Science, State, and Spirituality: Scientific Creationism in South Korea

• In Event: Being Religious, Being Scientific: The Dynamics Of Science And Religion In The Laboratory

Abstract

This paper aims at describing how scientific creationism has become a major social and religious movement in South Korea. As Ronald Numbers has shown, South Korea, since 1980, has become "the creationist capital of the world, in density, if not in influence." Borrowing the sociological and historical literature on developmental state and the post-Westphalian religions, I argue that the rise of creationism in Korea reflected a number of scientists' pursuit of their own desire – rather than that of the state and the dictator - in the age of globalization and post-developmental state. I will show how creationism offered them a means to depart from both religion and science constructed within the constraints of Korea's developmental state, which had been formed as a consequence of its colonial and postcolonial experiences during the twentieth century. In creationism, the early members of the Korean Association for Creation Research (KACR) found a good means to overcome their lower cultural status in the country with a strong Confucian legacy, and to become conservative intellectuals in their local church communities, which in turn provided a novel venue for their international relations in the global creationist movement. To female members of KACR, creationism also gave an opportunity to grapple with the gendered discourses and practices in both churches and academia, which reflected the contours of the South Korean developmental state that was implementing its "militarized modernity," as Seungsook Moon has called. In explicating these issues, I utilize the Canadian sociologist Peter Beyer's theory of "post-Westphalian religions," which successfully accounts for how religions transformed themselves in contemporary society by severing their ties to the states that patronized them in the "Westphalian condition." According to Beyer, modern religions have now become transnational with the power of mass media, new entertainment, and global capitalism. With this theory, my paper will explain why it has been so hard to dismantle science creationism, which has become a new post-Westphalian religion that can overcome Korea's old limitations stemming from the age of its developmental state and colonial past. This paper's methodology is a critical analysis of creationists' writings and speeches - especially their public confession of faith, called "kanchung" - as well a series of structured interviews of major leaders of KACR.

Author

• Hyung Wook Park, Nanyang Technological University