Küster, A Protestant Theology of Passion Korean Minjung Theology Revisited

A Protestant Theology of Passion
Studies in Systematic
Theology
Series Editors
Stephen Bevans S.V.D., Catholic Theological Union, Chicago
Miikka Ruokanen, University of Helsinki and
Nanjing Union Theological Seminary
Advisory Board
Wanda Deifelt, Luther College, Decorah (IA)
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena (CA)
Jesse Mugambi, University of Nairobi
Rachel Zhu Xiaohong, Fudan University, Shanghai
VOLUME 4
A Protestant
Theology of Passion
Korean Minjung Theology Revisited
By
Volker Küster
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2010
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Küster, Volker, 1962–

A Protestant theology of passion : Korean Minjung theology revisited / by
Volker Küster.
p. cm. — (Studies in systematic theology, ISSN 1876-1518 ; v. 4)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17523-5 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Minjung Theology and Art 2. Liberation Theology 3. Contextual and
Intercultural Theology 4. Christian Religion in South Korea I. Title. II. Series.
BT83.58.K86 2010
230’.0464095195—dc22
2009051493
ISSN 1876-1518
ISBN 978 90 04 17523 5
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printed in the netherlands

For my parents
Heide and Karl Küster
who created the space for me to think.
Korea in the three kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD)
Modern Korea: Division (1945) and Korean war (1950–53)
CONTENTS
Foreword by David Kwang-Sun Suh .............................................. xi

Writing from this Place .................................................................... xix
Prologue: Theology in Context ........................................................ 1
I. People as the Subjects of History ......................................... 19
II. Re-/constructing Korean Identity

The Minjung Culture Movement ......................................... 27
III. Theology and Biography

Theological Identity Re/constructed .................................... 55
IV. Jesus and the Minjung

Ahn Byung-Mu (1922–1996) ................................................ 59
V. A Confluence of Two Traditions

Suh Nam-Dong (1918–1984) ................................................ 79
VI. Fools for Christ’s Sake

Hyun Young-Hak (1921–2004) ............................................ 87
VII. Theology as a Social Biography of the Minjung

Kim Yong-Bock (*1938) ........................................................ 95
VIII. A Plea for a Survival-Liberation Centered Syncretism

Chung Hyun-Kyung (*1956) ................................................ 103
IX. Contextual Challenges

Minjung Theology in Intercultural Perspective ................. 115
X. Contextual Transformations
Minjung Theology Yesterday and Today ............................ 131
x contents
Epilogue: Contextual Theologies as Open Systems ..................... 151
Bibliography on Minjung Theology ............................................... 157

Index of Persons ................................................................................ 163
Figures ................................................................................................. 167
FOREWORD
David Kwang-Sun Suh
As a remnant of the so-called first generation Minjung theologians,

Ahn Byung-Mu, Suh Nam-Dong, Hyun Young-Hak, Kim Yong-Bock,
et al., I welcome Volker Küster back to Korea with his book A Prot-
estant Theology of Passion. Minjung Theology Revisited. The author is
a German professor teaching in the Netherlands, theologically trained
in Heidelberg and in Seoul, Korea in the 1980s, perhaps the only
European theologian who could in some sense claim to be a Min-
jung theologian. I am particularly grateful to him for his “revisiting”
Minjung theology from his own “German” or “European” perspective,
while most Korean theologians and even some Minjung theologians
nowadays say openly that there is nothing left to “revisit” in Korean
Minjung theology. In this short but ambitious book, Professor Küster
sets Korean Minjung theology against a big canvas of the new mid-
20th century theological developments in the so-called Third World,
namely contextual theologies: Liberation theology in Latin America,
Black theology in North America and South Africa, as well as incul-
turation and dialogue theologies in Africa and Asia.
In order to see and experience the context of Korean Minjung theol-
ogy, Volker Küster came to Korea in 1987/88 and visited most of the
practicing Minjung theologians. With extraordinary sense of empathy,
he studied and analyzed the social, political and cultural situation of
South Korea in and from which Minjung theologians did act and do
theology. He caught the spirit of Korean theologians young and old
as he met them individually and in groups. As a young theological
student, he had a special gift for allowing strangers to open themselves
and reveal their life experiences: their suffering, their joys, their aspira-
tions and their gut feelings about themselves, about the church, and
about the world. After he completed his doctoral work at Heidelberg,
he continued to make contact with Korean students studying there and
kept visiting Korea, coming nearly every year since 2003. This book is
an excellent and most accurate scholarly reflection on these visits and
his extensive dialogues with contemporary Korean theologians.
xii foreword
On the whole, I have the impression that the author appears to be

a mirror for Korean Minjung theologians and their theology, a Euro-
pean mirror, to be fair. He is reading Korean Minjung theology with
his German theological mind trained in the long and deep tradition
of Western systematic theology. Outstanding features of the book are
many. But the most interesting is his use of one of the methodologies
of doing Minjung theology namely story telling: telling the story of
one’s life and experiences in the struggles against powers and prin-
cipalities, as well as doing theology, that is, the social-biography of
theologians. He starts with his own story, how he became interested
in Minjung theology, emerging from the thick forest of German the-
ology, and chooses his five favourite, representative Minjung theolo-
gians. Another fascinating aspect of his narrative is that he gives an
extensive introduction to Korean minjung artists such as Hong Song-
Dam, Lee Chul-Soo and Kim Bong-Chun as well as Kim Chi-Ha, the
Catholic poet. These works of art are not just to supplement theologi-
cal analyses, but to place minjung art and artists at the center of the
total enterprise of doing Minjung theology. All of these features make
the book readable and exciting visually as well as viscerally.
In dialogue with Volker Küster I would like to recall briefly some
of the salient theological points that Minjung theology put forward,
which are still relevant and worth revisiting in order to promote theo-
logical thinking in general and in doing intercultural, contextual, post-
modern or postcolonial theologies in our “glocalizing” world today.
“Who is Minjung?”1
This question, posed from outside Korea, elicited only a very loose
and general description of minjung, for example, as those who are
“politically oppressed, economically exploited and culturally alien-
ated.” “Minjung” does not have to satsify all of these categories. Some
intellectuals claimed that if you are politically oppressed, even though
you are not particularly poor economically, you are minjung. Similarly
if you are culturally alienated, like women suffering from the patriar-
chal society, you are minjung women. Nowadays, most migrant work-
ers in Korea might be called “postcolonial” minjung who are certainly
1
See below 21f, 139 and 147–149.
foreword xiii
politically oppressed, economically exploited, and culturally alienated.

In this way we could identify minjung in our society individually and
collectively.
These categories are named as sociological categories: political, eco-
nomical and cultural categories. But they are no theological categories
as such. That is perhaps why many people feel uncomfortable with
Minjung theology, which combines minjung and theology. No wonder
that German theologians in particular just cannot pronounce “Min-
jung theology,” but want to keep the two categories separate. Minjung
theologians do not deny the fact that minjung is a sociological cat-
egory. They saw, heard and experienced the political and economic
realities of suffering in Korean society in the 1970s. Yet we theologized
this sociological suffering. In this process for us, “minjung” has also
become a theological term and category.
Experience and Truth: Action (Praxis) and Reflection2
Most of the first generation Minjung theologians were political activ-

ists. We lived with poor families among the city squatters, even though
for a short while in order to experience the living conditions of the city
poor. We learned how to organize labor unions. Some of us sent our
students to factories as laborers. We also organized them to go into the
poor areas to teach the children who could not afford to go to school.
We gathered together and shared the stories of the demonstrating stu-
dents and laborers and drafted statements to stop human rights vio-
lations and demand democratization and upholding of basic human
rights for all. When we participated in the protest movement against
the military dictatorships, we became politically oppressed ourselves.
We first acted politically for human rights and for democracy. Of
course we acted politically with Christian faith and with theological
conviction. In this sense our action was a political-theological action.
We did not have Minjung theology in our head first, and then went
out into the streets and acted. But we did do action first and then came
back to our meetings and to our desks and theologically reflected on
our action. Our doing theology was part of the cycle of action and
2
See below 122–129.
xiv foreword
reflection. Therefore, Minjung theology is first and foremost a situ-

