The man calling himself Jesus’ younger brother whose Taiping Rebellion doomed Qing dynasty
- Religious movements often spring up. In Malaysia, followers of the Teacher worship the Creator. One such movement saw 20 million Chinese die
Recently, on the sad occasion of the death of a friend’s father, I came across the Baitiangong Universal Spiritual Movement, a new religious movement with members in Malaysia and Singapore.
Baitiangong, literally “worshipping the Lord of Heaven” in Mandarin, was founded by Chew Choon Ming (1936-2000) almost 50 years ago in Malaysia.
After receiving a series of visions in February 1976, Chew, whom followers address as Xian Sheng (“Teacher”), began preaching a syncretic belief system, whose adherents worship a single deity, whom they call Tiangong or the Creator, and engage in spiritual cultivation through meditation and the way they conduct their lives.
Baitiangong attracted a group of followers in Malaysia, one of whom was my friend’s late father. Although I couldn’t be present, the scant details I have of the unfamiliar procedures conducted at his wake and funeral intrigued me.
A few months later, I asked my friend, who told me that he and his family had been members of the Baitiangong community since the 1980s, though he himself is non-practising.
Outsiders might be tempted to label Baitiangong a “cult”, but new religious movement is a more accurate term to describe a faith-based community that’s outside the religious mainstream.
It’s when members are subjected to coercion, abuse and harm, among other things, that a new religious movement is defined as a cult.
However, things aren’t usually so clear-cut, and groups like the Baitiangong are often viewed with suspicion and hostility by mainstream society and law enforcement agencies.
The Baitiangong movement had run-ins with the Malaysian authorities before, but it’s now a legal entity in Malaysia and Singapore.
Many of the major religions in the world today were new religious movements, or even cults, at some point in their early past, only gaining respectability and acceptance over time because of royal or state patronage, exponential growth in the number of their followers, and so on.
There were numerous new religious movements throughout China’s past, but one that had a monumental impact on early modern Chinese history was the Bai Shangdi Hui, or God Worshipping Society, founded by Hong Xiuquan (1814-1864).
Protestant Christian missionaries were active in China in the early 19th century. Besides proselytising, they also printed religious publications, one of which fell into the hands of Hong Xiuquan, who was born into a Hakka family in Guangdong.
Having failed the imperial examinations several times by the late 1830s, Hong apparently suffered a nervous breakdown, during which he had multiple visions.
In 1843, prompted by a visit from his friend, who was also a distant cousin, he sat down to study the Christian publications in his possession. It was during the study sessions that he interpreted his visions as divine revelations.
He realised that he was the son of the Christian god and the younger brother of Jesus Christ. It was this god who, in his visions, had instructed him to purge the world of demon worship.
In January 1851, Hong declared himself Heavenly King of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo), a theocratic state founded on Hong’s version of Christianity.
Two years later, he captured Nanjing, which he made his capital. At its peak, the Heavenly Kingdom ruled over 30 million people.
By the time the Qing forces quelled the Taiping Rebellion, as it was called, in 1864, between 20 and 30 million people had died, and the economy in southern China, where the Heavenly Kingdom was based, was devastated.
Despite its victory, the Qing dynasty never recovered from the rebellion. In the following decades, a host of factors conspired to bring about the dynasty’s decline and eventual demise.