Ahn Sahng-hong (1918-1985)
Ahn was a Korean Buddhist who was born while Japan ruled over the Korean Peninsula. From 1937 to 1946 he lived in Japan. When he returned to Korea he began attending services at the Seventh Day Adventist mission near Inchon. Near the end of the Korean War Ahn began to experience revelations which he reported to members of the Adventist congregation. He renounced Buddhism and began to study Christianity more closely, claimed to continue having revelations, and in 1956 announced that Jesus Christ would return to earth within a decade.
Ahn’s revelations led him into a series of disputes with the Seventh Day Adventists over their teachings. He claimed one of his revelations informed him that the use of the cross in religious ceremonies should be discontinued, and that the day of the week which should be kept as the Sabbath was Saturday. These and other disputes led the Seventh Day Adventists to excommunicate him, and he responded by forming his own church, which he called Witnesses of Jesus Church of God. It would expand from the original 23 followers who left the Seventh Day Adventists with Ahn to 13 congregations across South Korea by the time of his death.
Ahn did not specifically claim to be the messiah, nor the returned Jesus Christ. Instead he claimed that the early Christian church practices and the messages of Jesus had become changed over time and needed to be restored to what were originally taught by Jesus. Ahn claimed the cross representative of Christianity to be a graven image and was thus not to be used. Ahn also believed that the Passover and other Feasts listed in the Book of Leviticus should be part of the Christian practice of religion. These beliefs and other dogma were published in the more than two dozen books Ahn published.
Upon his death a schism arose within his church over his succession as the head of the religion. Two groups disagreed over whether to continue to follow Ahn’s teachings and direction, or adopt the idea of a spiritual mother over the church, an approach which had been previously explored and rebuked by Ahn when he was alive. The schism led to a formal split and two new churches were formed, the New Covenant Passover Church of God, and the Witnesses of Ahn Sahng-hong Church of God.
The New Covenant Passover Church of God more closely follows Ahn’s teachings. The Witnesses of Ahn Sahng-hong established a new dogma, which included the establishment of a woman as God the Mother and that Ahn should be recognized as Christ, with a new trinity excluding Jesus and including Ahn, and prayer of worship directed not to Jesus but to Ahn. Ahn is titled in the church as Christ Ahn Sangh-hong. During his lifetime he gave several different dates for which he predicted the end of the world, the last one known to have been announced was in 2012.