After World War II, the Cold War began and anti-communism prevailed in the United States. Almost all Americans saw the Cold War as an ideological battle between “freedom” and “communism,” and they devoted themselves to praising “freedom” and the “American way of life” without much reflection. American conservative Christians were typical critics of communism.

Conservative Christians thought communism was not only God’s enemy but an American enemy. For example, fundamentalist Carl McIntire believed that the Cold War was “the battle between freedom and tyranny,” and so stressed “the business of Americans to lead the World into freedom.” But we should not think that all conservative Christians criticized communism in a similar way. In contrast to McIntire, evangelical Billy Graham saw a positive role for communism although he was considered a forceful anti-communist.

Graham was conscious of his calling as an evangelist. As an evangelist he preached the Gospel and challenged people to turn to Christ in repentance and faith through crusades, radio, TV and books. Some theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr regarded Graham’s messages as problematic because he optimistically believed that conversion was the sole remedy to all the problems in the world.

However Graham was no optimist for he emphasrzed,the doctrine of original sin. In Peace with God (1953), Graham refers to Genesis and indicates how Adam committed the sin of trying to become king instead of obeying God’s law. And so Americans, who are offspring of Adam, also have sin and their “freedom” is not perfect. Compared to a nationalistic Christian like McIntire, Graham realized that American freedom was imperfect as was communism. In World Aflame (1965), moreover, Graham developed his analysis of sin and described the paradox of man: coexistence of goodness and sin.

In addition to developing his theology, in World Aflame, Graham emphasized that the Last Judgement will be carried out soon. As an evangelist, Graham hoped that Americans would accept the Gospel message, repent and lead a Christian life, while at the same time he realized,that humans were too weak to give themselves up to God. Finally Graham made a decision to use the controversial word “Communism.” He referred to communism as a religion that asked the question “What is man?” Graham hoped that Americans would repent and come to faith while they contemplated this question posed at them. He recognized that communism was God’s instrument encouraging Americans to repent.

Reading Graham’s books carefully, we can see that he was not an all-out anti-communist like McIntire. Graham relativized, “freedom” from the perspective of the doctrine of original sin, and as an evangelist, understood communism as God’s instrument to persuade Americans to repent. But conservative Christians failed to understand Graham’s analysis of sin and evaluation of communism although they listened to Graham’s messages. Nationalistic Christians wanted Graham to be a leader of anti-communism. The image of Graham as an “anti-communist” was a result not onlv of his behavior but also mass nationalistic desire.

This paper explains the origins of Korea’s political conservatism by examining the emergence and transformation process of ilminism, the governing ideology of the First Republic of Korea (1948–1960). Ilminism was a nationalistic ideology that emphasized the needs and security of the state over those of individuals and classes, and advocated development through the vehicle of a socialist controlled economy, to develop and protect the nation and the state.

The First Republic emerged as the tensions of the Cold War were intensifying in the Korean Peninsula. Under the rule of the US-supported military government, as right-leaning factions gained ground over the left in the struggle over sovereignty, leftist ideologies all but disappeared in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. Ultimately, the confrontation between “communism” and “liberalism” was recast as one between “communism” and “anti-communist nationalism,” with three main results. First, the surplus of nationalism and the lack of other ideologies transformed the Cold War confrontation in the region after the liberation, engendering a right-leaning bias in the ideological space of Korean politics. Second, the political establishment mobilized nationalism to maintain the status quo. Third, the dominance of nationalism has inhibited the emergence of liberalism. This process has formed the foundations of Korean political conservatism, wherein the dogmatism of nationalism imposes the notoriety of “anti-communist nationalism” on all diverging ideologies, including liberalism. Therefore, contrary to conventional views that trace southern anti-communist nationalism only to the Korean War, this paper connects the phenomenon to the political dynamics that emerged during the First Republic of Korea.