On the Apparent Surge of Anti-Christian Sentiment Among Korean Netizens

Posted on July 27, 2007
Filed Under Korea, pol |

UPDATE: Shin Hye Chul, Korean rock musician and outspoken (though among young people, apparently respected) social commentator, is quoted in the Daily Economist as having argued basically what I said about the way the newspapers are presenting this: in essence, that while newspapers used to play up things, presenting the comments of one netizen in ten as a netizen consensus, he says that now the newspapers are presenting what ten in ten netizens say as a minority opinion. He wonders whether the newspapers have been under pressure from Protestant religious groups. He also said that of course he wants the Korean hostages to come home safe, but he doesn’t want them to return as heroes, smiling and pround, but rather more conscious of the mess they made. (All of the above is a paraphrase based on a paraphrase, so if anyone with better Korean ability than mine cares to critique the quality of the paraphrase, go for it.)

I’ve been working on this post for days, trying to find the best way to explain it, and I have finally figured out that the best way to do it is to tell a story. It’s a story about what’s been happening on the Internet in Korea lately, and how it’s been misrepresented in a few pieces of writing so far — a post by a Catholic expatriate blogger in Korea who goes (somewhat ridiculously) by the handle “The Western Confucian,” and a major and ultra-conservative newspaper called the Chosun Ilbo — as well as how it’s likely to be misrepresented again and again. It looks like a tectonic-scale shift in South Korean culture, which makes it worth paying attention to. It has to do with what looks to them like a sudden surge in anti-Christian sentiment in Korea.But the story doesn’t begin with the writing of either the Chosun Ilbo or The Western Confucian. It begins much more humbly, days ago in one of many cafes on Daum — something like our old-fashioned BBSes, online clubs where people of shared interests join to post, chat, and discuss their mutual interests. On this particular cafe — it could be one of millions — Koreans were discussing the newly breaking Korean hostage situation in Afghanistan.

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Comments

2 Responses to “On the Apparent Surge of Anti-Christian Sentiment Among Korean Netizens”

  1. Bruce on July 28th, 2007 8:57 am

    Might this surge in “anti-Christian” behavior (quotes included deliberately) be in response to the increasing influence of Yoido Full Gospel Church and Paul/David Yonggi Cho, at least in the Seoul area?

  2. gordsellar on July 28th, 2007 1:07 pm

    You’re Julia’s friend, right? Thanks for the comment!

    Well, as I say, I don’t think it is a surge as much as an explosion of dialogue about long-pent-up “anti-Christian” feeling among the non-”Christian” majority here, which is unfortunately being downplayed by the newspapers as some kind of minority aberration, or nasty troublemaking on the part of a minority.

    Explicitly, the stimulus is the hostage situation in Afghanistan. But yeah, I’d say the Yoido Full Gospel Church might be part of it. That Church has satellite all over the country, and they are richer than sin, and I seem to recall some pretty awful crap being preached there.

    But Cho and his church would only be part of it, and, I suspect, a small part of it… if you look out at the night skyline of any Korean town of city, there are dozens of red neon crosses marking churches, and they are all vying for converts. I think, like I said, a lot of the anger we’re seeing is coming from negative personal experiences… where just the discomfort of knowing your friend is at home praying fervently “against Ramadan,” or whether it’s discovering your pastor sold the church off and started a PC-bang, or you were ignored in a group job interview after answering the question “What’s your religion?” honestly. Whether or not such discimination is illegal here, it is, in business, pretty widely practiced. (As is sexual descrimination, age discrimination, and even nepotism, so you can imagine how little anyone can effectively combat it. Even many laws that do exist don’t get enforced, as it is.)

    In other words, I think it would be a mistake to blame any one factor. I think it’s just a widespread distaste that people had never expressed before, and suddenly discovered others shared when criticisms of the missionaries in Afghanistan began to surface.

    Yoido Full Gospel Church could become a focal symbol for that, though. I know that it is the church that arouses the strongest distaste and fear on my part, and on the part even of some active, church-going foreign Protestants I know. But since their website hasn’t been hammered off the Net by hateful comment spam as of yet, I’d say that no, they aren’t right now a focal point of anger or disgust specifically.

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