Campus Crusade "Explosions": Conversions and Conservatism from the US Bible Belt to Cold War South Korea, 1972–1974

Abstract:During the Nixon-Park era, Campus Cruade for Christ, an evangelical non-profit, hosted Explo '72 and '74, two massive revivals, or "explosions" of the Holy Spirit, that transnationally allied non-state actors from Cold War South Korea and the US Bible Belt. At Explo '72 and '74, Joon Gon Kim (1925–2009) and Bill Bright (1921–2003), the leaders of the Korean and US branches of Campus Crusade, forged an alliance on the basis of what I call a transpacific politics of soul saving—an alliance built on the conviction that individual conversions had the power to change society and win the global Cold War against communism. Kim and Bright's alliance was marked by tension and rivalry, underscoring the uneven US-South Korean patron-client relations. Yet their alliance, based on a transpacific politics of soul saving, accommodated a measure of bidirectional influence from Cold War South Korea to the US Bible Belt because the telos of Bright and Kim's alliance was ultimately conversions and conservatism. The following transpacific historical reconstruction of Explo '72 and '74 reveals that not only the activities of the state, but also that of non-state actors, including evangelists, were a key force for conservatizing politics in the Nixon-Park era of the global Cold War, foreshadowing the rise of the Protestant/Christian Right in both nations.