Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. - Romans 5

Friday, November 21, 2014

O_O (He said to share)

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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