Lightning from the East Religion in Chinese Societies Edited by Kenneth Dean (McGill University) Richard Madsen (University of California, San Diego) David Palmer (University of Hong Kong) volume 8 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/rics Lightning from the East Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China By Emily Dunn LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Public gathering of members of the Church of Almighty God (Eastern Lightning) in 2012. Pictured banner reads: “In 2012, the Almighty God will deliver mankind. Only those who accept [Him], pray, and call [on His name] can be saved. If a person resists God, God will send them to hell. If a country resists God, God will wipe it from the face of the earth.” (Available at http://zt.kaiwind.com/a/qns/ tuwen/2012/1230/224.html. Accessed November 21, 2014.) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dunn, Emily (Associate) Lightning from the East : heterodoxy and Christianity in contemporary China / by Emily Dunn. pages cm. — (Religion in chinese societies, ISSN 1877-6264 ; volume 8) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29724-1 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-29725-8 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Dong fang shan dian (Organization) 2. Cults—China. 3. Christianity—China—History—20th century. 4. Christianity—China—History—21st century. 5. Christianity and politics—China. 6. Protestantism—China. I. Title. BP605.D66D86 2015 289.9—dc23 2015011199 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1877-6264 isbn 978-90-04-29724-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-29725-8 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copy- right holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. For Roger, Sophie and Anna. ∵ Contents Acknowledgments viii Notes x List of Figures xi List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xii 1 Eastern Lightning (Church of Almighty God) and Religion in China 1 2 Protestant-related New Religious Movements in Contemporary China 25 3 The Teachings of Eastern Lightning 62 4 The Heritage of Eastern Lightning’s Teachings: A Case Study 99 5 The Chinese Government’s Response to Protestant-related New Religious Movements 118 6 The Art of Persuasion: Eastern Lightning’s Recruitment Strategies 139 7 Chinese Protestant Depictions of Heresy 163 8 Conclusion: Eastern Lightning in Local and Global Perspective 196 Appendix 1: Annotated Bibliography of Eastern Lightning’s Chinese Texts 207 Appendix 2: Annotated Bibliography of Eastern Lightning’s English Texts 213 Bibliography 216 Index 243 Acknowledgments This book grew out of a PhD thesis that was completed at the University of Melbourne in 2010. I remain thankful for the institutions and individuals who lent their academic, financial and personal support to that project. First and foremost, Professor Anne McLaren helped to clarify my thinking and encour- aged me to argue boldly; Professor Antonia Finnane also offered incisive feed- back. I have learnt a lot from both of them. “The Book” may never have eventuated were it not for Kim-Kwong Chan urg- ing me to develop it, and taking the initiative to email the editors of this series. I am grateful also to Benjamin Penny for cheering me on, and for redeeming the manuscript from assorted “infelicities.” Any that remain are entirely my fault. Numerous other colleagues offered suggestions and asked questions in conversations that enriched this book. I thank (then) fellow students Haiqing Yu, Anthony Garnaut, Mark Crosbie, Corey Bell, Ayxem Eli, Jonathan Benney, Paul Farrelly, Vicki Turner, Jeremy Clarke, Scott Pacey and Nathan Woolley. I benefited from presentations and discussions at a variety of conferences and symposia, and extend particular appreciation to organizers and participants at the Dissertation Workshop of the Asian Studies Association held in Chicago in 2005, the Internet in Asia Symposium held at the University of Melbourne in 2006, and the Religious Innovation in East Asia Conference held at the Australian National University in 2007. I am indebted to the academics, theologians and Christians who welcomed and informed me in Hong Kong, Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. I continue to be humbled by their devotion, integrity, expertise and sense of humor. I think particularly fondly of Jessie. The impressions that these people have left extend far beyond this book. I thank Qin Higley, Thomas Begley, and Patrick Hunter of Brill for their patience and expertise, Dinah Rapliza for typesetting, and Alexandra Hellios and Susan Karani for their fine copy editing. I much appreciated the comments of my two anonymous readers, and thank them for their time and analysis. Warm thanks also the editors of this “Religion in China” series for allowing my book to be published in it, and for their contributions to my own research, which are evidenced by the footnotes which follow. At the University of Melbourne, Bick-Har Yeung of the East Asian Division of the Baillieu Library was a long-serving and tireless support to scholars of China. I also thank the following institutions for access to their collections: Yale Divinity School, the National Library of Australia, Dalton McCaughey Library acknowledgments ix Parkville, National Library of China, Shanghai Library, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Holy Spirit Study Centre, and Alliance Theological Seminary. Long before I embarked on this project, Zhou Shaoming, Lewis Mayo, David Holm and Jeffrey Goonan taught me Mandarin, and Mrs. Anson introduced me to Chinese history. Friends at Hoping Presbyterian Church in Taipei gave me the vocabulary I needed to research Chinese Protestantism, as well as some very happy times. My parents and friends were a tremendous source of moral and practical support during trying times. Special thanks to my Mum for many a Tuesday and Dad for much advice; also to Nicole, Tim & Fletcher Ellis for their exceptional, easygoing hospitality, Jessica Roberts and Emily Townsend for their friendship, and Jan Lane for keeping me sane (I hope). My grandparents have supported my education for many years, and I particularly thank my grandmother, Mavis Tassicker, for her generosity and example of continuous learning. Last but not least, I dedicate this book to Princess Sophie, little Anna, and Roger. They, too, have made many sacrifices for this project. I look forward to having more fun with them now that, perhaps, it is finished. Near Melbourne October 2014 Notes All quotations from the Bible are taken from the New International Version (NIV). Chinese characters are given in traditional or simplified form according to the original text, geographical location or era under discussion. Pinyin Romanization is used except where another form is better known. I have obtained hard copies of many of the Eastern Lightning (Church of Almighty God) texts that are examined in this book, but prefer to cite electronic versions to facilitate the reader’s access to them. Many of the web addresses for these documents have changed since my research began; to facilitate the reader’s access to these sources, I updated the citations in October 2014. The URLs and contents pages provided in the notes and appendices to this book may well change again; in this case, readers should use publication titles and any additional information such as that given in the appendices to locate the materials cited. Note also that the Church of Almighty God changes the titles of its publications frequently, and the order of their contents. The organization also revises its English translations, meaning that some quotations may not always appear precisely as they do in the pages which follow. Sincere thanks to the New Testament Church 新約教會 for kind permis- sion to reproduce Figure 1, to He Qi 何琦 for Figure 5, and to Tian Feng 天风 magazine for generous provision of Figures 7 and 8. Some of the material in Chapter 7 was first presented in my article “Netizens of Heaven: Contesting Orthodoxies on the Chinese Protestant Web”, Asian Studies Review 31, no. 4 (2007): 447–58; most of Chapter 4 appears as “The Big Red Dragon and Indigenizations of Christianity in China”, East Asian History 36 (2008): 73–85 (http://www.eastasianhistory.org/). Some of the material and arguments of this book were first presented in a more rudimentary form in “ ‘Cult,’ Church and the CCP: Introducing Eastern Lightning”, Modern China 36, no. 1