Rapid urbanization and modernization create religious demand that traditional faiths fail to meet.

Evidence

If traditionally dominant religions do not meet the emotional and social needs of the uprooted, other religious groups move in to do so and in the process greatly expand their memberships and the saliency of religion in social and political life. South Korea historically was an overwhelmingly Buddhist country, with Christians numbering in 1950 perhaps 1 percent to 3 percent of the population. As South Korea took off into rapid economic development, with massive urbanization and occupational differentiation, Buddhism was found wanting. “For the millions who poured into the cities and for many who stayed behind in the altered countryside, the quiescent Buddhism of Korea’s agrarian age lost its appeal. Christianity with its message of personal salvation and individual destiny offered a surer comfort in a time of confusion and change.” By the 1980s Christians, largely Presbyterians and Catholics, were at least 30 percent of South Korea’s population. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 270

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s broad thesis about civilizational identity and to modernization theory debates about secularization.
• SEED: Essay angle: conventional wisdom assumes economic development secularizes; this shows development can intensify religious commitment by substituting one faith for another.