CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/16/2020 (Singapore, Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Lori Daybell, India, Tantric Sexual Abuse)

Singapore, Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Lori Daybell, India, Tantric Sexual Abuse

Straits Times: Singapore men lose wives to alleged religious sect leader's deviant teachings

"A former massage therapist here who claims God speaks to him directly and says gambling is permitted in order to help needy Muslims has several men blaming him for ending their marriages.

They say he took the women as his spiritual wives."

CBS: New memoir "Little Sister" explores growing up in a religious cult

"Veteran financier Patricia Chadwick finds joy within the walls of a church — a familiarity that dates back to her childhood in Massachusetts, when her parents were members of a religious order, the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

"It consisted of about 50, 55 people… banded together for one purpose," she told "CBS This Morning: Saturday" co-host Dana Jacobson. "Over a dogma of the Catholic Church, which said you had to be Catholic to get to Heaven."

The small community would warp into something darker — which Chadwick recounts in her new memoir, "Little Sister," about growing up in a cult led by an excommunicated priest and how she overcame being cut off from her family and the outside world."

2 Idaho News: Investigators to review the death of Lori Daybell's 3rd husband Joseph Ryan

"Phoenix police investigators say they will launch a new review into the death of "doomsday mom" Lori Vallow's third husband Joseph Ryan.

Ryan reportedly died of a heart attack in 2018, but police say a new tape has surfaced allegedly catching Vallow saying she wanted to kill him.

Ryan was Lori Daybell's third husband and father to Tylee Ryan. Tylee, 17, and her brother Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, were found dead and buried on the property of Lori's current husband Chad Daybell in early June.

Court documents obtained earlier by International Business Times and Daily Mail reveal Lori Vallow was previously sued by Joseph Ryan for hiding their daughter, Tylee."

Times News Now: Handed over to tantrik by father, woman, minor sister raped & impregnated in Maharashtra

"A tantrik allegedly raped a woman and her 17-year-old sister multiple times at his residence in Maharastra. Police arrested him on November 3, following a complaint by the woman."

" ... The tantrik asked the Navsari resident to leave his daughter at his residence in Maharashtra for some days for rituals. The man agreed and took his daughter to the tantrik's house. However, after some days, she expressed her unwillingness to stay there, following which he brought her back to Navsari.

After this, the tantrik asked the man to let his younger daughter live at his house. He was also asked to pay Rs 50,000. He paid the money and dropped his 17-year-old daughter at the tantrik's house in October. The teenager also called up her father and told him that she wants to come back home. After she returned home, the two sisters told their father that the tantric had sexually assaulted them, according to a report by The Indian Express."

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21 people arrested after unregistered Singapore chapter of South Korean Shincheonji church resumed activities 'covertly': MHA

CNA

November 11, 2020

SINGAPORE: Twenty-one people were arrested by the police on Monday (Nov 9) for allegedly being members of an unlawful society.

Preliminary investigations showed that the nine men, aged between 22 and 31, and 12 women, aged between 21 and 49, had allegedly re-engaged in activities connected to the unregistered local chapter of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ), which is based in South Korea, said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Another group of nine women, aged between 22 and 52, and two men, aged 23 and 36, are assisting the police with ongoing investigations.

"MHA will not allow members of unlawful societies or persons associated with them to threaten Singapore’s public safety, peace and good order," it said.

The ministry said in February it was investigating the local SCJ chapter’s activities. 

As a result of these investigations, five South Korean nationals who were identified to have held key positions in the local chapter were repatriated in February and the group’s front entities were dissolved. 

Members of the local chapter were issued warnings to cease further involvement in SCJ activities or face further action from the authorities.

"In spite of the actions taken, the local SCJ chapter has resumed its activities covertly, under the direction of its South Korean parent chapter," said MHA.

"As such, (the Criminal Investigation Department) is investigating members of the local SCJ chapter for potential offences under the Societies Act."

Anyone convicted of being a member of an unlawful society can be jailed for up to three years or fined up to S$5,000, or both.

The church was at the centre of South Korea's COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 5,200 of the country's total cases linked to it.

Founded by South Korean national Lee Man-Hee in 1984, SCJ has "attracted accusations of being a cult in several countries due to its unorthodox teachings", said MHA.

"Based on testimonies of former members, Lee has claimed to be the second coming of Christ, who would bring 144,000 people to Heaven with him on the Day of Judgement. He has also claimed to be the only person who can interpret the Bible, and SCJ allegedly regards all other churches and pastors as belonging to Satan," said MHA in its press release. 

