The Christian Right and Refugee Rights

Abstract

This article examines how the language and logics of the Christian Right in South Korea contributed to the propagation of anti-asylum sentiment during the Yemeni refugee crisis in 2018. By analyzing the Christian Right’s historical origins in anti-communism and its moral opposition to anti-discrimination law, it shows how the anti-asylum movement owed much of its support to a conservative Protestant view of international refugee rights, seen through the lens of minority rights at home. Ultimately, it argues that overlaps between religious and national ideologies of anticommunism activate conservative Protestant linkages between moral boundaries and border security.