Kirsteen Kim

The Christian impact on the shaping of the First Republic of Korea, 1945-48: anti-communism or vision for a new nation?

ABSTRACT Although Christianity was a new and small religion in Korea at the time, in 1945–48 Christian politicians and church leaders were prominent in establishing an independent South Korea as the Cold War began. Kang In-cheol and others argue that this was because Christians were prejudiced against communists and acted out of self-interest, and they hold them complicit in the subsequent Korean War. We shall argue that many Christian leaders were willing to work with communists to preserve the unity of the nation but their experience convinced them that communist aims were incompatible with religious freedom and with their own vision of a democratic nation founded on Christian principles. Our argument contributes not only to an understanding of Korean nationalism, but also to the broader literature on the roles of Christianity in democratisation. It reveals the significant influence of Christian actors at this critical juncture in Korean and world history, the impact of which is still being felt today.

A History of Korean Christianity: Missions, Reconciliation and Public Life, 1988–Present

The year 1988 was a watershed in South Korea not only in its transition to democracy but also in its opening to the world as it hosted a highly successful Olympic Games. The 1988 games were the first occasion since 1976 that both the Americans and the Russians competed. The thaw in the Cold War enabled South Korea to establish diplomatic and economic links with Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries for the first time, while rebuffing North Korea’s efforts to co-host the games and thus isolating its neighbor. Hosting the games stimulated intense national pride in the South and great interest in other nations and cultures. There were a few concerns about the revival of Korean ‘pagan’ customs and culture for the opening ceremony, but most Christians welcomed the Olympics as confirmation of God’s blessing on Korea. In preparation for the games the Protestant churches held what was to be the last great mass evangelism event: the ’88 World Evangelization Crusade or ‘Soulympics’ on 15–18 August on Yoido Plaza. Although the total attendance was not the highest, the event surpassed all the others in its rhetoric about Korea as a chosen nation. With the world coming to Seoul, an outstanding opportunity for world evangelisation presented itself. Korea Sports Evangelism (founded in 1982) was responsible for the operation of the Protestant Chapel in the athletes’ village, which was attended by chaplains from all over the world and visited by thousands of athletes, including hundreds of Russians, Chinese and Arabic speakers. Furthermore, because of their familiarity with Western culture and the English language, and the exhortations of their pastors, many of the volunteers and interpreters for the Olympics were Christians who took the opportunity to share their faith and pass on literature. Local churches were matched to particular countries; some congregations attended events to cheer the competitors from those countries and even hosted entire teams (Cho Chong-nahm 1995).

A History of Korean Christianity: Oppression, Resistance and Millennial Hope, 1910–1945

The Japanese occupation of Korea, which began de facto in 1905 with the Protectorate, was formalised in 1910 by the annexation which brought the formal end of Korean sovereignty and of the Yi dynasty. The country became an ‘outer territory’ or extension of Japan. By this time the resistance armies had been driven into Manchuria and the Russian Maritime Provinces, and such was the Japanese stranglehold within Korea that military resistance was impossible. The size and powers of the Japanese military police had been increased, and these police now subjected Korea to ‘a reign of terror’ (Nahm 1989:219; cf. Kang Man-gil 2005:149, 158). Koreans felt humiliated and were also mystified by how Japan, whose earlier development had come from Korea, could now have such power over them (Ham Sok-hon 1985). During its occupation of Korea, which lasted until 1945, Japanese policy evolved and changed, and it had a significant influence on church life (Kang Wi-jo 2006). Despite the dire political situation, the General Council of Evangelical Missions in Korea decided in 1910 to follow up the revival, which was intended to deepen faith, with an organised nationwide campaign targeting non-Christians. It aimed to reach ‘A Million Souls for Christ This Year’ and openly took advantage of this moment of ‘supreme national hopelessness’ to proselytise (T. S. Lee 2010:23–24; Paik Lak-geoon 1970:385; A. Clark 1971:185). The Bible Societies printed a million copies of the gospel of Mark, and revivalists from the United States were pressed into service. Christian adherents, who were estimated at only two hundred thousand believers, gave approximately one hundred thousand days of work to the campaign. Meetings were widely advertised, tracts were distributed systematically and house-to-house visits were made (A. Brown 1919:545). This movement inaugurated the pattern of revivalism that was to become characteristic of the Korean church (Paik Lak-geoon 1970:385–87, 413). But, not surprisingly, these activities antagonised the Japanese authorities, who were suspicious that this was some kind of revolutionary movement, and they intimidated those involved. Uniformed military police, along with spies, attended the special church services, and pastors were required to report to the police the names of converts, who were sometimes then threatened and harassed.

