I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Homosexuality: Some church leaders call for 'flexible' biblical interpretation
A man holds a rainbow umbrella during the 2015 Queer Festival in Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Discord in Korean churches over LGBT issues
By Kang Hyun-kyung
In the sultry summer evening of Aug. 15, missionary and HIV patient Park Jin-kwon took to the stage for a speech at a small rally in front of the progressive minor Justice Party headquarters in Yoido, Seoul.
Park, a self-claimed “ex-gay” man, shared his story about his “born-again life” after he became a heterosexual.
Wearing a mask and a black T-shirt, he was panting and his voice cracked as his emotions intensified when he spoke about the wildest dream he once had as a gay man and the ensuing tribulations that traumatized him, his parents and siblings.
“I dreamed of the days when same-sex marriage would be widely accepted and become a norm,” he said. “I mean, the days when people don't judge homosexuals just because they are married to same-sex people. If such days had come, it would have meant the realization of my version of utopia.”
“I would think how wonderful it would be if technology were to help people like me who were eager to conceive and give birth to a baby with my loved one. That's why I was so excited back in 2018 when I read a news article about scientific advances which told such days might come in the near future.”
Park said he belatedly learned his family suffered a lot because of him.
Several people who stood behind him recited “amen” whenever he finished a sentence. Their faces were covered with sweat and their shirts soaked with sweat.
Park's wife stood next to him during his speech to show her support for her husband who had the courage to share his traumatic past with others to “enlighten” them.
The “ex-gay” ritual, in which people who became heterosexual give testimonies about their former gay lives to encourage others to follow suit, are part of the Saturday rally.
Since July, Christian activists have gathered in front of the Justice Party headquarters every Saturday to pressure the party to stop pushing for the anti-discrimination bill. It singles out 26 specific discrimination categories, including sexual orientation and sexual identity, and calls for a ban on discrimination based on any of these.
Yeom An-sub, the founder of the anti-gay group Rainbow Returns, which organizes the Saturday rallies, calls the gatherings a peaceful “outdoor prayer meeting.”
The number of protesters was around 100 until early August. But due to coronavirus-driven social distancing rules, 10 or fewer people have joined it on Aug. 15.
Yeom, a family medicine doctor and president of Sudong Yeonsei Hospital in Namyangju City, Gyeonggi Province, calls the anti-discrimination bill a toxic measure that will open up Korea to becoming a dictatorship.
“If the bill gets the nod from the National Assembly and takes effect, people like me who warn of the health risks of homosexuality publicly on YouTube will face 5 million won or more of punitive damages,” he told The Korea Times in a recent interview. “This is nonsensical, considering that in Korea, the HIV virus is transmitted from person to person mainly through sexual intercourse between gay men.”
He accused the anti-discrimination bill of being a legislative device to curb freedom of expression and freedom of conscience.
Yeom has treated AIDS patients since 2009 and met Park when he visited his hospital for treatment. The doctor has become an anti-homosexuality crusader while treating many AIDS patients and watching them die from the deadly virus.
Protestant church members urge the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to take down the rainbow flag hung on its wall in support of sexual minorities, during a news conference held in front of the embassy on May 25, 2019, ahead of the Queer Culture Festival. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
The anti-discrimination bill, submitted by Justice Party lawmaker Jang Hye-young on June 29, has divided Korean society.
Some Protestant churches became vocal critics and the initiative has pitted them against the progressive party as well as the liberal Moon Jae-in government. The first anti-discrimination bill was introduced in 2007 when liberal President Roh Moo-hyun was in power. It failed as churches vehemently opposed it and Roh's tenure and the National Assembly ended the next year.
Since then, there have been several attempts to push it forward, but they were in vain because of opposition from Protestant churches.
The churches deemed homosexuality “a sin” based on their interpretation of the Bible.
The anti-discrimination bill also has pitted churches against each other as some religious leaders side with sexual minorities and claim that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not what Jesus tried to teach.
