• What is the Church of Almighty God?

  • Jul 9 2021
  • Length: 12 mins
  • Podcast

What is the Church of Almighty God? By cover art

What is the Church of Almighty God?

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  • The Church of Almighty God (Quannengshen in Chinese) is a secretive, theologically aberrant religious movement that started in China in 1991. Although it has been banned by the Chinese Communist Party for its anti-government stance, it continues to grow and is considered an influential doomsday cult. The Church of Almighty God is also known as Eastern Lightning, a name based on Matthew 24:27: “For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The group believes that God has again become incarnate, this time as a Chinese woman named Yang Xiangbin, who also calls herself “Lightning Deng.” Yang is the nominal head of Eastern Lightning, but the true leader is probably her “high priest” and lover, Zhao Weishan, the man who first began proclaiming that Yang was divine. In 2000, Zhao Weishan and Yang Xiangbin moved to the United States, and they currently oversee operations of the Church of Almighty God from New York City. Yang Xiangbin is called “Christ of the last days” and “Almighty God” in the belief that she is the second coming of Christ to finish the work of God. Yang gives utterances that are recorded as God’s word for the last days. (Although Yang is seen as an incarnation of God, she is considered separate from Jesus Christ, who was a different incarnation of God.) The Bible is seen as an obsolete record of God’s work in the past. “It is nothing more than a historical record of God’s work, and a testament to the previous two stages of God’s work, and offers you no understanding of the aims of God’s work” (from Eastern Lightning’s official website). Thus, the Bible is insufficient and must be supplemented by the utterances of Almighty God, or “Christ of the last days.” The group teaches that in the Old Testament God was known by the name Jehovah. In the New Testament era, God was known as Jesus Christ. Now, in the last days, He is properly known as Almighty God. His work, through the female Christ, is qualitatively different from the work of the apostles. Although God used the apostles, they could only do what men who are used by God can do. The Church of Almighty God is the work of God Himself. According to their official website, the group “was entirely founded by Almighty God personally, and is personally led and shepherded by Him, and it was by no means set up by any man.” Currently, in the Kingdom Age, God is carrying out His White Throne Judgment. All Christian denominations and sects have lost the Holy Spirit, and His power is now concentrated in the Church of Almighty God. The Church of Almighty God denies the Trinity, teaching a form of modalism. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are seen as three different manifestations of the one God, not three distinct Persons. “The Trinity does not exist anywhere in this universe. God has no Father and no Son, much less is there the concept of an instrument jointly used by the Father and the Son: the Holy Spirit. All of this is the greatest fallacy and simply does not exist in this world!” (op. cit.). According to the teaching of the Church of Almighty God, Jesus forgave mankind’s sin in the Age of Grace, but His salvation was not complete, because the sin nature remained in mankind. Now, in the Age of the Kingdom, through the teaching of the Christ of last days, mankind can finally be delivered from sin and made fully clean. This is true salvation, available to those who will obey Almighty God’s teaching as revealed in the last days. From the group’s official website, it is hard to pin down exactly what allows one to attain this final level of true salvation. It appears that the most important thing is simply believing the teachings of the Church of Almighty God. The Church of Almighty God has a presence in Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco, as well as mainland China. There are disturbing reports of the group using sexual seduction, kidnapping, bribes, brainwashing, and blackmail to coerce new members...
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