Editing True Jesus Church (section)

==History==
The TJC emerged independently alongside other indigenous [[Christians|Christian]] groups of that period such as the [[Local churches (affiliation)|Little Flock]], the [[Jesus Family]] and [[Chinese Church in Christ|The Christian Tabernacle]].<ref>{{Cite book|author=Peter Tze Ming Ng|title=Chinese Christianity: An Interplay between Global and Local Perspectives|year=2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ec3da4VAddIC|pages=205|publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-9004225756}}</ref>

Established in 1917 by [[Paul Wei|Wei Embo]], a silk merchant who later adopted the Christian name Paul,<ref name=founder>{{Cite web|url=https://english.religion.info/2023/12/06/the-true-jesus-church-in-taiwan/|title=The True Jesus Church in Taiwan: Resilience, community, and the centrality of truth in a Chinese Christian movement|last=Eva|first=Joanna|date=December 6, 2023|website=[[Religioscope]]|access-date=January 27, 2025}}</ref> the church's early adherents in [[Hebei]] and [[Shandong]]<ref>{{cite book|first=Daniel H.|last=Bays|title=Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present|isbn=978-0804736510|year=1999|location=Stanford, CA|publisher=Stanford University Press|page=425}}</ref> were influenced by certain charismatic practices of the Apostolic Faith Mission in China,<ref>{{Cite book|author=Gerald H. Anderson |title=Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions|year=1999|pages=125|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |isbn=978-0802846808}}</ref> the [[Seventh-day Adventist Church]], and the [[Pentecostal Assemblies of the World]]—especially [[faith healing]], [[baptism of the Holy Spirit]], [[footwashing]], and [[Biblical Sabbath|Sabbath keeping]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

[[Paul Wei]] (Wei Embo, 1877–1919) was one of the early workers.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lambert |first=Tony |date=2006 |title=China's Christian Millions |publisher=Oxford |pages=59–60}} quoted in [https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4b6fe17d0.pdf Refugee Review Tribunal]</ref> A former member of the Beijing branch of the [[London Missionary Society]] led by British missionary Samuel Evans Meech (1845–1937), Wei became a Pentecostal under the influence of Norwegian missionary to China, [[Bernt Berntsen]]. In 1917, he left Berntsen's group as the Holy Spirit had moved him. He died of tuberculosis on September 10, 1919, and the pause of his prophecy did not prevent the further growth of the TJC.<ref>[[Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye]], ''China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church'', New York: Oxford University Press, 2018, 86–118.</ref>

TJC's other early workers included [[Zhang Lingsheng]] (1863–?), who convinced Wei that the church should maintain a seventh-day Sabbath, and [[Barnabas Zhang]] (1882–1961), who eventually left the group in 1929 and established a rival movement in Hong Kong.<ref name=MeltonBaumann>{{cite encyclopedia|editor-first1=J. Gordon|editor-last1=Melton|editor-first2=Martin|editor-last2=Baumann|encyclopedia=Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia|publisher=[[ABC-Clio]]|isbn=978-1598842043|year=2010|page=2894|title=True Jesus Church|editor-link1=J. Gordon Melton}}</ref>

In [[mainland China]], Wei's son, Wei Wenxiang (魏文祥, Isaac Wei, 魏以撒, c. 1900–?), emerged as the worker of the TJC. He also presided over TJC's international expansion to various countries and the establishment of an effective bureaucracy.<ref>Inouye (2018), 157–185.</ref>

By 1949, the membership grew to around 120,000 in seven hundred churches.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Jason Kindopp, Carol Lee Hamrin|title=God and Caesar in China: Policy Implications of Church-state Tensions|year=2004|pages=109|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0815796466}}</ref> However, as a result of the Chinese Civil war and following regime change, True Jesus Church lost contact with the churches inside China. In 1951, Isaac Wei was arrested and “disappeared.” How and when he died is unknown. Li Zhengcheng (李正誠, ca. 1920–1990) replaced Isaac Wei as the main leader of the TJC and led it into joining the [[Three-Self Patriotic Movement]] as the government had requested. Persecution, however, came both before and during the [[Cultural Revolution]], and Li Zhengcheng spent more than twenty years in jail. Because of the developments in China, the TJC abroad proclaimed its autonomy, with headquarters first in Taiwan and from 1985 in the U.S. The Chinese branch was however reconstituted, as part of the Three-Self Church, after the Cultural Revolution and the reforms of [[Deng Xiaoping]] and still has a substantial following in China.<ref>Inouye (2018), 187–259.</ref>

Today there are TJC members in more than sixty countries across six continents. According to scholars, the possible total number of members is up to 3 million.{{sfn|Anderson|2013|pp=133–134}}