Inside the bizarre recruitment tactics of the Shincheonji ‘doomsday’ church

Published October 17, 2024 By admin with Comments 0

A Korean religious sect that has been labelled a cult by former members is attempting to expand its influence in Australia by targeting young, impressionable people in cafes, on dating apps and on university campuses.

The recruitment drive has led universities to issue warnings to students about the Shincheonji church, as members pose as students and use campus facilities to lure people to Bible study without revealing links to the group.

Guardian Australia has seen training videos and documents that outline the church’s bizarre recruitment methods, which include calling recruits “fruit” and recruiters “leaves”, and which former members claim amount to coercive control.

Diane Nguyen, a former member of Shincheonji who is calling on the federal government to legislate against coercive control by organisations, describes the group as a “doomsday cult”. She says she feels despair for those who continue to be recruited and those still inside.

The Australian branch of Shincheonji did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia, but international chapters have previously denied that the church is a cult. On its global website, the church describes itself as “a temple of God … The Lord of Shincheonji is Jesus Christ who was slain”.

Church recruiters target universities, churches of other denominations and busy city locations where they approach people on their own, or people wearing religious symbols.

A former Melbourne church member, who only wanted to be identified as “Boa”, said he was targeted through a dating app. He said he met up with a woman he matched with, who brought one of her friends along.

“These two, behind the scenes, were both already members of the church, and I at the time was completely unaware of this,” he says.

“I thought they were just having conversations with me, but now I realise like 90% of the questions were trying to see if I met the criteria for Shincheonji recruitment.

Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/how-the-shincheonji-doomsday-church-targets-and-recruits-people-in-australia-ntwnfb.