Koreans, does it not seem strange that so many Koreans are Christians in South Korea?

Pay no attention to Lombard, he's a loon.

What I have noticed is that Christians here in Korea rely a lot on scaring converts by talking to them about suicides and how Jebus will save them from suicide. Suicide is a pretty common in Korea, as those things are measured, and it's touched a large portion of the population. And there is almost no real system for mental health and even if you can find a doctor, most people don't go if they're depressed or dealing with stress because they worry about their employers finding out. In Korea, companies have access to your medical records and if they see you've been treated for depression, they might just decide to fire you.

So, these things create a great environment for Christ-Bots to swoop in and tell them how Jebus saves you from all that stress and suicide and depression and, with no other viable alternatives, they are suckered in to the church. All the while, accomplishing nothing.

Every time one of my students tells me he or she went to church, I want to tell them to run, run as fast as they can from that evil place. But I can't.

how is this weird?

First off, South Korea is... last time I checked the data almost exactly 50% atheist/agnostic/non-religious... it's the other 50% that are religious comprising almost entirely of Protestants at around 25%, Catholics at 8%, and the remaining 20% or so being Buddhist... so while Korea is indeed very Christian, it's debatably just as much an atheist nation. It's just that atheists in Korea are apathetic whereas Christians march the street, so it's just far more noticeable.

Also, how is remotely relevant what's going on in China and Japan? China's largely atheistic because they're a communist Country, one of whose tenets is the absence of a god. I'm guessing you don't read the news much? Several Christian churches in China are being cracked down as we speak... seriously, it was fairly big news just a month ago.

The big distinction lies with Japan and Korea. Japan was never all that influenced by Western civilization even when their borders were forcibly opened by Commodore Perry, クリスチャン　(Christians) were allowed in Japan at the whim of the Shogunate, and sometimes even massacred depending on who happened to be in power.

When the US army fought in the Korean War, many of them obviously brought their Christian faith with them. As missionaries oftentimes do, they offered food, education, and medicine to those who would accept the Christian faith... which is why many criticize Mother Teresa and the nuns in South America who actively withhold food even from those who are starving if they do not accept the faith. However, in Korea, a country poorer than Somalia at the time, many accepted this new faith with open arms. Japan was already the 9th richest country in the world at the time of WWII. They didn't "need" Christianity and its technology, education, food, etc...

North Korea's technically not atheist either. North Korea is not a communist nation by any definition of communism, they're a Stalinist style personality cult where the leader is a god. Haven't you heard from N. Koreans? When Kim Jong Il was born in Mt. Baekdu, winter immediately became spring!!! Seriously... I'm not making this up. It is also odd since CIA intelligence shows him being born in Russia. WOW... the Great Leader had the power to be in 2 places at once since birth. Awesome.

N. Korea would not want faith anymore because of the fact there is already something that retains their inhabitants brainwashed (the government). that infrequently counts as atheism as their dictator has been depicted as god to their human beings. besides, you're in trouble-free terms comparing 2 particular international locations so enable's generalize this somewhat: why are atheistic international locations many times extra wealthy and non violent than deeply non secular ones?

no. American missionaries came to Korea more than 100 years ago. There are just as many Buddhists. :-)

You know the fact that corea is the first country ever that found christianity by themselves before a missionery came to us spread the to gospel???....?? It's the miracle!! this is God's miraculous work to make corea christian nation because china refused to become a christian country so there was no way for gospel to spread to corean people, but god's wonderful work was to spread christianity without missionary to corea....Gospel could not reach to corea because china didn't become christians but miraculously, coreans went directly to china to find christianity by themselves...It's all God's misterious work. I think God also want to make corea as a start point of christianity to east asia region. I think God bless us coreans....it would be pity if we ever heard of gospel because of the geographical limitation, but miracuously and amazingly God allow us to find christianity without missionaries....thanks be to God...