A Historical and Theological Analysis of the American Prosperity Doctrine and the Distinct Concern for the Worldly of Korean Protestantism

*This was originally submitted as my first of two essays in “Religion, State and Society”, taught by Dr. Brandon King at the University of Pennsylvania. I am publishing it here for preservation and to more easily refer back to prior thinking on religion/economy.*

Introduction

Culturally, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America seem rather divergent. Korea, a largely homogenous nation with a vast history of dynastic, hereditary rule and shamanistic folk religion, bears little resemblance to the U.S, a country born less than 250 years ago out of hatred of monarchy and the promise of religious freedom for outcasted Protestants that ultimately manifested itself in an existential obsession with that of the material world that can be consumed. However, an insistent, entrepreneurial spirit binds these unlikely partners together with a myriad of different threads coalescing to form a plane on which a fascinating and powerful ideology has been able to flourish. This dogma, religious in foundation, but, as I will contend in this paper, deeply defined and shaped by the secular world in which it continues to exist, appears under the guise of many names. In American contexts, it most widely known as the prosperity gospel (Bowler 3). Bowler defines the gospel, from the 30,000-foot view as “a wildly popular Christian message of spiritual, physical, and financial mastery that dominates not only much of the American religious scene but some of the largest churches around the globe” (3). Within the Korean framework, the concern for the worldly comes from a long tradition of folk religion that sought primarily to understand the material world for what it was. As the reader will see, these folk religions and their value systems manifest themselves within modern situations and serve as useful background for the emergence of Korean Protestantism’s dogma that ascribes great value to that of the material world, though for rather different reasons than that of the American prosperity movement.

The Early Origins of the American Prosperity Gospel

The development of the New Thought doctrine stands as the first major step towards the eventual formation of the wider prosperity gospel. First emerging in the Reconstruction Era, a time in which hearty individualism and self-mastery became central ideals of the American experience (Bowler 12), New Thought (known also as mind cure) was a spiritual movement that deified the individual and prioritized mind over matter (Burton). The erection of gymnasiums across America supported those who wished to realize society’s macro advances on a corporeal, micro level (Bowler 12). Simultaneously, the American public was, for the first time, being introduced to invisible causal forces through scientific discovery. The vast hidden potential of the universe was slowly being revealed through inventions like the telegraph, electric light and the discovery of the role of germs in the development of diseases (Bowler 12). As I will demonstrate throughout this paper, this will not be the first-time secular change influenced the development of new ways of thinking about the physical world. From this introduction to the causal, unseen forces that surround us constantly, ideas about the power of the mind flourished (Bowler 13). It is no surprise, given the centrality of finding alternative forms of healing in contemporary religious movements (Bowler 14), that New Thought originally found its expression in a medical context in the mind of the New England physician Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. Quimby discovered the effectiveness of the “talking cure”, a forerunner of modern psychotherapy and a huge component of later Pentecostal developments, among other findings centered around human consciousness like the placebo effect (Bowler 13). Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, took Quimby’s conclusions and brought them into a religious context. In her 1875 manifesto Science and Health, she argues that illness and death are the result of mental errors derived from misperceptions that block mental and physical restoration (Bowler 13). Her rejection of the material as illusory, however, was not widely accepted by American popular religionists. Instead, New Thought, as both a rival and a successor to Christian Science, gained significant traction in the popular sphere. In my view, this was due to two strong developments in the writing of New Thought authors: the personalization of salvation and the sharing of creative power between God and man. Proposing that salvation comes not as an act from God, but rather from the realization of humanity’s potential (Bowler 14), writers of the time, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, touched on something hugely significant that would end up shaping American popular theology, and naturally the prosperity gospel, for years to come: the individual, while living in the material world, could totally control their destiny by simply realizing their potential and being the best they can be. Coupled with the argument that people share God’s power to create by means of thought, and thus that positive thoughts will yield positive circumstances (Bowler 14), the unsophisticated American public had a very compelling narrative to subscribe to,

