There was a time when he was studying and providing education on the movement called 'Shincheonji,' which is considered a cult by most Protestants and Catholics alike.
The doctrines of Shincheonji, such as its parables and eschatology, were problematic. Still, the way they gathered people to join the Church was shocking. He asked Shincheonji defectors who returned to Church what they liked so much. They said that the doctrines were new and interesting. Still, the most important thing was that the people there treated them warmly and cared for them like family, especially since they experienced being chosen and learned the hidden truth.
One of the significant characteristics of new and pseudo-religious movements is the strong bond between believers. While waiting for the imminent end, they shared hope within the community and experienced great happiness. Having returned to the Catholic Church, they ask: "Why aren't Catholic believers passionate? Why aren't they interested in God's word and lack confidence in salvation? Why is the community so indifferent and cold?"
Their belief that the end would begin when the 144,000 Shincheonji members were filled was wrong, but he thinks their 'eschatological faith' has much to teach us. They were deceived, but their good-willed desire and waiting for the coming of the Lord were not false. Instead, they remind us that the Christian faith was eschatological. The core of Jesus' gospel proclamation was the kingdom of God. That kingdom is not just the afterlife we can enter in the distant future but the eschatological rule of God the Father that has come here and now through Jesus.
The apostles boldly proclaimed the gospel while forming an eschatological community with the hope of waiting for the Lord, who would soon come. For them, the end was not the end of the world that would occur in the distant future but the time that had already begun with the Lord, the end that the Lord who was to come would complete. Their faith was a faith that was awake to welcome the Lord who was knocking at the door and a faith that earnestly hoped that the Lord would overcome sin and death. The letters of the Apostle Paul are filled with teachings on the eschatological faith and the corresponding way of life to welcome the coming of the Lord.
What is our faith? Is it a faith that eagerly awaits and prepares for the coming of the Lord? Are we forming an eschatological community that shares our destiny and achieves deep communion and unity to welcome the coming of the Lord?
The Universal Church is currently celebrating a Jubilee. The 'hope' contained in the theme of the Jubilee, 'Pilgrims of Hope,' is the hope that the apostles who spent time with Jesus in the past had and the hope that the Church has kept for 2,000 years. That hope is a firm conviction in the presence of the resurrected Lord who lives and works within us and an earnest waiting for the coming of the Lord. This hope is based on the expectation that God will personally rule this world with love and mercy, justice and peace, life and health, reconciliation and unity, putting an end to the history of humanity that has been marked by death and illness, pain and sorrow, despair and frustration, fights and conflicts that have made people miserable.
To renew this eschatological faith, we must recover our sense of identity as beings who died in Jesus Christ and were resurrected in Him and given new life (cf. Rom 6:4). When we are newly armed with the conviction that the risen Lord has conquered sin and evil through the Church, overcomes death, and encourages his disciples with immortal hope, we will be able to powerfully bear witness to the world about the hope of Christians.
As we celebrate the Jubilee of Hope and this time of Lent, let's renew our sense of identity as Christians and be reborn as a community of faith filled with the desire for the coming of the Lord.
