An Italian Sociologist Discusses the Facts on Shincheonji Church with Coronavirus Pandemic

An Italian Sociologist Discusses the Facts on Shincheonji Church with Coronavirus Pandemic

 

Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne discusses the issues Shincheonji faces after coronavirus pandemic.

 

 

   Shincheonji has its official name, “Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony.” The origin of its name is from the Bible. The meaning of the name is the church to testify the fulfillment of the prophecy of Revelation of the New Testament in the Bible. Shincheonji pursues faith to true God based on the correct understanding of the Bible, especially about Revelation. As Shincheonji Church can have people understand the whole Bible, many believers of pre-existing churches go to Shincheonji. So some pre-existing churches hate the church, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK) which represents the Christianity of Korea calls Shincheonji as cult, and even some slanderers from CCK are together with political power and the press. That’s why after “Patient 31,” a Shincheonji congregant, was confirmed of COVID-19 and secondary infection spreaded out, some politicians and the press have slandered Shincheonji indiscriminately.

 

   Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist and the founder and Managing Director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) in Torino, Italy discusses the issues the church faces in an article titled, “South Korea: Intolerance Against Shincheonji Church After Coronavirus Incident.” Massimo Introvigne said, “As a scholar who has studied Shincheonji, I am concerned with the fact that international media that obviously know nothing about it have ‘discovered’ this church overnight because of the coronavirus incidents in Korea, and have repeated inaccurate information they found on low-level internet sources.”

 

 

   He defends the church and asserts, “As far as I have ascertained, Shincheonji is cooperating with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) to contain the coronavirus, complying with all the indication of the authorities, and even testing for the virus all of its members at its own expenses. Shincheonji has become a scapegoat during this epidemic, in order to distract the public attention that despite concerns voiced by the Korean Medical Association, South Korea did not prohibit entry into the country from China. The South Korean public news agency, Yonhap News, mentioned the possible relationship between the arrival of 1,000 Chinese students in school trips to Daegu earlier this year and the outbreak of the epidemics there. Instead, Shincheonji is unfairly blamed, even if, 24 hours after one of its devotees was identified as infected with the virus, it provided the authorities with a full list of its members. Members were also encouraged to tell co-workers and their bosses that they belong to Shincheonji—no small step, since because of the anti-Shincheonji campaigns people normally keep a low profile in the workplace, and now they put themselves at risk of being insulted, threatened, and even losing their jobs.”

 

   Above his mentions agree with Shincheonji’s answers against baseless questions on the press. Though Shincheonji Church had mistakes on quarantine about COVID-19, Shincheonji Church become a political and religious scapegoat in South Korea. Yet, anyone who blamed Shincheonji has not apologized to Shincheonji Church. The truth will come out. Shincheonji have cooperated with the Korean government more than every groups and did not hide the list of its members. I wish religious intolerance and fake news disappear in South Korea. And the Korean government should try to keep the political neutrality and religious freedom according the Constitutional law.

 

See the whole article on above content.

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/516496839/after-the-coronavirus-in-south-korea-intolerance-against-shincheonji

 

FactCheck on Shincheonji in regards to the novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19)

http://enblog.shincheonji.kr/p/covid-19-fact-checker.html