I was partway through one of the early morning marathon feasts, waiting for the 5am service. Usually pretty quiet since everyone is sleep deprived. The Deacon next to me, broke the ice by saying, "I hope we still have early morining service when we get to heaven."
If you knew him you'd know that in no way was he joking. I remember thinking for days after that, "Why, why would you want that?"
I mean, can you even tell them apart from LDS, JW, WMSCOG, etc.?
Do they stay in groups of 2, same gender, have a typical style of dress?
What kind of topics do they lead with on first contact? Any doctrinal specifics or just keeping it general?
And if so, if you had to make up your own Rickenism quote, what would that be?
https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-you-you-are/id1780413757
I just tell them it is what the movie Office Space would be like if written by Franz Kafka.
The weirdest things about what wmscog calls out against hnjcog is how they are having to downplay their own main teachings.
The wmscog just seems mad that Danny P made his crazy teachings a little more thought out and thorough than theirs. I think it reveals how many in wmscog HQ knows it is all BS, because hnjcog takes wmscog's own teaches more seriously than wmscog does.
Looks like they took at least enough members, that given average salary, wmscog lost about $1million in tithe annual income. But not sure what Danny P does with the tithe anyway, since it was supposed to go to "Mother".
I believe they have locations in TX, CO, UT, Austrailia. Also lists Vietnam, Mexico and Korea as possible contact locations.
Maybe if you were wmscog ex-member from these areas, you might recognize some of them (please don't post names or identifying information though, or will be removed).
What are the dark sides of scj that you won’t find about online? My sister in law is heavily affiliated with them right now and has been for about 2-3 years. We just found out that she gave them all our friends and families address, personal information and photos of us and now I’m worried that something may happen to us.
Does anyone know the name of the WMSCOG (World Mission Society Church of God) club that is on campus, if there is any?
They are the people that ask you to do a Bible study with them specifically to teach you about the "True Sabbath," why Passover is necessary for salvation, God the Mother, and a bunch of other slop.
I transferred from Harper College of which there were a few of these cult evangelists and have been trying to learn more about them since, so if you have any information please let me know.
Thanks!
On Friday morning (Thursday Evening - TONIGHT - for Europe & USA) Eastern Australia Time (Canberra) the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church Cult are to appear in front of the Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee for Electoral Matters' Inquiry into the 2025 federal election.
The Cult has chickened out of attending previous hearings, but this week have stated they will be there.
They have been called along with the Advance lobby group (a far-right unhinged political/religious group) who have received large donations from the Plymouth Brethren (aka Exclusive Brethren) cult.
During the 2025 General Election, the incumbent Prime Minister Albanese called out the Plymouth Brethren as a Cult, and pointed directly towards its involvement in election interference [See the post made that day with video of the Prime Minster calling the PBCC a Cult: https://www.reddit.com/r/cults/comments/1kaw49z/incumbent_australian_prime_minister_anthony/ ]
The Plymouth Brethren Cult have put out a statement saying they will be in attendance at the hearing.
Watch ABC Television's exposé of the Plymouth Brethren Cult broadcast last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEIJr5rln4
Read about the Plymouth Brethren Cult's attempts to silence a Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse within the Cult: https://www.smh.com.au/national/cartoon-kookaburra-behind-church-s-attempt-to-silence-a-child-sex-abuse-victim-20260406-p5zllv.html (Cheryl Bawtinheimer is a friend of this subreddit and hosts the Get A Life podcast)
Not things that you noticed at the end while realizing it was all a scam, but things you actively dismissed for most of the time you were in.
Most preachers have a daily quota. That quota is either dictated by local leadership, personal choice, or current activity (like a 30 day preaching festival) of the month/quarter, or just whatever number they can achieve in the allotted time.
Organized preaching meetings:
The formal preaching time is about 1 hour or more starting from the time they are "on the ground" at preaching location. This is scheduled by preaching meeting times, usually around 6 or 7pm on weekdays (minus Tuesday), and 11am on Sundays, and between service times on Saturday. There are also morning and afternoon groups that are smaller due to work times. This is usually a gathering in "zion" of all those going out preaching. They will do a song or 2, someone leads a prayer, and some motivational prodding words from a leader. Then they group up in twos, and coordinate rides and where they are going (usually malls or university are most common). These are mostly in groups of 2, or sometimes 3 if odd number of preachers. And they are usually segregated by gender, only males together or females together, unless married couple sometimes (but still more rare).
"In season and out of season preaching:
This is a verse reference used to mean preaching they do on their own time. Could be while on the bus to work, shopping for groceries, etc. If they are alone, this is usually this type.
