Comments on: Can We Talk About the Korean Pastor in Squid Game?

By: Sia

Sia — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 11:58:59 +0000

Hmm. Believing in the non existence of God talk less of accepting the gift of salvation he brought to mankind through his son, Jesus christ is the biggest ridicule in the existence of mankind.

The pastor being portrayed in this squid game is not saved and he doesn’t know the God he claims to pray to. His poor standard of living is not an excuse to be that desperate at the expense of doing everything that is against the christian beliefs
Not everyone that goes to church is saved. Saved in the sense, he believes in the person of christ, believe that he died, was buried and he rose on the third day. For Christianity is not a matter of religion but a personal relationship one has with Jesus christ. Jesus christ is the only way to have access to God and our only ticket to been saved. Through him we have eternal life. He said in John 17:3 that eternal life is getting to know God.
My dear friends your faith or believes should not be determined by how another lives his or her life but on Jesus christ. My believes should not be based on how my pastor treats his family cuz the question is that is that pastor really saved cuz a man that knows and fears God will live the way God wants them to live. God is love and since he is love he wants us to love him and to love everyone and treat them just as how we would want to be treated and loved

By: Curt Corginia

Curt Corginia — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 23:14:42 +0000

The best interpretation I read was that *spoilers* the daughter of a pastor carries out an act of sacrifice. She, the one most cynical of Christianity, ends up being more “Christ-like” than the Christians she mocks (a YouTube commenter named Steve Yun)

I don’t think this series was necessarily critical of Christianity, but of a particular subset of Christians who are hypocritical. The Korean pastor was not actually faithful, and the woman who sacrificed herself was more heroic.

By: B.A.

B.A. — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 21:53:13 +0000

Nothing incorrect about the portrayal at all, christians are capable of being selfish and acting violently just like any other person. If you notice, the theme was almost every single player started to become more self-centered and violent, doing whatever it took to “win”. The priest merely thought his guidance by his deity would grant him safety, and he abused that system to a fault and to the disadvantage/ignorance of others.

If a player had an abusive father who was religious, guess what? That happens all too often too! I get that the author here doesn’t like his religion looking less than perfect but the reality is that the christian faith was never perfect to begin with and those that think “christians would never do that” are sorely in denial.

By: Yuki

Yuki — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 20:22:05 +0000

I believe in God. But with due respect to religious, I’ve always found Christianity off-putting (also Islam for similar reasons) because of this rather toxic need to make other people (Buddhists or Shintoists like myself) believe in the same book they do and share all their beliefs. I personally think the portrayal of Christians in Squid Game basically represents the impression the ‘bad apples’ make on non-religious people. I bet the majority of Christians are decent people who perform acts of goodness every day, but they’re not the ones going out there making an impression on strangers. Apparently, Christians as a whole get positive representation in K-dramas, so this is actually a refreshing change (and again, as a Buddhist, a pretty accurate representation of all the people pushing their beliefs on me on street corners and filling up my mailbox with weird pamphlets).
I’m pretty stunned by the beliefs of Asians generally who seem to have absorbed a lot of the negative aspects of Western religion (prejudices, social norms) without a ton of the good (charity, standing up for those who constantly face discrimination).

Being a good person, standing up for the weak and poor and marginalized is the best representation of Christianity there could be. There are countless examples of people who really do live like this, but their good work is somewhat harmed by the types of zealots like player 244.

The preacher in Squid Game reminds me of the most fervent K-Pop fans, who are speaking a language of their own and making references that the non-K-Poppers are completely oblivious to and somewhat offended at the implication that we ought to all know and share the same beliefs they do.

By: Adebukola

Adebukola — Sun, 17 Oct 2021 19:52:14 +0000

I’m an atheist and after reading your article I couldn’t help but to just laugh I love how Christianity is being ridiculed in the squid game movie. If you have any other movie such as that, please recommend . Thanks (I hope to see more of movies like that)

By: Ada

Ada — Sun, 17 Oct 2021 16:02:10 +0000

That *is* really frustrating & sad, thanks for sharing, Mike! Sharing can help you let go of those feelings, & writing can help you understand them.
I haven’t watched SquidGame, but the negative depictions of pastors & religion, esp. Christians, sadly isn’t surprising.
And that’s important, because what you watch & read, what you consume, does matter. It informs what you know of people & culture different from you. And if those depictions are all negative . . .
Much has been made of racial discrimination, which is good, but religious discrimination appears to be overlooked. Let’s hope this changes & work for it to be so. For surely we can achieve a balance & accept & respect everyone as much as we can. And religion & what you believe is vitally important.

By: A Lee

A Lee — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 05:17:47 +0000

Lee Man Hee is a cult leader and not really Christian. Shincheonji teaches false interpretations from the Bible and there are also testimonies that he even claim to be Jesus although they deny this publicly. That church is well known among Korean Christians as they use lies and deception to infiltrate churches and Christian organizations overthrow leadership and over take them. Unfortunately lot of the non-Christians are not well aware of the harm they cause and just consider them Christians. Even more unfortunate is that there aren’t many good churches in Korea and lot of them are run by low quality pastors with narrow biblical teachings and to non-Christians look no different than a cult. Many Christians do expect that the Korean churches will lose more people unless we go through a massive reformation.