Transcending the Boundary Between the Religious and the Secular: The Sacralization of the Person in Korea’s 1970s Protestant Democratization Movement

Abstract

This study examines how South Korea’s 1970s Protestant democratization movement embodied Hans Joas’s concept of the “sacralization of the person” during the authoritarian Yushin regime. Challenging binary narratives of human rights origins as exclusively secular or religious, the research analyzes how Korean Protestant activists created institutions, rituals, and theological frameworks that infused human dignity with sacred character. The study demonstrates how religious actors effectively bridged religious and secular boundaries in human rights advocacy through historical analysis of the National Council of Churches in Korea’s Human Rights Committee, Thursday Prayer Meetings, and the development of Minjung theology. The findings reveal a distinctive process of sacralization that evolved from individual to collective understandings of human dignity, culminating in the radical Minjung Messiah theory. This case study illustrates how Joas’s affirmative genealogy operates in non-Western contexts, showing that sacralization emerges through dynamic interactions between religious conviction, historical events, and cultural transformation rather than through abstract reasoning alone. The Korean experience demonstrates that universal human rights gain moral force when diverse traditions collaborate to uphold human dignity across ideological divides.

1. Introduction: The Origins of Human Rights and Sacralization Theory

Contemporary scholarship on the genealogy of human rights presents a complex intellectual landscape characterized by multiple competing narratives and disciplinary approaches. As Hans Joas, a prominent German social theorist and sociologist internationally recognized for his influential work on the relationship between religion and human rights, observes, the historiography of human rights encompasses “one of the most sterile debates” concerning whether human rights should be traced to religious or secular-humanist origins, yet this binary framing itself represents a problematic oversimplification (Joas 2015, p. 25; 2013; Joas and Moyn 2015). Similarly, Samuel Moyn, a prominent scholar in the history of human rights and international law, emphasizes that any genealogical approach to human rights must acknowledge the multiplicity of historical trajectories, cultural interpretations, and political investments that have shaped our understanding of these concepts over time (Joas and Moyn 2015, p. 10; Moyn 2010; 2014). Within this rich scholarly ecosystem, however, when we consider specifically the relationship between religion and human rights—the focus of this study—certain persistent tensions emerge between religious and secular interpretative frameworks, without necessarily reducing the broader genealogical complexity to these poles alone.

On one side of this particular tension stands the Enlightenment or humanist account, which locates the birth of human rights in the Age of Reason and the affirmation of the rational, autonomous individual. Proponents of this view argue that the idea of universal rights emerged as part of the secular natural-rights tradition and was codified during the great democratic revolutions of the late 18th century. The French Revolution of 1789, for example, toppled old regimes of the throne and altar in the name of liberté, égalité, and fraternité, enshrining the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as a charter of inalienable individual rights grounded in reason and natural law (George Mason University and American Social History Project 2025). Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire (1694–1778), Denis Diderot (1713–1784), and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) championed the idea that all individuals possess inherent dignity and reason, which entitles them to equal rights and freedom of conscience independent of any religious sanction. In this narrative, human rights are a secular achievement: the triumph of critical reason over superstition and hierarchy, with modern liberal institutions owing their lineage to Enlightenment humanism and its faith in universal rational principles.

Opposing this approach is the religious genealogy of human rights, which roots the notion of inviolable dignity in Judeo-Christian theology and the long moral arc of Christendom. This perspective contends that the very concept of each person as imago Dei—made in the image of God—bequeathed a cultural ethos in which human life is sacred, providing the essential wellspring for modern rights. Thinkers in this camp point to medieval canon lawyers, Renaissance humanists, and early modern theologians who spoke of natural rights grounded in divine order, well before the Enlightenment. They note that key ideas of equality and liberty can be found in Christian teaching (for instance, the spiritual equality of souls, the Golden Rule, or the critique of tyranny by reformers) and argue that modern human rights ultimately blossomed from these theological seeds. One influential version of this argument, echoing the work of legal historian Georg Jellinek, holds that the first declarations of rights were an outgrowth of battles for religious liberty within Christian Europe (Kuruvilla 2021).

Of course, these two approaches do not exhaust the genealogical possibilities, nor do they represent unified camps. As Joas points out, within seemingly unified traditions, there exists tremendous diversity: even within Christian perspectives on human rights, there are profound variations ranging from personalist conceptions to more communitarian frameworks; similarly, secular approaches span from utilitarian calculations to Kantian deontology (Joas 2015, pp. 27–28). Moreover, Moyn correctly observes that many other factors beyond this religion–secular divide—including economic contexts, imperialism and decolonization, political mobilizations, and changing scales of governance—have profoundly shaped how human rights have been conceived and institutionalized throughout history (Joas and Moyn 2015, pp. 11–12). A truly comprehensive genealogy must account for these multiple historical trajectories, cultural interpretations, and political commitments rather than reducing complex historical processes to binary oppositions. This study therefore acknowledges the limitations of any simplified framework while focusing specifically on the productive tension between religious and secular understandings of human dignity in a non-Western context.

Despite this acknowledged complexity in scholarly discourse, these dichotomous explanations of human rights origins are frequently presented as opposing perspectives in both academic and public debates, creating a persistent conceptual tension that requires critical examination. Scholars supporting the secular Enlightenment view (e.g., Michael Ignatieff, Samuel Moyn) argue that religious interpretations limit the secular universality of human rights (Ignatieff 2001; Moyn 2014), while proponents of the religious perspective (e.g., John Witte Jr., Nicholas Wolterstorff) counter that without the Judeo-Christian tradition, the concept of human rights loses its fundamental moral foundation (Witte 1993; Wolterstorff 2008, 2009). This dichotomy tends to overlook the diverse cultural sources of human rights discourse and reinforces a Eurocentric perspective. Notably, rich intellectual resources concerning human dignity and social justice can be found in non-Judeo-Christian traditions of East Asia, such as Buddhism and Confucianism.1

Into this debate steps Joas, whose work seeks to move beyond the simple binary of “Enlightenment vs. Christianity” by offering a more integrated genealogy.2 In The Sacredness of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights, Joas proposes what he calls an “affirmative genealogy” of human rights—an innovative methodological approach that bridges the gap between historical narration and normative justification (Joas 2013, p. 3; Wolfsteller 2014, p. 107). Unlike Nietzsche’s destructive genealogical method, which assumes that understanding the contingent origins of values undermines their validity, Joas argues that recognizing the historical processes through which human rights emerged can actually strengthen our commitment to them (Dorfman 2015, pp. 361–62). This approach stands in contrast to both purely philosophical justifications that ignore history and solely historical accounts that avoid questions of legitimacy.

Central to Joas’s thesis is the concept of the “sacralization of the person”—a process through which every human being came to be viewed as sacred over time. Joas traces this development through key historical moments, such as the abolition of torture in European countries during the 18th century and the American abolitionist movement, demonstrating how experiences of violence could be transformed into positive value commitments supporting universal human dignity. Rather than viewing human rights as either the inevitable product of secular Enlightenment reasoning or as directly derived from religious traditions, Joas shows how both religious and secular elements contributed to their emergence through complex processes of cultural transformation and “value generalization” (Wertgeneralisierung). Specifically, value generalization is the process of making a value more universal by communicating different and conflicting values in a thoughtful way (Joas 2013, pp. 173–91).

