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| Family members of victims of the secretive Shincheonji cult protest in front of the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in southern Seoul in this Feb. 26 file photo. They urged the prosecution to investigate founder Lee Man-hee and put him behind the bars for breaking numerous laws. / Korea Times file |
Pastor explains COVID-19's demographic, inter-city traits
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The worst seems to be over. After the months-long nightmare of the coronavirus outbreak, Korea has successfully flattened the infection curve. As of Tuesday afternoon, 9,786 people were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, with 162 deaths.
The fatality rate rose slightly from less than 1 percent in the early stages, but this is still lower than that of many other countries. New cases have gone down dramatically compared to early March when the virus was rampant.
Despite the positive change, there are several questions that have remained unanswered regarding South Korea's unique outbreak pattern.
In the early part of the pandemic, the country saw a rare demographic trait in confirmed cases: women in their 2os took the lion's share at nearly 30 percent. This was something unusual because in other countries people in their 50s were found to have been most susceptible to the virus. Why were 20-something women in Korea hit hardest?
Inter-city traits in infected cases also raised a question.
Gwangju, a southern city having the largest number of members of the secretive Shincheonji cult, remained relatively safe from the pandemic, whereas the southeastern city of Daegu was ravaged by COVID-19. This remains a mystery. The Shincheonji branch in Gwangju is four times larger than the branch in Daegu.
Rev. Shin Hyun-uk, director of the SCJ Cult Counselling Center watchdog in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, said such a South Korea-specific infection pattern is associated with the secretive cult's membership characteristics. "The higher ratio of young women among Shincheonji's membership is no surprise if you understand how it works," he told The Korea Times over the phone. "If you join it, you are supposed to invest three to four hours every day to gather with others to study their bible. Those who have full-time jobs find it tough to do that."
For this reason, Shin said women, young people and college students are easier targets. "Among student members, females outnumber males. I think orthodox churches also share this trait. Overrepresentation of female members is common in many churches," he said.
Shin, a former Shincheonji member, has fought against the secretive group since 2006 following his departure. He describes Shincheonji as a cult, calling founder Lee Man-hee a sham religious leader who brainwashes his members with fraudulent beliefs.
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| Rev. Shin Hyun-uk, director of the SCJ Cult Counselling Center watchdog / Courtesy of Shin Hyun-uk |
Shin said Gwangju remained relatively unhurt from the virus because very few of its members attended the Daegu gathering in February, an event that served as the "super spreader" of the pandemic across the region.
Shincheonji has 12 branches ― which they call tribes ― nationwide, named after the 12 apostles in the Bible.
For example, the Gwangju branch is called Tribe Peter.
"Tribe Peter has approximately 40,000 members and it's the largest tribe in Shincheonji. Few of them attended the Daegu gathering. In fact, most of the attendees of the Daegu gathering were regional members," said Shin.
The pastor also explained that the Daegu branch has the highest ration of college students and people in their 20s than any other branch. "The Daegu branch has nearly 10,000 members, or so, and I think about half of them are people in their 20s. Females outnumber males in the age group," he said.
Founded in 1982 by Lee, the Shincheonji membership has grown fast over the past four decades.
In 1986, its members hovered around 120. Two decades later the cult's membership grew to some 50,000 and then reached 200,000 in 2017.
Shincheonji became an enemy for other churches because of "its sneaky tactic to lure members of orthodox churches to join the cult." They disguised themselves as churchgoers and infiltrated churches to convert their members into becoming cult members.
Many big churches in Seoul have banners reading "Shincheonji Harvesters Not Allowed to Enter" hung on their front gates to warn people about them and their infiltration tactics.
Shin said the coronavirus outbreak will be a turning point for the secretive group in their membership hunt.
"Four out of every 10 Shincheonji members are people who were affiliated with orthodox churches and the remainder are non-Christians. Thanks to various awareness programs, Christians knew Shincheonji members' tactics but non-Christians didn't, so they were easier to be duped by the cult," he said. "Their fraudulent marketing was revealed after the virus outbreak (due to media outlets' coverage of the cult). So I think it's going to be tougher for them to recruit members and its membership should be negatively affected."
Pastor Shin was a Presbyterian church missionary who became involved in Shincheonji through a pastor at his church who studied "The Bible" with the cult founder Lee. Shin joined the cult in 1986 and left in 2006 after realizing he had been deceived by Lee. Since then, he has fought against the cult and helped its victims.
