This study focuses on how Christianity, which has been considered as a Western religion, can be transformed into a Koreanized religion. Particularly through the study on the works and life of Yoo Young-mo, Kim Kyo-shin, and Ham Sok-hun, our team has t ...
This study focuses on how Christianity, which has been considered as a Western religion, can be transformed into a Koreanized religion. Particularly through the study on the works and life of Yoo Young-mo, Kim Kyo-shin, and Ham Sok-hun, our team has tried to analyze how they attempted to respond to the historical tasks of post-colonial situations, modernization and democracy by accepting Christianity subjectively. Furthermore, we analyzed how the frame of Eastern thoughts can be united and transformed to that of Christianity in their lives and thoughts. "The Theology of Yoo, Young-mo based on the Cosmology of Asian Philosophy" articulates the thoughts of Yoo Young-mo, which are constructed in the dialogue with Asian philosophy. He shows a unique theology particularly associated with the concept of heaven in Confucianism, void in Buddhism and Tao in Taoism, which absolutely affected on his theological interpretation. "Kim Kyo-shin, and Ham Sok-hun and Uchimura Kanzyo" focuses on how Kim and Ham accept Uchimura's thoughts and go beyond and indigenize them. Uchimura views the truth of Christianity depended on the meaning of the gospel from existential situations and prophetical practices in the historical contexts. Kim and Ham arrive to a conclusion that creative sufferers, who have taken the responsibility of overcoming the historical contradictions of colonialism and not transferring it to the weak, are the very people who make history. This offers a kind of alternative which can be a breakthrough to overcome the individualism and Western superiority existed in the Western modernity. The essay, "The Meaning of Quakerism for Ham Sok-Hun", clarifies the affection of Quakerism in Ham's thoughts. Ham's thoughts resonated with the community-oriented mysticism of Quakerism which connotes Asian contemplative spirituality. Quakerism is, for him, ethical and community-oriented mysticism. His understanding of Quakerism as such becomes a crucial efficient cause to evolve his thought not simply to the religious transcendental radicalism but to the socio-historical one. "A Study of Ham, Sok-hun's Understanding of Jesus: Focusing on His Thoughts of Atonement" clarifies Ham's soteriology. For him, the nature of humanity lies in "doing oneself." That is why he sees that belief or salvation cannot be achieved without free mind, and thus develops soteriology in the perspective of human freedom and subjectivity. He denied the traditional redemption theory placed in soteriology in order to repudiate the heteronomous causality or retributionism in religion. "Religious Traditions in the East Asia and Christianity in Korea" shows the characteristics of religious traditions in East Asia appeared in the Ham, Yoo, and Kim's thoughts. These characteristics contribute to understand Western Christian theologies as a relative thought rather than an absolute thought. In other words traditionally Eastern thinkers have thought that religions could co-exist without excluding each other. Although the religious cultures in the East Asian countries have accepted the existence of spiritual beings, they haven't allowed the existence of monotheistic concept of God. In the view of god they have more focused on the immanence of god, expressed in "choli-kwan" or "shin-in hapilsol", than the transcendental deity. "A Critical View of Modernity in Korea and Study on the Religious Alternatives" analyzes the process of Christian mission in Korea and its impacts on the establishments of modernity. Furthermore, it also tries to find alternatives to overcome the contradictions of modernity in Korea through the study on the Ham, Yoo, and Kim's thoughts. These three pioneers defied simply accepting mainstream Christianity; Yoo Young-mo, attempting to indigenize Korean Christianity based on traditional religions, Ham sok-hun, creating the theology of ssi-al based on anti-imperialism, and Kim Kyo-shin, trying to establish a Christian nationalism based on sound morality.