WHY CHRISTIANITY IS TAKING AN ASIAN TURN / THE ECONOMIST

Risen and rising

Why Christianity is taking an Asian turn

Believers have clout in South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and beyond

THE IMPEACHMENT of a former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, revealed many fault lines in South Korean society. 

One runs through the country’s sizeable Christian community. 

Evangelicals emerged as some of Mr Yoon’s biggest supporters in the wake of his failed attempt to impose martial law. 

Jeon Kwang-hoon, a far-right pastor, organised rallies in his honour under the banner “Save Korea”. 

By contrast, the National Council of Churches in Korea, a more mainstream ecumenical body, welcomed the constitutional court’s “historic decision” to restore democracy.

Christianity has long been a powerful force in South Korean society and its battles over democracy. 

South Korea is among the most Christian countries in Asia, with some 30% of the population identifying as such. 

Protestant groups tended to align closely with the country’s post-war authoritarian regimes, while Roman Catholics supported the democratisation movement in the 1980s. 

These days the divisions are less tidy, but no less pronounced. 

Christians are “our own axis on the spectrum of a polarised society; we don’t align neatly,” says Cho Seung-hyeon of the Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation.

In many ways Christianity’s minority status belies its influence in the country—as it does across much of Asia. 

Only the Philippines and East Timor are majority-Christian nations. 

Yet as the population of Christians declines in Europe and North America, “the centre of gravity of Christianity is shifting,” argues Mathews George Chunakara of the Christian Conference of Asia, an ecumenical regional body. 

Africa and Latin America are the main sources of new believers, but Asia also plays a role. 

Its Christian population grew by an average of 1.6% annually between 2020 and 2025. 

Last November, in a sign of the region’s growing importance for Christianity, Pope Francis visited South-East Asia.

Christian leaders are increasingly emerging from Asia, notes Todd Johnson of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. 

The Lausanne Movement, an evangelical group founded by the American pastor Billy Graham, is led by a Korean-American who works extensively in Japan. 

Recent heads of the Pentecostal World Fellowship and the World Evangelical Alliance, two other big evangelical movements, include a Malaysian and a Filipino, respectively. 

South Korean missionaries are among the world’s most active. 

A South Korean cardinal, Lazarus You Heung-Sik, is mentioned as a potential next pope.

There may be more people practising Christianity in Asia than typically believed. 

Fenggang Yang of Purdue University in Indiana argues that many surveys understate the share of the Christian population in Asian countries, by forcing respondents to make either/or choices among faiths, when spiritual practices in the region are often hybrid. 

Take Japan, which violently suppressed Christianity until opening its borders in the late 19th century. 

Just 1% of Japan’s population is believed to be Christian, but if respondents are allowed to choose multiple faiths, the number affiliating with Christianity may rise to 3-4% of the population, Mr Yang says.

Christianity also punches above its weight in education and, by extension, among the region’s elites. 

Nine of Japan’s 65 post-war prime ministers (or some 14%) have been Christians, including the country’s current leader, Ishiba Shigeru. 

“If you want to find one through line for that phenomenon, it’s education,” says Levi McLaughlin of North Carolina State University. 

Many of the country’s top private schools have Christian roots. 

Among Japan’s roughly 600 private universities, about 10% are Christian institutions, reckons Yamaguchi Yoichi, president of Tokyo Christian University. 

Christianity’s outsize influence is especially pronounced in South Korea.

Some 70% of the country’s post-war presidents have been Christian, while roughly one-third of its universities are, says Kim Eun-gi of Korea University.

Show me the man

South Korea’s contemporary Christian community is incredibly varied. 

“There is a whole spectrum of extreme right and left present, not only in Korean society but within Korean churches,” says Mr Kim. 

Believers align at times with the country’s progressives on economic issues, such as labour rights, while siding with conservatives on social issues.

South Korean evangelical churches have led resistance to LGBT rights in South Korea. 

Such megachurches have strong ties to America’s. 

Last summer Donald Trump junior, son of America’s president, spoke at Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world’s largest megachurch, in Seoul. 

“We’ll keep fighting for all of the Judeo-Christian values that we believe in and that you share with us,” he declared. 

They can exercise “massive influence” over South Korean politics by rallying large groups of potential voters, says Lee Dong-hwan, a pastor who was excommunicated by South Korea’s Methodist church over his support for gay rights.

Yet Mr Lee also notes that a small but growing number of progressive priests have come out to support gay-pride parades in South Korea in recent years. 

His own conversion to supporting the LGBT community came after one of his own congregants came out to him. 

“Jesus accepted all people,” Mr Lee says. 

“Whose side would he be on today?”