Korean Protestantism and the Virus
Disinfecting a Protestant Church, Seoul.
The news from South Korea concerning the new spike in Covid-19 cases, which can be traced to a Protestant church in Seoul, called Sarang Jeil, comes just five months after another church, Shincheonji, in Daegu, propelled South Korea to unenviable pole position in the pandemic. This coincidence compels me to write something about Christianity in South Korea.
It is probably surprising to most people to learn that South Korea is fast becoming a majority Christian country. When I arrived here for the first time in 2008, I thought Koreans were mostly Buddhist. Some are, but not many. Here are the current statistics: the majority of the population, 51%, claim to be irreligious. Buddhists amount to only 15.5%. Of the Christian denominations, 19.7% are Protestant (mostly Presbyterians, Like Sarang Jeil, or Methodists), and 7.9% are Roman Catholics (like my wife, though lapsed). Shincheonji, although derived in part from Christian beliefs, is considered a cult, or more fairly, a ‘new religion’. There are many in Korea. The most well-known is the Unification Church, or the Moonies, which was founded in South Korea and is now a worldwide movement, with followers especially in the United States. Also, the category ‘irreligious’ doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in the UK, where in fact, only 29.7% claims to be irreligious. Behind the smoke screen of irreligion a good deal of religious activity is going on in South Korea.
Two other important religious infleunces need to be considered. The first is shamanism. This predates all the other religions currently characterizing the syncretistic mix of modern South Korea, and although officially frowned upon, and not an official religious creed, shamanism is still a very significant part of Korea’s deep spiritual consciousness (more on shamanism in a future blog). The other important ‘religion’ is Confucianism’, although for many, Confucianism isn’t so much a religion as an ethical code because it gives no place to a supernatural dimension – which is why so many claim to be ‘irreligious’. However, Confucianism is definitely a religion in the broader sense, as binding the secular dimension to a sacred one, and the sooner we Westerners recognize this fact the sooner we will grasp what it is that underlies much of what happens in East Asian societies, not just Korea – North and South – but also China. I will discuss Shamanism and Confucianism in later posts.
A church like Sarang Jeil is inspired by American-style evangelical Protestantism. I was baptized a Presbyterian – the Church of Scotland – by Sarang Jeil-style Presbyterianism has very little in common with that austere and staid denomination. First of all, it’s far more evangelical and fundamentalist. But a little historical context is first necessary in order to better understand Korean Protestantism.
Koreans identify Protestantism with the heroic struggle for independence from Japanese colonialism, because many of their leaders were Christian, and so they also identify it with proud South Korean nationalism, especially in the face of the anti-religious fevrour of North Korea.. Another key aspect of Korean Protestantism is its relative rejection of the acutely patriarchal system that underlies traditional Korean culture largely as a result of the influence of Confucianism. Women find Protestantism more attractive than both Confucianism and Korean-style Buddhism – which is similar to Zen (more on this, too, in later post).
Koreans also identify evangelical Protestantism with something else that chimes with their cultural background – a powerfully emotional, irrational faith based tied to the infallibility of a charismatic leader. This chimes with an instinctual suspicion Koreans have for the official leadership, who they see has inevitably corrupt and will betray them. During the Joseon Dynasty, it was commonly believed by the peasantry that the ruling elite inevitably abandoned them to fend for themselves when enemies invaded. But while suspicion of the ruler is deep, the desire for leadership is even deeper, and inclines Koreans to ally themselves with anyone who claims to speak for their special interests.
Korean Protestantism it also charismatic. This links Sarang Jeil to Koreans’ subterranean bond with shamanism. The ecstatic ‘trance’ like dimensions central to shamanism, which are deeply ingrained in Korean culture, seem to have found a new and more acceptable outlet within this kind of Protestantism. Koreans associate shamanism with the past, with the failed Korea of ‘Oriental’ culture, and Protestantism is allied with the positive future. Above all, Koreans identify Protestantism with a preferable affirmative model of the future, which is closely allied with the embrace of neoliberal capitalism, adoration and emulation of the United States, and of Westernization in general.
Some of the Korean Protestant churches are huge. Sarang jeil is a mega-church. Its congregation numbers 4,000. There are several of a similar size in South Korea. Each one owes allegiance not so much to a general governing body but to a charismatic pastor. In this case, the leader is the now widely vilified Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon, who is also the incumbent president of the conservative Christian Council of Korea. Jeon is a vocal critic of the present liberal President of South Korea, Moon Jae In. So this crisis also has a political dimension.
Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon after he was diagnosed with Covid-19. As you can imagine, when this photo was published in the Press, Jeon became an instant pariah.
Jeon’s defiant, non-conformist, behaviour is a reminder of the roots of Protestantism in protest, in the refusal to adhere to the laws of a society where the believers see the hand of Satan at work. Jeon encouraged his congregation to defy the government ban on church services due to Covid-19, and organized rallies in Seoul to protest against the current government despite their ban too. But he had been organizing rallies for months before the pandemic began. So the current Korean spike is linked to Korean politics, another instant of the more general corruption of the struggle against the pandemic by sectarianism worldwide.
In the mental universe of these Korean Protestants, the world is coloured in stark black and white – evil against good, with them, obviously, on the side of the good. Jeon also assured his followers that God would protect them from Covid-19. Now hundred have the virus, including Jeon himself. But we can be very certain that there will be no mea culpa, or not one in which Jeon or his followers admit that God didn’t protect them, after all. Rather, they will come up with some other explanation – however rationally absurd. Remember the claim made by the woman of the Shincheonji church, who said that Satan was jealous of her church’s success, and this is why the virus struck them. It is commonly known among psychologists who study cults and other closely knit groups whose bond is strengthened by a sense of righteous opposition and perceived persecution, that cognitive dissonance leads to a re-affirmation of belief in the face of overwhelming challenges.
So why did Covid-19 profit from Protestants? I suppose the broadest answer is to say that this kind of Protestantism is a faith that is overwhelming based on the ‘heart’ rather than the ‘head’. On the role of intuition, instinct, emotion, impulse, subjective experience, loss of individual ontological boundaries through immersion in the collective, joined with a concomitantly child-like belief in the infallibility of the chosen leader. This belief system excessively relies on fast and easy cognitive processes which are very susceptible to bias, what the psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his classic Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) dubs System 1 thinking. This kind of cognition is notoriously prone to poor decision-making and excessive reliance on top down group influences. What Kahneman dubs System 2 thinking, by contrast, is slow and requires conscious effort. But as a result, it is much more resistant to cognitive biases.
When a religion massively over-emphasises System 1 it is likely, sooner or later, to cause major societal problems, especially during something like a pandemic. The fact that the evangelical churches in the United States have not also been hotbeds of the virus is interesting, however. Perhaps the reason is political. While in the US the evangelicals have the president they want, in South Korea they do not. As a result, their willingness to follow orders differs. Although, what exactly President Trump’s ‘orders’ have been is rather difficult to ascertain. But it does seem that American evangelical mega-churches, are not, so far, major Covid-19 hotbeds.