In a world full of disinformation, at the core of the extreme ideologies infringing upon the mainstream is a promise: 'we have the truth.' This is what university student Jack was promised when he was approached by Shincheonji (SCJ), a religious sect which former members have labelled a cult.

A Local Phenomenon on a Global Scale

Founded in 1984 in South Korea, SCJ is a registered non-profit charity under the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission, circulating not only in Melbourne but also worldwide.

Initially supporting a nervous friend who was interested in joining, Jack underwent three to four months of Bible studies with SCJ. At first, he thought it was harmless, but this perception quickly changed as he was invited to more sessions.

'SCJ at first glance appears … to be another sect of Christianity that is intensely focused on Biblical study and knowledge of the truth,' Jack says. 'These two-to-three-hour classes required attendance three times weekly and pushed for their priority over family, work, religious, social and personal commitments …  Their teachings encouraged social isolation from everyone … They taught prioritising … studies over church, family, friends, work and any other obligations.'

David, a pastor at CrossCulture, works closely with high school and university students and has seen these tactics in action. Warned about SCJ when he first became a pastor, David didn’t expect his own students to have already encountered them. 

'Being a worker in religion, I had known of cults before,' David says. 'Surprisingly, six months into the role, people started coming to me and telling me about their experiences, or certain groups they had joined, or Bible studies they were part of.'

Not Like the Other Churches
SCJ attracts involvement through intense, high-commitment teachings. According to David, the group operates with a logic of secrecy which gradually reveals Jesus’s return. They claim that following Lee Man-Hee, SCJ’s founder, will guarantee salvation. This isn’t revealed to newcomers immediately. They start by focusing on the parables of Jesus, implying there is a hidden meaning to gauge the newcomer’s faith.

'They'll talk about how Satan will come and deceive you now that you're coming here to discover the truth with us,' David says. 'They'll say things like, if a friend tells you not to come here, that's Satan deceiving you. If your parents say this is not good, that's Satan deceiving you.'

SCJ employs further strategies to maintain coercive control over other members, such as physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation. As a Christian youth minister, David expresses that such abusive behaviour is a deviation from Christianity. 'I would say I was pretty angry about it, just because of the deception and the harm that it causes to people, how they're essentially hijacking religion.'

'On the flip side, I think it shows that as humans, we're searching, we're looking. As much as we want to believe everyone – everyone needs to figure it out themselves,' David says. '[Your life] belongs to God, not to an institution.' 

David urges his students to ‘question everything’. 

Certainty in an Uncertain World
With recruitment methods ranging from contact on university campuses, dating apps and Discord servers, SCJ recruits from a particular demographic of people. 

'They target young, lonely, trusting, faith-searching individuals – all of these terms were directly used to describe myself or others by recruiters and teachers,' Jack says. 'Once a relationship of trust is built by conventional studies, more dangerous, dogmatic, isolating and unbiblical teachings are integrated to uproot a person from all of their support systems and completely rely on, trust and work for the cult.'

With younger generations experiencing an epidemic of loneliness, this makes groups like SCJ all the more dangerous. When the desire for truth is manipulated, it becomes a tool of coercion  as influence transforms into pressure.

David says that the truth is not something that is told to you, it’s something that you have to find yourself: 'You have to be cautious when something doesn't give you freedom to do that. We have great capacity for good, but we also have great capacity for evil. We can use power for good things. We can also use power to abuse and control. I think cults are one of the most evil expressions of that within religion. It's not just religion, it happens everywhere. Any ideology can lead to this.'