Formation and Transformation of the Korean Protestant Habitus : The Rise of Far-Right Protestantism and the Reconfiguration of Habitus

This study integrates Pierre Bourdieu’s field-habitus framework with Walter Brueggemann’s “prophetic imagination-royal consciousness” dichotomy to trace the historical formation of the Korean Protestant habitus and to explain the recent emergence of a far-right Protestant movement. It first demonstrates how, under the Korean War and Cold-War milieu, Korean Protestantism constructed a distinctive habitus centered on anti-communist faith, prosperity gospel, and charismatic experience. Next, it follows the post-1987 democratic transition, showing how the simultaneous out-migration of progressive reformers, shifts in market and media environments, and an increasingly middle-upper-class membership re-configured this habitus toward conservative extremism. In particular, the study uncovers mechanisms through which a pastor-centered obedience structure, amplified by digital media, accelerates the sacralization of political convictions and internalizes far-right discourse within congregations. The analysis concludes that the far-right Protestant bloc, by forging a mutually dependent alliance with conservative political parties, secures mobilization power during elections while expanding hate-based rhetoric, thereby eroding the overall social trust in Korean Protestantism. Finally, the study identifies three core tasks for re-shaping the Korean Protestant habitus: recovering the prophetic tradition, recalibrating internal authority relations, and reassessing the subordinate relationship with U.S. right-wing evangelicalism.