Joas’s intervention reframes the question of origins: rather than crediting either secular reason or religious doctrine alone, he investigates how certain values and experiences became universalized as sacred, yielding the modern commitment to human rights (Kuruvilla 2021). Building on Joas’s insight, the present study turns to a concrete historical arena where the interplay of religious conviction and human rights ideals can be clearly observed: South Korea’s democratization movement in the 1970s, under the authoritarian Yushin regime of President Chung-hee Park (1917–1979).3 This period offers a vivid case of how Protestant and Catholic activism helped catalyze a nascent human rights discourse in a non-Western context. In the 1970s, as political repression and martial law curtailed freedoms in South Korea, it was often church leaders and faith-inspired lay activists who emerged as the champions of democracy and human dignity (Shin et al. 2007, pp. 33–39).

Figures such as Cardinal Sou-hwan Kim (1922–2009), Protestant pastors like Ik-hwan Moon (1918–1994), and countless Catholic nuns and Protestant student organizers took great personal risks to speak out against torture, censorship, and the denial of basic liberties. They did so in explicitly moral terms, invoking the inviolable rights of the human person—language resonant both with Christian teaching and international human rights norms. For example, Christian groups formed human rights committees (the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice, the Protestant National Council of Churches’ Human Rights Committee, etc.) to document abuses and demand justice (Park et al. 2024; Jeong et al. 2024). They organized prayer meetings and public vigils that doubled as protests for the sacred value of human life against the depredations of state power.

In doing so, these Korean religious actors were effectively sacralizing the principle of human rights in their own cultural context—translating the idea of universal dignity into the lived experience of their communities. Their efforts blurred the line between the sacred and the secular: prayer rallies invoked God’s love for the oppressed even as they pressed for secular legal reforms; church networks provided shelter to dissidents and also disseminated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in local translations. This convergence of faith and rights in 1970s Korea illustrates Joas’s thesis on a global stage: it was precisely through religious language and institutions that a broader universalist vision—that every person’s freedom mattered—gained traction under a repressive regime. In effect, Korean Christians helped instill an “aura of sacredness” around the suffering individual, emboldening a wider social movement for democracy and human rights.

By examining this South Korean case, this study intervenes in the human-rights-origins debate with an empirical example of sacralization in action. Particular religious communities can ignite moral universalism without reducing it to a purely secular enlightenment script or a sectarian agenda. The Yushin-era activism of churches in Korea demonstrates that the legacy of human rights is neither Western nor Christian in any exclusive sense—it is a living tradition continually renewed at the intersection of religious conscience and secular advocacy.

In the sections that follow, I will analyze how Protestant and Catholic actors in Korea drew upon their spiritual commitments to galvanize resistance and how their witness in turn contributed to a more universal language of rights and justice in Korean society. This inquiry builds on Hans Joas’s framework, using it to understand a specific historical milieu in which the sacredness of the person became a rallying cry. By doing this, it hopes to add to the larger academic discussion on the history of human rights by showing that there is a lot more to the story than just the Enlightenment and the start of Christianity. There is a complicated history of cultural change going on, and sacred and profane urges have always been mixed together to protect people’s dignity (Joas 2013, p. 31; 2021, p. 270). The hope is that such a perspective clarifies historical debates and underscores a practical truth: the universality of human rights is strengthened, not threatened, when we recognize the plurality of its sources and the necessity of their ongoing engagement in our world today.

2. The Sacralization of the Person: Hans Joas’s Affirmative Genealogy of Human Rights

Joas’s theory focuses on the concept of the “sacralization of the person”, which suggests that human rights emerged from cultural and moral transformations in Western and global culture over the past few centuries. This process was driven by historical experiences, such as the abolition of judicial torture and slavery, which mobilized secular and religious arguments to repudiate practices that desecrated human dignity (Joas 2013, pp. 37–68). These reforms, championed by Enlightenment philosophes and Quaker or Evangelical Christians, gradually instilled the idea that certain harms to the person were intolerable because they had become inviolable (Joas 2013, p. 87).

While Joas’s theory of sacralization offers valuable insights, it is primarily grounded in the historical experiences of Western Europe and North America, which presents certain limitations. In light of this, the present study examines how Joas’s theory is transformed and expanded when applied to non-Western societies such as Korea. The process of human sacralization that emerged in South Korea’s 1970s democratization movement unfolded in a compressed and radical manner, unlike the gradual process observed in the West. Moreover, Christian language and concepts combined with Korea’s traditional thought and minjung movements to form a distinctive discourse of sacralization. This demonstrates that the sacralization of human rights is not simply a transplantation of Western models but rather a process that is reinterpreted and recreated within each society’s unique cultural and historical specificities.

Joas also talks about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the apex of this process of sacralization. It was a “value generalization” in which different religious groups (Christian, humanist, and others) came together after the horrors of World War II to make sure that everyone has the same rights and dignity (Joas 2013, p. 174). Crucially, Joas insists that this evolution was not inevitable or linear; it was not the unfolding of a preset Enlightenment teleology of progress, nor the smooth realization of an age-old Christian ideal (Joas 2013, p. 60; 2021, p. 232). Rather, it was a fraught, dialectical development in which religious and secular motivations interacted, sometimes clashed, and eventually produced a new moral consensus (Joas 2013, p. 25). As Joas puts it, neither a one-sided secular thesis nor a one-sided Christian thesis alone can explain the historical dynamics by which human rights emerged—Only a complementary interplay between Enlightenment ideas and Christian praxis (among other factors) captures the full picture (Joas 2013, p. 140).

Joas’s critique of the Enlightenment-only view is pointed. He challenges the “charisma of reason” narrative—the notion that human rights arose simply from the spread of rational enlightenment and the casting off of religion (Joas 2013, pp. 9–36). In particular, he critiques Max Weber’s idea of the “charisma of reason” by arguing that this view overly simplifies the historical reality of human rights’ emergence. Joas’s critique of the “charisma of reason” narrative is indeed multifaceted and historically grounded. He systematically dismantles the conventional secular-humanist understanding of human rights as the exclusive product of Enlightenment rationalism. At the heart of his critique is a rejection of Weber’s conceptualization of human rights as “extreme rationalist fanaticism” (Joas 2013, p. 28). Joas points out that Weber perceived human rights as the “last form that charisma has adopted in its fateful historical course”, suggesting an inevitable secularization process where rational principles replaced religious ones (Joas 2013, p. 29). But Joas argues this framework misunderstands the actual historical genesis of human rights declarations.

Joas’s historical analysis reveals that the American Declarations of Rights were shaped by both Protestant religious convictions and Enlightenment rationalism, rather than solely by anti-religious Enlightenment thinking. He argues that in eighteenth-century America, Americans “learned their Enlightenment from the pulpit”, highlighting the inseparable nature of spiritual and Enlightenment influences (Joas 2013, p. 25). Joas also finds fault with the mischaracterization of the French Revolution as fundamentally anti-religious. He shows that the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drafted during the Revolution’s early phase when religious sentiment was still strong, not during its later anti-clerical period. The declaration itself invokes “the presence and auspices of the Supreme Being” and describes rights as “sacred” (Joas 2013, p. 16).

By examining the actual historical evidence, Joas concludes that human rights arose neither exclusively from secular rationalism nor solely from religious traditions but from their productive interaction. By reframing the genesis of human rights not as the charismatic triumph of reason but as the sacralization of the person and universal human dignity, Joas seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding that acknowledges both the secular and religious currents that converged to shape modern human rights. So, instead of seeing human rights as a “charismatization of reason”, he says we should see them as a “charismatization of human personhood”—a process of making all people holy, not just those who can reason (Joas 2013, pp. 32–33). This more complex genealogy allows Joas to avoid Weber’s tragic framework, where religious forces create a regime that ultimately undermines them and simplistic religious triumphalism. Instead, he opens space for understanding how religious and Enlightenment values could work together in articulating and institutionalizing the universal dignity of individuals.

