“Cult,” Church, and the CCP

Abstract

Eastern Lightning, also known as the Church of Almighty God, teaches that Jesus has returned to earth as a Chinese woman. It originated in China's rural north in the early 1990s and is now the largest Christian-related new religious movement. This article provides an introduction to the group's beliefs, and the ways the Chinese government and Chinese Protestants have responded to it. It finds that while posing a very contemporary challenge for the Chinese state and Protestant communities, Eastern Lightning also reflects the influence of heterodox religious traditions that stretch back far into China's past.