Hi family and friends,
Hoping this message
finds you well! I wanted to email you all and share a warning about a
false-doctrine group I encountered here over the past few weeks, in case
they're part of a larger push east.
It all
started when I visited the Arlington branch of McLean Bible Church
(formerly Frontline) for its Monday service. It's been four years since
I last worshipped there, and I was wondering how things were
different. Afterwards, a guy around my age approached me and struck up a
conversation, saying he was new to the area, staying with some friends,
and was interested in checking out churches/Bible studies.
Now,
as a bit of background, since I've moved here it's been difficult
figuring out what church to stick with. In all honesty, the transition
has also been rough on my motivation some Sunday mornings. School and
work have so far been an obstacle for me to check out more than a few
small groups on weeknights, let alone visit consistently. So, given my
recent lack of regular Christian community, it was honestly nice to be
approached by a seemingly genuine person. He initiated a morning meet
over coffee and shared about how he'd moved from southern California
where he'd been involved in setting up three or four ministry groups at
schools. He shared a bit about how he had a Presbyterian background and
spent some time in South Korea before coming back to the States. When
the conversation turned to my involvement in InterVarsity, he said he
knew what it was--but the first red flag appeared when he incorrectly
mentioned the reason why the IV chapters in California were
derecognized. Hindsight of course brings clarity, but at the time while
I did think it was strange, I assumed it was probably because he was
with a church group and not on campus as much. He also indicated he was
here for work and also ministry efforts, but didn't really elaborate.
Red flag #2.
After, he asked if I wanted to
get dinner that night with him and his two friends, which I agreed to
join. Overall it was nice having conversation and they were friendly
enough. While trading small talk though, it appeared that while one
friend had a familial connection to the DC metro area, they'd both moved
from southern California around the same time frame (1-2 weeks) as the
first guy. Cue red flag #3. Again odd, but not unheard of. Then they
invited me to a Bible study last Tuesday night, which I figured I should
check out just to see what their deal was. But still, red flag #4,
because the first guy's initial pitch was an interest in McLean's SG.
When
I arrived, they were meeting in the conference room of an office in
Alexandria, not a church. Red flag #5. They shared that they'd found
out the owners of the building were Christian and that they (the owners)
were letting them use the space for ministry work. I met five or six
other members, who were originally from all over the country and world.
But their common denominator was they had all moved out here from
southern California a couple weeks ago. Red flags at this point were
popping up everywhere (Even though they had snacks!). Aside from me
there were maybe 5-6 other visitors. At this point, I was wary, but
considered that maybe I was just over-thinking it all or being
judgmental. If anything, the message would be revealing.
We
started with an icebreaker, and then sang two songs ("Oceans/Where Feet
May Fail" and "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever"). The person who
gave the talk, to my surprise, couldn't have been older than me by much
(late 20s at most), and yet the others called him a pastor, despite his
one denial at the beginning of the talk. He shared how he had
previously been in the Philippines doing missionary work and wanted to
give us insight into the lessons he learned. "Seeking God" was the
topic, and it started innocently enough. However, the passage he first
mentioned (Psalms 14:2) was not the foundation of the message. Rather,
he started jumping around to different books, making connections between
the English words and phrases. It was telling that he did not refer to
the original/pre-translation terms. Nor did he bring
historical/cultural context about the verses into his exposition. (At
this point my note taking lessened until at one point I just stopped.)
Towards the end, his main point was that if you break up the hardened
ground of your hearts and seek God with all your heart, He will reveal
things about Himself that you didn't know, which leads to finding life
and thus finding favor with Him. He then shared generally about their
goals to build up the body, rather than outreach, and then go out and
impact the area.
When we were in discussion
groups afterward, I remembered there had been no mention of Christ or
sin or grace or redemption. And even though the songs are common in
Christian settings, the lyrics conveniently don't mention Christ by name
either. So, when we were going around sharing prayer requests, I
decided to test my mini-hypothesis. I mentioned a request for humility
in breaking up that ground, following Christ's humble example of being
obedient to God the Father. When the group leader prayed for each one
of us, he repeated the humility part for me but did not mention Jesus.
Thankfully I had a paper due at midnight,
so I used that as an excuse to leave soon after we finished. My
initial impression from all this was that it was some kind of
charismatic meeting with gnostic influences.
The other red flags:
-
The original guy I met went to different churches with me the past two
Sundays (McLean Bible at Tysons Corner, and Capitol Hill Baptist) since
I'd previously invited him along to visit upon initially meeting him.
In both he did not take notes or participate much during the sermons,
aside from the occasional nod. (He actually was pretty late to the
former and fell asleep during the latter.) However, on Tuesday evening
he was diligent in transcribing everything written on the whiteboard.
-
Receiving confirmation that the whiteboard style was used during each
Bible study. It reminded me of some similar false movements that relied
on chalkboards or whiteboards to emphasize 'connections' between verses
to reveal hidden 'truths'. However, I haven't been able to remember
the style's name. (If anyone does, please let me know because it's
bothering me, haha.)
- Digging around the original guy's
Google+ page with the email address he'd provided. One of the tabs
showed his YouTube account which listed some enthusiastic comments he
made on videos featuring several speeches given by a Man-Hee Lee.
Looking that guy up was the final confirmation needed to determine that
whole thing was most definitely a cult. Here's a wiki page and an article I
found with some background on his Shinchunji movement. A clarification
worth noting is that neither this Lee figure nor the movement was
mentioned at all during the Tuesday session. However, considering last
week was the first gathering, anything is possible going forward.
Needless
to say I will not be returning to that group. Retrospectively the
similarity to everything I knew from my church background was alarming.
From a worldly sense though, it was an appealing group. They were all
well-dressed/fashionable, young (mid-20s), and very outgoing/affirming.
They had a respect and enthusiasm for "the word" and used NIV Bibles.
However, thinking about all the other clues revealed a group not
following Christ.
Anyways, thanks for
being willing to read this long email. Hopefully this will be an
encouragement to remain vigilant for these individuals in your churches
and fellowships. Perhaps they want to target DC given its proximity to
government, but please be aware regardless of your
location/circumstances. If you've just moved somewhere, don't put off
or waffle on your church decision. While I'm grateful for the
experience to know what to watch out for, I'm even more grateful for the
Spirit's gentle but insistent urging that something was off before it
was too late. And despite all this, it was certainly a situation I
could have prevented by making a faster effort to get plugged into a
church and meet people. All glory to God for His protection.
Feel
free to forward this widely to others you know. Again, hope you all
are doing well and would love to catch up sometime!
Best,
BH
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