CRI Evaluation of the teachings of Manmin cult leader Lee Jae-Rock
Christian Research Institute
30162 Tomas
Rancho Santa Margarita
California 92688-2124
www.equip.org
January 9, 2003
Dear David,
Greetings in the name of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
We appreciate your interest in the ministry of CRI and your confidence in our ability to offer discerning evaluations of groups, individuals, and other topics of vital interest to Christians.
CRI has no formal evaluation of the teachings of Rev. Lee Jae-Rock, but we believe he teaches some aberrant Christian peculiar doctrines, and we do not recommend his ministry.
Rev. Lee Jae-Rock testifies to having suffered many years of chronic illnesses, was told by his own mother, "You should die, die! Death is a real filial duty for you" but was miraculously headed in 1974 after visiting Hyun-Shin-Ae Altar. Jae-Rock eventually entered into fulltime ministry, and has been credited for serving as President of the United Holiness Church of Korea, chairman of the board for Washington Christian Radio System, president of the National Evangelization paper, president of Light and Salt Mission, president of The Christian World Revival Mission, president of Manmin TV, and senior pastor of Manmin Joong-ang Church.
Doctrinally, Rev. Jae-Rock affirms all the pastors, evangelists, and saints of the Manmin Joong-ang Church believe in God the Trinity and the Apostles Creed as the only creed based on the Bible. He also teaches a fulfillment of the Great Commission comes through a fivefold gospel message, which includes regeneration (John 3:5), sanctification (1 Peter 1:16; 1 Tim. 4:5), divine healing (Exod. 3:15; Mark 1:34; Isa. 53:5), resurrection (1 Peter 1:3), and the return of Christ (Rev. 22:20).
Jae-Rock does not explain in detail the specific points of the fivefold ministry but simply cites the scriptural references. Does he mean all these things are essential for one to have salvation? Or are all these things essential to the ministry of the church?
Further inquiry revealed definite problems with Jae-Rock's views on sanctification and healing. Regarding sanctification, he teaches true spiritually minded people should reject critical thinking. He says:
If you still live in the darkness and carry sinful mind, you will never be used by God. Today is the last days of human cultivation. Really you should become spiritual workers of the Holy Spirit, not sinful workers. Please discard your position, your knowledge, your career, your theological background and so on. And please check your heart in the light of the truth of God. Let's not forget that we should get rid of even a fragment of your sinful mind. Then, you should surrender yourselves wholly to the word of God. With regard to healing, he holds that sickness and suffering are the results of unrepentant sin and truly spiritual people ought to have good health.
He says:
Wherefore if you are suffering from the disease, you must look back upon yourselves whether you have failed to obey God's word and repent immediately. Most of all, you must repent that you didn't love God but worshipped the idol and doubted God Almighty. You must repent that you have fail [sic] to pray, to love and to obey God without keeping the Lord's Day completely, etc.
Elsewhere he says:
If you live within God's word, you receive the blessing of your soul getting along well. And when your soul is getting along well, you receive the blessing of health and the blessing that all may go well with you. So being healthy, and furthermore being rejuvenated is the definite evidence of those who live within God's word, love God and believe in Him truly. It is the blessing that is given as much as you recover the lost image of God, which was lost by Adam's disobedience.
We disagree with these teachings, and believe that true spirituality cannot be divorced from critical thinking. Those departing from Scripture and acquiescing to such subjective and arbitrary means of determining spiritual truths are in danger of falling into grievous error. It is folly to rely upon the whims of the heart over and against scripture in discerning spiritual matters. For example, many Christians struggle with whether or not they are saved, even though they are trusting in Christ alone for their salvation. In such instances, they are relying upon their feelings rather than upon the promises of God (e.g., John 5:24, Rom. 5:1-5; 1 John 5:13).
Jeremiah 17:9 asserts: The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?? Although Christians have been given a new nature in Christ, they also retain their fallen nature in this life. Our fallen nature is always at war with our new nature; therefore, Christians remain susceptible to spiritual deception. As such, Scripture warns the church repeatedly of false teachers and unsound doctrines (e.g., Acts 20:29-31; 1 Tim 1:3-4; 2 Peter 2:1-3). Therefore, we must always endeavor to test all things and feelings in the light of Scripture (e.g., 1 Thess. 5:21; Acts 17:11).
There is also a proper sense in which we might understand the role of emotions in our Christian walk. In Jeremiah 31:33 God asserts: I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. Jesus exhorts us to love God with our hearts and our minds (Matt. 22:37). Certainly, loving God with the heart involves an experiential aspect that goes beyond mere head knowledge. We can read about love, for instance, and have a basic understanding of what it entails (i.e. cognitively), but the experience or feeling of love (i.e. from the heart) is what makes this emotion meaningful to us.
This idea of the head and heart working hand-in-hand is extremely important. For example, there are those who believe in the existence of God, and who may even refer to Christ as Lord? however, unless their hearts belong to God (i.e. possessing faith and trust), they are no better off than demons, who also believe, and yet, are condemned (James 2:19). It is also true that the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts and guides us into all truth (John 16:8,13), albeit, through the Word of God.
