Pastor Son Hyun-bo and the Kosin Denomination — The Court Ruling and the Theological Review
The case surrounding Pastor Son Hyun-bo (Segero Church, Busan) splits into two tracks. One is a theological review by Kosin’s seminary faculty, which examined four of his sermons against the denomination’s confessional standards. The other is a criminal trial in which he was convicted of violating the Public Official Election Act. The two overlap in timing and subject matter, but because the deciding bodies and the standards they apply differ, they need to be considered separately.
The Court’s Ruling
On January 30, 2026, the Busan District Court’s Criminal Division 6 sentenced Son to six months in prison, suspended for one year. The indictment covered conduct ahead of the April 2025 Busan education superintendent by-election — interviewing a specific candidate over the church microphone during worship and making remarks urging that candidate’s opponent be defeated at the candidate’s own campaign office — as well as conduct ahead of the June 3 presidential election, in which he urged congregants during services and prayer meetings to elect one candidate and defeat another.
In its ruling, the court found that all of the conduct at issue had a clear purpose and intent to campaign, rejecting the argument that Son had merely expressed a personal political opinion. The court noted that Son’s church has roughly 3,500 members and about 110,000 YouTube subscribers, and held that his influence was substantial and that the remarks in question had a real effect on a large number of potential voters. Son’s side argued the conduct was protected personal expression under the constitutional right to religious freedom and maintained his innocence, but the court found a clear intent and purpose to secure one candidate’s election and another’s defeat. Son has appealed the ruling, and the specific schedule of the appellate proceedings could not be confirmed from currently available sources.
The Denomination’s Theological Review
The faculty of Korea Theological Seminary evaluated the four sermons against the Westminster Confession of Faith and its catechisms, concluding that the sermons prioritized political assessments over scriptural interpretation and used scripture to support conclusions that had already been reached politically. Whether to adopt the report will be debated at Kosin’s 76th General Assembly in September 2026; within the denomination, one camp opposes adoption, warning it could suppress the church’s prophetic role, while another supports it as necessary to protect the integrity of the pulpit.
Why the Two Must Be Kept Separate
The court has already reached a specific factual finding of intent and purpose. The denomination’s review is a separate process evaluating the same period’s sermons against theological criteria, and its conclusion remains provisional pending the General Assembly’s decision. The two processes likely address overlapping statements, but the court’s factual determination and the denomination’s theological judgment rest on different grounds and different standards, and should not be conflated. Framing this case solely as “freedom of political speech versus religious persecution” risks burying the specific facts already established in court beneath theological rhetoric.
Peter Yang