Unfolding the Church of Almighty God Cult

Unfolding the Church of Almighty God Cult

Bai Yun

Abstract: Cults and new religions become a hot social issue in recent years, and draw extensive attention from the academia. The Church of Almighty God (also known as Eastern Lighting, Real God, Seven Spirits Sect, etc.), which emerged in China in early 1990s, has typical eastern mystical characteristics, and combines Christian theology and organization structure as well. With destructive antisocial and immoral attributions, it influences the Chinese society deeply. It also expands quickly overseas in later years. Nevertheless, few academic researches of this field have been carried out so far, and the knowledge concerning it still needs to be deepened. By comparing materials and through field study, this paper aims to unveil the whole picture of the Church of Almighty God and analyze its internal and external causes, thereby provide references for future prevention strategies.

Key Words: Almighty God; Eastern Lightning; cults; new religions

As the global religious trend moves toward diversity, cults and new religions gradually became hot issues in western countries. While in modern China, little attention is paid to them. It was not until 1990s that the concept of cult was introduced to the academic circle by sociologists of religion. Compared with cult, the term Xiejiao spreads wider and deeply roots in people’s mind. There is still no consensus on the corresponding English translation of Xiejiao currently, but most scholars accept the expression of destructive cult. Although cult is less used, the phenomena of cults are not uncommon along the history of China and most of them are destructive. A typical example is the Church of Almighty God founded in early 1990s (also known as Eastern Lighting, Real God, Seven Spirits Sect, etc.). Having originated and expanded in China, the cult is typically oriental in its doctrines and organization pattern, though with an appearance of Christianity. It engages in many serious antisocial and immoral behaviors, yet still expands rapidly overseas. But it denies all the crimes it has committed previously. Families are torn up and lost their property because of it. For this reason, the Chinese government defines it as an evil cult, and thus cracks down. However, such conducts are criticized by some international human rights organizations that China abuses religious freedom.

Being a Chinese local cult, the Church of Almighty God exerts its influence overseas. (Yan Kejia, 2013) Nevertheless, studies relating to the cult lag behind its scale and growth speed. Until the late 2012, when the members took to street declaring the world was coming to its end, that they became known by the public. Meanwhile, in contract to the measures taken by government to ban Falun Gong in 1990s, government supports to crack down the Church of Almighty God are gravely insufficient. As a result, the law enforcement officials at grassroots level even cannot differentiate it from orthodox Christianity, let alone offer effective aids to the victims’ families. Academic researches on the Church of Almighty God so far in China are mainly conducted by private sectors. The author has focused on it for a long time as well. Having been in contact with some members personally, I became to realize how serious the problem is, thus intend to carry out a comprehensive survey to dissect its originating and developing process. With limited information and a few clues, we conducted a field research to unveil the whole picture of the Church of Almighty God, and analyze its internal and external causes, thereby provide references for future prevention strategies.

I. Research Status of Cults in China

1. Relevant Concepts Discrimination

The term cult originates in western, containing a Christian culture centered connotation. Cult, as well as kulte in German and culte in French, derives from cultus in Latin with original meaning of colere (cultivate), and extends to mean culture. The ancient Romans called rites of worshiping gods as cultus, while according to Jewish and Christian traditions, cults in the Near East and Israel areas represents the sacrifices held in holy temple. Here the term cult has no negative connotation, but in later time, cult is transferred to mean mysterious worship and idol worship, and thus has been given a special connotation of heretical. Max Weber, a well-known sociologist of religion, defines the term as anti-rationalistic, mysterious religious groups. In 1970s, western academic circle began to show great interests in cults. Many researches emerged in 1980s and 1990s, most of whom were from the fields of sociology of religion, anthropology and psychology. Contemporary American sociologists of religion Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, have defined religious types. They redefine the three concepts of church, sect and cult by criticizing Weber's methodology: church is a conventional religious organization; sect is a deviant religious organization with traditional beliefs and practices; and cult is a deviant religious organization with novel beliefs and practices. To remain in a neutral position, sociologists of religion began to replace cults with new religions to avoid implying negative value judgment on new religions. Destructive cults have expanded to the whole world, and rapidly become a serious social and political problem over the past 20 years.

