Teenager Is Retrieved From Sect

Deputies retrieved a 16-year-old girl from the San Dimas branch of an apocalyptic sect after the mother expressed fears that the girl would join a pilgrimage to the group’s home in Texas, authorities said Tuesday.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said the mother alleged that the girl might have been held against her will at God’s Salvation Church, but authorities found no sign of kidnapping. The girl, Nan Hua Chiang, rejoined her mother without incident after deputies showed up at the church, Lt. Roosevelt Blow said.

“We have no evidence of a crime,” Blow said.

The incident capped a wave of anxiety from Taiwan to Texas over whether the group is planning a mass suicide--in the style of the Heaven’s Gate cult--during a March gathering. The group’s writings predict that God will appear in the Dallas suburb of Garland on March 31 and that those who attend will survive a fiery end of the world in 1999.

Taiwanese newspapers reported last week that the group planned a mass suicide. Those fears were made worse when the group’s name was translated into English as “God Saves the Earth Flying Saucer Foundation,” evoking parallels with the San Diego area suicides in March of 39 Heaven’s Gate members who believed that their spirits would be borne to heaven in space vessels.

But a Taiwanese official in Houston who met with members of the Texas group last weekend dismissed comparisons to Heaven’s Gate and said he found no cause for alarm.

“They have no intention, under any circumstances, of committing suicide,” said Yu-Chung Lo, deputy director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. “When I asked them about it, some of them reacted very angrily, some of them said it was ridiculous.”

A group member at the San Dimas church said the gathering was similar to retreats held by other churches. “Don’t worry about it,” the member said in Chinese through an interpreter. “We’re not going to commit suicide. We’re not like the San Diego cult.”

At a news conference, the group’s leader, Hon-ming Chen, affirmed his belief that God would appear at Chen’s house in Garland, where followers number about 150 and have 21 houses. A book of the group’s writings says God will arrive by spaceship and look like Chen, but it makes no mention of suicide.

Lo described the group’s philosophy as a mix of apocalyptic Christianity and ancient Zen or Taoist thought. Neighbors said the San Dimas members dressed in white clothing and cowboy hats.

The mother who summoned deputies feared that she would never see her daughter again, sheriff’s Deputy Joe Lomonaco said. The girl had been staying with her father and relatives at the church, but after the father died from cancer recently, the mother flew from Taiwan to get her.

Members of the San Dimas group who left for Texas on Tuesday told reporters they were inspired by a sign that appeared in the heavens Dec. 13. That portent was the numerals 007 emblazoned in the sky--an airborne advertisement for the new James Bond movie.

Times staff writer Jesse Katz contributed to this story from Houston.