Eastern Lightning
Chinese new religious movement
The Church of Almighty God (simplified Chinese: 全能神教会; traditional Chinese: 全能神教會; pinyin: Quánnéng Shén Jiàohuì), also known as Eastern Lightning (simplified Chinese: 东方闪电; traditional Chinese: 東方閃電; pinyin: Dōngfāng Shǎndiàn), is a monotheistic new religious movement which was established in China in 1991. Government sources estimate the group has three to four million members.
The group's core tenet is that Jesus Christ has returned to earth and is presently living as a Chinese woman. The name "Eastern Lightning" alludes to the Gospel of Matthew 24:27: "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
The movement has been described by Chinese media as the nation's 'most dangerous xie jiao', and the group has been formally banned in China since 1995. Christian opponents and international media have in turn described it as a cult and even as a terrorist organization. In contrast, members of the group deny all accusations and argue they are victims of religious persecution at the hands of Chinese authorities.
Sources
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.
Two books on the group were published by Western academic presses. Brill published Lightning from the East by Emily Dunn in 2015, and Oxford University Press published Inside The Church of Almighty God by Massimo Introvigne in 2020. Holly Folk, a professor at Western Washington University, reported in 2020 that she is observing Eastern Lightning through a participant observation study since 2016.
The public source identifies “Eastern Lightning” as chinese new religious movement. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eastern, Lightning and Chinese.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Eastern Lightning”, the useful work is to connect “chinese new religious movement” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1022157. VIAF identifies the subject as 315591592. The Library of Congress control number is n2015022980. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 1995, 2015 and 2020.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Eastern Lightning” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.