2. Cult in Chinese Context

The term xiejiao first appears in Ming and Qing Dynasties, to mean any secretive religious organizations that are heterodox, harmful for the political regime, including Catholicism, Christianity and peasant uprisings at that time. From the perspective of history and linguistic, xiejiao is a unique term existing in Chinese culture. It is also a Chinese political concept existing in China's history. Emperors in feudal dynasties deemed all unorthodox secret societies as xiejiao. By the time of early days of the People's Republic of China, the government suppressed counter revolutionists and secret societies. In the Cultural Revolution, an extreme religious policy was exerted toward all forms of religions. Especially in 1999, after the Falun Gong incident, xiejiao became a widely used term. Most scholars in modern China view xiejiao as extreme sects that antagonize orthodox social system. Xi Wuyi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences defines xiejiao as “secret societies that spread superstition and fallacies, accumulate wealth, recruite members and form cliques, even conspire to subvert the regime”. Xiejiao is a unique Chinese term with derogatory connotation. Its equivalent word in English is still under discussion. Many scholars suggest adding qualifiers like dangerous or destructive before cult to mean xiejiao. More and more scholars adopt the expression of destructive cult, which can highlight the criminal nature of xiejiao.

Founded in Northeast of China in late 1980s and early 1990s, the Church of Almighty God is identified by the Chinese government as xiejiao, which belongs to the category of destructive cults in western academic circle. It is such a special organization that grows in China and spreads to the world. They set up headquarters both in America and Korea, claiming to have up to 6 million followers around the world, according to recent reports. As to the social behaviors it has conducted in the process of its founding and growth in China, they are consistent with the ten cultish characteristics the Committee of Inquiry on Cults of French National Assembly has compiled: (1) mental destabilization; (2) exorbitant financial demands; (3) compulsory severing of links with the original social environment; (4) attacks on physical integrity; (5) recruitment of children; (6) more or less anti-social ideas;(7) public order disturbances; (8) the number of incidents involving the courts; (9) possible diversion of traditional economic cycles; (10) attempts to infiltrate public authorities. 

3. Research Status

The Church of Almighty God is a typical Chinese local cult. But in compared with the large amount of studies and reports on Falun Gong in the late 1990s, studies and publicity of the Church of Almighty God is rare. Not only for the folk academic papers, but official disclosed information is also very limited. Regard to its development time and its influence at home and abroad, researches lag far behind. Apart from some master theses, there are few in-depth and accurate surveys or academic papers so far. Furthermore, these case studies are conducted in different rural areas respectively, lacking comprehensive and profound discussion and research. The public therefore know nothing about the cult, let alone how to distinguish it, even the grass-root law enforcement department may misjudge. As a result, victims cannot receive effective help, and the following-up prevention and governance are deriving from theoretical basis and direction.

The cult phenomenon in China has been prominent since the reform and opening up, while researches concerning new religions and cults are still on the early phase of introducing foreign researches and findings. Although the demand for research on cults increases in recent years, it does not change the basic situation that the new religions and cults are a weak subject in the field of Chinese religious studies. According to Zeng Chuanhui, there are several reasons as below: first is with no systematic plan, no staff and finance resources. Besides, relevant researches are conducted passively and intermittently. A stable community could hardly be formed under such conditions. Second, there is no academic norm and system that is in line with the international studies and domestic reality. The existing sporadic researches mainly focus on introducing foreign studies and theories by using second-hand materials; while the foreign new religions study field was abundant with scholars and rigorous methodologies. Thus, an in-depth dialogue can hardly occur between them. Third, there is a lack of academic consciousness. In the political movement of anti-Falun Gong, governments at all levels have issued a large number of research topics, but most of the studies are not published because of sensitive content or less academic value. Therefore, an academic field which is supposed to promote the development of the subject is unable to be formed. In addition, scholars can only do research and generalization in theory, but cannot conduct case study or empirical research The reason is that most cases are collected in the local government law enforcement department, and these confidential materials are rarely open to the public. Therefore, in order to conduct in-depth and extensive research, it requires a lot of field investigations. Worse still, the cult groups are of high privacy, which means investigation requires a mass of manpower and material resources. But application of research fund is nearly impossible to be approved. As a result, most academic studies of cult groups in China still conducted by private sectors.