Cheondoism was one of the largest organised movements in colonial Korea, and the division of the peninsula split it in two.
In the north, where Donghak had always been strong, adherents formed the Chondoist Chongu Party in 1946. It was briefly enormous, reporting over two hundred thousand members at the end of that year and outnumbering the communists. An attempted rising in 1948 was suppressed and the leadership purged; by the mid-1950s a few thousand members remained. The party still exists as one of the minor parties permitted inside the ruling front, holding a small number of seats and no independent policy, and the state presents it as evidence of religious freedom. It is the only religious political party left in the country. Figures published from Pyongyang cannot be checked, and outside estimates of practising Cheondoists there range from about ten thousand to fifty thousand.
In the south the religion held a respected place as a native Korean faith with an independence record, but did not grow. The national census recorded around 28,000 adherents in 1995, 45,000 in 2005 and 66,000 in 2015, in a population above fifty million. Its central temple stands in Seoul.
Its influence has outrun its membership. Cheondoist thought fed the minjung theology of the 1970s, and the modern Korean children's rights movement, including Children's Day, was founded by the Cheondoist Bang Jeong-hwan. The teaching has outlasted the institution, which is a fair description of its position in both Koreas.