True Jesus Church

The True Jesus Church is a Christian church. It was started during the early 20th century. It is an independent Church. It split from the Pentecostal movement in China. The Pentecostal movement is an evangelical movement within Christianity.

This group practices faith healing, speaking in tongues, baptism by putting a person completely under water, feet washing and the Saturday Sabbath. By 1949 they claimed 120,000 members; those members met in 700 churches.

The True Jesus Church was banned in the People's Republic of China in 1958 along with all the other Christian churches, but they were allowed to reopen in 1985. Since then, they have grown quickly and have spread across the whole country. They are strongest in Jiangsu, Hunan and Fujian provinces.

They say that daily prayer is very important, both private and public. They engage in vigorous evangelism.

Currently their churches are found in forty eight countries and six continents. Followers of the Church believe that God has only a divine nature, so they therefore reject the idea of the Trinity.

Christian holidays were often near the dates of pagan ones. This is also true for Easter, Christmas and Good Friday. The feast of Sol invictus was on the 25th of December. It was a very important holiday in Ancient Rome. Because of the pagan origins of the holidays, the True Jesus Church does not celebrate Easter and Christmas. The movement has between 1.5 and 2.5 million followers.