Organizer: Koen De Ceuster, Leiden University
Chair: Donald N. Clark, Trinity University
Discussant: Do-Hyun Han, Academy of Korean Studies
For too long, political history has dominated scholarship on Korea’s colonial period. The almost exclusive attention to Korea’s independence movement has recently been challenged both inside and outside of Korea. New scholarship has diverted attention away from the demands of national history toward a more comprehensive analysis of Korea’s colonial history. This has already been the case for gender studies and economic history, but in the field of religion, the nationalist paradigm still rules. Rather than to narrowly focus on their significance to the nation, this panel seeks to address Christianity, Won Buddhism and Ch’ondogyo in their interaction with society taking their thought and practices as a point of departure.
Refusing to let the scholarly debate be dominated by the issue of nationalism, the panel participants seek to demonstrate that religious convictions and preoccupations equally motivated individuals and movements. To attest to this, they look at these different religious traditions and ask what social role they saw for themselves in the colonial context. This panel will not just look into the ideas that motivated these religious social movements, but will also question the ways in which these movements contributed to social life during the colonial period.
Doctrinal Origins and Social Ends in Early 20th-Century Korean Protestantism
Kenneth M. Wells, Australia National University
The role of Protestantism in Korea from the end of the 19th century is frequently viewed by sociologists and historians, including church historians, from the point of view of its contributions to the social, economic, and political order of the nation. In this paper, I argue that if one treats these functions as the only cause and justification of Protestantism in Korea, the motivations, intentions and, to a large degree, the activities of Protestant leaders in the early 20th century either pass unnoticed or are seriously misconstrued. I attempt to demonstrate that the doctrinal positions and social thought of three major Korean Protestant leaders—Yun Ch’iho, Kim Kyoshin and Kim Yun’gyong—cast serious doubt on the nationalistic interpretations they have attracted. These men and their organizations followed specific priorities in their work in Korea in relation to social and national questions, priorities which involved a specific set of meanings that were at once more immediate and broader than those of the nationalist criteria against which they are often problematically measured.
The YMCA’s Rural Revitalization Movement in Colonial Korea, 1925–1935: Doctrine and Objectives
Koen De Ceuster, Leiden University
Although the YMCA is often mentioned in histories of colonial Korea, studies of the YMCA movement itself are rare. This paper seeks to address this lack of research by focusing on the YMCA’s rural revitalization program.
It was not until 1925 that the YMCA discovered the plight of rural communities and established a rural department to address the economic hardship faced by Korean farmers. Not social inequality, let alone the colonial situation, were singled out as causes for rural deprivation, but individual shortcomings. In line with reformist ideas common among moderate intellectuals in the 1920s, the YMCA called for introspection and spiritual reawakening. Though under the banner of self-reliance some cooperation among farmers was promoted in order to reach communal self-sufficiency, spiritual and moral edification were seen to be the key to solving the problems of rural Korea.
This paper seeks to situate the YMCA’s program within the intellectual landscape of colonial Korea. Not only the challenges it faced from more radical rural movements, but also the interaction with Government-General initiatives will be looked into. Especially the latter will prove interesting, as the Rural Revitalization Program the Government-General initiated in 1932 looks like a copy of the YMCA program. While the terminology was strikingly similar, the YMCA initiative was, however, increasingly obstructed by the authorities.
Religion, Class, and Social Movement under Colonialism: On the Disputes on Religion Between Ch’ondogyo and Socialists
Myoung-Kyu Park, Seoul National University/University of California at Irvine
In 1920s Korea, Ch’ondogyo clashed with socialists over the role of religion in society. Since both sides tried to establish a theoretical legitimization for their own brand of social movements, conflicts and competition for hegemony erupted. Whereas socialist intellectuals thought socialism was a universal truth that could be applied to all societies, Ch’ondogyo leaders argued that socialism was merely a specific ideology reflecting Western experiences. In this paper, I will try to review the main issues of the disputes over the methods of rural movements under colonialism. For this purpose, my paper will focus on the activities of the Association of Choson Peasants (Choson Nongminsa) which was founded by Ch’ondogyo.
Reformed Buddhism: Redefining the Way in Colonial Korea
Boudewijn Walraven, Leiden University
In 1910, the year of Korea’s total annexation by Japan, the monk Han Yong-un proposed a drastic reformation of the relationship between Buddhism and society in his Plea for the Revitalization of Korean Buddhism. It was the newly established denomination of Won Buddhism, however, that from 1916 onwards most radically changed that relationship, sharply criticizing the aloofness and parasitism of traditional Buddhism and creating a "Reformed Buddhism" that was completely lay-centered. Won Buddhism’s position vis-à-vis society was also different economically (and to a certain extent politically), as the lay patrons outside the ecclesiastical structure, on whom the traditional monasteries relied for part of their income and protection (even though they always had had some property and economical activities of their own), in Won Buddhism made way for members of the group itself.
Mainly on the basis of Won Buddhist publications from the 1920s and 1930s such as the Hoebo (Bulletin), this paper will examine the social concerns of the new denomination and the ways the organization with its teachings and practices affected the daily lives of its followers and addressed their needs and problems. In this, the colonial situation is, of course, an element that cannot be overlooked, but it will not a priori be assumed to be the dominant factor. The fact that early Won Buddhism (or Society for the Study of the Buddhist Law as it was originally known) had its basis in the countryside and for its survival depended on the proceeds from agriculture will allow fruitful comparisons with rural movements seen in other religions.