There's a megachurch based out of Guadalajara Mexico, with over a million members, called La Luz del Mundo. Their leader is in prison for molesting minors, but they still hold that he's the apostle of the age.
https://lldm.org/
I look at these groups and they seem unhinged from Christianity and any semblance of native human common sense. How can anyone get caught up in something like this? Then I go, "Oh - I fell for the same thing."
From a BBC article in 2019, when the predatory actions of the supposed apostle first came to light.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BBC
"It is the church with the most faithful among all those who rose in Mexico," explains Renee de la Torre, an anthropologist specializing in religion at the Center for Research andand Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS). It arose in 1926 in the context of the Cristero War, a struggle between the Catholic Church and the Mexican State and precisely Jalisco, the state whose capital is Guadalajara, and was one of the most affected.
"La Luz del Mundo is part of a wave of native Christian churches that emerged in Latin America among very popular sectors. Of a messianic style with leaders who announced that they had been chosen to re-found the original Christian church and that they were the chosen people," says the researcher.
He explains that the hostility between the Catholics and the new converts made the latter want to live in a community. Thanks to the governor of that time, they got some land that at that time was on the outskirts of the city. The church sectioned off the land and offered it to its community so that they could buy in installments and build their houses. This is how this neighborhood called Hermosa Provincia became populated with "brothers". "One thing that doesn't exist in any other church in Mexico," de la Torre explains.
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Other than being 1926 Mexico, how is this different from what happened in China in 1922, and after? The parallels are striking.
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-i...ional-61688059
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-i...ional-48521530
It's sort of like an astronomer looking at the heavens and seeing something 'out there', and realizing, "We're not alone." In this case, I look at these groups, and how widespread the "apostle of the age" scam is, and realize that it's widespread because it works. We're not alone.