Living Out, Redeeming Together: An Ethico-Theological Reconsideration of Protestant “Calling” in the 21st-Century Korean Context

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper analyzed that the characteristics of Korea's 4.0 generation feminists, which grew up in the rapidly changing political and social circumstances of 21st century Korea, are that they pursue survival-oriented solidarity with the commonality of "priority of becoming oneself" and "vulnerability" in the unstable reality of young women.

On the other hand, the Korean church has accepted the structure of 'moderate/soft patriarchal Christianity' from the early days of Protestantism as a divine order, and has continued to perpetuate the imbalance of power structure and the discourse of 'women's calling' based on fixed gender roles and functions, which has led to conflicts to young women or leaving the church.

Within this context, this study introduced the Mago-lineage goddess myths, particularly the jeju Island myth of Seolmundaehalmang, to emphasize women's creative power, perservation, and solitarity. In other word, this study concluded that by reconsiderung the communal narrative of Korean women's orgins and recalling the resistance within the history of early Korean Christian women, we must engage with the capabilitues of today's young women to create a new "women's calling".

This study sociologically analyzed sharply and accurately the reality feminism in Korean Protestantism, where the self-awareness of young women growing up together within the rapidly changeing social structure annd value system clashes with the structure and beliefs of the Protestant church, which claims and maintains the confucian, patrarchal order as the divine order, and ultimately leads to their leaving the community.

Even in these circumstances, the creation myth of the traditional Korean goddess, which demonstrates creative power and solidarity, offers a staring point for Christian women living today to discover a new calling toward a communal direction where they live individually but also archieve mutual salvation. This paper is an excellent and outstanding study with historical, social, and ethical significance and a future-oriented perspective.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer's Comment 1: This study sociologically analyzed sharply and accurately the reality of feminism in Korean Protestantism, where the self-awareness of young women growing up together within the rapidly changing social structure and value system clashes with the structure and beliefs of the Protestant church, which claims and maintains the Confucian, patriarchal order as the divine order, and ultimately leads to their leaving the community. Even in these circumstances, the creation myth of the traditional Korean goddess, which demonstrates creative power and solidarity, offers a starting point for Christian women living today to discover a new calling toward a communal direction where they live individually but also achieve mutual salvation. This paper is an excellent and outstanding study with historical, social, and ethical significance and a future-oriented perspective.

Author's Response: I am deeply grateful for the reviewer's generous and encouraging comments. I was especially moved by the reviewer's evident sensitivity to the Korean social context and to the lived realities of women in Korean Protestant churches. This article emerged from my own long journey of living, working and thinking as a churchwoman and a feminist scholar within Korean Christianity. I have westled academically and personally with many of the questions addressed in this manuscript, often in tension with ecclesial structures that have been slow to recognize women's voices and callings. To receive such affirming feedback from a reviewer who clearly understands these complexities has been profoundly encouraging. One of my hope in writing this piece was to offer encouragement and resonance to younger generations of Korean church women who continue to negotiate faith, feminism, and vocation, while also introducing English-speaking readers to the contemporary situation of Korean Protestant women. The reviewer's thoughtful affirmation gives me renewed confidence that this intention has been communicated with clarity and care. Thank you sincerly for taking the time to engage the manuscript with such generosity and insight.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I found this paper both engaging and informative, particularly in its exploration of the four generations of feminism in 20th- and 21st-century South Korea and the socio-political and historical contexts from which they emerged. Your detailed analysis effectively illuminates the dissonance experienced by young Korean feminists, who find themselves simultaneously mobilized in solidarity through digital platforms yet facing significant institutional and social barriers, especially in the context of the Church. You make the important argument that in Korea, the Christian concept of divine "'calling' became trapped within a rigorously sacralized domestic discourse produced by the triple entanglement of Protestant teaching with a deeply rooted Confucian patriarchy" (p. 10, lines 475-77). You then propose a new approach to interpreting "creation order" and "calling" that attempts to "discern between the liberative core of the Christian gospel and its patriarchal permutations through the process of intersubjective dialogue between the Bible and pre-patriarchal Korean cultural narratives" (p. 1, lines 24-25). The strength of this intervention is that you draw from both Christian and Korean sources to analyze the context of 4.0 feminist church women, helping them reconsider, reconstruct, and reimagine calling for their own time in ways that are faithful to the Christian gospel and congruent with their sense of solidarity and agency as women.

This reviewer suggests revising the title of Section 1 to better reflect your constructive theological proposal. Consider something like "'Lighting the Darkness Together': Reimagining Christian Calling for Young Korean Feminist Church Women" or "'Lighting the Darkness Together': A Proposal to Reimagine Christian Calling for Young Korean Feminist Church Women."

Given that you are proposing an ethico-theological reconsideration of Protestant calling for the 21st century, your theological understanding of calling requires more thorough development. The concept needs clearer definition: What does it mean to be called? To what are we called? By whom? And how does calling relate to human agency and community? Without this foundational clarity, readers may struggle to grasp the significance of your reinterpretation.

Additionally, you need to establish a clear rationale for centering Genesis 1-2 as your primary text for understanding calling. This is especially important given that Luther—whom you cite as a key figure in Protestant theology—grounds his doctrine of vocation primarily in New Testament texts. Explaining why you privilege the Genesis creation narratives over these traditional Reformation sources will strengthen your argument's theological credibility. It will also make your comparative analysis between the Genesis and Seolmundaehalmang creation accounts more compelling and methodologically sound, demonstrating that your choice is theologically intentional rather than merely convenient for the cross-cultural dialogue you wish to facilitate.

Finally, the paper would benefit from engagement with more recent feminist interpretations of the Genesis creation account, such as Sarah Shectman, “Women’s Status and Feminist Readings of Genesis,” pages 188-208 in The Cambridge Companion to Genesis, eds. Bill T. Arnold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Author Response

I have uploded the detailed attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf