In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal (2023)

This show is the wake up call that begs us to be more skeptical.

This whole documentary just made me angry. The idea that some people can get so easily manipulated simply by the virtue of a person claiming they have holy guidance makes my blood boil. Rape, torture, murder, abuse, suicide - all because some random person claimed they are Jesus reincarnated. At the same time, it shows how clever these cult leaders were, how well planned their schemes were and how they selected the victims - they did not target everyone. That's why it's so important for us ask questions and rely on more than trust and belief.

I’m not going to lie, the level of religious freedom in Korea was always fascinating for me. On the first glance the idea of all the religions being able to rather peacefully coexist in one country, where no one is truly judged by their religious beliefs sounds like a utopia. With this level of acceptance and “no questions asked” comes a big danger though: the country becomes a breeding ground for cults. How many reincarnated Jesuses can there be in the small country of South Korea at the same time?

The documentary presents a rather uncomfortable question: what to do with victims who become perpetrators? How much can be forgiven based on the brainwashing they went through, and how much responsibility should they take for their actions? The leaders were evil, we can all agree. We wanted them to be punished and suffer as much as their victims did. What with the members? Logically speaking you know they are the victims, but it’s impossible not to feel any resentment towards them.

Some people may say it was unnecessarily detailed, unnecessarily graphic, unnecessarily descriptive, but I strongly disagree. Did this documentary make you feel uncomfortable? Angry? Sad? Scared? Good, then it did its job to present the reality of the victims. Saying it was unnecessarily detailed is like saying it was unnecessary realistic - they used real footage of the events, they used real photos, videos and recordings, they used real testimonies - it was not shown for a shock value, it was shown because it was the reality of what happened. The reality was just that shocking, awful and evil.

If I were to complain about one thing production wise - some footages were shown a few too many times, especially of JMS in the first 3 episodes. They kept showing the same videos of him preaching, and that I felt was a bit too much and truly unnecessary. Showing it once would be enough.

TW: I don’t know… feels like anything you can think of: rape, dead bodies, suicide, self harm, abuse, child neglect, child abuse… They show real photos and videos from crime scenes and recordings from victims, even the reenacted interviews are detailed and based on the real statements from real victims. It’s a lot.

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