ational and contextual theology.
Methodologically Minjung theology is that Minjung theology is
inductive and not deductive, descriptive and therefore not normative,
story telling and not system building, biographical and not theological
construction, and it is open to dialogue and not closed and final as in
dogmas and fundamentalism. Minjung theology is not a theology of
the Word, but a theology about the world and for the world. It is to
change the world, and not to explain the world. Our sociological situ-
ation is factual and experiential truth. We were truthful to the social
and political realities of the time, and at the same time we were trying
our best to be truthful to our Christian faith as attested in the Old and
the New Testament. Here, the minjung and Jesus question comes in.
Minjung and Jesus3
While we were experiencing minjung realities in Korea in the 1970s,

we were reminded of the life, teaching, and Cross and Resurrection
of Jesus Christ in the Bible. By doing Minjung theology, we discov-
ered Jesus differently from the Jesus taught in the traditional Western
theologies: Jesus homoiousios, or homoousios, metaphysical oneness
with God, sacrificial blood of Jesus on the Cross, atonement theology,
etc. almost all of the theological dogmas on Jesus Christ. We have
discovered Jesus as minjung, and the Jesus event as minjung event.
In this sense, minjung was our hermeneutical key to understanding
and interpreting the Jesus event, including his Cross and Resurrection.
And the Jesus in the New Testament was a reference for understand-
ing minjung in the Korea of the 1970s, in making Minjung theology a
Protestant theology of passion.
The truth of the matter is that Minjung theologians identified Jesus as
minjung or ochlos, for we are Christians. In this sense, it may be useful
to differentiate “identification” and “identity,” as used by Moltmann
and Bonino and others. That is, we may identify Jesus as minjung, but
we may not say that Jesus and minjung are the same (identity). Fur-
thermore, we may say that Jesus is minjung, but we cannot say that
minjung is Jesus.
3
See below 73–75.
foreword xv
In the framework of Western theology this issue of minjung-Jesus

identity may be solved through an effort of “analogical theology” by
refering to Barth (analogia entis or analogia fidei)4 or Sallie McFague
(in her Analogical Theology).5 For example Y is an analogy to X, mean-
ing X is Y and X is not Y. To say “Jesus is God” means that “Jesus is
analogy of God.” This means that Jesus is God and at the same time
Jesus is not God. Or, “Jesus is God and a man.” Likewise, when we
say that “Jesus is minjung” or “minjung is Jesus”, we are saying that
Jesus was like minjung, and minjung is like Jesus. This means, Jesus
was minjung and not minjung at the same time, and minjung is Jesus
but not Jesus at the same time.
If we talk about the analogical relationship between Jesus and min-
jung, we may solve one problem: the sinfulness of minjung. Some
critics worry about Minjung theologians “love affairs” with minjung,
while not considering their sinfulness—their greed, their violence, their
betrayals, lies, etc. In this sense minjung is not like Jesus: minjung is
not identical with Jesus. This would satisfy the traditional Christologi-
cal formula that Jesus is the only son of God, blameless and sinless.6
I do not think Minjung theologians, the first generation or the third,
would go by this solution. For Minjung theologians would insist that
we did discover Jesus among minjung and in our experience with min-
jung in Korea. We identified minjung with Jesus, and we identified
Jesus in the Bible as minjung (Matthew 25). Minjung may be an anal-
ogy of Jesus because we do not know the historical Jesus in person, but
we may know Jesus through minjung. Our experience with minjung
strengthened and broadened our understanding of Jesus and of doing
theology. Minjung made our theology more relevant and powerful.
As we discussed the issue of Jesus and minjung, the question about
minjung as the Messiah came up, because if minjung and Jesus are
identical, then the question arises whether minjung is Christ, the Mes-
siah. Or more directly “Can minjung save or liberate themselves and
4
Cf. CD I/1, xiii and CD II/1, § 27,2, 236–243.
5
Cf. Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables. A Study in Metaphor and Theology,
Philadelphia 1975; id., Metaphorical Theology. Models of God in Religious Language,
Philadelphia 1982.
6
Speaking of sin, we are reminded of Andrew Park’s distinction between sin and han.
It is interesting to note that according to Park, sin is the oppressive and exploitative act
of the rich and the oppressors, and han is the suffering of the oppressed and exploited,
of minjung. Cf. Park. Cf. Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God. The Asian
Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin, Nashville 1993. See below 84f.
xvi foreword
others as well?” Then, what is the salvific role of Jesus Christ the Mes-
siah? The people who say “No” to this question would say at least that
faith in Jesus Christ the Messiah may empower minjung to join the
liberation movement of God revealed in Jesus’ Messianic movement.
In this way, Minjung theology as well as the minjung movement can
stay in the fold of Christian faith community. They would not identify
Jesus as minjung. The more radical among them would dare to say that
minjung has to liberate themselves with their own resources, and that
Christian faith may be one of their resources. In this sense, Minjung
theology would cross over the boundary of Christian theology.
Minjung Theology in “Intercultural” Perspective?7
Minjung theology has been categorized as “Korean-style liberation

theology.” And at the same time, it has been called a political theology
born in the political situation of Korea in the 1970s. Some, however,
have called it a cultural theology born out of the conversation between
Christianity and Korean Buddhism, Confucianism and Shamanism,
etc. We have no objection to any of these categorizations. I would say
that all of them individually and combined are acceptable. I would
advise readers, however, not to interpret Minjung theology using only
one of these categories, for it is not just a political theology or just a
cultural theology.
As for dialogue with theologians outside Korea, we declared in 1979
that Minjung theology is not for export and not for sale. For it is local
theology, and we have no intention of making it universal and nor-
mative as well as dogmatic. Nor did we want to make our Korean
theology a “benchmark” to impose judgment on other contextual the-
ologies in Asia and Africa. We do not want to make Minjung theol-
ogy an oppressive standard Christian dogma by which anyone may be
condemned as heretical. We are happy as long as Minjung theology is
used and deployed in the struggle against the powers and principalities
that oppress minjung anywhere around the world.
In a sense, Minjung theology is “nationalistic.” But the national-
ism that Minjung theologians may cry out is a liberative nationalism
struggling against the Empire, and not an oppressive nationalism of
the Empires, a national chauvinism. Some German theologians who
7
See below chapter 9.
foreword xvii
came to Korea in the 1980s for conversation with Minjung theologians

missed this point, for they worried too much about Korean minjung
nationalism turning into a “Nazi theology.” On the contrary, we had
been fighting against the Korean type of national fascism.
We have not decided whether Minjung theology is a postmodern
theology as such, for we are not too sure about what postmodern the-
ologies are doing exactly. But insofar as postmodern theology is a the-
ology of openness and diversity Minjung theology may be easily called
a postmodern theology. We do not claim theological norms or author-
ities over against others. For it is a sub-altern theology. And finally,
we do dialogue with other religions and cultures, and we do welcome
cultural and religious diversity into our theological conversations.
Are we postcolonial? We are not too sure whether we are completely
out of the colonial period of oppression, colonial domination, colonial
exploitation, and colonial mindset. We are still fighting against the
colonial mentality that was formed deeply in our consciousness under
the Japanese occupation. And we are now struggling against the neo-
colonialism of the Empire in the name of globalization. Under these
circumstances, ecumenical solidarity among minjung all around the
world is called for, as we are talking about intercultural and interreli-
gious dialogue.
Doing Theology is Personal
To close this preface for English readers on the subject of this probably
exotic Korean Minjung theology, I wish to disclose the personal side of
Minjung theologians’ way of doing theology. Their ideas were formu-
lated while they were answering the tormenting and torturous interro-
gation by the thought police in military torture centers, in the courts,
and in the church tribunals. Their theological formulas were articu-
lated during dinner gatherings as they exchanged their experiences in
prison and detention centers aimed against politically dissident intel-
lectuals who openly resisted military dictators. They recounted their
torture experiences and shared their theological imagining of minjung
with humor and laughter. They cried tears while they were exchanging
jokes. In the process, they created a “table community” of minjung
sacrament.
So much so that some international visitors who came to give
comfort to the suffering Minjung theologians expressed their doubts
as to whether their Korean friends were really serious about their
xviii foreword
revolutionary political engagements and theology. Some of them seri-

