) oul Search : The Changing Religious Landscape in Seoul and Its Implications for Defining “ Asia ”

There is a saying that if one looks at Seoul at night from afar, one will see a large city covered with neon-lit red crosses. It is also said that a Christian church can be found on every other block in the streets of Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea (also known as South Korea). To be sure, this is not the case. Yet this embellished illustration of Seoul as a Christian symbol of a cross-covered city conveys the message that Christianity is no longer a foreign or a Western religion, but has, rather, become a major religious tradition in South Korea as represented in its capital. Christianity may not be the majority religion in terms of demographics, but it has certainly become a dominant religion in terms of social and political influence as well as economic power in South Korea.


S(e)oul Search
Seoul, I discuss the current state of Christianity in South Korea in terms of its effect on politics and the economy.Then I raise a series of questions pertaining to what it means to define or imagine "Asia" in light of this changing religious landscape in Seoul, a city called the "soul" of Asia. 3 The Changing Religious Landscape in Seoul  On August 27, 2008, an unprecedented protest by an estimated 200,000 Buddhists took place in Seoul. 4This rare occasion of Buddhist protest was directed against the current president of South Korea, Lee Myung-Bak, and his predominantly Christian administration (of the 16 members of Lee's cabinet, 13 were Christian, while one was a Buddhist and the other two had no religious affiliation at the time). 5The primary cause of the protest was the police search of the car of Venerable Jigwan, the head of the Jogye Order, in front of the Jogye Temple in July, while they were looking for anti-U.S. beef protesters to arrest.Jogye Order is the largest Buddhist order in South Korea, and this incident greatly outraged Buddhist monks and other Buddhist followers.In June 2008, the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs posted a map of greater Seoul on its Web site, but omitted Buddhist temples, including those well known.Yet, the map marked the locations of even seemingly small Christian churches, thereby generating suspicion of an intentional omission by the Ministry. 6ven before becoming president, Lee Myung-Bak had already created a huge controversy when he was mayor of Seoul.While giving a speech in a meeting in 2004, Lee publicly said that he would consecrate Seoul to God (read, God of Christianity).Non-Christians, concerned Christians, various religious organizations, and some civic organizations harshly criticized his speech as being unethical, inappropriate, and unconstitutional.A group of citizens filed a lawsuit against Lee, but later the court dismissed it.Lee's excuse was that he did not speak as a mayor but as a devout Christian elder in a Christian gathering.South Korea's constitution clearly defines the separation between state and religion, and South Korea has not faced many of the serious religious conflicts that are often found in other religiously diverse countries.Thus, former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-Bak's address, the recent Buddhist protest, and remarks made by the new administration have alarmed people who are concerned about the current course of South Korean politics and its Christian influence.
Lee Myung-Bak's election as the new president in 2007 marked a new chapter in evangelical Christianity in South Korea.Although several previous presidents were practicing Christians, Lee's election was openly and largely supported by evangelical Christians, who had voting powers, and by right-wing organizations such as New Right Union that has been represented by a conservative Christian minister.New Right Union, established in 2005, aims to bring right-wing forces together to firmly establish a neoliberal market economy that would be underpinned by a political and military alliance with the United States and by a strong anticommunist ideology.The New Right Union organization distinguishes itself from what it calls the "old right," which was the vanguard of growth-oriented industrialization in South Korea.While being critical of the old right and its mistakes, New Right Union does not completely sever itself from the old right.Rather, it views itself as continuing the legacy of the old right with reformed and renewed focus and agenda. 7fter Lee's election, many people expressed concern that he may not only change the future course of South Korea but also the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia as a whole over the course of his five-year term.The full effects of Lee's presidency on South Korea and East Asia remain to be seen.However, a close connection between politics and evangelical Christianity in tandem with the rise of the new right has raised apprehensions about possible ramifications, such as a corporate-favored economic policy and the subsequent suppression of the labor movement, a social and economic policy favorable toward the privileged, gender inequality, a hostile relationship with North Korea and its effect on the dynamics of geopolitics in East Asia, and the decline of religious pluralism.
