Christianity, Shamanism, and Modernization in South Korea

Christianity, as well as a whole spectrum of new religious movements, coexist peacefully in one of the most religiously pluralistic countries in the world. Nonetheless, there are also more than 160 Protestant denomina-tions and nearly 60,000 churches, as well as 1,100 Catholic churches, which supposedly make South Korea "the most Christianized " non-Western country, excepting the Philippines, in the world. Since its introduction in 1884, Protestant Christianity has proceeded to become the nation's largest religion with over nine million followers, representing more than one fifth of the total population. The rise of Roman Catholicism in South Korea has been equally remarkable. Introduced in 1784, it had been subjected to severe persecutions for nearly a century — more than eight thousand Catholics were martyred — but has steadily grown to be the country's third largest religion after Buddhism. With nearly four million followers, Roman Catholicism has been the fastest growing religion since the late 1980s. Together, Protestants and Catholics thus make up close to a third of the total population in the nation. The rapid growth of Christianity in South Korea is all the more astonishing given that the imported faiths successfully penetrated and took roots in a land dominated by traditional religions, including Shamanism, Buddhism and Confucianism. The country's Christian "success story " is also remarkable in lig ht of the fact that only about 4 percent of the Asian popula-tion is Christian and that Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, has failed to strike roots in Japan an