在东方闪电崛起的初期，我感到她似乎有意进军欧美，志在全球，所以曾撰文送到《Christian Research Journal》，因该文是英语，而且已经有很多关于闪电的中文资料，所以未有为自己的网站翻译。最近发现有人把它翻译了，放在互联网上。在感谢翻译者之余，也把该文的中/英文版本贴在自己的网站上，万望能提醒所有人，小心回避这个可怕的邪教。——张逸萍
勿被闪电欺骗
张逸萍、Steve Bright
中国大陆家庭教会的基督徒现在正面临另一邪教的威胁，这个邪教是大陆最大的邪教之一，经常利用欺骗和强迫的手段来转化家庭教会信徒。
“女基督”称，耶稣是神的第一次肉身显现，但是祂没有完成祂的工作，所以神要再来一次，这一次是一个女人。这次“显现”继往开来，开启了一个神6000年拯救人类计划的新时代。她说，神的计划包含了三个时代（创造、拯救和毁灭）和三个豁免（律法、救赎和国家）。她说，她来这里是为了国家能够得到豁免，所以她的工作就是审判。
China for Jesus的一篇报告揭示了该邪教使用的四个步骤：第一步只是单纯的送书和钱给基督传教士；第二步他们会利用比较激进的手段，包括暴力和强迫；第三步，用性诱惑作要挟。
第四步叫做“摸底铺路”，邪教将他们渗透进家庭教会的这一手段称为“摸底铺路”。邪教指示信徒们混入家庭教会，确定谁是虔诚的基督教徒，谁是教会的核心人物。他们将目标瞄准那些早到迟退、查阅圣经很有效率的教徒。邪教成员会和这些人套近乎成为朋友，将自己扮演成虔诚的、寻求真理的人以获得信任。一旦这些渗透者成功得“摸清”了这些教徒的底，他们就开始问各种问题动摇他们的信仰以为后来的行动“铺路”。他们会邀请这些基督徒“学习《圣经》”，问各种问题来对这些基督徒进行狂轰滥炸而非真的学习《圣经》，例如“天堂在哪里？是在地球吗？”或者他们会质疑“教会被提”这个概念，这是这个邪教强烈否认的教义。最后，向他们传教，即神第二次化为肉身。China
for Jesus的作者曾撰文预测，这个邪教现在会开始使用未知的第五步，这一步会在近几年被揭露出来。
邪教否认全能神邪教绑架了人，强迫基督徒去接受他们的教义。Hidden-advent网站上的一篇文章指出，手册指示信徒不要去说服那些不相信上帝的人，因为教会不需要这种“没有价值”的人。文章又说，单单1999年一年时间，教会就开除了七八万“行为不当、违抗教会规则”的人。全能神更喜欢将目标对准正宗的基督教家庭教会，而不是那些游移不定的基督徒或者异教徒。根据邪教内部的指示，他们不会去向那些不崇拜耶稣基督、不学习《圣经》的人下手，如佛教徒、道教徒、穆斯林以及其他很多中国的东正教和罗马天主教徒，非基督教徒甚至是全能神的家庭成员都不是传教的对象。
大陆有一本关于异端邪说的书，由基督教和中国研究中心撰写，在台湾出版，记载了一个中国家庭教会成员怎样逃脱出这个邪教的事例。他说，这个邪教从来不进行公开活动，他们的活动总是非常隐秘地组织起来，“无论他们去哪，他们总能以惊人且独一无二的手段分裂甚至摧毁教会”。其他人则视这个邪教为魔鬼，认为它是由美国的撒旦崇拜主义者资助和运作的。
志在全球
而“女基督”声称她的显现是作为新的弥赛亚的身份带领世人完成神的救世计划的最后一步。在邪教网站之一Hidden-advent上，她说；“这项任务已经扩展到中国以外的地方。现在，这项工作的任务是收服各个国家堕落的人。这项工作不仅带领中国人，更是带领全球的人。你现在看到的只是我们在中国的工作的那部分，其实它已经开始向全球扩散。”
2001年，托尼·兰伯特在《从东方来的闪电，一个新的邪教组织》中指出这个邪教已经将总部搬到了纽约和多伦多。《基督教研究期刊》还收到了一些来自巴黎和阿姆斯特丹的基督徒的报道，说这个邪教也进入了欧洲。西方的资料显示，这个邪教已经通过网络和中国教堂的停车场发放书籍、小册子和CD，并且还花钱请人将书籍翻译成英文以进行更好的传播。
（转自：“华人基督教专家称全能神是欺世的邪教组织，
http://www.kaiwind.com/hwzs/xzyl/201305/31/t20130531_904594.htm
）
Deceived by the Lightning
Article ID: JAL130 | By: Lois Chan and Steve Bright
This article
first appeared in the News Watch column of the Christian Research Journal,
volume 28, number 3 (2005). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian
Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
Christians in
mainland China’s “underground” house churches have faced persecution from the
country’s Communist government for years. They now face another threat from one
of the mainland’s largest cults, which frequently uses deception and coercion to
gain converts from among house churches.
