Earlier this year, on January 27, 2021, the world counted its 100-millionth case of COVID-19.
Leading the case count tally, by a huge margin, is the United States, which at the time of writing has recorded close to 30 million infections. Right behind the US are India, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.
South Korea, famous for its impeccable demonstration of the test-trace-isolate approach, is far from the top of the list. Early in the course of the pandemic, though, before its case counts were dwarfed by Western nations, South Korea once ranked second in the world for having the highest number of confirmed cases, just behind China, where the virus was first detected.
Without a sliver of doubt, this initial explosion of infections could be traced back to February 2020, to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, a city southeast of Seoul.
South Korea’s 31st COVID-19 patient was a 61-year-old woman congregant at the Shincheonji Church. She tested positive on February 18, 2020, and almost immediately after, case counts connected to her and to the Church inflated uncontrollably. Her case would later become popular (or infamous) worldwide as the first documented, and most highly publicized, super-spreader event.
In just over a month, the Shincheonji cluster ballooned to over 5,000 people and accounted for more than half of South Korea’s case load at the time.
After the Daegu cluster, both the government and the Christian community in South Korea began to realize that relying on God’s protection from the virus, while refusing to keep their distance in small, enclosed spaces, could endanger not only themselves, but also their loved ones and the society at large.
Some Christian churches in the country, however, continue to turn a blind eye to these risks.
Seongbuk-gu, Seoul. A screening staff stands outside a designated COVID-19 facility. Following the cluster of infections linked to the Sarang Jeil Church, there was a spike in the number of people presenting to these centers to undergo testing. (Photo by Yang Chien-Hao)
Problem pastor
For a while, South Korea had succeeded in containing COVID-19 in Daegu. It looked like Seoul, its most densely populated city, had dodged a bullet. But to a sly, new, highly infectious disease, a city where more than 10,000 people share a square kilometer of space was easy pickings.
Half a year later, what the South Korean government had been dreading finally came to pass, and the wave of infections that would come to grip Seoul proved to be much worse.
In mid-August 2020, 623 members of the Sarang Jeil Church, headquartered in Seoul, tested positive for COVID-19. Not long after, the case count again grew furiously, and the virus’ spread soon became unmanageable.
Daily numbers of cases jumped from 30 to 50, to 100 to 300 nationwide. By the sixth day, the total confirmed infections in South Korea had exceeded 1,000, and transmission spread outward from the metropolitan area, making it difficult for South Korea’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention contain the outbreak.
The Sarang Jeil Church has 4,000 members and is headed by pastor Jun Kwang-hoon, an ultra-rightist activist, and known supporter of impeached president Park Geun-hye. In the years since she was removed from office, Jun has displayed impressive feats of civil belligerence, in protest of the Moon Jae-in administration.
It was no surprise, then, that in the face of COVID-19, Jun behaved just as irresponsibly.
Sarang Jeil Church is the archetypal fundamentalist Christian sect in South Korea whose deep mistrust of a liberal government plays out even in a time of grave crisis.
The conservative stance of many Christian churches alongside other right-wing groups in the country has a strong anti-communist flavor, whose provenance goes decades back.
Before the division of the Korean Peninsula, most of the Christian churches were located in the North. As the former Soviet Union fostered a communist regime in the North, the Christian churches suffered severe persecution, forcing many clergy and believers to move to the South. This led to many of today’s South Korean churches being distinctly anti-communist and rightist in their political beliefs. “(C)ommunists are very broadly defined to include any liberal political groups,” said an article by NPR.
Amid today’s pandemic, the consequences of such beliefs couldn’t be more dire.
Misplaced faith
On the 15th of August last year, South Korea’s Liberation Day, Jun attended a rally at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, amid speculation about positive cases in the Sarang Jeil congregation.
Holding a microphone and a mask, he gestured and asserted, “During the whole time, our church has always abided by the guideline of epidemic prevention in all our services and rallies. No church member has been infected with coronavirus in our mass gathering for the time being.”
Jun insisted that he did not have any symptoms and in fact was in great condition. He had earlier refused to be tested and called for a boycott of mandatory testing.
On August 17, Jun tested positive for COVID-19. But even then, he remained antagonistic, arguing that the virus was brought in from North Korea by “someone with an ulterior motive.”
Security camera footage of a COVID-19 patient who escaped from the hospital. The patient was a regular Sarang Jeil churchgoer, and it took over a day before authorities were able to apprehend him, during which he had visited several public places. (Photo by JTBC)
Other members of the Sarang Jeil Church take after their leader. Shortly after the Seoul cluster broke out, news headlines featured the story of a male COVID-19 patient, a regular churchgoer, who had escaped from a hospital, leaving local government officials and disease prevention and control workers scrambling to track his whereabouts.
In Pocheon City, Gyeonggi Province, a couple running a restaurant were notified that they needed to be tested for COVID-19 because they had attended the National Liberation Day rally in Gwanghwamun. They never showed up.
When health authorities dropped them a visit, the wife turned aggressive. She took off her mask, grabbed the quarantine officer’s arm, spat in the air, and said, “I don’t have any symptoms. Why do I need to be tested? You’re the ones who need to be tested! I’ll drive you there. I have touched you, so you’ll also have to be tested for the coronavirus.” The couple tested positive on August 18.
In front of the Sarang Jeil Church in Jangwi-dong neighborhood. Because it had previously been designated for urban renewal, the area bears no-entry signs and is cordoned off to the public. The Church, however, has been resistant, organizing mass protests, flouting distancing measures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Yang Chien-Hao)
Belligerent believers
According to 2018 government statistics, there were more Christian institutions and facilities than there were convenience stores in South Korea. The country has seen Christianity evolve into something like a tertiary industry, in a state of intense competition for potential followers.
Hence, when the central and local governments repeatedly asked churches to cancel on-site face-to-face services, warning of strict punishment for violation of prevention rules, they were met with strong backlash from some churches who felt that their freedom of faith was being violated.
The Sarang Jeil Church took their disapproval to the extreme.
“The church just never listens!” laments Kim Guk-soo, 64, who has lived in Jangwi-dong for over three decades. “There used to be 12 buses of followers at a time that would come in and fill up the streets.” Jangwi-dong is the neighborhood where the church is located.
Recently, the government designated Jangwi-dong as an urban renewal area, up for redevelopment. The other residents had already relocated to make way for construction. The Sarang Jeil Church demanded an amount five times greater than the initially offered compensation. The Seoul Metropolitan government declined, and the church filed a lawsuit to press its case.
Since their court defeat in May 2020, churchgoers have been swarming Jangwi-dong, holding public demonstrations decrying the “violation of property rights of the church” – all in breach of health protocols.
After the Sarang Jeil cluster, South Korea has never completely contained the pandemic. The country was able to bend its curve in mid-September to early November 2020, but that victory was short-lived. By December, daily cases climbed high, breaking through the 1,000 ceiling.
Today, the country’s case count has blown far past the 90,000 mark and averages around 400 new infections per day. According to authorities, at least 33,000 of these cases could be traced to clusters, and nearly a third could be attributed to religious facilities, such as Christian congregations.
Although South Korea has managed to contain one spike of infection after another, the uncooperative attitude of defiant churches could cause the outbreak to spiral out of control at any time. ●
Yang Chien-Hao is a Taiwanese journalist and columnist based in Seoul. Since 2012 he has been covering issues confronting the Korean Peninsula, including defections from North Korea.
