Evangelicals are promoting The Firing Squad, a faith-based drama that opens this weekend. But they’re being mum about the film’s connections with Falun Gong, a movement founded in China that promotes conservative causes and works to create “the world’s largest and most authoritative media.”
“The Firing Squad,” which cost $5 million to produce, is the first entry into the booming faith-based film industry from Epoch Studios. It’s a new division of The Epoch Times, which is part of the Epoch Times Association. They’re all founded and led by adherents of Falun Gong, which draws inspiration from Buddhism and Taoism and claims aliens from other planets are trying to replace humans on Earth.
The film tells about prisoners who come to the Christian faith while facing death. It has a Christian director, Tim Chey (Interview with the Antichrist), and a mostly Christian cast, including Kevin Sorbo (God’s Not Dead).
An evangelism campaign, led by a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate and former spokesman for Liberty University, accompanies the film. The campaign seeks to “win 1 million souls to Jesus.”
“We can only make America great again through Jesus!” the campaign’s website claims. Jesse Connors of The Million Souls Campaign did not respond to an inquiry about the film.
The Firing Squad is the latest chapter in a decades-long story: How politically conservative Asian religious groups come to the United States and exploit mass media to gain influence, legitimacy and money.
Federal officials have charged the Falun Gong movement with money laundering.
The Falun Gong movement’s annual revenue totals about a quarter-billion dollars, thanks to its various enterprises, including the touring dance troupe Shen Yun, which advertises its shows as “China before Communism.” Federal officials have charged the movement with money laundering.
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, emerged in China in 1992. The Communist government banned the group in 1999 and sent some of its leaders to prisons and mental institutions. Its persecution by the Chinese government provided Falun Gong with a powerful anti-Communist identity that resonates with many American conservatives.
Falun Gong followers launched The Epoch Times in the United States in 2000, following a model created by Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church, which launched The Washington Times in 1982.
More recently, followers of South Korean leader David Jang bought The Christian Post and other media properties. Some of Jang’s followers have called Jang a “second coming Christ,” according to reports in Christianity Today. Editorial executives with The Christian Post and other Jang-affiliated media properties pleaded guilty to money laundering, Religion News Service reported in 2020. Christopher Chou, CEO of The Christian Post, denied the accuracy of the RNS and The Christianity Today reports.
Christian businesses and nonprofits have rushed to help Falun Gong-affiliated entities burnish their image by concealing their beliefs and long-term ambitions.
Screencap from The Firing Squad media kit.
In May, The Firing Squad was screened for evangelicals attending the annual gathering of the National Religious Broadcasters. NRB, which calls itself “the world’s largest association of Christian communicators,” did not inform its members about the film’s connections to Falun Gong and declined to answer questions about its financial partnership with the group, which is not eligible for NRB membership.
The Epoch Times also sponsored a showing of its “documentary” film, Gender Transformation: The Untold Realities. The film claims to report “the financial interests behind the transgender movement and the political and societal mechanisms in play.”
A. Larry Ross Communications, the Christian-owned company that organized the NRB screening, also has promoted the film to “faith leaders” at screenings in Miami and Louisville. None of its press or promotional materials mention Falun Gong. Founder A. Larry Ross worked as the media representative for evangelist Billy Graham more than three decades.
Christian media outlets that have relied on the film’s publicity materials have skirted the Falun Gong connection.
His company does not disclose the Falun Gong connections to its evangelical audiences. One Firing Squad press release provided selected highlights from an NBC News article about the film but concealed these bits:
- The original NBC story’s headline: “Epoch Times, the conspiratorial pro-Trump outlet, enters a new market: Faith-based movies”
- The NBC article’s opening summary: “In recent years, The Epoch Times has amassed a large audience as a publisher of right-wing news articles and peddler of baseless election conspiracies. This summer, the conservative media company is hoping to conquer new territory: Hollywood.”
Christian media outlets that have relied on the film’s publicity materials likewise skirted the Falun Gong connection. They include:
The Gospel Coalition warned about the group in a 2023 article, “9 Things You Should Know About Falun Gong and ‘The Epoch Times.’” Among the concerns were its theology and journalistic practices:
- “Falun Gong’s leader believes he’s a messianic and divine figure.”
- “Falun Gong teaches that racial groups were created by various divine beings — and that mixed races are ‘pitiable.’”
- “Falun Gong’s media outlet has been described as a ‘global-scale misinformation machine.’”
The Epoch Times has published more than 90 articles promoting 2000 Mules, the Dinesh D’Souza conspiracy movie that made wild claims of widespread 2020 election fraud. But it has not informed its readers that attorneys representing the film in a defamation lawsuit admitted there was no evidence for the claims.
A film publicist offered an interview with director Chey, but did not follow up. The publicist did not respond to a request to interview Sally Li Sun, who was named leader of Epoch Studios in January after three years with The Epoch Times, where she helped produce a series of short films, including:
- No Farmers No Food: Will You Eat the Bugs? It reportedly “exposes the hidden agenda behind ‘Green Policies’ that are pushing people to eat bugs, a global food crisis ignored by the world’s media.”
- The Shadow State, which critiques environmental, social and governance standards, “a new global alliance affecting our way of life.”
- Church & State, a TV series on “the dangers of progressive ideology” that draws parallels between “The Christian Left” and “Nazi Germany and the Nazified German Church.”
- Real Story of January 6, which supposedly “reveals the truth that has been hidden from the American people.”
- When the Plague Arrives, which claims to show “humanity has survived epidemic diseases … of far deadlier magnitude” than COVID.
The Epoch Times makes unsubstantiated claims about its influence, including “#1 Trusted News” and “the fourth-largest newspaper in America,” but its circulation is not audited.
In June, The Epoch Times itself made news when federal prosecutors charged Weidong “Bill” Guan, its chief financial officer, with artificially inflating the media outlet’s revenue by $67 million through money laundering and other crimes.
But Chey says he believes in Guan’s innocence.
“I only met Bill in January, and I had very light touchings with him,” Chey, a former litigation attorney, said. “I met him maybe two or three times. But, having said that, I believe in Bill’s innocence, mainly because he took on a poor Christian filmmaker’s project and championed it for no reason other than he believes strongly in freedom of religion.”
The 10th paragraph of this article has been amended in response to concerns expressed by Christopher Chou, CEO of The Christian Post, who continues to dispute its claims.
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