Why was Christianity semi-successful in Korea??

samcster94

Banned
I am always shocked at Korea being more receptive to Christianity than most of Asia. What makes Korea different??? South Korea's demographics have nearly one in three being Christian.
 
IIRC, it's a combination of humanitarian work and nationalism. Christian missionaries set up many schools and hospitals throughout the peninsula (Yonsei of the SKY universities, for example, was founded by an American missionary) and Christianity itself became a symbol of resistance to the Japanese, who were trying to assimilate the Koreans by banning the Korean language and enforce Shinto on the populace, among other things.

Not that Christianity was a new thing in the peninsula by that point; it had a foothold in now-North Korea due to the frontier nature of the mountainous north (not as traditional and stratified as the south, where it was more actively persecuted) and adopted Hangul for the Bible early on, so Korean Christianity by the 1900s had a distinctly Korean flavour to it that made it attractive as a statement against Japanese (cultural) imperialism.

Then it had the fortune of being at the head of the Miracle of the Han River, where Korea went from getting economic aid from Kenya to G20 level prosperity, and the association of Christianity with social movement and economic blessings.

That it wasn't colonized by a Christian imperial power probably helped since it meant no organized resistance against Christianity (becoming a symbol of independence rather than of subservience). Also the curtailing and discrediting of the old faiths by the Japanese (Korean Buddhism, or at least some sects, saw influences from Japanese Buddhism, like priests having families) made Christianity spread faster in the wake of Buddhist weakness (some of the earlier ROK presidents were also very anti-Buddhist and did some shady stuff to cut down on Buddhism in Korea).

So yeah, it's a combination of a lot of factors that wouldn't have been foreseen at the turn of the 20th century.
 
I once felt the same. The short answer is that Koreanised Christian churches in Korea played a big role in the liberation struggle against the Japanese and the push for democracy. It thus became tied up with Korean nationalism, especially among the younger generation in this period, who felt the religion of their parents was submissive to both foreign occupiers and domestic autocrats.
 

elkarlo

Banned
IIRC, it's a combination of humanitarian work and nationalism. Christian missionaries set up many schools and hospitals throughout the peninsula (Yonsei of the SKY universities, for example, was founded by an American missionary) and Christianity itself became a symbol of resistance to the Japanese, who were trying to assimilate the Koreans by banning the Korean language and enforce Shinto on the populace, among other things.

Not that Christianity was a new thing in the peninsula by that point; it had a foothold in now-North Korea due to the frontier nature of the mountainous north (not as traditional and stratified as the south, where it was more actively persecuted) and adopted Hangul for the Bible early on, so Korean Christianity by the 1900s had a distinctly Korean flavour to it that made it attractive as a statement against Japanese (cultural) imperialism.

Then it had the fortune of being at the head of the Miracle of the Han River, where Korea went from getting economic aid from Kenya to G20 level prosperity, and the association of Christianity with social movement and economic blessings.

That it wasn't colonized by a Christian imperial power probably helped since it meant no organized resistance against Christianity (becoming a symbol of independence rather than of subservience). Also the curtailing and discrediting of the old faiths by the Japanese (Korean Buddhism, or at least some sects, saw influences from Japanese Buddhism, like priests having families) made Christianity spread faster in the wake of Buddhist weakness (some of the earlier ROK presidents were also very anti-Buddhist and did some shady stuff to cut down on Buddhism in Korea).

So yeah, it's a combination of a lot of factors that wouldn't have been foreseen at the turn of the 20th century.
All of what you said, plus it seems a lotion religious groups were active against the military government . Seems the Christian groups got s lot of prestige in the toppling of the dictatorship.
 
One thing to remember is that, historically, East Asia has been fairly receptive to Christianity. It had quite a large success in Japan and Vietnam before it was actively persecuted by the respective states
 
Ok, i guess. They should specify though.

On the contrary, threads talking more about alternate history usually get tagged with abbreviations like WI, PC, AHC, or DBWI, while threads like this don’t need those. Plus, is it really such an imposition to just read the OP to figure out what a thread is about?
 