"SCJ teaches that it is acceptable to use deceit and lies if it serves God’s purposes. It has been accused of infiltrating and disrupting established Korean churches by using deception and secrecy to trick people into becoming involved with them."

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/members-arrested-singapore-chapter-south-korea-church-13518262,

How to tell if you’re in a cult

Sherab Wong shares telltale signs of a cult.

Melanie Chalil
MalayMail
July 16, 2018

PETALING JAYA, July 16 — Following the success of last year’s Malaysia Dharma Stream Forum, a forum that aimed to raise awareness on the rise of cult movements in Malaysia, organisers are back with a second edition with hopes of addressing cult issues and fostering intra-faith and inter-faith dialogues.

“There are more than 20 cults in Malaysia and we are seeing an influx of cult organisations masking as yoga or meditation centres, but have a sinister agenda,” said eastern and western metaphysics trainer and speaker Sherab Wong.

“This forum focuses on highlighting worrying issues within Buddhist organisations because the religion has been misappropriated and this is increasingly rampant,” said Durian Asean FM founder Jamaluddin Ibrahim, who organised the forum.

Wong and Jamaluddin wanted to warn the public about these dubious establishments — they believe prevention is better than cure.

“Victims tend not to speak out because they feel scared, some have depression and mental issues. There’s also shame attached to it especially women who have faced sexual violation,” Wong explained.

“These problems are never exposed in Malay and English-speaking societies and we want these issues to be highlighted,” said Jamaluddin.

He explained that on top of a lack of background checks, religious cults are relatively free to roam around as long as they don’t encroach into the official religion.

The good news is, there are ways to tell if you’ve gotten yourself involved with a cult.

Wong gave some pointers, such a charismatic leader who says only his teaching is the best and is the absolute truth.

“It’s a red flag when they don’t let you go to other centres and they try to pull you away from your family members, saying you are unique. When you are in your most fragile state, they say they are your saviour.

“What they want you to do is distance yourself from your community, so no one knows what you are doing. You start giving them money and believe this is the only way of redemption,” cautioned Wong.

Several workshops will be held at the forum throughout the day, including the future of Malaysian Buddhism, sharing sessions and how to train leaders to deal with cult issues among other pressing matters, all conducted in an informal discussion style.

The organisers also plan to launch the Integral Cult Awareness Network (iCAN), a national awareness campaign that collects data and experiences from victims.

“We hope victims will speak out, so we can find a way to help them emotionally and legally,” said Wong.

The Malaysia Dharma Stream Forum 2018 will take place on Sunday at Nexus Connexion Conference and Event Centre, Bangsar South from 8am to 6pm.

The forum will be attended by Buddhist group representatives from Malaysia and Singapore, social and religious scholars, community services providers, legal professionals, commentators, university students, media and the public.

https://www.malaymail.com/s/1652855/how-to-tell-if-youre-in-a-cult

Pastor in Singapore church fraud escapes harsher jail term

Jakarta Post
February 1, 2018


The leader of a glitzy Singapore megachurch convicted of misusing nearly $20 million in church money to advance his wife's music career escaped a harsher prison term Thursday as a court rejected demands to reinstate his original sentence.

The Court of Appeal ruling puts an end to the long-running case involving millions in church money and raunchy music videos featuring the wife of City Harvest Church leader Kong Hee alongside Hollywood stars.

Kong and five other church leaders were in 2015 convicted of using Sg$24 million ($19.8 million) from a church building fund to help Kong's wife, Sun Ho, 45, break into the English-language market.

They were also found guilty of misappropriating another Sg$26 million from the church to cover their tracks with a complex web of financial transactions.

Kong was sentenced to eight years while the other five received jail terms ranging from 21 months to six years.

With its heady mix of religion, pop and fraud, the case fascinated Singapore, which prides itself on its tough stance on corruption.

The church leaders' sentences were reduced on a technicality last year by the High Court, with the 53-year-old senior pastor's jail term cut to three-and-a-half years.

This triggered a storm of criticism, with more than 4,000 people commenting on it on the Facebook page of local broadsheet The Straits Times. 

State prosecutors, who said the case involved the largest amount of charity funds ever misappropriated in Singapore's legal history, had sought for the harsher sentences to be reinstated but were denied by the apex court on Thursday.

Four church leaders, including Kong, are currently serving their sentences, one has finished her seven-month term and another will start serving his sentence on February 22.

