Chronological Overview of Providence & Jung Myung Seok’s Trials
Providence (also known as Christian Gospel Mission) and Pastor Jung have faced over 25-year history of trials and malicious allegations from anti-Providence/anti-JMS individuals and the press. Sensational news, even when fabricated or twisted, drown out the voice of reason and balanced perspectives from other journalists and Providence members.
For the discerning public and the truth finders, this page provides a chronological and up-to-date overview of the trials surrounding Providence and Pastor Jung, bringing to light the voice of reason and justice. It also clearly reveals a pattern of attacks on Providence and Pastor Jung that continues to emerge even today with the Netflix series.
Pre-2000: Media allegations instigated by Kim Do Hyung. Court ruled as false only over ten years later, but damage was done
1999 SBS (Korea), instigated by Kim Do Hyung (led the anti-Providence group called EXODUS or DCG), made sexual allegations against Pastor Jung in a broadcast. Pastor Jung traveled overseas for missionary work during this period as well. Following this first broadcast, overseas news media jumped on the bandwagon and broadcasted sexual allegations against Pastor Jung.
After these allegations, conflict and confusion among members ensued. The Christian Gospel Mission (CGM) sued SBS for its report but it was only in September 2010, 11 years after the media allegations, where the court ruled in favour of CGM that SBS was biased and relied entirely on Kim Do Hyung’s one-sided report, and that it should not have aired the broadcast in 1999. However, this ruling was not known to the public. Pastor Jung, who was already branded a criminal by public opinion and later imprisoned, continued to suffer because of the media.
The footages aired by SBS in 1999 turned out to be distortions of the original video, crafted by video editing. The media company had depicted President Jung Myung Seok as a leader with sexual problems in its broadcast by editing a portion of Jung’s Sunday sermon from 1995. [Ref: Jeong Gyeong News 2012]
Pastor Jung was also accused by the media of “fleeing” overseas. However, the sexual assault charges were in fact dismissed by the prosecutors involved, and Pastor Jung was able to travel overseas lawfully. He returned to Korea several times during his travels and was investigated by the prosecutors about his travels. In these ways, the news broadcasted about Jung Myung Seok was different from the facts, and only published a media correction over 16 years later. Damage was clearly done. [ref: Yonhap News 16 Mar 2015]
2000 to 2006: Former charges and more media allegations against Pastor Jung
2001 Formal charges were made against Pastor Jung, while he was missionizing overseas.
2006 April SBS issued another broadcast, led again by Kim Do Hyung, that made new sexual allegations against Pastor Jung in China. South Korea puts Pastor Jung on the Interpol international wanted list and asked China to extradite him.
2006 April Ms. Jang and Ms. Kim, the alleged victims, undertook a medical examination in a hospital, while under Chinese police protection. The examination resulted in a finding of no traces of sexual assault. The Korean Police Hospital did a subsequent check on Ms. Jang and Ms. Kim and found no traces of sexual assault. Hence, the Pastor Jung was found innocent. However, South Korea’s extradition request for Pastor Jung remained. [Ref: Feb 2010 Minjung News, News Daily, and Break News].
2007: Imprisoned in China without trial, then released innocent
2007 Pastor Jung was arrested by China based on Korea’s extradition request, and put him in prison without a trial and for an unknown period of time. Despite intense efforts to find evidence against Pastor Jung, including death threats, China found Pastor Jung to be innocent and released him after a harrowing 10 months.
2008: Extradition to Korea, Trial and 10 Years Imprisonment (Without Evidence)
2008 In February, China released Pastor Jung in February to be extradited back to South Korea to stand charges. He was subsequently tried for 5 charges by 5 women, a small number compared to the the media and Kim Do Hyung’s allegations of tens of thousands of sexual assault victims.
One of those women making the charge, Ms. Jang (from the 2006 April allegations), admitted to lying and dropped her charge, and pointed out that the other women too were also lying, and instigated by a mastermind, Kim Do Hyung. There was also no evidence for all the five allegations. [Ref: Feb 2010 Minjung News, News Daily, and Break News]
Nevertheless, the judge, making his decision in the face of a negative public opinion because of the media distortions, sentenced Pastor Jung to 6 years imprisonment in August. He was found guilty for three out of five charges made against him (Ms. Jang and Ms. Kim’s charges dropped), even though there was no evidence and only verbal testimonies.
Pastor Jung denied all the remaining 3 charges and appealed to the high court. However, the court held the sentence, and added back Ms. Kim’s charge (making it four out of five charges) against Pastor Jung because he was deemed as unrepentant, thus increasing the sentence to 10 years. [Ref: Feb 2010 Minjung News, News Daily, and Break News]
Despite being in prison, Pastor Jung continued to write sermons, letters and pray for Providence members, according to the allowed rules. [Ref: Uri News 2013 Nov]
Third Party Reporters Report Serious Issues with the 2008 Trial
In 2010, third party news reporters began reporting serious issues with the trial in the following articles. Some called for a retrial but to no avail.
