Introduction to Korean Spirituality Seo Jinseok and Kaspars Kļaviņš (eds.). Riga: University of Latvia Press, 2019 (original) (raw)
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According to a survey on the religious landscape in Korea, about half of the total population of Korea (53.4%) declared practicing religion. This number has shown a steady increase since the Gallup Korea conducted a survey in this field in 1984. 1 In understanding religion, religious phenomena, and religious practices in Korea, we should consider that the concept and expression of religion is relatively new in Korean culture. In this context, at least two preliminary remarks need to be made before we begin our discussion on the religions in Korea. The first is about the term religion. The expression religion did not exist in the vocabulary of East Asian languages until the late 19 th century. One origin of the modern term religion (Kor, chonggyo; Jan. shūkyō) can be traced to a trade document between Japan and Germany signed in 1869, in which the European term religion was translated into Japanese language, which was adopted by Koreans. 2 This does not mean that what is denoted by the term religion in English language did not exist in East Asia before the adoption of the expression. Instead of religion, traditional Korean religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism (which we will discuss in this chapter) were called teachings (Kor. kyo) or school (Kor. ga). This also indicates that the commonly known distinction between philosophy and religion in Western tradition does not strictly apply to Korean religious and philosophical traditions. The second issue to consider is the scope of religious phenomena. Religion is frequently and sometimes uncritically identified with religion as an institution. Institutionalized (or organized) religion features religious texts (sacred books), religious structure (church or temples), religious group (priesthood and believers), and moral and ethical codes (precepts). Religion is also often considered to be about God. Most of the major religions in the world share these components of religion, but religious phenomena are not limited to them, nor is what we denote by each of the above categories as clear as we might think. Several suggestions have been made for a comprehensive understanding of religious phenomena. One such example is to expand our concept of religion, from a singular-form religion to its plural form, religions. The pluralization of religious tradition enables us to further expand the scope of religions so that we can consider what constitutes the religious. 3 This paradigm can be applied to other concepts that are associated with religion. For example, we can expand our investigation from the concept of God to plural gods and then to the concept of the sacred (or the holy); from churches/temples to the place of worship and to the concept of the sacred space; and from examining precepts of a particular religion to the relationship between the finite and the infinite, and then to the issue of construction of value systems in human life. This is a process of creating a generic form (e.g., the sacred) from the collection of particular phenomenon (e.g., God). This process is necessary in order to have a comprehensive understanding of different religious traditions without privileging one religious tradition. This is especially relevant to our attempt to understand and evaluate Korean religious traditions. More often than not, students in the West ask how either Buddhism or Confucianism can be called a religion when these traditions do not have concepts that match what they find in Western religious traditions. Before we attempt to answer these questions, we should understand that such questions arise because we set a specific religious tradition as a standard for other religious traditions. In our discussion of Korean religions, we will divide them into three groups for the sake of convenience: the first is indigenous religions (Shamanism); the second is foreign-origin religions that became Koreanized (Buddhism and Confucianism); and the third is new religions that emerged during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries (Tonghak and Won Buddhism).
