ABSTRACT
Christian communities in South Korea are outstanding examples of civil society, as the term is generally understood.1 They have always drawn their inspiration and power from impulses that are essentially non-political, at least in the sense of being strongly resistant to state domination. Their membership patterns cut across the political spectrum and are not defined by political labels. They provide arenas for tolerance, negotiation of differ ences, and internal training of new leaders. In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (see Chapter 1, p. 13), Samuel Huntington has much to say about the power of religion to shape the processes of modernization and revitalization, for example, in the Islamic world. Islam, however, is the traditional creed in the Middle East. Christianity started out as an ideology that was foreign to Korea, and there is much to ponder in the way it has been accepted, absorbed, and even transformed by the Korean people. This is especially so when one compares Korea with Japan and China, where Christianity also has a dramatic history but has never accounted for more than a small percentage of the religious population. The fact that approximately 25 percent of South Koreans identify themselves as Christians raises questions about the nature of Korean society, the process by which Christianity was introduced to Korea, the interaction between Christian propagation and events and trends in modern Korean history, and the link between Christian ideology and political authority.