2010 Feb 7: [Minjung News] “Jung Myung Seok Cross: Why and for Whom?”
2010 Feb 12: [News Daily] “The truth concealed behind the 10-year sentence of Jung Myung Seok, Chairman of Christian Gospel Mission (JMS) – Part 1: Falsified News Report by SBS.”
2010 Feb 15: [Break News] “Jung Myung Seok case needs a retrial.”
2010 Feb 26: [News Daily] “The truth concealed behind the 10-year sentence of Jung Myung Seok, Chairman of Christian Gospel Mission (JMS) – Part 2: Ms. Y falsely claimed herself to be a victim of sexual assault by Chairman Jung, but confessed the truth in court.”
2010 Mar 31: [News Daily] “The truth concealed behind the 10-year sentence of Jung Myung Seok, Chairman of Christian Gospel Mission (JMS) – Part 3: The 20 billion won request from K.” (K = Kim Do Hyung)
2011 to 2012: More Media Allegations & Charges, led by Kim Do Hyung, dismissed by court due to no evidence
2011 The media focus on Pastor Jung waned after his imprisonment in 2008. Out of the blue in 2011, organizations such as “Anti-JMS” began to demand money from CGM for compensation and attacked Jung with new charges like sexual assault, terrorism, and other misdemeanors. Kim Do Hyung, together with a few ex-Providence members, made allegations against Jung with the release of an obscene alleged internal video of CGM at a press conference. This spurred over 10 investigations on Pastor Jung.
2012 As the investigations were ongoing, third party reporters reported about the questionable motives of Kim Do Hyung and the Anti-JMS organizations who placed new charges on Pastor Jung:
2012 March: [Minjung News] “Jung Myung Seok follows only Jesus”
2012 Apr: [Newsmaker] “Why is Christian Gospel Mission Back in Spotlight?”
2012 Apr 5th: [News n Joy] JMS, “Video is a Strategy to Attract Public Opinion”
2012 June: [Jeong Kyeong News] “Is the Issue with Jung Myung Seok Social or Religious?”
2012 Oct After concluding 10 investigations, the Korean Court eventually dismissed all the charges made against Jung in October 2012 because there was no evidence. The obscene video turned out to be edited and pieced together of different footages that causes a misperception that all members were living in ways that are contradictory to their religious life. The video manipulated two different videos from 2007, a festival event where Jung was wearing formal attire, and a second low-resolution video that had nothing to do with Jung. [Minjung News] Controversies about “Evergreens” were also refuted. [News n Joy]. The final verdict was reported in the following:
2013 to 2015: More media allegations, led by Kim Do Hyung, dismissed by government as speculation
2013 Just as the media attention on Pastor Jung began to die again, fresh allegations were made against Pastor Jung for receiving preferential treatment in prison. The Minister of Justice deemed these allegations as speculations, and news reports irresponsible and groundless. News reports on this:
2013 Oct: [Uri News] “Media reports distort Jung Myung Seok”
2013 Nov: [Uri News] “Speculations about Jung Myung Seok Untrue.”
2013 Nov 6: [Hyundae News] (Original in Korean)
2013 Nov 14: [Daejeon City Journal] (Original in Korean)
2015 Jan 13: MBN News Apologizes for Defamation and Corrects Previous Article
2015 Mar 16: Yonhap News Statement retracting its misinformation about Jung Myung Seok
2014 to 2017: Media allegations in Australia, followed by Media apologies
2014 Peter Daley, an Australian who marketed himself as a “cult expert,” published accusations against Pastor Jung and CGM on his own website. Additionally, he supplied these allegations to news agencies. SBS (Australia) broadcasted this as a one-sided story that was completely without evidence. Other unreliable news media like the Daily Mail also published Daley’s allegations. This once again tarnished CGM and Pastor Jung’s reputation.
Peter Daley apologised for his actions 3 years later in this letter, but damage had been done.
During this period, other major Korean news outlets also issued formal apologies to CGM for past misreporting.
2017 June: MBN Director Apologizes to Christian Gospel Mission
2017 June: TV Chosun Apologizes to Christian Gospel Mission
2017 Sep: [MinJung News] Jung Myung Seok cleared Second Round Allegations
2018 July: Peter Daley Apologizes to Providence Church
It is evident that even while Pastor Jung was in prison between 2008 to 2018, there were anti-Providence individuals that continually tried to create falsehoods and allegations to extend his sentence. Pastor Jung was finally released from his 10-year sentence in Feb 2018, already 73 years old.
