7 Things You Need To Know About The ‘good News Mission’

Gospel means “good news.” So when I heard that Good News Church had opened a few blocks from where my church meets, I was eager to connect and expectant that I might have a new colaboring gospel ministry in our city.

But I quickly learned Good News Church is a part of a global movement, the Good News Mission (GNM), that has been denounced by the larger body of Christ in Korea. If GNM hasn’t already come to your city, they’ll likely arrive soon.

Here are seven things you should know about GNM.

1. GNM is a growing movement.

It’s a rapidly spreading global movement with roots in Seoul, South Korea. At the time of writing, they already have outposts in 26 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. They have a staggering 1,008 active locations in more than 90 countries.

2. GNM’s founder, Ock Soo Park, has a checkered history.

Park founded GNM 50 years ago, and he’s highly venerated despite being rejected by the broader evangelical movement in Korea. When I began to research his history, I found allegations of fraud, a multimillion-dollar legal battle over building violations, and another over food sanitation violations.

The food sanitation accusation is a reduced charge from a more serious accusation of fraud. Park claimed a product unapproved and untested by the Korean equivalent of America’s FDA has the ability to cure cancer and AIDS.

3. GNM has invested heavily in reaching youth.

One of GNM’s key strategies is reaching college and high school students. The International Youth Fellowship, a mission-focused outreach organization also founded by Park, boasts 2 million participants in their events in 40 countries. They eagerly train youth in GNM’s key doctrines.

4. GNM teaches a variation of perfectionism.

One key doctrine that stands out is perfectionism. When I spoke to the GNM missionary in my city, he told me, “One of the greatest sins someone can commit is continuing to confess they are a sinner [after coming to Christ]. This is offensive to God.” This central tenet of GNM’s “gospel” is at odds with New Testament teaching: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

In one of Park’s books, How I Became Free from Sin, he argues that the moment a person accepts Christ, all his or her “heart can be freed from sin.” Park believes not only that believers are free from sin’s power but that they’re freed from all sinful identity and actions. There’s no remaining sin at all. In a video on his personal YouTube channel, Park strings together statements like these: “God, you made me perfect.” “Jesus paid for all my sins. You have to have faith in that.” “Your heart is connected to God’s heart.”

Some of these statements are true, but Park’s teaching implies that once a person has faith in God, the impulse to sin is eradicated. As Park states in another video, “[Jesus] forgave our sins forever,” so when we believe, “we are people without sin.”

Perfectionism’s emphasis contradicts how the Bible talks about Christians. New Testament authors use both “sinner” (1 Tim. 1:15) and “saint” (1 Cor. 1:2) when describing believers. Our complex doubleness is captured in the Reformation conviction that Christians are simul justus et peccator—simultaneously justified in God’s sight and still sinners. We’re both declared righteous and continue to fight indwelling sin until our death or Jesus’s return.

Perfectionism’s emphasis contradicts how the Bible talks about Christians. New Testament authors use both ‘sinner’ and ‘saint’ when describing believers.

I asked the missionary how GNM interprets key Pauline teachings that contradict their doctrine. I asked specifically about Romans 7 and the “downward trajectory” of Paul’s sanctification. What I was told (and later found reinforced in Park’s preaching) was that thinking less of myself and more of how “Jesus paid it all” and completely cleansed me of my sins should free me of the burden of continually confessing them. Park says not only that we’re free from confessing our sinful identity but also that we’re free from confessing sinful actions because we no longer sin.

5. GNM teaches a form of hypergrace or antinomianism.

In one sermon, Park argues that in Jesus’s parable of the good Samaritan, we should identify Jesus as the Samaritan (so far, so good). He then claims that because Jesus has done the good works of the Samaritan for us, we don’t need to “add to his works” by living a changed life. To do so is to trust in our own works. This sadly ignores Jesus’s clear words at the parable’s conclusion: “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

In another message, Park quips, “Spiritual life is not something you have to do diligently”—a statement that ignores the New Testament calls to diligent self-examination (2 Cor. 13:5) and mortification of our sinful flesh (Col. 3:5–10). Park seems to deny the necessity of “performing deeds in keeping with [our] repentance” (Acts 26:20). Such teaching leads to shirking Christ’s lordship and moral demands in favor of a form of secret inner faith.

6. GNM shares key teachings with the prosperity gospel.

If Park’s claims about cancer (#2 above) sound like something you’d hear from a televangelist, that’s because there’s a good degree of overlap between GNM teaching and the prosperity gospel. In 2014, John Piper outlined several keys to detecting the prosperity gospel. Park clearly checks the boxes:

• GNM has no robust doctrine of suffering or call to self-denial.
• Their exposition of Scripture involves frequent proof texting to make points undermined by the broader context (e.g., Park’s treatment of the parable of the good Samaritan referenced above).
• Instead of wrestling with biblical tensions with nuance, GNM’s teachings flatten the text into dangerous either-ors—either you’re a sinner or a saint, either you always have faith, or you’re a doubter and outside the faith.
• Anecdotally, I’d say Park spends more time in his sermons talking about himself than about Jesus.
• Given the accusations of financial impropriety made against Park, it’s also hard to believe the movement is economically trustworthy.

7. GNM has been denounced by orthodox Baptist and Presbyterian churches in Asia.

The Christian church has long denounced antinomian teaching like that of Ock Soo Park and GNM, and that’s also true in this case. Baptist and Presbyterian denominations in Korea and India haven’t been shy about denouncing GNM and warning their churches not to participate in GNM’s evangelistic crusades. Though GNM claims its message is biblical, it falls woefully short of what has been confessed by orthodox Christian churches throughout the world.

It may sound like good news, but when held up to the truth of God’s Word, the message preached by the religious group known as the Good News Mission turns out to be false and dangerous.