K-Spirits: How the US and Korea Create Evangelical Power

From Instagram reels to megachurch pulpits and the halls of Congress, Build Up Korea’s message is taking root in Southern California. Host Dr. Helen Jin Kim and historian Jane Hong trace this movement back through the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, Korean American churches, Cold War anti-communism, and Orange County’s powerful Republican networks. Along the way, they reveal the pastors, politicians, and translators moving Christian conservative politics between the United States and South Korea. What looks like a new social-media movement is actually the latest chapter in a decades-long story of immigration, faith, race, and political power. Guest: Dr. Jane Hong is the author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) and a professor of history at Occidental College. Her next book, An Ambivalent Presence: Asian American Evangelicals and the Problem of Race, will be released by Oxford University Press in Fall 2027. Host: Dr. Helen Jin Kim is Associate Professor of American Religious History at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Kim completed her MDiv and PhD at Harvard as a William R. Hutchison Presidential Fellow. She began her research at Stanford where she completed her BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and English. Kim is the author of Race for Revival: How Cold War South Korea Shaped the American Evangelical Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022), which won the 2024 Outstanding Achievement in History award from the Association of Asian American Studies. Her next book is tentatively titled ‘Woman Spirit’: Religion and Hidden Labor from the Korean War to the Age of K-Pop. Brought to you by Axis Mundi Media, K-Spirits is a limited series from the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement (IRMCE) in partnership with the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI). It is part of the Under Gods project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Host: Dr. Helen Jin Kim Executive Producer: Dr. Leah Payne Producer: Andrew Gill Story Editor: Dr. Bradley Onishi Original Score: David Bazan Production Assistance: Kari Onishi Cover Art: Eric Zwierzynski See also: Jane Hong, “What the Election of Asian American GOP Women Means for the Party,” Washington Post, March 8, 2021: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/08/what-election-asian-american-gop-women-means-party/ Jane Hong, Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion, University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Janelle Wong, Immigrants, Evangelicals and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change, Russell Sage Foundation, 2018. David Yoo, Contentious Spirits: Religion in Korean American History, 1903-1945, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010. Marilyn Strickland’s instagram (@repstricklandwa) “The Backstory: Representative Marilyn Strickland,” April 13, 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioqVNg0MARg Derek Tran’s instagram (@derektranca) “Meet OC’s Newest Congressmen,” OC Forum, March 5, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-z03HCBWQ Young Kim’s instagram (@repyoungkim) Former congressman Kaiali’i Kahele interviews Young Kim, January 20, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnuY8KkQ-zo Mina Kim’s Youtube channel, “엠킴MKimTV [34%]”: https://www.youtube.com/@mkimtv Pastor Sam Kim interviews Mina Kim, “Why America Needs a Prayer Awakening”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iZJFhq83Z0 Harvest International Ministry: https://www.harvestim.org/ Che Ahn’s instagram (@cheahn) Jaeseung Lim’s instagram (@paul_jae_lim719) Michelle Steel, US ambassador to Korea: https://kr.usembassy.gov/070726-u-s-ambassador-to-the-rok-michelle-steel/ Other Korean Americans serving in US Senate and House of Representatives: Andy Kim’s instagram (@andykimnj) Dave Min’s instagram (@davemin_ca) Dan Koh’s instagram (@danarriggkoh)