On a methodological level, Joas describes his approach as an “affirmative genealogy” (Joas 2009, pp. 15–24; 2013, pp. 97–139). Unlike purely debunking histories that might reduce human rights to accidental byproducts or instruments of power, he seeks a genealogy that can explain human rights’ moral power while affirming their validity (Szücs 2024, p. 160). This affirmative genealogy has invited both interest and criticism. Philosophers such as Otfried Höffe have cautioned that Joas, as a sociologist, ventures into normative territory by suggesting that understanding the sacred origins of human rights also helps justify their universal claim. Höffe worries that bridging description and validation in this way risks an “unauthorized intervention” into philosophy (Szücs 2024, p. 161). Defenders of Joas, however, see his work as a healthy corrective to overly rationalist or providential accounts: it reminds us that the commitment to human rights is ultimately a moral choice, sustained by cultural values and narratives, not a self-evident truth that reason or religion can secure alone (Szücs 2024, pp. 175–78).

As theologian Robert Gascoigne observes, secular humanists and Christians today often find themselves “happily…developed into a shared commitment” to defending human rights despite their divergent metaphysical beliefs (Gascoigne 2015a). For a Christian to claim exclusive credit for human rights, or a secularist to deny any religious contribution, would be, Gascoigne argues, “arrogant and unwarranted”, given that both traditions at their best converge on the sacredness of the person and the ethic of compassion (Gascoigne 2015a). Joas’s work underlines this very point: by understanding human rights as arising from a culturally transformative process of sacralization, we appreciate that moral universalism has diverse wellsprings and allies. It is not the patrimony of the Enlightenment alone, nor the exclusive legacy of Christianity—it is a creative synthesis that took shape over time, and that requires ongoing cultivation.

Gascoigne further elaborates that the concept of the sacredness of the person inherently challenges a strict secular–religious dichotomy. He draws on the idea of secularization as differentiation, where the political sphere becomes independent of religious authority, yet the concept of sacredness permeates the broader ethical culture (Gascoigne 2015b, pp. 180–81). This perspective does not suggest the expulsion of religion from the public sphere, but rather the existence of sacred values within a secular framework. Thus, the sacredness of the person, while rooted in religious traditions, also transcends them and becomes a shared moral resource in liberal secular societies. Unlike a purely secular view that says human rights are only the result of rational action or legal agreement, Gascoigne, following Joas, says that everyone’s recognition of human dignity came about through a process of sacralization. This process was not solely religious, nor purely secular; instead, it was a cultural transformation influenced by diverse historical experiences, including the abolition of slavery and responses to the atrocities of the World Wars (Gascoigne 2015b, p. 190). The concept of the sacredness of the person, therefore, signifies more than just moral obligation; it represents a deep cultural commitment to viewing each individual as inviolable.

By emphasizing the intersection of the sacred and the profane, or in his own words, “the religious and the ethical”, Gascoigne challenges the notion that human rights must either be wholly secular or exclusively religious. Instead, he advocates for an inclusive moral framework where both traditions mutually enrich the understanding of human dignity (Gascoigne 2015b, pp. 191–92). This perspective aligns with Joas’s critique of reductionist narratives that either entirely secularize human rights or monopolize them within religious doctrines. In this light, human rights advocacy becomes a collaborative moral endeavor that unites diverse ethical traditions rather than isolating them. This synthesis not only affirms the dignity of the human person but also challenges modern societies to recognize the ongoing need to nurture and protect this sense of sacredness in the face of ideological and political threats. By fostering an ethos that respects the sacredness of individuals, both religious and secular movements can find common ground in advocating for universal human rights, thereby moving beyond divisive foundational debates to a more practical and inclusive solidarity.

3. The Sacralization of the Person in South Korea’s Democracy Movement: The Protestant Contribution

Having established Joas’s theoretical framework in the previous section, we now turn to a concrete historical context that vividly demonstrates how this process unfolded: South Korea’s Yushin era or the Fourth Republic of Korea (1972–1979), which was a one-person presidential system designed to allow the president, who held all three powers of administration, legislation, and judicial power, to rule for life. Under dictator Chung-hee Park’s authoritarian regime, Protestant churches emerged as crucial sites where abstract human rights principles gained moral authority and became imbued with an “aura of sacredness”. Given that the main protagonists of the democratization movement within religious circles in 1970s Korea were Christianity, specifically Protestantism and Catholicism, “the democratization movement in religious circles during the Yushin regime era, which was the darkest period of Korean democracy where democracy was thoroughly annihilated in modern Korean history, predominantly appeared as a “Christian’ phenomenon” (Cho 2008, p. 19; Kang 2009, p. 408).

What makes the Korean case particularly illuminating is how rapidly the process of sacralization unfolded within a compressed timeframe, contrasting with the gradual evolution observed in Europe. In Korea, Christian actors mobilized religious language and practices to promote universal human dignity during a time of national crisis, offering insights into how sacralization processes transcend cultural boundaries and adapt to specific historical circumstances.

3.1. Institutional Embodiment of Sacralization: The NCCK Human Rights Committee

In South Korea, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) emerged as a critical institutional vehicle through which the acceleration of sacralization occurred (Kang 2009, p. 368).4 The path toward establishing human rights as a sacred value began taking institutional form in 1973, when the NCCK Research Committee noted the global ecumenical movement’s growing shift from development issues to human rights concerns. This awareness prompted the formation of a consultation that eventually led to the creation of the NCCK Human Rights Committee in 1974—the first non-governmental human rights organization in Korea (NCCK Human Rights Committee 2005, p. 25).

Chung-hee Park’s authoritarian Yushin regime (1972–1979) completely discarded the liberal democratic tendencies maintained since the founding constitution and severely violated citizens’ human rights. Resistance movements emerged in response, with the global church community supporting the NCCK’s human rights activism. As progressive Protestant Christians began resisting the Yushin regime, many were detained and arrested by the government, prompting the NCCK to establish a human rights committee to protect “freedom of mission” (Son 2014, p. vi).

The timing was important: the Human Rights Committee was set up on 4 May 1974, at a crucial time when immediate action was needed for Pastor Hyung-kyu Park and others who were jailed during the ‘1973 Namsan Easter incident’ in June 1973,5 and to decide how the church should respond to the Mincheonghakryeon (KDYL: Korean Democratic Youth League) incident,6 which involved many Christian university students (NCCK Human Rights Committee 2005, pp. 84–85).

As evident in the “Human Rights Declaration” first announced by the Council on Human Rights Issues in November 1973, which became the catalyst for establishing the Human Rights Committee: “Human rights are values on earth given by God. God, who created humans in His image (Genesis 1:27), is liberating them from all bonds and creating a society free from human rights violations. Following His work, the church believes that establishing human rights is a mission on earth (Luke 4:18) and is convinced that the church’s mission for this era lies in establishing human rights, which are the basis for individual survival and the foundation for social development” (NCCK Human Rights Committee 2005, pp. 59–60). This religious perspective gave human rights a powerful importance, making individual dignity sacred by connecting it to divine creation.

Based on the “Human Rights Declaration”, the NCCK Human Rights Committee established a systematic approach to addressing rights violations, identifying six key areas of focus: (1) research on human rights issues and freedom of mission, (2) fact-finding investigations, (3) awareness-raising activities for human rights protection, (4) promoting solidarity with domestic human rights advocacy efforts, particularly for prisoners and disaster victims (including atomic bomb survivors), (5) developing relationships with international human rights activities, focusing on Korean miners in Germany, Korean residents in Japan, and atomic bomb victims, and (6) organizing Human Rights Week events. Additionally, the committee planned to support the salary of staff at the Korean Church Women United’s Human Rights Committee, suggesting it aimed to serve as a headquarters for Protestant human rights movements. The vast majority of funding for these activities and support came from WCC financial contributions (Hwang 2024, p. 119). This comprehensive framework extended well beyond narrow religious interests, embracing a universal vision of human dignity that mirrored Joas’s concept of value generalization. The committee’s work seamlessly integrated international human rights norms with Christian theological concepts, creating a moral vocabulary that could resonate both with believers and secular activists.