Kong looked visibly thinner when he and the other convicts were brought to the dock in purple prison overalls, with their hands and feet cuffed and shackled.

He was calm and occasionally waved and nodded to the public gallery packed with supporters who had lined up since 3:00 am to get a seat.

Ho was never charged.

In a 2007 music video called "China Wine" that came out on YouTube, a scantily-clad Ho appeared with rapper Wyclef Jean.

In another video, for a reggae-tinged song entitled "Mr Bill", Ho appeared as an Asian wife who sings about killing her African-American husband, played by supermodel Tyson Beckford.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/amp/seasia/2018/02/01/pastor-in-singapore-church-fraud-escapes-harsher-jail-term.html

Kong Hee humbled he gets police escort on his way to church in Indonesia

Belmont Lay

Mothership
December 15, 2016

Irony not lost on the masses though.

City Harvest Church founder pastor Kong Hee has posted a video on Facebook showing the police escort treatment he received in Jakarta, Indonesia, arranged for him by the organizer of his trip.

He wrote in his post that he was “humbled” by the way they honour his presence in Indonesia whenever he goes there to preach.

The irony of being escorted by the police was not lost on the masses though.
http://mothership.sg/2016/12/kong-hee-humbled-he-gets-police-escort-on-his-way-to-church-in-indonesia/

Mega Church Scandal In Singapore Reveals Religion As Business Model – Analysis

Kalinga Seneviratne
Eurasia Review
November 1, 2015

Over the centuries, all great religious leaders and philosophers, including Jesus Christ, have drawn attention to the evils of excessive greed and taught honesty and integrity to overcome it. The guilty verdict by a Singaporean court in October, convicting six leaders of a large Christian Evangelical Church in a 36 million U.S. dollar fraud case, has raised question marks on whether so-called Mega Churches with thousands of devout followers generously donating to their coffers are a business or a religion?

The City Harvest Church (CHC), which had a congregation of 33,000 followers when the court case started three years ago, but since reduced by half, got embroiled in one of the biggest corruption cases in Singapore’s 50 year history, when its founding pastor Kong Hee and five of his senior staff were charged with misuse of church funds. On October 21, Singapore’s District Courts found all six guilty of acting dishonestly in conspiring to misuse church’s funds running into millions of dollars.

Kong Hee was found guilty of secretly funnelling 18 million dollars of the church’s funds into sham investments to bankroll the controversial pop music career of his wife Ho Yeow Sun. CHC’s finance committee member John Lam, fund manager Chew Eng Han, deputy senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, Finance Managers Serina Wee and Sharon Tan were all convicted of devising plans to use a further 19 million dollar to cover the tracks by setting up sham companies.

In delivering the verdict, Judge See Kee Oon described the six as “acting dishonestly” to misuse church funds on a so-called Crossover project – CHC mission to use Ho’s gospel music to evangelise Taiwanese and other Asians as well as break into the U.S. gospel music market with an English album. “Each of them participated and functioned in their own way as crucial clogs in the machinery,” said Judge See, who singled out Kong as the spiritual leader that the other defendants have trusted.

The 140 day CHC trial is the second longest criminal trial in Singapore and experts here say that it could be the most expensive trial in Singapore’s history with legal costs shooting over the 10 million dollar mark. Four of the defendants were represented by elite Senior Counsel whose costs could be in excess of 1.5 million dollar for the case, a senior lawyer has told the Straits Times. While wealthy church members may have contributed to some of the costs, at the beginning of the trial, the government said that it was illegal under the law for the church to publicly canvass for funds to help its members to fight the court case.

The scam involved CHC’s finance managers, setting up music production company Xtron and glass-maker Firna. The latter was in fact set up to fund the Crossover project which the defendants claimed during the trial as serving the Church’s mission to evangelise in Asia. First, 18 million dollar was invested in bonds from Xtron and Firna. Later, 19 million dollar was used to cover up the initial misdeed.

The judge noted that the initial bond issue was not genuine investments because the album sales projection indicated that they will not make enough income to redeem the bonds on time, and Ho’s album’s perceived success was inflated as album sales were boosted by the church. Later they used 19 million dollars to cover up the initial misdeeds, while hiding from the auditors the fact that Xtron was controlled by pastors Kong and Peng.

The Judge did not buy the argument that Crossover project had a dual purpose of being an investment and serving a missionary purposed. He noted that they have devised creative labelling for “round-tripping” transactions that were designed in a way that the “CHC was channelling money through various conduits in order to pay itself”.

