Gods warning to Rev. Cho

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Michael Breen

Gods warning to Rev. Cho

Posted : 2011-03-17 17:01

Updated : 2011-03-17 17:01

After the devastating earthquake and tsunamis last week, the world became Japanese. And, I might say, that in becoming so, people felt improved. No population on the planet, it seemed, could respond to tragedy and chaos on this scale with such self-containment and civic orderliness.

By Michael Breen

After the devastating earthquake and tsunamis last week, the world became Japanese. And, I might say, that in becoming so, people felt improved. No population on the planet, it seemed, could respond to tragedy and chaos on this scale with such self-containment and civic orderliness.

Koreans, as we might expect, responded with an outpouring of kindness. The country was the first to send rescue assistance, people sent in money unprompted by government, which is new, and even anti-Japan activists put their historical issues in perspective and expressed condolences.

But there were two notable exceptions, one a matter of sensitivity and the other a case of arrested development.

First, the insensitivity. At times like this, it is natural for nations and companies to check on their own interests in the disaster zone. In doing so, they risk coming across as plain out of touch with the horror. One local TV network, for example, came under considerable online criticism for airing a piece saying that some Korean stars visiting Japan were OK. It was frivolous non-news given equal status with the tragedy.

Foreign correspondents here were rather taken aback by this emailed announcement from a certain company S: ``The earthquake and resulting tsunami will have little or no impact on our production schedule. The earthquake, which occurred in northern Japan at 2:46 pm local time, was detected by sensors on some photo equipment at our semiconductor and LCD manufacturing sites in Korea. At 2:54 p.m., some photo equipment was momentarily halted to avoid possible malfunction but operations had returned to normal as of 4:30 p.m.”

No expression of shock, no condolences, just a sense that right now the world’s priority was S’s bloody share price. That said, it would be wrong to suggest that the folks over at S didn’t care. The message was just poorly crafted.

No such excuse, though, for Cho Young-gi, the founding vicar of the Full Gospel Church in Seoul. Here’s what he told an interviewer: ``But it also comes to my mind that the earthquake could be a warning from God to Japan, which has become an increasingly material-centric, secular and idol-worshiping country.”

It comes to mind? Could it not have stayed there? No, because Rev. Cho’s business is to convert people to get on the right side of this God and, as a salesman who can’t stop selling, he will manipulate even tragedy to save a few more souls.

Soul-savers, who put themselves out there, may posture as selfless. But in fact, this way of thinking is heartlessly me-centric to the point, given that school children and old ladies were being mashed up in that churning black water, of being pathological.

I’ve noticed a distinction among people at times of horrible tragedy. Some watch their screens in a state of shock. These are the mature empathetic souls who can imagine the little old lady in that house being swept along on the tsunami and find it heartbreaking. Stirring tales of heroism and survival move them profoundly.

But there are others who cannot connect. They are dismissive, even jocular. One reporter I knew was in awe of the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, darkly attracted by the aesthetics of mass slaughter.

Such people are emotionally arrested. They are not adult. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see that development is arrested around pain, and the whirlpool within can drive some to notable achievements. Rev. Cho has famously built the largest congregation for a single church in the history of Christendom.

But consider the nature of the deity he worships. This God thumps the ocean floor as a warning? Er, can you do that again, I didn’t quite catch your point? What does he do when he really gets angry? Have his son murdered? This evil God is not the God of most Christians, of course. Just those with low emotional IQs.

Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.