Eastern Lightning
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eastern Lightning (Dongfang Shandian) is a new religious movement in China. The official name for the group is The Church of Almighty God.[1] They believe that God has returned to earth in human form 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 group was founded in 1989 in the Heilongjiang Province by Zhao Weishan.[2] There have been reports of Eastern Lightning members attacking, kidnapping, and/or harassing leaders and members of other church groups in China.[3][1]
The group's website clearly states that Jesus has returned to earth as a woman, "born to an ordinary family in the Northern part of China."[4]
Most of the information available on Eastern Lightning comes from human rights organizations, the Chinese government, and international Christian groups with connections to Christian communities in China. The Chinese government lists the group as "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 movement, though they, like the government, regard the group as a heretical sect that deserves the label "cult" due to the radical differences that separate Eastern Lightning teaching from orthodox Christian doctrine, and its practices of kidnapping and torture.
A perusal of its now-inaccessible website (see below) reveals that 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. These, along with testimonies regarding conversion, are quite dubious, due to the site's lack of verifiable references.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Lois Chan and Steve Bright (2005). "Deceived by the Lightning". Christian Research Journal 28 (3).
- ^ GTO - News - The Thirst for Truth in China
- ^ http://www.chinesechurch.org.nz/english/newsLetter/news18-May.html
- ^ Hidden Advent
[edit] External links
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.
The movement has recently started a new website at http://english.hidden-advent.org/home.php At the time of writing this website is still active.
An archive of the sect's website can be found here: http://web.archive.org/web/20050518072609/http://www.voicefromthethrone.org/
[edit] See also
The example of a Chinese claims of Messiah appearances reveal some similarities between this movement and earlier movements in Chinese history such as the Taiping Rebellion from 1850-1864.
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