Nearly six in 10 Christian middle and high school students in South Korea say they have experienced tension between lessons taught at school and the teaching they receive at church, according to survey findings released by the Pastoral Data Research Institute and reported by Christian Daily Korea.
The same research found that only 23% of churches regularly provide biblical values education for church school students and their parents. The Pastoral Data Research Institute, or PDRI, said the findings suggest churches are not doing enough to help shape the worldview of the next generation.
The figures were drawn from “Korean Church Next Generation Trends 2026,” a study published in May by PDRI and Future With Dreams that surveyed seven groups, including senior pastors, churchgoing students and their parents, church school teachers and ministry workers, and students who had left the church.
Among Christian secondary students, 59% said they had “often” or “sometimes” encountered situations in which school teaching and church teaching appeared to conflict.
Science was the area most frequently associated with such tension, cited by 60% of students, particularly on questions involving evolution and the origin of the universe. Ethics and sexuality followed at 37%, society and politics at 34%, and interpretations of history and culture at 32%.
Students also reported struggling with other faith-related questions. Fifty-eight percent said they found the existence of evil, disaster and suffering difficult to reconcile with faith, while 54% said some biblical teachings seemed unrealistic, including the command to love one’s enemies.
When confronted with conflicting ideas, relatively few students said they reached a firm conclusion. Twenty-one percent said they postponed judgment, 20% tried to accept both perspectives, and 19% avoided the issue or were unsure, for a combined 60%. Another 24% said they chose to trust church teaching first.
Students were also more likely to process those questions outside formal church leadership. Twenty-nine percent said they dealt with such concerns on their own, 24% turned to parents and 20% to friends, compared with 18% who approached a pastor and 17% who sought help from a church school teacher.
Forty-eight percent of Christian secondary students said they look for practical solutions before turning to faith when problems arise. Thirty-eight percent said they viewed faith and daily life as separate, while 35% said school life and faith felt disconnected, and the same percentage said they rarely applied prayer or Scripture to everyday situations.
Adults surveyed were more likely than students to believe secular values hold greater influence than biblical values, Christian Daily Korea reported. That view was shared by 55% of parents, 46% of ministry workers, 35% of teachers and 26% of students. Across the groups, only 11% to 16% said biblical values had greater influence.
When senior pastors were asked about biblical values education for church school students and their parents, 23% said their churches offered it regularly. Another 54% said such teaching was provided irregularly, while 23% said it was not offered at all.
The study also identified limits in teaching capacity. Only 27% of church school teachers said they were able to explain biblical values to students in detail, while 73% of church school ministry workers said current church education was inadequate for helping students apply biblical principles to everyday life.
Where biblical values education was provided, however, teachers reported noticeable effects. Sixty-nine percent said it produced meaningful change in students, 62% said it encouraged questions or responses, and 61% said students tried to apply what they learned to situations at school and in daily life.
The quality of the teacher-student relationship also appeared to matter. Among teachers who said they were satisfied with that relationship, 74% reported meaningful changes in students, compared with 44% among those who were dissatisfied, a difference of 30 percentage points.
