Search Results (11)

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. Full article

On the morning of 16 April 2014, the passenger ship Sewol capsized off the coast of Jindo, South Korea. The sinking caused three hundred four deaths, including five missing persons, and one hundred seventy-two survivors. The tragedy triggered tremendous grief and loss for the entire nation. Amid national mourning, the politically and ideologically biased discourses of several church leaders exacerbated the sorrow during this challenging period. This study argues that anti-communism is the primary source of their perspective. This study analyzed the anti-communism perspectives of the two churches with political grief. It concluded that the South Korean church has two distinct perspectives on anti-communism that have been consistently reinforced or challenged within their historical, theological, and socio-political aspects. These differences have influenced the formation of the new assumptive worlds of the two churches. Full article

This essay examines the connectedness between cultural trauma theory and decolonial studies in pastoral theology, demonstrating the denotation of collective trauma in South Korea and Korean Christianity from past colonial and war experiences. Although cultural trauma theory is well established in studying the case of the Holocaust and Western context, it has not yet explored the trauma of the Third World in a fully fledged manner. Rather, it still employs a Western-centered discourse that is unable to explain the disparity of power dynamics based on colonial values. Therefore, a critical analysis is essential to develop a decolonial discourse between cultural trauma theory and pastoral theology. The case of Korean cultural trauma and its relation to Korean Protestantism is a good starting point for addressing decolonial pastoral care in that the Korean church is still complicit in the colonial religious inheritances concerning its colonized ways of thinking and psyche. Throughout this essay, I argue that Korean social identity and Protestantism are reproducing the harmful reaction of in-group exclusion under the impact of cultural trauma. Finally, I provide a pastoral theological analysis of this discussion in order to suggest a new possibility of decolonial pastoral care for the traumatized Korean society and Christianity. Full article

The Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) (1897–1909) and the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC) (1910–1940) of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) worked in Korea from 1897 to 1940. Their work used a distinctive mission philosophy, hermeneutics, and implementation of strategies in their encounters with Korean women. Over the course of their years in Korea, Southern Methodist missionary women initiated the Great Korea Revival, established the first social evangelistic centers, educated the first indigenous female church historian, and ordained women for the first time in Korea. This article argues that, even though the missionary activities of the single female missionaries occurred in the context of “Christian civilization” as a mission theory, their holistic Wesleyan missiology departed from the colonial theory of mission as civilization. The first section of the article offers background information regarding the single female missionaries to help understand them. What motivated these females to venture in foreign lands with the Gospel? What was their preparation? The second section presents the religious, cultural, social, and political background of Korea during the time the missionaries arrived. The third section describes and analyzes the evangelistic and social ministries of the female missionaries in the nascent Korean mission. The final section describes and analyzes the appropriation and reinterpretation of the Bible and Christianity by Korean women, especially the work of Korean Bible women and Methodist female Christians in the quest for independence from Japanese control in the Independence Movement of 1919. Full article

This paper examines how megachurch congregations in South Korea responded to governmental measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of religious governance. This empirical study of Saeronam Church (SC) in Daejeon shows that the unexpected crisis forced its congregants to look back on their faithfulness in terms of self-reflection, and hence, made them more committed to their congregation socially and organizationally. The theologically and politically conservative megachurch congregants tend to regard the pandemic crisis as a God-planned ordeal which must be endured not only through self-reflection and repentance, but also through protection of their congregation from secular authorities. This attitude made it easier for conservative congregants to protest against governmental quarantine measures more explicitly and collectively. While some argue that the COVID-19 pandemic basically accelerated secularity by shrinking religious influence on society, this paper finds this aspect remarkably opposite in Korean conservative churches like SC, and emphasizes how a secular challenge, like the recent quarantine measures, can intensify megachurch Christianity. In this sense, it claims that the second-generation Korean megachurches like SC cannot be explained entirely by traditional theories of urbanization, marketing strategies, and church growth. Full article

The pandemic enhanced disgust for the socially disadvantaged. In South Korea, hatred of the Chinese, the Shincheonji Church, sexual minorities, and migrant workers intensified during the pandemic. In this social atmosphere of fear and anxiety, Korean Protestantism turned into a representative group that promotes and spreads disgust. In particular, homophobia can be said to be led by the conservative Protestants in Korea. A secularization strategy proposed by David Martin has significant implications in resolving this disgust demonstrated by Korean Protestants. Martin asserts that Christianity should respond appropriately to the demands for the enhancement of the public good with the resources of religion that he calls secularization. This paper argues that religion-government governance can be a process and system that makes possible secularization in which religion realizes the virtues of reconciliation and hospitality beyond conflict and disgust. Among various types of governance, collaborative governance is the most appropriate for religion-government governance to resolve disgust for the socially disadvantaged. Here, collaboration means the process of pursuing the realization of the public good by creating new values beyond the actors’ interests. A case for this can be found in the collaboration between some Protestants and LGBTQIA+ rights activists and the government to support anonymous COVID-19 tests on homosexuals during the pandemic. Full article