Lim Bo-rah, a pastor of the Sumdol Presbyterian Church in Mapo-gu, Seoul, is one of the few Christian supporters of the anti-discrimination bill.
“While growing up in the church, I haven't heard that protecting sexual minorities is against the Bible,” she said when asked how she became an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) advocate.
Sumdol is one of the few Korean churches that have adopted an open-door policy for homosexual believers.
Her church had about 65 members who regularly came to the church for Sunday worship services before the services went online after the coronavirus outbreak. About half of them are LGBT people, according to the pastor.
“The Christian Council of Korea (CCK) has been at the forefront of the anti-gay movement from the early 2000s,” Lim said. “(Conservative churches) united again recently to fight back against the anti-discrimination bill. Their simplistic rhetoric makes no sense. But it works.
“For example, they ask people if they would be OK if their daughters-in-law are men. They say this will become the reality if the bill is approved. Their rhetoric goes further and claims 'if the anti-discrimination bill takes effect, the idea of family will be destroyed and this will further affect other traditional values. Ultimately, the nation is heading into a socialist state.' This kind of logic strikes a chord with the older generation, particularly those who are in their 50s or older.”
Lim suggests there is a right-wing conspiracy theory behind conservative church leaders' opposition to the anti-discrimination bill, claiming they are portraying sexual minorities as their common threat, just as they stoked a “red scare” in the past when they allegedly cooperated with the authoritarian government to define communists as their common enemy.
According to Lim, Protestant churches in Korea, particularly megachurches, were able to expand enormously by siding with the authoritarian government's anti-communist campaign.
“Korean churches didn't confront the dictatorship in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s,” she said. “In fact, the dictatorship and the megachurches collaborated in the anti-communist campaign and the churches benefitted from it, in terms of church attendance.”
There is a different interpretation about the CCK's anti-communist stance. Its founding fathers, including the late Rev. Han Kyung-chik, knew well of the suffering of churches under the North Korean communist party. Religion, including Christianity, is likened to prohibited drugs and their effects on people are as bad as drug addiction, according to popular communist narratives.
The CCK founding fathers were born in now North Korea and experienced communist party persecution.
Korean protesters wearing hanbok beat drums and cry out in protest against homosexuality during the 2015 Queer Culture Festival in Seoul. The sign the woman holds reads “A country built through blood and sweat collapses due to homosexuality.” / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Rev. Lim claimed protecting homosexuals has nothing to do with socialism or communist ideology.
Her advocacy for LGBT people dates back to the 2000s when the first round of debate about homosexuals heated up. It came about a decade after sexual minorities began to organize themselves in the 1990s for collective action to influence the policymaking process in their favor.
Lim participated in the Queer festivals that became controversial among conservative church members. Her iconic robes show her pro-LGBT stance. Wearing a white gown with a long stole featuring the rainbow LGBT logo, she presides over the Sunday worship services.
From 2015, Lim teamed up with other experts in a project to translate the 2006 book, “The Queer Bible Commentary,” into Korean. She said the translation has been completed and several theology professors are now reviewing the draft before its scheduled publication later this year.
The pastor was ostracized by conservative Protestant churches because of her pro-LGBT activities. In September 2018, the conservative denomination Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) issued a statement in which it claimed Rev. Lim was preaching heresy and the views revealed in her writing were “non-biblical and highly heretical.”
Some theology experts, including retired theology professor Heo Ho-ick, criticized the PCK's ruling.
In his 2019 book, “Is Homosexuality a Sin?: Theological and Historical Perspectives on Homosexuality,” Heo said the PCK overreacted to Rev. Lim. “Homosexuality is not a simple issue. Without deeper understanding of it … ignorance and bias can fool the people…,” it reads.
Based on publications about homosexuality, the retired theologian encouraged people to use flexibility in biblical interpretation. For example, Heo claimed the demise of the cities Sodom and Gomorrah mentioned in the Bible was not directly related to homosexuality. Those cities caused the wrath of God because the people turned a deaf ear to what God said to them, he said.
Heo faced the same fate Rev. Lim experienced. He also was ostracized by the PCK for his book and his remarks in media interviews.