3.2. Ritual Practices and the Generation of the Sacred

The sacralization of human rights in 1970s Korea was not only articulated through theological statements but actively generated through religious rituals that transformed abstract principles into lived moral experiences. The Thursday Prayer Meeting, initiated in July 1974 by families of those imprisoned in the KDYL incident, exemplifies how religious ritual became a vehicle for sacralizing human rights under the Yushin regime (Jeong 2024b, p. 455).

The KDYL incident dealt a severe blow to Protestant social movements, paralyzing the Korean Student Christian Federation (KSCF), one of the main pillars of Protestant activism, and subsequently making prisoner support a central focus of Protestant social movements. From July 1974, families of the imprisoned formed a council and began holding regular Thursday prayer meetings, which became the starting point for the “Thursday Prayer Meetings” that would serve as a key platform for Protestant democratization movements thereafter (Hwang 2024, p. 125). These Thursday Prayer Meetings (which were held on Fridays from 1976 to 1979) hold significant historical importance in Korea’s democratization movement as “spaces where anyone could participate in discussions about democracy and where different views could be mutually adjusted—spaces of empathy and communication as well as concrete action”, essentially serving as “the longest-running political and resistance public sphere” (Ko 2021, p. 67).

For instance, the fact that the People’s Revolutionary Party (in Korean, “Inhyeokdang”) case was first exposed through these Thursday Prayer Meetings illustrates the function they served in the development of Korea’s religious human rights movement. Under Emergency Measure No. 4, enacted on 3 April 1974, those connected to the KDYL were unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment and even death in military courts on charges of violating the presidential emergency measure and conspiracy to rebellion. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) fabricated claims that the KDYL was controlled by a communist organization called the “People’s Revolutionary Party Reconstruction Committee” and falsely accused them of attempting to overthrow the government. The Yushin regime concluded that this committee, allegedly operating under North Korean orders, had manipulated the KDYL to overthrow the government and establish a communist state. As a result, eight individuals associated with this committee who had received final verdicts from the Supreme Court were executed at dawn on 9 April 1975. Like the first People’s Revolutionary Party case in 1964, there was no evidence of organizational formation, and the case was fabricated through forced confessions (Jeong 2024b, p. 458).

While the KDYL incident garnered widespread public attention, few beyond their families showed concern for those implicated in the People’s Revolutionary Party case. In this context, George E. Ogle, an American Methodist minister who had come to Korea as a United Methodist Church missionary in 1954 and had actively implemented educational programs based on workers’ rights and labor law while developing the Korean Urban Industrial Mission for 20 years, delivered a sermon at the Thursday Prayer Meeting on 10 October 1974. He spoke about how the human rights of those involved in the People’s Revolutionary Party case were being violated, receiving harsh sentences without evidence, and called for prayers on their behalf. As the fabricated nature of the case and the use of torture came to light through these prayer meetings, Reverend Ogle was forcibly deported on 14 December 1974 for his statements (Ogle 2007, pp. 37–70).

While the National Prayer Breakfast, held during the same period at Seoul’s most luxurious hotel, openly supported the Chung-hee Park government and the Yushin regime, the Thursday Prayer Meetings were prayer gatherings for the victims of Park’s regime and political prayer meetings for those who resisted the military dictatorship (H.-S. Kim 2017, pp. 176–81). Most importantly, these prayer meetings were historically significant because they allowed families of detainees to share news about their loved ones and for churches and families to express their opinions (Kang 2009, p. 139). These prayer meetings functioned simultaneously as spiritual gatherings and political protests, transforming personal suffering into collective moral claims. Participants would gather to pray for imprisoned loved ones while also reading testimonies of torture, documenting rights violations, and articulating a vision of human dignity that transcended the regime’s oppressive nationalism. Through these weekly rituals, the suffering of political prisoners was elevated from mere private tragedy to sacred witness, and the demand for their freedom became not just a political position but a moral imperative. The prayer meetings thus served as what Durkheim might identify as collective effervescence—moments when the sacred is generated and experienced through communal ritual.

This ritual dimension of sacralization extended beyond formal prayer meetings to include public declarations, vigils, and worship services that incorporated human rights themes. These practices created spaces where participants could experience what Joas describes as the affective dimension of sacralization—the emotional and existential commitment to human dignity that transcends rational calculation.

3.3. Theological Articulations of Human Sacredness

The theological articulation of human rights in the Korean Protestant democracy movement’s contexts did not simply appropriate secular human rights discourse but actively transformed it. A representative example of these changes is the “Theological Statement of Korean Christians”, which was publicly announced on 18 November 1974, under the names of 66 individuals, and is considered “one of the most critical documents Christians made to protest against Park’s regime” (J. Kim 2022, p. 392).7

The historical context of this statement includes the political climate under Park’s regime and the role of Christians in opposing it. In 1974, during Emergency Measure No. 4, while a military court was giving harsh sentences to students involved in the KDYL incident, including the death penalty and life in prison, Protestant groups felt it was important to support and justify the various statements made by church leaders up to that time, like the “1973 Korean Christian Manifesto”. In particular, on 9 November 1974, at a “Prayer Meeting for the Prime Minister” hosted by the Korean Christian Businessmen’s Committee, Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil cited Romans 13:1–7 to claim that “the church must obey the government, and the government is recognized by God”, thereby denying the legitimacy of Christians’ political participation at the national level (M.-b. Kim 2010, p. 155).

This incident led to a strong call to theologically reexamine issues such as “state and religion”, “human rights”, and “church mission”, and to philosophically justify the church’s participation in the democratization movement. Sixty-six Protestant leaders issued the “Theological Statement of Korean Christians” due to this theological necessity. Like the “1973 Korean Christian Manifesto” announced in May 1973, this Statement also occupied an important position in the theological justification of the democratization movement. However, unlike the former, which was written secretly abroad by a small anonymous group, this declaration was distinctive in that it was publicly announced with the joint signatures of many theologians, pastors, Christian professors, and others who had given their consent domestically.

Examining the content of the Statement, it first explains who the subjects issuing this Statement are (“We are members of the worldwide Christian community who believe that Christ is the savior of world history. At the same time, we are Christians and theologians who, as Korean citizens, recognize our mission to proclaim the gospel of Christ in this country, establish justice, and establish God’s order”), and why they are issuing such a Statement (“Christ did not come to the institutional church but came right into the midst of this world, this history. The history of salvation encompasses all things human… Therefore, our concern is not with whose hands the regime is in, but with its institutions and policies”). The Statement then immediately raises issues with the reality of Korean democracy under the Yushin regime from three aspects: (1) “Is power exercised with awareness of its limits and for justice?”; (2) “Are basic human rights, which belong to God, guaranteed?”; (3) “Is the freedom of religious practice guaranteed? (NCCK Human Rights Committee 1987, p. 404).

In answering these questions, the Statement states that “since the establishment of the current regime, through garrison decrees, declarations of emergency, constitutional amendments, and finally presidential emergency measures, power has been moving in the direction of absolutization” and that “by identifying the state with the government, criticism of government policies by the press or acts of criticism have come to be treated as anti-state crimes under the pretext of national security”. Furthermore, it claims that the Chung-hee Park regime “extremely violates human rights” by “controlling the press, surveilling campuses, and suppressing peaceful demonstrations with force”, and is “increasingly infringing upon the freedoms of faith and mission” (NCCK Human Rights Committee 1987, p. 404). In particular, the Statement directly raises the issue of human rights violations resulting from the Yushin regime’s economic high-growth policy as follows, making it “the first authentic, explicit, and theological ‘Korean Christian Declaration of Human Rights’” (J.-H. Kim 2007, p. 52): “So, when the poor get poorer due to power’s improper intervention and the economic structure’s flaws, to the point where their right to live is infringed upon, this is a violation of God’s human rights” (NCCK Human Rights Committee 1987, p. 406).

