The shocking news behind International Korean Christian Coalition Against Heresy (IKCCAH)

I would not even call it a "shocking truth", lest I rashly judge without an adequate understanding of the background; but I would call it a "shocking news". Popular Korean national newspaper, The Korea Times, in a Korean language article dated 31 January 2012, reported that the International Korean Christian Coalition Against Heresy (IKCCAH), the organization that slandered Pastor Kwang-su Ryu and the Darakbang church*, has been called an anti-Christ organization. The original news article is in Korean, and therefore, hidden from the reading of the majority English readers who have no command of Korean language.

An English translation of the news article in Korea Times (original article URL: http://m.koreatimes.com/article/709926), rendered the article as follow:

‘IKCCAH’, an antichrist organisation?
Published: Jan 31, 2012 (Tue)

Translated by: Kwon In Hyeok

A Korean religious newspaper publisher in America has published an article at the end of last year criticising that ‘International Korean Christian Coalition Against Heresy’ which was formed in Korea is ‘centred in antichrist-like heresy’, and it seems that it will have a great influence on Korean churches in America.

The Christian World, USA  (100 Old York Rd., Suite 3-140, Jenkintown) which is based in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, provided a comment on the first page of the article that 'IKCCAH' is "a coalition which consists mainly of the heretics who are frantic and desperate to make heresies" as the article enumerated in detail the heathenism and the problems of Pastor ManPoong Kim (Washington Global Mission Church), the President representing USA in the coalition, and the key members together with pictures (Published by Joel Kang).

Among the figures criticized as heretics by the paper are Pastor HyungTaek Park, the early former President of the coalition, Pastor YongSik Jin, Senior Ordained-Deacon InKyu Lee and Pastor ChangDeok Han, the members of the standing committee, and Pastor SamKyung Choi, the Chairperson. With regards to, especially Pastor SamKyung Choi, this paper published an article titled 'The final arbiter is the one who is picked as the most evil heretic by the Christian Council of Korea'. One Korean pastor in Washington said that the paper being published for 78 times means that if it was issued every week, it is almost being published in the community for 2 years and there is no choice but to take the fact seriously that many Korean churches have viewed the Southern Baptist Churches as a heresy.

IKCCAH has Pastor YoungSun Song (Philippi church) as one of its co-representatives other than Pastor ManPoong Kim, and 87 staffs who are against heresy gathered and participated in the Inaugural assembly which took place last year November in Daerim Methodist Church in Shingil-dong, Seoul.

The paper tried to contact The Christian World, USA, failed to reach it.

This article said that the reason that IKCCAH has been called an anti-Christ or anti-Christ-like organization is because of some very questionable people sitting in the committee, the most notorious of which, is Pastor SamKyung Choi. I am not here for to personally discredit Pastor SamKyung Choi but even a casual background "cut and paste" google search of his name ("SamKyung Choi"or "Choi SamKyung"  최삼경) revealed that he has been called the "most evil heretic" and preaches tritheism.

The Christian Telegraph, in a report dated 4th June 2013, revealed that Pastor SamKyung Choi used to be the president of the Heresy Handling Committee of PCK (The Presbyterian Church of Korea), the biggest denomination in Korea, a member of the Heresy Handling Committee of the Christian Council of Korea(CCK) and the president of Heresy Counseling Center. With those titles he had enormous power and spearhead the attack and passing heretical condemnations. Unfortunately with such great power, he yielded into the temptations of money.

This has bring a lot of bad names to CCK and tarnished the reputation of CCK (just google "Christian Council of Korea" and see the Wikipedia entry, and you will understand what I mean) because of the fabrications of its committee member, Pastor SamKyung Choi. In reality, CCK is a strong affiliate with World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) and they held joint thanskgiving ceremony together, and will hold the 2013 WEA General Assembly together, as reported the reputable evangelical Christian news portal in United States, The Christian Post. see article: http://www.christianpost.com/news/world-evangelical-alliance-christian-council-of-korea-hold-joint-thanksgiving-service-62051/)

CCK has since expressed its regret to the poor handling of this matter and be willing to reexamine these false accusations and slanders (see another article in the Christian Telegraph: http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue19779.html)

Also, CCK has then expelled Pastor SamKyung Choi together with all those associated with him such as Pastor Hyungtaek Park and Pastor Yongsik Jin (Reference: http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue19779.html)

Coming back to Pastor SamKyung Choi, according to the report quoted earlier in the Christian Telegraph:

"He (Pastor SamKyung Choi) demanded many churches to donate to his ministry and they had to give him bribes, tens of millions of won to hundreds of millions of won (tens of thousands of US dollars to hundreds of thousands of US dollars). These bribes are now being exposed one by one. Some churches capitulated with him so that he would not make a negative decision capitulated with against their churches and gave him bribes because they were afraid of being embroiled in heretical controversies. But some others that did not give him bribe had to suffer from various difficulties.


