As I learned from watching the 2012 film 21 Jump Street, nothing is more inspiring than ‘Korean Jesus’.
Where I live in Bergenfield, New Jersey you can drive around the neighborhood and spot several Korean churches. This actually is not uncommon, I realized that throughout my life I have seen many Korean churches. It is the same with Jewish and Hindu temples or Islamic mosques; where there is a large population of a certain demographic in a township you will often see places of worship in accordance to the specific people. This made me think about Korea’s religious affiliations.
In East Asia, some of the prominent religions are Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto Buddhism. An Italian missionary brought Roman Catholicism to South Korea in 1603. Christianity didn’t really catch on until the 1940s, but even then the population of Christians in Korea at that time was only 2%. But in the 1990s that percentage grew significantly: 34% of Koreans were Protestant and 11% were Catholic. The “conversion boom” happened somewhere around the 1980s and Korea had the most conversions in the shortest amount of time more than any other country.
I believe that Protestantism sparked a movement within Korean culture. After all, Protestantism was able to compete with Catholicism and Buddhism. Influential Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon had a lot to do with the shift. Sun Myung Moon was more than a religious leader, he was a business magnate, media mogul and a father, one could argue that he was also a politician. Moon founded a Unification Church and wrote a family-oriented book about divine principles, giving his two cents about looking at the bible through a new down-to-earth perspective. This perspective appeals to the middle class, youth, intellectuals and the urban population.
Another factor in the rise of Protestantism in Korea would be the influence the religion has in education. Christians started many schools, including three of the top five universities in South Korea.
Before the Korean War, from 1910 to 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule. The Japanese imposed Shinto Buddhism onto the Korean population and they rejected it as more and more missionaries brought Christian ideals into the country. Christianity sparked the conversation of social change and the importance of human rights, unlike the original Korean society that was based on Confucian principles where women had no say in society and young people were completely subservient to their parents.
The South Korean government’s constitution promotes ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘separation of church and state’, the government even regards Christianity as ideological protection against communism. Today, Korea is home to the biggest church ever…. As of February 2013 the Yoido Full Gospel Church had close to one million members. Over 200,000 people attend their services, not to mention the thousands of people watching on TV. At some point, South Korea also had the most missionaries in the world, a staggering statistic if you consider the population of the country.
Unfortunately, there have been a few tax evasion scandals in the Christian pastoral community. Even Sun Myung Moon was found guilty of filing false tax returns!
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Kevin, I totally agree about Christianity being related to the modernization of Korea. The emulation of western culture in Korean society is becoming more common as they become a more globalized nation.
It’s interesting to hear about how quickly Christianity spread through South Korea in the last couple of decades. Some could attribute this to the increasing westernization (some would call it modernization) of South Korea. For Christianity to arrive behind all of the other Eastern religions and then catch up, may speak to the identity of the South Korean people. The Koreas, throughout history, constantly had other religions and cultures impressed upon them.