end of days incident watch

This is vaguely seasonal but above all Taiping-tastic:

In recent weeks, hundreds of members of the "Almighty God" group have clashed with police, sometimes outside government buildings, in central Henan, northern Shaanxi and southwestern Gansu provinces, according to photos on popular microblogs.

(The group) has "incited followers to launch a decisive battle with the 'Big Red Dragon', to make the 'Red Dragon' extinct and to establish the reign of the kingdom of the 'Almighty God'", the provincial Shaanxi Daily said on its website.

Perhaps relevantly, the areas affected are notably poor. The group also seems to have incorporated the Mayan hoo-hah into its syncretic Christianity, at least to provide a convenient approaching doomsday meme. Additionally, there's something almost cute about conceptualizing the Communist Party as the 'Big Red Dragon'.

For more on contemporary Chinese millenarianism, here's an amazing account of the turf war between the Eastern Lightning and Three Grades of Servants cults from  back in 2006.

Comments

[Nick L]

This kind of stuff is the reason this blog is great. Just so you know.