Abstract
Falun Gong was established in northeast China in 1992, and seven years later was banned. Unable to practice within China, small outposts of practitioners set up new communities, and now operate in 69 countries in North America, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, where the movement was free to continue, with the task of preserving and disseminating the teachings. In this chapter, Penny explores the development of the philosophy of the organisation in the context of migration, resettlement, advocacy and proselytisation. He draws on Li Hongzhi’s writings on Christian matters from the pre-suppression period and post-suppression, he discusses two topics: first, the use made by Li and some of his followers of the example of Jesus and the early Christian community, and secondly, a set of essays by Falun Gong practitioners concerned with prophecy, specifically certain sections of the Book of Revelations from the Christian Bible.
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Notes
- 1.
This article is not dated, but the last of its references comes from July 1999. Although this attack uses specifically Christian references to demons, it is true that Li holds that the cosmos is full of invisible beings from the beneficent “Buddhas, Gods, and Daos” right down to the spirits of foxes, snakes, and other animals that can possess unwary practitioners. On the latter topic, see Penny (2008).
- 2.
October 20, 2004, is the first date given for this page on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine at www.archive.org.
- 3.
Details about this site can be found at www.goodnews4china.com/Preface-E.htm. For the date of the English version, see www.goodnews4china.com/Eng-Home.htm.
- 4.
In his lecture in Changchun, Li says that “People who haven’t practiced cultivation are, in the words of your Western culture, called ‘spirits’ after they die. These spirits are actually ghosts” (Li Hongzhi 1998c).
- 5.
Zhuan Falun is based on the nine lectures Li Hongzhi gave as an introduction to Falun Gong in the early 1990s. For practitioners, it is true in a way that no other book is: They are urged by Li to read and reread it. Each word (or character in the original Chinese) apparently contains his own image and a “Law Wheel” or falun. Practitioners are instructed not to mark their copy of Zhuan Falun in any way.
- 6.
This is the standard Chinese word for spirits; in this chapter, I use the renderings of Falun Gong’s authorized translations.
- 7.
For the comment regarding Yahweh’s abilities, see Li Hongzhi (1999b).
- 8.
Nü Wa (or sometimes Nü Gua) is a creator goddess of Chinese myth.
- 9.
See also Li Hongzhi (1998b). Li claims that the Bible is not a true representation of Jesus’s teachings: “Jesus himself didn’t write The Bible, and how humans have depicted Jesus’ actions is definitely inaccurate” (Li Hongzhi 1999c). He also says, “The New Testament, especially, was all written down by this person or that person, paragraph upon paragraph of recorded words—words that were recorded from memory. That is, those who listened to Jesus’ teachings wrote them down based on what they recalled. But could the words spoken by Jesus over the course of his life—think about it, everyone—be as few as what are contained in that book? That few? Jesus talked about many things. Many, many things were forgotten by people and not recorded as a result. So why didn’t they get recorded?” (Li Hongzhi 1999b).
- 10.
- 11.
>I am not aware if Li has ever referred to the resurrection.
- 12.
>The idea that Falun Gong practitioners and early Christians are somehow equivalent may not, in fact, have originated with Falun Gong. An essay was posted on the Clearwisdom web site in February 2001 written by Emily E. Myers for a university course in religion at Swarthmore College in December 2000 under the title “Entering the Believers’ World: Christians Then and Falun Gong Disciples Now” (the posting notes the original title as “Martyrdom Past and Present: Christians in the second and third Centuries and Falun Gong Practitioners Today”) (Myers 2001). It is not stated whether Ms. Myers is a Falun Gong practitioner herself or not.
- 13.
>Another Chinese practitioner drew a different parallel between the early Christians and Falun Gong practitioners of today. Referring to Jesus’s prophecy (recorded in Mark 13 and Luke 21) that the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed but that those who fled would be saved, he claims that while a million Jews were killed and many more were forced into slavery when the Romans besieged the city in 70 CE, not one Christian lost their life as they followed Jesus’s instructions to leave the city. This, he asserts, was retribution on the Jews for their persecution of Jesus, and he warns that the same fate will befall Chinese people who do not reject the Party in their persecution of Falun Gong (A Dafa Practitioner from China 2007).
- 14.
>The essays on prophecy are conveniently archived on the Falun Gong web site Pure Insight, see pureinsight.org/vocab/2.
- 15.
>This identification is by no means original in Falun Gong. Some Protestant Christian authors have made the same claim (Dunn 2008).
- 16.
>Jiang was, at the time, president of the People’s Republic of China and chairman of the Chinese Communist Party; Zeng (mistakenly rendered “Zen” in the English translation) was head of the CCP’s Organization Department; Luo, Li, and Ding were, according to Falun Gong sources, at the head of the 610 Office which was charged with running the suppression of Falun Gong; Bo was mayor of Dalian and subsequently governor of Liaoning where, allegedly, some of the worst persecution took place, and He was one of China’s most famous scientists who had consistently opposed Falun Gong over a number of years in print and in the media. Another essay on related themes from after September 2007 suggests that the names of Bo Xilai and He Zuoxiu should be replaced by Zeng Qinghong and Liu Jing, who headed up the 610 Office and its successor organizations (A European Practitioner c. 2007). The “European Practitioner” clearly did not realize the “Zen” of the translation was, in fact, the Zeng Qinghong he reckoned should have been on the original list.
- 17.
>It should be noted that chan only has six strokes in the simplified form currently used in the People’s Republic of China. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, as well as in texts prior to the late 1970s, chan has 11 strokes.
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Penny, B. (2012). Master Li Encounters Jesus: Christianity and the Configurations of Falun Gong. In: Manderson, L., Smith, W., Tomlinson, M. (eds) Flows of Faith. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2932-2_3
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