Religious and Philosophical Traditions of Korea by Kevin N. Cawley (review)
Journal of Korean Religions, 2019
Religious and Philosophical Traditions of Korea, by Kevin N. Cawley, London and New York: Routledge, 2019, xxiii + 197 pp. This volume is a comprehensive intellectual guide to the religio-philosophical landscape of Korean history in the context of East Asian cultural transmission. The six chapters of this textbook for courses on the history of Korean religion, philosophy, or culture demonstrate the transformation and glocalization of both transnational and local religions, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Shamanism, and native new religious movements. What are the religious traditions of East Asia? How did they interact with Korean thought? What geopolitical affect did these regional philosophical movements have on Korean kingdoms and dynasties? How were Korean religions unique? What were the identities of the new religions and how did they emerge in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries? Kevin Cawley explores the cultural and political roles of each religion as the key ideology of given eras of Korean history, from the Three Kingdoms to contemporary times. The author argues not only that Korea’s religious and philosophical traditions will continue to shape the country’s future, but also that perceiving the combination of those traditions is a way of understanding “how Koreans think, live, and practice religions, which in the Korean context is inseparable from a long philosophical tradition” (xvi). First, in terms of definition, religion and philosophy are regarded as “pathways” towards self-transformation in a Korean/East Asian context. The author warns that insofar as its etymological meaning, the Western word “religion” should not to be applied to East Asia. Rather, it is argued, the ideological traditions of Korea should be understood as cultural ideas (the “Three Teachings” in the form of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism) from ancient China, with shamanism an indigenous concept of the people of the Korean Peninsula. Philosophy in the East Asian context is understood as the set of teachings by morally cultivated scholars, wherein wisdom is seen as a realistic and achievable goal, and “which emphasizes that learning should transform how one thinks” (p. 19). Chapter 2 points out the process of cultural adoptation and interaction whereby Chinese traditions were transmitted to the Korean Peninsula in what the author calls unique “Korean ways.” Although the Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk yusa 三國遺事) details the myth of Tan’gun, who is known as the progenitor of the Korean ethnic group, Buddhism and Confucianism were introduced to the peninsula during the Three Kingdoms period (trad. 57 CE–668). Cawley makes particular mention of the Silla military tradition of the Hwarang (“Flowering Youth” knights), who “followed Buddhist precepts and morality in order” to upgrade the prestige of the royal family for its prestige to further validate their rule” (p. 29). The author explores the Korean monks Wŏnhyo and Ŭisang as Buddhist pioneers. The il-sim (one-mind) teaching of Wŏnhyo is reflected as “t’ong pulgyo” 通佛敎 (being with others), or “integrated Buddhism,” in Silla (617–686), while Ŭisang (625–702) is examined as the founding patriarch of the Hwaŏm 華嚴 lineage (a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy based on the Avatamsaka Sutra [華嚴經]). Chapter 3 provides evidence on the emergence of Sŏn (Ch. Chan, J. Zen) Buddhism (with its focus on meditation) during the Unified Silla (668–935) period. The transformative feacture of Sŏn Buddhism tradition becamse integrated with other Buddhist traditions. The works of Ŭichŏn (1055–1101), with their emphasis on kyo (doctrine?), and Chinul (1158–1210), who taught kanhwa Sŏn (a method of meditation through studying or examiningmeaning?), brought about a consolidation in Sŏn thought. The Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) witnessed the further development of Sŏn Buddhism as it transformed into “hoguk pulgyo” (state-protecting Buddhism). The completion of the Koryŏ Taejanggyŏng (高麗大藏經 (Tripitaka Koreana 高麗大藏經Great Buddhist Scriptures), comprising 81,000 print blocks, demonstrated this close relationship between the state and religion. In the following Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1897) the state ideology transitioned away from Buddhism to Neo-Confucianism. Cawley maintains that Kihwa’s thought of the Way of Humanity (injido 仁之道) was one of the main rejoinders to period socio-religious critiques of Buddhism and Shamanism. Chapter 4 introduces the Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning (Sŏnghak sipto 聖學十圖Korean title) of T’oegye Yi Hwang (1502–1571) and Essentials of the Learning of the Sages (Sŏnghak chibyo 聖學輯要 Korean/hanmun) of Yulgok Yi I (1537–1584) as the canonical texts of the early Neo-Confucian tradition in Korea of the sixteenth century. The metaphysical prosperity of the Chosŏn dynasty then confronted the new thinking called “Western learning” (sŏhak) when Catholic texts, such as Matteo Ricci’s The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (Ch’ŏnju sirŭi 天主實義), arrived in Korea via Beijing. Based on Hwang Sayŏng’s Silk Letter, Cawley argues that the method of early evangelization was extended through the publication of the han’gŭl (Korean) Catechism