Pastor Matthew Stuckey here from Verity Baptist Church Philippines, just making a video on
the religion of Members Church of God International, more commonly known as Angdatang Da'an. The
purpose of this video is not meant to be a critique of this religion. It's meant to
be an informative, non-biased perspective on what this religion actually is and what
they teach. Number one, who is MCGI, or Members Church of God International? It is an international
Christian religious organization headquartered in the Philippines, and it's more popularly
known as Angdatang Da'an. Angdatang Da'an is not actually the name of the religion,
but it was the name of their television and radio show, which is actually what catapulted
them to popularity. Another very important figure, which we'll talk about later in MCGI,
is a man by the name of Eli Soriano. And Eli Soriano was the one who founded this religion
and was a leader until his death in 2021. So number one, who is MCGI? Number two, what
is Angdatang Da'an, their radio and television program? So Angdatang Da'an, the basic format
of this show is that people would email questions or mail questions, and Eli Soriano would basically
just explain various questions and various Bible verses, and it's very much just explaining
what the Bible says in an expository style. And what ended up taking place is that over
time a lot of people that are part of other religions, such as Catholic, would actually
listen to Eli Soriano, and even if they still identified as Catholic, they would start to
adopt a lot of the teachings of MCGI. As a result of this, it's very difficult to figure
out how many people are actually members of this church. Some estimates say that there's
more than one million members worldwide, but it really kind of depends on how strict you
are, whether or not someone's a member or not, because a lot of people would not say
they're members, but they actually do listen quite a bit to Eli Soriano, and they've heard
his teachings, and he's also very common for having a lot of debates with various religious
leaders. So number three, what about their rivalry with Iglesia Ni Cristo? Iglesia Ni
Cristo is a very common religion here in the Philippines, and Eli Soriano would regularly
challenge their leader to debates. There was a controversy on the show Angdatang Da'an
and Eli Soriano referred to INC as Iglesia Ni Manalo, Manalo being the last name of the
founder and leader of their religion, Iglesia Ni Cristo, whose sons have taken over since
he passed away, and so that started this massive rivalry between the two organizations, and
in fact there's an entire Wikipedia page with the rivalry between Iglesia Ni Cristo and
Angdatang Da'an, and there's been a lot of violent bloodshed as a result between these
two religions here in the Philippines, and so they've had a massive rivalry here in the
Philippines. Number four, Eli Soriano. So Eli Soriano was born in 1947. He died in 2021
at the age of 73. Just before his 17th birthday, he was baptized into the religion Iglesia
Nangios Ka Cristo Jesus Halighi Atsuhai Nang Kata Tohannan, which is Church of God and
Christ Jesus Pillar in Support of the Truth, which was headed by Nicolas Perez. Nicolas
Perez was a former member of Iglesia Ni Cristo, a former minister. He was kicked out of the
religion. He started his own church. Eli Soriano ended up becoming more prominent in this religion,
and he was expected by most people to become the new leader of the religion, but Nicolas
Perez, when he passed away, did not appoint Eli Soriano as the leader, and as a result
of this, Eli Soriano started a new religion. Originally, he named the religion something
very similar to the religion that he came from, but as a result of being sued, he changed
the name, and so now they are MCGI members, Church of God International. Some of the controversies
about this very charismatic figure, Eli Soriano, are some of the statements that he says with
his mouth. He's just very kind of foul-mouthed. He says things very matter-of-factly. He says
a lot of things people consider crude, a lot of cursing and things such as that. He's offended
a lot of people as a result of that. Some people really like that style because he just
tells it like it is. Other people find it very offensive. Probably the most controversial
thing regarding him is that he was indicted on rape charges at the regional trial court
in Pampanga following a complaint filed by former MCGI production staff member Daniel
Verradiano that he was sexually assaulted in a Palit Pampanga on two occasions along
with other members of MCGI. So he was accused by this person of basically sexual assault
to this other man that was part of the religion, and this man also said that he did this to
other people. People that defend MCGI and Eli Soriano would usually claim that INC basically
used their power to get Eli Soriano in trouble, but it was completely false, and then the
other side would be that he is guilty of this. And so as a result of this, he ended
up having to actually leave the Philippines, and he fled to the country of Brazil. He was
actually living in Brazil when he passed away. Now, one of the things that made Eli Soriano
so prominent and become so popular, as I mentioned, he's a very charismatic leader, and truthfully
speaking, he's a very intelligent person. He is very good at debating. He's very good
at arguing. He would challenge a lot of different religious leaders to public debates, and he
would regularly perform very well against them, and as a result, it made his popularity
even grow. And he also had an ability to learn foreign languages, and so when this show started,
he had a complete mastery of the English language, which was not as common at the time here in
the Philippines, and even being in Brazil, my understanding is he learned to speak Portuguese
pretty decently and is very adept at several different languages. So number five, what
are the basic teachings of this religion of Members Church of God International? Number
one, they reject the Trinity. They say the three persons are just powers of God. They
also believe and teach in Docetism, which is the teaching that Jesus was not human,
but only appeared to be a human being. One of the other things Eli Soriano taught was
that God has his own planet where he lives. Another teaching is that God is not omnipresent,
which is a very unique teaching to say that God is not omnipresent. They are against holidays.
They ban movies. Women cannot wear pants. Women cannot cut their hair. So they're very
strict in that regard, but as I mentioned, he uses a lot of foul language, cursing, sexually
perverse statements, and things such as that. So they're very strict in some ways, and in
other ways, not so strict. And of course, when it comes to salvation, they believe that
there are a lot of steps and requirements to actually being saved. And so what's interesting
about this religion of MCGI is I cannot really think of a religion that is so centered around
one person as MCGI and Eli Soriano, because when you ask people about this religion of
Angdating Da'an, they will just synonymously look at it as being Eli Soriano, and Eli Soriano
is just completely linked with Angdating Da'an. Now as I mentioned, three years ago, Eli Soriano
passed away, and his nephew Daniel Rassoon took over. It's still at the early stages
to kind of see what will take place, because Eli Soriano was just a very charismatic figure,
and it's really kind of hard to tell at this point if this religion will still remain in
prominence, or if they're slowly going to die out, because so much about their identity was
tied into this person, Eli Soriano, who was a—although a very controversial figure,
he was also a very charismatic speaker as well. Anyways, thank you, and God bless.