• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.34
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• pp.171-202
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• 2020

The nations of East Asia have similar historical backgrounds in terms of going through modernization during the nineteenth century. All of them commonly experienced socio-political hardships. Three of the most prosperous East Asian new religions, Yiguandao, Tenrikyo, and Daesoon Jinrihoe, all emerged under similar socio-political circumstances during the nineteenth century. There was no mutual interchange, but the cosmological perspectives share some analogous ideology. All of them were types of nativist millennialism. The ultimate goal in all three is redeeming lost elements by magical means-the sudden disappearance of invading forces, the return of mystical heroes or messiahs, and an altered landscape. As Stark said, although it is impossible to calculate the actual rate of success, probably no more than one religious movement out of 1,000 will attract more than 100,000 followers and last for as long as a century. By this standard, these three groups are certainly worthy of being studied. This paper will examine and compare these three groups through four dimensions: the Messiah's eschatology, the re-interpretation of that eschatology after the Messiah's death, the rational transformations of millennial dreams, and the institutionalization of those millennial dreams. Analytically, I could demonstrate the differences among these groups through two dimensions: (1) The dimension of time, which can be conceptualized in terms of this-worldly or other-worldly; and (2) Collective vision, which can be conceptualized in terms of utopia or reform. The cross-classification of these two dimensions is suggestive of the general avenues of Millennialism. Through these comparisons and observations, light will be shed on the essence and dynamics of East Asian Millennialist Thought by exploring deeper cultural implications.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.145
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• pp.217-244
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• 2018

This paper reviews how $J{\ddot{u}}rgen$ Moltmann embraces and transforms the philosophy of Ernst Bloch. For what are the hopes of the two thinkers who presuppose opposing worldviews? This question will provide a good opportunity to look at how different religious types, based on different worldviews in modern philosophy of religion, can understand and communicate with one another. Ernst Bloch was a philosopher who originally interpreted Judeo-Christian thought through Marxism and Persian Dualism and helped to carry out the intrinsic criticism of the doctrine of Christian eschatology by developing atheism of Christianity into a philosophy of hope. Bloch and Moltmann deal with the concepts of future, humanity, nation, and hope in the eschatological horizon, but their worldviews are so different. For example, the connection between the Beginning and Ending, Disjunction or Continuation, the Core of Existence and Resurrection, Messianism and Marxism, Atheism and Theism, Persian Dualism and Judeo-Christian Monotheism. Therefore, a one-sided interpretation that ignores worldview differences in the hopes of these two thinkers should be avoided. Moltmann actively embraced the Messianism of the Jewish thinker, Bloch, by excluding Marxism, made the spectrum of broad-minded horizons diminished in the union of Messianism and Marxism. Moltmann replaced the utopian possibilities of matter in the Ontology of Not-Yet-Being, with the resurrection of Christ, who was crucified, and with the God of Creation and the God of Exodus. By overthrowing the position of atheism in Christianity, which was very important for Bloch, with the system of Trinitarian Monotheism, it resulted in the disconnection and conflict between the Old Testament and the New Testament, especially the ignorance of the tension between God the Lord and Jesus Christ.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.43-54
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• 2002

Some factors had influence upon the grotesque image formation expressed in fashion: for instance, thanatos, religions, fin de siecle (end of the century), the aesthetics of ugliness, subculture group's resistance and technology development, etc. Those factors have formed a grotesque while exchanging influence each other, and have following features: First, the thanatos, which is destructive and aggressive instinct of the inner world of human being, creates frightening object and motif to form the images of grotesque. Second, from religious point of view, the church made the Devil a tool for maintenance of power: They manipulated physical body and give a damage to it to sublimate it in holy existence, so that they could feel catharsis. Third, there was fin de siecle (end of the century) to let people have negative life attitude, such as uneasiness on following century, eschatology, skepticism and nihilism, etc. Fourth, the ugliness having unpleasantness and disharmony occupies governing position when our society becomes corrupted and uneasy, and the aesthetics of ugliness discloses the inconsistency of ideal and beautiful life in the grotesque images. Fifth, subculture groups, i.e., the lower classes, homosexual and the youth's group, etc, form the grotesque images by political and ideological resistance, complaints and specific identity, etc concerning governing culture keeping traditional ethics consciousness. Sixth, recent technology development has destroyed a boundary between human being and machinery, and bio-technology development has created transplant operation, plastic operation and other human body transformation operations, and genome research, etc has raised human being's identity.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.32
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• pp.237-267
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• 2019

