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Chapter 4

Christianity

The view from the hills above any South Korean town, particularly at night, will reveal a striking sight: red neon crosses dominate the landscape. The crosses are so commonplace there are popular songs about the phenomenon. Christianity has had a relatively short period of contact with this country, but what it lacks in history, it has made up for by the force of its appeal. Apart from the Philippines and East Timor—both ex-colonies of Christian Western countries—South Korea is now the most Christian country in Asia by percentage of the population who subscribe to it. In achieving this level of adherence, Christianity has been transformed from outlaw sect to establishment faith.

The Arrival of Catholicism

Today Christianity edges out Buddhism as the most popular religion in Korea, but it got off to a slow and difficult start. The first known Korean Christian was the wife of Konishi Yukinaga, a Japanese commander who came to Korea in the 1590s during the Imjin Waeran invasions. The young woman, who took the name Julia, eventually accompanied her husband to Japan. Further attempts to introduce Christianity to Korea during the period were not successful; one missionary, Gregorious de Cespedes, preached to Japanese invaders but was not permitted to do the same to Koreans.

In 1603, a diplomat named Yi Gwang-jeong returned from Beijing with texts written by Matteo Ricci, a Catholic missionary to China. These texts began to attract the attention of intellectuals, but conversions did not result. Ricci’s works were read largely by Confucian scholars, who were curious for knowledge but ultimately rejected the Christian worldview.

It was not until the late eighteenth century that Catholicism began to gain a serious foothold. The religion had been outlawed in 1758 by King Yeongjo, a strict Confucian, in response to the discovery of believers in provinces such as Gangwon and Hwanghae. Nevertheless, in 1784, a young man named Lee Sung-hoon, who had traveled to Beijing with his father, returned to Seoul and began actively proselytizing in defiance of the ban. He created the first organized community of Catholics in Korea, who called themselves the “believing friends.” Unlike in other Asian countries, the early growth of Catholicism happened not via missionaries (who had reached China and Japan but not Korea, despite several attempts throughout the 1600s and 1700s) but from Koreans who had come into contact with the religion in China and returned to preach it to fellow Koreans. It was a grass-roots movement, with very little involvement from foreigners.

Kim Beom-woo, the owner of the house used by Lee as a makeshift church, became the first Korean Catholic martyr, after he was arrested by government officials and tortured to death in 1786. Members of Lee’s group, which included prominent scholar and philosopher Dasan Jeong Yak-yong (1762–1836), began acting as unordained priests against the wishes of the bishop in Beijing. In 1795, the bishop finally sent a real priest from China, Zhou Wenmo, to administer to the group, which by then had four thousand members. Zhou slipped into the country secretly and was provided with safehouses by Korean Catholics. He was the first foreign priest in Korea.

Lee and Zhou were later beheaded in the 1801 Sinyu Persecution, a purge that reportedly would also have claimed the life of Dasan, had he not renounced his faith. In total, over three hundred were executed. Catholicism was perceived as a threat by the regime for several reasons. This foreign religion held that all people were created equal in the eyes of God, clearly threatening the social order and contravening the tenets of neo-Confucianism, which called for absolute obedience to social superiors, particularly the monarch. Many Catholics also refused to perform the ancestor ritual of jesa, out of a belief that it was ancestor worship and therefore idolatry. The interception of a letter sent by Hwang Sa-yeong, a member of Lee’s church, advocating the invitation of Western troops to Korea to aid Catholics revealed another threat and led Queen Jeongsun, regent from 1800 to 1805, to order the 1801 persecution.

There were around ten thousand Korean Catholics by then. Further purges committed by the authorities in 1815, 1827, and from 1866 to 1871 fostered an insular, fearful mentality among believers that still has some degree of influence on Korean Catholicism today. The religion remained underground until the 1870s and 1880s, when the Korean government began to seek better relations with Western powers and therefore curbed its policy of repression. In 1882, there were 12,500 believers—barely higher than in 1800—but by 1910, when Korea lost its independence to Japan, the number had grown to 73,000.

