Korean Resources for Pastoral Theology

Dance of Han, Jeong, and Salim

Poling, Kim

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781630870317
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In a time of life-and-death challenges to the human spirit--global economics, nuclear dangers, environmental threats, and religious polarization and war--Christians must look for resources that provide new insights of God's power and care for all people. What are the forms of suffering and hope in the world today, and how can Christians respond with healing resources? Korean Christians have unique contributions to make to our understanding of pastoral theology and counseling. Pastoral counselors and theologians from the United States should look to the South Korean Christian churches and other Asian churches for conversation partners about the nature of care and healing in today's world. In this book, the authors explore important ideas--such as han, jeong, and salim--from Korean history and culture that can inform the healing ministries of the churches.

1

Early History of Korea

It is difficult for many Westerners to understand Korean history and culture before the modern period. Part of the challenge of meeting Korean Christians halfway is encountering words and images that do not connect with a Western reader’s experience. Because the shock of alterity or strange otherness can be disorienting, some readers may want to skim this chapter on the ancient history and skip to chapter two where the modern period is discussed.

Over many centuries, the people on the peninsula have engaged in interaction and conflicts with China, Russia, and Japan. Korea is a small nation surrounded by global superpowers that have buffeted its culture and everyday life. Its narrative has been distorted by its subordination to China in ancient times, and the false ideologies the Japanese used to justify their colonial oppression of Korea during the early twentieth century. United States culture has a long history of racial bias toward Asian immigrants that shapes the unconscious perceptions of many Western Christians. It is hard to overcome this history so that creative, mutually respectful conversation can occur.1

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many sensitive artists and intellectuals felt the profound crisis in Korea before it was fully apparent to everyone else. The crisis came because Korea’s national autonomy was endangered by invasions from Japan, France, Britain, and the United States as they were expanding their trade and domination of weaker countries. In its starkest form, the question was this: If Korea lost control of its political, economic, intellectual, and religious institutions, what would happen to the people? Before this question even took public form, artists, religious leaders, and scholars began to search for the spiritual roots of Korean identity in the story of Dangun.

Chaeho Shin,2 an early twentieth-century historian, helped lay the foundation for the recovery of Korea’s ancient history by arguing that there was a spiritual Korean identity which he called minjok that would survive the colonial period.3 He tried to lay out an ethnically (minjok) based linear national history of Korea that would not be distorted by the colonial perspective. Although Shin’s ideas of a pure Korean ethnic identity were romantic, the search for the roots of a Korean culture that has survived modernism is important for Koreans. In this chapter, we review some of the earlier history of the country to provide a context for Western readers to enter the Korean narrative.

Ancient Korea: GoJoseon (2333—108 BCE)

Dangun (Tangun) was the legendary founder of the first Korean kingdom. The legend begins with his grandfather Hwan-in, the “Lord of Heaven” and Hwan-ung, his father.

Hwan-ung descended to Mount T’aebaeksan on the border between Manchuria and what is now North Korea. He named the place Shinshi, City of God. Along with his ministers of clouds, rain, and wind, he instituted laws and moral codes and taught the humans various arts, medicine, and agriculture. A tiger and a bear . . . prayed to become human. Upon hearing their prayers, Hwan-ung called them to him and gave them 20 cloves of garlic and a bunch of mugwort. He then ordered them to only eat this sacred food and remain out of the sunlight for 100 days. The tiger shortly gave up and left the cave. However, the bear remained true and . . . was transformed into a woman. The bear-woman was very grateful and made offerings to Hwan-ung. However, lacking a companion she soon became sad and prayed beneath a sandalwood tree to be blessed with a child. Hwan-ung, moved by her prayers, took her for his wife and soon she gave birth to a handsome son. They named him Tan-gun, meaning “Altar Prince” or sandalwood. Tan-gun developed into a wise and powerful leader and in 2333 BC moved to P’yongyang and established the Go-Joseon (“Land of the Morning Calm”) Kingdom. Finally, at the age of 1,908, he returned to T’aebaeksan where he became a mountain god.4

According to legend, since 2333 BCE, the Korean people have looked to the mountains for spiritual strength, lived in harmony with one another, and spread their culture far and wide. Eventually the Korean people filled the peninsula, spread into Manchuria, and immigrated to Japan and other areas. They were a religious people who respected the spirits that lived in the world alongside its people and engaged in rituals to the spirits that determined the destiny of families, kings, rain, agriculture, and periodic natural disasters such as floods, droughts, etc.

