God Worshipping Society (拜上帝教)
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The God Worshipping Society (Chinese: 拜上帝教, bài shàngdì jiào) was a Chinese syncretist Christian movement, founded by Féng Yúnshān and led by Hóng Xiùquán, the Taiping Heavenly King (太平天王), a Protestant convert of Hakka descent who proclaimed himself the second son of God and younger brother of Jesus Christ. The society was active in southern China during the mid-nineteenth century, where it established the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (太平天国) in opposition to China's ruling Great Qing dynasty, resulting in a fourteen-year civil war known as the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).
Reading
Contemporary Accounts
- Hamberg, Theodore (1854), The Visions of Hung-Siu-tshuen: and Origin of the Kwang-si Insurrection, Hongkong: The China Mail Office, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006045223
- Mackie, J. Milton (1857), Life of Tai-ping-wang: Chief of the Chinese Insurrection, New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., https://archive.org/details/lifeoftaipingwan00mackrich
- Lindley, Augustus F. (1866), Ti-ping Tien-kwoh: the History of the Ti-ping Revolution, London: Day & Son Limited, https://archive.org/details/tipingtienkwohhi01lind
Writings of Hóng Xiùquán (洪秀全)
Poem on Executing the Evil and Preserving the Righteous (1837)
| 《斬邪留正詩》 | Poem on Executing the Evil and Preserving the Righteous |
| 手握乾坤殺伐權， | In my hand I wield the Universe and the power to attack and kill, |
| 斬邪留正解民懸。 | I slay the evil, preserve the righteous, and relieve the people's suffering. |
| 眼通西北江山外， | My eyes see through beyond the west, the north, the rivers, and the mountains, |
| 聲振東南日月邊。 | My voice shakes the east, the south, the Sun, and the Moon. |
| 璽劍光榮存帝賜， | The glorious sword of authority was given by the Lord, |
| 詩章憑據誦爺前， | Poems and books are evidences that praise Yahweh in front of Him. |
| 太平一統光世界， | Taiping [Perfect Peace] unifies the World of Light, |
| 威風快樂萬千年。 | The domineering air will be joyous for myriads of millennia. |