ously asked Korean Minjung theologians what was the source of their
humor. Our answers were varied. Maybe Christian theology brought
to us by the missionaries was not that serious, just as Jesus did not take
the traditional Judaism of his time too seriously, some replied. Some
responded by explaining that the humor came from the shamanistic
tradition: Korean shaman ritual is full of humor and laughter. Maybe
it is depicted in the Korean mask dances: after all, serious traditional
religious leaders and civil leaders were all mocked—by the performers
as well as by the people. Professor Hyun Young-Hak would have said
that this is our practice of the “critical transcendence” of minjung:
“We can laugh at ourselves, as we try to seriously theologize our mun-
dane experience.”
WRITING FROM THIS PLACE
I belong to a generation of theological students who became interested

in Christianity as a social movement. In the aftermath of the generation
of ’68, there emerged in Germany during the 1970s and early 80s civil
movements against atomic energy or the stationing of NATO missiles
with atomic warheads, as well as for peace, solidarity with the Third
World and sustainable development. These were closely related with
the progressive wing within the churches. The Protestant and Catholic
Kirchentage, huge lay meetings that take place in annual alternation,
became a forum for this brand of Christianity. At the same time the
participants were seeking a spiritual renewal that had its repercussions
in the daily life of the mainline churches.
Being engaged in Protestant youth work for many years, I had read
Ernesto Cardenal’s poems and basic texts of liberation theology even
before enrolling at university. These were the motivating force behind
my final decision to study not art but theology. When I took up my
studies in the winter term of 1982 in Heidelberg, the key texts of Min-
jung theology had just been published a year before by the Christian
Conference of Asia (CCA) in Singapore. They circulated in a rough
German translation among insiders. In those days courses on Third
World theologies were packed with students, be it Latin American
Liberation theology or Black theology in South Africa. While com-
mitted to these exciting developments, I first had to learn Greek and
Hebrew. The social-historical interpretation of the Bible taught by
Gerd Theißen and others became an important tool. While studying
I also became involved in the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation
(JPIC) committee of my church. We initially had responded to Carl
Friedrich von Weizäcker’s appeal to the churches to call together a
peace council. He was, however, challenged in the ecumenical arena
for his Western perspective. Third World intellectuals put the justice
issue on the agenda, and finally ecology was added. This process likely
remains the most broadly accepted ecumenical initiative within the
churches ever.
It took me some years before I finally headed for South Korea to
study a liberation theology on the spot (1987/88). Instead of tread-
ing the beaten track to Catholic Latin America, I chose the Protestant
variant in Asia we still knew so little about. In the meantime Jürgen
xx writing from this place
Moltmann had published an anthology and a couple of months before

I left, a collection of Ahn Byung-Mu’s writings came out in German
as well. I had already met Kim Yong-Bock while he was traveling in
Germany and my church had just established ecumenical relations
with the Presbyterian Church in Korea (PCK). The flight to Seoul took
about 20 hours at that time because Korean Air was not allowed to
fly across Russian or Chinese territories, but had to fly via Anchorage
instead.1
In the first place, I am indebted to the Korean Minjung theologians
and their followers. When I came to Korea in 1987 and knocked on
their doors they accepted me in good Asian manner as their student.
For the Koreans these troubled years might well have been a kairos.
Theologically it proved to be a formative year, which made me a Grenz-
gänger for life. Whenever I come back I receive a warm welcome. Over
the years I made many new friends who traveled the other way to do
their doctoral studies in theological institutions in Europe. They came
from various denominational and theological backgrounds and some
of them did not share my interest in Minjung theology at all.
Parts of this book have first been published in my German disserta-
tion, others as articles in various journals. In any case the material has
been revised and enlarged for this publication.2 My former student
assistants at Protestant Theological University, Kampen / The Nether-
lands Wietske de Jong and Nienke Pruiksma shared in translating the
German texts. Kim Yong-Bock, Philip Wickeri and David Suh read
through the whole manuscript and made valuable comments. Janice
Wickeri fixed my Konglish. My wife Dorothea Erbele-Küster not only
became a fellow-traveler, but also my first reader and dialogue partner.
Volker Küster Seoul, Easter 2009
1
In 1983 the soviets shot down a civilian airliner (KAL 007) that had entered the
soviet airspace by mistake.
2
Prologue: Volker Küster, The Project of an Intercultural Theology, Swedish Missiologi-
cal Themes 93, 2005, 417–432; chapter 1 & 2: id., Minjung-Theology and Minjung Art,
Mission Studies 11, 1994, 108–129; id., The Priesthood of Han. Reflections on a woodcut
by Hong Song-Dam, Exchange 26, 1997, 159–171; chapter 3–10: id., Theologie im Kontext.
Zugleich ein Versuch über die Minjung-Theologie, Nettetal 1995, 14–16; 106–183; id.,
A Protestant theology of passion. Korean Minjung Theology revisited, in: Passion of
Protestants, ed. by Pieter N. Holtrop et al., Kampen 2004, 213–228. chapter 10 was
prepublished with some slight changes in Madang. International Journal of Contextual
Theology in East Asia, vol. 3, 2006, 23–43. I thank the publishers for permission to
make use of these materials.
PROLOGUE: THEOLOGY IN CONTEXT
The emergence of contextual theologies1 marks an empirical and her-

meneutical turn in the history of twentieth century theology. The
local situation and personal experience become the field of theo-
logical reflection. The artificial separation between salvation his-
tory and world history is overcome in a relecture of the Missio
Dei concept.2 God is rediscovered as the one who is acting in his-
tory. With the exception of feminist and diaspora theologies con-
textual theologies are primarily a Third World3 phenomenon and
signify its irruption into the domain of Western Christendom.4
1
From the beginning different expressions were used as umbrella term: “(Third
World) liberation theology” (Deane William Ferm), “local theology” (Robert J. Schreiter)
or “inculturation theology” (Theo Sundermeier). Yet “contextual theology” proved to be
the term that best covers the different trends. “Liberation” and “inculturation theology”
are in fact two rival schools within contextual theology. “Third World theology” would
not include Western feminist and diaspora theologies. The term “local theology” alludes
to “local church” and has therefore catholic overtones reflecting Vatican II theology. The
concept of contextual theology which was developed in World Council of Churches
(WCC) circles around the Theological Education Fund (TEF) does not have this confes-
sional mould. It refers to the intrinsic relationship between text and context, which is
constitutive for the development of any contextual theology. For a detailed account of
the theory of contextual theology cf. Küster, Theologie im Kontext, 17–104.
2
The Trinitarian concept of Missio Dei was introduced in the discussions around the
world missionary conference in Willingen, Germany 1952. It was an attempt to overcome
the crisis of the Western missionary project by giving it a new theological foundation
in God’s acting in history. Before, during and after the Willingen conference there were
always two competing interpretations. One that perpetuated the old salvation history
model in disguise—the church is understood as the agent of God’s mission—and the
other one influenced by the American Social Gospel and Barthian theology that focused
on God’s promise to be with the creation. In the prolongation of the latter the relecture
of the Missio Dei concept in liberation theologies took place. See below 82.
3
Possible pejorative connotations of this term have been much debated and its use
is controversial. Nevertheless, the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians
(EATWOT) made it part of its name. Along with secular Third World leaders this
choice is understood programmatically, in the sense of the “third state” in the French
revolution or a “third way” between the capitalist and communist systems. Cf. Volker
Küster, Aufbruch der Dritten Welt. Der Weg der ökumenischen Vereinigung von Dritte-
Welt-Theologen [EATWOT], in: Verkündigung und Forschung 37, 1992, 45–67.
4
Similar trends can however be seen in the French worker-priest movement, in Ernst
Lange’s theology and the church reform movement in Germany, in new political theol-
ogy (Johann Baptist Metz, Jürgen Moltmann) or in the social historical interpretation
2 prologue: theology in context
This development coincides with a demographical shift of Christianity

