A Religious Liberty Crisis in Korea. 1. “Vicious Raids on Churches”

Churches raided, internationally famous religious leaders mistreated, and religion-based political mobilizations prohibited. What exactly is happening in South Korea?

By Massimo Introvigne

August 26, 2025

Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon.

On August 25, 2025, the day of the White House visit of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Donald Trump decried the “vicious raids on churches” in Lee’s country. What happened, exactly?

Many have heard through media reports, which are not always correct, of a criminal investigation pending in South Korea involving a former executive of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly known as the Unification Church and still often referred to by that name).

He is accused of financial irregularities and donating luxury goods, including jewelry and designer handbags, to the former First Lady of Korea to secure her husband’s patronage, the now disgraced former President of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol.

While the Family Federation denies it was involved as an organization in what might have been personal initiatives of a rogue executive, a Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate has hit with military-style raids both the church’s main premises—and most sacred grounds—in Korea and the house of its leader, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. She has been named a suspect in the case and placed under a travel ban.

What we are witnessing in Korea is a politically motivated crackdown on conservative religion, raiding churches, such as the July 18th raid on the very famous Yoido Full Gospel Church, one of the world’s largest and most well-known Pentecostal congregations, as well as earlier raids on other conservative religious organizations.

Some Korean politicians have been influenced by both Japan and China, which, in different ways, actively promote the belief that religions advocating for conservative values—including the Family Federation, but not limited to it—are toxic and dangerous. We see Asia’s second religious liberty crisis unfolding, paralleling Japan’s.

Rumors that other conservative churches and religious movements may soon be targeted continue to circulate. Activists who seem to have the ear of the new Korean administration propose to introduce new statutes based on laws existing in France and Japan (and widely criticized by international religious liberty activists and legal scholars), allowing for the swift dissolution of movements labeled as “cults.”

All this happened in a special political situation, where President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office and arrested for power abuse, leading his party to lose the presidential elections to the leftist Democratic Party.

As the case of the Yoido Church demonstrates, the movement to punish religious groups that did support or were suspected of supporting Yoon now targets all brands of religion perceived as conservative, pro-American, and defending traditional family values. 

A Sunday service at Yoido’s Full Gospel Church. From Facebook.

The Unification Church and another influential Korean Christian new religious movement, Shincheonji, are both under suspicion because thousands of their members reportedly registered to vote for Yoon in the 2021 presidential primaries of the conservative People Power Party (PPP). Interestingly, the PPP objected that in 2022 Shincheonji members had been accused of participating en masse in the primaries of the rival Democratic Party, suggesting that new religious movements are active in politics but do not necessarily support only one party.

While this political activism might be legal in other democracies, it appears to be forbidden in Korea. Interestingly, this Korean legal action coincided with a shift in U.S. policy, where the Internal Revenue Service reversed its stance and acknowledged that churches can guide their members to vote as a bloc and endorse specific candidates without losing tax-exempt status, in an attempt to settle a lawsuit pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

I was born in Italy in the 1950s. Then and in subsequent decades, members of the ruling Christian Democrat party were routinely recruited in Catholic parishes by the thousands, giving the Catholic Church evident influence over candidate and policy selection. One can also ask whether Korea considers mobilizing believers for any candidate or party illegal for a church, or only when the party loses the elections.

A left-leaning Korean intellectual has written explicitly that Korea should renounce its friendly attitude to religion, which he acknowledges is common to most democratic countries, and adopt the anti-religious French policy of “laïcité.” He wrote, “The Yoon administration’s conduct has indicated the need to invert this type of state-religion relationship, adopted by most developed democracies, to something akin to France’s practice of laïcité. Laïcité strives to ensure not only the separation of state and religion but also the protection of state and republican values from religious influences—rather than the protection of religion by the state.”

Disgraced former Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. Credits.

What is happening in Korea raises serious religious liberty concerns. Both the Yoido Church and the Family Federation have complained that the raids have been unnecessarily harsh and spectacular, as if they were primarily conducted for the benefit of the media, showing little respect for their sacred places and internationally well-known religious leaders. They are both asking for apologies from the prosecutors for their total disregard for the sanctity of church sanctuaries.

Dr. Han leads a global spiritual movement and a larger coalition promoting peace education worldwide. She is frequently referred to as the “Mother of Peace.” Preventing her from traveling based on vague charges severely damages her movement’s international activities and disrupts its normal operations.

Korea replicates a familiar pattern seen in other countries. First, measures limiting religious liberty are enforced against unpopular groups stigmatized as “cults,” gathering easy support from the media. Once established, legal provisions allowing the states to interfere in the internal organization of religious bodies, scrutinize their finances, and limit their right to collect donations and campaign on social issues with political ramifications are enforced against all religions, particularly those that the politicians in power do not like for whatever reason. Religions that dissent are threatened with dissolution or liquidation. 

Korean anti-cultism took advantage of former President Yoon’s disgrace, but existed long before it. In subsequent articles, I will discuss three aspects of the anti-cult movement in Korea: the peculiar roots of Korean anti-cultism, the issue of deprogramming, and the Communist and Chinese influence.

Source: bitterwinter.org