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Much of the church’s teaching hinges on Jesus, who to them is now a woman named Yang Xiangbin. Little is known of the woman beyond this: she reportedly suffered some sort of mental breakdown after failing a national exam and “has a history of mental illness,” according to China’s People’s Daily. In the early 1990s, the 30-year-old woman came into the orbit of a square-jawed man named Zhao Weishan in Zhengzhou, Henan province, according to the Christian Research Institute. Zhao claimed that God had told him she was the “female Christ,” and he began attracting followers to her.

Defendant Zhang Hang cries during her trial for the murder of a woman at a McDonald’s restaurant, in Yantai City, Shandong province October 11, 2014 in this still image taken from video. (REUTERS/CCTV)

The ethos of the group, however, is as much about dissent as it is religion. On its Web site, it castigates the ruling politburo for its “evil deeds,” labeling it the “Great Red Dragon.” It produces movies telling members what to do if the government captures them: “Even if they beat me to death, my soul is still in God’s hands.”

“It’s about as illegal and politically sensitive as religion gets in China,” Emily Dunn, of the University of Melbourne, told CNN. “As the government has cracked down more, Eastern Lightning’s rhetoric has escalated against the government.”

As is the nature of many churches accused of being a cult, the only members who comment on it are those who have extricated themselves under acrimonious conditions. “The strategy is to slowly draw you in,” one 31-year-old former member told the Telegraph. “It is like taking classes in school. They told us there are three steps to believing in God. First you believe in Joseph, then in Christ, then in the female reincarnation of Christ. They asked us to convert more people or God would be upset…. At night I would always feel scared when I was alone.”