A Religious Liberty Crisis in Korea. 4. The China and Japan Connection
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Why are Christian anti-cultists cooperating with leftist Japanese lawyers and an atheistic regime that persecutes religion?
August 20, 2025
The politics around anti-cult efforts can be pretty tricky, sometimes confusing, and quite paradoxical. Initially, the modern anti-cult movement was primarily led by secular humanists. Roger Ikor, who started the French anti-cult group CCMM, explained, “There isn’t really a fundamental difference between a cult and a religion; they only differ in degree and scope… If it were up to us, we’d put an end to all this nonsense—both about cults and large religions.” He also mentioned that figures like “Muhammad, Christ, and Moses” were forerunners of today’s “cult” leaders (“Les sectes et la liberté,” “Les Cahiers rationalistes” 364, 1980, pp. 76 and 87).
Canadian sociologist Stephen Kent, a prominent figure in the international anti-cult movement, suggests that most religious leaders from history, such as the Biblical Prophet Ezekiel, Paul the Apostle, and Muhammad, may have experienced conditions like schizophrenia or epilepsy. Broadening his view, Kent points out that those who believe in spirits and forces beyond the material world, and pray for divine help, hold beliefs that he describes as “magical,” which he considers could be linked to mental health issues. Kent concludes that many religions, even the largest ones, might have been founded by individuals with mental disorders (“Psychobiographies and Godly Visions: Disordered Minds and the Origins of Religiosity,” Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, pp. 64, 60, 258).
However, these secular humanists were not opposed to collaborating with Russian Orthodox leaders, who firmly believed in miracles, weeping icons, and the sacredness of Mother Russia. While they disagreed on issues like same-sex marriage, they were willing to set these differences aside to unite against a common foe: “cults.” Before the Ukraine war caused some adjustments, the international anti-cult organization FECRIS functioned on close cooperation between French secularists, who were the heirs of Ikor, and Russian Orthodox officials.
The French secularists held liberal views, while the Russian Orthodox were deeply religious. Nonetheless, they also engaged with China’s totalitarian, officially atheistic government, including giving lectures in China and inviting Chinese officials to their conferences. All of this was motivated by the idea that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” which, in practice, meant Western private anti-cult groups could be easily manipulated by the powerful Chinese anti-religious agencies and by the Russian Orthodox Church’s Putin-backed effort to defend its religious monopoly against rivals.
Although less addressed by scholars, this process has been ongoing in Asia for decades. Similar to Japan, South Korea also exhibits an unlikely alliance among Christian anti-cultists from fundamentalist churches—who, in theory, should oppose Communism—, some Christians from liberal churches, leftist intellectuals, and China. Lawyer Patricia Duval has documented a coalition in Japan of Socialist and Communist lawyers working with Protestant pastors, some of whom acted as deprogrammers, all united by the goal of dismantling the Unification Church. A key player in the campaign that led to the Church’s dissolution was Japan’s Communist Party. Additionally, the China Anti-Xie-Jiao Association, the world’s largest anti-cult group, which is under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, officially supported the Japanese campaign for dissolving the Unification Church.
In 2023, a Korean group called the World Association Against Heresy, led by Pastor Jin Yong-Sik, embarked on a global tour, giving lectures in countries including Spain, Germany, and Mongolia. They not only criticized Korean “cults” but also openly supported China’s crackdown on groups like The Church of Almighty God (CAG) and Falun Gong. These movements, primarily composed of Chinese refugees in Korea, are small and pose little threat to local fundamentalist churches. The fact that fundamentalist pastors invest significant resources in opposing them suggests close ties with China. Chinese websites likely connected with Beijing’s intelligence services regularly cover and promote the Association’s tours.
The local Protestant churches that organized lectures by Pastor Jin in Europe may not have been aware that he also works as a deprogrammer and was sentenced by South Korea’s Supreme Court for involvement in violent deprogramming. In 2020, human rights activist Willy Fautré documented in a scholarly study that, “In 2007, Pastor Jin Yong-Sik was prosecuted and found guilty for sending a member of the World Mission Society Church of God to a psychiatric institution. According to a news story published in ‘News Hankuk’ on 24 October 2008, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison with two years’ probation for coercive de-conversion. In 2012, there was a public uproar when the investigation into his complaint against human rights activists revealed that Pastor Jin had earned more than one billion won (850,000 EUR) with his de-conversion business.”
Pastor-deprogrammer Jin’s association also forged strong ties with Japanese anti-cultists, both fellow Christian deprogrammers and the secular and left-leaning National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (NNLASS). As reported by human rights attorney Patricia Duval after a fact-finding trip to South Korea in August 2025, after the assassination of Shinzo Abe in 2022, Jin’s association organized at least three events in South Korea together with anti-cultists from Japan. On July 22, 2022, a few days after the Abe assassination, a press conference was organized at the Korea Press Center in Seoul. Among the speakers were NNLASS attorney Hiroshi Watanabe (via Zoom) and the notorious pastor-deprogrammer Oh Myeong-hyeon, whom we met in the previous article in this series and was involved in the Jeongeup murder of a female member of Shincheonji by her ex-husband, who also killed his sister-in-law.