and the work of women (a marginalized group of the society). Tasan Chŏng Yakyong (1762–1836) was also mentioned as one of the Confucian scholars who turned away from the Catholic belief but became a synthesizer of sirhak thought 實學 thought (sil/sir meaning “actual” or “practical,” and hak “studies” or “learning”), a Confucian social reform movement. In chapter 5, narratives of Tonghak (Eastern learning) is reviewed by Cawley as a reaction to sŏhak (Western learning). Su-un Ch’oe Cheu (1824–1864), the founder of this anti-Catholic movement, had “a sense of hostility toward Western Learning” (p. 118). The movement’s canonical texts, like the Songs of the Dragon Pool (Yongdam Yusa 龍潭遺詞) and the Eastern Scripture (Tonggyŏng Taejŏn 東經大全), expose the key teachings of Korea’s first new religion, including Su-un’s personal experience of encountering God. The practioners of Tonghak y, unlike elsewhere in East Asia, used locally generated talismans and incantations that were “initially two very specific features of the new religion” (p. 122). The key Tonghak doctrine of in nae ch’ŏn 人乃天 (man is heaven) was transmitted into later new religions in a slightly different formation. Cawley’s book addresses the close relationship between Tonghak and the peasant rebellion of 1894 (led by Chŏn Pongjun, a Tonghak follower) in terms of the idea of kaebyŏk 開闢, referring to a new time of “creation.” The Jeungsan (Jeungsan) movement is also explored in case studies of Jeung Ssan Ddo (better known overseas) and Daesoon Jinrihoe (better known in Korea), but the history of the Jeungsan movement can best be traced in the philosophy of its major leaders, including Kang Jeungsan (1871–1909), Cha Gyeongseok (1880–1936), and Jo Cheol-Je Cho Ch’ŏlche (1895–1958). The myth of Tan’gun is re-reformulated pictured by Na Chŏl (1863–1916) in the anti-Japanese new religion of Taejonggyo. Among these new religions, Cawley also discusses the newly arrived Protestants. The Protestant chŏndo puin 傳道夫人 (Bible women), with their enlightened education, proved a useful means of proselytizing, but the choice of terminology for the name of God became a controversial issue among both missionaries and locals. The final chapter focuses on the complex modernity of Korea in the early and mid-twentieth century. The Korean Buddhists tried to protect their own distinctive legacy from Japanese Buddhist groups in Korea, if one sees The Korea’s independence efforts of the monk Manhae Han Yongun (1887–1944) “in the context of conflict vis-à-vis Japanese colonization” (p. 152). The establishment of Sot’aesan (1891–1943)’s Wŏn Buddhism is another illustration of the creative work of Korean Buddhism under the social and legal oppression involvement of Japanese Buddhism in the Korean peninsula. The Irish scholar investigates the so-called “new post-Christian movements” that emerged during the post-Korean War period, such as Pak T’aesŏn’s (1916–?) Olive Green Church (Ch’ŏndogwan) and Moon Sun Myung’s (1920–2012) Unification Church (T’ongilgyo). The juche (chuch’e) thought of Kim Il-sung, promoting the principles of North Korea’s chaju (independence), charip (self-sustainability), and chawi (self-defense), is included in this study of religious and philosophical traditions. The fact that Korean shamans (mudang), numbering over 300,000 in 2007, no longer limit themselves to physical space, but now promote themselves in cyberspace, is also considered a contemporary pathway for Korean religion. Thus, Religious and Philosophical Traditions of Korea does not take a political or military perspective on Korean history, rather, it encourages readers to consider the intellectual wisdom and knowledge transmitted from traditional Chinese philosophies. Each generation of the Korean people, who were self-transformative, sublimated these key teachings into their own geopolitical environment as new pathways. This volume contains integral collective and insightful material for those scholars, students, and practitioners in Asian studies, philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, ethnology, cultural studies, and religious studies. David W. Kim Australian National University
Noting the significance of the newly imagining, defining and writing Korean modernity and world history (Shome, 2014), this chapter examines Korean modern history as conditions that have been lived by ordinary Korean people and have significantly contributed to the shaping of the conventional understanding and imaginaries about modernity and Korean Protestantism and Buddhism. In other words, in order to look into social imaginaries on Korean Protestantism and Buddhism and their interwoven relationships with those on modernity, this chapter explores the question of which politico-economic events and forces have conditioned the formation of social imaginaries on Korean Protestantism and Buddhism in Korean modern history. Thus, it explores the interwoven relationships between some critical politico-economic conditions in Korean modern history and the two religions, while taking the risks of more or less selectively simplifying the complexities, dynamics and ambivalences of Korean modern history and of temporally identifying Korean modern history with the historical time which Korean people, in general, consider as their modern times: from 1876, when Japan began its project of colonial domination in Korea by opening up Korean ports, to the present.
