Korean Religious Culture and its Affinity to Christianity: The Rise of Protestant Christianity in South Korea

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2000 by Andrew E. Kim

Andrew E. Kim [*]

This study offers an analysis of the affinity between Korean traditional religious culture and Protestant Christianity in order to bring into sharper relief several important points of contact that strengthened the appeal of the imported faith in South Korea. In particular, Korean Shamanism, the enduring core of Korean religious and cultural thought, is given special attention in order to explain the prominence of its worldview and practices in the uniquely Korean form of Protestantism. The paper also examines the way in which specific Protestant doctrines and practices were modified or accentuated to suit the disposition of the Korean people. What this study reveals is that Christian conversion in South Korea did not involve an exclusivistic change of religious affiliation, meaning that it did not require the repudiation of traditionally held beliefs. Instead, millions of South Koreans eagerly embraced Christianity precisely because the new faith was advanced as an extension or continuation of Korean religio us tradition.

An estimated 73 million Protestant Christians live in Asia, comprising about 2 percent of the total Asian population. While Protestant Christians are to be found in virtually every Asian country, it is South Korea that has witnessed the most spectacular and sociologically significant Protestant expansion. Since its introduction in 1884, Protestant Christianity had proceeded to become -- after Buddhism -- the largest religion in the country. By 1989, nearly one fourth of South Korea's 40 million people were Protestant Christian. The growth was particularly pronunced from the early 1960s to the end of the 1980s, the period of the country's remarkable modernization. Since the early 1960s, when South Korea's Protestants scarcely topped the one million mark, the number of Protestant Christians increased faster than in any other country, more than doubling every decade. Moreover, by 1989, there were 29,820 Protestant churches and 55,989 pastors, making the Protestant Church in South Korea one of the most vital and dynamic in the world. This is all the more astonishing given the fact that only about 2 percent of the Asian population is Protestant Christian (South Korea alone accounted for over 14 percent of the total Protestant population in Asia in 1989), and that Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, has failed to strike roots in Japan -- a neighbouring country with strikingly similar social organization and shared cultural traditions -- where less than one percent of the population has converted to Christianity.

Despite the importance of addressing the "Christian question" in its Asian context, there has to date been but limited social scientific attention to the subject; most glaringly, the sociology of religion has yet to turn its research focus on the remarkable spread of Protestant Christianity in South Korea. There have of course been numerous important specialist studies (Kang 1997; Paik 1971; Mm 1982; Clark 1971; Moffett 1962; Grayson 1985), but these offer essentially historical treatments. In an attempt to redress this imbalance, this study offers an analysis of the affinity between Korean religious culture and Protestantism in order to bring into relief various points of contact that strengthened the appeal of the imported faith in the host society. It is argued here that the dramatic progress of Protestantism in South Korea during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s [1] was due in part to the way the imported faith converged with certain concepts and practices of Korean religious tradition. [2] It is also argued that Korean clergy, in an effort to make Protestantism more acceptable to potential converts, accentuated certain messages and doctrines, particularly those pertaining to shamanistic worldview. Examples of convergence between Korean religious tradition and Protestantism abound, but the following themes stand out as the most important: an emphasis on this-worldly life; the concept of Hananim; the image of God as the savior; the primacy of faith-heating; and the centrality of ethics and family values. [3]

As we shall see, a full explication and proper understanding of this unique dynamic wilt necessarily draw upon James Grayson's theory of emplantation. The theory asserts that growth and development of a missionary religion in a host society is contingent upon five sets of related factors, two of which are pertinent to this study: 1) the resolution of contradictions between the new doctrine and the core values of the receiving society; and 2) the resolution of conflict between the new doctrine and the existing religions of the host society (Grayson 1985: 130). As an analytical framework, the model of emplantation mandates attending to the congruence between "appeal" and "reception," i.e., fitting together both the message and the core values of the receiving society. This study will also draw upon other studies of Christian conversion to see if it lends support to any particular line of argument, e.g., "intellectualist" accounts of Christian conversion (Horton 1971).