JANUARY 16, 2016, 11:55 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2016, 10:13 AM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF AND CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Two years ago, 1,200 young people wearing bright yellow shirts from churches connected to the World Mission Society Church of God in Ridgewood filled an auditorium to receive emergency response training, prompting Bergen County officials to praise their unbridled enthusiasm, which included a rendition of the wave.
“We love you,” they chanted in return.
Former church members say they, too, were overflowing with love when they joined the church, but at some point saw another side to a rapidly growing religion rooted in a belief that a South Korean woman in her 70s is the physical manifestation of God. These ex-members — from New Jersey as well as other parts of the country — offered similar, independent accounts of being lured into the church, slowly at first, without being told all of its beliefs, then frightened into devotion and donating large portions of their savings by talk of the impending end of the world — in 2012.
Some of them, as well as several experts, have gone so far as to call the church a cult.
Leaders of the Ridgewood church, an offshoot of the South Korean World Mission Society Church of God, which boasts more than 2 million followers worldwide, responded to its critics by saying in statements to The Record that the label “cult” is a form of “religious intolerance” used to denigrate groups with “certain views that are contrary to the norm.” They denied preaching that the world would end four years ago.
And in a court filing, they said their “unfamiliar beliefs,” which include devotion to Zahng Gil-Jah, or the Heavenly Mother, left them “vulnerable to persecution as any new religion throughout history.” They called accusations made against them “fabrications.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/controversy-engulfs-ridgewood-church-officials-praise-deeds-ex-members-call-it-a-cult-1.1493693