The CHC was formed by Kong in 1989 with 20 followers. At that time he has just graduated from the University of Singapore with a degree in computer science and had “barely a dollar to his name” according to CHC website. In 1995, after Kong returned to Singapore from the United States with a doctorate in theology, the church began to grow rapidly.

By 2009 they had over 30,000 mainly young energetic followers packing its 34 million dollar newly built chic church. Their pop concert style services appealed to the young, while Kong had to often brush off criticism that he practiced an aggressive form of evangelism and he focused on financial blessing which is sometimes known as “Prosperity Gospel”.  He has argued that CHC is presenting Christianity in a way that is relevant to the people of the 21st century, particularly the young.

Whiste-blower’s crucial role

It was around this time that Kong and the CHC appealed to their followers for funds to make a 215 dollar million bid to buy a controlling interest in the Suntec Convention Centre, a popular venue for international conventions. This raised alarm bells in the small affluent island republic about the business model and aggressive evangelisation of some Christian churches.

The conviction in October has its roots in a 2003 claim by a whistle-blower, a 53-year old CHC member and businessman Roland Poon who alleged that church’s funds were used to fund the music career of pastor Kong’s wife Ho. At the time she was vying for the Singapore Favourite Artist Award at the MTV Asia Music Awards. Poon was eventually forced to retract his allegations by church members and he spent over 20,000 dollars in taking out advertisements in local newspapers to do so.

Strait Times’s Assistant News Editor Abdul Hafiz argued after the verdict that the CHC saga highlights the crucial role of whistle-blowers in exposing wrongdoings of charities who claim to do good for the society. Even Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said recently that whistle-blowers are important because the Government could not keep watch on everything.

“Larger religious charities like CHC are a breed apart,” argues Hafiz. “They work behind closed doors, and donations at times are made with a blind conviction that those in charge will always do the right thing under the scrutiny of heaven.” He also points out that Kong’s controversial prosperity gospel works on the principle of more the tithes (biblical donations to church) more the followers get back material on earth. The CHC website says, “we believe that our giving is a form of worship”.

Since the CHC case started many dissolutioned former church members have openly criticised the church’s aggressive fundraising tactics in blog posts. They have described how Kong in his glitzy sermons often makes statements such as: “We can lift our hands to worship god, but if the titches are still in your pocket, then due tributes are not been given.”

One ex-member of ten years standing writing in a  blog as “Farhan” described how the church changed his life in a positive direction and he even started to eat cheaply to save money to buy 10 CDs of Ho’s album. But, his faith in the church began to wane, when they moved their Sunday services to Suntec Convention Centre and Kong asked the congregation to donate generously to raise 220 million dollar within seven years to buy off the venue by paying their debts.

While the members were asked to sacrifice for “god’s mission”, Kong and his wife were living in luxury in multi-million dollar properties in Singapore and Beverly Hills, driving around in a luxury Audi and travelling first class on frequent overseas trips. “He may have sacrificed a lot in his early days, but now they are living the days of their life,” noted Farhan, “it came to a point I said enough is enough and left”.

A research paper released by the Yusof Ishak Institute of the National University of Singapore on the growing Pentecostal Christian churches in Southeast Asia, by researcher Dr Terrence Chong argues that these churches driven by upwardly mobile Chinese have become crucial spaces for social  networking, business contacts and identity making among ethnic Chinese minority communities across the region.

Chong points  out that “charismatic” senior pastors enjoy “great deference and sway over large congregations” and these churches are also spreading to slum communities in Asia. “(These leaders) are deeply authoritarian in character because the charismatic leader is supposedly entrusted to articulate God’s will and vision for the church,” he argues.

Following the verdict, Kong has apologised to a weeping congregation at a Sunday service and said that god will use his ‘guilty’ verdict for good of the church and announced a new management structure where his wife Ho has been officially appointed as a pastor.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s Commissioner of Charities (COC) has indicated that it will soon take measures to ban Kong and others convicted from holding any key management positions or employment with the church. COC has also been tightening regulations on charities after a spate of such scams uncovered in recent years in both religious and secular charities.

The National Council of Churches in Singapore has issued an appeal to its members to “pay greater attention to church governance in the management of funds”. Pastor Kong and five others convicted will be sentenced on November 20.

*Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is Special Correspondent of IDN, flagship of International Press Syndicate, for Asia-Pacific. He teaches international communications in Singapore.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/01112015-mega-church-scandal-in-singapore-reveals-religion-as-business-model-analysis/