The “Theological Statement of Korean Christians” emphasizes the importance of human rights based on the spirit of the Bible, directed not only toward the Yushin regime but also toward the mainstream Korean church, which was acquiescing to the Yushin regime and remained silent about the horrific reality of human rights abuses. “Institutions and laws are recognized only insofar as they serve human rights. Institutions and laws exist for people, not the other way around. In this sense, Jesus said, ‘Man was not made for the Sabbath law. The Sabbath was made for man. Man is the lord of the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:27–28). This is the first declaration of human rights against oppressive institutions and laws” (NCCK Human Rights Committee 1987, p. 406).

When Protestant leaders like Ahn Byung-Mu said that “human rights come from God before the state”, that “human rights need protection from powerful groups that might violate them”, and that “everyone is equal” (Ahn 1989, p. 185), they were creating a unique idea of sacredness that opposed both the absolute power of the state and the idea of individual rights as completely separate. The person was seen as sacred not as an independent individual, but as someone made in God’s image and part of communities that share responsibility for one another. The person was sacred not as an autonomous, self-sufficient individual, but as a being created in God’s image and embedded in communities of mutual responsibility. This theological framing allowed Protestant activists to critique both the authoritarian state and unrestrained capitalism as violations of human dignity.

This theological framing positioned Christian leaders not merely as advocates for abstract rights but as witnesses to a sacred order that the Yushin regime had violated. Indeed, the “Theological Statement of Korean Christians” redefines the scope of the church’s missionary activities as political and social activities in modern society and firmly declares that such activities will continue without submission to state power’s oppression: “The fact that today’s Korean Christians carry out mission as political and social action is not because they do not know that the kingdom of God comes as God’s gift and not by human power, nor because they think that the political and social actions of the church can create a decisive ideal society at once. We must continue our missionary work because we see our model of life and action in the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament apostles, the witnesses and martyrs in Christian history, and, above all, in Jesus Christ’s missionary activities. This is because we stand firmly in the hope of the coming of God’s kingdom and resurrection” (NCCK Human Rights Committee 1987, pp. 406–7).

This willingness to sacrifice for human rights—to treat them as values worth dying for—exemplifies what Joas identifies as the hallmark of sacralization: the elevation of certain values beyond utilitarian calculation. Thus, Joas’s “theory of values” that forms the methodological foundation for analyzing the process of sacralization of personhood provides an important clue to clarifying the longstanding issue in the history of South Korea’s democratization movement: “Why did only some Christian churches participate in the democratization movement under military dictatorship or dependent authoritarian state systems?” (Kang 2009, p. 409).

In his subsequent works, In-Cheol Kang, a prominent Korean sociologist of religion who raised this question, explained four major factors that enabled only a minority of Protestants and Catholics to participate continuously and passionately in the democratization movement during the Chung-hee Park regime.

First were the dynamics of hostility and confrontation between religion and politics, or church and state, where external conflict (with state power) temporarily strengthened internal unity (solidarity within the church). Those who actively participated in the democratization movement, whether Protestant or Catholic, were certainly a minority within their churches. However, solidarity with and a sense of indebtedness toward that minority who stood at the forefront of the democratization movement and suffered the most severe oppression from the state gradually penetrated the entire Protestant and Catholic communities, ultimately generating stronger internal cohesion and a spirit of resistance within the churches. Second, both Protestantism and Catholicism had international networks and support systems spanning the globe. In particular, after World War II, the WCC was organized and played a significant role as the center of the ecumenical movement and as a global network, and the Protestant democratization movement in 1970s Korea also developed as a transnational movement extending beyond Korea to North America, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere through these international networks.

Third, a professionally well-organized Protestant activist community formed around the NCCK. The NCCK Human Rights Committee mentioned earlier was the central organization of this professional activist community, and the Thursday Prayer Meetings were its main activity space. Finally, the internal homogeneity and emotional bonds among clergy stemming from the unified training structure of small denominations enabled the leadership of a resistant minority (Kang 2013, pp. 261–93).

While this analysis provides sociologically convincing answers, it fails to explain the profound ethical and religious transformation that occurred in the form of genuine conversion among social actors (whether pastors or male and female laypersons) who committed themselves to the democratization and minjung movements even at the risk of their lives. Here, Joas’s theory of values offers important implications because it illuminates the intense orientation toward values—that is, experiences of self-transcendence characteristic of religious life and values which, according to Joas, are “discursive articulations of experiences that produce a commitment to something that is subjectively evident and affectually intense” (Joas 2015, p. 30).

Joas distinguishes value from simple norms or preferences as a powerful internal driving force of human action (Joas 2000, pp. 4–17). In his theory, values are formed through emotional yet reflective experiences of “intensely feeling that something is precious, being drawn to it, and yearning for it” (Shin 2018, p. 17). This process of value generation occurs through the dynamic interaction of “self-transcendence” (Selbsttranszendenz) and “self-formation” (Selbstbildung) (Joas 2000, pp. 116–17).8

Particularly noteworthy is what Joas calls the paradox of values. Values do not arise from our conscious choices or logical persuasion but rather emerge from “extraordinary experiences where existing self and social relationships collapse and new elements deeply enter the center of life” (Shin 2018, p. 17)—that is, in the process of the emergence of events (Jeong 2023, 2025). So, when values are created during these events, people experience a mix of being passive and actively wanting to be involved. The main reason Korean Protestantism got involved in the democratization and human rights movements of the 1970s was that they were caught up in political and religious events while also actively supporting universal values like human rights, democracy, freedom, equality, justice, and liberation.

Korean Protestant leaders demonstrated how moral universalism could arise from religiously driven social engagement by linking the sacredness of the person with the struggle for democracy. The result was a transformative process where the language of human rights took on a sacral character, advocating for a political transformation grounded in the belief that every human life is inviolably sacred. This process laid the groundwork for the “Minjung” (民衆) movement,9 which reconceptualized the sacred as both personal and communal, framing the oppressed masses as bearers of divine dignity and historical agency. The next section will examine how this religiously rooted sacralization process evolved into a distinctive theological framework that challenged both Western individualism and authoritarian nationalism.

4. From Individual to Collective Sacredness: The Minjung Theology and the Democratization Movement

The previous section demonstrated how the Protestant democratization movement in 1970s South Korea sacralized the concept of the individual person through theological frameworks, prayer meetings, and human rights activism. This section builds on that analysis by looking at how the process of making the individual sacred changed from focusing on personal dignity to recognizing the importance of the collective through the growth of Minjung theology (in Korean, Minjungshinhak). Emerging in the mid-1970s as a distinctive Korean theological perspective, Minjung theology reconceptualized the sacred as residing not merely in individuals but in the collective experience of the oppressed masses.

Through this theological innovation, Korean Protestant activists advanced a more contextual understanding of human dignity that addressed both political repression and economic exploitation under the Yushin regime. By positioning the marginalized as subjects of divine history rather than mere objects of compassion, Minjung theology offered a radical reinterpretation of the sacred that challenged both Western individualism and authoritarian nationalism. This section explores how this theological framework deepened the sacralization process in Korean society while simultaneously broadening its scope to encompass socioeconomic justice alongside political rights.

