With my recent discovery that a large Mormon church is being built in my neighborhood, I became curious about Mormonism in Korea. The more I learned (most of which confirmed my preconceptions), the more surprised I am that this church is even being built.
The Mormons actually are not doing well in Korea, in comparison to other non-mainstream, exogenous religious movements (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses). I found a very detailed, academic analysis of the situation at a Mormon mission-supporting website called Cumorah. As I already suspected, Mormons are not being very successful at converting Koreans, who, perhaps because of their own plethora of home-grown fringe-Christian sects (see Moonies, et al.), are inured to the promises Mormonism. Indeed, Koreans have a long history of domestic, Mormonesque cultural phenomenon (Cheondoism, Won Buddhism).
Furthermore, the previously fairly successful Korean Mormon community (which arose in the wake of proselytizing by US military personnel and by converted returnees from the US, in the 1960s and 70s, and was sufficiently large that a Temple was built in Seoul in the early 80s), is apparently emigrating en-masse to Anglophone countries, where they can find larger and more cohesive Mormon communities, less overt discrimination and social stigmatization, and better economic prospects. Thus, in fact, the Mormon church in Korea is shrinking.
So is this church being built in Ilsan as a kind of stopgap or anticipatory effort, to increase support for a moribund or imagined community? Or is Goyang bucking the regional trend? Certainly it is true that I see Mormons on mission tromping about almost every day, in Ilsan. Is it the area’s American-style suburban cultural ethos, high relative socioeconomic status, and thus somewhat un-Korean in character (what I call the “Ilsan bubble”), that draws them?
I guess I’m just curious. I am not, per se, pro-Mormon or anti-Mormon. I find their theology absurd, but I find the sociology of the group interesting. I just have a weird fascination for the group, for reasons I’ve explained before.
[daily log: walking, 6km]