The cult
calls itself “The Church of Almighty God.” The Chinese government refers to it
as the “Real God” cult. Chinese Christians call it “Eastern Lightning.” Its
followers believe that Jesus has returned in the form of a Chinese woman, like
“lightning that comes from the east,” according to the description of His second
coming in Matthew 24:27.
Estimates of
the group’s size vary. A November 2001 Time magazine article titled
“Jesus is Back, and She’s Chinese” said followers numbered themselves at
300,000, although observers estimated only tens of thousands. A 2002 report
produced by the Center for Religious Freedom, which contained copies of seven
confidential documents from a Chinese government report on religious cults, said
that the group had active organizations in more than 10 provinces and cities and
was deceiving thousands. China For Jesus, a Christian mission organization,
estimates that the cult has more than a million members in 20 provinces. Fear of
government persecution has driven religious groups in China underground, making
an accurate head count of any group’s followers virtually impossible.
According to
the secret security documents, the public security minister, Jia Chunwang,
called for increased action against the cult, saying, “We need to work more,
talk less to smash the cult quietly.” Security officials are concerned by the
cult’s declaration that China is the Great Red Dragon of the book of Revelation
who faces destruction. Beijing police arrested more than 2,000 followers of the
cult prior to 2002, but they were not able to destroy the group.
Scores of
first-hand accounts received by Christian organizations working in China confirm
the devastating effect that the Eastern Lightning cult is having on the house
churches. A report titled “When China’s Christians Wish They Were in Prison,” by
Paul Hattaway, director of the mission organization Asia Harvest, contains
accounts of Christians being deceived, kidnapped, brainwashed, beaten, poisoned,
and blackmailed by the cult. One worker in northwest China told Hattaway that
the Chinese house churches that usually experience phenomenal growth had been
declining due to the cult’s activities. He explained, “In the past year many of
our leaders were targeted by the Eastern Lightning cult. Some were attracted by
their financial inducements and joined them. Later, when they discovered what
they’d joined was not biblical, they were not permitted to leave. Dozens of our
believers are missing, dozens more crippled. Some who have managed to escape the
cult’s clutches are in hiding, fearing for their lives. At least two of our
people have been murdered. Others have simply vanished.”
In April
2002, Eastern Lightning members kidnapped 34 leaders of the China Gospel
Fellowship, a network of house churches. Cult members posing as representatives
of Haggai Institute, a leadership training school in China, lured the leaders to
attend a seminar where they were separated and held against their will. One
woman managed to escape and alert the police. By June all the others had escaped
or were released, although some who were drugged while being held captive
continued to suffer physically.
Invisible
Lightning.
