Eastern Lightning

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Eastern Lightning (Dongfang Shandian) is a label for a new religious movement in China with theological groundings in the Christian tradition. The official name for the group is The Church of Almighty God. ^[1] This new religious movement believes that God has returned in human form to earth to guide mankind for the third and last time (the first and second times of active guidance of mankind, according to the documents on the group's website, were as Jehovah of the Old Testament and as Jesus in the New Testament). The movement previously maintained a website, www.voicefromthethrone.org, but it appears that the Chinese internet police "hijacked" the domain name. The group then set up another website with Chinese and English content at http://chinese.judgmentbeforethethrone.org and http://english.judgmentbeforethethrone.org, respectively, but it appears that this domain, too, has been shut down. Old content from www.voicefromthethrone.org can be found by typing in the URL at www.archive.org.

Most of the information available on The Church of Almighty God comes from human rights organizations, the Chinese government, and international Christian groups with connections to Christian communities in China. Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International list the group as being among those underground Christian churches persecuted and labeled "evil cults" by the government in the vein of its persecution against Falun Gong. The Chinese government lists the group as an evil cult and has actively tried to suppress it (especially since its millenarian theology tends to take an explicitly anti-government stance.) Christian groups tend to be among the best-informed of all Western reporters on the group, though their sources are often heavily biased by the fact that they, like the government, regard the group as a heretical sect that deserves the pejorative label "cult." A perusal of its now-inaccessible website reveals that in most of its published religious documents, such as messages from God, the group fits within the range of charismatic Christian churches with millenial expectations. Some documents, such as testimonials of unfortunate, gruesome, or fatal things that happened to members of other Christian groups who failed to join The Church of Almighty God, suggest a darker side to the group's religious practices and recruitment. It is this side to the group's activities that probably draws the ire of Christian groups in China.

The group was founded in 1989 in the Heilongjiang Province by Zhao Weishan.^[2] It is alleged by the Chinese government and underground Christian churches in China that between 2002 and 2004, several members were killed in attacks by another group led by Xu Shuangfu, the leader of the underground Chinese Christian group "Three Grades of Servant." ^[3] There have been reports of members attacking, kidnapping, and/or harassing the leaders of other church groups in China.^[4]^[1]

Among the rumors surrounding this group (often propagated by Christian believers in China) include the premise "that Jesus has returned as a woman in China".^[1] However, the group itself denies this claim on its website.