On December 15, 2022, Jin presided over another conference at Seoul’s Christian Centennial Memorial Building, whose aim was to promote a French-style anti-cult law in South Korea, also inspired by measures introduced in Japan. Again, attorney Watanabe attended via video conference and strongly supported the proposal. Yoshifu Arita, at that time a former Japanese parliamentarian from the left-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party (he would regain his seat in 2024). well-known for his anti-cult positions, also attended. The uncommon Japanese name, “Yoshifu,” was given to Arita by his Communist parents to honor Joseph Stalin (as he reported himself: “The Family’s Resume,” “Weekly Bunshun,” March 11, 1999, p. 145). Arita defended the activities of deprogrammers in Japan and “interviewed” Unification Church medical doctor Hirohisa Koide while he was confined and was being deprogrammed.
On May 13, 2025, Jin presided over yet another press conference in Seoul with nine Japanese pastors and deprogrammers, where an “Agreement on Cooperation Against Korean-Origin Heretical and Pseudo-Religious Groups” was presented. Deprogrammer Jin emphasized “the urgency for Korea to follow Japan’s lead… Many people in Korea have also been harmed by heresies, yet unlike Japan, Korea has no law at all to regulate pseudo-religions. We desperately need such legislation.” Besides calling on the state to pass laws to help fundamentalist Christians to get rid of “heresies,” Jin announced that Japanese pastors were joining his international anti-cult association.
The World Association Against Heresy’s origins can be traced back to the Christian Heresy Research Council, founded in Korea in 1998 and later renamed the Christian Heresy Countermeasures Association. From 2012, evangelical and fundamentalist pastors from other countries were invited, and the Korean organization was supplemented by the World Association Against Heresy. In 2015, a branch was incorporated in Australia.
Chinese representatives participated in the World Association gatherings and vice versa. In 2007, Western scholars of new religious movements still hoped that a dialogue with Chinese authorities on “cults” would be possible. Some attended one of the Chinese symposiums on “cults” in Shenzhen. They were particularly disturbed by “Rev. Lee Dae-bok, president of the Research [into] Christian Heresy and False Religion Countermeasure Association in South Korea, [who] gave what can only be described as a forty-five-minute rant against various heresies.”
The Chinese Communist Party had three main reasons to support Korean anti-cult efforts. First, some Korean megachurches and new religious movements had started secret but effective missions in China. Second, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party sees itself as the world’s leading promoter of Communism and resents the activities of religious movements like the Unification Church, which offer an in-depth ideological critique of Communist ideology. Third, a policy promoting tourism to Jeju Island, South Korea’s largest island located in the Korean Strait, allowed Chinese nationals to visit without a visa. This was used by members of religious movements persecuted in China as “cults” to go to Jeju Island as tourists and then seek asylum. While in Korea, they gave interviews and posted on social media about China’s repression of religion. Beijing’s regime relied on Korean anti-cultists to stage public protests against these “false refugees,” claiming they were “cultists” who should be sent back to China.
O Myung-Ok is a well-known Korean anti-cult activist who publishes the magazine “Religion and Truth.” She acts as an unofficial representative for the World Association Against Heresy. “Bitter Winter” has documented her close ties with Chinese operatives in organizing fake protests against the Church of Almighty God refugees in Seoul. There is a possibility that O Myung-Ok herself is a Chinese agent. According to a Court of Rome ruling dated June 14, 2024, she is described as a “special agent” of China.
The Chinese Communist Party has a notable, somewhat unusual relationship with the World Association Against Heresy. This organization is not particularly progressive. Its website reveals that it criticizes the Roman Catholic Church for being “respectful” toward homosexuals and also condemns the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization— the largest global network of evangelical leaders— calling it “heretic” for its perceived leniency on homosexuality. O Myung-Ok is known for her outspoken attacks on homosexuals, immigrants, and Muslims.
This is not an unusual position among fundamentalist Christians, but most of them are anti-Communist. Why do they cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party and its intelligence agencies?
What about the Korean pastors? Why do they support a Communist atheistic regime, which puts in jail fellow evangelicals belonging to independent house churches in China? Who finances their propaganda tours abroad?
Like O Myung-Ok, some individuals may have been recruited or bribed by China. In other cases, this reflects, again, the adage, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The long-standing hostility of Korean anti-cult fundamentalists toward the Unification Church and other Christian new religious movements, which has lasted for over a decade, surpasses any criticism they might direct at Communism or China.
This situation in Korea is risky, with left-wing intellectuals and politicians, known and unknown Chinese agents, and fundamentalist Protestant anti-cultists collaborating to target “cults” and churches seen as opposing China’s interests. In the volatile East Asian and South Korean political climate, anti-cult measures might benefit Communist interests and the Beijing regime. As illustrated by Dr. Moon’s case, such actions can also increase global threats to religious freedom.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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