Today, to our amazement, Samkyung Choi, such an infamous heresy examiner, is being publicly revealed as a blasphemer and the one who has proffered heretical theory. It has recently been reported that he has passed heretical condemnations on sound and proper churches with various forms of fabricated data. He has threatened many pastors of great churches with distorted and fabricated data indicating heresy in their churches and he shamelessly demanded a great amount of money from them in bribes.

He has his own interpretation of the Bible and always passes judgment and condemnations on all the other pastors and churches that are not in full agreement with his own standards. He also performs reckless and merciless persecutions and threats against those who do not meet demands. With such inappropriate use of power he gained enormous profits and showed all kinds of unrighteous and lawless deeds including conspiracy and collusion to blackmail, factioning, and fabrication with the intent to drive many churches and pastors into the category of heresy. Much of his fabrication and threats have now been publicly revealed in Korea." (Reference: The Christian Telegraph - The Heretical Controversies in Korean Christianity. URL: http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue19877.html)

 
With such a dubious character sitting in the committee of IKCCAH, how could we ever trust the report that slander Darakbang and Rev Kwang-su Ryu? Most Malaysian Christians and churches who join in the band to slander Darakbang and Rev Kwang-su Ryu have no idea what they are getting themselves into. They no idea the can of worms that they are opening, as a result of the intense church politicking in South Korea that undergirds this report. Most Malaysian christians, being a minority population in Malaysia, of a mere ~ 9%, probably cannot comprehend the degree or intensity of church politics that are happening in Korea, but this is the reality of it. Why? Because such politics in Korea involve lots and lots of money through sales of books, curriculum, donations, etc.

The same Christian Telegraph article reports:

"There are approximately 300 different denominations of Christianity that currently exist in Korea. Although they serve one God and read the same Bible, each of them has differences in their interpretation of the Bible and in the doctrine they chose to follow. However, because of these minor differences in interpretation and doctrine, one group, frequently and without due process, has caused a church or a missionary organization to be classified, condemned, and rejected as a heretical sect.

However the greater pity is that they have not been doing it based on biblical grounds, but instead make a scapegoat out of targeted churches or organizations for politically pragmatic purposes. Thus, if you understand how a church is victimized as a political scapegoat, you will also be able to understand how a church is condemned as a heretical sect in the Korean churches.

Many of the mega-sized churches in Korea had increasingly fallen into troubles due to controversial issues of heresy. For example, a church known to have the world’s largest congregation and its Senior Pastor and founder Rev. David Yonggi Cho (formerly known as Paul Yonggi Cho), the Yoido Full Gospel Church (Assemblies of God), has been condemned as being heretic for a long time by many Christian organizations and is still condemned by a few.

It is a matter of fact that the heretical condemnations have been carried out by just a few people within the community of Korean Christian churches. They have been nicknamed “the heresy examiners”. They have been condemning others with their own standards and not by biblical standards....

The churches that were unilaterally condemned as heretic in this way had no chance to defend themselves and were subsequently alienated and abandoned by Korean Christian society. Many suffered from it for a long time. For this reason, many Korean churches accepted the heresy examiners’ requests and their bribes out of fear of also being involved in the controversial disputes" (Reference: http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue19877.html)

Of course, to be fair to IKCCAH, we must not fall into the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. The credibility or non-credibility of the messenger has no absolute bearing on the veracity of the message. Mother Teresa can say 1+1 = 3 and is still wrong, Hitler can say 1+1 = 2 and is still right. In my next post, I will expose the lies and fallacies behind the report, one-by-one.

Note
* For an English translation of the report that accuses Darakbang as heresy, click here:  http://foraletheia.com/?p=48
For the original report in Korea, click here: http://ikccah.org/3084