Introduction
The transition from the three decades of US-backed military dictatorships 1 to a civilian government built on liberal democracy in the early 1990s signaled the advent of the post-hypermasculine developmentalism era. During this transitional time, South Korea also emerged as a subimperial power. A subempire refers to a “lower-level empire that depends on the larger structure of imperialism.” 2 South Korea has maintained a subordinate relationship with the US military empire, while functioning as a subempire, to which peoples from other postcolonial Asian countries (im)migrate, the majority of whom are transnational laborers. 3 The relationship between South Korea’s economic development and its emergence as a subempire in Asia needs be understood in connection to South Korea’s militarism and US militarism in Asia during the cold war period. 4 By distancing itself from the past military regimes, the new civilian government launched with the slogan of combating injustice and corruption, restoring the economy, and reestablishing the public order. Such transition to a civilian government, however, was not as radical a change as it was hoped to be. As Korean scholar Kyung-sup Chang has put it, it was a shift from authoritarian military dictatorships to a civilian rule by “corrupt and authoritarian political aristocracy.” 5 Although variations in politics and economic situation may require different periodization, 6 the past 25 years can be viewed as the post-hypermasculine developmentalism period in South Korea primarily in the sense that the early 1990s signals the end of the three decades of military dictatorships, of which main focus was economic development at any cost, and that the aftermath of hypermasculine developmentalism continues to linger in social, political, and economic spheres. In other words, the “post” in post-hypermasculine developmentalism indicates both the “after” as temporal sequence and the “aftermath” as condition.
First, the “post” as the “after” signifies the end of hypermasculine developmentalism that characterized not only the society’s rapid industrialization and urbanization under military regimes but also the astounding growth of Korean Protestant Christianity from the 1960s until the late 1980s. 7 The end of the hypermasculine developmentalism period heralded the beginning of a new era that was brought by democratization movements and people’s aspiration for social and political change along with the societal expectations for both increased rights and the decline of authoritarian, hierarchical social system. The new era was also accompanied by a neoliberal global economy, liberalization of overseas travel, proliferation of various rights movements, the burgeoning of civil organizations, and the rise of the middle-class consumer-citizens. Consumer power and consumerism became another hallmark of the post-hypermasculine developmentalism period. However, the end of official developmentalism does not necessarily suggest that development, growth, or expansion is no longer pursued in the national economy or in the church’s mission in the post-hypermasculine developmentalism context.
Second, the “post” as the “aftermath” signifies a condition in which the contradictions and complications of hypermasculine developmentalism are exposed, often in disturbing and destructive ways, affecting people’s lives in unforeseen ways. The contradictions and problems of hypermasculine developmentalism were uncovered in various areas including the welfare system, education, and unequal distribution of wealth among social constituencies. 8 In other words, during the post-hypermasculine developmentalism era, structural problems and hazards of hypermasculine developmentalism have been detected, exposed, and in many instances exacerbated by neoliberal economic policies promoted by the civilian governments. Kim Young-sam government’s (1993–1998) failure of political and economic reform and the subsequent national financial downfall that took place in the mid- to late 1990s affected the following administrations’ social, economic, and political policies. 9 Instead of being solved, most contradictions and drawbacks of hypermasculine developmentalism morphed into different problems in conjunction with the new difficulties arising in the post-hypermasculine developmentalism context. The Protestant Right that emerged as a social and political force needs to be understood in this context of post-hypermasculine developmentalism. However, the comprehensive assessment of the post-hypermasculine developmentalism context will be an ongoing task, and is beyond the scope of this chapter.
The Resurgence of the Protestant Right as a Unified Social and Political Force
Twenty-four years after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, South Korea hosted the Summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988 as the second Asian country to do so. The 1988 Olympic Games were viewed as a marker of South Korea’s economic “success,” the result of three decades of state-led economic development. Although the National Security Law was reinvoked to suppress any oppositional voices and movements against the government once the Olympic Games were over, 10 South Korea was politically transitioning from military dictatorship to liberal democracy. Less than a year after the 1988 Summer Olympics, a group of church leaders met and agreed to “make a unified voice about the society and the government by uniting all denominations.” 11 Soon after this first gathering, about 300 ministers held a first preparatory committee meeting in April 1989, and the largest Protestant Christian alliance, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), was formed in December 1989. In the same year, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, a fundamentalist Christian organization called the Christian Coalition of America was founded by Pat Robertson, a religious broadcaster, after his unsuccessful bid for the US presidency in 1988.
From the beginning, CCK clearly differentiated itself from the Korean National Council of Churches (KNCC), an ecumenical council of churches in South Korea. CCK declared that it would lean neither to the right nor to the left, insisting on the separation of church and state. 12 Having started with 36 Protestant denominations and 6 organizations, CCK is, as of 2015, comprised of 76 denominations, including conservative Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal, and 16 organizations, such as Global Mission, the Association of Conservative Biblical Reformed Denomination, and the Christian Citizen Union. 13 Reportedly, CCK represents more than “45,000” churches with about “12 million” followers. 14 In 2009, CCK joined the World Evangelical Alliance that represents 420 million evangelicals around the world, officially participating in the world’s largest transnational evangelical network. 15 Despite internal conflicts and the recent membership decline, the CCK can still be considered one of the most dominant Protestant Right organizations given the sheer size of the organization and its influence among conservative Protestant churches in Korea as well as among some immigrant Korean churches in North America. At the same time, while the CCK has often functioned as a mouthpiece of the Protestant Right, it is necessary to note that the Protestant Right does not always operate in a homogeneous or in a synchronized way. 16
Experiencing the slowdown of the domestic church growth, Korean Protestant Christianity entered the phase of post-hypermasculine developmentalism. This was when the Protestant Right sought to make inroads to larger Korean society as a discernible social and political force. Reassembling itself through CCK and other related organizations, the Protestant Right endeavored to reinvigorate the seemingly declining power and influence of Protestant Christianity in the wider society, riding the new tide of change that was accompanied by the shift from authoritarian military dictatorships to the civilian government. The actual decline of Protestant Christian membership and the number of shrinking churches are debatable due to the conflicting statistical data. However, it is safe to say that the overall number of Protestant Christians during the post-hypermasculine developmentalism period has not made as drastic an increase as it did during the hypermasculine developmentalism phase. 17
Asymmetrical growth of megachurches 18 in comparison to that of small- to medium-sized churches, on one hand, and the ongoing stasis in terms of numerical increase of church-attending Christians, on the other hand, can be viewed as another feature of Protestant Christianity in the post-hypermasculine developmentalism period. Although quite a number of small new churches have surfaced every year, most of them have lasted only a few years. At the same time, megachurches have further grown with increasing membership and financial resources. 19 It is important to note that megachurches in Korea can be categorized into what Minjung theologian Jin-ho Kim calls the early-achiever type and the late-achiever type of megachurches. He maintains that these two types can be distinguished not necessarily by geographical location or congregants’ education level and socioeconomic status but more by what they pursue as core values. The early-achiever type of megachurch, represented by the Yoido Full Gospel Church, also known as the world’s largest church, has emphasized a flight from impoverishment moving towar...