towards the Third World.5
Academic theology in Europe remained almost immune to these
developments.6 Insofar as it did take cognizance of Third World the-
ologies, its representatives mostly encountered them quite skeptically.
The analysis of these “other” theologies still takes place primarily
within the pluri-discipline of missiology, ecumenics (and comparative
religion). Initially theoretical and methodological reflection was mostly
neglected in favor of concrete cases. Yet in spite of the programmatic
contextuality, a comparative framework can be deduced from the
themes and methods. Whether a contextual theology succeeds has to
be verified in each individual case by means of a repertoire of criteria
which do justice to the Christian Faith and its global community of
story telling and interpretation as well as to the particular context. The
discourse of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians
(EATWOT) proved to be an ideal matrix for such a theory of con-
textual theology. Over against the Eurocentric and evangelical critics
here the contours of an intercultural theology as a necessary frame
of reference becomes visible. The following sections present a short
introduction to the theory of contextual theology and its intercultural
framework.
1. The Irruption of the Third World
The reshaping of the world following the Second World War marked
a new epoch in which the emergence of two antagonistic power-blocks
of the Bible (Gerd Theißen, Frank Crüsemann, Luise and Willy Schottroff as well as
Ekkehard and Wolfgang Stegemann et al.).
5
Cf. Walbert Bühlmann, Wo der Glaube lebt, Freiburg 1974; Johann Baptist Metz,
Im Aufbruch zu einer kulturell polyzentrischen Weltkirche, in: Zeitschrift für Mission-
swissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 70, 1986, 140–153; Dana L. Robert, Shifting
Southward: Global Christianity Since 1945, in: International Bulletin of Missionary
Research, 24, 2000, 50–58.
6
John B. Cobb, Jr. castigates this attitude: “Theology as an academic discipline may
be the last feature of the life of Christendom to cease to have its centre in the North
Atlantic. [. . .] The ‘objective’ scholarship of the great tradition in fact reflects their cultural
context in the university and in central Europe as well as the male dominance that has
been taken for granted. By its very excellence it inhibits Christians in other situations
from affirming the different understanding and wisdom gained through diverse situ-
ations” (id., Minjung Theology and Process Theology, in: An Emgerging Theology in
World Perspective. Commentary on Minjung Theology, ed. by Jung Young Lee, Mystic,
Connecticut 1988, 51–56, 51f ).
prologue: theology in context 3
resulted in the East-West conflict. At the same time a thrust toward

decolonialisation arose in Africa and Asia. However the newly won
political autonomy was countered by a lasting economic dependency,
resulting in the North-South conflict. Through the interconnected-
ness of these two bipolar conflicts in the following decennia the Third
World was frequently the battleground for the two clashing ideologi-
cal systems of capitalism and communism. In an effort to break out
of this coordinate system, as early as 1955 a group of Third World
leaders initiated the movement of the Non-Aligned states in Bandung,
Indonesia.7
On the upswing of secular emancipation and democratization move-
ments, which triggered hermeneutic reconstructions of history and
cultural renaissances, the Christian Churches of the Third World also
started to free themselves from Western guardianship. In Protestant
circles they were referred to as “younger churches”. Vatican II (1962–
65) supported this development by strengthening the “local churches”.
In their desire to contribute to the process of nation building Chris-
tian intellectuals of the Third World often found themselves suspected
as devotees of the religion of their former colonial masters. In this
situation they saw their task as developing an authentic contextual
Christian identity. Since the late 1960s and the early 1970s, contextual
theologies that perform an epistemological break with the academic
theology of the West have appeared all over the Third World.
To be faithful to the gospel and our peoples we must think about the
realities of our own situation and interpret the word of God in relation
to these realities. We reject as inadequate a merely academic theology,
which is separate from action. We are ready to make a radical break in
epistemology, which makes commitment the first act of theology and
enters into a critical reflection or the real praxis of reality of the Third
World.8
7
Central figures were Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Jawaharlal Nehru (India) and
Sukarno (Indonesia). In 1961 the first official summit took place in Belgrade on the
invitation of Josip Broz Tito, the then president of former Yugoslavia.
8
Final Statement of EATWOT’s inaugural meeting, in: Sergio Torres and Virginia
Fabella (eds), The Emergent Gospel. Theology from the Developing World, Papers from
the Ecumenical Dialogue of Third World Theologians, Dar es Salaam, August 5–12,
1976, London and New York 1978, 259–271, 269.
The inaugural meeting of EATWOT in Daresalam, Tanzania in 1976

quoted above was also regarded as “Bandung of theology”.9 Having
taken stock of theological developments through a series of three con-
tinental conferences in Africa (1977), Asia (1979) and Latin Amer-
ica (1980) and a first general assembly (New Delhi 1981), EATWOT
launched a dialogue conference with Western theologians in Geneva
(1983). Even though this theological North-South dialogue remained
a singular event EATWOT did not subscribe to the moratorium and
incommunication postulates of the 1970s.10 With the theme of their
second general assembly in Oaxtepec/Mexico (1986) “Commonali-
ties, divergences and cross-fertilization”11 they outlined the heuristic
framework of the intercultural dialogue that had rapidly grown out of
the EATWOT process.12
2. Typology of Contextual Theology
From the beginning one could distinguish between two “schools” of

contextual theologies in the Third World that were both well repre-
sented within EATWOT. Liberation theologies are dealing with the
socio-economic and political dimension of a particular context. Simul-
taneously with Latin American liberation theology Black theology
emerged among the African diaspora in the United States and in South
Africa, while Minjung theology appeared in South Korea. New devel-
opments, such as Dalit theology13 in India or Burakumin theology14 in
9
Sergio Torres referring to Marie-Dominique Chenu in Leonardo Boff and Virgil
Elizondo (eds), Theologies of the Third World. Convergences and Differences, Concilium
199, Edinburgh 1988, 108.
10
Cf. special issue on “Incommunication”, Risk 9, 1973; Ludwig Rütti, Westliche
Identität als theologisches Problem, in: Zeitschrift für Mission 4, 1978, 97–107.
11
Cf. K.C. Abraham (ed.), Third World Theologies. Commonalities and Divergences,
Papers and Reflections from the Second General Assembly of the Ecumenical Asso-
ciation of Third World Theologians, December, 1986, Oaxtepec, Mexico, Maryknoll,
New York 1990.
12
K.C. Abraham and Bernadette Mbuy-Beya (eds), Spirituality of the Third World.
A Cry for Life, Papers and Reflections from the Third General Assembly, January, 1992,
Nairobi, Kenya, Maryknoll, New York 1994 were the last proceedings published as a
separate volume. Since then EATWOT has lost momentum, even if content wise they
were still on the edge of the discourse. The general assemblies in Tagaytay City, Phili-
pines (1996), and even more Quito, Ecuador (2001) and Johannesburg, South Africa
(2006) were not well documented and therefore had little impact.
13
See below 133.
14
See below 87.
Japan have learned from their precursors but are also adding their own
contextual accents. The inculturation and dialogue theologies of Africa
and Asia, on the other hand, turn to the cultural religious dimensions
of their contexts. Inculturation theologies give Christian faith a local
shape and partly integrate elements of other religions as well, whereas
dialogue theologies involve them in conversation. In this way, at least
indirectly, they also contribute to the inculturation of the Christian
community. Liberation theologies tend to take the shape of theologi-
cal movements; inculturation and dialogue theologies are formulated
by individuals.
The inculturation model has its predecessors in the accommoda-
tion or indigenization model with translation models as its modern
evangelical variant. While the latter have a static view of gospel and
culture and their relationship, the inculturation model, formulated in
the wake of Vatican II (1962–1965), favors a hermeneutical approach,
which leads to a more dynamic perception.15 In the first case Chris-
tian faith and culture are considered to be clearly separable like the
kernel and husk of a nut. One can crack away the old cultural husk
and replace it by a new one without affecting the kernel of the gos-
pel. In the second case they are regarded as closely intertwined. When
you peel away the layers of an onion to find its kernel, you end up
with nothing. At the same time liberation theologians like Gustavo
Gutiérrez distanced themselves with their revolutionary approach
from the previous liberal and evolutionist thinking of development
theology and new political theology that function within the frame-
work of liberal democracy, while in Latin America, poverty and
oppression by military dictatorships were prevalent.16
Ecology and gender were the emerging generative themes17 in the
late 1980s. The ecological crisis led to the restitution of the dignity
15
The papal encyclical Redemptoris Missio (1991) still uses the term inculturation
but implies by way of redefining it a withdrawal to the accommodation model.
16
Cf. Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll, New York 1973; José
Míguez Bonino, Doing Theology in a Revolutionary Situation, Philadelphia 1975.
17
The concept of generative themes I owe to Paulo Freire, who developed it for
his alphabetization campaigns. The basic idea is that every community has particular
generative words and themes that disclose its linguistic or thematic universe. That is
where alphabetization should start. I have transposed this idea to systematic reflection
on contextual theology. Not only the particular contexts but also the Christian text
evolves such generative words and themes. Cf. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
New York 1970 (Harmondsworth 1996); Volker Küster, The Many Faces of Jesus Christ.
Intercultural Christology, Maryknoll, New York, 2001, 32–35.
of primal religions that with their holistic approach to nature made

