• 대순사상과 동아시아종교
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.13-34
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• 2024

This article is a compilation of civilizational crises and their overcoming from the worldview of Daesoon Jinrihoe, based on the premise that religion can offer advice on the crises faced by modern civilization. It is a reinterpretation of human history from a religious perspective, focusing on mutual contentions, grievances, grudges, and their overcoming. Daesoon Jinrihoe explains that modern civilizational crises were first recognized by divine beings in the 18th and 19th centuries, and then later recognized by humans in the 20th and 21st centuries. Unable to resolve the civilization crises, the divine beings asked the Supreme God to intervene in human history, and the Supreme God was born in a human body to reveal the root causes and development of various civilizational crise sand to propose solutions to overcome them. These solutions encompass setting the world aright and ushering in a new era through the Reordering Works of Heaven and Earth (天地公事), attaining enduring peace by practicing grievance resolution for mutual beneficence (解冤相生), and reconstructing the relationship between divine beings and humans in harmonious coexistence. Devotees hold that Daesoon Jinrihoe is a religion that originated as a solution to a problem faced by God rather than humankind. As such, it considers the crises of civilization and their overcoming as the reason for existence. According to the religion's worldview, the Supreme God has already provided the solution to these civilizational crises. With a tip of the hat to the film Interstellar (2014), it could be said, "God Found a Way. He Always Has." Now, Daesoon Jinrihoe posits that it is up to humans to implement the way that God found.

• 대순사상과 동아시아종교
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.71-92
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• 2024

The world we live in is becoming more convenient thanks to the inventions of science and technology. Still, the world is also becoming more and more unpredictable with the current situation of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity). The Covid-19 pandemic brought the biggest global disaster ever with 774,631,444 infected people and 7,031,216 deaths (WHO on February 11, 2024) but it seems that humanity is gradually forgetting this disaster. Meanwhile the economic stimulus packages worth trillions of dollars from governments after the pandemic have further caused the world debt bubble to swell. The bubble burst scenario is something that many economic experts fear. Apparently, in the transitional period of the early decades of the 21st century, the world's economic, cultural, political, social, natural, and environmental aspects have undergone profound transformations: from the real estate and finance crises in the United States since 2008; through the melting of the Arctic ice over the past several decades; to the double disaster of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. Especially, in the context of the world economic crisis after the COVID-19 pandemic, the human achievements of the past thousands of years are in jeopardy of being wiped out in an instant. Many people are predicting a bad scenario for a chain collapse. Facing the signals of an imminent economic catastrophe based on the appearance of "the Gray Rhino, Black Swan and White Elephant," many drawn in by Eschatological thought declare that Doomsday will occur shortly. This is the time for many other people to hope for the incoming Messiah. The Messiah is said to appear when people feel despair or suffer a great disaster because faith in the Savior can help them overcome adversity mentally. This research will find out how adherents of Buddhism view and deal with civilizational crises by examining history via symbols associated with Maitreya as based upon the Buddhist Messiah, Maitreya.

• 비교문화연구
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• 제37권
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• pp.7-29
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• 2014

The 'discovery' or 'conquest' of the New World in 1492 was the starting point of world history that irrevocably changed the fate of the Latin American continent. The global stream known as 'Columbian Exchange', which was the widespread inter-continental contacts, inter-civilizational conflicts, or bilateral communication, has rendered multifarious effects throughout many historical periods up to the very contemporary time. The propagation of Catholicism initiated along with this 'discovery' transformed Latin America of nowadays in the region that has the biggest Catholic population in the world. The previous studies in Korea regarding Latin American Catholicism has focused on the spread of Catholicism in relation to the European colonization, rather than analyzing the concrete and detailed ways in which Catholicism exerted tremendous influences in the whole continent. They were less attentive to various historical contexts in which the diffusion of Catholicism differed greatly according to cultural landscapes and political specificities. Thus, this essay attempts to examine the diffusion of Catholicism from the perspective of confrontation between royal authorities and the power of church. The essay points out that the royal communities and institutional authorities which facilitated the intial process of Catholic evangelization maintained antagonistic relationship with ecclesial powers. By delving into the gradual transformation of church systems, it reveals that Catholicism in Latin America became a major field for conquerors in power to attain economic and political dominance. And unlike the initial submission and hospitality, the religious convert of the indigenous people attested to the violent inhumanity and opposition. Therefore, the essay aims to pave a clearer way to the understanding of complicated dynamics and conflicts between Catholicism in Latin America and the establishment of Spanish colonization.