SYMPOSIUM: SEX AND CONTROVERSY Evangelical Christian Discourse in South Korea on the LGBT: the Politics of Cross-Border Learning Joseph Yi 1 & Gowoon Jung 2 & Joe Phillips 3 Published online: 3 January 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Abstract The US political debate over LGBT rights and re- ligious liberty is shaping a similar contest in South Korea (Korea). Stories of American Christians criminally fined for refusing to service same-sex weddings, or university students and faculty punished for expressing their conservative beliefs, are widely shared in Korea’ s evangelical media. The victim narrative, prominent among American evangelicals, teaches their Korean brethren that the expansion of LGBT legal rights and social acceptance endangers religious liberties. The conclusion is that that they must politically mobilize to oppose LGBT demands in Korea, even though the local movement is nascent and weak. There is, however, a second, more complex narrative emerging from the United States. This is one of Christian empathy, includ- ing stories of gay Christians wrestling with their twin identities, and of heterosexual Christians providing love and support, rather than condemnation. The empathy narrative has limited visibility in current political de- bates, but it encourages personal dialogues between gays and non-gay Christians and is a consequential step to understanding and tolerance. Drawing on learning and emu- lation theories, and conducting an empirical study of evangel- ical media and gay/heterosexual evangelicals in Korea, we consider the effects of these two American narratives in Korea. Keywords Christian . Evangelical . LGBT . Gay . South Korea . Cross-border learning Korean Evangelicals’ Dueling LGBT Narratives A week before the April 13, 2016 election for the South Korean National Assembly, every citizen received a mailer discussing each political party’ s platform. The Christian Liberal Party [ 기독자유당] (CLP) highlighted the oppression of Christians in western countries: BIn Sweden, a pastor was imprisoned for read- ing Bible verses about homosexuality….In the United States, someone was imprisoned for 180 days and paid a $1,000 fine every day for refusing to officiate same-sex marriages. ^ 1 The strategy resonated with a significant number of Korean voters, with the Christian Liberal Party winning 626,853 votes (2.63% of total votes). Because it split votes with another evan- gelical party (Christian Democratic Party, 0.54% of the vote), the CLP missed the minimum 3% needed to win an Assembly seat. 2 Despite their relatively small size, the Christian parties 1 For evangelical media reporting of these examples, see Lifesite, BSwedish Pastor Sentenced to Month in Prison for Preaching against Homosexuality,^ 5 July 2014; and Christianity Daily , BChristian Wedding Chapel Owners file Lawsuit to Defend Religious Freedom,^ 21 Oct 21, 2014 (Korean translation, 23 October 2014). 2 Yong-Pil Lee. 기독교 정당 국회 입성 실패![BChristian Party fails to enter into the National Assembly!^] Newsnjoy, 14 April 2016 [Korean]. Accessed 20 May 2016. http://www.newsnjoy.or.kr/news/articleView. html?idxno=202943202943. * Joe Phillips joephillips5@gmail.com Joseph Yi joyichicago@yahoo.com Gowoon Jung gjung@albany.edu 1 Department of Political Science, Hanyang University, Seoul 04763, South Korea 2 Department of Sociology, SUNY Albany, Albany, NY 12222, USA 3 Department of Global Studies, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, South Korea Soc (2017) 54:29–33 DOI 10.1007/s12115-016-0096-3