Political activities and anti-communism of Korean Protestant conservatives in the 2000s

摘要

Abstract Korean Protestant Conservatives began political activities against the government when the Roh Moo Hyun administration took office. Conservative Protestants have long been obedient to the government and kept silence on socio-political issues since the foundation of the Republic of Korea. Those politically active conservative Protestants were called the Christian Right. Their sudden political activism came from a sense of crisis they felt about the Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Ryun governments’ progressive policies. It arose in a “power vacuum” that even though the progressive governments took political power, the “Cold War structures” still dominated many sections of Korean society. The Christian Right, just like the ideological right, was formed due to a sense of ideological crisis. It thought that the Kim and Roh administrations were pushing Korea, the rightist republic as it believed, into a crisis by adapting leftist policy measures. Their key values were pro-Americanism and anti-communism. Just like American Religious Right, their anti-communism was connected to Manichaean dualism, fundamentalism, and a belief in the providential role of the United States in fight against evil. However, unlike the American counterpart, the Korean Christian Right paid little attention to ethical issues, while making issue of ideological and socio-political matters only.