Exponential Growth of Newly Rising Denomination ‘Shincheonji Church of Jesus’ in Republic of Korea

In just over a year, 100,000 people graduated after completing a Bible study in Shincheonji. This is an unprecedented phenomenon that is taking place globally.

Due of the corruption and the secularization of today’s religious world, many people are coming to Shincheonji to study the Bible and fill their spiritual needs. Although there is a decrease in the number of people worldwide who identify themselves as religious, there is also a rare phenomenon of over 100,000 people streaming into a church called Shincheonji, church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (a newly rising denomination in the Republic of Korea) in the short time of one year.

On November 10th 2019, Shincheonji held a graduation with over 100,000 graduates who completed a Bible study offered in Shincheonji. Shincheonji offers a free Bible study course that one must complete in order to be registered as a church member.

The graduation took place in the province of Gyeonggi-do with a total of 103,764 people who passed their graduation exam after studying the Bible in its entirety. Approximately 50,000 were present in the audience and the graduation was broadcasted in other major cities of Korea. International graduates overseas also participated through live stream broadcast.

This number of graduates is equivalent to 100 churches of over 1,000 congregation members each, which contrasts greatly from the drastic fall of the number of congregation members seen globally in the religious world. Shincheonji is the only place in the world where this many people go after completing an in-depth Bible study.

A survey conducted of all the graduates showed that 41.7% were believers practicing their faith under pre-existing denominations such as Protestantism, Catholicism, and others,. Many shared that the reason they decided to go to Shincheonji was because of its “sublime teaching of the Word.” A graduate said, “In a traditional church, I was not able to fill my spiritual hunger; however, in Shincheonji I was able to fill it with the words of the Bible and understand a clear purpose of my life as a Christian.” He continued to say, “numerous people are leaving their churches due to the corruption and secularization that is prevalent in many churches today, but Shincheonji helps believers to have a logical and a clear understanding of what it means to be reborn with the Word. Therefore, I chose to go Shincheonji.”

It is incredible to see a 100,000-person graduation; however, what is more shocking is that Shincheonji – which is teaching the fulfillment of Revelation and has been growing at an incredibly rapid pace since 1984— is labeled as a “cult” by the Christian world of the Republic of Korea.

To the major allegations made against Shincheonji such as “Shincheonji claims that the founder of Shincheonji is the One Who Overcomes,” and “Shincheonji hides their true identity when evangelizing and brainwashes the people with their teaching,” the graduates reported that those are all false accusations.

Christians in the Republic of Korea responded to the rapid growth of Shincheonji by saying, “Everyone in the world of religion must repent for becoming entangled with the world, interfering with politics, and losing trust of believers. It seems that those who want to carry out a genuine life of faith are going to Shincheonji.”

However, Shincheonji states that 95% of those who chose to come to Shincheonji (according to the survey done on graduates) is because of the excellent teaching of Bible. Shincheonji teaches the Bible in its entirety from the book of Genesis to Revelation in less than 1 year, and the greatest difference between traditional churches and Shincheonji is the only place that accurately teaches the fulfillment of the prophecies of Revelation.

The graduation will be the starting point of Shincheonji’s continuous growth. Because the 100,000 graduates have fulfilled a 100% evangelism rate, there are currently over 200,000 people studying the Bible in Shincheonji. If Shincheonji continues to grow at this pace, within three years it will reach 1 million congregation members, and the status quo of the religious world will change forever.