2022: Media Allegations and Charges, led by Kim Do Hyung.
2022 Mar 16: Kim Do Hyung (the same individual who made baseless accusations since 1999) organizes a press conference making baseless allegations against Pastor Jung again. Kim had previously extorted money and revealed to have questionable personal motives for his crusade (see news here). He recruited 2 ex-members (Maple and “Amy”) who made sexual allegations that are not based on any evidence.
2022 Mar 30: A reporter with News.com.au posted a highly misleading article regarding serious allegations about CGM’s Australian churches.
2022 April to October: Police conducts periodic investigations with Pastor Jung, who is fully cooperative.
2022 July: JTBC (Korea) featured a provocative broadcast featuring a misleading audio clip. (A CGM member explains why the clip distorts the truth)
2022 October: Pastor Jung is detained by police for investigations. Pre-trials begin in late 2022.
2023: Netflix “In the name of God” launches in the middle of the court trial.
2023 Mar 3: Even though the pre-trial is ongoing, Netflix features the series In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal, which features 3 episodes of one-sided accusations against Pastor Jung. The series features a completely one-sided account of Pastor Jung, built on the narrative provided Kim Do Hyung, the mastermind who had previously attempted to extort money from Providence and was revealed to have questionable personal motives for his crusade (see news here and here).
In the Netflix series, Kim Do Hyung revives the past accusations from 1990s till 2018 which have been proven to be lies, and brings in two new alleged victims (Maple and “Amy”) to connect the narrative from the past. All these is weaved into a high production cost movie that deliberately muddles reality with acted scenes and baseless accusations. The final outcome is a hyper-sensational, sexed craze, semi-pornographic, disturbing and defamatory docu-series, with a goal of stirring up public opinion, influence ongoing court outcomes and of course, bagging in profits for Kim Do Hyung and the producer.
However, when stripped to its core, the series is simply based on verbal testimonies with no concrete evidence. The only semblance of a proper evidence is an audio recording produced by Maple, which has not been accepted in court because of clear signs of editing (see Article 1 and Article 2), and the original file claimed to have been accidentally deleted from iCloud and the original phone claimed to have been accidentally disposed of by Maple.
Christian Gospel Mission features a series of articles and videos explaining the other side of the story. (Articles: Detailed opinion article, Opinion, Taiwan CGM statement)
2023 July 2: 7NEWS Spotlight (Australian) features a one-sided video that follows on Netflix In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal narratives, rebranding it to focus on a few Australian ex-members, one of whom was featured in Netflix. 7NEWS also claims to have infiltrated into CGM locations and to be the first in the world to do so, and hence boasted exclusive footages. This is irresponsible and misrepresents the fact that 7NEWS was invited by CGM to film those locations (just like CGM had done with other news media before like this one) with a mutual agreement that 7NEWS would present things more objectively, which 7NEWS had broken without due regard. CGM HQ and Australia CGM have issued statements in response. Opinion article here.
2024: Pastor Jung imprisoned 17 years, without concrete evidence
In a highly contested trial, where appeals were made to the highest court, Pastor Jung was sentenced to 17 years of jail (the Supreme Court reduced a lower court’s sentencing of 23 years).
Despite appeals to the President of South Korea and a peaceful street demonstration with over 200,000 members filling the streets with testimonies, the court continued to be swayed by public opinion. Judges in South Korea find it impossible to make a court verdict without feeling the pressures of society’s expectations [reference article].
Just like previous trials, this trial reeked with dramatic and contradicting verbal testimonies from the accusers, a mastermind behind the scene (Kim Do Hyung), serious manipulation of social sentiments (Netflix, media), and no concrete evidence except for a fabricated audio clip.
Kim Do Hyung also spares no effort to weaponize the law (with lawsuits) against anyone who questions his background (9-time felon) or intentions (e.g., profit making) or his allies like Maple (Kim uses “secondary harm to victims” to silence anyone who points out contradictions in Maple’s testimony).
2025: More media allegations
Netflix’s sequel to In the Name of God is announced to be released in South Korea in August. It positions Maple as a survivor from the “nefarious” Providence church, and alleges more unfounded accusations against Providence.
With Pastor Jung already in prison, and Providence members (including young school children, families and professionals) reeling from the discrimination and persecution received as a result of malicious lies and public shaming of providence members, what truly is the intention of Kim Do Hyung and the movie producer (Cho PD) in making this sequel? Is it really for justice? Or profit-making and fame?
If you have read this entirely chronology, you would have pictured a clear pattern of the allegations on Providence and Pastor Jung. We believe God will bring the truth to light.
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