Christians Overtaking S Korea, Buddhists Worry

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008 Posted: 3:41:27PM HKT

Members of the Yoido Full Gospel Church praying in the 15,000-seater auditorium in the church building in Seoul.

The government has since apologised for what it called its own unintentional errors, such as the map, expressed regret for its critics’ “misunderstanding” of other issues, such as the heavy Christian representation in senior government posts, which already existed before Lee, and the president has made revised the government officials’ code of conduct to add a warning against religious bias, conciliatory moves that somewhat defused tensions between the government and the top leaders of the Jogye Order.

They also demanded that Lee fire his police chief, a Presbyterian, and introduce a new law to punish officials who display religious bias in their official duty, and urged the president not to arrest the activists holed up at Jogye Temple.

But Christians feel that Buddhists are also resentful of Christianity’s expansion parallel that of Buddhism.

“Buddhists’ sense of crisis over their declining influence in South Korea, and society’s, not just Buddhist, unease with Protestants’ aggressive proselytising, have exploded under Lee’s government,” said Yang Se Jin, secretary general of Christian Ethics Movement of Korea, a Protestant civic group, to International Herald Tribune.

Christianity’s rapid expansion in South Korea is due to the faith having brought modernisation with the introduction of Western medicine, education, and even democracy, while Buddhism on the other hand with its focus on meditation, prayer, and seclusion in temples, “failed to play an important social role” according to a Religious Freedom expert, and is viewed more as a cultural heritage than religion.

South Korea has the highest proportion of Protestant Christians in Asia, at 29.3 percent of the 48,850,000 people. Buddhists account for 22.8 percent of the population.

Eleven of the twelve largest Christian congregations in the world are located in Seoul alone, including the largest congregation, Yoido Full Gospel Church, which boasts 800,000 members. Protestant churches also stage all-night prayer marathons, and are known for their evangelical zeal, with the second highest number of missionaries dispatched all over the world, next to the U.S.

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Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com