The reason I've posted about this site is because of another site concerned with cults is also evaluating this group: [
www.jmscult.com]
Korea, like the US is fertile ground for con-men and people with questionable motivations to establish profit-seeking entities disguised as churches. The effort to warn people about them or at the very least inform them, particularly in Korea is a little difficult. The laws regarding what can be said about a private individual, company, or organization like ShinChongJi go a long ways in their bias towards protecting the rich and powerful (and frequently corrupt). Essentially, anything damaging you say...even if it's true...can the basis for legal action against the author. So, for that and other reasons, posting about this group and others is difficult because they retain a vigilant legal staff and various English-speaking underlings to subvert any attempt to give a perspective (other than their own) on their group. To this end, my very long and I thought, potentially informative thread on Dave's ESL Cafe...a popular online forum for English teachers in Korea, has bent to the will of SJC and deleted the thread in question. SJC has a very big event coming up in September and they are very keen to get a lot of foreign faces in their literature, websites, and what have you. The reasons for this are speculative...but some believe that by associating foreigners with this group will lend credibility to their cause among the Korean public, which has been warned extensively about dealing with this group...which has been publicly (on the news) been labeled as a cult.
There is some mention of them in Orange County as Man Hee Lee appeared at the Crystal Cathedral to promote himself as the one true messenger of salvation and possibly the subject of temporal worship, adoration, and financial contributions.
I'm curious what dealings, if any, people have had with either Mannam, The Serving Group, or ShinChongJi in the US or other countries (apparently they made an appearance in Germany not so long ago). Cults like this are quite aggressive in acquiring new members from the recently emigrated Korean families and students...and they have dogged my footsteps here in Korea for the last two and half months. I cannot leave my house without encountering small groups of attractive young women or well-spoken young men who smile and invite people to join their activities.
My objection to this group and reasons for suspecting them to be a cult are the following:
-they actively attempt to deceive people about their connection (that of Mannam to ShinChongJi), even when their literature and websites make quite a clear connection between the two
-the allegation that they are a cult has been made by a variety of groups in Korea...including the staff of a university which published warning about the group in their school newsletter. It should be noted that some of the groups warning of this group and possible cult status are competing denominations, some are merely orthodox protestant churches.
-they seem to target people for recruitment who might be considered vulnerable: foreigners, students, young people
-according Korean posters there are pending legal actions against the group for a variety of crimes including harassment, kidnapping, assault, and sexual assault.
Clearly this deserves more research and mostly likely conclusions will have to be postponed, but my initial impression was not good. Please post if you have additional or different information.