an impact on the relecture of the Christian theology of creation.18
With her proclamation of the “irruption within the irruption” on the
occasion of the first EATWOT general assembly in New Delhi 1981,
Mercy Amba Oduyoye signaled the emancipation of women among
the second generation of Third World theologians.19 While they shared
a liberationist approach, women theologians suspected the incultura-
tion model of enhancing patriarchy. By turning back to the religious
founding figures and rereading the sacred texts to find intrareligious
and intertextual evidence against the patriachal distortions of their
religious traditions, women also give interreligious dialogue a liberat-
ing impulse.
Neither Third World men nor First World women can determine the
Third World women’s agenda. Third World women maintain that sex-
ism must not be addressed in isolation, but within the context of the
total struggle for liberation in their countries.20
Despite remaining differences of emphasis, contextual theologians of
today are aware of the multi-dimensionality of their contexts and have
corrected the one-sidedness of former years. Here the EATWOT pro-
cess has played a vital role and can therefore serve as an example of
a successful intercultural discourse.21 Latin American liberation theol-
ogy, e.g., became aware of the importance of folk Catholicism and
the cultures of indigenous peoples and the black minority. Under the
18
Tribal or native theologies are continuing to emphasize the link between the genera-
tive themes of creation and ecology. Cf. Tribal Theology: A Reader, ed. by Shimreingam
Shimray, Jorhat 2003; Clara Sue Kidwell, Homer Noley and George E. “Tink” Tinker,
A Native American Theology, Maryknoll, New York 2001.
19
Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Reflections from a Third World Woman’s Perspective:
Women’s Experience and Liberation Theologies, in: Virginia Fabella and Sergio Tor-
res (eds), Irruption of the Third World. Challenge to Theology, Papers from the Fifth
International Conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians,
August 17–29, 1981, New Delhi, India, Maryknoll, New York 1983, 246–255. Oduyoye
later initiated the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, which has become
a powerful voice in African theology. Cf. Carrie Pemberton, Circle Thinking: African
women thelogians in dialogue with the West, Leiden 2003.
20
Final Statement, in: Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (eds), Doing Theology in
a Divided World, Papers from the Sixth International Conference of the Ecumenical
Association of Third World Theologians, January 5–13, 1983, Geneva, Switzerland,
Maryknoll, New York 1985, 179–193, 186.
21
Cf. Küster, Aufbruch der Dritten Welt.
influence of preeminent figures like Engelbert Mveng (Cameron)22 and

Aloysius Pieris (Sri Lanka),23 African and Asian theologians integrated
the socio-economic and political dimension into their inculturation
and dialogue theologies. Mveng described the African experience as
“anthropological poverty”. Africans are not only dying of starvation
but have been deprived of their cultural heritage by the colonial sys-
tem. Pieris sees poverty as common denominator for the Third World,
while cultural-religious pluralism is particularly Asian. He wants to
integrate both in his Asian theology of liberation. All contextual the-
ologies became gender sensitive.
In retrospect Robert Schreiter describes liberation theologies as
well as feminist theologies as global theological flows, because they are
widely spread and interacting with each other.24 This categorization is
also appropriate for the theologies of inculturation and dialogue. The
reconstitution of human dignity even in the midst of miserable life
conditions, gender awareness and the right to cultural-religious differ-
ence are the lasting contributions of these discourses.
Table 1: Typology of Contextual theology

cultural-religious type socio-economic and political type
accommodation, indigenization, development theology;
translation models new political theology
(kernel-and-husk model) (evolution; reform)
inculturation and dialogue theologies liberation theologies
(onion model) (revolution)
contextual theologies:
cultural-religious, socio-economic and political, ecological as well as
gender dimensions
22
Engelbert Mveng, Third World Theology—What Theology? What Third World?
Evaluation by an African Delegate, in: Fabella and Torres, Irruption of the Third World,
217–221.
23
Aloysius Pieris, Towards an Asian Theology of Liberation: Some Religio-Cultural
Guidelines, in: Virginia Fabella (ed.), Asia’s Struggle for Full Humanity: Towards a
Relevant Theology, Papers from the Asian Theological Conference, January 7–20, 1979,
Wennappuwa, Sri Lanka, Maryknoll, New York 1980, 75–95.
24
Cf. Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity. Theology between the Global and the
Local, Maryknoll, New York 1997, 15–19.
3. The Hermeneutical Circle
Methodologically the basic structure of contextual theologies is the

hermeneutical circle between text and context that has to be followed
time and again facing the relevance-identity dilemma.25 The question
of the relevance of the Christian message for each particular location
and situation (criterion of relevance) rises out of the perspective of
context. The developing contextual theology needs to be continually
scrutinized and reassessed against the measure of the text (criterion
of identity). The text does not have just one meaning but constitutes a
universe of meanings. Each reading is a particular closure of the text
that adds to its meaning or to the tradition of the reading commu-
nity.26 Yet the text itself sets the limits of interpretation.
The biblical texts are mainly narratives, that evolve around recurring
generative themes. In the hermeneutical process the generative themes
of the text will be interwoven with the correlated generative themes of
the context, that are prevalent at that moment in the particular com-
munity. The constantly changing context, especially in Third World
countries, becomes the variable in this process, thereby opening up
new perspectives on the text (relational constant). The hermeneutical
process therefore does not end in a vicious circle (circulus vitiosus) but
can be described as an evolving circle (circulus progrediens).
Both reader and text have their own context of origin and this
poses at least a twofold question for the context. Out of the dialectic
between the text, its original context and the meaning, which is always
newly constituted by the reader involved, the narrative and interpreta-
tive community of Christianity flourishes. Every contextual theology
needs to meet the challenge of the ecumenical forum of this global
community. Even though one has to be well aware of the power ques-
tion involved—be it material or intellectual—the ecumenical or inter-
cultural dialogue puts the local readings to the test. This criterion of
dialogue necessarily presupposes the development of an intercultural
theology.
25
Cf. Volker Küster, Text und Kontext. Zur Systematik kontextueller Theologie, in:
Der Text im Kontext. Die Bibel mit anderen Augen gelesen, Hamburg 1998, 130–143.
26
Cf. Severino Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics. Toward a Theory of Reading as the
Production of Meaning, Maryknoll, New York 1987.
Relational
constant Point of entry
Text
Context
(Author)
Criterion of Criterion of
relevance Contextual theology identity
Point of entry
Context
(Reader) Variable
Criterion of dialogue
Illustration 1: The hermeneutical circle
4. On the Reception of Contextual Theology
At least three models of the reception of contextual theology can be

differentiated:27 (1) the conservative opposition of the Evangelicals,28
(2) the Eurocentric position,29 and (3) the project of an intercultural
theology. Conservative evangelicals like Peter Beyerhaus suspect lib-
eration theologies of being ideologies that lead to a “humanization”
of Christian faith, leaving the soteriology on the waiting list behind.30
Accordingly theologies of inculturation and dialogue are presented
as syncretism that endangers the Christian task of mission. That this
double suspicion of heresy was not the final word of the evangelicals
can be seen by a sidelong glance on the discussion within the Laus-
anne movement (established in 1974 as an evangelical counter-pole
to the World Council of Churches [WCC] in Geneva). Evangelicals
from the Third World like Orlando Costas or Rene Padilla, given
27
Cf. Küster, Theologie im Kontext, 53–96.
28
The Eastern Orthodox Churches usually abstained from these discussions. They
did not take part in the modern missionary movement. Nevertheless within the World
Council of Churches they tend to oppose contextual approaches.
29
“Eurocentric” encompasses any theology that refers to the “great” European tradi-
tion of Christianity as it is represented today by academic thelogy.
30
Cf. Peter Beyerhaus, Theologie als Instrument der Befreiung. Die Rolle der neuen
‘Volkstheologien’ in der ökumenischen Diskussion, Gießen 1986.
their own contextual experiences, took a different attitude from the

