11 Facts About Eastern Lightning

The Church of Almighty God, known as Eastern Lightning, is a monotheistic new religious movement which was established in China in 1991.

Scholars who have tried to study the group have complained that, due to its "secretive" nature and the fact that in China it operates underground, researching Eastern Lightning is difficult, and media coverage is only partially reliable.

In 2020, an article published in The Daily Beast by veteran reporter Donald Kirk found that Western scholars who have written about Eastern Lightning tend to support the sect's position that it has been unfairly accused.

Eastern Lightning holds that Jesus has returned as a Chinese woman, worshiped by the sect as Almighty God, hence its official name.

Eastern Lightning is banned in China and proselyting or organizing meetings on its behalf is a crime prosecuted under Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code.

Eastern Lightning has been described by Chinese media as the nation's "most dangerous cult".

From October 30 to November 10,1998, two alleged members of Eastern Lightning, Liu Shunting and Zhao Fating, committed a series of assaults and robberies across Tanghe and Sheqi Counties in Nanyang, Henan.

Some members of Eastern Lightning embraced the so-called Mayan prophecy and predicted the end of the world for 2012.

Chinese authorities claimed that a certain Min Yongjun, who stabbed an elderly woman and 23 students at a school in Henan province, was motivated by the 2012 prophecies, and after the incident occurred pointed out that Eastern Lightning members were among those propagating these prophecies.

Representatives from Eastern Lightning publicly condemned the murder, claiming it had been committed by "psychopaths" who had nothing to do with them.

Some Western scholars who wrote about Eastern Lightning concluded that the perpetrators at the time of the murder were members of a group different from Eastern Lightning.