Religion in South Korea

Religion in South Korea is diverse. Most South Koreans have no religion. Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism) and Buddhism are the dominant confessions among those who affiliate with a formal religion.

Quotes

• “The requiring by Respondent [the Army Training Center] of Complainants’ attendance at either a Protestant, Buddhist, Catholic, or Won Buddhist ceremony, the court concluded, demonstrates that Respondent officially acknowledged and encouraged the four religions and preferred them to other religions or irreligion. The Court notes in this connection that the constitutional principle of the separation of religion and politics serves the purpose of guaranteeing the diversity laying the foundation of a democratic society. In the context of this principle, the State maintains a neutral position, acknowledging the possibility of eclectic religious convictions, atheism, etc. The conduct of Respondent cannot be permitted under the principle of separation of religion and politics as it amounts to favorable treatment of particular religions in violation of State neutrality to religion.”
  • The Constitutional Court of South Korea, as quoted in "South Korea: Constitutional Court Found Mandatory Sunday Services in the Army Unconstitutional" by Massimo Introvigne, Bitter Winter (June 16, 2023)

• In case of “covered” evangelism where the name of the group to which the missionaries belong is not disclosed, whether the converts lost their freedom of religion making the missionary strategy illegal is a question, the Supreme Court said, that can only be “determined individually and specifically, by considering the age of the other party, educational background, social experience including prior religious life, the relationship between the missionary and the other party, the circumstances in which the other party chose the religion, and the changes in attitude or life before and after the other person chose the religion.”
  • Massimo Introvigne, "Shincheonji: Why the Korean Supreme Court Dismissed a Lawsuit Based on Deceptive Evangelism", Bitter Winter (January 13, 2023)

• On April 9, a press release by the Seventh-day Adventist Church reported about an important decision by the Supreme Court of South Korea, the first of this kind, about the right of an Adventist student seeking admission to a university to have an interview scheduled on Saturday before sunset moved to a different time or day.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "South Korea: Adventist Student Allowed to Refuse University Admission Interview on Saturday", Bitter Winter (April 12, 2024)

• Deprogramming has been declared illegal in all democratic countries, but is still practiced in South Korea. More than 3,000 members of [the] Shincheonji [Church of Jesus] have been kidnapped in South Korea for purposes of deprogramming. Two female Shincheonji devotees have died in connection with deprogramming. …South Korea needs a law, but not against Shincheonji or the so-called “cults.” It needs a law aligning South Korea with other democratic countries by outlawing the crime of deprogramming and forced conversion, and punishing hate speech against religious minorities.
  • Massimo Introvigne, "The Jeongeup Murder Case: A Hate Crime Against Shincheonji", Bitter Winter (2022)
  • Curator's Note: Deprogramming is, in the terms of Bitter Winter, the practice of kidnapping and confining a member of a religious group (often name-called as a "cult") and coercing him or her to quit that religious group (put simply, forced deconversion), and even struggle against that religious group (apostasy).

• We wonder whether those who receive Pastor Jin [Yong-Sik] knew that he also operated as a deprogrammer and was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Korea for taking part in illegal deprogramming. In 2020, [civil] rights activist Willy Fautré reported in a scholarly study of deprogramming in South Korea that. “In 2007, Pastor Jin Yong-Sik was prosecuted and found guilty for sending a member of the World Mission Society Church of God to a psychiatric institution. According to a news story published in Newshankuk on 24 October 2008, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison with two years’ probation for coercive de-conversion. In 2012, there was a public uproar when the investigation about his complaint against [civil] rights activists revealed that Pastor Jin had earned more than one billion won (850,000 EUR) with his de-conversion business.”
  • Massimo Introvigne, "Unholy Alliances: Korean Christian Fundamentalists and Chinese Intelligence United Against Refugees from China", Bitter Winter (October 17, 2024)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Religion in South Korea on Wikipedia