The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-4, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 32."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

About a year ago, a friend of mine came to me and let me read one of his books called The Fourth Dimension—it was written by Dr. Paul Cho, the pastor of the world’s largest church.  I was very distressed as I read the book.  My question to you is, have you read the book?  And what do you know about the man?

Answer

Paul (David) Yonggi Cho is a Korean pastor, a pastor of the world’s largest church, I guess.  At least they have a lot of people going there; they have probably 200,000 members or something.  And part of it is a Korean phenomenon; it’s a cultural phenomenon.

Yes, I have read much of what Cho has written.  I have interacted with a lot that’s been written about him.  In fact, I just finished last night, sitting in my easy chair, reading a book called The Seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt, a book which I had prior read when it was in manuscript form—it was about twice as long and had a lot more to say until the editors got a hold of it, you know…  But, in that, he deals very, very carefully with men who are on the Christian scene who are in one way or another deceiving people.  Men like Kenneth Hagan, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick Price, Robert Schuller, and Paul (David) Yonggi Cho. 

Cho comes across on the surface as an evangelical and he identifies very overtly with evangelicals, but if you begin to look deeply into his theology and his viewpoint, you see that it basically is syncretistic.  It’s an eclectic: it’s a collection of all kinds of things.  It’s strongly Pentecostal-Charismatic.  It is strongly into what Hunt likes to think of as “forms of sorcery, white magic, and the occult.”  It is also infused with some of their old traditional ancestor worship and some of their old religion. 

For example, they have this place called Prayer Mountain, where people go for hours and hours and pray.  We would say, “Isn’t it wonderful that they pray?” but if you were to go there, you would see them doing this kind of thing, which is a genuflecting and repeating the same thing over and over, hour after hour. 

So, he is a hybird of many things.  It’s difficult to put the finger on it because there are times when he will articulate the gospel as we know the gospel.  But, it is laced with all of that “health/wealth/prosperity/healing” kind of thing that’s sort of a white magic approach.  In other words, if you put all the right gimmicks together and say all the right words—in fact, much of that stuff is almost like a mantra in “TM” where you just keep telling yourself something is true over and over and over again.  You keep reciting it and claiming it, and claiming it, and claiming it, and claiming it, until it happens. 

So I do not believe that Cho is a full, thorough-going, biblical evangelical.  I think he is a syncretistic eclectic who’s collected a whole lot of different things.  He has a high appeal in his nation, because a lot of things that those people look for and experience in their own culture are made available through that religion and there’s a promise of health and wealth and happiness, which is always a ticket to some amount of success.  But I don’t want to deny that in the middle of it all, he articulates the gospel and no doubt that has an effect on people, a positive effect.  But that’s what makes it difficult.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986