A History of Korean Christianity’s Concern for This World

In order to understand the role of Christianity in contemporary Korean society, it is first imperative to identify the wider trends and history that serve as its foundation. As Kirsteen Kim shows in her article Ethereal Christianity: Reading Korean Mega-Church Websites and Sung-Gun Kim explains in The Heavenly Touch Ministry in the Age of Millennial Capitalism, the wildly popular Protestant churches that feature so prominently throughout the Republic of Korea are the products of the historical rise and fall of various institutions, traditions and values, of both foreign and homegrown origin, that feature prominently in the history of the Korean peninsula. Dr. Kirsteen Kim points to the wide influence of shamanistic and Confucian traditions in the various ways the Yoido Full Gospel Church and the Myung Sung Church respectively express themselves outwardly in their internet presences. Dr. Sung-Gun Kim, on the other hand, focuses his attention on the influence of capitalism and macroeconomic success in his explanation of the success of the Heavenly Touch Ministry and its leader, Elder Ki-Cheol Sun. By first deconstructing the reasons for the rise of these powerhouses of Protestantism, the reader should be prepared with the requisite knowledge to grasp the significance of Korean Christianity’s this-worldly spiritual concern and how it relates to the American wealth gospel.

The broad influence of shamanism on the rise of the Pentecostal Yoido Full Gospel Church (YFGC), the largest, by number of congregants, in the world, reflects a broader truth about Christianity in South Korea: it is undivorceable from its past traditions and the country’s past is fully integrated into the unique brand of Korean Christianity. Shamanistic (maternal) spirituality is a central component in the theology of the YFGC (K. Kim 218). Tracing its origins back to Korean tribes living in Central Asia, it is encapsulated by a belief of multiple spirits of the dead and of the cosmos, like the kami of Shinto in Japan, who may intervene in the lives of humans on this world (K. Kim 219). A shaman, usually female, communicates with these spirits and exorcises or appeases them when they molest people through ecstatic dancing and dances (K. Kim 219), not dissimilar to the speaking of tongues central to the Pentecostal worshipping experience. Fundamental to traditional Korean shamanism is a belief in the Great Spirit, who makes his presence known on Earth through signs and miracles (K. Kim 219). The website of the YFGC echoes many of these features of this traditional religion. The content of the site concerns itself primarily with the domestic lives and family needs (a maternal concern, for sure) of its adherents, its pastor is represented as a charismatic figure willing and able to intercede in the spirit world and offers his devotees spiritual experience to solve their problems, while the physical church is characterized as a place of healing (K. Kim 219), consistent with Pentecostalist institutions worldwide. Criticized for importing shamanistic practice into the rituals of Christianity (K. Kim 216), Pastor David Cho saw an opportunity to apply traditional spirituality to his version of the Christian gospel, one that promised listeners that God loves them and desires to bless them with happiness and wealth, as a means of giving a desperate, war-ravaged people the means to solve their problems and generate wealth. Perhaps miraculously, the economy of the country exploded soon after he began synthesizing his message of God as a problem solver, and thus the Miracle on the Han River could justifiably be claimed as the result of a benevolent God interfering in the world to endow the pious Koreans with material success. Thus, in the eyes of his supporters, this endows Pastor Cho with a kind of divine connection given he successfully was able to deliver on his promises and enact change in the world, like the spirits of the folk religion.

The Myung Sung Presbyterian Church, on the other hand, represents the paternal, Confucian side of Korean traditional religion infused with Protestantism. The composition of its membership, the way it is marketed online and the cultivated public persona of its founder, Dr. Kim Sam Hwan, lends credence to the paternalistic, Confucian interpretation of the church’s theology. The main sanctuary of the church is described as having been built in the traditional European style, which gives, in the opinion of Kirsteen Kim, “an air of authority and conservative values” (210). She goes on to describe the homepage as organized in an informative and businesslike fashion, which leads her to conclude that it ultimately impresses upon the visitor the values of order, elite culture, and formality (210). While perhaps rooted in traditional values and appealing to an older, more conservative constituency, the Church goes through pains to present itself as at home within the modern world and comfortable with the innovation proliferating Korea (K. Kim 210). Outwardly appearing as earnest and intellectual, the Church’s pastor Dr. Kim exudes a fatherly demeanor and a Confucian air of authority. His delivery while at the pulpit is described as “authoritative” (K. Kim 211) and his voices seems “persuasive in tone but not emotional” (211). Kirsteen Kim sums up the three prominent takeaways from the way the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church presents itself online: it conveys a spirituality that very much embraces worldly concerns and success, it strongly emphasizes the authority of its pastor and that of his exposition of the word of God and finally, it pushes the conservative values of commitment and discipline that so many of its entrepreneurial, commercial-minded middle class members hold so dearly (212).