This case study focuses on the epidemiological situation of the COVID-19 outbreak, its impacts and the measures South Korea undertook during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the first case was confirmed on 20 January 2020, South Korea has been actively experiencing the COVID-19 outbreak. In the early stage of the pandemic, South Korea was one of the most-affected countries because of a large outbreak related to meetings of a religious movement, namely the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, in a city called Daegu and North Gyeongsang province. However, South Korea was held as a model for many other countries as it appeared to slow the spread of the outbreak with distinctive approaches and interventions. First of all, with drastic and early intervention strategies it conducted massive tracing and testing in a combination of case isolation. These measures were underpinned by transparent risk communication, civil society mobilization, improvement of accessibility and affordability of the treatment and test, the consistent public message on the potential benefit of wearing a mask, and innovation. Innovative measures include the mobile case-tracing application, mobile self-quarantine safety protection application, mobile self-diagnosis application, and drive-thru screening centres. Meanwhile, the epidemic has brought enormous impacts on society economically and socially. Given its relationship with China, where the outbreak originated, the economic impact in South Korea was predicted to be intense and it was already observed since February due to a decline in exports. The pandemic and measures undertaken by the government also have resulted in social conflicts and debates, human-right concerns, and political tension. Moreover, it was believed that the outbreak of COVID-19 and the governmental responses towards it has brought a huge impact on the general election in April. Despite of the large outbreak in late February, the Korean government has flattened the COVID-19 curve successfully and the downward trend in the number of new cases remained continuously as of 30 April. The most distinctive feature of South Korea’s responses is that South Korea conducted proactive case finding, contacts tracing, and isolations of cases instead of taking traditional measures of the containment of the epidemic such as boarder closures and lockdowns. Full article

The three largest Korean religious organizations have worked to provide material, educational, medical, and social support to the various growing migrant communities. Among them, the Catholic community has been the most organized, sustained, and effective in its support of migrants by systematically providing for the legal, material, educational, and medical needs of various immigrant communities while advocating for their rights. Although lacking the centralized authority and organization of the Catholics, since the 1990s, Korea’s Protestants have also been active in supporting their country’s growing immigrant communities, which Evangelical churches also view as fertile grounds for proselytizing. The Korean Buddhist community, in comparison, has been slower to engage with Korea’s immigrants and has provided considerably fewer support services. In 2008, the Jogye Order organized the Maha Association for Supporting Immigrants to coordinate individual and localized Buddhist migrant support services at a national level. This article examines the Buddhist reactions to the increase in South Korean immigration over recent decades, with a focus on immigrant-support efforts supported by the Jogye Order for migrant Buddhist communities. Full article

While pivotal in the lives of North Korean refugee-migrants, the role of religion has been largely neglected in most studies. After being exposed to Protestant missionary networks, either while dwelling in Northeast China or en route to the South, about 80 percent of North Korean refugee-migrants arriving in South Korea affiliate themselves with Protestant churches. This implies that they are exposed to Protestant missionary networks either while dwelling in Northeast China or en route to the South. Some who leave South Korea for other countries or seek asylum in non-Korean societies develop their religiosity in various ways and for various reasons, as part of their aspirations, adjustment to new homes, and search for meaning. The present study aims to address this literature gap. Based on long-term ethnographic research with North Korean refugee-migrants living in South Korea, China, and Europe, the two ethnographic vignettes presented in this article represent those who are in Germany and the United Kingdom by discussing the religious encounters and conversions through which North Korean refugee-migrants make their lives and futures. It draws attention to religion as a lens through which the migrants’ negotiation of meanings, new selves and homelands, and hopes for the future can be better illuminated. The findings of this study suggest that when North Korean Christians experience religious conversion during their perilous journeys, it not only helps them to negotiate a new sense of belonging in their host societies, but it also mobilizes them to contest the existing order of things. Full article

The Sewol Ferry tragedy in April 2014 has drawn a renewed attention to the role of religion in South Korea. Theologians and religiously-motivated NGOs in Korea at the time and thereafter have called for the need for religion, and religious organizations, to become more actively involved with societal needs, especially after disasters, to help alleviate their pain by providing relief aid and counselling. Such calls for the greater involvement of religion in relief efforts have coincided with Pope Francis’ repeated calls for the Catholic Church’s greater involvement in social affairs on behalf of the poor and the underprivileged. This paper contends that these developments in and outside of Korea provide an opportune time to renew discussion on oft-misunderstood liberation theology. This is because the latter’s advocacy of an interpretation of the teachings of Jesus Christ from the perspective of the poor and the marginalized for the purpose of alleviating unjust economic, social, or political conditions is as compelling today as it was some 60 years ago when it first arose. The paper offers a reassessment of the role of religion in light of liberation theology, arguing that religion can make itself more relevant to people’s lives today by engaging more actively with social issues. The paper will pay special attention to liberation theology in the Korean context, namely minjungshinhak or “people’s theology.” The paper also discusses the implications of liberation theology for secularization theory, arguing, among others, that the former refutes the “decline of religion” thesis of the latter, since liberation theology manifests a different role of religion in contemporary society rather than its diminishing significance. Full article

A large literature studies the views and discourses of Western, and especially American, conservative Christians with respect to homosexuality; only a few examine the discourse of Christians in non-Western countries, and none focuses on non-Western Christians with advanced, overseas education and careers. This paper examines the discourse of South Korean Evangelical women with overseas, educational or career experiences. I draw on 15 in-depth interviews with current and former members of a Seoul-based, Evangelical mega-church. Transnational, evangelical women show comparatively mild-minded and tolerant views toward homosexuality and LGBT persons. The women illustrated two pathways to reconcile their conflicting beliefs in conservative religion and human rights: first, the values of equity and meritocracy; and second, personal contacts with LGBT persons. This study suggests that for transnational migrants, traditional religiosity is challenged and constrained by sustained experiences in liberal, pluralistic societies. Full article