My Experience with a Cult

In June 1997, I returned to Osan Air Base, Korea for another tour. This was my second of three tours to Korea. One of my coworkers, named Static Kling (it was his real name), invited me to meet with a few of his friends off base for bible study. We met that night and Kling had two friends with him. One guy had long hair and was named Daniel--a biblical name and he was a nice guy. Another guy with glasses came along and headed the discussion. They called themselves disciples which seemed appealing and they really knew the bible. They invited me to church and I went to Seoul to their church which was called the Seoul International Church of Christ.

After a while I began to feel uncomfortable with their attempts at control. That's a big turn off to me. They seemed to demand your time--like the military doesn't take enough of my time. Something else that seemed very unusual to me was they liked to confess their sins. One night at midnight during the week, I received a phone call from a church member who confessed to me about masturbating. I wanted to say, "Thanks! Now with that image I will not go back to sleep!"

I also remember other methods of control. A young lady in the church was dating a non-believer. She was told to break it off and she did. The church was organized in a military-style chain-of-command structure. In other words everybody had somebody to report to and with this structure they had tight control over everyone.

Another one of my friends at work showed me a pamphlet about the church that his parents mailed to him. The pamphlet was from the Christian Research Institute and was titled something like, "Is the IOCC a cult?" I looked at the pamphlet and it confirmed my suspicions. After that I wanted nothing to do with this cult.

Then in October 1997 I needed to go on a trip to Washington, D.C. I lived about 30 miles from Seoul but unfortunately I could not get a bus that would leave early enough in the morning for me to make it to the airport on time. Static Kling told me that I could stay at his "brother's" houses which was very close to the airport. I could wake up early and get on the subway to go to the airport.

So, we left Osan Air Base on a bus at approximately 5:00 pm Friday afternoon. The traffic was terrible and it rained very hard. It took two hours for us to take what was usually a 45 minute drive. As we were approaching the airport, suddenly the bus turned and went the other direction. At that moment I knew something was "fishy" but I only had American money and two full suitcases so I was stuck in a sense. Then we pulled up to the church. I looked over at Static and his friend and I sternly said, "I do not appreciate this." Then we exited the bus and went inside the church.

Once inside the church, the first thing I was was a very large wooden table. All the church leadership was sitting at the table and an open chair was available for me. As I sat down a guy pushed a piece of paper and a pen towards me. He told me to write down all the terrible sins of my life. I thought, "This is blackmail." I was right. I arrived at the church around 7 pm and they kept throwing "spiritual darts" at me in an attempt to scare me into joining their church. I said, "No thanks, I'm not interested."

There's more to the story than this. But I would like to stop here to make a point.

Anybody or any organization that uses fear and control is not doing it for the cause of religion or politics. They are doing it for control--control of your mind. Whenever you see fear and control, leave immediately.

Heed my advice.

cheers

Paul