Korea is unusual in the world because beliefs and practices of the spirit religion (what some scholars call Shamanism) have survived through the centuries into the modern period. Half of Koreans do not confess any religion, and more than half are familiar with the services of mudangs, as female shamans are often called. Anthropologists have done many studies in Korea because there is a large active practice of shamans. One consequence of Korea’s religious history is the vitality and intensity of its interreligious culture. “Many [Koreans] do not want to confine themselves to only one religious tradition. Instead they want to be free to visit shamans and Buddhist temples and participate in the activities of new religious organizations without being told that by doing so they [are] no longer permitted to participate in the rituals and worship activities of other religious communities.”5

Three Kingdoms Period (57 BCE—668 CE): Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla6

GoJoseon (2333–57 BCE)

Three Kingdoms Period (57 BCE—668 CE) [Goguryeo (37 BCE—668 CE), Baekje (18 BCE—660 CE) and Silla (57 BCE—935 CE)]

Unified Silla (668–935) and Balhae (698–926)

Goryeo (918–1392)

Joseon (1392–1910)

Japanese Colonial Period (1910–1945)

Republic of Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (1948–present)

Goguryeo (37 BCE—668 CE) was located in Manchuria and the northern part of the peninsula: Baekje (18 BCE—660 CE) in southwestern Korea, and Silla (57 BCE—935 CE) in the southeast. Because these three nations coexisted, this is called the Three Kingdoms Period. Goguryeo established itself as a major power in the northern region, vying with China for control of Manchuria. With its expansion toward the north, Goguryeo emerged initially as the most powerful, largest and most advanced of the three kingdoms.7 Baekje fostered high qualities of art, academic studies, science, and religion; and also played an important role in passing on its cultural heritage to Japan. Silla was a weaker nation than the other two nations but as its power grew strong, Silla made an alliance with China and finally succeeded in unifying all Three Kingdoms.8

Unified Silla (668–935 CE) and Balhae (698–926 CE)

The era of the Three Kingdoms came to an end when Baekje and Goguryeo were defeated by the combined forces of Silla and Tang from China. While Silla gained control of the southern part of the Three Kingdoms, it lost the northern part of Goguryeo. The descendants of Goguryeo established a new nation in the north section of the peninsula and Manchuria called Balhae (698–926). The Three Kingdoms era changed to the era of the Southern (Silla) and Northern (Balhae) States. The culture of Buddhism thrived during this period with the establishment of beautiful temples, pagodas and temple bells. The most representative shrines are the Bulguksa Temple and the Seokuram Grotto.

The cultural sites from Silla’s old capital city of Gyeonju were created after the unification. The historic capital of Silla at Gyeongju is now a leading tourist attraction for Koreans and foreigners because the modern South Korean government has restored many of the temples, palaces, ancestral burial sights and other artifacts. The restoration features early scientific instruments in astronomy, world-class pottery, and magnificent traditional buildings. During the unified Korea under Silla, Shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism lived in harmony and the country was at relative peace. Confucian classics, with their new ways of thinking, were introduced into schools. With advancements in technology, the lives of the people in Silla became more prosperous.

Balhae, in the north, recovered the former territories of Goguryeo, combining forces with...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Early History of Korea
• Chapter 2:Modern History of Korea
• Chapter 3: Ancient Korean Religions
• Chapter 4: Modern Korean Religions
• Chapter 5: Is South Korea a Postmodern Culture?
• Chapter 6: Korean Contributions to Pastoral Theology
• Chapter 7: A Constructive Intercultural Pastoral Theology
• Epilogue
• Glossary of Cited Korean Words
• Bibliography