With growing global media coverage of the death of Ms. Gu which have included features in the Washington Post and the New York Times, people around the world of faith and no faith are hearing about the inhumane “coercive conversion programme” established and implemented by pastors of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) which has led to two deaths and roughly 1200 kidnappings of mainly Korean youth forcibly converted to other religious beliefs.
However, Shincheonji Church of Jesus has released statistics
about crimes committed by pastors of the Korean Church, which will be expected
to make an impact nationwide. Of the 12,000 crimes committed from 2008-2018, the
majority (7000) are from the Seoul and Geyonggi provinces. 531 pastors in the Korean
capital, Seoul, have been sentenced for crimes including fraud, burglary, forgery,
defamation, drink-driving, arson, sexual assault and even murder over the last
3.5 years. The number of crimes committed by the Korean protestant church (of
which the CCK constitutes a majority) are four times higher than that of the Catholic
Church. Moreover, the occupation responsible for committing the highest number
of sex-related crimes are (mainly protestant) pastors. Take a look at four
separate cases.
#Case 1. A Cambodian girl – aged only 12 years – confided in
a Korean pastor, swallowing a pill he gave her. This pastor filmed an act of
sexual intercourse with this young girl and even forced her parents to remain
silent about it. As many as nine girls have suffered in the same way - all aged
between 12 and 17. In October 2016, Cambodian police swiftly arrested this
pastor (Pastor Park), sentencing him to 14 years in prison and £55,000 in
damages.
#Case 2. The above image is of a house in Bucheon, Gyeonggi
province, where the bony body of a Grade 7 girl was discovered in February
2016 after suffering from domestic abuse. Her body had been disposed of for one
year before being found. In March 2015, her 40-year-old father Pastor Lee had
beaten his daughter to death, repeatedly hitting her palms, calves and thighs.
#Case 3. A sentence of five years imprisonment was delivered
to Pastor Hwang, former secretary of the Korean Presbyterian Church of Jesus,
who was arrested for stabbing a fellow pastor in November 2015. He had
previously appeared with a gas gun during a sermon.
#Case 4. Pastor Yonggi Joh, who had founded Yeouido Full
Gospel Church that has grown to become the largest church in the East with one
million followers, ordered the church to buy 250,000 stocks of the I-Service
company - owned by his eldest son Heejun Joh, former C.E.O. of Gookmin Daily -
at nearly four times above the 2002 market value of 24,000 Korean Won per share.
This cost Yeouido Full Gospel Church 13.1 billion Korean Won in damages. He,
along with his eldest son Heejun Cho, was convicted of embezzlement.
This is not the first time that pastors' crimes have been
revealed. According to previous statistics published by the Public Prosecutor's
Office in 2012, the number of violent crimes committed that year - including
murder, arson, robbery, rape etc. - stood at 25,485. 25.2% (6414 cases) were
committed by people in positions of religious influence! The majority were
committed by Christians (2840). This is the condition of Christianity in Korea
today. Crimes continue in spite of pleas urging for justice but light is on the
horizon as Shincheonji Church works to expose these deeds.
[Issue-In] Who is the Light and Salt? Shincheonji Church of
Jesus Exposes The Current Condition of 'Criminal Pastors'. 12,000 Cases In 10
Years.
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