KJCKorea
Journal Central

On December 3, 2024, the president declared martial law. The invasion of the Western District Prosecutor’s Office by far-right Protestants was an extreme action. Fascism seems to be the fundamental driving force behind the declaration of a state of emergency and the actions displayed by extreme right-wing Protestantism. Hitler’s fascism arose from Germany’s defeat in World War I and the global economic depression. German Protestantism participated in a historical crime that granted theological justification to Nazi ideology. German Protestants followed Hitler as the political messiah sent by God for Germany. However, Bonhoeffer criticized Hitler’s concept of leadership, Nazi collectivism, racism, and Karl Schmitt’s political theology. Far-right Christianity in Korea does not respect the values of diversity and community, is trapped in far-right ideology, and discriminates against people of certain other religions and certain countries in an exclusive manner. Korean far-right Christianity must correctly understand Bonhoeffer and must be reborn as a community of hospitality and salvation by restoring the communal aspect of the ‘Church for the Other’ that Bonhoeffer emphasized.

This study examines how the Korean Protestant Church can overcome state-led nationalism, based on Schleiermacher’s Christian-ethical understanding. For Schleiermacher, nationalism—binding diverse individuals into a certain identity in pursuing the highest good—marks the starting point for self-consciousness and ethical life. Religion, expressing reverence for the whole and self-effacement through individuality, is embodied in the church following Jesus of Nazareth. While affirming the state’s ethical role, Christianity resists its self-absolutization through the diverse workings of the Holy Spirit. The church must critically empathize with the historical roots of nationalism, dismantle egocentrism through the gospel, and serve as a model community transcending nationalism.

This study argues that the fanatical Protestant fascism displayed in the recent “December 3rd the President’s coup” was by no means an accidental event, but rather based on solid historical origins and grounding. Christian fascism combines the political characteristics shared by fascist movements with Christian fundamentalism and the sacralization of capitalism. Fascism in the United States and South Korea, which rely heavily on Christian fundamentalism as a foundation of support, not only shares the Christian fundamentalist belief that norms, feasible only in a theocratic state, should be applied to all areas of human life, but also adheres to an irrational and anti-intellectual attitude bordering on delusion that these rules should be implemented in the public sphere. This paper examines the genealogy of religious fascism, tracing its roots from the current far-right fascist Protestantism in Korea, starting with its fundamental affinity with the dictatorial fascist regimes that protected Protestantism, going back further to the anti-intellectualism of American evangelicalism and fundamentalism, the mother of Korean Protestantism, going back even further to the religious reform movement that gave birth to Protestantism, and even more fundamentally, to the point when Christianity became the Christianity of the Roman Empire.