Protestants from America, Colonizers from Japan

Korea saw its first Protestant missionaries with the arrival from the United States of the Methodist Horace Allen in 1884 and Presbyterians Henry Appenzeller and Horace Underwood in 1885. There were already Korean Protestants when they arrived, though: a Scottish Presbyterian named John Ross living in Manchuria managed to produce a Korean translation of the New Testament in 1882, and this text had inspired some living in the northwest of Korea to convert.

This book was printed in Hangul, the Korean alphabet developed by King Sejong the Great in the mid-fifteenth century. Hangul is composed of twenty-four characters, and was envisioned as a very simple writing system that ordinary people could learn, in contrast to the complex hanja (Chinese characters) that Koreans had used exclusively until then, and of which only the social elite had a good command. Confucian and Buddhist texts were written in hanja but Western missionaries ensured that, when Christianity texts were translated into Korean, they were written in a script that everyone could understand. This was a very important factor in the spread of Christianity among the lower classes.

Soon after their arrival, Allen, Underwood, and Appenzeller established hospitals, schools, and universities, contributing materially to the development of the country. By 1890, the three had between them founded Baejae Boys High School and Ewha Girls School, among other schools, and later came Yonsei University. At one time, the Protestant church was the greatest provider of education in Korea. These institutions proved instrumental in spreading Protestantism and also gave rise to the notion that the new form of Christianity of the Americans was progressive, modern, and beneficial to the country. Thus, while Protestantism arrived in Korea much later than Catholicism, it quickly became the most popular form of Christianity: by 1910, it had 100,000 adherents.

1910 saw the beginning of one of the most bitter periods in Korean history. The Joseon state had been weak throughout the preceding century, because of persistent palace infighting and the maneuverings later in the century of foreign powers like Japan and Russia, which had designs on its territory. This left Korea vulnerable, and following several years of increasing Japanese influence over the peninsula Prime Minister Lee Wan-yong (in the absence of Emperor Sunjong, who refused to sign) stamped the national seal of Korea on the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty on August 22, 1910. Thus began thirty-five years of brutal colonial rule, which ended only with the defeat of Imperial Japan in 1945.

The period of Japanese rule was harsh for almost all Koreans, but it proved to be Korean Christianity’s finest hour. Almost from the beginning, the new religion was seen as part of the struggle against Japan. In 1912, 124 people were accused of being part of a plot to assassinate the Japanese governor general Terauchi Masatake; of them, 98 were Christian. The fact that only six were convicted may suggest that the Japanese authorities were looking for ways to clamp down on the Western faith. This incident helped create the impression that Japanese rule and Christianity were in opposition, a belief enhanced by the Japanese policy of instituting schools that competed with the Christian ones. These new schools taught in the language of the invader and forbade religious instruction.

On the first of March of 1919, a group of thirty-three activists convened at Taehwagwan, a restaurant in Seoul, to adopt a declaration of Korean independence drafted by Manhae, a poet, and Choi Nam-seon, an historian. They were encouraged in this in part by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s speech on self-determination, which had inspired them and gave them hope that the United States might come to Korea’s assistance against the Japanese occupiers. The activists signed the document, sent a copy to the Japanese governor general, and contacted the police, informing them of their actions. This immensely brave act stirred a protest movement that brought two million Koreans out onto the streets. The crackdown that ensued resulted in the deaths of 7,500 people and showed the world the true nature of Japanese rule in Korea.

Sixteen of the thirty-three signatories were Protestant, although Protestants made up no more than 2 percent of the population. In the aftermath of the declaration and protests, more than 20 percent of the people arrested were Protestant. Japanese reprisals were swift and bloody. Forty-seven churches were burned down, and thousands of Christians were killed, or imprisoned and tortured. The independence activists did not act completely in vain though: the repercussions eventually forced the governor general to resign, and his successor replaced military police with a civilian force and allowed a small amount of press freedom.

