1 Public Scapegoat: The Socio-Political Ecology of the Korean Church during the COVID-19 Pandemic 1 David W. Kim Australian National University and Kookmin University, Seoul Abstract In the last two decades, the world has experienced a number of critical pandemic outbreaks including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, Avian Influenza, and ASF. Most recently, the high-speed global spread of COVID-19 resulted in the need to minimise socio-religious activities by suspending both private and public meetings. Within this context, the pandemic affected Korean Christianity (total 13.59 million (27.6% of Korean population in 2015): 9.7 million-Protestants (19.7%) and 3.89 million-Catholics (7.9%). What is then the identity of Shincheonji? How were they involved in spreading the coronavirus? Why are the local people criticising the Korean church as a whole? Why has the government (i.e., health authority) accused Christian leaders and imposed fines? What is Korean Protestants’ reaction in the post-COVID-19 era? This paper explores the interdenominational voices of local churches as well as social media from February, 2020 to August, 2020: Local Finance, Korea Economics, JoongAng Ilb, The Kukmin Llbo, The Segye Times, PCK Newspaper, and Mission Life. The paper argues that the Korean Protestant Church is facing a precarious moment whereby public, governmental, and political pressure (=‘legal persecution’) could reduce its size significantly (to become smaller than Buddhism (15.5%)). However, the church has creatively implemented the countermeasure of ‘re-church-planting (다교회세움),’ in order to revitalise its reputation and increase its growth. Key words: COVID-19, Korean Church, Shincheongi, Man Hee Lee, Wuhan China Introduction The coronavirus pandemic is not the first case where a critical disease has impacted the quality of human life and the global economy. The most fatal pandemic was the medieval Black Death (or Black Plague) (1343-1353), which most likely originated in Central Asia or East Asia (China) and killed 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe (Aberth 2010; Bramanti et al., eds. 2016, 1-26; Moon 2020, 155-170). During the time of John 1 Since this is initial research on COVID-19 and the Korean church, some sources are based on official reports published by the health authority (KCDC: Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention) and the government, as well as social media, international newspapers, and hot issue magazines. The Korean church in this paper mostly refers to the Korean Protestant Church (10,438,260 people in 2017), which is further divided by diffident denominations and sects.