Days before his assassination, Charlie Kirk took the stage in South Korea—and found an audience ready to carry his movement across the Pacific. In the series premiere, host Dr. Helen Jin Kim follows the rise of Mina Kim, the evangelical influencer behind Build Up Korea. Through viral videos, stadium-sized gatherings, and a potent mix of Christianity, nationalism, and digital media, Mina is helping connect America’s MAGA movement with South Korea’s emerging Christian right. What does her ascent reveal about the global future of evangelical power—and the young activists determined to build it? Guests: Dr. Chanhee Heo is a postdoctoral research associate at the John C. Danforth Center at Washington University in St. Louis. Her first monograph in progress, Thy Kin-dom Come: Imagining the First Christian Nation in the East, examines Korean migrants’ evolving ideas of race and religion as they traversed the Pacific from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Instagram: @heochanhee Bluesky: @chanheeheo.bsky.social Dr. Myung-Sahm Suh, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea. He earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Sociology of Religion from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. His current research explores the geopolitical theology of new religious movements, Cold War religion in East Asia, and the trans-Pacific networks of the Christian right, building on earlier work comparing religion and state-building in Taiwan and South Korea and examining the prosperity gospel and neo-evangelicalism in Korea. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myungsahm.suh Host: Dr. Helen Jin Kim is Associate Professor of American Religious History at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Kim completed her MDiv and PhD at Harvard as a William R. Hutchison Presidential Fellow. She began her research at Stanford where she completed her BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and English. Kim is the author of Race for Revival: How Cold War South Korea Shaped the American Evangelical Empire (Oxford University Press, 2022), which won the 2024 Outstanding Achievement in History award from the Association of Asian American Studies. Her next book is tentatively titled ‘Woman Spirit’: Religion and Hidden Labor from the Korean War to the Age of K-Pop. Brought to you by Axis Mundi Media, K-Spirits is a limited series from the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement (IRMCE) in partnership with the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI). It is part of the Under Gods project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Host: Dr. Helen Jin Kim Executive Producer: Dr. Leah Payne Producer: Andrew Gill Story Editor: Dr. Bradley Onishi Original Score: David Bazan Production Assistance: Kari Onishi Cover Art: Eric Zwierzynski See also: For a deeper dive into Digital Media, Religion and Far-Right Activism, please consult this video interview conducted between Dr. Helen Jin Kim and Josh Howard, a PhD student at Emory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uvnrwYtX68 “Charlie Kirk Memorial in Seoul Shows Power of Christian Nationalism for Young Korean Activists,” Chanhee Heo. Heo, Chanhee. “Charlie Kirk Memorial in Seoul Shows Power of Christian Nationalism for Young Korean Activists,” Religion Dispatches, September 30, 2025, https://religiondispatches.org/2025/09/30/charlie-kirk-memorial-seoul. "Vacillating Between the Cold War and the Culture War: The Contemporary Predicament of the Korean Evangelical Right,” Myung-Sahm Suh. Myung-Sahm Suh, "Vacillating Between the Cold War and the Culture War: The Contemporary Predicament of the Korean Evangelical Right," Korea Journal, vol. 61, no. 4 (Winter 2021): 102-134. “The Religious Side Story of the December 3rd Insurrection Attempt,” Myung-Sahm Suh. Myung-Sahm Suh. (In Korean) "The Religious Side Story of the December 3rd Insurrection Attempt: The Korean Protestant Far-Right and the Emergence of Trans-Pacific Charismatic Networks" Asian Journal of Religion and Society 13, no.2 (2025): 25-68. doi: 10.22890/ajrs.13.2.202507.25 An earlier version of this article was presented in Korean at a public forum organized by the Korea Institute of Christian Social Ethics on February 27, 2025, and the video is available at the following address => https://www.youtube.com/live/qYYW73rJE3s?si=ClbWPKgrYXuyNPBh) “Christian Apocalypse in Pandemic-Stricken South Korea,” Myung-Sahm Suh. Myung-Sahm Suh, "Christian Apocalypse in Pandemic-Stricken South Korea," Sightings, Martin Marty Center, University of Chicago, December 9, 2021, https://martycenter.org/sightings/christian-apocalypse-in-pandemic-stricken-south-korea. Mina Kim’s Instagram (@mina.kimmm) Build Up Korea’s Instagram (@buildupkorea.official) Mina Kim, “Freedom Uncensored” speech. Full Citation: Kim, Mina. “Mina Kim | Freedom Uncensored 2025 FULL SPEECH.” Standing for Freedom Center. October 30, 2025. YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw7oKQPZl44&t=641s. Charlie Kirk’s Last Speech in Korea Full Citation: Kirk, Charlie, and Mina Kim, “Charlie Kirk Last Speech in Korea | 찰리 커크의 마지막 외침| 빌드업코리아에서 남긴 운명의 연설 | Build Up Korea 2025,” MKim TV [34%]. September 11, 2025. YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKdhFqHO1ig.

K-Spirits: How the US and Korea Create Evangelical Power uncovers the transpacific forces that transformed modern Christianity and continue to shape politics on both sides of the Pacific. Historian Dr. Helen Jin Kim follows influencers, evangelists, translators, pastors, politicians, labor organizers, and overlooked women whose stories connect South Korea and the United States. From Billy Graham’s largest crusade and South Korea’s record-breaking “spiritual explosions,” to the hidden labor behind the world’s largest Pentecostal church, the series reveals how revival, war, migration, anti-communism, authoritarianism, race, gender, and digital media created powerful evangelical networks. But Korean Christianity has never spoken with one voice. Alongside those seeking political influence are Christians building alternative traditions of justice, resistance, belonging, and liberation. Who created evangelical power - and who challenged it? K-Spirits is a limited series from the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement (IRMCE) in partnership with the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI). It is part of the Under Gods project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. Host: Dr. Helen Jin Kim Executive Producer: Dr. Leah Payne Producer: Andrew Gill Story Editor: Dr. Bradley Onishi Original Score: David Bazan Production Assistance: Kari Onishi Cover Art: Eric Zwierzynski