Most of the anti-Japanese resistance among Christians came from Protestants rather than Catholics. This was arguably due to the harsh history of Catholicism in Korea, which had bred a cautious, insular mentality. Some Protestants also did not see the value in fighting the oppressor. During the 1920s and ‘30s, two camps emerged in Korean Protestantism: one was a theologically liberal bloc that tended to be activist in opposing Japan, while the other was a conservative bloc that focused more on purely church-related matters and less on political activism. Likely due to the difficulty of striving against a harsh oppressor, the latter group made the greater gain in numbers during the period.

American Influence and the Boom Years

Imperial Japan was wary not only of the commitment of the Korean Christians but also of the fact that their religion was so deeply part of Western culture. Following liberation, division, and the birth of South Korea, Christian sects, particularly Protestant ones, benefited from their Western origins. Protestantism was seen as the religion of the Americans, the people whom elite Koreans came to believe they should emulate in order to be successful. The first president of the Republic, Syngman Rhee, was a Harvard-educated Americanophile English speaker who gave his name in Western fashion—given name first and surname second. He himself was a Methodist, and 39 percent of politicians in his Liberal Party were Christian.

Americans were considered modern, progressive, and rich. Their religion was also seen in that light. Forty-two percent of Koreans believe Protestantism the faith that was “most instrumental in the country’s modernization,” according to a 2004 study. After the end of World War Two and the Korean War, the United States provided a military backstop and plenty of aid, and the Korean government put up no impediment to the continued spread of the American religion. Indeed, the army was one of the main instruments for conversions. In addition, during its rebuilding after the Korean War, South Korea received plenty of Christian charity, which bolstered the positive image of this Western faith.

Throughout the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, there was a boom in conversions. It is common today to hear people say, “My grandparents were Buddhist, but I am a Christian.” In 1958, Protestants in South Korea numbered around eight hundred thousand; in 1968, there were just under two million; in 1978, there were just over five million; and today there are eleven million. Korean Protestants also tend to be fervent: a 1995 government survey found that 80 percent of Korean Protestants attend church at least once a week, with 40 percent going two or more times. There are also now three million Catholics, bringing the total proportion of the population who are Christian to well over a quarter.

Korean Protestantism has a mostly conservative orientation, though there are some liberal preachers. In the 1980s, groups like the Federation of Christian Youth for the Defense of Democracy campaigned vigorously against right-wing military dictator Chun Doo-hwan, and today, there are some prominent left-of-center preachers, like former government minister and Anglican priest Lee Jae-joung. There are far more right-of-center Protestants, however. There exists a Christian Council of Korea, presided over by leaders of conservative Protestant churches that sometimes campaigns for a tough policy against North Korea, or free market policies. Right-wing President Lee Myung-bak was strongly aided by the so-called Protestant lobby during his election campaign in 2007, with some megachurch pastors openly asking their congregations to pray for his election.

The political left accuses the Protestant right of being an over-politicized, socially conservative bloc. In 2004, a group of conservative church leaders to set up a Christian political party modeled on American televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, with an agenda of opposing same-sex marriage and abortion. During the 2011 Seoul mayoral election campaign period, Kim Hong-do, pastor of Keumran United Methodist Church, asked this question in a sermon, with reference to left-of-center candidate Park Won-soon: “What are we to do if someone who belongs to Satan and demons becomes mayor of Seoul?” In 2011 another group, led by pastor Jeon Gwang-hoon of Sarangjeil Presbyterian Church, announced plans to form a political party that would oppose the separation of church and state. Jeon later lost credibility when he stated that he would combat the nation’s low birth rate by sending people with less than five children to prison.