The Confucian influence on the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church can be traced back to the early 20th century revivalist Kil Son Ju, who first incorporated Confucian tradition into a Protestantism contextualized strongly by influences from early American Presbyterian ideology (K. Kim 217). Central to this ideology is an emphasis on correct external behavior (K. Kim 217), a useful commonality of both traditional Confucianism and puritanical Presbyterianism that helped unite these disparate threads into a uniquely Korean spiritual movement that holds a distinct concern for this world. Kil integrated the disciplined and legalistic code of Confucianism into his conception of proper Christian living (K. Kim 217). This emphasis on the correct conduct for living in the here and now on this world appealed to the elite of the ruling class at the time, who were naturally concerned with material gains and the discipline necessary to work hard. Neo-Confucianism, as the civic religion of Korea for over 500 years, represented the worldview of those who ruled (K. Kim 218). Central to the rituals of this traditional religion was loyalty, in particular that of the son due to the father, emphasized by the veneration of ancestors (K. Kim 218). Naturally, obedience to rulers and conservative family values such as the subservience of women in the household and respect for elders were central to the civic religion favored by those in power. Kirsteen Kim sees these same core tenets manifested in the spirituality of the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church:

Believers look up into heaven for guidance; God is a distant but benevolent father figure; God is approached through discipline; the main concern is with public rather than private life; what is offered is religious teaching leading to right conduct; the pastor is a cultured man and a scholar; and the appeal is to the social elite. (218)

Further, the imagery used on the Myung Sung site itself highlights the Confucian tilt of its unique brand of Christian spirituality. The relationship between Jesus Christ and God as father and son is emphasized. Jesus as the dutiful, loyal son who carries out the will of the godly Father figure on Earth is depicted ascending towards the Father who is in heaven (K. Kim 218). The almost complete lack of women on the Myung Sung website and its appeal to the well-educated, literary elite (K. Kim 218) further supports the interpretation of this Korean Presbyterianism as adhering strongly to Neo-Confucian tradition and values.

A Discussion of Commonalities between American and Korean Doctrines

In this section, I will identify three key common themes between the American wealth gospel and the Korean concern for this world manifest in its Protestantism. They are theological, economic and demographic/sociological in nature respectively. The first is a shared foundational building block on which the later and more popular theologies of both regions are built on: healing as a central component of the religious experience. I will demonstrate that an interest in the value of worship and faith as an instrument of healing has deep roots in both spiritualities, paving the way for a more interventionist and worldly-concerned religious doctrine, that, to this day, has great significance in Christian institutions in both countries. Second, I will examine the economic conditions present in both nations during the rise of these theologies and show the significance of economic trends in the development of these religious ideas. Third, I will summarize demographic and sociological observations of adherents and followers of these faiths to show a unity amongst those who are most attracted to the ideas and values of these religious doctrines. Through this comparison, it is my hope that the reader will better understand what these outlooks on faith are composed of, how they came about and in what conditions they were developed in and finally, for whom church leaders sought to reach and include.

The rise of healing’s centrality to ‘charismatic’ Christianity in both locales can be traced to a tradition of exorcism in established Pentecostal denominations in the United States (S.G. Kim 55). Given Pentecostalism’s deep reverence for miracles and signs, it is no surprise that followers openly embraced using their bodies as a testing ground for their faith (Bowler 140). This centrality of healing that used to be confined to fringe Pentecostalist sects became popular to rank-and-file Protestant ‘charismatics’ who in general believed God wished to intervene in their lives (S.G. Kim 55). For Kim, it is unsurprising, given the shamanistic tradition of spirits interacting with people in the world, that Korean converts would accept the doctrine that the Christian God operates as a personalized spirit interested in affecting change in this world (56).

E.W. Kenyon, an evangelist who operated at the turn of the nineteenth century and is arguably the most influential forerunner of most contemporary preachers of the wealth gospel, took inspiration from the late nineteenth century divine healing movement, alternatively called faith cure, in the development of his theology of faith that has served as the “flint stone for generations of followers” (Bowler 20). Thriving among Evangelicals, the faith cure elevated healing to a provision of atonement (Bowler 18), one of the core pillars of Protestant doctrine. Dr. Bowler explains aptly how healing was central to Kenyon’s wider dogma, which argued that humans are constantly bombarded by “sense knowledge” and thus must be trained to see the spiritual truths (“revelation knowledge”) active below the surface that only faith could unlock:

