Sects Awaiting ‘The Rapture’ Find Themselves Still In Korea

Members of several South Korean sects who believed the world would end before dawn on Easter Sunday prayed for hours to be lifted to heaven, but when day broke they were still in Korea.

Worshippers were disappointed that April 16 did not bring “the rapture” - the faithful’s ascension to heaven - which was to be followed by seven years of apocalypse, the annihilation of the earth and the second coming of Christ.

Nevertheless, many were still convinced that Jesus Christ would come before long.

“It did not happen but it will happen soon,” said one woman believer as she walked out of the Kangrim Church in western Seoul.

The faithful’s nonchalance contrasted sharply with a predicted doomsday in 1992, when many Korean believers sold property, left families, quit schools and jobs and deserted military posts as they awaited the rapture.

When that did not happen, followers attacked preachers, threw hymn books and destroyed church furniture.