A History of Korean Christianity: Liberation, Service and Divisions, 1945–1961

Protestant and Catholic leaders in Korea welcomed their liberation from Japan on 15 August 1945 wholeheartedly and saw it as the opportunity they had been waiting for to shape a Christian future for the nation. Christian leaders urged that the Japanese be allowed to leave peacefully with no reprisals, while, ironically, popular wrath was directed at Korean collaborators instead (Foley 2003:25). The unexpected defeat of Japan was greeted more with relief than with ecstasy because, although the resistance armies had fought the Japanese occupiers for decades, Koreans were not the ultimate victors over them, and the circumstances of Korea’s freedom only served to underline the country’s dependence on foreign powers (Park Chung-shin 2003:158). The Japanese left behind a country with little national capital or technological capability and woefully unprepared – politically, economically, educationally, socially or culturally – for independence (Eckert et al. 1990:263; Kang Man-gil 2005:22, 98–100). Nevertheless, Koreans were ‘determined to construct a strong state as an answer to foreign domination, military weakness and economic “backwardness”’ (Armstrong 2007a:5). However, Korea was soon faced with even greater problems: another trusteeship leading to the division of the peninsula into two parts by occupying forces with a growing rivalry and the deepening of ideological divisions. Liberation and Christian Leadership, 1945 In 1945 Christians were perhaps only 2–3 per cent of the population but they comprised a high proportion of educated Koreans and so they naturally presented themselves as leadership candidates as the retreating Japanese hastily looked to transfer power. The man who accepted the invitation was Yeo Un-hyeong, who had studied at Pyongyang Theological Seminary and worked as an assistant pastor. He called for unity and restraint from the people and set up the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CPKI), which brought together leading nationalists of different persuasions, including many Christian figures such as the intellectual Yi Dong-hwa, the 1919 signatory Kim Chang-jun and the well-known Methodist minister Yi Gyu-gap. Koreans mobilised themselves at the local level in ‘people’s committees’, of which most local chairpersons were Protestant ministers or lay Christian leaders (Armstrong 2004:119–20). On 6 September 1945, Yeo announced the formation of the Korean People’s Republic (KPR) and a schedule for elections. The new government announced moderate leftist reforms and denounced several hundred accused of collaboration as ‘national traitors’ (Eckert et al. 1990:331–32).

A History of Korean Christianity: Evangelism, Patriotism and Revivalism, 1876–1910

In the 1860s and 1870s French gunboats, Russian infiltration, American business and Japanese designs threatened Korea from all sides, and internally there was much suffering and unrest. It was clear that ‘Korea was not the arbiter of its own destiny but that its fate would be decided by outside powers motivated by their particular selfish interests’ (Lee Ki-baik 1984:281). By the 1870s many Koreans had heard of Christianity. Owing to Catholic resistance to oppression, it was well known that Jesus Christ had been crucified, although Christian doctrines had been distorted by Catholicism’s political opponents and by Donghak teaching (D. Chung 2001:68). Catholicism was known to be inclusive of the poor and outcaste and, like popular Buddhism, to have a compassionate female figure in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Catholicism had opened up Korea to outside influences and in many respects paved the way for modernity and for other forms of Christianity. But in the late nineteenth century Korea was strongly anti-Western and Cheonjugyo, the Teaching of the Heavenly Lord (Catholicism), was distrusted by many who associated it with treason and collusion with foreign powers. Meanwhile, Protestant Christianity was spreading in East Asia, especially by the translation and distribution of the Bible and other literature and by literacy work (Neill 1990:209). The first Bible in Chinese was published in 1823, and the production of other Protestant literature in Chinese was booming. By 1870 there were about eight hundred different tracts and books, in addition to scriptures, commentaries and hymnals. Among the most popular were William Burns’s translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress and William A. P. Martin’s Evidences of Christianity (Dixon 2012; Oak Sung-deuk 2006). These were distributed by Chinese colporteurs in the employ of the missions and were certainly being smuggled into Korea by the 1870s. So, as had occurred with Catholicism, it was through Chinese literature that Koreans first encountered Protestant Christianity. These works were to have an ongoing influence on the formation of Korean Christianity through the terminology they introduced (Oak Sung-deuk 2013:308–10).

Growth, Thought and Struggle, 1961–1988

South Korea in 1961 was still poor and heavily dependent on US aid. It had fallen badly behind the North in economic and technological development, and most people were mired in poverty. Chang Myon’s new government proved unstable, and Protestants called continually for Chang to step down (Park Chung-shin 2003:181). Fearful for national security, a group of colonels led by Park Chung-hee (Park Jeong-hui) deposed Chang and his government in a largely bloodless coup on 16 May 1961. Chang fled from the Blue House to the Carmelite Convent while trying in vain to contact the US embassy. From a Catholic point of view, Chang may have been a political martyr (T. J. Lee 2005:168), but the return to law and order was greeted with relief by many Koreans. The church reassessed its role in political life, and the Kyunghyang Shinmun , which had become virtually a mouthpiece of the Chang government, became independent of the church in 1962 (D. Baker 1997:150). Park, a Buddhist, treated the main religions impartially. He won strong backing from Christians for his staunch anti-Communist stance and the Holy See was the first foreign state to recognise his government. Park knew the importance of Christian support and sought cooperation for his ambitious plans for industrialisation. During his rule, Park encouraged ethnic nationalism in order to develop a national spirit of self-reliance or jaju, which had much in common with the Juche philosophy of North Korea (Shin Gi-wook 2006:100–106; Wells 1990:163). Park was popular enough to win elections in 1963, 1967 and 1971, but he increasingly relied on military force and the terror created by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) to hold on to power. He was to preside over massive economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s and great improvements in rural standards of living, but this was at great cost to human and civil rights.