In faith cure, Kenyon discovered the collaboration of belief, mind, and health. Through healing services, published treatises, and the founding of “faith” homes for the sick, advocates sought to overcome illness through the cultivation of faith. Illness, they taught, perished when a patient believed and then acted as one whom God already healed. Practitioners were encouraged to pray the “prayer of faith”, holding God to his guarantee of restored health for all who believe…Devotional practices of health put faith in motion…This mental and physical exertion energized the work of faith, translating spiritual fervor into physical wholeness. (18–19)

Kenyon used the familiar opening of the Gospel of John, “in the beginning was the Word” (Bowler 19), clearly a reformulation of the Genesis story, as the basis for his theology centered around the spoken word, drawing inspiration from the creative power of words first showcased in the very beginning of the Old Testament, when God spoke “Let there be light”, which showed a direct causation between speech and synthesis (Bowler 19). Bowler describes this as “the template for activating power” (19); Kenyon understood it as only one thing: faith (Bowler 19). In practice, he urged his followers to use spoken words, which he called “positive confessions”, to activate spiritual power (Bowler 20). Kenyon provided the framework for some of the most radical Pentecostal claims to atonement (and thus the foundation for much of the concern for success and prosperity in the here and now that lies at the heart of the modern American prosperity gospel) through prioritizing spiritual reality and the power of thought expressed in word and in deed (Bowler 20). Without Kenyon’s development of an instrumental version of faith in the tradition of Pentecostal healing, the modern prosperity gospel as preached by the Joel Osteen’s and Creflo Dollar’s of the world would not have seen such immense popularity and very well may have never existed.

Wider economic trends in America during the second half of the nineteenth century and in Korea during the second half of the twentieth century contextualize and define how and why such a significant concern for the material world was able to foment in the popular religious doctrines of the times. In America, the shift from aristocracy to meritocracy emerging during the post-Civil War reconstruction period and, the explosion of widespread prosperity that followed, changed American perception of the virtues of poverty and wealth (S.G. Kim 59). Material wealth and consumption began to represent favor from God and thus, the doctrines governing religion and faith had to be adjusted to reflect this new (un)reality. Wealth became a sound sign of good character (S.G. Kim 59). In a meritocracy, how else could one accurately judge another’s qualities? S.G. Kim posits that the Gilded Age “endowed money with a new moral quality” (59). The American gospel of “pragmatism, individualism and upward mobility” (Bowler 11) was thus given a deeply Christian theological partner that, upon coalescing into what we consider the ‘prosperity movement’, was able to appeal to a wide constituency of people who sought to understand the changing economic conditions around them. S.G. Kim’s characterization of the close relationship between Pentecostal Protestantism in Korea during the second half of the twentieth century and the rise of meritocracy that accompanied the Korean economic miracle (59) builds an economically historical thread that binds the development of conditionally similar theologies that formed during considerably different epochs on either side of the world’s largest ocean. Religion that is reactive to economic changes (I’d argue that this could be true for all religious doctrines, but that’s for another paper) undergoes a ‘laymanization’, in which the religious narrative style shifts from the hands of theologians and established religious leaders in the direction of laypeople, as exemplified by the Heavenly Touch Ministry of Elder Son (S.G. Kim 59). With newly furnished economic power and commercial influence, in tandem with a shift in theological language and the authority underlining it, ordinary church members are empowered to believe that God understands their concerns and loves them personally (S.G. Kim 59). This belief, in the words of S.G. Kim, “conjures a powerful affirmation of human potentiality” (59) that usefully finds its reflection in the macroeconomic trends that contextualize religious movements broadly and thematically unite the Korean and American strains of the prosperity gospel.

As I mentioned previously, certain strands of prosperity gospel teachings resonate with specific constituencies of worshippers who are often searching for particular solutions and/or explanations for happenings in their lives that rejig group dynamics. This holds true in both the United States and Korea. The three churches profiled in the articles by K. Kim and S.G. Kim are largely defined and represented by the profiles of their members. The Heavenly Touch Ministry is characterized by the collective aspiration of its middle-class believers who seek guidance on how to live in a consumer culture resulting from abrupt material prosperity (S.G. Kim 60). On the other hand, the Myung Sung Presbyterian Church’s congregation is represented, through the comportment of its leader Pastor Dr. Kim (K. Kim 209), its emphasis on paternal traditions (K. Kim 218) and its focus on commerce and entrepreneurship (K. Kim 210), as solidly composed of busy businessmen who seek to gain favor for risky business ventures (K. Kim 215) and build a network of contacts to transact with. Finally, the Yoido Full Gospel Church, described as ‘populist’ multiple times by Kirsteen Kim, appeals to the masses with its images of ordinary people in casual dress (213), its focus on the appeal of fellowship and the experience of group worship (213) and great concern for all facets of people’s worldly lives. In America, the broader message of the prosperity gospel was co-opted and molded to fit the needs of certain constituencies and congregations. In 1925, advertising bigshot Bruce Bowler (who certainly would have preferred the commercially minded Myung Sung church) wrote a book in which he argues that Jesus Christ was the first great capitalist (Burton). In the wildly capitalist Jazz Age, it is not difficult to think that there was a sizable community of wealthy people who sought to integrate Christianity with their understanding of the gifts of the material world. On the other side of the coin, prosperity gospel-minded Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell told his largely proletariat, low-brow congregation (Yoido, perhaps?), “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor” (Burton). Clearly, throughout time and space, communities of like-minded people from the same sociological backgrounds and demographies have often coalesced to hear various accounts of the role of God in their material lives on this world.

