One phenomenon in Christian history is how apocalyptic leaders and movements give birth to other movements that claim to be the final movement in Christianity.
The following report sent by a professor in California substantiates Manhee Lee's involvement in three other Korean end-time movements before Shincheonji.
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A Short Genealogy of the Shinchonji Church of Jesus (1)
Here is some information on historical and theological connections between the Shinchonji Church of Jesus and other apocalyptic Korean movements. Manhee Lee (b. 1931), the founder of the Shinchonji Church of Jesus, originally belonged to a faith-healing group begun by Tae Sun Park (b. 1915) (S. Lee 139). This group was known as the Olive Tree Movement, because Mr. Park linked himself to the return of Christ as one (or both) of the two witnesses or olive trees in Revelation 11 (Grayson 209; Moos 117). (His followers, in fact, revised Wesley’s hymn to read “Joy to the world, the Olive has come” [Moos 116]). Mr. Park also identified himself as the mysterious, ever-victorious figure who comes from the east in Isaiah 41:2 (Grayson 209). His followers called him the “Righteous Man of the East,” and they (or he) claimed he would never die—or, at least, that the last day of the world would come within his lifetime (Moos 120).
The Olive Tree movement was the largest and fastest growing of the new, syncretic Korean religions after the Korean War (Grayson 208). By 1963 it had gained from 800,000 to 2,000,000 followers in over 300 congregations (Moos 119). Many of the followers lived in specially constructed industrial communities outside of Seoul that made a variety of “Zion” products—everything from blankets and underwear to caramels and artificial flowers (Moos 113). The movement also had a popular presence in rural areas, where Mr. Park’s distinctive white churches, with crimson crosses painted atop crenellated towers, dotted the countryside (Grayson 207). By the mid-to-late 1960s, it seemed to some observers that Mr. Park’s movement would supplant mainline Protestant groups in South Korea (Grayson 208).
Mr. Park was an industrialist and elder in the Presbyterian Church who was attracted to revivalist movements. He himself had a growing sense that there must be more to Christian faith than the Presbyterians seemed to offer. While helping to lead an all-night revival meeting for 20,000 people in southern Seoul in 1955, he received a vision of fire and water descending from heaven. He then came down from the platform and massaged the head of a man identified as a cripple, and Mr. Park’s helpers then cried out that the man could walk. By sunrise, after Mr. Park had circulated among the crowd and massaged many heads and limbs, his helpers shouted to great applause that he had healed 1,000 people (Grayson 208; Moos 115-116). Thus the Olive Tree movement was born.
Park was expelled from the Presbyterian Church in 1956 on charges of heresy. He claimed in return that he was a truer Christian than the ones who denounced him, and his followers continued to call him Elder Park. It should be noted here that a vexed relationship with the Presbyterian Church has marked not only Mr. Park’s movement but also all of his successor movements, all of which have regarded themselves as supra-denominational (Grayson 208; Moos 117).
The worship services that evolved in the Olive Tree movement were somewhat Presbyterian in form but came to involve hours of frenzied hymn-chanting, hand-clapping, and drum-beating. Many followers, both women and men, deserted their families to donate all their worldly possessions in order to gain eternal life on Mr. Park’s terms. According to the anthropologist Felix Moos, “Women followers were observed to be especially eager to offer whatever possessions they had—rings, watches, clothing; some ardent believers were even seen shedding their skirts during revival services since they had nothing else to give” (119).
Mr. Park was accused, among other things, of injuring and defrauding his followers, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in jail in 1959. But a regime change resulted in a swift pardon, and Mr. Park spent only a few months in prison (Grayson 208; Moos 117-18). Scandals connected with Mr. Park and his family from the 1970s onward, however, resulted in mass defections (Grayson 208).
By 1969, Manhee Lee had already abandoned the Olive Tree movement to join another—the Tent Temple movement. The Tent Temple—or the Temple of the Tabernacle—was founded by Jae Yul Yoo (b. 1949), also known as the “Young Servant.” Mr. Yoo had previously been a follower of Jogkyu Kim and his Hosang prayer house. When Mr. Kim became involved in a sexual scandal with a female member, however, Mr. Yoo left the group with a handful of members and started his own (S. Lee 138).
According to Mr. Yoo, Jesus spoke only in parables and secrets. Since the end times were now said to be imminent, these parables and secrets needed to be illumined, and Mr. Yoo alone could properly do this. His method of interpretation was to match each passage of Scripture with its hidden twin. For, according to Mr. Yoo, all verses come in secret pairs (S. Lee 139).
Mr. Yoo also taught that the Lord had prepared a secret room near the reservoir of Mt. Chungkye, on the southern outskirts of Seoul, as a refuge of escape from the battle of Armageddon. After the chosen saints entered this valley, the world would be covered by fire. Then the saints would be made into kings to rule the world (S. Lee 138-39).
Mr. Yoo’s Tent Temple movement grew to 5,000 members in the 1970s. The group shrank when Mr. Yoo was accused of fraud. Mr. Yoo subsequently gave up his leadership of the movement, donated its assets to the Presbyterian Church, and moved to the United States in 1980, where he now pursues a private business and denounces the teachings of Manhee Lee, in part because Mr. Lee was critical of Mr. Yoo’s defection from his own movement (S. Lee 139, 143).
Manhee Lee’s Shinchonji Church of Jesus is one of several apocalyptic groups that came out of Mr. Yoo’s Tent Temple movement. Two other such groups are Poong Il Kim’s Saegwang Central Church and the late In Hee Koo’s Heaven Gospel Witnessing Association (S. Lee 139).