North-Atlantic “agitators”. They demanded social engagement from
evangelicals as well and were not afraid to deal constructively with the
challenges of cultural-religious pluralism. Here the emergence of an
inner-evangelical plurality becomes visible.31 The option for the poor
is more or less common ground for most evangelicals and ecumeni-
cals. In regard to the relationship between Christian faith and culture,
evangelical theologians try to keep form and content apart in order
to maintain control of the translation process. The most controversial
issue remains interreligious dialogue, where evangelicals are afraid of
syncretism. If they engage in dialogue at all, for them it has a clear
mission purpose.
Circles of academic theology maintain a Eurocentric position over
against Third World theologies. The latter are often suspected of being
derivative, repeating only what Western theology has already taken on
as self-critism. Furthermore, Western theologians appeal to the theo-
logians of the Third World not to lapse into an ill-fated particularism
by reducing the message of the Christian faith only to political state-
ments.32 This anti-particularistic and anti-reductionist appeal grows
out of self-referential claims to permanence and universal validity. The
project of an intercultural theology aims to break through this self-
referentiality of Eurocentric and conservative Evangelical theologies.
The incorporation of the position of the other brings about a radical
change of perspective.
Table 2: Critical positions vis-à-vis Third World Theologies

conservative-evangelical position Eurocentric position
suspicion of heresy self-referential
• suspicion of ideology • anti-reductionist appeal
• suspicion of syncretism • anti-particularistic appeal
suspicion of manipulation from outside suspicion of derivativeness
31
Cf. Vinay Samuel and Chris Sudgen (eds), Sharing Jesus in the Two Thirds World,
Grand Rapids, Michigan 1983; David Bosch, Ökumeniker und Evangelikale. Eine
wachsende Beziehung?, in: Es begann in Amsterdam. Vierzig Jahre Ökumenischer Rat der
Kirchen, Beihefte zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 59, Frankfurt a.M. 1989, 101–119.
32
Cf. Trutz Rendtorff, Universalität oder Kontextualität der Theologie—Eine
‘europäische’ Stellungnahme, in: Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 74, 1977, 238–254.
5. The Emergence of Intercultural Theology
The ecclesiastical and theological irruption of the Third World in the

last third of the 20th century intensified the crisis of mission that had
already begun during the time between the two World Wars. After
1945 many theological faculties in the West established chairs for
missiology, ecumenics and comparative religion in order to moni-
tor developments in World Christianity. For many people the term
“mission” is biased because of the colonial heritage. There have been
numerous attempts to rename chairs, departments, journals or organi-
zations that are related to mission or missiology. The introduction of
the neologism intercultural theology is closely linked with the names
of the founding editors of the series “Studies in the Intercultural His-
tory of Christianity”, Walter Hollenweger, Hans Jochen Margull and
Richard Friedli.
Walter Hollenweger compiled three volumes of case studies on
“intercultural theology”, presenting a huge reservoir of material, which
nonetheless lacks a theoretical framework.33 On looking more care-
fully, the five guidelines he claims to offer in the first volume can be
reduced to two: (1) intercultural theology operates within one cultural
framework without absolutizing it. (2) The methods chosen have to be
adequate to the subject, which basically implies that text-based West-
ern academic theology is also culturally bound. Music and dance as
well as oral traditions, stories and myth are introduced as alternative
sources of theological reflection. Hollenweger himself advocates a nar-
rative theology without wanting to give up the Western academic tra-
dition. Intercultural theology was and still is a European project.
Hans Jochen Margull began his academic career with an account of
evangelization as an ecumenical problem34 and served as one of the
editors of the WCC study on “Structures for missionary congrega-
tions”.35 At a very early stage, however, he had already pointed out that
33
Cf. Walter J. Hollenweger, Erfahrungen der Leibhaftigkeit. Interkulturelle Theologie,
München 1979; id., Umgang mit Mythen. Interkulturelle Theologie II, München 1982;
id., Geist und Materie. Interkulturelle Theologie III, München 1988.
34
Cf. Hans Jochen Margull, Theologie der Missionarischen Verkündigung. Evangelisa-
tion als ökumenisches Problem, Stuttgart 1959 (= id., Hope in Action. The Church’s Task
in the World, Philadelphia 1962).
35
Cf. The Church for Others and The Church for the World. A Quest for Structures
for Missionary Congregations. Final report of the Western European Working Group
the center of gravity of Christianity had shifted to the Third World,36

an observation he shared with his Catholic colleagues Walbert Büh-
lmann and Johann Baptist Metz, who spoke in this regard about a
“Third church”37 and a “polycentric World Church” respectively .38 In
a series of review articles on “Overseas Christianity,” Margull explores
this “tertiaterranity.”39 Chosen as first chairperson of the Sub-unit on
Dialogue with People of Living Faith and Ideologies of the WCC, Mar-
gull became one of the pioneers of the modern dialogue movement.
He did not deny the exclusivism-inclusivism dilemma of the Christian
faith but declared it as a matter of personal faith that is familiar to
adherents of other religions as well. The experience of being exposed
to people of other faiths but also being suspect within one’s own faith
community as one who has crossed its borders, he describes as “vul-
nerability”.40 Referring to God’s vulnerability in Jesus Christ, Margull
provided interreligious dialogue with a theological base in the theology
of the cross.
Richard Friedli finally coined the term “intercultural circulation”
for the intercultural communication processes that attracted people’s
attention during these years.41 The above-cited experience of being an
other in the encounter with believers of other religions is resolved for
him in the transcultural otherness of the human being before God.42
Responding to the continuing legitimacy crisis of missiology as an
academic discipline, Theo Sundermeier, a second generation post-
war missiologist, started a large-scale attempt to provide it with a
new foundation in hermeneutics.43 In so doing, he set the boundaries
against the communication theoreticians of the guild. The dispute with
and North American Working Group of the Department on Studies in Evangelism,

Geneva 1968.
36
Cf. Hans Jochen Margull, Zeugnis und Dialog. Ausgewählte Schriften, Ammersbek
bei Hamburg 1992.
37
Cf. Bühlmann, Wo der Glaube lebt.
38
Cf. Metz, Im Aufbruch zu einer kulturell polyzentrischen Weltkirche.
39
Latinism for “Third-Worldness”. Cf. Verkündigung und Forschung 16, 1971, 2–54
and 19, 1974, 410–420.
40
Cf. Margull, Zeugnis und Dialog, 330–342.
41
Cf. Richard Friedli, Fremdheit als Heimat. Auf der Suche nach einem Kriterium für
den Dialog zwischen den Religionen, Zürich 1974.
42
Op. cit., 206.
43
Cf. Theo Sundermeier, Konvivenz und Differenz. Studien zu einer verstehenden
Missionswissenschaft, Erlangen 1995; id., Den Fremden verstehen. Eine praktische
Hermeneutik, Göttingen 1996.
Heinrich Balz44 on the primacy of hermeneutics over against commu-

nication postulated by Sundermeier can in retrospect be reconciled in
the intrinsic relatedness between hermeneutics and communication.
With his “hermeneutics of the other” Sundermeier creates room for
alterity. Otherness has to be endured and respected. The finest place
of encounter is the feast. In contrast to Werner Simpfendörfer,45 Sun-
dermeier’s intention is not to annihilate the difference of the other, but
rather to celebrate it. This heortistic46 element in Sundermeier’s theol-
ogy grew out of his experiences as a missionary in Southern Africa.
Community and a good life are the generative themes of African reli-
gion and worldview.47 He furthermore adopted the term “convivence”
from Latin American liberation theology, defining it as a helping,
learning and celebrating community.48
The particularity-universality dilemma of the Christian faith that
came to the fore in the intercultural discourse on contextual theologies
was addressed thoroughly by Robert J. Schreiter, a Catholic missiolo-
gist. With his ground breaking Constructing local theologies, from 1985
he focused on the sprouting of contextual theologies,49 analyzing them
with the help of communication theories and semiotics. Liberation,
inculturation and dialogue are identified as the generative themes of the
day. One easily recognizes the typology of contextual theology. Twelve
years later in 1997, Schreiter proclaimed “the new catholicity”.50 His
theoretical instruments have now been enlarged by globalization the-
ories and postcolonial criticism. Referring to Siegfried Wiedenhofer,
who defined catholicity as “wholeness and fullness through exchange
44
Cf. Heinrich Balz, Krise der Kommunikation—Wiederkehr der Hermeneutik?, in:
Theo Sundermeier (ed.), Die Begegnung mit dem Anderen. Plädoyers für eine interkul-
turelle Hermeneutik, Gütersloh 1991, 39–65.
45
Cf. Werner Simpfendörfer, Auf der Suche nach einer interkulturellen Theologie.
Herausforderungen—Aspekte—Bausteine, in: Junge Kirche 48, 1987, 266–273; id., Inter-
kulturelle Theologie. Wie kann man Anfang und Ende verknüpfen?, in: Evangelische
Kommentare 6, 1989, 37–40.
46
Graecism derived from “h’eorte” (feast).
47
Cf. Theo Sundermeier, The Individual and Community in African Traditional
Religions, Hamburg 1998.
48
Cf. Sundermeier, Konvivenz und Differenz, 43–75; id., Convivence: The Concept
and Origin, in: Scriptura S 10, 1992, 68–80.
49
Cf. Robert J. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, Maryknoll, New York 1985.
50
Cf. Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity; Volker Küster, Von der lokalen The-
ologie zur neuen Katholizität. Robert J. Schreiters Suche nach einer Theologie zwischen
dem Lokalen und dem Globalen, in: Evangelische Theologie, 63, 2003, 362–374.
and communication”,51 Schreiter revaluates the universal dimension

