[A Letter from a Victim] Corruption and Human Rights Violations in Korean Christianity


Posted August 21, 2020 by kohhirono

There are many incidents of church pastors who hate the new heaven and earth, brainwashing their families with bad words about the new heaven and earth, assaulting new believers and turning them into criminals.

 
Families who repeatedly hear all kinds of accusations and slander from pastors of established churches as Shinchonji is a "heresy" are left to accumulate disgust and hatred for Shinchonji. This is why the rest of the family is shocked when they hear that someone in the family is associated with the New Heaven and New Earth.

The greater our love for our family, the more obsessed we are with getting them out of the heresy. Even if it means cheating. What remains, however, is hurt and distrust. Mr. Kim Joo-young (pseudonym, Nwon Ward, Seoul) could not hide his shock at the reality that his entire family had been deceived. The following is the text of Mr. Kim's request.

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I had a peaceful family life as an ordinary Korean citizen, but the "forced conversion program" broke down the trust between my family members and made them more resentful than others. I am taking up the pen in this way to tell you the awful reality of the situation.

I hope that you will not give my call a cold shoulder and help me not to suffer an infringement on the freedoms that I should be able to enjoy as a human being.

I was attending the same church as my family. However, after the pastor in charge of youth changed, my faith life became difficult because I could not benefit from the sermon, and my parents told me to try attending another church.

In the midst of all this, my faith was restored after studying the Word of God at the New Heaven and Earth Church, and I began to attend the New Heaven and Earth, where the sermon was very beneficial. Our family was as harmonious as before, just because the church we attended had changed. My brother even complimented me on how much more mature my character had become.

One day, my parents suggested we go to a family camp. One of our family's annual family traditions at the beginning and end of the year was to share what we were thankful for last year and what we would be praying for in the New Year, so I packed my bags without a second thought.

But on the day I left, I had a stomach ache. It was so painful that I asked them to let me go alone. But my parents convinced me that it was just my family, so we should go and rest. So I arrived at A Yusyuwon in Yongin. I asked them why they had come to such a distant place instead of their usual B Prayer Yusuwon, but my parents did not give me a proper answer, fudging that they had been recommended by the pastor.

Then I went into the room I had booked, and again, for some reason, they greeted a man they had never seen before and listened to his sermon.

I told him that I wasn't feeling comfortable, "It's a different story than when we left, am I going to get a good rest?", but my parents only persuaded me to lie down and listen.

When I was forced to lie down and listen to the sermon, the pastor perverted the content of what he was preaching in the new heaven and new earth and spoke as if the people attending the new heaven and new earth had fallen into the wrong place. I was in a state of abdominal pain and had no energy to speak, and I thought it would be rude to meet him for the first time, so I made no reply to the erroneous content, and after the pastor left, I told my parents once again how I felt.

However, my father said he was sorry that I had come without telling them first, but my mother was in too much pain from a religious standpoint and had made special arrangements, so he wanted to listen to the pastor's sermon all the way through with a little reference to me. That convinced me that it was for my mother's sake.

However, about a year went by and the story my mother told me that she didn't let me know at the time was too shocking. In fact, she said that she had already planned everything in advance to invite that pastor to hear the sermon. Unbeknownst to me, my parents had heard a few weeks of lectures from the pastor. Afterwards, they were instructed to bring me to A Prayer House, and they had composed the whole scenario. They hid these facts from me and spoke to me as if they had prepared it for my mother.

At the time, that pastor instilled a sense of insecurity in my parents with unsubstantiated lies, such as that I was going to fall into false teachings and make a fortune and devotion to the guru. This form of making money for the church and Prayer-school by taking advantage of parents' love and concern for their children is no different from the fraudulent crimes that were prevalent in those days.

When I asked her if I had to listen to his sermons all day tomorrow like this, and when will we have time for family time together in this family camp?

There were more than a few oddities from the start, such as whether or not the pastor would be offended if I told him to lie down and listen if he had a stomachache, but in the end, my brother spoke with tears in his eyes.

I later found out that the rest of the family, except for me, knew that I was going to this Prayer Palace. Believing that I had already fallen into a strange place, they refused to listen to me, and I refrained from saying anything, as it seemed that whatever I had to say would only deepen the misunderstanding and conflict, surrounded by people who were trying to convince me.

In the meantime, at a time when my family had all gone to bed, I suddenly had a very bad stomachache. No one woke up when I called for them, and as I was calling 119 and describing the location, my mother woke up from her sleep. So I got in the car with my parents and we had to move her to the emergency room. I sent a message to a close friend that I was going to the emergency room. My friend, who knew I had a stomachache before we left, replied with concern, but my mother, who had always been annoyed at my touching her phone, took it away.

After receiving treatment, I asked to be admitted to the hospital, but there were no rooms available and I had to go back to Yusyuwon. I wanted to rest so badly that I wanted to stay in the hospital, but my mother kept getting upset with me, saying things like, "Don't be provisionally ill. It was as if they were guards watching the prisoners, not the parents I knew.

In the morning, I was so disgusted by the fact that I had to remain isolated, with no way to contact them, that I kept thinking about how I could get out of this situation.

At that time, while I was opening the windows and gates to ventilate, I called my friend on a pay phone. I said, "My parents are strange. They didn't want to listen to me and they took away my cell phone. I've come to spend time with my family, but every so often they bring in a pastor and ask me to listen to a sermon. I went back to my room with stories like "I have a stomachache and need a break".

Shortly after, the pastor I had seen the day before came in again.

He hit the switch twice and pulled a whiteboard from somewhere. It seemed to indicate that this was the kind of program that often takes place in this prayer house.

The friend I contacted reported the incident and the police came to Yusyuin. As I told my friend, I indicated that I wanted to be alone with my family. The pastor had to pack up and leave.

However, my parents and brother, who had already been lied to for weeks, refused to listen to me as I was actually going to the new heaven and earth to live out my faith, and they constantly pressured me emotionally.

About nine years have passed since this happened. Our family is all deeply hurt, not because of the new heaven and earth, but because of the forced conversion pastor. It is extremely heartbreaking to see my family in tears and heartache when they look at me with tears in their eyes because of a misunderstanding that is not true.

It's very frustrating to spend my days in a war of wounds to each other for things that never happened because of lies I told as if they were very wrong when they weren't sad. After several years of psychological atrophy, I have become reluctant to contact and meet others, making daily life difficult. My symptoms of apathy and depression have become so severe that I have sought treatment.

Please don't let the misery of our family spread because of the lies of the compulsory conversion pastor, please don't let it go.

I, as well as many others, suffer all kinds of discrimination, insults, taunts, verbal abuse, and violence for the simple reason that they are attending the New Heaven and New Earth.

I cannot and do not want to see or believe the fact that these things are being done in the Republic of Korea, a liberal democracy, because of the different churches they attend.

I plead with you to restore our families to a happy place.

Source: http://www.newscj.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=768057
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Issued By koh
Country Japan
Categories Blogging
Tags christian , human rights violations , korea , shinchonji
Last Updated August 21, 2020