What a view | South Korean religious cults and their monstrous leaders described in Netflix’s grimly fascinating documentary series In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal
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Those of us who believe all religion is wholly fraudulent are at liberty to wonder why so many of the faithful allow themselves to be conned so often by so relatively few – and for so much money, among other commodities.
But that doesn’t stop us applauding the courage of the once brainwashed and gullible willing to appear on camera to expose the despicable cult figureheads who have shattered their lives.
Chief among those in the grimly fascinating, lurid and profoundly disturbing eight-part documentary series In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal (Netflix) is Hong Kong’s Maple Yip, 28, who, in 2012, joined South Korean cult JMS.
Modestly anointing himself God, JMS founder Jung Myung-seok – 78, already a convicted sex offender now awaiting trial for “quasi-rape” and sexual assault – spent decades establishing his “kingdom”: gathering thousands of followers, unlimited riches and a stream of women whom he convinced that they had been “chosen”, anointing them by way of sex, or sexual assault, in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China.
Such are the appalling claims made by a distraught Yip, and others, about the leader of a sect that visited violent retribution on anyone attempting to leave and on outside enemies who dared to challenge it. (Even now, true believers in the “perverted” Jung deny the facts and recently failed to secure an injunction halting the documentary.)
