A Free Bible Study
It often begins with a friendly question. Someone new at church or on campus asks about your faith, listens well, and offers a mentor who can answer your Bible questions. The classes are free, and every point comes with a verse. Many who joined Shincheonji began that way, some of them the hungriest Bible readers in their churches.
Shincheonji, Korean for “New Heaven and New Earth,” began in South Korea in 1984. Its full name is Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony. It reports “more than 300,000 members,” though published figures differ, and it honors its founder, Lee Man-hee, as the Promised Pastor. Members serve with real zeal. They call Jesus their Lord, and they sincerely believe they have found the one place on earth where the Bible is understood.
A movement from Korea is not a Korean problem. Korean believers have carried its heaviest weight, and churches in South Korea routinely post signs reading “Shincheonji is not welcomed here” (Christianity Today, 2023). Korean Christians belong to Honolulu's own story: about half of the first Koreans to land there, in January 1903, came from one Methodist congregation near Incheon. Recruiters come from many nations, and so do the people they reach.
We regard Shincheonji's teaching as a cult in the sense defined in What Is a Cult?: it preaches another Jesus, another spirit, and another gospel. The group rejects the word, saying a cult is “those that teach falsehood.” We use it only as a theological category, and we weigh the teaching from the group's own sources. We do not judge any member's heart. Labels do not save and they do not damn.
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For Deeper Study
- Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the BibleAmazon James W. SireA clear catalog of the reading errors behind false teaching. Its chapters on the figurative fallacy and esoteric interpretation fit this group closely. Evangelical.
- The Revelation of Jesus ChristAmazon John F. WalvoordA verse-by-verse commentary that reads the book as future prophecy, with the 144,000 from Israel. Dispensational, premillennial, and pretribulational.
- Recovering from Churches That AbuseAmazon Ronald M. EnrothA Christian sociologist's guide for people healing after leaving a controlling group, and for those who walk with them. Not about Shincheonji by name. Evangelical.
- The Kingdom of the CultsAmazon Walter MartinThe standard evangelical reference, by a Baptist minister. Its opening chapters on how cults redefine Christian words apply here.
- The Creation of Heaven and EarthLee Man-heeThe primary source, by the movement's founder. The group's websites are also free to read. Read what your friend actually believes before you answer it.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is a Cult?
A cult, as this section uses the word, is a group that uses Christian words while denying the Gospel or the God it reveals, preaching another Jesus, another spirit, or another gospel.
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