The religious landscape in South Korea in general and in Seoul in particular has also been changing due to transnational migration.Many migrants come from other Asian countries, S(e)oul Search without abandoning or leaving behind their religious/cultural traditions, to study or to work as skilled or unskilled laborers, domestic maids, or apprentices in the metropolitan city of Seoul, in suburban communities around Seoul, and in other major cities in South Korea.Also, young women from developing Asian countries cross borders to marry much older Korean men.Concerns over the so-called multicultural family and the multicultural workplace have recently increased in Korean society, where culture has long been perceived to be homogeneous.Not surprisingly, Christian churches and ministers have raised concerns about the recent influx of Muslims as laborers (mostly men) to South Korea, where Islam is still the religion of a small minority.Global anxiety over Islam under the current U.S. "war on terror" has also affected Korean churches, where proper understanding of Islam is lacking and/ or is mostly imported from U.S. evangelical circles without examination.
For churches in South Korea that conduct overseas missions, Islam is one of the most hotly discussed themes.Interest in overseas missions to "Islamic countries" has drastically increased among Korean churches and mission organizations, as they consider the so-called Islamic countries and regions to be the most crucial overseas "mission fields."This could be seen in the 2007 South Korean mission fiasco in Afghanistan.It was reported that the 23 missionaries who were kidnapped by the Taliban during their short-term mission trip to Afghanistan were members of a growing church located in an affluent suburban city on the outskirts of Seoul. 8dditional topics that appear in the South Korean press include debates over the public display of a Christmas tree in front of the city hall in Seoul, the freedom to choose not to take a religious doctrine course or to not attend a worship service in a Christian mission school, the pro-life movement over the issue of abortion, and "conscientious objection" to mandatory military service based on one's religious conviction.

The Current State of Christianity in South Korea
The concurrent occurrence of Korea's colonization by Japan and the spread of Christianity in Korea has often been given as explanation for the relatively successful North American Protestant missions in Korea in the early twentieth century and the sustained growth of Christianity in Korea since then. 9This was because most Koreans, unlike other colonized people, did not consider Christian missionaries as those who brought ideological weapons of Western imperialism; instead, many Koreans saw the missionaries as potential allies in resisting Japanese colonialism.Yet, with a few individual exceptions, the majority of the North American missionaries did not encourage Koreans' resistance against Japanese colonialism, nor did they support such efforts.For instance, David Kwang-Sun Suh argues that the nationwide revival meetings of 1907 that set the tone of Korean Protestantism were intentionally inaugurated by the American missionaries to counteract specific nationalist uprisings against Japan's colonial ambition. 10Although the revivals recruited more people, they stressed "fundamentalist and dispensationalist avoidance of the sinful world" 11 rather than active engagement with such a world.
Pyong Gap Min claims that Korean Protestantism is characterized by the dominance of Presbyterian churches, and Presbyterianism as brought by U.S. missionaries has turned into "heavily evangelical denominations in Korea." 12 He assesses that 71 percent of about 56,000 churches in South Korea in 2006 were Presbyterian churches. 13Timothy S. Lee also argues that evangelicalism and Protestantism are more or less synonymous in Korea due to the predominance of evangelicalism. 14Similarly, Kelly H. Chong argues that over 90 percent of Protestant churches in South Korea share a "common set of core fundamentalistic/conservative beliefs, especially the inerrancy of the Bible and its verbal inspiration" across denominational boundaries. 15At the same time, she also maintains that these Protestant churches cannot be understood "without its overt or underlying Pentecostal/charismatic dimension." 16hile continually growing, it was not until the late 1960s that Christianity began to experience rapid growth in South Korea.As of 1962, Christians comprised only 5 percent of the total population, Protestants 2.8 percent, and Catholics 2.2 S(e)oul Search percent in South Korea. 17From the 1970s through the early 1990s, the increase of the Christian population was remarkable, stunning the world in a way similar to that of the "miraculous" economic development of South Korea, dubbed one of the four East Asian "mini-dragons."Protestants accounted for 16 percent and Catholics 5 percent of the population in 1985, and then 20 percent and 7 percent in 2003, respectively. 18For Korean-Americans living in the United States, the number is higher.Protestants comprise 55-62 percent of this group, with Catholics making up another 15-20 percent. 19he explosive growth of Christianity in Korea is exemplified by both the number and the size of the churches.For instance, as of 2006, there are 7,601 churches in Seoul.Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is the world's largest single church, with 78,000 registered members, and 23 of the 50 largest churches in the world are also found in South Korea, including five of the top ten largest churches. 20Most of them are located in Seoul and in suburban cities around Seoul.In December 2009, the Church of Love, located in one of the wealthiest districts of Seoul, announced that it will start building a mega-church that will cost $210 million, causing a huge controversy among Christians and non-Christians alike over membership, fund-raising methods, the building's size and location, and the impact on the neighboring churches.
