The Epoch Times and Falun Gong

I wrote last week about the intrinsic tie between a Chinese religious cult called Falun Gong and the popular conservative newspaper called Epoch Times. I have been asked for a follow-up and explanation.

The Association with Falun Gong

One of the original clues I saw regarding the relationship between the Epoch Times and Falong Gong was the full-page advertisements for the Epoch Times in the Shen Yun performance program. If you want to know more about Shen Yun, check here. The traditional Chinese Dance performance organization and the Epoch Times whole-heartedly promote each other.

The Epoch Times was started in 2000 by John Tang, a graduate student at the time at Georgia Tech University. Tang was a practitioner of a fairly recent Chinese religious movement called Falun Gong. One of the evident goals of the newspaper was to highlight the persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong by the Chinese communist government.

So, what is Falun Gong?

Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a religious movement established in the early to mid 1990s in China by an author/philosopher named Li Hongzi. His religious movement is a sort of Chinese ecumenical expression with elements of Buddhism, Taoism, and Qigong. It is seen as a path to physical health and spiritual enlightenment. Here are some of the beliefs based on their own documents.

The practice is based on the premise that the universe, or its spirit, is fundamentally good. Its most basic elements, or qualities, are summarized as zhen shan ren, which roughly translate as trueness, goodness, and forbearance. The properties are said to inhere in all matter and life. 

Offered in this worldview is the possibility of profound personal transformation. Through the study of Falun Gong’s teachings, or Fa, their application in one’s life, and the practice of Falun Gong’s physical discipline, the individual can progress to a state of ever greater self-realization and awakening that reflects his or her degree of attunement to zhen shan ren. 

Central to this process is a belief that misfortune, suffering, and adversity—among other negative phenomena—are the result of karma in the life of the individual. Karma, in this view, is understood to be a material substance. Karma can be, is encouraged to be, reduced and paid off completely over time. With this comes a physical purity otherwise unavailable to the average person. 

A corollary of karma is thought to be attachments, a sort of mental defilement that burdens the mind and insulates and/or alienates one, as does karma, from the deeper qualities of the cosmos. Attachments are removed through a process of self-cultivation in Falun Gong; the adherent develops, in light of the teachings, an ever-greater self-awareness that allows for discernment between what are his or her true and pure thoughts and those that are instead attachments, notions, or problematic desires. Thus one ceases to produce karma as before, as such, and gradually reduces its presence from before in the body. 

As you can see, Falun Gong has elements of the New Age movement as well as lots of other Chinese religious concepts.

The group claims to have endured significant persecution in China at the hands of the communist regime. This would include abduction and imprisonment, forced recantations, torture, rape, and organ harvesting.

Li Hongzhi sees himself as a sort of messiah as he openly stated in an interview in Time Magazine in 1999. In this interview, he claimed to be able to levitate, cure illness through qigong, and that aliens are the cause behind the rise of atheism in the twentieth century.

Is the Epoch Times a mouthpiece for Falung Gong?

While it is technically inaccurate to say that Falun Gong owns the Epoch Times, many of its staff are adherents of the religion and it was founded by a Falun Gong adherent. Certainly, the newspaper is not going to speak evil of the group and defends and protects it. Stephen Gregory, from the Epoch Times, denies that the newspaper is directly tied to Falun Gong. However, others claim that the Epoch Times is a mouthpiece for the group. There can be no doubt that the newspaper and the cult are philosophically aligned.

The Donald Trump connection 

The Epoch Times swept into the international spotlight in 2016 with its full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump. It still is a major supporter of Trump and his movement. Consequently, many of the articles taking aim at the Epoch Times come from left-wing political opponents of Donald Trump.  Trump is not a supporter of Falun Gong, but he is a politician and will take political and financial support where he can get it. It is important to remember that just because the Epoch Times supports Trump, does not mean that it is all good, and the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

So, what should be our takeaway from this?

As biblical fundamentalists, we tend to be politically conservative. This means that we find ourselves as co-belligerents with other religious groups who have similar interests. Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, most Muslims, and Falun Gong adherents, would oppose atheism, imposed secularism, religious persecution, homosexuality, transgenderism, and more. We would stand similarly in support of traditional marriage, the protection of the unborn, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and even freedom of the press.

As evenly divided as the US electorate is, there are not just two teams. There are many different groups with various interests.  Sometimes those interests coincide but not for the same reasons.

In this ever-complicated world, it is important to know the underlying perspectives of those that you are reading. We would have significant differences on the nature of the universe, who God is, how to have a relationship with God, the true nature of man, and so much more. Those ideas also impact social and religious views. By every biblical definition, Falun Gong teaches a false gospel, and its promoters are false teachers.

Be a spiritually discerning consumer and be very careful who you support financially.