Conclusion

The shamanistic and Confucian influences on the Korean prosperity gospel and worldly-concern dogma situate this rather modern and new theology within a larger tradition of understanding the unexplainable and miraculous of the world. Conversely, the American wealth gospel has no such direct link to folk religion. However, that is not to say that there is an absence of a forerunner to the American approach to the wealth gospel. I see an undivorceable connection to Max Weber’s Spirit of Capitalism in the values and developments of the American wealth gospel. Just as Neo-Confucianism was the civic religion of Korea for hundreds of years, I contend that capitalism and the specifically Protestant approach to labor and its relationship to salvation is the state religion of the United States which, in fact, finds few stronger evidentiary competitors than the prosperity gospel itself. In Tara Isabelle Burton’s distillation of Max Weber’s thoughts on Calvinist doctrine from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, she argues that Calvinists who adhered to the belief that God chooses some people to be saved and others to be damned sought to justify their own innate reasoning for why they as a group were worthy of salvation. Calvinists thus looked for physical manifestations of God’s favor (read: material wealth) and outlets to express inward virtue (read: hard work). It is not difficult to see how this worldview, originally confined to a specific sect, came to dominant American ideology. American Exceptionalism, as evidenced by Manifest Destiny and continuous bouts of imperialism throughout our history, constantly seeks to anoint the American people as chosen, pre-destined on a path towards righteous salvation. Large portions of the American prosperity gospel, in my view, are tailored towards expressing this worldview on the micro level to give common people, and those who most fervently believe in our unique brand of Exceptionalism (read: capitalists like Bruce Bowler and commercially minded individuals with connections to the prosperity movement like the President of the United States (Burton)), the necessary justifications for their roles as cogs in the machine, so to speak. Korean prosperity doctrine, on the other hand, has a vast history of folk and civic religion that serves to check such unrestrained and overindulgent pandering to the material with a rock-solid value system that is rooted in something quintessential: the family. The importance, then, of the paternal Confucian influence and that of the maternal, shamanistic strand, cannot be overstated. This legacy imbues Korean prosperity dogma with a sense of its own history combined with a set of accessible, universal values that root it firmly to tradition. Thus, I see the American prosperity movement as decidedly ungood, in that it has no tradition but that of capitalism and consumption itself, whereas the Korean concern for the worldly, though absolutely influenced by the malignant indulgences of the American perspective, can locate itself as a part of a wider historical tradition that brings something to the table other than a misguided attempt to define one’s place in the world through accumulation and worldly success alone.

Works Cited

Bowler, Kate. Blessed: a History of the American Prosperity Gospel. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Burton, Tara Isabella. “The Prosperity Gospel, Explained: Why Joel Osteen Believes That Prayer Can Make You Rich.” Vox, Vox, 1 Sept. 2017, www.vox.com/identities/2017/9/1/15951874/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump.

Kim, Kirsteen. “Ethereal Christianity: Reading Korean Mega-Church Websites.” Studies in World Christianity, vol. 13 no. 3, 2007, pp. 208–224. Project MUSE, www.muse.jhu.edu/article/224401.

Kim, Sung-Gun. “The Heavenly Touch Ministry in the Age of Millennial Capitalism, Nova Religio.” DeepDyve, University of California Press, 1 Feb. 2012, www.deepdyve.com/lp/university-of-california-press/the-heavenly-touch-ministry-in-the-age-of-millennial-capitalism-MqDN05vyLb.

“Miracle on the Han River.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Aug. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_on_the_Han_River.