South Korea is also the second-largest country sending missionaries abroad, behind only the United States.There are about 18,000 Korean long-term missionaries sent out to 168 countries as of 2008. 21It has even been suggested that South Korea is a "Protestant superpower." 22The belief that Korea upholds the Christianity that has rapidly declined in the West, thereby having a special role and responsibility to evangelize the rest of the world and revitalize the weakening churches in the West, is prevalent among Korean evangelical Christians.
All of this has occurred against the backdrop of a country devastated by the Korean War of 1950-1953.Significantly, it was not until 1960 that South Korea was able to recover the living standard of 1940. 23In the subsequent 40 years, however, the country has become highly industrialized, with the urban population at an estimated 85 percent, and when it joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1996 was classified as a high-income country. 24It was a momentous shift from one of the poorest countries that had received international financial aid to one of the countries that provide financial aid to less well-off nations.
The relationship between the development of Korean Christianity and economic development in South Korea has been closely interrelated.For example, as South Korea pursued industrialization, it quickly became an urban society.This implies that cities are where most of the wealth is concentrated and where Protestant Christians also tend to reside.While Protestants constituted over 25 percent of the population in the metropolitan Seoul as of 1995, they constituted over 30 percent of the population in the two wealthiest districts of Seoul, Kangnam-Gu and Soch'o-Gu. 25Timothy Lee argues that it is plausible to assume that in the 1990s, Protestants possessed more wealth and wielded more influence in the economy than any other religionists in Korea. 26he South Korean state has built its economic growth on the toils of young female laborers.And it is possible that the growth of the Protestant churches in South Korea has also been due to the work of their members, the majority of whom are women.Women have been the backbone of the church growth in South Korea; they have willingly and unwillingly carried the weight and responsibility of church development without receiving due acknowledgement of their tireless labor, leadership, and material and emotional support in comparison to their male counterparts in the churches.
The political influence of evangelical Christians in South Korean politics became most apparent during the 1990s.For instance, referring to the two main contenders in the 1997 presidential election, Kim Dae-Jung and Yi Hoe-Chang, both Catholics, Timothy Lee states: They paid special attention to so-called kingmakers such as Cho "David" Yonggi, minister of Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world's largest single church, and S(e)oul Search Kim "Billy" Chang-hwan, president of Kukdong Pangsong, an influential Evangelical broadcast network. 27angelical Christians' influence in politics reached a climax when the self-proclaimed devout Christian Lee Myung-Bak was elected as the new president of South Korea in 2007.