Protestantism is seen as the pro-capitalist religion. This may be due in part to its history of association with the United States, as the opponent of Communist North Korea. But also, 42 percent of CEOs of large Korean firms are Protestant. Large Protestant churches are criticized by some as places where business networking and deal-making take place. Somang Presbyterian Church in the affluent Gangnam area of Seoul is popular among executives and conservative politicians. Competition to become a church elder there is very intense, as it offers excellent opportunities to make connections. President Lee Myung-bak himself is an attendee of the church. Despite being a member of the National Assembly and former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction at the time he sought this office, he failed to be elected as an elder in 1994. After volunteering as a car park attendant while his wife cooked meals in the church kitchens, he finally won election the second time around.

This association has not always guaranteed President Lee a free ride by the Protestant right. Cho Yong-gi, the powerful founder of Yoido Full Gospel Church, a Pentecostal church, intervened in 2011 when the government introduced an Islamic Finance Bill, aimed at allowing the development of a Sukuk bond market in Korea, chided the president for failing to remember that the Protestant lobby elected him. Cho Yong-gi warned that Islamic finance would provide funding for “terrorists.” He followed this up just weeks later with the claim that the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 was a result of that country’s lack of Christian faith.

Aspects of Korean Christianity

Protestantism in Korea has adapted to native cultural ways. This is evidenced in one respect by the size of certain churches. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Yoido Church in Seoul has the world’s largest congregation. Around 150,000 people are believed to attend services in the main church complex, but the membership the church claims reaches one million, and the reason for this is that Yoido has created a network of affiliated churches that may be likened to franchises. Pastor Mark Cho (not his real name) of a Seoul-based church with the relatively small membership base of 75,000 attributes this collectivization and franchising of belief at least partly to the Korean people’s fondness for group bonding and uniformity.

Pastor Mark goes on to state that the culture of uniformity in religion has other consequences. Korean Christianity has a tendency toward “finger-pointing,” that is, a dogmatic intolerance, toward those who practice their religion in a different way: “If you have a slightly different perspective, they’ll use it and say you’re a heretic,” he comments. His own church has ironically faced criticism for being too “Bible-centric.”

Despite the general distaste Korean Christians have for Musok, Korea’s deeply ingrained animist shamanism has affected Christian worship in several ways. Some churches are markedly materialistic, just as shamanism is. Yoido Church admonishes believers to reject “misguided thoughts considering material wealth as being equated with sin.” Furthermore, “a poor Christian is not a good Christian” was the message delivered in one famous Yoido sermon, for example. Not surprisingly, some Korean Christians—Protestants in particular—hold that their Christian beliefs will somehow help them become wealthy. The history of Protestantism in Korea as the “modernizing religion” and the religion of the business and political elite may well contribute to this feeling.

Shamanism may have helped pave the way for Christianity to be so successful in Korea, according to Pastor Mark. The shamanic association of spirituality with peaks like Inwang-san, Jiri-san, and Baekdu-san resonates with the spiritual significance of mountains like Mount Sinai, at which Moses received the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus. Around Korea, there are hundreds of gidoweon, small “prayer houses” located in the mountains, where church members can go for extended periods of concentrated prayer. The founder of Pastor Mark’s church spent three and a half years in a cave at Jiri-san, where he read the Bible over a thousand times. His text was from an imported religion, but his choice of location was the most traditional one possible for a Korean.

Fervor

Perhaps what is most striking about Protestantism in Korea is its fervor. Pastor Mark observes that, “Koreans have had a difficult history, so many people believed that praying harder would help them.” Unlike Buddhism or Confucianism, Christianity offers salvation. During the time Protestantism has been present in Korea, this country has suffered from poverty, war, colonialism, and division into two separate states. During Japanese rule, Protestants were among the most determined rebels. And following the creation of South Korea, Protestantism became associated with the new American-inspired capitalist order, which was seen to be the people’s road out of poverty. Given all this, it is perhaps unsurprising that believers have clung to Protestantism so strongly.

