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A Study of Korean Church History -- a Religio-Comparative Perspective

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A Study of Korean Church History -- a Religio-Comparative Perspective A Study of Korean Church History -- A Religio-Comparative Perspective Chongsuh Kim Department of Religious Studies Seoul National University 1. Introduction Christianity has long been a mainstream religion in Korea. The Korean National Census reports that the entire Christian population, combining the Protestants and Catholics, exceeded the Buddhist population in 1980s and 1990s.1 It means the fact that the terms like “persecution” or “mission-oriented religion” can no longer describe the Korean Church. Its remarkable growth has established Christianity as the most influential religion in the nation and at the same time has made the Korean church one of the most vital and dynamic in the world. The leading role of Christianity has changed the landscape of Korean culture as a whole as well as the Korean religions. Christianity in Korea is not merely another “foreign religion” that attached itself to other Korean traditional religions like Shamanism, Confucianism, or Buddhism. Neither is it part of the underground culture once only shared by the ignored lower class. Today over a half of the religious population in Korea are Christians and over quarter of the entire population share the Christian belief. 1 The reliability of Korean National Census is known for collecting information from the entire population instead of using the sampling method. Korean National Census has published statistical data on the religious population only twice so far, in 1985 and 1995 respectively. The 1985 Census reports the religious population as 17.20 million (42.6%) out of the entire population of 40.42 million. Buddhists are 8.06 million (19%), Christians 6.48 million (16.1%), and Catholics 1.86 million (4.6%). The 1995 Census reports 23.59 million (50.7%) of religious population out of the entire population of 44.55 million. Buddhists are 10.32 million (23.2%), Christians 8.76 (19.7%), and Catholics 2.95 million (6.6%). See Han-guk ui jonggyo hyeonhwang (Korean Religious Affairs). Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2000. p.9. KIM 2 In this regard, it is easy to witness that a number of religious historians have sought to rewrite the Korean church history apart from its earlier focus on the persecutions of the Catholics or Christian missionary work, which seems to have been less appealing. Among these attempts since the 1970s are Minjok gyohoe sagwan (National Viewpoint of Church History), Minjung sagwan (Minjung[People]’s Viewpoint of Church History) and Chongchejeok sagwan (Holistic Viewpoint of Church History).2 While these works have contributed to offering meaningful perspectives for the Korean church history, it should be noted that they were mostly limited to Korean church historians who were interested in re-examining their own work. Given the unquestionable influence of Christianity in Korea, therefore, the study of Korean church history demands to overcome the existing perspectives that were dominated by the Korean church historians. Such a demand has a lot to do with the rapid development in the fields of theology, religious studies, and other secular sciences, which resulted from academic differentiation and increase in the number of scholars since the 1970s. In other words, just as the discussion of Minjung sagwan (The People’s Viewpoint) was impossible without Minjung Theology, the theological discussion of indigenization and Koreanization would not be constructive enough without the religio- comparative interest. The study of Korean church history is required to provide a more comprehensive perspective in order to parallel the accumulation of Korean studies based on history, language and literature, sociology, political science, education, economics, and geography. 2. The Korean Perspective Perhaps it is worthwhile to ask whether the existing Korean church histories were written from a Korean perspective. It is little doubt that Kyeongbae Min’s Minjok gyohoe sagwan (National Church Viewpoint) in the 1970s first started to seriously embrace the Korean perspective in writing Korean church histories. Unlike others who 2 For a more detailed and recent study of Korean Christian history, see Gwang-Cheol Shin. “A Study of Korean Christian History.” Jonggyo wa munhwa (Religion and Culture) 1996.2: 175- 197; Deok-Joo Lee. “The Diversity of Theological Studies: The Success of Theology of Indigenization.” Hebanghoo ohshipnyeon Han-guk jonggyo yeongoosa (50 years after Hebang[Liberation]: A Study of Korean History). Seoul: Chang, 1997. pp.69-116; Man-yeol Lee. “Past and Present: A Study of Korean Christian History.” Han-guk saron (Korean History Studies) 1998. 