Canaan Believers

Definition and Meaning

The term "Canaan believers" refers to people who regard themselves as holding the Christian faith yet do not regularly attend any particular church. It derives from the fact that the Korean phrase an naga ("not going") becomes gana-an ("Canaan") when its syllables are reversed. The term is also a play on words alluding to Canaan, the Promised Land that the people of Israel entered in the Bible. Canaan believers are distinguished both from non-believers who have never attended church and from those who have abandoned the faith altogether. The defining feature of the term is that these people have left the church while keeping their faith. The term is reported to have come into wide use in the 2010s through works such as Yang Hee-song's book Canaan Believers: Faith Outside the Church.

Biblical and Historical Background

The Bible portrays the gathering of believers as the basic form of the church. Passages frequently cited in this connection include Acts 2:46, which describes how believers in the early church met daily and broke bread together, and Hebrews 10:25: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is." On this basis, many denominations hold that personal faith cannot be separated from the church community. By contrast, some Canaan believers understand the church not as a building or an organization but as the gathering of believers itself. They argue that a life of faith is possible even outside the established institutional church.

The phenomenon of maintaining faith without belonging to a church has also been studied in the West. The British sociologist of religion Grace Davie called it "believing without belonging."

Canaan Believers in the Korean Church

Scholars such as Professor Jeong Jae-young of the Graduate School of Practical Theology have surveyed and studied Canaan believers. Surveys conducted by pastors' associations and other organizations have found that a considerable number of people who identify themselves as Protestants do not attend church, and this proportion has been reported to be rising.

Reasons for leaving the church cited in various studies include the following:

• Authoritarianism among pastors
• Misconduct by church leaders, such as hereditary succession of church leadership or financial problems
• Excessive demands for offerings
• Conflicts among church members
• An atmosphere that does not permit questions about the faith

Some analyses suggest that after online worship became widespread during the COVID-19 pandemic, more believers began watching worship videos from various churches without belonging to any specific congregation. Some Canaan believers meet separately in small groups or house churches. Because many do not go through the membership transfer process when leaving a church, their names sometimes remain on the membership rolls of their former church even though they no longer attend.

Opinion within the church is divided. One view regards Canaan believers as people who should return to the church and emphasizes church attendance as fundamental to the faith, pointing in particular to the fact that sacraments such as baptism and Holy Communion are administered within the church community. The other view holds that the criticisms these believers raise should serve as an occasion for the Korean church to examine and reform itself.