Revitalization of Korean New Religions in the 1970s
Journal for The Study of Religions and Ideologies, 2020
The concept of secularism underpinning modern Western society insists on weakening the influence of religion by viewing the world through the lens of science and reason rather than through religious beliefs, traditions, and political authority. However, Korea has adopted a different perspective on this matter. A number of Korean new religions were in decline and they seemed to be facing imminent death during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), the Rhee Syngman government (1948-1960), and the Park Chung-hee government (1961-1979), which were periods of peak political suppression and control. The 1970s saw a dramatic shift in religious circles, when new religions founded in the 19th century but oppressed until then revitalized and spread rapidly. Why could Korea in the 1970s not adopt the smooth relationship between religion and modernity prevalent in the West? Instead, why did new religions based on tradition develop and flourish? This study aims to answer these questions by comparing the theories on secularization and post-secularization of the West with the philosophy of Confucianism of the late Joseon Era and reveal the foundation of Korean new religions from a theoretical perspective.
The Flourishing of New Religions in Korea
Nova Religio, 2021
This issue of Nova Religio explores the success, in several cases spectacular, of different new religions in South Korea, and the controversies they generated. In this introduction I suggest that, notwithstanding their different Christian and non-Christian backgrounds, most Korean new religions share some common features, including messianism, millenarianism, and proposals for social reform. I introduce a typology of four major groupings: Christian new religions, “traditionalist” groups that call for a restoration of Korea’s ancient spirituality, Won Buddhism, and Jeungsanism. Finally, I suggest that both political and religious factors contributed to the flourishing of new religions in twentieth and twenty-first century Korea.
Revitalisation of Korean New Religions in the 1970S
Educational Innovations and Applications, 2019
The 1970s saw a dramatic shift in Korean religious circles, when new religions founded in the 19th century but oppressed until then revitalized and spread rapidly. Why could Korea in the 1970s not adopt the smooth relationship between religion and modernity prevalent in the West? Instead, why did new religions based on tradition develop and flourish? The study aims to reveal the foundation of Korean new religions from a theoretical perspective. Furthermore, this empirical research will, from a socio-political point of view, clarify why industrialization of Korea in the 1970s increased dependency on religions and revitalized new religions, rather than diminish their influence.
Religious studies as a modern academic discipline in Korea
Religion, 2016
This article offers a historical and institutional overview of the discipline of religious studies in Korea. It first reviews four early sources of comparative studies: work by Christian missionaries; by Japanese scholars during the period of colonization by that nation; by nationalist Korean scholars who reacted against colonization; and by Korean Christian theologians. The founding of the Korean Association for the History of Religions (KAHR) in 1969 was a key point in the professionalization of the discipline. The field became more firmly established in the late 1980s and early 1990s and has diversified in recent years with a new generation of often foreign-trained scholars. The article ends with a brief discussion of potential contributions that the discipline could make to current debates of national significance.
Building the Nation: The Success and Crisis of Korean Civil Religion
Religions, 2021
Civil religion refers to a country’s beliefs, symbols, and rituals that bolster national unity and strengthen its citizens’ sense of identity and belonging. However, the literature on civil religion is divided between those who attribute it to bottom-up cultural spontaneity and those who see it as an ideological top-down construction. Moreover, there has been a relative lack of scholarly attention to Korean civil religion. This paper addresses both issues by arguing that a strong civil religion indeed exists in the country and that it has been an important part of the “nation-building” process since the founding of the Republic of Korea in 1948. The paper highlights how a succession of authoritarian regimes (1948–1987) successfully mobilized a strong civil religion for political purposes. The resulting civil religion targeted economic growth as the national goal to overcome all social ills, focused on the country’s ethnic and cultural homogeneity to boost national confidence and pri...