A scholar shared their observations on the public criticism of the Korean Protestant Church during the pandemic, and how it was striving to recover its reputation.
Dr. David William Kim, an associate professor specializing in the history of religions at Kookmin University, delivered a seminar on “the Socio-Political Ecology of the Korean Church during the Covid-19 Pandemic”, at the third Annual Conference of the East Asian Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, which featured “Religion and Peace in East Asia: The Roles of Religion in Times of Crisis”.
On July 18, Dr. Kim introduced how Korean churches had been facing public scrutiny for perceived irresponsibility in the pandemic, as well as their various countermeasures to meet safely and restore their reputation.
He started by introducing the three waves of the Covid-19 outbreak in South Korea, where the first two waves were both thought to be kindled by transmissions in Shincheonji Church and Sarang Jeil Church, respectively. He reviewed the Shincheonji cluster outbreak, in which a member (who was the 31st confirmed case in Korea) attended the Shincheonji church service in Daegu, following which “the number of the confirmed cases increased rapidly from 30 people to 602 people” in six days, from February 18 to 23, 2020.
Although the professor was aware that “Shincheonji had been negatively evaluated among the traditional denominations of Korean Christianity, and is often perceived as a secretive cult”, yet he explained that the theological issues did not mean anything for non-Christian Koreans, who judged from appearances that “Shincheonji was exercising very similar religious activities with traditional churches, getting together twice a week, or even more.” Despite its infamous heretical theology, Kim perceived that Shincheonji was more often criticized by the Korean public for its unhygienic seating arrangements: “members sit down on the floor in close proximity to each other as they do not have chairs or pews in the church hall.”
The second wave, starting from August 15, 2020, was triggered after a member of Sarang Jeil Church became infected when attending a protest rally in a complaint against the government’s social distancing policies and “friendly policy towards North Korea”. Several churches became a focus of concern for their large number of confirmed cases related to the rallies.
“As a result, Korean Churches induced socio-political panic, and were seen as unreliable and hostile organizations,” concluded Dr. Kim.
Dr. Kim also provided a glimpse of Korean society’s general expectation for religions in his paper on the same topic, “Public Scapegoat: The Socio-Political Ecology of the Korean Church during the COVID-19 Pandemic”. The article briefly explained a history of Christian medical workers and missionaries eliminating epidemics in South Korea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the control of cholera in 1885, which could lead to an underlying public expectation of religious groups being helpful in crises.
“Religion plays a positive role when it encourages individuals or organizations to behave morally. For instance, religious institutions tend to support disaster relief and recovery activities in their communities.”
Given this context, “Protestant churches’ regular meetings and services became a disadvantage during the COVID-19 pandemic and also led to hostile social discrimination.”
Facing the public health crisis, some churches have also been exploring creative alternatives to traditional church services.
He explained, “The Onnuri Church, Seoul City Church, and Seoul Full Gospel Church implemented the so-called drive-in service, where members stay in their car in the parking lot while the minister preaches through a radio channel from a visible place where all members can see him/her. Another church even adopted the ‘drive-through Communion’, in which registered members, who were baptized, were able to receive the sacred cup and bread symbolizing the blood and body of Jesus as they drove through the church grounds.”
Globally accepted measures like socially distanced seating arrangements, temperature checks, hand sanitizers, track, and trace, etc., have also been adopted in Korean churches.
Dr. Kim also described an ongoing “church re-planting campaign” of multiple measures aiming to strengthen the connections within individual churches, between denominations, and between the church and the wider society. These include “‘the contactless ministry’, where pastors do not engage with members in-person”; a “Day of Normalisation”, where “all churches in the nation would choose a particular Sunday for all Christians to attend church together”; establishment of a “control tower” of united Korean churches to improve their damaged image in secular society, and voluntary dedication of social aid as another practice suggested to restore church reputation.