28: 315-384. KIM 3 have contended elsewhere, it is less important to consider how many more Korean materials were actually cited than recognizing the shift of the focus from the mission- oriented perspective to the perspective that stresses the national church and Korean references, since actual application of materials can accumulate with further findings. Korean church history of today, however, demands a more fundamental approach beyond such perspectives and materials. For instance, in the 1980s, when Buddhists questioned why Christianity was covered as one of the Korean traditional religions in the high school philosophy/ethics curricular, the only responses Korean church historians were able to offer were that they took pride in a long history—the transmission of Catholicism took place far over 200 years ago—and that Christianity’s present influence as a major religion could no more be described “non-traditional” or “foreign.” Historic rendering of foreign religions tends to carry quite disparate perspectives. For example, Erik Zürcher’s The Buddhist Conquest of China,3 first published in 1959, is considered a classic on Chinese Buddhism for offering a very thorough historical research on how Buddhism was transmitted, spread, and adapted in China. Yet in 1973, a Chinese scholar named Kenneth Ch’en published a book that became another classic on Chinese Buddhism under a title that is ironically reminiscent of Zürcher’s—The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism.4 Ch’en historically examines how Buddhism takes up its distinctive Chinese features through its interaction with Chinese ethics, politics, economics, literature, education, and society in general. It would be interesting to question which one of these is more “Chinese” in its perspective. In fact, some well-known Korean church histories such as L. George Paik’s Han- guk gaeshingyosa (The History of Protestant Missions in Korea, 1832-1910) or Kyeongbae Min’s Han-guk gidokgyohoesa (A History of Korean Christian Churches) and even Han-guk gidokgyo ui yeoksa (A History of Korean I, II) published by the Institute for Korean Church History, all share the same framework as Zürcher’s. Besides the minor additions or omissions, the only difference lies in whether the works include Catholicism, or whether they trace up to Nestorianism, or whether they refer to a lot of Korean materials. The question is, then, whether we, like Ch’en, can examine how 3 Zürcher, E., The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, Leiden: E. J. Brill, (1959) 1972. 4 Ch’en, Kenneth K. S., The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973. KIM 4 Christianity made its own transformations through its interaction with the everyday lives of the Korean people. In other words, there are two different issues, one is to investigate how Christianity as a Western religion made its own transmission and contribution to Korean culture, and the other is to take a closer look at how the Korean people with ancient religious traditions transformed Christianity with distinctive Korean features. While the existing Korean church histories focus mainly on how Christianity acquired its influence in Korea, they are less interested in examining what the Korean people’s religious mind were originally like and how it was transformed through Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and finally with Christianity. If Christianity is a mainstream religion in Korea today, should it not be placed in a more diachronic context of Korean religious history? Should the study of Korean church history not look out for a spiritual meaning that Korean history in general might imply? Although too brief and cursory merely relying on missionary materials, L. George Paik’s effort to summarize Korean religion in his preface to Han-guk gaeshingyosa deserves a close attention. It is indeed a significant accomplishment in a sense to testify that Korean church history requires a background account of Korean religion.5 Most of the Korean church histories published since then have paid little attention to this issue. There were attempts to establish a Korean perspective by replacing the missionary viewpoint of church history but few sought to view Korean church history in the larger framework of Korean religion history.6 As the debate between the Minjok gyohoe 5 The fact that this was a dissertation published in a foreign country tells us that this preface could have been written to help readers who were not familiar with the Korean culture. For a further study on L. George Paik and the contemporary understanding of Korean religion by missionaries, see Chongsuh Kim, “The Development of Korean Religious Studies in Old Korea and Japanese Imperialistic Rules.” Han-guk sasangsa degae (Historical Outline of Korean Thoughts) 6 Kyeongkido: The Academy of Korean Studies. 1993. pp.249-266, 310-311. While not an expert in church history,
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