The article considers the problems of envisaging a paradise on earth, with special reference to Jehovah's Witnesses. After an explanation of their relationship to the Christian Protestant tradition, particularly Adventism and American fundamentalism, some key doctrines of the Watch Tower organisation are identified, with particular reference to their belief in a coming earthly paradise. Jehovah's Witnesses are a restorationist movement, seeking a restored paradise on earth, and endeavouring to restore authentic Christianity in what they take to be its original form. Discussion is given to the possibility of physical accommodation on the earth, the position of animals, family life, language, and technology. Finally, brief comparison is made with the expected paradise of the Daesoon Jinrihoe, which is based on a radically different worldview. It is concluded that such differences help to explain why Jehovah's Witnesses have limited success in Korea, as compared with indigenous Korean new religions such as Daesoon Jinrihoe.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.56
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• pp.81-117
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to clarify the overall features and its meaning of the Gaebyok(開闢) through the intercomparison of the Gaebyok idea that is the core idea of a newly risen modern religion in Korea. Limitation of most studies so far is that they have stayed in the fragmentary study on the Gaebyok idea of each new religion. In order to overcome this problem, first of all, the Gaebyok idea was studied from a philosophical point encompassing the cosmological view of time in the book of changes. And based on this methodological foundation, with organizing the existing result of study, the process of development and characteristics in the Gaebyok idea of a posteriori Donghak(東學), Right I Ching (正易), Won Buddhism(圓佛敎), and Kangjeungsan(姜甑山) was investigated respectively. And through comparing and analyzing each Gaebyok idea, the similarities and differences between each other were organized. The founders of new religions thought that a great change in the universal and natural luck was made before and after the point of their living. The concept of the frequency of revolution theory is the concept to explain the aspect of transition according to the frequency of revolution(運度) of the cosmological nature that returns to the beginning, and in the idea of the posterior Gaebyok, this content and concepts is contained as it was. This study showed that the concept of the frequency of revolution theory in an apriority and a posterior like those becomes appeared in some preaches of Suun, Ilbu, Sotaesan and Jeungsan. An apriority in the Gaebyok idea of new religion is the world of crisis that represents the limited condition of human being, and a posterity means the religious ideal world realized through the power of the absolute being or a dramatic universal change from that limited circumstances. So the Gaebyok ida is a kind of an universal eschatology and religious view that expects the coming of ideal world in the future. In addition, since the universal eschatology is a kind of a view of time, it inevitably has an issue how long time apriority and a posterity included in it have. And especially, it becomes to premise the content how the social condition and human condition change in an apriority and a posterity. Accordingly, in this study, based on the understanding of the view of time in the cosmological level, the content of answers that each newly risen religion discloses was listed and analyzed with comparison. It can be considered that Suun took charge of a mission to deliver the message through being possessed of a god in heaven who is able to be called a transcendental existence, Ilbu disclosed the coming of the world of a posterity beyond an apriority through the Book of Changes(易學), Jeungsan proclaimed himself as the absolute being who could make such a posterity and bring it, and Sotaesan proposed the Gaebyok of mind in order to meet with the world of a posterity and to live in that era.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.456-466
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• 2014

