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| A quarantine official sprays disinfectant in a Shincheonji Church facility in Seodaemun District, Seoul, Feb. 21. Korea Times photo by Ko Young-kwon |
By Kim Se-jeong
The number of coronavirus patients will continue to increase unless the government puts a stop to the way the Shincheonji Church does its missionary work, said an expert on the secretive religious sect at the center of the COVID-19 outbreak in Korea.
Shincheonji, officially known as the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, sends its members to other Christian churches as converts in disguise to poach members from them.
"This is the main strategy for their missionary work," said Lee Duck-sure who leads a group of experts studying Christian sects in Korea and helping members who wish to leave them.
"One case I heard in Daegu last week was that a church had one of its deaconesses confirmed as a virus patient. Only then, the church discovered that she was a secret Shincheonji member and had been to meetings with the 31st patient," he said. "From a quarantine point of view, this is a big problem because these people are spreading the virus all over."
Under Korean constitutional law, the government is not permitted to intervene in religious activities. However, calls for intervention are rising. The government will soon have to respond to an online petition calling for Cheong Wa Dae to disband the Shincheonji Church.
Lee was skeptical about the sect's promise to shut down their more than 1,000 facilities and insisted the government use force to pressure the church.
"Beside official churches, they have many secret places used for gatherings. And they will not tell the government where they all are. They are dishonest by nature. The government should use physical force to pressure them."
On Tuesday morning, Gyeonggi Province became the first local government to enter the Gwacheon branch of the church without its consent.
According to Shincheonji's teachings, winning new converts is a way to earn the highest of God's blessings which is to become one of the so-called "kings" to rule the earth when the "final day" comes ― only 144,000 people can rise to these positions. The church rewards members who win many new converts while it punishes those who fail to do so.
Also, Shincheonji interprets the Bible in such a way that targets all other Christians as potential converts and all other Christian denominations as organizations to be disbanded.
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