On the contrary, threads talking more about alternate history usually get tagged with abbreviations like WI, PC, AHC, or DBWI, while threads like this don’t need those. Plus, is it really such an imposition to just read the OP to figure out what a thread is about?
I read the thread and wondered where the alternate history in it was. Honestly its just a history question.
 
I read the thread and wondered where the alternate history in it was. Honestly its just a history question.

And you should know that simple history discussion is actually quite common on this board, for the reasons explained above. With the understanding that rigorous alternate history work is helped by discussion of actual history, what’s the problem?
 
Ok, i guess. They should specify though.

How can you write a good alternate history if you are not even aware of OTL history? Understanding OTL and why it happened the way it did is a great indicator what could happen or what POD you need for certain things to happen/become likely.
 
It's a question understanding the drivers of our timeline so you can know what needs to be changed for the event not to happen.
Or possibly to duplicate it somewhere else. For example, if Christianity is populair in Korea, can we do the same for Japan? You need to understand why christianity is populair in Korea first.
 
Korean “shamanism” is more receptive of the concept of “one God”.

In a more polytheist/animist culture like Japan, “there is only one God” can be a quite strange idea.
 
Korean “shamanism” is more receptive of the concept of “one God”.

In a more polytheist/animist culture like Japan, “there is only one God” can be a quite strange idea.
I would question those notions in multiple regards. Regarding Korea, as I've mentioned, Christianity only became prominent in Korean society in the 20th century and for a myriad of reasons mostly related to the Japanese colonial period and the subsequent years of economic and political turmoil and growth.

Korean shamanism is not particularly special in embracing monotheism nor was it the state religion (the Confucian Joseon dynasty spent half a millennium stamping down on religious practices of Buddhists and shamanists in response to what was seen as the failings of the Buddhist Goryeo dynasty). If anything, its weakening in the 20th century due to instability from modernization and colonization was a factor in Christianity going from the faith of a small percentage of the northern peninsula to that of a third of the South.

As for Japan, Christianity was quite popular in southern Japan, with quite a bit of Kyushu embracing Catholicism back in the 16th and 17th centuries, long before Christianity had any influence in Korea (mostly due to economics and trade with Christian powers but that itself was a factor in Korea's Christianization). This trend was forcibly ceased due to anti-Christian policies enacted by the Tokugawa Shogunate and its attempts to stabilize the realm against any further internal unrest and potential Christian intervention (in the style of the Philippines), not due to Christianity being foreign to Japanese culture or religions.

Christianity in East Asia's not as simple as 'this culture/faith was more receptive.' It's a combination of, among other factors, economics, political stability, and nationalism, most notably.
 
Korean “shamanism” is more receptive of the concept of “one God”.

In a more polytheist/animist culture like Japan, “there is only one God” can be a quite strange idea.
Let us not forget that Christiannity originally spread through the Roman Empire, where Polytheism was the norm. It also expanded outside of Roman borders afterwards, in places where they also practiced polytheist religions and had several gods.

So I'm not really sure a religion being more in-line with the concept of monotheism would be the only explanation.
 
Let us not forget that Christiannity originally spread through the Roman Empire, where Polytheism was the norm. It also expanded outside of Roman borders afterwards, in places where they also practiced polytheist religions and had several gods.

So I'm not really sure a religion being more in-line with the concept of monotheism would be the only explanation.
Especially as you could easily make other Gods into saints as equivalents.
 
Korean “shamanism” is more receptive of the concept of “one God”.

In a more polytheist/animist culture like Japan, “there is only one God” can be a quite strange idea.

Yeah, thought I’d figure they’d interpret it as the creator god and high manager with all the angels and archangels functioning as lesser deities.

...Which now makes me wonder of a Hindi/Christian syncretism. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva being merged with Father, Son and Holy Spirit...

But back on topic, there is a graphic novel about Korea that had a segment delving into this, from the viewpoint of Koreans
 
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