of Christian faith in relational and dialogical terms. This model of a
new catholicity is inspired by the experiences of the Catholic world
church post-Vatican II, an institutional form for which Protestants
have nothing comparable. On the other hand, Protestantism might
have a genuine access to pluralism through its particularistic struc-
tures. This could shed new light on the plurality-unity dilemma of the
traditional ecumenical movement.52
6. The Functions of Intercultural Theology
Intercultural theology explores the interconfessional, intercultural

and interreligious dimensions of Christian faith. An interdisciplinary
approach and the use of multimedia are significant. Therefore inter-
cultural theology has a broader scope than its competitors such as
the pluralist theology of religions,53 comparative theology54 or global
ethics.55 It has today at least four functions:
– The heuristic function: Intercultural theology develops methodical

instruments to be used in intercultural communication processes.
It is necessary that one learns how to understand the other (herme-
neutics). These endeavors of understanding should be carried out
with an attitude of respect, recognizing and accepting others in
and with their differences. In order to enter into the alien frame
of reference one starts by trying to translate “the other” in one’s
own thought system. As this proceeds, comparison (comparistics) is
inevitable. When Adolf Exler, a German Catholic practical theolo-
gian, proposed a comparative theology,56 North America already had
51
Schreiter, New Catholicity, 128.
52
Cf. Volker Küster (ed.), Reshaping Protestantism in a Global Context, Münster
2009.
53
Cf. John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (eds), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness. Toward
a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, Maryknoll, New York 1987.
54
Cf. the writings of Francis X. Clooney, SJ, e.g. id., Hindu God, Christian God. How
Reason Helps Break Down the Boundaries between Religions, Oxford etc. 2001; id., Divine
Mother, Blessed Mother. Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary, Oxford etc. 2005.
55
Cf. Hans Küng, Global Responsibility. In Search for a new World Ethic, New York
1991.
56
Cf. Adolf Exeler, Vergleichende Theologie statt Missionswissenschaft?, in: Hans
Waldenfels (ed.), “. . . denn ich bin bei Euch” (Mt 28,20). Perspektiven im christlichen
a tradition of comparative religion and cross-cultural studies, which

fostered the emergence of a comparative approach in theology as
well. Comparison brings one to a point where one’s own frame of
reference will be challenged by the other and vice versa. At the same
time, a fertile interaction may result. For this intercultural exchange
(dialogics) applies the double commandment of dialogue: (1) one
has to learn to understand the other in a way that he or she can
recognize him- or herself in the perception of the dialogue partner
and (2) at the same time one has to introduce the other to the best
of one’s own tradition. In the case of interreligious communication,
the latter has the character of witness.
– The function of foundational theology: Intercultural theology
reflects on the relationship between Christian faith and culture or
on a theology of religions. It also clarifies categories such as syncre-
tism and fundamentalism or inculturation and dialogue. Further-
more it negotiates practical guidelines for dialogue in intercultural
discourse.
– The anamnetic function: Intercultural theology collects and pre-
serves contextual knowledge.
– The ethical function: Intercultural theology not only cultivates an
attitude of respect in the intercultural processes of communication,
but also deals with intercultural conflicts.
7. Minjung Theology Observed
Latin American liberation theology probably remains the best-known

contextual theology of the Third World.57 Its leading figures, with
some exceptions, were Catholic priests and religious, who followed
the call of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) to engage for
social justice. The second Latin American Bishop’s Conference in
Medellin (1968) granted them the official recognition of the Catholic
Missionsbewußtsein heute, Festschrift Josef Glazik and Bernward Willeke, Zürich etc.
1978, 199–211.
57
Cf. Gustavo Gutiérrez, Theology of Liberation; Alfred T. Hennelly (ed.), Liberation
Theology. A Documentary History, Maryknoll, New York 1990; Mysterium Liberationis.
Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. by Ignacio Ellacuría and Jon Sobrino,
Maryknoll, New York 1993.
Church authority.58 Even though the power balance in Latin Ameri-

can Catholicism has moved towards a conservative episcopate, the
“option for the poor” has become theological common currency across
denominational boundaries.59 With Black theology and Minjung the-
ology however, there were also two liberation theologies formulated by
Protestant theologians from the start of the early 1970s. They turned
against racial discrimination in the United States as well as under
the South African apartheid regime and the development dictatorship
of the South Korean military respectively.60 In the US and in South
Africa Protestants were on both sides of the conflict.61 In South Korea
a minority of Protestant Christians engaged in the democratization
movement, while the silent majority judged interference with politics
as not conforming to the gospel.
With the specific historical experience of the division of the country
between a capitalistic South and a communist North (1945), Minjung
theologians rejected the Marxist analysis of society favored by their
Latin American counterparts. They developed a narrative theology,
which interweaves the Biblical stories with the stories of the suffering
people. Whereas Latin American liberation theology chose the Exo-
dus story as its Biblical point of departure, Minjung theology focused
from its beginnings on the person of Jesus Christ.62 Without wanting
58
Cf. The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of the Council (two volumes),
Second General Conference of Latin American Bischops, Medellin, Colombia 1968, ed.
by Louis Michael Colonese, Washington DC 1969; John Eagleson and Philip Scharper
(eds), Puebla and Beyond, Maryknoll, New York 1979.
59
Cf. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Vorrang für die Armen. Auf dem Weg zu einer
theologischen Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, Gütersloh 1993.
60
Cf. James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, New York 1969; id., A Black
Theology of Liberation. Twentieth Anniversary Edition, Maryknoll, New York 1990;
Gayraud S. Wilmore and James H. Cone (eds), Black Theology. A Documentary His-
tory, 1966–1979, Maryknoll, New York 71990 (1979); id. (eds), volume two: 1980–1992,
Maryknoll, New York, 1993; Alan Boesak, Farewell to Innocence, A Socio-Ethical Study on
Black Theology and Black Power, Maryknoll, New York 1977; Minjung Theology. People
as the Subjects of History, second revised edition, Maryknoll, New York 1983 (1981);
Christine Lienemann-Perrin, Die politische Verantwortung der Kirchen in Südkorea
und Südafrika. Studien zur ökumenischen und politischen Ethik, München 1992; id.,
Paradigmenwechsel öffentlicher Theologien in Südkorea und Südafrika in den 1990er
Jahren, in: Klaus Koschorke (ed.), Falling Walls. The Year 1989/90 as a Turning Point
in the History of World Christinity, Wiesbaden 2009, 373–391.
61
Cf. Alan Boesak, Black and Reformed. Apartheid, Liberation and the Calvinist
Tradition, Maryknoll, New York 1984.
62
A theme, which of course also was worked on in Latin American Liberation
Theology. Cf. Küster, Many Faces, 41–55.
to stretch the Protestant sola Scriptura, solus Christus too far, Minjung
theology has a clearly Protestant profile.63
There are basically two possible approaches to research on contex-
tual theologies, which in practice will necessarily overlap to a certain
extent:
– Within the academic context the traditional historical-critical

