Seoul, South Korea - The number of Protestant churches in Korea has grown at one of the fastest rates in the world in the last decade. Recently, however, several of the big-name church founders have come to public attention for naming family members as their successors or using church money for private purposes.
Lew Sang-tae, a former religion teacher in Daekwang High School, argues this is not a case of only a few ministers’ irregularities, but rather, that the problems are intrinsic to the churches themselves.
``They are due to the pastors’ excessive authority in churches,’’ Lew said in an interview with The Korea Times at his residence in northern Seoul.
``Most pastors have been implanting ideas in laypeople that they are spiritual and, therefore, `privileged’ over them. Some of the irrationality in churches comes from this factor.’’
Lew published his views in a recent book ``Korean Churches Betray Jesus (Hanguk Kyohoenun Yesurul Paebanhatta).’’ According to Lew, the problematic pastors’ logic goes like this: ``God’s teaching is absolute. The teaching is delivered to the laypeople through the pastors. Therefore the teachings of the pastors are absolute. In the end, the authority of the pastors is absolute.’’
``It is a sheer idolization of the pastors,’’ Lew noted.
Explaining the prevalence of mediaeval logic, he takes the example of a well-known pastor in Seoul, whom he referred to by the initial ``J.’’
``When the pastor asked the congregation if they would die for him during a service at his church, a majority, some 70 percent, of the attendants agreed by raising their hands,’’ Lew said.
``Then the pastor asked, `What if you cannot die in actuality, but instead you can bring your whole wealth, which is a less valuable asset than your life?’ Again, the majority nodded.
```J’ even claimed that if he is a heretic, 90 percent of Korean pastors are heretics.’’
Lew added that exclusionism prevails in Korean Protestant churches. ``Catholicism, Buddhism and other religions communicate with each other despite religious barriers, but Protestantism here does not.’’
There have been a few incidents in which hard-line Protestants vandalized statues of Buddhist figures or those of Tangun, a legendary founder of Korea, as the sculptures were seen as profane idols in their eyes.
``If Buddhism, Catholicism and other religions were as exclusive as Protestantism, that could lead to serious religious conflicts in Korea,’’ Lew said.
Lew criticizes the narrow-minded stance that some believers have and suggests that it has only ended up tainting the image of their god as well as destroying cultural assets.
``Just think how many people have been killed in the name of religion, such as during the Thirty Years’ War that swept Europe in the 17th century, for example’’ Lew said.
``As Japanese writer Nanami Shiono puts it, people can be crueler and more relentless in the name of their god than they can for other causes. We are now seeing the evidence of that in the case of Bush and Bin Laden,’’ Lew added.
Lew himself claims to be a victim of the intolerant stance of Korean churches. Last year, he had to give up his teaching job in Daekwang High School, a mission school, after a conflict over its mandatory chapel services for all students.
A non-Christian student of the school went on a hunger strike demanding the right not take part in the religious ceremony. In Korea, most middle school graduates are allotted to neighboring high schools, even mission schools, regardless of their religion.
During the turmoil of the controversy, Lew supported religious liberty rather than Christian loyalty, which cost him his job as well as his pastor’s position.
Deprived of a means of making a living, he is now selling accessories on the street as a vendor.
``I have no regret over that. I had compromised time and again before that controversy. The incident finally made me live up to my convictions,’’ Lew says.
The former pastor is now writing a book for teenagers to introduce them to religion.