The Church of Almighty God

The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese millenarian movement, is also known as Eastern Lightning. This name was originally given to the group by outside observers.

It came to be accepted by the movement, and refers to a passage in 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.” This “lighting that comes from the east”, according to the Church, is Jesus Christ returning as Almighty God, from a country in the east, China, to inaugurate the third age of humanity.

While its theology is certainly different from the doctrines of traditional Christian churches, American scholar Holly Folk believes it is one among several new contemporaneous “authentic Christian traditions”, “and its intellectual and theological lineage within Christianity is very rich” (Folk 2018).