The Shifting Moral Authority of the Korean Evangelicals' Anti-LGBT Movement

• In Event: Religious Freedom and Rights

Abstract

This paper analyzes using content analysis of the Korean Christian newspaper Kidok Sinmun (1998-2020), how conservative evangelicals' discursive resources influencing the construction of anti-LGBT activism have altered as a way of warranting cogent rhetorical appeals- along with the accompanying shift of moral authority that had underpinned the rationale of their claims.

First, we find that against the stereotype of CEs unilaterally adopting the Scripture as the sole authority, the primary sources of moral justification adopted by the evangelical elites had been pluralized to better appeal to the ordinary citizenry as well as in-group congregations. Although specific verses from the Scripture are still considered as a key reference for Christian positions on homosexuality, it turned out that in step with the "rights turn" and the "politics of family value" in the US (Lewis 2017), Korean CEs have most recently turned to a constitutional clause (e.g., freedom of speech, religious liberty) for invoking legitimacy to their campaigns and producing compelling narratives in the eyes of the public. It's especially noteworthy that the focus of articles shifted from the theological, orthodox teaching of sexual doctrines to the grassroots Christian legal mobilization. As such, the tone and styles of editorials were geared toward inspiring rank-and-file audiences to be actively engaged in opposing homosexuality as part of political commitment and shaping the terms of public debates in their favor. This portends the KEs' increasing diversification of moral grounds in the process of popularizing conservative sources of the anti-LGBT repertoire and developing more of a rights-based argumentation.

Second and relatedly, we found that Korean evangelical leaders and thinkers overall focused on different sources of moral authority in response to ideological types of the Korean government. For example, during the progressive Roh (2003–2007) and Moon (2017 [May 10] - now) administrations, their discursive tactics were comparatively relying on key words such as "family value" or "constitutional rights" in a reactionary manner against the leftist-liberal climate. In contrast, during the conservative eras (2008–2012, 2013–2017 [May 9]), they tended to make the utterances, rather proactively, pivoting around the potential threat of homosexuality to the preservation of "national security" (in combination with the communist North) and the integrity of "scientific evidence" (even if evolution is wrong, paradoxically). Those shifting languages could be said to exemplify and represent the kinds of adaptive framings they purposefully and skillfully employ to establish their case against certain social arrangements (e.g., anti-discrimination law). The trend also reveals the particularities and nuances of evangelical elites’ motivated interpretation and offers idiosyncratic insights into how they situate their claim within the traditional values in order to strengthen its persuasive appeals.

Third, when it comes to justifying the Korean evangelical elites' Manichean narratives and its corresponding rhetorical device, the experiences shared by the transnational network of Christian activists served as an authoritative toolkit in framing local perceptions on homosexuality. Since the signifying U.S. legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, which apparently alerted evangelicals in South Korea to brace for their own battle, the western, religious rights advocacy organizations (e.g., UK-based Christian Concern, USA-based Alliance Defending Freedom, etc.) had performed a crucial role by means of shaping the ethical outlooks and personal attitudes of their Korean counterparts. Through media appearances as conference speakers, interviewee, or a special panelist, they offered discourses of victimhood (e.g., religious persecution) and disseminated (rather selectively) particular events or episodes (e.g., the Colorado baker) as symbolizing the future of Korean evangelicalism in case they yield to the global LGBT movement. In this vein, we found that after the year 2015, Korean evangelical leaders started to instrumentally adopt and emulate from their Western counterparts the general language of culture wars and normative frameworks with regards to the Christian-LGBT conflict. In particular, their widespread presence in the domestic media influenced the development of linguistic and interpretive contours of homosexuality as an existential threat to the "Christian" foundation of Korean society. This cognitive impact is in alignment with the increased share of articles linked to those religious entrepreneurs and the prevailing modes of reasoning by reference to "Western" examples. Korean evangelicals' discursive strategies demonstrate that modern-day echo chambers (Sunstein 2009) can be global in scope and substance, as transnational networks of Christian rights organizations and media swap stories of non-heterosexuals threatening Christian liberties.

Author

• Wondong Lee, University of California Irvine