Korean Catholicism In The 1970s

Catholicism in Korea has a history of two hundred years. It has played a unique role in Korea, with many of its initiatives originating from the laity rather than the clergy. After prolonged cultural conflict, the number of Catholics has grown to around 8% of the total population. Yet, there is a paucity of English language materials dealing with the faith in Korea. This volume tries to fill the gap.

Despite the significance of Korea in world Christianity and the crucial role Christianity plays in contemporary Korean religious life, the tradition has been little studied in the West. Christianity in Korea seeks to fill this lacuna by providing a wide-ranging overview of the growth and development of Korean Christianity and the implications that development has had for Korean politics, interreligious dialogue, and gender and social issues. The volume begins with an accessibly written overview that traces in broad outline the history and development of Christianity on the peninsula. This is followed by chapters on broad themes, such as the survival of early Korean Catholics in a Neo-Confucian society, relations between Christian churches and colonial authorities during the Japanese occupation, premillennialism, and the theological significance of the division and prospective reunification of Korea. Others look in more detail at individuals and movements, including the story of the female martyr Kollumba Kang Wansuk; the influence of Presbyterianism on the renowned nationalist Ahn Changho; the sociopolitical and theological background of the Minjung Protestant Movement; and the success and challenges of Evangelical Protestantism in Korea. The book concludes with a discussion of how best to encourage a rapprochement between Buddhism and Christianity in Korea.

Hailed by leading South Korean academics as the most significant research on the history of Korean Catholicism to date, Professor Jai-Keun Choi of Yonsei University in Korea explores the origin of the Roman Catholic Church in the Korean peninsula. Professor Choi raises important historical questions as: What were the historical forces that allowed Roman Catholicism to take root in the 19th century Choson Korea despite official governmental efforts to stamp out Catholicism through systematic persecution? What was the Korean populist reaction to Roman Catholic missions? What was the role that native Korean converts played in the spread of Catholicism throughout Korea? With a keen eye to the delicacies of conflicting historical forces, Professor Choi adroitly explains the complexities of the clash of civilizations in the experience of Choson Korea, where Korean Confucianism responded with greatest hostility to Roman Catholicism from the West. This book makes a significant scholarly contribution not only in the study of Korean history but also in such academic disciplines as sociology of religion, anthropology, political science, and international relations.

Korea’s first significant encounter with the West occurred in the last quarter of the eighteenth century when a Korean Catholic community emerged on the peninsula. Decades of persecution followed, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Korean Catholics. Don Baker provides an invaluable analysis of late-Chosŏn (1392–1897) thought, politics, and society to help readers understand the response of Confucians to Catholicism and of Korean Catholics to years of violent harassment. His analysis is informed by two remarkable documents expertly translated with the assistance of Franklin Rausch and annotated here for the first time: an anti-Catholic essay written in the 1780s by Confucian scholar Ahn Chŏngbok (1712–1791) and a firsthand account of the 1801 anti-Catholic persecution by one of its last victims, the religious leader Hwang Sayŏng (1775–1801). Confucian assumptions about Catholicism are revealed in Ahn’s essay, Conversation on Catholicism. The work is based on the scholar’s exchanges with his son-in-law, who joined the small group of Catholics in the 1780s. Ahn argues that Catholicism is immoral because it puts more importance on the salvation of one’s soul than on what is best for one’s family or community. Conspicuously absent from his Conversation is the reason behind the conversions of his son-in-law and a few other young Confucian intellectuals. Baker examines numerous Confucian texts of the time to argue that, in the late eighteenth century, Korean Confucians were tormented by a growing concern over human moral frailty. Some among them came to view Catholicism as a way to overcome their moral weakness, become virtuous, and, in the process, gain eternal life. These anxieties are echoed in Hwang’s Silk Letter, in which he details for the bishop in Beijing his persecution and the decade preceding it. He explains why Koreans joined (and some abandoned) the Catholic faith and their devotion to the new religion in the face of torture and execution. Together the two texts reveal much about not only Korean beliefs and values of two centuries ago, but also how Koreans viewed their country and their king as well as China and its culture.

Being an immigrant is both being "in-between" two cultures, that of the immigrant and that of the dominant group, and being "in-both" of these cultures. It ultimately means being "in-beyond" the two cultures together. In this book a group of prominent Asian-American Christian theologians reflect in an autobiographical form on how being an Asian and a North American has shaped the way they understand the Christian story. As the United States becomes increasingly multiethnic and multicultural, this book offers useful suggestions on how to meet the challenge of cultural diversity in both Church and society.

This history of the Catholic Church in Asia and the Pacific illuminates the processes of globalization Since the sixteenth century, Catholicism has contributed significantly to global connectivity. Except for the Philippines and Timor-Leste, Catholicism in Asia is, and is likely to remain, a minority religion. For this reason, it can serve as a unique prism through which to look at the processes of globalization in Asia. Asian Pacific Catholicism and Globalization demonstrates to scholars and students of Catholic history that the development of Catholicism in Asia and later in the Oceania-Pacific region is closely associated with three different phases of globalization. This book approaches the historical processes of globalization not as structural agencies or causal forces, but rather as the historical contexts that condition possibilities for human action and reaction in the world. The editors identify three distinct phases in the development of Catholicism in Asia and Oceania: early modern (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries), modern Western hegemony (1780s–1960s), and the contemporary (1960s–present). The book’s contributors discuss the development of Catholicism in all the major countries of the region, including China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and Australia.