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

What this shows is that there was no real clash of values between the new doctrine and the existing religions of Korea. And that was made possible largely through the efforts of Korean pastors. In their zealous efforts to win new converts, Korean pastors actually shaped Christianity in accordance with the tradition-bound religious inclination of Koreans. This was particularly true for beliefs and practices that had strong shamanic characteristics. Following Shamanism, for example, this-worldly wish-fulfilment was advanced as an advantage of converting to Christianity, thereby serving as the evangelical message or "selling point" par excellence. An engrossing interest in both physical health and material abundance here and now, a salient undercurrent of Koreans' religious beliefs, was thus emphasized in Korean Protestantism. Furthermore, the image and the role of Korean clergy also took on many characteristics of the shaman to give the impression that they were one and the same. In this way, the distinction b etween Christianity and Shamanism in general and between church service and shamanic ritual in particular became blurred in South Korea. Like other traditional religions of Korea, therefore, Christianity followed a process of growth through coalescence and accretions of traditional Korean forms of belief and practice. Both the missionaries and the native clergy, especially the latter, translated Christian ideas into forms which would appeal immensely to the Korean religious imagination.

Another factor that facilitated the growth of Christianity in South Korea was that there were no real contradictions between the new doctrine and the core values of the Korean people. The moral and social values of Confucianism, which have largely determined the attitude and behavior of Koreans, and the high moral code taught by the Protestants converged, eliminating potential conflicts of values that could have seriously undermined the expansion of the new doctrine. The Church's emphasis on filial piety and acceptance of male domination as well as its teachings on ethical values concerning the basic teachings of a way of life agreed with the Confucian-centered moral values of Koreans. In this way, Christianity did not contradict or deny much that the populace had embraced in its old beliefs. As Samuel Moffett (1962: 52), a noted historian of Korean church history, wrote: "Like Confucianism, it [Christianity] taught righteousness and revered learning; like Buddhism, it sought purity and promised a future lif e; like the shamanists, Christians believed in answered prayer and miracles."

This study is thus congruent with Grayson's theory of emplantation, for the remarkable growth of Christianity in South Korea rested heavily on minimizing the contradiction between the new doctrine and Korean values and on reducing the conflict between the new faith and Korean traditional religions. This study is also consistent with the existing cross-cultural studies on Christian conversion: that Christianity has shown great success in propagating itself by incorporating different cultural traits in local settings (Saunders 1988; Badone 1990; Hefner 1993). The "Koreanization" of Christianity has proved eminently successful in South Korea, and this seems to offer an answer to the question of why some societies eagerly embrace the new faith while others are so resistant. This raises the question of the validity of what is known as an "intellectualist" approach to religious conversion (Horton 1971; Skorupski 1976: 183-204), which explicates conversion as a change in religious belief to one that is preferred ou t of rival sets of belief on grounds of explanatory force. Also challenged is the view that conversion entails changes in the beliefs, values, identities, and the universe of discourse of individuals (Snow and Machalek 1984). The South Korean example illustrates that conversion has taken place without a major transformation in belief or values. The only major change involved in conversion seems to have been a shift in identity. In accepting the imported faith, Korean Protestants did not have to give up much of their traditional religious beliefs and habits, for the core Korean religious values were co-opted. Indeed, conversion to Protestantism in South Korea did not require surrender of old beliefs. By reworking Protestant beliefs and practices within an indigenous framework, Korean Protestants succeeded in retaining the core of their traditional religio-cultural beliefs and practices in the new faith. The South Korean example thus contradicts the argument that world religions spread at the expense of traditi onal cultures and societies. What we witness in South Korea, instead, is the expansion of Christianity in peace with old beliefs. Like the other world religion that took root in Korea -- Buddhism -- Christianity compromised with and absorbed elements of traditional Korean religious culture in order to be accepted by the Korean populace.