Whether the Word is read or proclaimed, the Holy Spirit's influence upon regenerate children of God can be sensed on an experiential level (Rom. 8:16), comprehended on a mental level (John 16:13), and evidenced by the fruit it produces (Gal. 5:22). Scripture also proclaims that we are to 뱖orship the Father in spirit and in truth?(John 4:24). In other words, our entire hearts are to be involved in the act of worship, but not the exclusion of sound doctrine. Thus, while thoughts and emotions have their proper place in our Christian walk, it is by God's Word alone, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we gain spiritual wisdom and knowledge whereby our emotional experience flows.
For more information on the dangers of excessive emotionalism in the church, we recommend Hank Hanagraff's book Counterfeit Revival - updated and expanded (B614/$13).
We also disagree with Jae-Rock's teaching that one can find perfect health in living a personal life of holiness and repentance from sin. For example, Epaphroditus fell sick to the point of death, but Paul encourages the Philippian church to receive him with a hero's welcome for his service to the Lord (Phil. 32:25-30). Even Paul prayed three times to be healed from a constant thorn in the flesh, but was not healed and came to the understanding that it was in his own weaknesses Christ's power was exalted (2 Cor. 11:7-10). In both cases, there is no evidence showing their sicknesses were the result of a lack of personal holiness.
Jae-Rock also uses Scripture out of context in propagating a radical concept of the identity of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and extraterrestrials (ETs). Using 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 he argues that in the third heaven is the abode of the Trinity, the second is the Garden of Eden, which is an intermediate world between heaven and earth, and the third is the sky that everyone can physically see. He goes on to say that the inhabitants of the Garden of Eden are the Cherubim, that can traverse the divide between heaven and earth, they can be seen by people, and witnesses usually categorize them as UFOs and ETs.
The fact that the spiritual world exists outside of time and space explains the reasons for the erratic behavior and strange phenomena surrounding those who have had a close encounter. Jae-Rock's view ultimately draws out an entire universe set in another dimension based on a very vague and difficult to understand passage of scripture.
Scripture, however, does not teach of literal levels of heaven, but uses metaphoric language to convey truths about spiritual things. [The following adapted from combined letter on anthropomorphic terms] When we speak of God, angels, demons, heaven, hell, we are speaking of immaterial things. In other words they cannot be measured in terms of size, shape, weight, color, sound, or smell.
For example, much of what the Scriptures say describing God is stated in anthropomorphic terms, which means that God is depicted in human terms as having human characteristics and attributes (as well as non-human ones). For instance, in Psalm 17 anthropomorphisms are used several times; verse 6 says God has ears; in verses 7 and 14 God is described as having hands; verse 8 describes God as having eyes and wings, and in verse 13 God wields a sword.
Of course, being spirit, God has no physical body with arms and hands, eyes or ears and doesn't actually wield a steel sword. God's incommunicable attribute of being eternal is also expressed in anthropomorphic terms. Therefore, when the Bible speaks about God as The beginning and the first, it is expressing God's eternity and primacy in existence in terms that are understandable to us.
But anthropomorphisms are simply that; attributing things from this physical realm to God in order to communicate to and with us creatures in a way we can picture in order to be able to have a framework for belief in Him and to have a personal relationship with Him. We cannot as easily relate to a spirit; who has seen or touched or spoken to or felt emotionally, a spirit?
Even our own spirit's existence we must take largely on faith, since we identify our physical selves in a physical realm. We can conceive of something other than the physical realm, but what exactly is unknown to us and our concept of it depends on whom we choose to listen to. Even our concepts of the spirit realm tend to describe the spirits as being largely disembodied physical bodies: sort of transparent, shadowy photocopies of us.
Likewise, when we speak of Heaven, we are not talking about a physical location such as a planet orbiting a star in a galaxy furthest from our Milky Way. A better understanding of 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 is that Paul was writing of himself being caught up to the third heaven.? In Paul's day, the Jews had a compartmentalized view of the universe. First, they perceived the atmosphere in which we live. This would be described as the first heaven.? The second heaven would then be the realm of the stars, moons, and planets.
Lastly, the third heaven was thought of as the place where God had his dwelling place. This view was not at all uncommon in the Ancient East. There were even some who thought that the universe consisted of seven heavens. So visions of angels, demons, heaven, hell, denote things in the spiritual realm, and are unseen apart from the rare instances where God temporarily manifests them to people. The previously mentioned vision of Paul and the book of Revelation are good examples of this. Furthermore, the theory of ETs being the cherubim, the angelic servants of the God almighty, cannot explain the New Age message proclaimed by those having an alien encounter (see CP0906).
For the abovementioned reasons, we do not recommend the ministry of Lee Jae-Rock.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always!
In His service,
Warrren Nozaki
Research Consultant
Christian Research Institute
References (all retrieved 10 December 2002) were all from within these 3 websites
http://wwwmanmin.or.kr/english/introduction/
http://www.manmintv.org/english
http://www.manminresearch.org
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