CRONOGRAMA DE TRABAJO Actividades DIC

Generally speaking, the basic ideologies of Korean culture and religion have been developed with the Western Christian culture as a medium. The Korean Christian culture which has been formed in such an encounter, however, is not simply an extension of Western Christian culture. Rather, it is a newly–formed Korean culture. Every society has its own particular ideals, and the life of a people is devoted to efforts for the realization of those ideals. This process of living together in search of a common ideal is one aspect of what is called “culture.”81

81

Ryu Dongshik, “Culture and Theology in Korea: the P’ung-Ryu theology.” The East Asia Journal of Theology 3 (October 1985): pp. 310-3.

The history of Korea during the last one hundred years, during which Protestantism has grown, has been a period caught up in a whirlwind of despair and crisis before and after the national ruin caused by the Japanese invasion. Dongshik Ryu posed a question about the purpose of the Christian Gospel and answered it:

Christianity is a religion of salvation, so to a people facing this national crisis what did the Christian idea of salvation mean? We can discover the nature of Korean Christian thought by answering this question. The biblical expression of salvation and the traditional understanding of the church have many phases. When people accept Christianity, they accept it in a particular way with a certain kind of

understanding; that is, there are choices in the interpretation of what things mean and in the points of themes that are emphasized.82

Ryu concluded that the determination of these kinds of choices is guided by the given historical conditions and traditional cultural concepts, since the realization of the cultural conception have a great significance in the national salvation. People of Korea want to be saved from their Han83 because they are people of Han.84 The late Korean theologian Nam- Dong Suh suggested a “Theology of Han” and identified Koreans as “Han-ridden people.”85 Younghak Hyun defined the conception of Han:

Han seems to have three faces. A Korean literary critic, in his article, “Literature of Han and Minjung Consciousness,” referred to the first two Faces. One is Jung-Han leading to lamentation, resignation, adjustment and love within a given community, which I would call a priestly face. The other one is Won-Han leading to anger, revenge, revolution and justice, which I would call a prophetic face. The third face follows wherever the first two faces go together. It is a face with humour, satire and laughter, which I would call a servant-king’s face. The laughter is the laughter that bursts out of the bowls and guts. It is not a gentle and respectable smile of the haves. It is the laughter that Dantë envisioned, the laughter that the whole creation laughs with god. It is the laughter of the ultimate victor the King. One sees all these three

82

Ryu,“Culture and Theology in Korea,” p. 313. 83

Han is a unique concept of Korean culture. It is attributed as a national cultural trait. It denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds. It connotes aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.

84

Hyun, “Minjung theology and the Religion of Han,” p. 359. 85

faces in the arts and religion of the Han-ridden people, such as mask dance, crippled beggars’ dance and Shamanism.86

Obviously the Christian faith, theology, and the church were influenced deeply by all these three faces. Ryu stated another concept of Han:

Another concept best expressed only in Korean is the concept of han, which is used in connection with the involvement of P’ung-ryu-do with the three major religious mentioned earlier. The word Han includes ideas of oneness, wholeness, and greatness as in han-pat (Taejon-the great field), marip-han (His Highness the King-a term used by one of ancient Korean dynasty Silla), and han-nim or Hananim (the word for God). The word is also used with reference to Heaven (thus Hananim the Heavenly God) and reflects notions of absoluteness, centrality and justice. The traditional conception of god in Korea is found in the word Han, the people who pursued this Han became known as the “Han” race, and their country came to be called “Hankuk” (Korea, the nation of the Han people).87

Ryu suggests ecclesiastic conservatism, social activism, and cultural liberalism as the basic elements of the formation of Korean Christian thought. Ecclesiastic conservatism, as he said, “Connects with the concept of Han and relates to the urgent need for unshakable absolute truth and a transcending deliverance on the part of people caught in despair and social unrest.”88 Here the absoluteness of God and his words are to be the object of respect.89 Eventually, theological conservatism evolved. Ryu said, “There is a belief in verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and strong emphasis upon the doctrine of biblical infallibility.”90

86

Ibid., p. 312. 87

Hyun, “Minjung theology and Religion of Han ,” p. 312. 88

Ryu, “Culture and Theology in Korea,” p. 313. 89

Ibid. 90

Accordingly, both historical-critical study of the Bible and progressive theology are excluded in favour of orthodox fundamentalism. In this respect, churches have produced “a policy of non-socio-political concern.”91 Ryu commented:

National salvation is sought through spiritual salvation of individual persons and victory over the ordeals of history is understood in terms of an apocalyptic

eschatology, so at times of great crisis renewed efforts for the salvation of the soul are seen in an increase of spiritual revival meetings.92

As a result of such a stream, the motivation of the Charismatic movement has found a safety net during the past century. Social activism connects with the concept of the

Christian life and emphasizes the realization of the nature of human beings through social life. Proponents of cultural liberalism, the third stream of Korean Christian thought, did “not tie themselves to the conservative Western theology, but believed in the Holy Spirit freely working in the midst of the traditional Korean cultures.”93 The most important theological task in this movement centres on the encounter between Christianity and the traditional Korean religions.

During the thirty-six years of occupation of Korea by the Japanese, the Korean Protestant churches faced a more difficult problem of shrine worship. From about 1932, the Japanese government began to impose emperor worship upon every school and church in Korea.94 Missionaries, as well as Korean church leaders, manifested opposition against shrine worship and eventually met great persecution by the Japanese government. In spite of such difficulty, the Korean churches stood resolutely opposed to the Japanese enforcement of shrine worship and endured many sufferings.

91 Ibid., pp. 313-5. 92 Ibid., 313-4. 93 Ibid., 314. 94

Kim, Myung-Hyuk, “Ancestor worship in the Korean church,” Evangelical Review of Theology 8 (October 1984): 242-3.