(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

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.