Who they target:
Usually they choose an area where they can meet people back to back for the duration of the preaching time. So whoever is nearby and not looking like those they are told to avoid, so that's anyone homeless, struggling, noticeable handicap, LGBTQ, very old, or just any other petty way to judge. They have a sick saying about these avoidances along the lines of "you wouldn't want to sacrifice a defective lamb that had broken leg or disfigured to God, would you?" They will put extra effort if someone looks relatively professional or has family. So anyone that looks like good photo-ops for their recruiting and charity photos, and financial stability is major.
How they critique their contacts:
Usually on the car ride back to zion from the mall the preachers will talk up or down about the people they met. They can't stand anyone that asks tough, legitimate questions (someone that can talk philosophy or academic theology/Biblical studies is major kryptonite they want to get away from). I have heard deacons say out loud, "that person is too smart for the truth." They love people that are just compliant and submissive. If you ever hear a gospel worker say, "oh, he was such a good contact", that usually means they just accepted everything without questioning much.
stages of escalation:
They usually introduce directly that they are preaching to invite for further study, or sometimes disguise it as a questionnaire "for their theological studies". The latter is more common on university campus and they often insinuate they are students there or some other legit school format. They will sometimes say "Elohim Academy" which is just a loose naming of the preaching practice studies they try to force march all members along.
If the person seems recruitable they will push to start a study right then, or get a phone number contact (particular aspect of quota as well). They also usually try to set a next date for a sit down study, and this is when the used-car-salesman persona really shows up. If they just let you go easily, there may be something about you they judged you on as not being worthy enough to try.
After all preaching is done for the day:
They are constantly reminded to update their daily preaching numbers in an app that collectively organizes the worldwide recruiting numbers. If a member preaches all day, but doesn't record the info regularly, leadership focuses some attention to get them to understand the importance of "binding on earth what is bound in heaven". Zealous new members that insist "Mother knows what I did" gets eyerolls from the other gospel workers and sometimes a side-eye from the overseer to that person's group leader. "Sorry overseer, I will get them to understand the importance of reporting preaching numbers and the danger of our own thoughts." Actually I think every member hates this tedious task, but they are so used to never complaining and expressing the slightest frustration about church tasks is on par to admitting you are Judas Iscariot. This faking it culture is so saturated, that it makes the slightest complaint look like rebellion against the entire "truth".
As these numbers are input it includes total numbers you attempted to talk to, how many listened for a period of time, if they provided contact info, and the ultimate - if anyone got baptism.
Many locations have members that will sneak a candid sneaky paparazzi style photo of people getting preached to and post on their group message board saying something like, "this person listened so intently and is hungry for the truth." in some states this is illegal. I have seen leaders publicly state to not post candid photos, and later that rule just disappears without any update and it just goes back to being normal.
Video from SLC Utah news in 2018.
This is cringe to watch knowing the amount of disparity between how they game for awards and recognition but the public has no idea the disdain this church has for "the world" and people that are not members. The absolute worst part watching this for me is when he brings up the major earthquake in Nepal and how much the church cared to help, but I remember the church videos at that time for members. It was an hour long documentary about the Nepal earthquake and how much "idolatry" there is in Nepal and how God hates idolatry. Pretty much saying all the victims that died and lost livelihoods deserved the disaster that happened.
This alone is a sick sub-human mentality, but to turn around and game for awards as if you care about the people there is even sicker. I wish the public knew more about the extreme double speak that goes on in this cult.
Apparently the wmscog in Vietnam uses the naming "Church of God the Mother". I guess trying to circumvent religious laws.
I always support freedom of religion, but that can't be a blanket protection that includes protection for predatory groups.
I remember a time when a new contact was going on 3 weeks of study (maybe 3-4 times a week, extra time on Saturday or Sunday). This person asked in a group education if we can regard "God the Mother" as a "Goddess". Of course, the Deacon looked like he was about to blow a gasket, but managed to contain it and simply be dismissive, and said for whatever reason we shouldn't say that. It was funny because it literally is the word for what they say she is, but they get so bothered by any form of going off script.
Even as a believer at the time, I thought it was a worthwhile question, even though I understood it as "unorthodox" within wmscog culture. But many other higher-level members later scoffed about that event as if he should have known better by that time, even ridiculed the person who was studying with them for not brainwashing fast enough.
anyone else been approached by this group? getting really sick of the endless garbage being shoved in your face from both guild supported clubs and random strangers.
They could only answer what they personally are aware of. No opinions or personal viewpoints, just facts about how things are run, how they are managed, what level of manipulation are they involved, etc.