I am a former pastor of the Church of God. I joined the church in my twenties, the golden years of my life, knowing nothing, and somehow worked my way up to the position of pastor and spent almost a decade in that position. In fact, as a layman, I was convinced that the Church of God was the right church and loved it, but when I became a pastor and went to General Headquarters, I realized there was a huge gap between what I believed and what I actually saw.

In 2011, there was an incident in which the Dong-A Ilbo reported the Church of God as a doomsday church. The General Assembly called the party presidents to the General Assembly headquarters every day to devise countermeasures and had evangelists in Seoul and the provinces hold a silent protest in front of the Dong-A Ilbo. They were instructed to make it look like a spontaneous protest by the believers, not an order from the General Assembly. At that time, I used to go to the General Assembly every day and see Mother Jang Gil-ja and General Chairman Kim Ju-cheol, and once he was unhappy with the party leadership and shouted really loudly. The president of the General Assembly is shouting like he's God, and the heavenly mother next to him is fidgeting. I couldn't help but doubt my own eyes. The General President has been preaching about God the Mother in his sermons every day, emphasizing the need to believe in God the Mother, but the behavior of the General President that I saw up close was not honoring God the Mother at all.

I mean, how can you be so disrespectful to God and yell at him in a way that is more wrathful and powerful than God? Why are the elders and session leaders standing by, silent and shaking their heads? First of all, there is a mother(?) next to the president, and her voice is trembling because she doesn't know what to say. That really didn't make sense to me. As if it was a given, no one was surprised, and no one stepped up to clean up the mess. I really didn't get it.

Naturally, it was quite a shock to see them so close, something you don't get to see as a layperson. The Mother was already not God, at least not within their own circles. At least inside their own chapter. First and foremost, I felt that it was very duplicitous of them to not come out in the open and pretend that it was a spontaneous protest by their members, even though it was the General Assembly that was leading the protests and demonstrations against the Dong-A Ilbo. I really didn't understand why the so-called True Church would lie to me, and it reminded me of the things they've done over the years. In 2006, when a program called KBS Media Focus mentioned the Church of God as a time-bound apocalyptic church, the General Assembly organized believers to post protest comments... And a few years later, when SBS Cult Two broadcast a story about a cult church, they also asked for protest comments and paralyzed the broadcasters' bulletin boards...

The pretense that this was a spontaneous protest by members of the congregation rather than one ordered by the General Assembly... As the eyelids of reason were peeled back, one by one, I began to see and realize the strange things that I hadn't been able to see because I was trapped in a bubble of "faith." When the movie 2012 came out, they claimed that God was calling out the end of the world through people, and they encouraged people to watch the movie and use it as an evangelistic material to go out and call out to the world. The church instigated it, then later lied that we didn't call for the end of the world in 2012... Somewhere along the line, I realized, "This holy assembly of God is the home base for all these lies!

I had never thought of God as a liar, so why would God's church systematically lie and claim to be the true seat of God? It was really strange and after witnessing it with my own eyes, I felt very strongly that this was not right. When the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island happened in 2010, the General Assembly even said that it was the last time. They even told us to gather in the church and prepare emergency supplies as if Father was going to come, but he didn't. Isn't that what has always happened? Even when Kim Jong Il conducted a nuclear test in 2006, we shouted as if it was the last time, but he didn't come. That's what I've always believed, like He's going to come at any moment, and that's what my mother and the president of the General Assembly said to the pastors in 2011. They said they were going to come before 2012, and they definitely said that, and they didn't come. When the Yeonpyeong Island incident happened in 2010, and then 2012 came, I realized that this is really not the case. They definitely said that, and that time never came. I don't know about the average believer, but that's definitely what they said in the internal education of the General Assembly.

I made up my mind in mid-2012: they would continue with any lie they could come up with. I could see what other lies they were going to tell in the future, so without any hesitation, I decided this was not the truth and walked out of the church on my own accord. My mother (!) called me and pleaded with me not to quit, and the sight of the regular congregation drove me crazy. They were being deceived. Pastors are conscience-numbed people, and at least I didn't want to be one of them. Living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom rented room and looking into the eyes of poor, unsuspecting congregants every week as I preached, struggling to give, to keep the feasts, to hold down a job, to evangelize, it was almost too much to bear. I prayed alone with tears in my eyes, waiting for God's answer, but the bottom line was to quit quietly. And so I left, and I disassociated myself from the church, and I burned everything I had, all the things that I had written down that had been said by my mother, by the general authorities, by the president of the General Conference. And then I walked away. And, of course, 2012 came and went, and nothing happened. By then, I was already on the outside looking in. I wonder what he would have said, "Faith that waits for its time is an evil faith"? Anyway, during my pastoral life, I didn't have any money saved from my salary of 970,000 won per month, and even if I did, it was all voluntarily given away in the name of the special thanksgiving offering, so when I went out, I really didn't have any money.

I've spent a lot of time regretting and crying over the years that have passed, but it's not something that anyone can take back. I've lived my life thinking that this is my fault for making a wrong choice in a moment, and now I'm somewhat free of that regret.