Distance between Christians and Bible
Black comedy challenges those who claim to be Christians, especially mega-church pastors
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Author Oak Sung-ho’s first novel “Cruel History of Seocho Church” deals with the wrongdoings of church leaders. / Korea Times file
By Jung Min-ho
German Catholic priest Martin Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by publishing the 95 Theses to protest against the Catholic Church’s abuses such as nepotism and the sale of indulgences.
Five hundred years later, many Protestant churches in Korea are increasingly becoming a target for reform after their leaders’ major moral failures.
Few believe that author Oak Sung-ho’s first novel, “Cruel History of Seocho Church,” is completely fictional. The first son of Oak Han-heum, the revered late founder of Sarang Community Church, also noted, “What is really happening in Korean mega-churches is far more nonsensical and even crueler.”
The story revolves around Kim Gun-chook, a new pastor arriving at a mega-church in an upscale area of Seoul. With the slogan, “global missionary work,” he brings some surprising changes.
“To achieve missions from God,” Kim adopts an English-only policy for the church leaders’ meetings and starts building relations with the media through a newly-formed public relations team. He even writes an English conversation book, and buys 150,000 square meters of land to build “Mission English Town,” where the church members can practice English with native speakers.
But the ambitious pastor soon faces challenges from outside and within.
A newspaper reports his English conversation book is actually written by someone else, and a growing number of church members start questioning if his passion really is for God.
Yet, instead of reflecting on his actions, Kim paints the objectors as followers of “Satan” trying to destroy the entire community of Korean churches, using the name of God to cover whatever he does.
While the authors says Kim is just a fictional character, observers believe it apparently represents Oh Jung-hyun, pastor of Sarang Community Church and one of the country’s most influential Christian leaders.
In fact, the situation described in the book remarkably resembles what happened after Oh became the church’s chief pastor in 2003.
Kim did missionary work in Nigeria before coming to Korea as Oh did his in South Africa. Kim’s lie about the fact that he used a ghostwriter for his English book also resembles Oh’s plagiarism to get his doctorate degrees from South Africa’s Potchefstroom University and California’s Biola University. Oh lied that he did not plagiarize his work until Potchefstroom University admitted he did.
Oak moves the story along with pace, showing how the entire church deviates from the Bible because of a single pastor in a powerful position and how the church’s inside crumbles in the pastor’s attempt to expand his influence further.
The story does not seem blasphemy. Oak does this by focusing on Christians doing unbiblical actions with the Bible in their hands.
Oak also takes a first-person perspective, showing how Christians see the wrongdoings by other Christians, asking the readers how much should be tolerated for the greater good.
In February, another Christian leader Cho Yong-gi was found guilty of causing some 13 billion won ($12 million) worth of losses to Yoido Full Gospel Church to help his son Cho Hee-jun. He was given a three-year prison sentence suspended for five years and fined 5 billion won.
Some other pastors’ recent sex-abuse scandals have also seen many people turn away in disgust.
According to a Christian Ethics Movement of Korea survey last year, only 21.3 percent of respondents said they trust Protestantism, after Catholicism and Buddhism. It is an important message to Korean churches facing the tough challenge of evangelism.