This article explores the question of why so many people follow self-proclaimed gods and whether the Korean church is fulfilling its obligations as a child of God, and discusses the criteria for distinguishing the real from the fake.
There are many people in South Korea who claim to be God, Jesus, or even David. There are many people who claim to be these special people or to be God. Often referred to as cults, these figures are at the center of Christian variants of religion. Of course, their numbers are very small compared to the population. However, it is hard to accept that there are more than a hundred people in a country who claim to be God. Nevertheless, they are clearly having a significant impact on someone. Quite a few people are being deceived by them.
They claim to be real divine beings or chosen by God. So why do so many people believe and follow them? In Christianity, they are called heretics. A heresy is a hostile term for a doctrine or denomination that is contrary to orthodox teaching. This means that even though what they teach may seem authentic, they end up being different. In many cases, they appear to be genuine, but in the end, they are followed without realizing that they are fake. According to the Bible, those who believe in the real thing eventually find Jesus; their reason and purpose for living is in Jesus, and they give all the glory to Jesus alone to reveal his righteousness, not their own. But the end of the fake is not Jesus. The end of the fake is other things that are not Jesus: money, fame, lust, etc. This is what Christian heresies have in common: they are not satisfied with God as the sole object of their faith, but worship something else in addition to God. Strictly speaking, they cannot be considered a form of Christianity because they worship something other than God.
So, is there really a real God, and why do so many people claim to be one? There are so many Christian cults out there. There are so many fakes. Everywhere you go, you’ll see people who believe in Jehovah’s Witnesses, the New Heaven, and other religions that Christianity calls fake. Just like if there’s a Nike, there’s a Nike, isn’t the reason why there are so many fakes is because there is a real God?
Let’s say there is a real God. But how do we distinguish between the real and the fake when they look so similar on the surface? Before we discuss this, let’s talk about commodities: the real thing and the counterfeit. What distinguishes an authentic product from a counterfeit? The answer is the existence of rights to the product. In this case, we’re talking about intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are rights granted to intellectual creations that can realize property value as intangible things such as knowledge, information, technology, expressions, signs, etc. created or discovered through human creative activities or experience. Intellectual property rights are divided into industrial property rights and copyrights, and industrial property rights are subdivided into patent rights, utility model rights, trademark rights, and design rights. All of the goods that we usually distinguish between genuine and counterfeit are related to IPRs. In general, if a product has rights, it is genuine, and if it does not, it is counterfeit.
The reason why these rights are granted is to contribute to the development of Korea’s industry, which means that the rights are granted for a certain period of time so that something can be created that can help the industry develop faster. However, there is something that people often overlook. But there’s something that people often overlook: with rights come obligations. When you have a right, you have an obligation to make it visible to the outside world. You have to show it to the outside world so that others can learn from it and make something better, so that the industry can develop further.
Korean Christianity is a group of people who have the right to be God’s children, as they say, but are they fulfilling their obligations as God’s children? Since they are God’s children, they are obligated to live according to God’s words. Are they not fulfilling their obligations and calling other similar religions heretical and fake? You cannot enjoy rights without fulfilling obligations. They cannot claim to be real if they do not fulfill their duties as children of God. Before we can distinguish the real from the fake, the real must act like the real. If the Korean church has the right to be a child of God, it must fulfill the obligations that come with that right. Instead of telling people to believe in Jesus a hundred times, why don’t they practice the love of Jesus in their own lives? Otherwise, how are they any different from those who freely enjoy the rights of citizens but do not pay taxes? They deserve to be criticized.
If the Korean church would fulfill its obligations based on the love of Jesus, this world would be a much better place to live. Regardless of whether there are more or fewer fakes, if the real ones fulfill their duties well, who can tell the difference between the real and the fake?
Unfortunately, there seems to be no shortage of people in the Korean church who want to be like the cult leader. Most of them are addicted to the drug of popularity. They know the taste of money and power, and they have learned the secret of manipulating people’s minds with them. Even the Bible, God’s Word, is just a tool to fulfill their will and satisfy their desires, so they do not have the humility to bow down before the Word. They enjoy arbitrarily interpreting the Bible to bind people to themselves rather than to lead them to Christ, because they hate to place themselves below the Bible as servants of the Word, but instead want to set themselves above the Bible as masters of the Word and dominate the church. In this way, even those who preach the words of Jesus are no better than heretics if they end up living after something other than Jesus. Then they must be counterfeits.
For those who believe in Jesus to enjoy their rights as children of God, they must fulfill their duties on earth before going to God. May they prove by their actions that they are real. Just as good fruit comes from a good tree, if they are real, why not show real behavior, behavior that is pleasing to the good and loving God they believe in?