It is crucial to understand that “minjung” is more than just a theological concept or academic category. As historian Namhee Lee convincingly demonstrates in her seminal work The Making of Minjung, the term represents “a product of the complex interplay of structural preconditions, Korea’s repressive military regimes and its concomitant rapid industrialization, and the minjung movement’s own ‘political culture’” (Lee 2007, p. 1). In other words, minjung emerged through “discursive contestations in a field of political, cultural, and symbolic forces” (Lee 2007, p. 2).

Consequently, Minjung theology should be interpreted as a historically unique theological project that developed within Korean ecumenical social missions and the Protestant democratization movement of the 1970s and 80s (Jeong 2023). This movement constituted one of several attempts across different sectors—including academia, arts, and religion—to actualize the concept of “minjung” as both a symbolic framework and a political reality. In this context, the sacralization process undertaken by Minjung theologians operated as a distinct religious response to modernization, one that challenged the dominant secularization narrative by infusing collective political struggle with sacred significance.

4.1. The Tae-il Jeon Event and the Minjung Movement of the 1970s

As Kim Chang-Rak pointed out, Minjung theology is a “contextual theology” (in Korean, Hyeonjang-sinhak) that emerged in connection with the Korean minjung movement of the 1970s. According to him, “‘Contextual theology’ is a term used in opposition to the so-called “lectern theology” (in Korean, Gangdan-sinhak) formed through studying theological doctrines in ivory towers. Therefore, to properly understand and evaluate Minjung theology, one must particularly grasp the minjung movement of the 1970s” (C.-R. Kim 1987, p. 70). As emphasized by all first-generation Minjung theologians, the decisive moment that led to the emergence of Minjung theology as an indigenous and contextual political theological discourse in Korea in the 1970s was the self-immolation incident of Tae-il Jeon, known as “the death of a young worker” (Choi 2023, pp. 21–23).

Generally, Minjung theology takes as its starting point the epistemological shift triggered by the Tae-il Jeon incident, which reflects not only the horrific human rights violations that Minjung theologians themselves experienced under the developmental dictatorship, but also the shocking recognition of the destructive consequences of compressed modernization and the broader context of minjung alienation that was maximized in Korea’s political and economic situation. For example, Byung-mu Ahn, one of the pioneers of Minjung theology, declared in a postscript to his magazine “presence” (Dasein) immediately after the Tae-il Jeon event that Jeon’s self-immolation “exposed the shame of this society that flaunts highways and high-rise buildings as symbols of modernization, pierced through the dried-up hearts of this selfish society to open springs of sympathy and indignation, moved sensitive students, and his alarm bell struck with his body is echoing from heart to heart” (Ahn 1970, p. 47).

Thus, the Tae-il Jeon event was the origin of the theological imagination of the first-generation Minjung theology and was deeply rooted in the lives of Minjung theologians as an event that became the reference point for reflection. Therefore, the Tae-il Jeon event was close to an “original experience” for Minjung theologians in the birth of Minjung theology. Of course, merely keeping the shocking memory of the Tae-il Jeon event could not have made the birth of Minjung theology possible. Without something that constantly stimulated them to understand the Tae-il Jeon event as a “minjung event” and a reenactment of the “Jesus-event”, the birth of Minjung theology might have been forever impossible. It was because a series of events that continuously reminded Minjung theologians of the shock they received from the Tae-il Jeon event and stimulated them to continuously reflect on the meaning of that event unfolded before their eyes that Minjung theology could be born.

Naturally, these events were the labor movement that began to explode starting with the Tae-il Jeon event and the anti-dictatorship democratization movement that expanded more widely after the establishment of the Yushin regime. Through these movements, Minjung theologians repeatedly recalled the Tae-il Jeon event, which had remained an epistemological shock experience for them, and began to seriously think about and explore the meaning of that event. Thus, they came to understand the Tae-il Jeon event as a representative event exposing the suffering of the minjung that had been concealed and forgotten in Korea’s modernization process, and as a contemporary reenactment of the Galilean Jesus/Minjung event raised by Jesus and his supporters, the ochlos.

In short, for Byung-mu Ahn and Nam-dong Suh, what bridged the gap between the Tae-il Jeon event and the March 1st Independence Movement worship service was the Korean minjung movement that began with the Tae-il Jeon event. Therefore, Minjung theology of the 1970s can be described as a critical theological movement that developed by taking the Tae-il Jeon event of 13 November 1970 as an original experience of the minjung event, and by taking the experiences of the contemporary minjung, especially their experiences of suffering and transcendence, as the standpoint for church critique and social critique. Then, what specific events did a group of theologians experience after the Tae-il Jeon event that led them to become Minjung theologians?

4.2. From Minjung Events to Minjung Theology

Generally, Minjung theology is considered to have originated with two articles published in 1975 in the Korean theological journal Christian Thought. The first was Nam-dong Suh’s “Jesus, Church History, and the Korean Church”, published in February, and the second was Byung-mu Ahn’s “Nation, Minjung, and Church”, published in April. Suh’s later article, “Theology of ‘Minjung’: A Response to Professor Hyung-hyo Kim’s Criticism”, published in the same April issue, aimed to address Kim’s critique called “On Truth in a Confused Era” and helped strengthen the ideas behind Minjung theology. It is significant that Suh’s article, titled “Theology of ‘Minjung’” (in Korean, “Minjungui Sinhak”), marked the first academic use of the term “Minjung theology” as a conceptual keyword. Thus, Suh himself confidently asserted that he was the one who made Minjung the central theme of theology, organized it, and argued that it should be the center of all theological discourse (Suh 1983, p. 174).

In his 1975 article “Theology of ‘Minjung’”, Suh describes the origin of Minjung theology by identifying five significant “Minjung events” that took place between February and March of 1975 (Suh 1983, pp. 30–31). The first event was the February 12th national referendum on the Yushin regime, followed by statements from the NCCK and the National Council for Democratic Restoration denouncing the vote as illegal. In response, President Park made a Special Presidential Statement to ease tensions, telling the Minister of Justice to “release all detained persons who broke Emergency Decree No. 1 and No. 4, except for those involved in the People’s Revolutionary Party case and those who broke the Anti-Communist Law” (Jeong 2024a, p. 443). This “February 15 measure” led to the release of many pro-democracy figures who had been imprisoned, thereby establishing a starting point for the formalization of Minjung theology.

Second, on February 21st, those released through the February 15th measure formed the Preparatory Committee for the Association of Democratic Restoration Detainees at the Christian Building at 6 PM, with approximately 200 participants, including those who had violated Emergency Decrees 1 and 4, families of the detained, and released students. They issued a declaration stating, “We stand here solemnly, believing in the power of the minjung (people) who have fought against the dictatorial regime", demanding the abolition of the Yushin Constitution, guaranteeing workers’ and farmers’ rights, and the dissolution of the KCIA (S.-j. Kim 1996, pp. 222–23). They also pledged to continue their struggle until all those detained under the Emergency Decrees were released. Suh noted that this was the first of many political statements to openly support “the will of the minjung”, making it a key minjung event.

Third, on March 1st, the Christian Professors’ Association hosted a worship service at Saemoonan Church to welcome two professors, Dong-gil Kim and Chan-gook Kim, who had been released through the February 15th measure. It was at this event that Byung-mu Ahn delivered his sermon/lecture titled “Nation, Minjung, Church” (Ahn [1975] 2013, pp. 91–97). This lecture manuscript can be considered a systematic anti-government theological critique with a relatively structured theological framework. What is particularly noteworthy here is that Ahn developed his argument by overlapping the term “minjung” (which was recognized and commonly used within the democratization movement forces resisting the dictatorial regime as both the bearer of social contradictions and the subject of transformation) with “ochlos” (crowds, masses, and multitude) from Mark’s Gospel, distinguishing it from “laos” (which can be translated as “nation”) in Luke’s Gospel. Suh considered Ahn’s clear difference between nation and minjung, which relates to the laos/ochlos terms in the Synoptic Gospels, as an important part of developing Minjung theology.

