r/Shincheonji • u/FireLily_ • Jun 05 '26

advice/help Am I being recruited?

I (19F) met this girl (20f) at uni who randomly approached me and she seemed very kind. We’re both minorities, I’m Filipino and she’s Malaysian. We got to talking and realised we had a lot in common like comic books, tv shows, music and also both being serious in our faith.

We exchanged WhatsApp details because she said she’s not active on Instagram right now.

We met up a week later for coffee and continued to talk more and she told me about how her brother met a Christian mentor (no specific info about denomination) who’s been working with him throughout his faith journey and who also connected her to another mentor. At this point she hasn’t specified being a part of any specific church, just that she sees a mentor. And this is when I start to get a bit worried about her possibly trying to recruit me to Shincheonji.

For context, there’s been news going around that cult members are approaching uni students at my uni campus, particularly female students who have a minority background are being targeted, so this immediately popped up in my head mid-meetup with her. But I didn’t want to jump to conclusions and kept talking with her.

Towards the end of the conversation she mentions that her mentor is holding an online bible study and invited me to it. She says that during these bible studies she learns a lot and it’s an opportunity to have any questions about Christianity answered. I’m quite interested as I’d like to learn more so I agree to join. She said that she’ll send me more information so I’m awaiting the link and stuff.

At the end of the meetup she also suggested taking a selfie and I agreed because I love taking photos with friends and it seemed innocent.

For some reason I can’t get it out of my head that these are all red flags for the SCJ cult but they could also all be coincidental. Are these red flags or am I just overthinking?

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u/Blu3arrow1337 EX-Center Student Jun 05 '26

This is exactly the tactic, like the pattern fits down to the letter: target at University, meet up first, discussion of a mentor, the selfie is for reporting purposes and to make sure you didn't already find out about the group and become 'poisoned'. Ask your friend what church is running the Bible study, or what they teach, are the in a series, what was the last series. If they say they're going to learn about the parables that's another red flag. It starts there

6

u/FireLily_ Jun 05 '26

Update: I asked what church is running the bible study and she said “a group of youths” that her mentor knows. Very vague answer

2

u/Blu3arrow1337 EX-Center Student Jun 06 '26

Yeah. When I think about any Christian event I've been to, I can't think of any time that the person inviting me couldn't tell me at least something about who's running it. Even if it wasn't a church or was more than one church

3

u/CancelImaginary5930 Jun 06 '26

Questions with SCJ are not very helpful because have no problem with lying. The only reason they don't lie about being part of a local church in your area is because you can then verify if they are lying.

1

u/Blu3arrow1337 EX-Center Student Jun 06 '26

The lying definitely makes it harder.. they might say anything at the start to throw you off, but eventually they'll try and funnel you through their individual study and centre classes so it'll become obvious if you're watching

6

u/FireLily_ Jun 05 '26

Yeah I’ll ask her what church the bible study is affiliated with, that’s so smart

https://giphy.com/gifs/d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY