• Title/Summary/Keyword: indigenous Korean new religions

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A Comparative Analysis of the New Religious Thought Generated by Indigenous Korean Religions from a Subaltern Perspective: Focusing on Choi Je-woo, Kang Il-sun, and Park Jungbin ('서발턴(subaltern)'의 관점에서 본 한국의 자생 신종교 사상 - 수운, 증산, 소태산의 비교를 중심으로 -)

  • Park, Jong-chun
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.37
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    • pp.141-190
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    • 2021
  • In early modern Korea, the founders of three main-stream indigenous new religions, Choi Je-woo (崔濟愚), Kang Il-sun (姜一淳), and Park Jungbin (朴重彬), were all ruined yangban, who could no longer maintain the social dignity of yangban. Prior to their regular religious activities, they earned livings as rural teachers, peasants, merchants, and fortune-tellers. They were marginalized for having declined from upper-class nobles to lower-class people. Due to their subalternal status, they religiously represented the inexpressible aspirations and resentments held by various subalterns. The millennial movements of marginal religions in the late Joseon Dynasty exposed and deviated from the fetters of the established order, but they did not propose a new alternative order to replace it. Unlike these millennial movements, Choi Je-woo, Kang Il-sun, and Park Jungbin all proposed utopian visions of post-subalternal alternative religions that systematically presented and practiced new alternative worldviews characterized by the "Great Opening of the Later World (後天開闢)." The world they longed for was one wherein anti-subalternal social regulation were overthrown, the oppression of various subalterns end, and the established social order was replaced. In this article, I have argued that three main-stream indigenous Korean new religions, Donghak (Eastern Learning), the Jeungsan-inspired religious movements, and Wonbulgyo (Won Buddhism) are utopian alternative religions. I made this argument by analyzing some aspects by which they represented subalterns and offered subalterns a new religio-social status.

A Study of Byun Chan-rin's Understanding of the Neo-Religion and Ideas of Kang Il-sun (변찬린의 새종교관과 증산사상 이해에 대한 연구)

  • Park Jong-chun
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.50
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    • pp.33-68
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    • 2024
  • Byun Chan-rin (1934-1985) intertextually reconciled important world religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism from the perspective of Pungryu (風流), also known as Seon (僊), which he considered to be the foundation of the Korean spirit. Naturally, his category of Pungryu also encompassed modern Korean national religions. He emphasized the necessity of a neo-religion in order to overcome the exclusive limitations of various world religions as each was bound by their own tradition, and hence deviated from the mainstream of the Great Way of Pungryu. He also appreciated various indigenous new religions in modern Korea, including concept of epoch-making and the practices of Kang Il-sun (姜一淳), as "neo-religion" that could overcome the limitations of world religions by elevating the magical activities of shamanism to the Great Way. His appraisal was positive, and he refrained from dismissing this growing movement as "superstitions" or "new emerging religions" embraced by the common people. From his viewpoint, the important indigenous new religions in modern Korea were not the ruling religions of the empire but alternative religions of the colonial people, and the concept of "Great Opening of the Later World (後天開闢)" in modern indigenous Korean religions and Kang's idea of the Resolution of Grievances for Mutual Beneficence (解冤相生) were creative evolutions of religion that overcame the contradictions and limitations of the world's religions. He presented the insight of a spiritual seeker who heralded the era of "SBNR" (spiritual but not religious), which seeks new possibilities for spirituality by escaping limitations of religiosity.

Yiguandao in Korea: International Growth of a Chinese New Religion

  • IRONS, Edward;LEE, Gyungwon
    • Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.85-109
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    • 2022
  • Yiguandao missions arrived in Korea no later than 1947. Despite many obstacles, including war and internal dissension, the movement has flourished in South Korea. Today there are three active major lineages and another seven smaller networks. This article relates the movement's overall development in Korea. We begin by discussing key missions dispatched to Korea by Yiguandao's founder Zhang Tianran. The northern port city of Tianjin was key to this effort, in particular a single temple, the Hall of Morality. In Korea the leaders found an unfamiliar cultural landscape that was soon engulfed in war. The Yiguandao missions tended to develop independently, without coordination. In an effort to unify the movement, the Morality Foundation was established in Busan in 1952. The article shows how Yiguandao's subsequent success in Korea is connected to the development of indigenous leadership. Local Korean leadership ousted Chinese members from the Morality Foundation in 1954, and this branch has continued under Korean leadership to this day. The ousted Chinese leaders continued to develop their own lineages. Two major leaders, Zhang Ruiquan and Kim Bokdang, were able to establish enduring legacies. A final section looks at organizational traits that will determine the movement's future prospects in modern Korean society.

Haewon-sangsaeng as a Religio-Ethical Metaphor

  • HUANG, Pochi
    • Journal of Daesoon Thought and the Religions of East Asia
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    • v.1 no.1
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    • pp.103-125
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    • 2021
  • This paper deals with figurative meanings of Haewon-sangsaeng. It is an investigation which is both semantic and diachronic. In the first part, important implications of sangsaeng (or xiangsheng in Chinese) in the context of correlative cosmology are extensively explored. Among others, saeng (in Chinese sheng) as a powerful metaphor and its related Chinese compounds are broadly discussed. In the second part, the evolution of ideas of yuan (or won in Korean) in Chinese history is explicated. Above all, in the traditional Chinese cultural milieu, wrongful treatments which make victims feel themselves aggrieved are socio-politically orientated. The Scripture on Great Peace (Taiping Jing) is used as reference point to elucidate the essential points of yuan and its knots. However, the advent of Buddhism in East Asia adds a new dimension to the understanding of yuan (won). Accumulated yuan as karmic bond thus gives a new identity of yuan as predetermined animosity. Widely recognized idioms like "adverse relatives and karmic debtors" and indigenous Chinese Buddhist rituals like Repentance Ritual of the Emperor Liang bear witness to this transformation of the meaning of yuan in East Asia. The fruitful yet correlated meanings of yuan also make the endeavor of untying yuan deeply significant and important to human society. Haewon-sangsaeng, as a religio-ethical ideal, brings out an amicable and harmonious relationship among myriad beings in the cosmos.