Mr. Kim, founder of the Saegwang Central Church, was originally an evangelist for Mr. Park and then a follower of Mr. Yoo. He founded his own movement in 1974. Like Mr. Yoo, he held that all passages in the Bible are secretly paired—and that one must know these secret pairings to be saved. He named himself “The Counselor” or “Another Counselor.” According to Mr. Kim, the Kingdom of Heaven would soon be established in Korea, and the abode of salvation would be in his church alone. In 2009, he publicly confessed in a newspaper that he was not the divine Counselor after all, and he repented and apologized. However, he has maintained leadership of his movement, and he continues to insist that believers can only receive their salvation through the Saegwang Central Church (S. Lee 140-42).
Like Manhee Lee, In Hee Koo of the Heaven Gospel movement had been part of Tae Sun Park’s group and, also like Manhee Lee, had joined the Temple Tent movement in the late 1960s. He started his own Heaven Gospel movement in 1971 after receiving a vision in which he was commanded to “receive the worship of the nations.” He was imprisoned as part of a government crackdown on pseudo-religions in 1975, and he died in prison in 1976. Among his teachings: (1) the Korean flag was a symbol for God and contained the meaning and message of Scripture; (2) Scripture itself was a system of parables, secrets, symbols, and mirrored shadows; (3) the saints should learn the words of God directly from those who had received the Spirit of God; (4) the second coming of Christ would take place in Korea; (5) Mr. Koo himself embodied that second coming; (6) judgment day would arrive on November 10, 1973. When judgment day did not arrive as predicted, many of his followers literally wanted their money back. Other followers, however, even after Mr. Koo had died, continued to believe that they had witnessed in him the second coming of Jesus (S. Lee 141-43).
After Mr. Koo’s death, the Heaven Gospel movement divided into many branches. Among them, The Korean Jesus Churches of Heavenly Gospel Evangelical Association became the best known. This group was headed by Chong Il Choi, who represented himself as the “wife “of Mr. Koo. He was regarded as the “Lamb” who embodies the second coming of Christ in Revelation. Mr. Choi also claimed that he could perfectly interpret all sixty-six books of the Bible. Each of the branches of the Heaven Gospel movement vigorously asserts itself as the only path of true belief (S. Lee 141).
Manhee Lee’s Shinchonji Church of Jesus is the third main offshoot of the Tent Temple movement. In addition to being a follower of Mr. Sun and then of Mr. Yoo, Mr. Lee subsequently followed Man Bong Baek, who claimed to be God and was referred to by many as “Solomon.” Mr. Baek, like Mr. Koo, also stipulated a date for the end of the world. When this date came and went, Mr. Baek’s followers deserted him. Mr. Lee gathered some of these to form the Shinchoji Church of Jesus (SCJ). Manhee Lee dates the official beginning of SCJ as 1984, which, he says, is “the year that the universe completed its orbit and returned to its point of origin” (M. Lee 44).
Like others from the Tent Temple movement, Manhee Lee asserts that the Bible is made up of parables and secrets, and that one must understand the exact meaning of these passages in order to be saved. Manhee Lee, as the “promised pastor,” is the only one who can impart a complete mastery of the scriptures. Also like others from the Tent Temple movement, Mr. Lee asserts that the new heaven and new earth will begin in Korea. When the number of the saved reaches 144,000, the era of Shinchonji will begin at Gua Chun City, located in the same valley designated by Mr. Yoo. At this time, or by this time, the souls of 144,000 martyrs, having waited in heaven, will enter the bodies of the 144,000 SCJ saints. Mr. Lee himself, like Mr. Sun before him, claims that he will never die, and that his followers will partake of his “fleshly immortality,” a sort of redefined resurrection, through becoming the recipients of the spirits of the dead martyrs. At present, Manhee Lee is in his early 80s and not in good health. Recently, several leaders within SCJ have departed from the organization to begin their own movements, each leader claiming to be divinely anointed and uniquely possessed of the truth of the scriptures (S. Lee 140-43).
In summary, then, SCJ is one of three Korean apocalyptic movements that were all derived from Mr. Yoo’s Tent Temple movement. In addition, the leaders of all three of these movements were originally involved in Mr. Park’s Olive Tree movement. At least two of these third-generation movements, including SCJ, have in turn given rise to further, somewhat similar movements.
Also in summary, it can be seen that SCJ demonstrates a number of common features with one or more of these related movements:
- A leader who claims divine appointment or divine identity, revealed through a vision.
- This leader’s claim of complete and exclusive understanding of the scriptures.
- A focus on the parables of Jesus and other figurative or “secret” portions of scripture—or other portions understood by the leader as figurative.
- An understanding of the leader’s exact interpretation of the parables and other figurative portions of scripture as prerequisite to a person’s salvation.
- The claim that no other leader or group offers the way of salvation.
- The claim that the leader will never die.
- The claim that the leader has a messianic role in the end times, which are imminent or in fact have already begun.
- The claim that Korea is a focal point of action in the end times.
- The claim that the valley of Mt. Chungkye in particular will be a refuge and gathering place for believers in the end times.
- The future role of these believers as rulers of the world.
Works Cited
Grayson, James Huntley. Korea: A Religious History. London: Routledge Curzon, 2002.
Lee, Man-Hee. The Creation of Heaven and Earth. Republic of Korea: Shinchonji Press, 2009.
Lee, Seung Yun. “The Genealogy of Cults: ‘The Tabernacle-Temple Denomination.’” Modern Religion April 2011: 138-43.
Moos, Felix. “Some Aspects of Park Chang No Kyo—A Korean Revitalization Movement.” Anthropological Quarterly July 1964: 110-20.
