The Oranckay has a very interesting post on the above topic which is worth checking out. Just a sample:
Instead of working with other churches in your denomination (in this case the Assemblies of God) to collectively operate a publishing house, for example, the larger churches feel they have to have their own, and of everything. The need to have everything under the head minister’s control extends to all areas… the individual church’s own orphanages, seminaries, web tv broadcast mega-unit, and so on, and then even branch out in little sub-churches, so for example instead of having a church of the same strand of protestantism in far and distant neighborhoods, you have the Yeouido Full Gospel Church of Seongbuk-gu, Orange County, or wherever, a demonination within a demonination, the owning reverend in complete control with no checks and balances. The personality cults you see in that climate remind you a lot of North Korea.
Read the rest on your own.
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What do you call three Koreans praying together?
A church.
What do you call three Koreans listening to a speech?
A political party.
I worked for a Christian dot-com in the USA a few years ago. Same thing. Not so much with my (new) company, but with the companies we worked with. Every entity was a fiefdom with it’s own Personal Leader???.
The US has the same Leader-as-demagogue problem. But more usually with ‘organizations’ than churches, proper. I can think of one regional organization that is closely tied to their leader in the same way as the Korean chuch leader is described.
Having said that, the Korean ability to take an idea and run it to an extreme still astounds me….
I’m shocked, shocked that there could be megalomania, mammon worship and unaccountability in large Korean organisations.
Mega churches exist in the US as well. Many American churches also have their own churches, their own seminaries, their own radio channels, and publshiers, and some with regular tv spots.
Thus, it is the case that our Korean brothers have once again acted as good students of our teachers. Of course, with some improvements. I don’t know if they’re to be called improvements, but I’d like to look at them that way
A Pastor of a huge church talking politics…Is it really something to be condemned? No. They do it also in the US.
This is actually a sign of Korean democracy becoming more and more like US democracy. Just like Giulliani said. Regional party based politics is breaking down in favor of conservatism vs liberalism. I think Kim Jong Pil, whether you like him or not, mentioned this around the year 2000.
It only makes sense for the Chrisitians to be appalled at liberals, just like in the USA.
Unlike Americans, however, the Koreans Christians do not have a particular party that supports them.
Han Nara, Uri, Min Ju, Min No…nobody in particular appeals to them.
On a side note, I think Protestant churches have effectively made their pastors their popes. They have an acting papacy and they don’t really realize it.
This has been a real problem for me finding a decent church here in Seoul. Many seem to be noise factories that are more interested in growth in numbers and money than in spiritual substance. I did find two good ones but my Korean is just not up to snuff to contribute to such a community (shame on me).
Surprise, surprise, Churches are big business. Let’s not kid ourselves.