JMS Cult Is Actually “10 Times Worse” Than Shown In Documentary, According To “In The Name Of God: A Holy Betrayal” Director

Netflix‘s docuseries In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal is gaining much attention for its hard-hitting truth about four Korean cults and the victims affected by the cult leaders’ crimes.

Cho Sung Hyun, the series director and a documentary producer at MBC, shared what it was like making this docuseries.

First, he shared that he had the idea of making this documentary because he knew a lot of people affected by cults: “Ever since I was young, there were many people around me who were victims of cult religions, and after I started making documentaries, the topic was almost like homework to me.” 

After many years of learning about and observing these cults, he proposed making a docuseries about them to Netflix.

The show’s first scene is a snippet of an interview with Maple, a victim of the cult Christian Gospel Mission (also known as JMS or Providence). Within the first ten minutes of the series, audiences were shocked at her confessions that she was sexually assaulted by the leader Jeong Myeong Seok and the voice recordings of him assaulting her.

However, director Cho Sung Hyun admitted an even more shocking truth: the tragic events shown in this docuseries were only 10% of reality.

He stated, “I am aware there is controversy regarding the sexual content, but the important thing is that everything said is true. It was tough for us to listen to the content while gathering testimonies because the stories were so traumatizing. Nevertheless, we had to tell the truth, and we only told what needed to be told which lowered the ‘level’ to one-tenth of reality.”

Director Cho Sung Hyun then shared why he added the voice recording of the sexual assault as the first scene of the show.

Even though audiences would find it “disturbing” and “hard to listen to,” he believed that members of JMS would watch the docuseries out of curiosity—and he wanted the first ten minutes to show them everything they needed to know about the cult to realize the truth and question, “Is he really the Messiah?”

While highlighting the four cults through his docuseries, he said that he focused on the events and religions that severely damaged human dignity and approached the areas that the victims wanted to share and inform about the most actively.

He also announced unexpected plans for a second season.

I didn’t have any plans of making a season 2 even when this show was first released, but I changed my mind when I saw people leaving cults after watching ‘In The Name Of God: A Holy Betrayal.’

— Director Cho Sung Hyun

Lastly, he shared his concerns for anyone in a cult: “Cult religions gaslight people into feeling like happiness is negative and sinful. If anyone attends a church like that, I hope they realize it quickly.“