The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society
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The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society Edited by Song-Chong Lee Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Religions www.mdpi.com/journal/religions The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society Special Issue Editor Song-Chong Lee MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade Special Issue Editor Song-Chong Lee The University of Findlay USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) from 2018 to 2019 (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special issues/Korean). For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03897-888-6 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03897-889-3 (PDF) Cover image courtesy of Kristine J. Park. c 2019 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. Contents About the Special Issue Editor ...................................... vii Preface to ”The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society” ................ ix B. Hyun Choo Tracing the Satipat..th¯ana in the Korean Ganhwa Seon Tradition: Its Periscope Visibility in the Mindful hwadu Sisimma,‘Sati-Sisimma’ Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 341, doi:10.3390/rel9110341 .................... 1 Bongrae Seok The Four–Seven Debate of Korean Neo-Confucianism and the Moral Psychological and Theistic Turn in Korean Philosophy Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 374, doi:10.3390/rel9110374 .................... 17 Sung Uk Lim Performing the Bible in the Korean Context: Korean Ways of Reading, Singing, and Dramatizing the Scriptures Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 268, doi:10.3390/rel9090268 .................... 32 Andrew Eungi Kim Minjung Theology in Contemporary Korea: Liberation Theology and a Reconsideration of Secularization Theory Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 415, doi:10.3390/rel9120415 .................... 42 So-Yi Chung Introducing Christian Spirituality to Joseon Korea—Three Responses from Confucian Scholars Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 329, doi:10.3390/rel9110329 .................... 59 Woncheol Yun and Beom Seok Park Responses of Korean Buddhism to the Ethos of Contemporary Korea: Three Discourses in the Wake of Modernization Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 6, doi:10.3390/rel10010006 .................... 73 Sungmoon Kim Candlelight for Our Country’s Right Name: A Confucian Interpretation of South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 330, doi:10.3390/rel9110330 .................... 83 Jaesang Jung Ritualization of Affection and Respect: Two Principles of Confucian Ritual Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 224, doi:10.3390/rel10030224 ...................103 Hyo-Dong Lee Confucian Democracy and a Pluralistic Li-Ki Metaphysics Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 325, doi:10.3390/rel9110325 ....................115 Yohan Yoo and Minah Kim “Korea National Prayer Breakfast” and Protestant Leaders’ Prophetic Consciousness during the Period of Military Dictatorship (1962–1987) Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 308, doi:10.3390/rel9100308 ....................128 v Chae Young Kim A Critical Evaluation of Religious Education in Korea Reprinted from: Religions 2018, 9, 369, doi:10.3390/rel9110369 ....................143 Kyungrae Kim, Eunyoung Kim, Wangmo Seo and Cheonghwan Park Some Contemporary Dilemmas of Korean Buddhism: A Critical Review of the Jogye Order’s 2018 Periodic Report Reprinted from: Religions 2019, 10, 234, doi:10.3390/rel10040234 ...................157 vi About the Special Issue Editor Song-Chong Lee, Professor, is an associate professor and the chair of the Religious Studies and Philosophy Department at the University of Findlay. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Temple University. His scholarly and teaching interests include religious education, religion and society, Neo-Confucianism, and Korean Christianity. Lee currently serves as the chair of the Asian Religion section of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Academy of Religion. vii Preface to ”The Role and Meaning of Religion for Korean Society” The idea for this Special Issue on Korean religion began with a conversation with Managing Editor, Bingjin He, last January. We felt a need for a focused conversation on Korean religion to expand the geographical coverage of Religions’ published themes. Considering the growing contribution of Korean scholars to various fields of religious studies, including theological studies, I thought that offering a new publication venue for scholars of Korean religion would be an excellent idea, and it would be even better if the venue were the MDPI platform, which is known to be extremely efficient and transparent in both the peer-review process and editorial procedure. Of the many discussed themes, the role of religion in Korean society came first to my mind. Religion is one of the most effective human reactions to cope with various challenges of life. Similar to other major institutions, such as family and government, religion plays a powerful role in swinging the pendulum of our destinies between hope and despair, between liberation and enslavement, and between forgiveness and vengeance. There would be arguably no better place than Korea for finding exemplary cases, memories, and narratives. We can see, in the emergence of Buddhism during the Three Kingdom Period, a pendulum’s swing—a political transformation from parochialism to central government. We can see a paradigm shift with respect to the purpose of politics from superficial utility for power to inner cultivation through the enhanced axiology and metaphysics of Neo-Confucianism. We can see a pendulum’s swing with respect to our perception of religion from the priestly role to the prophetic role in leading and reshaping a society through the Donghak Movement and Minjung Theology. The pendulum’s swing can be witnessed in many other domains, including socio-cultural phenomena, textual understanding, and political movements. Examples would further include new, creative interpretations and utilizations of Confucian texts, engaged and patriotic Buddhism, explosive church growth, nationalist and democratization movements, and revolutionary roles of religious figures. In this Special Issue, each of our contributors present their convincing cases to show the powerful role of religion and the creative adoption and utilization of religion to deal with various challenges of Korean society. The role has never been monolithic. It is moral, political, and psychological. It is sometimes of poetry, narrative, and paradigm. The contributed papers focus specifically on four major characteristics of the role: Creativity, Greater Responsiveness, Adaptability, and Prophethood. With respect to creativity, Hyun Choo, a Buddhologist at Stony Brook University, shows how the practice of the Satipatthana (mindfulness), which she believes was attenuated in the Chan tradition, has been preserved and revived in the form of Ganhwanseon hwadu by prominent Korean Seon Buddhists, including the 14th century Seon Master Naong Hye-geun. Choo argues that the spirit of Satipatthana has been reinterpreted and its notion has been expanded with the practice of counter-illumination and mindfulness of breathing. She asserts that the spirit of Satipatthana eventually crystalized into the mindful hwadu Sisimma,‘Sati-Sisimma’. Bongrae Seok, an expert in Confucian philosophy and moral psychology at Alvernia University, presents a collective effort of 16th century Korean Neo-Confucian scholars to make sense of the li-qi dynamic for the grounding of moral feelings. Toegye and Kobong found the logical dilemma of the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucian understanding and tried to come up with their own alternatives to better explain the embryology of moral emotions and virtues. These Korean Neo-Confucians’ intellectual exploration of the cosmic principle of the physical world and morality set the tone for many other later religious, philosophical, and spiritual efforts to save the ix country from moral corruption and political chaos. Seok calls attention to the theistic turn of the 19th century Neo-Confucian scholars and religious leaders, such as Jeong Yakyong (pen name Dasan 茶山, 1762–1836) and Choi Je-wu (崔濟愚, 1824–1863). They both found the original source of our moral feelings in something independent of the li-qi metaphysics, which is Sangje (上帝, the Emperor on High), Hanulnim (한 울 님, Heavenly Being), or Cheonju (天主, Heavenly Lord). Along the same lines, Sung Uk Im, a biblical scholar at Yeonsei University, presents a variety of creative ways that Korean Christians have utilized to make the most of Biblical narratives for their unique context. He shows how brilliantly biblical narratives have been internalized and recreated by Korean Christians for new inspiration. His case is supported by pansori, bibliodrama, and TongDok, which are great examples of the Korean church’s performative use of the Bible. With respect