Beyond Armageddon: Is the Jehovah's Witnesses' Paradise Earth Conceivable? (아마겟돈을 지나서 - 여호와의 증인이 말하는 지상낙원은 상상할 수 있는 것인가? -)

  • Chryssides, George D.
    • 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.

A Study on the Religiosity of Filial Piety Ethics in Daesoonjinrihoe (대순진리회의 효 윤리에 나타난 종교성 연구)

  • Cha, Seon-keun
    • Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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    • v.27
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    • pp.171-200
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    • 2016
  • This paper will analyze the filial piety based ethics of Daesoonjinrihoe (大巡眞理會) and the traditional filial piety of Confucianism (儒敎), Buddhism (佛敎) and Taoism (道敎) through comparing and contrasting their unique systems. The traditional Korean ethics regarding filial piety are in great need of reformation as the relationship between the parents and children should not be vertical or unilateral but parallel and reciprocal. However, there have not been sufficient in-depth studies on this specific ideology and alternative approaches. Regarding this prospect, one representative Korean indigenous new religion, Daesoonjinrihoe has emerged and directly engages in the collision between traditionalism and modernity. The modernity of Daesoonjinrihoe, enables the observation of how the filial piety based ethics have developed within a system of doctrine and thereby provides an exemplary model of traditional filial piety reimagined in accordance with modern sensibilities. A brief summary of comparative findings is as follows: First, Daesoonjinrihoe and Confucianism have taken serving parents with respect as an ethic within filial piety, but Confucianism engenders this ideal through the unilateral and unconditional sacrifice of younger people based on patriarchal feudalism whereas Daesoonjinrihoe has rejected such unilateral sacrifice and instead promotes mutual beneficience between parents and children. This difference occurs, in part, due to the filial piety of Confucianism rising in the midst of the feudal order whereas the ideology of Daesoonjinrihoe contains ideals such as "the reciprocation of favor for mutual beneficence (報恩相生)" and "respect for humanity (人尊)," both of which serve as key principles of the new religious world as envisioned by Daesoonjinrihoe. Second, filial piety in Buddhism and Taoism tends to be passive and inactive and is often expressed by praying for happiness and longevity for one's parents while they are alive and later praying for the heavenly rebirth of one's parents after they die. The filial piety of Daesoonjinrihoe also partially contains such ideas, however; they are extended much further and arrive upon novel and profound expressions. The spectrum of the filial piety in Daesoonjinrihoe expands to the extent children perform actions to resolve their parent's sins and pave a new road for their parents. This filial piety requires a cultivation practice from both parents and children. This system of dual cultivation was established because the world-view of Daesoonjinrihoe enables both parents and children to enjoy happiness and wealth both of which are achieved through the completion of religious objectives following cultivation practice. Third, Confucianism and Daesoonjinrihoe hold memorial services for ancestors with sincerity as an expression of filial piety. Filial piety in the Confucian context excludes ideas from Shamanism and thereby memorial services are held for impersonal entities, however; in the Daesoonjinrihoe context, memorial services are held for personal-entities. Accordingly, holding a memorial service for ancestors with sincerity has a greater sense of realism in Daesoonjinrihoe than it does in Confucianism. Fourth, while Confucianism and Daesoonjinrihoe both aim to requite the grace received from ancestors, the contents of grace and reciprocation of favors (報恩) are viewed differently. In Confucianism, since the ancestors existed previously and bestowed the gift of life to their children and indirectly, all of their descendents. Therefore, memorial services for ancestors are held to convey gratitude and filial piety. However, in Daesoonjinrihoe, ancestors not only bestowed the gift of earthly life to their descendents, in the spirit realm, ancestral spirits also spend sixty years accumulating the merit necessary to imbue each of their descendents with spiritual insight. Consequently, filial piety is expressed through memorial services as well as spiritual cultivation. Fifth, in Confucianism, achieving the fame and prestige indicative of success in the mundane world can be an act of filial piety as it would bring pride to one's ancestors, but in Daesoonjinrihoe, succeeding in religious objectives through spiritual cultivation is considered to be a higher form of filial piety. Sixth, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism all observe filial piety as system of familial ethics based in morality. This is likewise true of Daesoonjinrihoe, however; Daesoonjinrihoe confers greater importance on filial piety as an essential form of ethics for religious redemption. This is due to the Daesoon interpretation that the absence of filial piety was the direct cause which led to the sickened state of the world and its collapse. Forgetting the grace of parents who have given the gift of life or the grace of ancestral spirits who have accumulated merit on behalf of their descendents are acts of ingratitude which are unacceptable during the period of Reordering of the Universe. Judging from these findings, Daesoonjinrihoe embraces parts of traditional filial piety as it exists in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, but it does so on the ground of its own unique culture. Through re-interpretation and re-creation, ideas regarding filial piety are being further developed. Namely, filial piety in Daesoonjinrihoe is regulations founded upon the reciprocation of favors for mutual beneficence and respect for humanity. Therefore, it is understood as a concept wherein one's own cultivation practice is performed in order to reach religious objectives, the perfection of personal character, and spiritual insight. This requires that even recipents of filial piety (i.e., parents) perform certain cultivation practices to enjoy happiness and wealth. Additionally, filial piety in Daesoonjinrihoe manifests a reinforced religious character and also serves as a system ethics which is soteriologically essential for salvation during the period known as the Reordering of the Universe.