According to Byung-mu Ahn, under the military dictatorship, the Korean society had a nation but no minjung. In other words, what actually exists is the minjung, while the nation is merely a relative concept formed in relation to external entities. But those in power always stressed the nation, and the minjung, who made up the nation, had to sacrifice themselves in the name of serving it. Ahn believes that the idea of a nation that ignores the minjung’s needs and survival is a false ideology. When the nation hides the minjung, both vanish.

Fourth, the renowned German theologian Jürgen Moltmann (1926–2024), who was enjoying worldwide fame at that time through his book Theology of Hope (Theologie der Hoffnung), visited Korea and delivered a lecture at Yonsei University on March 6th titled “Hope in the Struggles of the Minjung”. The main points of his lecture were as follows: Jesus did not identify himself with any religious or ethnic group but with the poor and oppressed minjung. He was not a heroic liberator for the minjung but rather enabled the minjung themselves to seize their liberation. Therefore, while a "church for the minjung" (a church that passionately supports and represents the minjung from outside) is better than the current church that has been indifferent to the minjung, the true church is the “church of the minjung” (a church where the minjung actively participate as subjects within the church). In other words, the minjung are not objects of pastoral care or mission; rather, hope lies in recognizing that the minjung are the masters of their own church and history (S.-j. Kim 1996, p. 223). Moltmann’s lecture provided deep inspiration and stimulation to Korean theologians who were participating in the democratization movement and attempting to theologize the minjung events of the time.

The fifth minjung event was the declaration, “We Proclaim the Gospel Movement for Democracy and Livelihood”, issued by the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice on 10 March 1975. This declaration was significant for two reasons: it came from the largest and most powerful organization involved in the democratization movement, and it contained theologically advanced content that strongly affirmed minjung consciousness. The word "minjung" appeared 24 times in this short declaration, which stated that “true democracy can only be built through democracy in which the minjung participates as the subject” and that “the movement for the restoration of democracy must be combined with the struggle for the rights of the minjung” (Jeong 2024a, pp. 446–47).

Nam-dong Suh summarized the implications of this declaration in the history of the democratization and minjung movements in two ways. The Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice, the largest and most powerful organization in the democratization movement, issued it first. Second, it contained “advanced content” that was theologically more progressive than any other declaration or statement presented until then, regardless of whether it came from Protestant or Catholic sources. From Suh’s perspective, earlier declarations and statements like the “1973 Korean Christian Manifesto” and the “Theological Statement of Korean Christians” (1974) did not mention the term “minjung” or express a shared identity for minjung, but this declaration strongly emphasized minjung awareness.

Therefore, this declaration clearly shows that minjung-oriented faith in the Christian democratization movement was not limited to Protestantism, and it was published around the same time that the systematic minjung theological research by Byung-mu Ahn and Nam-dong Suh first emerged. And as this declaration is significantly quoted and evaluated in Suh’s writing, it can be considered a key text that provided the foundation for Minjung theology (J.-n. Kim 2005, p. 57). Suh’s account shows that Minjung theology did not come from universities but from a series of events in the 1970s that changed Korean society, especially political events that pushed for democratization by highlighting the need to restore the rights of the minjung.

This historical analysis reveals a critical theoretical point: the minjung did not exist before minjung events but came into existence through them, creating a contested common ground for exposing structural evils and asserting human, civil, and labor rights. In French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s terms, the minjung has no existence as a real part of the society before the wrong—that is, the minjung event—that its name exposes (Rancière 1999, p. 39). All declarations that found the legitimacy of democratization demands in the assertion of the minjung’s rights were repetitions of the undeclared declarations made during the Tae-il Jeon event (November 1970) and the “Gwangju Grand Housing Complex event” (August 1971).10 They were events of “re-presentation” that created the minjung through these repetitive declarations. Minjung theology is part of this minjung project, attempting to theologize such events of re-presentation in a more sophisticated manner.

4.3. The Messianic Role of Minjung in the Context of Sacralization of Minjung Events

Nam-dong Suh published “Theology of Minjung” in 1979, which had a title similar to that of his 1975 work “Theology of ‘Minjung’”, which we examined earlier. This article focuses on the “confluence of two stories”, which can be considered the core concept of his systematic formulation of Minjung theology. In this article, he was the first Minjung theologian to clearly present the subject and task of Minjung theology. According to him, “the subject matter of Minjung theology is not Jesus but the Minjung” (Suh 1979, p. 84; 1981b, p. 160). This revolutionary approach positioned Minjung rather than Jesus as the primary subject of theological inquiry. Suh argued that Korean history witnessed a convergence of two parallel traditions—Christian minjung tradition and Korean minjung tradition—both characterized by oppressed people transforming from historical objects to subjects. In both traditions, Suh identified a process of humanization in which the minjung gradually overcame external conditions through their own power and became self-determining agents of their destiny.

Challenging Western theological paradigms that positioned Jesus Christ as the exclusive agent of salvation, Suh reinterpreted biblical and church history to demonstrate how the minjung were God’s original covenant partners who had been alienated by ruling powers but were now reclaiming their rightful role in divine justice. Through historical analysis spanning from Exodus to the crucifixion and from eschatological thinker of the medieval period Joachim of Fiore’s “third era of the Holy Spirit” to Thomas Müntzer’s peasant revolution, Suh argued that the minjung, who had been objects of God’s salvation, were increasingly becoming the subjects of salvation history (Suh 1979, pp. 86–93; 1981b, pp. 162–67; 1983, pp. 55–63).

From the perspective of collective sacredness, Suh’s most radical innovation was his concept of the “messianic role of minjung”, which maximized the agency of ordinary people. By reconceptualizing sin as a label imposed by the powerful and focusing instead on “Han” (恨, collective resentment born of injustice) as the authentic language of the oppressed, Suh attributed redemptive qualities to suffering masses. Suh believed that instead of seeing sin as something defined by those in power, we should understand “Han” as the true voice of the oppressed. Unlike traditional stories of salvation that keep the person needing help separate from the one who helps, Suh claimed that Han itself could bring about forgiveness—when the oppressed dealt with and moved past their Han, they showed their ability to save others. The minjung then become “priests of Han”, not just freeing themselves but also changing the social systems that create suffering (Suh 1981a, pp. 51–66; 1983, pp. 37–44).11

To illustrate this messianic quality, Suh offered radical reinterpretations of biblical parables. In the Good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25–37), for instance, he claimed the wounded man, not the Samaritan, plays the “Christ role” by providing an opportunity for compassionate action. Similarly, interpreting “The Judgment of the Nations” (Matthew 25:31–46), Suh argued that when we show solidarity with “one of the least of these", we receive “the grace of redemption by welcoming the Messiah”. Through reciprocal relationships, Christ saves us, and we save him, creating a mutual salvation dynamic (Suh 1983, pp. 107–8). As Suh summarized, “The Messiah approaches us incarnated as the suffering neighbor. In this sense, Minjung is the Messiah” (Suh 1983, p. 217).

It is at this point that the so-called “Minjung Messiah theory” or “Minjung Messianism” emerges—a theological perspective that has attracted the most criticism both domestically and internationally toward Minjung theology (Kim and Kim 2023). The reason why the Minjung Messiah theory remains both central to Minjung theology and simultaneously its most controversial aspect is that it implies a theological understanding fundamentally different from traditional Christian soteriology: namely, that the minjung themselves are the Messiah (Choi 2022, p. 323). This contains a subtle tension between interpreting it to mean “the minjung are the Messiah” versus “the minjung play a messianic role”, but it is considered the essential core of Minjung theology precisely because it acknowledges the possibility of self-salvation by the minjung, which also makes it the most contentious issue (Choi 2022, pp. 323–24).

