforts are deliberate and strategic. As JMS writes in the article, “We’ve gathered a lot of contacts, but this is just the first step. We have to wait and see who is willing to invest the time to learn about the true God. There are many other Christian clubs to compete with, but we are confident that we will attract a large number of students.”
JMS also organized a church soccer tournament in California. The list of participating JMS churches shows that many JMS organizations have a presence in the Americas, including New Hope (LA), Bethel (LA), The Rock Church (San Francisco), San Diego Wellchurch (California), and Eagle Church (Houston).
JMS also posted photos of a Valentine’s Day event organized by alleged church members at a home in Los Angeles.
New Hope Ministries in Los Angeles also organized a “Day of Life” event in 2013. According to JMS, the “Day of Life” is an event held simultaneously by branches around the world, including South Korea, to help people realize the secret of human creation and the importance of life through the message of peace.
In addition to the meeting and dialog, a pastor from One Light Church in New York held a retreat with Korean American second-generation youth. “It was the idea of Pastor Joseph in New York and was held in Big Bear and San Diego to revitalize the atmosphere of Wolmyeong-dong,” said Sung Dong-min, who wrote the article. Wolmyeong-dong is the location of JMS’s headquarters in Geumsan, Chungnam Province, South Korea, where leader Jung was born.
“Korean-American pastors are very insensitive to the issue of cults and pseudoscience, but there are already many cults in the Americas,” said Rev. Han Sun-hee of the U.S. Christian Cult Countermeasures Research Center. “Churches such as Shincheonji and Salvation Army, which are defined as cults by the Protestant world, are already operating in the Americas and attracting thousands of people.”
BY JANG YEOL [jang.yeol@koreadaily.com]