There are a
several versions of the cult’s history. A number of Christian organizations cite
the Time magazine article and the seven secret security documents that
say that the cult was founded in 1989 by a man named Zhao Weishan, a former
member of a Christian sect called the Shouters. Weishan proclaimed that Jesus
had returned in the form of a 30-year-old, plain-looking Chinese peasant woman
named Deng from the province of Henan. This teaching is based on revelation that
Weishan claims he received from God regarding Matthew 24:27. Asia Harvest
reports that in 2000 Weishan was granted refugee status in the United States,
where he continues to run the cult’s activities in China. The report does not
cite the source of this information.
Reports from
other missions organizations do not mention Weishan as the founder but say,
rather, that the woman Deng set herself up as the “female Christ.” Several
Chinese Christians who regularly visit the mainland and are familiar with the
cult told the Christian Research Journal that although they had heard of Deng,
they had not heard of Weishan. Chinese sources favor the theory that Deng hides
herself, while Weishan runs the cult’s operations.
An article
dated January 2004 on one of the cult’s Web sites (www.hidden-advent.org),
however, denies as “rumor” the reports that Almighty God’s Church believes in “a
woman with the surname Deng who was once possessed by a demon in Zheng Zhou of
Henan province.” The article explains, “Actually, the place of birth and
location where God became flesh is not in Henan province at all. Furthermore,
the surname is not Deng.” The article does not, however, identify someone other
than Deng as the Christ; rather, it explains why “the flesh of the Almighty God”
could not be demon possessed. The fact that no one has ever seen or photographed
the woman they call the “female Christ” makes her identity or even her existence
difficult to confirm.
The Second
Incarnation.
The group
believes that the Bible is out-of-date and that those who limit God’s revelation
to just the Bible are like the Pharisees who held on to the Old Testament and
rejected Christ. Followers are told to give up the truth of the past and build
their foundation on the Holy Spirit’s word for today: the writings of the
“female Christ,” which are “God’s new word.”
The cult has
published numerous books, including The Word Becomes Flesh and The
Lightning Comes from the East, and distributed hundreds of thousands of
copies in China. Two of the books that are distributed among Chinese churches in
America are titled The Holy Spirit Speaks to All the Churches and God’s
Work through His Secret Appearing. The content in these books is nearly
identical. Much of it is written in first person, as if by their “female
Christ,” and is terse and threatening.
The “female
Christ” states that Jesus was God’s first incarnation, but that He did not
complete His work; therefore, God needed to come again to finish the work, this
time as a woman. This “appearing” ends the previous age and begins a new age in
God’s six-thousand-year plan to save all humanity.
God’s plan,
she says, has three ages (creation, salvation, and destruction) and three
dispensations (law, redemption, and kingdom). She claims that she comes for the
kingdom dispensation and therefore her work is judgment.
Her books are
filled with explicit and horrific pronouncements of damnation and judgment on
unbelievers. The only sin is not to accept her as the Christ, she says, and
salvation is possible only by following her. She states that “God is inhumanly
cruel” and she admits that she hates humankind.
She teaches
that Christ died for our sins, but denies that He rose again physically. She
ardently opposes the concept of the second coming of Jesus and tells followers
not to wait for a “white cloud descension.”
The “female
Christ” doesn’t prove her divinity to potential believers by healing the sick,
casting out demons, or performing miracles; instead, she uses threats and
intimidation to persuade converts. She says that she will punish or slay those
who repudiate her, and even their family members will meet with misfortune.
Another of the cult’s Web sites (www.godword.org) lists 887 cases in which
people allegedly died of sickness, accident, or unknown causes after rejecting
the cult’s evangelistic efforts.
The cult
demands complete obedience and sacrifice. Adherents must turn their material
possessions over to the organization and follow orders, otherwise they will be
punished. They are urged to leave their families, to live in a commune, and to
spread the message of the “female Christ.”
Spying and
Paving the Way.
The cult is
known for its deceptive evangelization practices. An article in Tianfeng,
the magazine of the Chinese government–controlled Three Self Patriotic Church,
says the cult entices people with money or gifts, but will turn to violence or
even murder if a person accepts their gifts but fails to join.