This is a study of George Lindbeck's postliberalism that views religion as a cultural-linguistic approach. Knowing that the conceptual-propositional approach of the traditional Christian theology and the experiential-expressive approach of liberalism cannot be a solution for the post-modem religious phenomenon, George Lindbeck proposes an alternative. He proposes a cultural-linguistic approach to overcome the previous approaches. The first insight of Lindbeck's postliberalism is to understand religion as culture or language, because human beings become acquainted with a religion as they learn a language. The second insight comes out of the first, to understand doctrine as grammar. If we understand religion and doctrine this way the troubles and conflicts among religions will be resolved naturally, because each religion can be interpreted in its own system just as a language cannot be said to be good or bad, right or wrong. This approach makes several contributions as follows: it promotes a dialogue among religions, it emphasizes practice; and it preserves the Bible as an authoritative theological text. However it also brings many limitations as follows: it emphasizes the church's interpretation rather than the text's own interpretation; it views the truth simply as coherence; it promotes radical relativism and elitism; and through theological eschatology he makes his theory return to a propositionalism. Accordingly, the researcher concludes that Lindbeck's cultural-linguistic theory of religion is not an alternative that overcomes the limitations of theological conservativism and liberalism.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.52
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• pp.79-110
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• 2018

This purpose of this study was to address the issue of forgiving unforgivable crimes, inevitably raised in Paul Ricoeur's thoughts. He explores the possibility of righteous historical representation of tragic events in Western history. Being aware of injustices of amnesty indiscriminately extended by the government, he studied the process through in which a genuine pardon should unfold before granting amnesty. He believes that this process called the "odyssey of forgiveness" presupposes the process of "imputability," in which the perpetrator should acknowledge his/her wrongdoing as his/her act and take reasonable responsibilities for it in a modest position. However, such acknowledgement of wrongdoing cannot be any reason for the victim to necessarily grant forgiveness to the perpetrator. According to him, forgiveness is a gift and the power of love enabled by a complete forgiver only. The initiative of forgiveness is attributable to the forgiver only. To never relinquish tension between love and justice in the forgiving process, he devises a way of planning an equation of forgiveness in a vertical scheme. Finally, he explains the process of requesting and granting forgiveness in a form of a righteous historical representation against the oblivion of past tragic events. He contends that this event of forgiveness promises a new life and a new era to all seeking and granting forgiveness, and that write a righteous history in eschatological hope.

• Sijohaknonchong
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• v.43
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• pp.149-175
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• 2015

There have been few researches about Christian imagination reflected in modern sijo. The purpose of this study was to provide basic information helpful to deeply understand Christian literature and clarify the history of Christian sijo literature. For this purpose, the study focused on pieces of sijo written by Seon Jeong-ju and Jang Sun-ha both of whom put out lots of sijo based on Christian imagination. The two poets are common in that they were born in the Japanese colonial period and started their career as a poet at an almost same time. First of all, how a sijo writer, Seon Jeong-ju applied Christian imagination to his pieces of sijo can be summarized as follows. As a poet and paster, Seon Jeong-ju wrote and published 6 volumes of sijo collection. His pieces of sijo were all written based on Christian imagination. Many of the pieces contain Christianity-related stories that were poetically represented through paradoxical imagination. Among pieces of sijo written by Seon Jeong-ju, some reveal enthusiasm for seeking after truth that he kept in mind as a clergyman and others, the poet's strong belief in the Resurrection. Next, Christian imagination that another sijo writer Jang Sun-ha reflected in his works can be briefed as follows. The poet published a sijo collection of his own in 2010. As one of the best representatives of the modern sijo circles, he is a veteran poet who is still creating pieces of sijo. Since he became a Christian in 1996, he has released more than 200 pieces of Christianity-based sijo including those contained in his sijo collection, "Introduction to Love Studies". Most of the Christian poets quoted words from the Bible or borrowed episodes described in the Book. In those poets, he uses imagination that is allusive to the confession of his faith and, in some cases implies his own views of eschatology. In conclusion, both Seon Jeong-ju and Jang Sun-ha wrote and published lots of sijo works on the basis of Christianity, and each of them built up his own world of Christian sijo. In many of the two poet's pieces of sijo, critical doctrines of Christianity and their desperate devotion to that religion are found. Both of them made remarkable poetic achievements, so they deserve being recognized as second to none in the history of Christian sijo literature.