God Worshipping Society

The God Worshipping Society (拜上帝教) was a religious movement drawing on their own interpretation of Christianity ^[1] founded in 1843 by Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan and Hong Rengan in Guangxi. ^[2] On the 11th day of the first lunar month of 1851, which was also Hong Xiuquan's birthday, the God Worshipping Society proclaimed the Jintian Uprising against the ruling Qing dynasty, and declared the formation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, thus beginning the Taiping Rebellion, which has been described as the "most gigantic man-made disaster" of the nineteenth century.^[3]

Notes

1. ↑ Gao, James Z. (2009). Historical Dictionary of Modern China (1800-1949). Scarecrow Press. p. 136. ISBN 0810863081. 
2. ↑ Spence (1996), p. 80.
3. ↑ Kuhn (1977).

References

• Spence, Jonathan D. (1996). God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393038440. 
• Kuhn, Philip A. (July 1977), "Origins of the Taiping Vision: Cross-Cultural Dimensions of a Chinese Rebellion", Comparative Studies in Society and History, 19 (3): 350–366