A representative example is the debate between German theologians, including Moltmann, and Korean Minjung theologians. While Moltmann expressed understanding and respect for the historical Korean context in which Minjung theology emerged with its “identification of Jesus with the minjung”, he did not fully accept Minjung Messianism. He posed the critical question: “If the minjung is to redeem the world, like the suffering servant of God, who then redeems the minjung?” (Moltmann 2000, p. 259). This question was posed from the theological position that the minjung are objects of salvation. The dialogue based on this concern continued between German theologians and Korean minjung theologians (Wagner 1988, pp. 183–95; Ahn 1988, pp. 196–207).

It is difficult to resume this ongoing debate here, nor is that my intention. However, I want to emphasize that Suh’s proposal of Minjung Messiah theory is grounded in the horizon of “minjung events”, as we have examined above. The real intention of the Minjung Messiah theory is not that “minjung as beings are messianic beings” but that “minjung events are messianic events”. In other words, while the minjung themselves are undoubtedly imperfect beings at both individual and collective levels, these imperfect beings possess a desire to survive, and through the interactions driven by this desire, events occur that transform the participants and resolve their problems. Therefore, this “transformation and resolution” constitutes a “liberation event”, and this “liberation event” is simultaneously a “salvation event”. Moreover, by viewing events from the perspective of social transformation and overcoming suffering, issues of power and domination are encompassed within them, thereby making these “events” into “minjung events”. In this sense, “minjung events” inevitably become “messianic events”, and this is the core meaning of Minjung Messiah theory (Hwang et al. 1998, pp. 383–86).

It is in this context that minjung theology understands the minjung as both “bearers of suffering” and “subjects of salvation” simultaneously. Nam-dong Suh argued that in the Good Samaritan parable, the man who fell victim to robbers plays the messianic role by giving the Samaritan an opportunity to become fully human (since becoming fully human is salvation) (Suh 1983, pp. 116–17). Byung-mu Ahn takes this further, suggesting that since the messianic event is a relational event, the Samaritan also plays a messianic role by rescuing the wounded man from a state of near-death dehumanization (Ahn 2019, pp. 99–100). Each saves the other. In this way, Minjung theology’s Minjung Messiah theory argues that the messianic event of Jesus in the Gospels was not an event directed by Jesus alone but occurred through the relationship between Jesus and the minjung. Minjung theology critiques Western messianic thought based on “subject-object dualism” and views salvation as occurring through relationships between the minjung and Jesus.

In light of Joas’ theory of the “sacralization of the person”, the Minjung Messiah theory within Minjung Theology can be interpreted as an assertion of the sacred dignity inherent in the collective suffering and transformative agency of the minjung. While Joas articulates the process through which human rights and universal dignity emerged from the sacralization of the individual, Minjung Messiah theory embodies a collective sacralization rooted in historical and social struggles. By framing the minjung as both the bearers of suffering and the agents of liberation, Minjung Theology resonates with Joas’ affirmation that sacralization is not exclusively religious but a mode of experience characterized by subjective self-evidence and affective intensity. Thus, the Minjung Messiah theory challenges the Western individual-centric notion of human dignity, instead proposing a communal and relational paradigm that aligns with the sacralization process as the collective realization of transformative justice.

This intersection between Minjung theology’s Minjung Messiah theory and Joas’s theory of the sacralization of the person reveals an expansion from individual sacredness to collective sacredness. While Joas argues that sacralization involves the gradual establishment of individual inviolability through historical experiences, Nam-dong Suh and Byung-mu Ahn’s Minjung Messianism demonstrates how this sacralization is realized in a collective and relational dimension. As Gascoigne points out, the concept of sacredness, though rooted in religious traditions, transcends them to become a shared ethical resource in secular societies (Gascoigne 2015b, pp. 180–81). In this sense, Minjung Messianism represents a communal realization of sacred dignity, resonating with Joas’s concept of value generalization. Joas’s understanding of sacralization as a “cultural transformation” is particularly relevant when considering the Korean minjung’s struggles under military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, where the reconceptualization of the minjung not merely as objects of salvation but as subjects of salvation illustrates the formation of universal values through “experiences of self-transcendence”. Suh’s concept of the “confluence of two stories” ultimately represents a uniquely Korean expression of Joas’s value generalization, where the Christian minjung tradition and the Korean minjung tradition converge to generate new universal values.

5. Conclusions

The analysis of South Korea’s 1970s Protestant democratization movement through Hans Joas’s theory of the sacralization of the person reveals a powerful case study that transcends the binary opposition between religious and secular narratives of human rights origins. As demonstrated through institutional bodies like the NCCK Human Rights Committee, ritual practices such as the Thursday Prayer Meetings, and theological innovations culminating in Minjung theology, Korean Protestant activists enacted a process of sacralization that made human dignity universally compelling across religious and secular divides. This synthesis was not a mere replication of Western Enlightenment or Christian narratives but a contextual reimagining of dignity that fused biblical imagery (e.g., imago Dei) with collective resistance to state violence. The Korean example shows how Joas’s “affirmative genealogy” operates in a non-Western context, revealing sacralization as a dynamic process that emerges through the intersection of religious conviction, historical events, and cultural transformation rather than through abstract philosophical reasoning alone.

The evolution from individual to collective sacredness through Minjung theology’s Messianic framework offers a particularly significant contribution to understanding how sacralization processes unfold in contexts of authoritarian oppression. By reconceptualizing the minjung as both bearers of suffering and subjects of salvation, figures like Nam-dong Suh and Byung-mu Ahn expanded the scope of human sacredness beyond Western individualism to encompass communal dignity and relational redemption. This shift challenged Western individualism by positing that human dignity is realized not in isolation but through shared struggles against structural injustice. The Minjung Messiah concept, though contentious, underscored the transformative power of collective suffering (Han) and solidarity, positioning marginalized communities as bearers of redemptive agency. Such theological innovations aligned with Joas’s emphasis on “the successful transformation of experiences of violence into a universalist commitment to values”—such as the shock of the Tae-il Jeon self-immolation—as catalysts for sacralization (Joas 2013, p. 70). The Korean case thus demonstrates how sacralization can emerge through collective experiences of resistance against injustice, generating a distinctive moral vocabulary that synthesizes religious and secular elements while remaining grounded in concrete historical struggles for human rights and democracy.

This study challenges reductionist narratives of human rights origins by highlighting the Korean movement’s dual contribution: it reaffirms the role of religious actors in democratization while complicating the assumption that sacralization is a uniquely Western or linear process. The 1970s Korean democratization movement illustrates how the boundary between the sacred and the profane or the religious and the secular dissolves in moments of moral urgency, as religious actors employ their spiritual resources to articulate universal claims about human dignity that transcend sectarian boundaries. The Korean experience reveals that the sacredness of the person is not a fixed doctrine but “an emotional commitment to values and practices” shaped by resistance to oppression (Joas 2013, p. 57). It also invites scholars to reconsider the global dimensions of human rights history, where non-Western contexts like South Korea’s Yushin era offer critical insights into how universal ideals are localized and revitalized. This expanded genealogy suggests that the ongoing defense of human rights globally requires not the triumph of either secular or religious frameworks in isolation, but rather their creative engagement in responding to contemporary threats to human dignity through processes of sacralization that can speak across ideological divides. By bridging theology, sociology, and political history, this analysis affirms Joas’s vision of human rights as a shared project—one that thrives when diverse traditions collaborate to uphold the sacredness of human life in all its forms.