서평 The Making of Korean Christianity

[알림] 이 책의 한글 증보수정판은 2020년 1월 출판 예정입니다.

Book Review. Social Sciences and Missions © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/18748945-03201011.

Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity : Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915, Waco, Texas, Baylor University Press, 2013, 49 $, 437 p., ISBN 978-1-60258-575-1. 

Social Sciences and Missions 32 (May 2019) 189–227

by Juliette Duléry, University Paris-Diderot.

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Sung-Deuk Oak, The Making of Korean Christianity : Protestant Encounters with Korean Religions, 1876-1915, Waco, Texas, Baylor University Press, 2013, 49 $, 437 p., ISBN 978-1-60258-575-1.

This monograph constitutes the development of a thesis published by Sung- Deuk Oak in 2002. Originally intended for Protestant readers, it has been modified to suit the expectations of a university audience. Sung is now a professor specializing in the study of Korean Protestantism at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He explores in this book the construction process of Korean Protestantism between 1876 and 1915. According to him, this story was dominated by the narrative of the expansion of a Korean Protestantism of fundamentalist and colonialist nature from the beginning. Building on archives, the author refutes this version of the story. He is looking in the opposite direction to demonstrate that this boom occurred through an indigenization process which gave rise to a synthesis between elements imported from Protestantism Anglo-Saxon, Chinese Christian theology and Korean religions.

In the introduction, Sung identifies the reasons why some theologians and contemporary scholars perceive the first missionaries in Korea as fundamentalist and imperialist Christians. The example of the American Methodist missionary Henry Appenzeller (1858-1902) seems at first sight to support this negative opinion, since the latter ambition to eradicate the Korean "superstitions" to replace them by a Protestant civilization deemed superior. But from years 1970, this "anti-missionary" speech goes hand in hand with the demands of a Korean nationalism and defense of the minjung (people), and since the years 1990, with those of postcolonialism. So the author considers that history Korean Protestantism has been largely distorted by its politicization. He insists instead on the evolution of the attitude of Western missionaries with regard to the Korean religions between 1876 and 1915. According to him, it is true that missionaries originally convey the stereotype of a Korea marked by a spiritual emptiness, which constitutes, according to them, an opportunity to propagate Protestantism. Influenced by a Western conception of religion, they then reduce Confucianism to a system of moral precepts and the shamanism to a superstitious belief. Their opinion, however, takes more nuanced outlines from the 1890s, when they start producing their own research on Korean religions and then when they witness in 1894 the emergence of the revolutionary movement Tonghak, an organization syncretic religious inspired in part by Catholicism. The emergence Local Leaders in Congregations Revive Korean Churches Saint George as a sign of extra-territoriality, leading Protestants to take refuge in wartime. When Korea becomes afterwards a Japanese protectorate in 1905, some Protestant and separatist organizations local Christians such as Syngman Rhee support the movement Anti-Japanese. In response, the Japanese army then crucified some Korean independence.

After analyzing the political use of the cross, the author studies in the chapter 3 the confrontation of Western missionaries with Korean practices of exorcism and shamanism, then in chapter 4 their report hostile to the Confucian cult of ancestors. In the case of shamanism, some missionaries try to fight the practice of exorcism deemed superstitious, by asserting to the faithful the efficiency of Western medicine. They order Korean Protestants to burn the "fetishes" dedicated to the gods kept in homes. Other foreign missionaries in China and Korea, on the other hand, lead a spiritual war by prayer against the demonstrations possession by the demon. Some Korean women originally shamans (mudang), then become Christian exorcists. The Shanghai Conferences (1877, 1890, 1907) which bring together a hundred of Protestant Missionary Organizations to Commemorate Centennial of the arrival of missionary Robert Morrison in China, lead to the prohibition of worshipers from practicing ancestor worship in East Asia. Missionaries denounce superstitious aspect, source of "traditions demonic "such as arranged marriages. According to them, Protestantism on the other hand, a mode of filial piety in accordance with the principles biblical, God being considered a "Heavenly Father". Although the missionaries foreigners promote these repressive policies, the local faithful incorporate the rite of ancestors into Protestant funerary ceremonies, which contributes to the indigenization of Christianity in Korea. In chapters 5 and 6, the author studies links between translations Korean and Chinese Bible, as well as the practice of prayer in the Church Korean. The nineteenth century is a period of global expansion of translation of the Bible, which is translated into 446 additional languages. Although the first Korean edition is published in 1911, many Koreans read the text in its Chinese or Sino-Korean version. Classical Chinese remains the language of the elite in Korea until the 1910s. Korean church leaders in their infancy are traders educated from the "emerging middle class" of Pyongyang, nicknamed "East Jerusalem" until 1945. Their conversion contributes to the creation of a ruling group within the Protestant community, different from yangban (official) from Seoul. These local leaders incorporate practices from Taoism and Buddhism to Korean Protestantism, such as the prayer of dawn or the prayers of fasts in the mountains. The dawn prayers was used to intercede in favor of national independence. The development of Protestantism in Korea during this period anticipates conflicts between Christian nationalism and Japanese colonialism Shinto during the 1930s.

This book is a reference work devoted to the circulation of Protestantism between Anglo-Saxon countries, China and Korea from 1876 to 1915, and distinguished by its information-rich content as well as its original that highlights the hybrid aspect of Korean Protestantism. This important study can enrich future studies and current religious flows between South Korea, China and America North.

Beyond this innovative content, some elements could be deepened. It would have been interesting for the author to insert his study into a wider historical reflection on the transnational dynamics of circulations of Protestantism. In addition, criticism of post-colonial studies seems not new, and it would have been relevant to deepen it by studying this field of research more systematically. The book division thematic chapters could also have been simplified and some concepts would have won to be more clearly defined.

Juliette Duléry

University Paris-Diderot

juliettedulery@hotmail.fr