A report from
China for Jesus describes four stages of strategy that the cult has used. The
first stage was simply to send books and money to Christian preachers. In the
second stage they adopted aggressive tactics, including violence and coercion.
In the third stage they used sexual temptation and entrapment as a means of
blackmailing prospects.
The fourth
stage is called “spying and paving the way,” the name the cult gives to their
process of infiltrating a house church. Followers are instructed to mingle with
church members in order to identify those who are strong Christians and core
members of the church. Likely targets are those who arrive before a church
meeting and stay after, and who can look up Bible passages efficiently. Cult
members will try to befriend such people and to act like sincere truth seekers
in order to gain their trust. Once the infiltrators have successfully “spied”
these people, they begin to “pave the way” by asking questions to shake the
Christian believer’s faith. They may invite the believer to a “Bible study,” for
example, where instead of studying the Bible they badger the believer with
questions such as, “Where is heaven? Is it on earth?” Or they will question the
concept of the rapture of the church, a doctrine the cult ardently denies.
Ultimately, they turn to preaching their message, which is the second
incarnation of God. The author of the China for Jesus report predicted that they
will begin to use an unknown fifth strategy now that this latest one has been
exposed in recent years.
The cult
denies that Almighty God’s Church kidnaps people and forces them to accept its
message. An article on one of their Web sites (www.hidden-advent.org) states
that regulations instruct followers not to pressure those who are not willing to
believe in God, because the church doesn’t want “worthless” members who do not
really believe. The article claims that in 1999 alone the church dismissed 70 to
80 thousand people “who were guilty of misconduct and disobedience to the
church’s regulations.”
Eastern
Lightning prefers to target orthodox Christian house churches rather than fringe
or heretical groups. According to the cult’s own internal instructions, they are
not to evangelize those who do not worship Jesus alone and do not study the
Bible, such as Buddhists, Taoists, and Muslims, as well as many Eastern Orthodox
and Roman Catholics in China. Non-Christians and even family members of Eastern
Lightning followers are also excluded from being evangelized.
A book about
heresies in mainland China, published in Taiwan by the Christian and China
Research Center, contains the testimony of a Chinese house church member who
escaped the cult. He says that the cult never acts in the open, but that their
activities are always covert and organized. “Wherever they go, they destroy and
scatter that church with incredible speed and unmatched means.”
Even though
the central Chinese government denounces the cult, some Chinese Christians view
the cult’s behavior and financial strength as indications that it is being
supported by individual local Communist officials who are seeking to disrupt and
destroy house churches. Other Chinese Christians see the cult as satanic and
believe that the Satanic church in America is behind it.
Global
Vision.
The message
of the “female Christ” of Eastern Lightning resembles that of Rev. Sun Myung
Moon of the Unification Church. Moon came to America in 1971 claiming that
Christ had not completed His mission, and in 1992 he declared he and his wife to
be the Messiah, the True Parents, who would usher in a “Completed Testament” age
of world peace.
The “female
Christ” declares that her appearance as the new Messiah ushers in the last stage
of God’s plan. On one of the cult’s Web sites (www.hidden-advent.org) she
confirms that its work has already expanded beyond the borders of China: “At the
present time, the work is one of conquering the deeply corrupt people in the
nations. Moreover, it is not merely a work of guiding people in China, but one
of guiding the entire universe. You now only see the work being done in China,
but actually it has already started to extend overseas.”
In a 2001
article titled “Lightning from the East” in the China Insight Newsletter,
researcher Tony Lambert reported that the cult now has centers in New York and
Toronto. The Journal has received reports from Christians in Paris and Amsterdam
that the cult has reached Europe as well. Sources in the West have reported that
the cult has been distributing books, tracts, and CDs through the Internet and
in the parking lots of Chinese churches. It has also advertised a paid position
to translate their books into English.
（原网址：
http://www.equip.org/articles/deceived-by-the-lightning
）