BELIEFS IN SOUTH KOREA

Name: Carmella Joy Costibolo 02/18/22

Religion in South Korea is diverse. A slight majority of South Koreans have no religion.
Buddhism and Christianity are the dominant confessions among those who affiliate with a
formal religion. Buddhism and Confucianism are the most influential religions in the lives of
the South Korean people.

CHIRSTIANITY- South Korea is awash with evangelical Christianity. This once resolutely
shamanistic and Confucian country now seems to have more churches than corner stores.
From miniscule, storefront chapels to the biggest church in the world,the skyline of every
major city is ablaze with neon crosses. Evangelical Christians proselyte house to house,
distribute pamphlets and church-emblazoned tissue packets on street corners, and cycle
through town blaring sermons and homilies through bullhorns, urging you to either accept
Jesus, or be prepared for the Devil’s wrath below. It is very rare to spend more than a few
days in Korea without being preached to.

What can be most surprising to a visitor to Korea is that only 29 percent of the population
actually identifies as Christian – about three-quarters Protestant, one quarter Catholic. But
their zeal is so enormous that it overshadows the 23 percent who are Buddhist, and the 46
percent who say they have no religion at all.

BUDDHISM- South Korea has become most widely known for its rapidly growing Christian
population in the recent past, but nearly a quarter of the country’s population identify as
Buddhist. (A majority of the entire country’s population—47 percent—identifies as religiously
unaffiliated.)Buddhist temples in South Korea are traditionally confined to the mountainous
regions of the country. In fact, Buddhist monks were forbidden to enter the capital during the
Joseon Dynasty when Confucianism became the sole official religion of the state.

At first glance, Jogyesa temple with its ornate temple décor, Buddhist symbols and and
ritualism, strikes one as emblematic of “traditional” Korean Buddhism. And indeed, this was
how the temple’s English-speaking volunteer guides introduced the temple to us foreign
visitors. However, this idea of “traditional” belies certain key innovative efforts—both
historical and contemporary—that help sustain the temple and the larger Jogye order into
the 21st century among competing religious forces. The multi-tiered stupa (pagoda)
located at the center of the sprawling temple premises provides a glimpse into one strand of
innovation. Buddhist pagodas are towering structure found commonly across the Buddhist
Asia world where sacred relics, often of the Buddha himself or of his disciples, are kept safe
and venerated. Jinsinsari, the pagoda in Jogyesa, is said to store an aspect of the historical
Sakyamuni Buddha’s body gifted to the temple in 1913 by the prominent Sri Lankan
Theravada Buddhist Anagarika Dharmapala. He had received the relic by the then
Theravada King of Thailand. Korea was one of Dharmapala’s stops on a pan-Asia tour from
Japan to Indonesia.