psychoceramics: sounds like God-Land

[Ken Alexander <k--@e--.umich.edu>]

More details of the Chinese guru in God-Land (Garland) Texas, from
the Dec 25 issue of American Atheist News.

========== forwarded 70-line excerpt:

                       CULT CRAZINESS TO RING IN THE NEW YEAR ?
              Christmas Season Ignites More Reports Of Visions, Doomsday...

   Christmas '97 media coverage brought out reports on a variety of religious
phenomenon, including reports of a Taiwan-based cult which some fear is
preparing for an apocalyptic mass suidide in the manner of the Heaven's Gate
sect in San Diego, California earlier this year.  Members of the Chen-Tao, or
True Way group -- also known as God's Salvation Church-- have been assembling
in the town of Garland, Texas to await the arrival of Jesus Christ who will
presumably take over the body of the sect's leader, a former college
instructor named Hoh-Ming Chen.  The group's theology, like that of Heaven's
Gate and other millenarian sects, blends a curious amalgam of Christian,
Buddhist and New Age doctrines, fusing traditional personalities like Jesus or
angels with more avant garde icons including  flying saucers and aliens.
Indeed, Mr. Chen boasts that having studied many of the world's religious
sytems, he has constructed a doctrine which can "explain everything." 

   Chen, who teaches that he was the father of Jesus Christ, says that God
will be reincarnated as a man at 11 a.m. ET on March 31, 1998 at his home in
Garland, Texas.  Why Garland?  Because, say Chen and other members of the
group, "it sounds like 'God-Land.'"  Indeed, the sect has purchased dozens of
houses in the area for up to 200 church members.  The group is hoping that one
million people will  converge on Garland for this celestial reincarnation; the
mayor the Texas city has, thus far, succeeded in avoiding reporters curious
about the group, saying only that he is too busy with problems like the local
sewer plant failure last weekend to worry about Armageddon.

   Chen believes that following the return of God, the world will be plunged
into a nuclear war, and that "The days of Sodom must take place in the East
Asia (sic), which will happen with the suffering of nuclear war.  All of these
will happen before the last 6 months of 1999."

   Reports that the group may be planning a mass suicide similar to the
Heaven's Gate sect stem, in part, from the fact that church members wear a
sort of uniform which includes white shirts and pants, topped off by large,
white cowboy hats. Mr. Chen says that the enormous straw cowboy hats are
"heavenly crowns."  Many church members seems to have money; the Dallas
Morning Herald noted that they "drive nice cars, ncluding Lexuses and
Mercedeses, keep their homes and yards neat and cause no trouble."  Like the
Aum Shinryo Supreme Truth sect in Japan and even Heaven's Gate, members come
from diverse backgrounds; many are educated and gave up jobs in Taiwan in
order to come to the United States and  participate in the fulfillment of Mr.
Chen's bizarre prophesy.  Among the members: Dr. Chun Sheng Wu, a former
engineering professor at the Kung Shan Institute of Technology in Taiwan, and
Ching Hung Chiang, a former agent with the Taiwanese intelligence service.  

  AANEWS reported on the God's Salvation Church last fall, when Mr. Chen
turned up in Vancouver, Canada, presumably to unite the "Jesus Christ of the
East" with his western counterpart.  The church spent considerable sums of
money on newspaper ads, presumably to catch the eye of the "Jesus Christ of
the West.  "He is about 27-30 years old, and he's living in Vancouver, and he
knows who is is," said a spokesperson for the God's Salvation Church.  

   The trip was evidently a fruitful one for the church; last week at a news
conference, Mr. Chen introduced two young boys, one said to be Jesus, the
other Buddha.  He also produced photographs of jet contrails which formed
crosses and other geometric patterns, or were "space ships" which he said were
"signs" from God.

   Garland residents were also at the press conference. One described Mrs.
Chen as a "lovely person," adding "We all have our own religion -- to each his
own."  Carl Nichols told the Morning News that the philosophy of his new
neighbors was "not a whole lot different than any Christian belief, as far as
God returning to Earth."
  
  Mr. Chen says that he began receiving messages from God in 1992, and that
even as a small child he was given prophecies from a "golden ball."  

[...]