The Emergence of Minjung Theology and its Understanding of Reconciliation

This article aims to explore the theology of minjung. It is an accumulation and articulation of theological reflections on the political experience of Christian students, laborers, the press, professors, farmers, writers, and intellectuals as well as theologians in Korea in the 1970s. Minjung theology of Korea has been known as a branch of liberation theology. However, minjung theology was born in a special situation in Korea and has distinctive features from liberation theology. Through this research, I examine the definition, background, and characteristics of minjung theology, and attempts to research reconciliation, an important topic of modern theology, from the perspective of minjung theology. Minjung is economically poor, politically weak, socially deprived, but culturally and historically rich and powerful. Also, minjung, the poor, can think. They can do theology. There is no need for them to depend upon their oppressors to tell them what the gospel is.

Han and/as Ressentiment: Lessons from Minjung Theology

Following calls in recent critical debates in English-language Korean studies to reevaluate the cultural concept of han (often translated as “resentment”), this article argues for its reconsideration from the vantage point of minjung theology, a theological perspective that emerged in South Korea in the 1970s, which has been dubbed the Korean version of “liberation theology”. Like its Latin American counterpart, minjung theology understood itself in explicitly political terms, seeking to reinvigorate debates around the question of theodicy—the problem of suffering vis-à-vis the existence of a divine being or order. Studying some of the ways in which minjung theologians connected the concept of han to matters of suffering, this article argues, offers an opening towards a redirection from han’s dominant understanding within academic discourse and public culture as a special and unique racial essence of Korean people. Moreover, by putting minjung theology in conversation with contemporary political theory, in particular the works of Wendy Brown and Lauren Berlant, this article hopes to bring minjung theology to the attention of critical theory.

Theodicy, Undeserved Suffering, and Compassionate Solidarity: An Interdisciplinary Reading of Hwang Sok-Yong’s The Guest

The author explores theological questions regarding the Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong’s The Guest from interdisciplinary perspectives. This paper analyzes the novel in relation to the emotional complex of han as understood in Korean minjung theology, the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz, and Ignacio Ellacuría’s liberation theology. Drawing upon the perspectives of Korean, German, and Latin American scholars, this approach invites us to construct a discourse of theodicy in a fresh light, to reach a deeper level of theodical engagement with the universal problem of suffering, and to nurture the courage of hope for human beings in today’s stressed world. Contemplating the concrete depiction of human suffering in The Guest, the paper invites readers to deepen their understanding of God in terms of minjung theology’s thrust of resolving the painful feelings of han of the oppressed, Metz’s insight of suffering unto God as a sacramental encounter with God, and Ellacuría’s idea of giving witness to God’s power of the resurrection in eschatological hope. The paper concludes that the immensity of today’s human suffering asks for that compassionate solidarity with the crucified today which can generate hope in the contemporary milieu.

The Priest of Han as a Theme in the Christian-Shamanist Interfaith Dialogue

In the article I would see into the ‘priest of han’ as a theme which Nam-dong Suh, one of the fathers of the Minjung theology, has developed, and suggest how he has made a creative and critical encounter with the shamanistic hanpuri. First, I examine in the first step how influential the shamanism is still in Korean society. In this connection I would investigate briefly how the shamanism is incorporated in Korean Protestantism. Second, I explain han and hanpuri in the context of Korean shamanism. Third, I analyze how the Minjung theology has employed the themes of han and hanpuri. Lastly, I give some suggestions about a spiritual formation for the ministry. From the Christian encounter with the shamanism I draw a few consequences. First of all, I suggest that Christian minister should learn something from the attitude of shamans towards the weak and oppressed. They have “a special predilection for the weak and oppressed” (I. M. Lewis) and are ready to be in solidarity with others in suffering. Of course, Christian minister need not to suffer the initiation sickness like shamans, but they must be trained to attain a spiritual competency to sympathize and to be in solidarity with the little people in suffering. Second, I think that the church should be earnest to the priesthood of han. It is not just the duty of the minister. The priesthood of han should be reinterpreted from the perspective of the priesthood of all believers.

Glocalized and Indigenized Theologies in the Twentieth Century

This chapter points at the relocation of theology through the twentieth century out of universities and ‘public thought’ towards privatized and ‘dissenting’ spaces. These include anti-colonialist and proto-nationalist movements in East Africa, India, and Korea, whereby religion became one means by which subaltern groups maintained their identity over and against a ruling class. In other settings, such as in post-war Minjung theology in Korea, indigenized theology became a means of re-wiring the political discourse as the new nation emerged from war into settings requiring rapid industrialization and modernization. Such popular mobilizations from below are compared to elite, institutional attempts at change from above, and are analysed using the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to tease out those factors which contribute to success in spreading out of the cultures and ‘moments’ of primary indigenization.