Defining and/or Imagining "Asia"
What does it mean to define or imagine "Asia" in light of such a changing religious landscape in Seoul, where Protestant evangelical Christianity has become a major political and economic force, epitomized by the election of a president who is a Christian elder at a church located in one of the most affluent districts in Seoul? 28The current official Web site of Seoul advertises Seoul as the "soul" of Asia, which plays with the similar phonetic transcription of the two words when pronounced in English-"Seoul" and "Soul."According to the Web site, the "soul" of Asia signifies the essence of the culture of Seoul that embraces and fuses diverse Asian cultures. 29It further indicates that Seoul, in which various Asian cultural traditions and digital technology come together, will become a global city that plays a central role on the global stage. 30Seoul is the largest city in South Korea, where one-fourth (over 10 million) of the total South Korean population resides, and it is the eighth-largest city in the world in terms of population. 31ortraying Seoul as the "soul" of Asia is a symbolic way of identifying Seoul with what is believed to be the core or essence of Asia, that is, a spiritual/religious/cultural sphere that can be distinguished from the West and/or the rest of the world.The current religious landscape of Seoul does not necessarily represent other cities or other countries in Asia.Yet, if the soul or essence of Asia can be represented by Seoul, a place where not only is religious diversity present but also where a religious tradition that used to be associated with the West has become dominant, what does it imply in imagining or defining what we call "Asia"?If the soul of Asia is Seoul as advertised by the city of Seoul, Asia must be as dynamic a place as Seoul where multiple and heterogeneous religious/cultural traditions coexist without conflict, at least, in theory, even though one of them, in effect, tends to be more dominant than the others.This way of imagining Asia signals that "Asia" cannot be defined or imagined as a reified, static, and ahistorical entity.It seems neither viable nor desirable to define "Asia" as a unified, monolithic, and unmixed place or location, whether it is symbolic or actual.If the soul of Asia embraces diverse religions/cultures, then is it feasible to imagine Asia as a locus where different religious traditions make an effort to coexist without one religion becoming dominant, thereby mutually respecting and even cooperating with due acknowledgement of differences among varied religious traditions?
This leads us to identify the value system(s) that must be upheld in order for different religions and their adherents to peacefully coexist in current global geopolitics, without one religion taking a domineering position or claiming to possess "the truth."What is called "Asian values" 32 can hardly be qualified as a value system that can enable a well-balanced coexistence of varied religions, because it has been deployed as a moral justification for expanding global capitalism in Asia.This has created less positive outcomes and more problems through materialistic and consumeristic approaches of the market economy that have reached every corner of what we call Asia.Thus, it is necessary to look for different value systems that can foster both individual well-being and communal welfare on multiple levels, including the religious/cultural aspect.
Increasing complexity as well as diversity within various Asian communities due to transnational migration also requires an ongoing examination as to when and how "Asia" is called for and for what purposes and causes it is deployed, beyond a simple geographical designation as one of the continents. 33This may further necessitate a new paradigm in conceptualizing "Asia" not in terms of binary opposition to another monolithic category, but in terms of the complex interactions within, between, and across changing and multiple "Asias." 34The "traditional West/East division," whether used to categorize religions or the history of the world, as Russell T. McCutcheon argues, seems to have "little use for contemporary scholars." 35o would it be accurate to view Christianity as a Western or a foreign religion when the West, especially Europe, is no longer home to the majority of Christians and Christianity is one of the fastest growing religions in various parts of Asia, including China?This growing Christianity in Asia is also manifold and wide-ranging in terms of theology, ecclesiastical structure, and demographics, defying the image of a monolithic, homogenous Christianity.Furthermore, these facts press us to ask how to understand so-called Asian or Eastern religions in the current context of globalization, because the transnational migration that continues to take place across national borders in different patterns and forms, both voluntarily and involuntarily, has always accompanied changes in local, regional, and global religious landscapes and demographics. 36What would it mean to describe so-called Asian religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, and Confucianism, as "Asian" based on their geographical origin or development?Would it be desirable to confine these religions to "Asia" in light of the ongoing transnational movement of people, ideas, and information across the globe?How would this not re-inscribe the binary opposition between the East and the West?
As Seoul, the "soul" of Asia, continues to go through changes resulting from transnational connections and networks, other aspects that are constitutive of "Asia" will also be affected.Although an exploration of these aspects is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to continue to analyze the effects of evangelical Christianity on the place we call the "soul" of Asia.Although the term "evangelicalism" is contested and cannot be used in easy generalizations, Protestant evangelical Christianity in South Korea tends to follow the tradition of the "evangelical Kang, "Confucian Familism and Its Social/Religious Embodiment in Christianity: Reconsidering the Family Discourse from a Feminist Perspective," Asian Journal of Theology 18, no. 1 (2004): 168-189. 2