Two days ago, the news broke that David Yonggi Cho, senior pastor of the world’s largest congregation in South Korea, had been convicted of tax evasion, given a suspended prison sentence and fined the equivalent of almost $5 million. You can read one official report here.
While the precise details are a little sketchy, it seems Yonggi Cho was involved some years ago in a stock-related transaction between his church and one of his three sons whereby the church paid $12 million for stocks at an artificially inflated price and then claimed tax relief to which it was not entitled. The son in question has reportedly been sentenced to three years in prison.
The news has been met by consternation among evangelical Christians. When I became a Christian in the mid-1980s, Yonggi Cho (who at that time went under the name Paul rather than David) was a household name among evangelicals, guaranteed to crop up in any conversation about prayer, church growth or cell church. It’s probably fair to say that’s he’s been considered something of a legend ever since. At least until this week.
In the interests of fair and balanced comment, I must also direct you to this second article, released one day after the first report, in which a close associate of Yonggi Cho attempts to “set the record straight” and remove some of the stain that was quickly accumulating around Yonggi Cho. To what extent the article is a genuine defence of Yonggi Cho’s mistakes, as opposed to an exercise in denial and damage limitation, is impossible to say.
Since the story broke, I’ve had a number of conversations about it on social media. There’s nothing like a good scandal to set tongues a-wagging, and reactions have ranged from scandalised condemnation to an unwillingness to believe that Yonggi Cho could have been involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever.
But here’s what’s fascinating to me. In broad terms, many of the responses I’ve seen fall into one of three camps which, taken together, say something interesting about our propensity to rush to some kind of judgement in situations like this:
1. Guilty! While most of the responses I’ve witnessed have been strongly tinged with sadness that someone of Yonggi Cho’s pedigree could fall so low, some have been quick to assume maximum guilt and speak of the need for repentance, repaying a debt to society, etc. In some cases, there has been a strong undercurrent of “He’s got what he deserved”.
This, of course, is the classic rush to judgement: by pointing out and decrying guilt in other people, we enable ourselves to feel justified, not to say smug. One might even say that wrongdoers who get their just desserts often serve as scapegoats for the rest of us; by telling ourselves that they are in the stained, sinful “them” category, we can reassure ourselves that we are part of the safe, saintly “us”.
2. Not guilty! Others, on reading the second of the two reports linked above, have responded along the lines of “Aha! I knew he couldn’t have been guilty! He was obviously an innocent dupe who was tricked into wrongdoing by an unscrupulous son and incompetent associates”.
Now, I’m all for seeing the best in people, but I find this response somewhat lacking. First of all, what we’re talking about here is financial crime on a grand scale, not a small misdemeanour. Someone in Yonggi Cho’s position cannot afford to be lax and inattentive when dealing with money. This is especially true when family and church interests intersect. Perhaps there was a lack of accountability within the church’s management structure; perhaps Yonggi Cho had been put on a pedestal for so long that he had begun to think he was above temptation. Who knows? But in any case, neither of those scenarios exonerates him from responsibility. As senior pastor, the buck stops with him.
What’s interesting to me is that, just as those in the first of our three camps are eager to attach blame to supposed wrongdoers in an effort to emphasise their own goodness, those in this second camp are quick to let those same supposed wrongdoers off the hook for a similar reason: it enables them to maintain their neat, tidy worldview. The good guys always win, and Yonggi Cho is unquestionably one of the good guys, so it’s obvious he’s not guilty. For this group, Yonggi Cho is firmly with them in the good guy camp, and they’re determined to keep him there.
3. Find a reason! Those in this camp don’t really mind whether Yonggi Cho is guilty or innocent. What’s important to them is to be able to explain what happened and, more importantly, why it happened. It must have been his son! It must have been his church officials! It must have been a lack of accountability! He must have got greedy! Satan must have got to him! The charges must have been trumped up!
Once again, the situation is interpreted in such a way as to highlight and reinforce the individual’s existing worldview. I find that many Christians of a more fundamentalist bent tend to fall into this camp: since there is little room for grey areas or nuance in their worldview, they are typically quick to identify which rules have been broken by whom so that, having done so, they can proceed on their fundamentalist way with their orderly, black-and-white worldview undisturbed.
My main aim in this post has been to illustrate how easy it is to rush to judgement. This tendency is not limited to those who quickly cry “Guilty!”; those who jump to defend someone they see as one of their own and those who impose a fixed interpretation on events are, in some ways, doing just the same thing in a slightly different way.
My own take on the events surrounding Yonggi Cho? Firstly, it seems clear to me that he’s guilty of something – you aren’t fined several million dollars and given a prison sentence (albeit suspended) unless the facts are pretty compelling. Secondly, I’m sad that even a Christian leader with a career as illustrious as his can fall prey to such base temptations. But thirdly, and most of all, I’m reminded that Yonggi Cho, for all his godly achievements, is just another fallen human being making his way through a fallen world. As such, he is subject to the same temptations as you and me; while their scale and implications might be different, the underlying temptations are just the same.
I know myself well enough to recognise that I’m capable of much more evil things than I care to admit. Had I been in Yonggi Cho’s position all these years, who knows to what end I might have come, and possibly much sooner than he has. That being the case, the main thought triggered in my mind by this whole controversy is “There but for the grace of God go I”.
Finally, I hope that through this sorry affair, Yonggi Cho and his family might experience the radical grace of God in an even more real and profound way. On a practical level, I hope he’s removed from his leadership position and not allowed to continue in it. That may sound uncharitable, but it’s not meant to be. I firmly believe in restoration, but restoration primarily concerns the person, not their position or role. I can’t see how it would be good either for Yonggi Cho himself or for his church if he were allowed to continue with his responsibilities.
[ Image: SalFalko ]