The rate of Protestant church attendance, with 80 percent of believers attending at least once per week in 1995—dwarfs the rate at which Catholics attend church and Buddhists attend temples. Every day, around 10 percent of practicing Korean Protestants attend early-morning devotional prayers. There are also many thousands of cells, small groups of Protestants who gather, often on Fridays, for extra prayer sessions. Most members tithe as well, giving on average ten percent of their income to the church; “if you’re getting married to a Protestant here, the tithe is definitely something you’ll need to discuss before you tie the knot”, says one Korean Protestant.

Research firm Gallup conducted a survey on the fervency of Korean Protestants in 1997. It found that 52 percent had “experienced the Holy Spirit”; 68 percent were “certain of their salvation”; and, 69 percent believed in “the imminent end of the world.” Of all the various Protestant denominations in Korea, only the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and one sect of theologically liberal Presbyterians are non-evangelical, according to Timothy S. Lee, author of Born Again: Evangelicalism in Korea. According to him, in the late 1990s at least 75 percent of all Korean Protestants were “solidly evangelical.”

Korea is now the world’s second-largest exporter of missionaries after the United States. In 2006, some 15,000 Protestants from South Korea engaged in mission work. Protestant missionaries have been abducted while preaching in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite the missionaries’ obvious risks to themselves and the liability for South Korea’s image and defense policy, the government has not been able to stop groups from going to such danger zones. On July 19, 2007, twenty-three missionaries were kidnapped on the road between Kandahar and Kabul. The twenty-one who survived the ordeal were eventually released for a reported ransom of twenty million U.S. dollars, paid directly to the Taliban by the South Korean government.

This fervor is much less pronounced among Catholics. In the same year that 15,000 Protestants went abroad for missionary work, only 634 Catholics did so, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea. Even within Korea, Catholics generally do not proselytize, but rather wait until someone expresses interest in joining their church. In contrast, it is very common for Protestant Koreans to exhort their non-Protestant friends to attend church with them. Some evangelical groups even stop people on the street. Seoul abounds with public preachers, usually old men and women, who sometimes employ megaphones to harangue passersby and bear placards with the message “Yesu, Cheonguk—Bulshin, Jiok” (“Jesus, heaven—No belief, hell”).

Protestantism and Catholicism also differ in how their adherents relate to other faiths. Buddhists sometimes complain that their religion is under attack from Protestants. During the 1980s and 1990s, groups of fervent Protestants entered Buddhist temples and destroyed property, even committing arson. In one case, at Muryangsa Temple on Samgak Mountain in Seoul in 1984, crosses were daubed on Buddhist paintings, and Buddha statues attacked with axes.

Social Network

Korean society traditionally emphasizes the group over the individual. A church provides for the spiritual needs of its followers, but it also provides an affiliation and a network that responds to the need to belong. Even people who are not especially religious may attend a church because their friends go there, and for many middle-aged women it is a meeting place and support group. As Korea has been a society in which women were mostly excluded from public life until the most recent generation of adults, church gave them a sense of involvement in something wider than the bounds of the family home.

Koreans abroad, including those who never went to church back in their own country, often find friends of their own nationality by attending Korean services. Over 70 percent of Korean-Americans attend church regularly, according to Min Pyong-gap and Kim Jung-ha in their book, Religions in Asian America. This is several times higher than the rate of church attendance in Korea itself, and the main reason for that is the social role the church plays—that of the community center for people of Korean origin living in the midst of a non-Korean culture.

Some miss out on the collective setting furnished by churches, though. It is well known that South Korea has one of the world’s highest rates of Internet usage (and the fastest broadband speeds). Perhaps incongruously, Web culture impacts upon church attendance, for it is possible to “attend” many churches virtually, sitting in front of one’s computer screen and singing along to hymns via live-streaming video. With Koreans working the longest hours in the OECD and church membership among young people now actually in decline, even the strongest religion in Korea must adapt to social change and embrace new methods.