Under such circumstances Christianity became divided. The most devout Christians refused to bow down to the Shinto idols, consequently experiencing imprisonment, severe torture, and even death at the hands of their Japanese oppressors. Other Christians, often from the mainline churches, chose to compromise their faith, externally uniting with the Japanese authorities by bowing before the Shinto shrines while internally maintaining their Christian beliefs. Many of the faithful Christians fled to the mountains where they hid and created underground groups centered around a spiritual leader. In the midst of sever persecution, and elusive in the mountains of Korea, these independent Christians became channels for many new revelations from God and Jesus, setting them apart from the established churches. Some Christians even received that they should not work with the existing churches. Consequently, they were not only in conflict with the Japanese authorities; conflict also arose between established churches and the many newly formed spiritual groups. From an internal point of view, these spiritual groups were part of the providential plan for restoring the Old and New Testaments and making the foundation for the Messiah to find a bride and establish the Kingdom of Heaven and earth.

Won Pil Kim tells us of the role spiritualists placed in Korean Christianity: "Many people who visited Father and became members had held leadership positions in one or another Christian church. Among these were the spiritualists. People who could heal and foretell the future formed an important part of the fundamentalist Christian churches, because their spiritual power drew others to the churches and the ministers were able to witness to them and multiply the membership. Thus, these spiritualists were the main leaders in the existing churches.

"For years, people had unhesitatingly received their ministers' words as God's words. But then the spiritualists began to receive by revelation that Jesus' crucifixion was not originally planned by God. Since the ministers had always thought that the crucifixion was planned by God, the spiritualists thought they would be pleased to hear the new revelations, so they went and shared the news with their ministers. However, the ministers denied the revelations. Since the revelations were contrary to what was written in the Bible the ministers said they must have come not from God, but from Satan. You can imagine how painful it was for the spiritualists to be told this.

"So the spiritualists would pray to God and ask what do. The same revelations would be repeated. Thus, the spirituals were faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to follow their ministers or their revelations from God. They were in a kind of midway position. According to the ministers, the revelations were contrary to the Bible. Moreover, when the revelations were given, no biblical basis or explanation accompanied them. "So the spiritualists would stop going to church, but eventually, having nowhere else to go, they had to return. Still, they were always looking for the true answer. Whenever they heard of the arrival of a new missionary or a new teacher, they would immediately go to hear hum speak. Also, they would go to the mountains to pray. Although they attended church, they could not respect their minister.

"In those days, the Christian churches were to some degree built on the foundation of the spiritual power of the spiritualists. Thus the spiritualists were pillars of their churches, and of course, their families as well, since the whole family would usually attend church together. When someone became sick, he would go to one of his relatives who was a spiritualist and quickly recover. Whenever someone had a problem, he would go to the spiritualist among his relatives and get some good advice.

"Thus, the spiritualists were always respected and valued by their families. Deep inside, however, these spiritualists lived in great conflict." Two spiritual groups, one on the east coast and the other on the west coast, played prominent roles in the restoration providence to lay a foundation for God's completed work.