Protestant churches stand firm on homosexuality. They claim there are several biblical scriptures that indicate homosexuality is a sin. In addition to Genesis, they said Corinthians and Romans, and several other scriptures in the Old and New Testaments prohibit same-sex love.
Homosexuality has created a dispute between the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) and its member denomination PCK.
On July 16, the PCK demanded that NCCK Secretary General Lee Hong-jung, who is also part of the same denomination, clarify publicly his position on homosexuality and the anti-discrimination bill. The request came months after the NCCK committee issued a statement in April, immediately after the National Assembly elections, urging the newly elected lawmakers to introduce and pass the bill.
In a statement released last week, Lee answered the PCK's questions. The NCCK secretary general didn't back down and showed his support for the bill.
“The bill aims to protect minorities and their socio-political rights,” he said. “Thus, I think the churches and the minorities can share the goal of the bill and it should be the starting point for the Christian mission to embrace the minorities.”
Lee said the PCK's vision states the denomination neither hates nor discriminates against minorities. But he said its reaction to the anti-discrimination bill is contradictory to its declared vision.
An insider said the NCCK leader was trying to address the reality Korean churches are facing.
“Sexual minorities are part of the churches. This is a fact,” he said, asking not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media on the issue. “So, inside the NCCK, a consensus was made that churches need to protect and take care of them. We are working on guidelines to help churches protect sexual minorities.”
Asked to what extent the NCCK is open-minded to homosexuals and if the coalition even considers easing internal rules to allow LGBT people to become pastors or take other leadership posts, he said, the NCCK, albeit more open-mined to LGBT people than conservative churches, is cautious about such topics and is yet to decide any further about lifting or changing rules on eligibilities of church leaders.
“At the moment, the NCCK leadership thinks discrimination based on sexual orientation or sexual identity is not right,” he said. “There is no further discussion about the issue.”
Son Bong-ho, a retired philosophy professor, Christian activist and author, said homosexuality is a touchy issue that put the churches to the test.
For some the focal point of the pros and cons debate lies in whether being homosexual is a choice people make, or genetic.
“So far, the issue was not resolved,” he said in his book, “Protestant Churches Were Pushed Back to the Periphery from Core.”
Dean Hamer, a retired molecular biologist and author of “The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into Our Genes,” said there is no such thing as a gay gene. But he said this doesn't mean that homosexuality is not genetic.
“There are probably many different genes that affect our sexual orientation. We don't know what they are yet. We don't know exactly how they work. But there is very convincing evidence that makes us believe they exist,” he said in a 2013 YouTube video produced by the Truth Wins Out group.
The reporter contacted Dr. Hamer through Facebook message for comments on any progress made since 2013 but he didn't respond.
Son said homosexuals may want to emulate the apostle Paul who had an unwanted thorn in his flesh as stated in the Bible (2 Corinthians 12:7).
“It's not clear exactly what the thorn the apostle Paul had was about,” he said. “But it's apparent that it was painful and he prayed to God three times to remove it from his body. But God didn't answer his prayer.”
“If homosexuality is genetic and sexual orientation is predetermined before people are born ― so it is not a thing they can fix ― they can look into how the apostle Paul had lived a life as a possible model. He took the thorn as part of his body and endured the pain all his life. He himself didn't attempt to remove it from his body. Meanwhile, people who have homosexuals around will want to sympathize with them, not blame them for their traits, and accept them as they are.”
Participants beam during the 2015 Queer Culture Festival in Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Korean churches have been opposing proposed anti-discrimination bills that extend protection to groups like sexual minorities since the first bill was introduced here in 2007. So far, time has been on the churches' side. They were united and their collective action frustrated the initiative whenever it popped up.
With voices calling for the protection of sexual minorities growing in society, however, churches are finding it tougher to form a unified force. The anti-homosexuality battle has created a rift in the churches, and defiant voices to the churches' long-standing position ― that homosexuality is a sin as they claim is stated in the Bible ― have started to erupt from within.