Immigration authorities often misunderstand the CAG refugees’ attitude to the person they worship as Almighty God and to the family.
Not only the old Country of Origin Information (COI), which added fanciful alternative names and biographic details taken from Chinese propaganda sources and Western media that relied on them, but even the most recent and reliable sources mention that, according to most scholars, the civil name of the person the CAG worships as Almighty God is Yang Xiangbin. In fact, the CAG refuses to confirm the details supplied by outside sources. Its members, for a theological reason of respect, never mentions the civil name of the person they worship as Almighty God. Many of them might never have heard the name Yang Xiangbin.
Almighty God is also constantly referred to as “He” rather than “She” by CAG members, although they believe that in the last days God incarnated as a woman. The CAG’s main holy scripture, “The Word Appears in the Flesh” (p. 899), states, “Back then, when Jesus came, He was male, but when God comes this time, He is female.” They know perfectly well that according to their theology in our time God incarnated as a woman, However, they use “He” for theological reasons, since they believe that the fact that Almighty God is the same person who came once as Jehovah and then as Jesus Christ is more important than the gender of God’s contemporary physical incarnation.
Not surprisingly, particularly in the older cases, this created all sorts of confusion when authorities interviewed asylum seekers. That they referred to their Almighty God, whom both they and the immigration authorities knew was female, with “He” was regarded as a contradiction. And several early decisions interpreted the fact that the applicants were unable or unwilling to mention the civil name of Almighty God, which the authorities interviewing them had found in the COI, as evidence that the refugees were not genuine CAG members, as they did not know the basics of their faith.
Although rarely, these objections still survive today, although newer COI have clarified the issues. In fact, we believe that the argument should be reversed. As two of us (Introvigne and Šorytė) told immigration officers in seminars organized to familiarize them with the CAG in Italy, South Korea, and Spain, an asylum seeker who would mention “Yang Xiangbin” as the civil name of the person worshiped as Almighty God, or would refer to Almighty God as “She” rather than “He,” would prove that s/he is not a bona fide CAG member. For theological reasons connected with their respect for Almighty God, real CAG members would never mention Almighty God’s civil name or refer to Almighty God as “She” (although, if asked, they would confirm that as Jesus, God came as male, but this time “He” came as female, and may add that this is convenient to show that God’s salvation extends to both men and women).
More generally, it is often the false refugees who read the COI and the media and tell the authorities what they believe those with power to decide on asylum applications want to hear. What in some decisions was regarded as “contradiction,” was on the contrary strong evidence that the applicants really belonged to the CAG.
Another persistent false information about the CAG is that it is “against the family,” and that when they join the CAG, members are asked to break all relationship with their parents, children, and other relatives. This was disseminated from Chinese propaganda to the Western media that covered the CAG in the aftermath of the McDonald’s murder, and found its way into the older COI.
This false information generated a serious problem in many refugee cases. Refugees are often asked when and how they converted to the CAG—a question complicating the interviews, as conversion is a delicate matter, and telling such a personal experience through a translator is not easy. Some authorities believe they can second-guess very intimate narratives, particularly in dozens if not hundreds of cases in which the refugees reported that they were converted by their parents or by another relative.
In several cases, this led to an immediate assessment of non-credibility, based on the COI claiming that the CAG is “against the family.” In these COI, those who convert to the CAG are assumed to break all relations with their relatives, with the consequence that they cannot convert them either.
In fact, one of the authors conducted a survey, accompanied by interviews, among CAG refugees in different countries, and published its results in an American academic journal. The study concluded that, at least among those who flee abroad and can be interviewed there, the majority of CAG members were converted by a family member, and then started their own proselyting activity among relatives. This is consistent with how conversion to most new religious movement happens, although at odds with faulty stereotypes accusing “cults” of converting their members through sinister and mysterious techniques such as “brainwashing.”
The study also examined CAG’s theology about the family, concluding that, while the choice of those who do not marry to become full-time missionaries is appreciated, as it is in other religions, the CAG teaches a traditional Christian conservative view of the family.
The Italian Justice Court of Perugia took the lead in 2018 with a string of cases where administrative decisions denying asylum to applicants who stated they had been converted by relatives were overturned, quoting Introvigne’s research.
Recent COI also refer to this research, although we still hear occasionally that CAG is “against the family” and that accounts of conversions through relatives cannot be believed. This argument is false.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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