Megachurches in Korea: Why they face calls to be born again

Experts say there is a Korea-specific factor that made once-small churches transform into megachurches within a relatively short time period. Location is one of the common factors that helped the startup churches grow quickly./ gettyimagesbank

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Myungsung Church, a megachurch in Seoul that is seeing a continued controversy over the father-son leadership succession that happened in November 2017, was once a small church.

Rev. Kim Sam-hwan started the church in Myeongil-dong, eastern Seoul in 1980 with a couple dozen likeminded founding members. Church membership grew rapidly during his tenure to reach its current 100,000 registered members, nearly four decades later.

The church was mired in controversy in 2014, a year before Rev. Kim retired after over three decades of service as head pastor.

Some whistleblowers disclosed the church's alleged hidden wealth worth 80 billion won ($80 million) that had not been made public to the congregation. The revelation came shortly after a senior church member in charge of the church's finances committed suicide, leaving messages for his family and Rev. Kim.

Some alleged the money is a "slush fund," raising suspicions about the transparency of the megachurch. The church filed a lawsuit against two accusers ― one a former member and the other a Christian media journalist ― for defamation and spreading false information. Their legal battle ended in September 2017 in favor of the church. The two accusers received jail terms which were suspended for two years.

The megachurch found itself at the center of controversy again in November 2017 when Rev. Kim Ha-na, the eldest son of the retired pastor Kim Sam-hwan, succeeded his father as head pastor after the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) denomination gave the green light to the father-son leadership transition.

Later on, some church members brought the case to the denomination again, urging the court members to review the ruling, and the request was accepted.

The PCK court members will meet again on Aug. 5 to decide on the case, following their first meeting on July 16 failed to produce a consensus.

Rev. Pang In-sung, co-chairman of the Seoul-based group Coalition for Church Reformation and a harsh critic of Korean megachurches' nepotistic leadership transitions, said he feels regretful about the "two great pastors" being stuck in the controversial leadership transition.

"The senior Kim is a humble leader," Pang said during a recent Korea Times interview. "He is well-known among churchgoers as well as religious leaders for his servant leadership. He described himself as a servant serving his masters ― his church members ― and his servant leadership-based sermons and teachings inspired many people to attend his church. Myungsung Church has grown quickly against this backdrop and become a megachurch."

Rev. Pang said he met the elder Kim in person in March 2017 near a restaurant in Seoul where Kim and the members of Myungsung Church met to discuss the leadership transition.

"I was waiting for him outside the restaurant and eventually met him when he and other church members left the eatery after dinner. I gently held his hands and pleaded with him not to let his son take over church leadership, saying this is not something great pastors like him and his son were supposed to do," Pang said. "If his son ends up being head pastor of the church his father founded, I said it will be a disaster for his son."

Rev. Pang said the junior Kim is U.S.-educated and returned to Korea many years ago after completing a degree in a prestigious divinity school there. He called the junior Kim "a brilliant man" who has a strong reputation among church leaders.

Pang speculated the father-son succession might be the result of "the system," not something the two Kims had planned. "I mean they both are religious people. To my knowledge they were against the idea of leadership succession from father to son and they made their views public in their past sermons," he said. "Despite this, Kim Ha-na succeeded his father as head pastor of the church his father founded. This caused me to think that there could probably be another reason that forced him to take over."

Rev. Pang said Myungsung Church has outgrown its congregation, speculating therefore only the real insiders can handle "unspecified, complex issues" from within to ensure the church remains influential.

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Myungsung Church's father-son leadership transition is not an isolated case in Korea's church history. There are several other big churches where the second generation took over leadership held for decades by their fathers. The first-generation pastors were pioneers who guided their once startup churches to become megachurches under their charismatic leadership.

"As a church grows, so does its financial and social clout," said Lee Jin-gu, director of Korea Institute for Religion and Culture in Seoul.

He said scion-based succession practices are not unique to big churches.

"It occurs in small churches, too," he said. "In the case of small churches, such leadership transition has little room to end up with corruption or raise transparency issues (because small churches are struggling financially.) But such a transition becomes an issue for megachurches because their big budgets and financial strength sometimes become a conduit for corruption."

Lee said father-son leadership transition in megachurches has emerged as an issue in the last decade because the founding leaders are retiring recently from the churches after decades of service.

"Their churches have outgrown other churches under their effective leadership and they are supposed to leave behind the churches which now have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members. So the kinship-based succession issue pops up," said Lee.

Experts say there is a Korea-specific factor that made once-small churches transform into megachurches within a relatively short time period. Location is one of the common factors that helped the startup churches grow quickly.

Seoul's posh southern district of Gangnam and Seongnam's Bundang, which is called the Gangnam of Gyeonggi Province, are the two popular districts that house several megachurches.

Religious leaders flocked to the regions during a development boom in the 1980s and 1990s to establish churches and they have continued to expand, thanks to a population influx.

Lee said the United States has played an indirect role behind the exponential growth of some Korean churches. "Simply put, Korea's modernization in the 1970s and 1980s took the form of Americanization," he said. "The United States has been the single most influential country that exerted a great deal of influence on South Korea, including churches, during those times. People who were educated in the United States became power elites and some of them are Protestants."

His remarks indicate churches have served as a social club through which power elites and successful entrepreneurs meet and form networks.

Rev. Pang, meanwhile, claimed some religious leaders "played" the U.S. card to expand their churches.

"Some pastors said the United States became such a powerful country because it was created by Protestants. So if people attend church and become Protestants, they said they would succeed in their lives, become rich and healthy. For some reason, these types of sermons worked to attract people to churches," he said. "Churches are not supposed to be big because they are supposed to serve the community and believers."