method of dealing with texts might seem to be the first choice. There,
where contextual theologies have been published with Western pub-
lishers and made available to an international public, this approach
is surely legitimate.64 Usually authors will have given permission
to spread their work across the boundaries of their own contexts
and have thereby entered the ecumenical forum. Nevertheless, this
method will suffer from a certain lack of contextual knowledge, for
the context can only be discovered in the texts and often remains
sketchy to the Western reader. The texts, however, claim to have
been written for a specific context and presume informed readers
who originally share this context, and use it as their frame of refer-
ence. The author as person also disappears into the background for
the foreign reader and all that remains is the limited biographical
information on the back flap.
– Most contextual theologies, however, reach the international theo-
logical market late or not at all. In primarily oral cultures, these
theologies are generally pronounced in sermons, storytelling and
conversations. Songs, poems and plays become theological media.
Inquiries are better made on site. Therefore it has frequently been
missionaries who had a bridge function in encountering these new
theological movements and translating important texts. Parallel to
the historical-critical method, an empirical theology was developed,
that utilized sociological and anthropological research methods. This
methodological plurality inevitably influences the genre of presenta-
tion. The theological essay, which uses narrative elements, comes
to stand next to the condensed language of systematic-theological
63
Cf. Wolfgang Kröger, Die Befreiung des Minjung. Das Profil einer protestantischen
Befreiungstheologie für Asien in ökumenischer Perspektive, München 1992.
64
In the 1980s many writings have been translated not only into English but also
German, Dutch or other European languages. Nowadays however even if something
has been written in English in the first place, it is hard to find a publisher willing to
take the risk.
texts. The boundaries with literature become fluid. The method of

inquiry and the genre of its representation have to do justice to their
subject.
While with my book The Many Faces of Jesus Christ I chose the first
option of relying on texts, my interest in Minjung theology has been
a long term project that involved field research in the Korean con-
text.65 In both cases the contexts were also revealed as texts that are
deconstructed and re/constructed by the proponents of contextual
theologies. In accordance with the approach chosen the first two para-
graphs of this book open up the socio-economic and political as well
as the cultural-religious dimensions of the context in which Minjung
theology developed. After a short introduction to the discussion on
theology and biography five theological biographical portraits of the
leading Minjung theologians fill the theory with life. The concluding
paragraphs on contextual challenges and transformations deal with
Minjung theology in intercultural perspective and try to sort out what
is still of relevance. Next to written texts, interviews and the partici-
pant observations by the author, the discussion relies on artworks as
a visual source. Prologue and epilogue abstract from the concrete case
and provide together a theory of contextual theology that is applicable
interculturally.
65
After a one year initial field research in 1987/88 I returned in 1994 and since
2003, on a yearly basis.
CHAPTER ONE
PEOPLE AS THE SUBJECTS OF HISTORY1
Koreans like to compare the outline of their country—probably

depending on the mood they are in—with either a tiger ready to jump
or with a rabbit sitting up on its hind legs. The German writer Luise
Rinser notes in her South Korean impressions:
The tiger symbolizes the wishful thinking as well as the magic formula.
The rabbit, the hunted, intimidated, desperate, brave and the one darting
from side to side—stands for the tough Korean reality.2
The animal symbols vividly illustrate the heterogeneity of Koreans’
historical experience in the 20th century. Japanese colonization, the
division of the country and the bloody civil war, exacerbated by the
tensions of the cold war era—these are only the most important stages
of the history of suffering which certainly afflicted ordinary people
most. The national emergence and the booming economy on the other
hand had readied Korea for a great jump ahead among the industrial
nations. The price for this development, however, was also exacted
predominantly from the people.
1. The Historical Context
The history of modern Korea3 starts with the opening of the country
in 1876, forced by Japanese gunboat diplomacy. That was the end of
an epoch of self-imposed isolation which had lasted almost 300 years.
Although it was once via the “cultural bridge” of Korea that Chinese
culture and Buddhism had reached Japan, now it was just the other
1
The headline refers to the subtitle of the single most important publication on our
subject: Minjung Theology. People as the Subjects of History.
2
Luise Rinser, Wenn die Wale kämpfen. Portrait eines Landes: Süd-Korea, Percha
1976, 53. With her North Korean diary (id., Nordkoreanisches Tagebuch, rev. edition
Frankfurt 1983) Christian socialist Rinser also wrote a sympathetic appraisal of the
situation in the North.
3
Cf. Ki-Baek Lee, A New History of Korea, Seoul 1984; Ingeborg Göthel, Geschichte
Südkoreas, Berlin 1988.
20 chapter one
way round; namely Korea was to develop into the toehold of Japanese
imperialism on the Asian continent. After its 16th-century invasions
failed, the Japanese once again tried to deny the Chinese the centuries-
old hegemony over Korea. The integration of Korea into the Chinese
world order was a rather moderate form of big power politics.
Exercising a light-handed suzerainty over Korea and assuming that
enlightened Koreans would follow China without being forced, abso-
lutely convinced of its own superiority, China indulged in a policy that
might be called benign neglect of things Korean, thereby allowing Korea
substantive autonomy as a nation.4
Japanese policy was completely different. Japan persistently expanded
its influence in Korea—both by military and diplomatic means. After it
had defeated the competing powers China and Russia, first in the Sino-
Japanese (1894/95) and then in the Russian-Japanese war (1904/05)
respectively, Japan declared Korea a Japanese protectorate in 1905 and
annexed it as its colony under the administration of a governor-gen-
eral in 1910. The colonizers tried to erase Korean identity, making
Koreans into “second-class citizens in their own country” (20).
With the end of World War II and the Japanese defeat, the Koreans
felt that the very moment of their national independence had come.
The Americans and the Russians, however, shared in the “liberation”
of Korea. Their troops moved into position south and north of the
38th parallel as previously agreed upon. By September 1945 Syngman
Rhee returned home from exile to the south of the country and started
to gather conservative and traditionalist forces, gaining the support
of the Americans as well. In the North, Kim Il-Sung appeared on the
political scene in October of the same year. Despite official mandate-
consultations between the US and the USSR, “both regimes were in
place, de facto, by the end of 1946. They each had bureaucratic, police,
military, and effective political power. They each had preempted, or at
least shaped, the Korea policies of the powers” (30). North and South
equally made no secret of their preparedness to compel the unity of
the country in their favor even by military means. As a result there
were constant border fightings along the 38th parallel.
Finally in 1950 the Korean War broke out. Bruce Cumings judges
that the North Korean attack “was mainly Kim’s decision, and the
4
Bruce Cumings, The Two Koreas, New York 1984, 16. Further page references in
the text.
people as the subjects of history 21
key enabling factor was the presence of as many as 100,000 troops

with battle experience in China” (38). Without the intervention of the
UN-troops under the American supreme command the North should
have won hands down. After the UN-troops together with the South
Korean military had repelled the North Korean Army almost as far
as the Manchurian borderline, China entered into the war and for its
part, forced the allies back into their initial position. The Korean civil
war ended without any de facto alterations, but left behind deep rifts
within the Korean nation.
Student riots in the South put an end to Syngman Rhee’s regime
in April 1960. The hopes for democratization shattered in 1961, when
Park Chung-Hee came to power by way of a military coup. In 1963 Park
was confirmed in his appointment by “free” elections and in 1967 he
was re-elected. He established a totalitarian regime based on economic
growth, the doctrine of national security and strict anti-communism.
Through five-year-plans, Park enforced the transformation of South
Korea from an agricultural to an industrial country. This development
dictatorship was based on the guarantee of low labor costs, long work-
ing hours and the oppression of independent trade unions as well as
on a strict anti-communism that claimed to ward off the permanent
danger from the North. The agrarian sector was to supply foodstuffs at
favorable prices to keep the costs of maintenance low, thus condoning
the impoverishment of the rural population.5
2. The Rise of the Minjung Movement
In 1970 the textile worker Chun Tae-Il doused his body with petrol
and set himself on fire in the Pyung Hwa Market in Seoul. He wanted
to draw attention to the fate of Korean workers through his suicide.
In hindsight this incident shook many Korean intellectuals to their
core and marks the birth of the Korean minjung movement.6 In the
minjung, the oppressed people, they then discovered the subjects of
Korean history. The Sino-Korean word is composed from the syllables
5
For the developments in North Korea cf. Bruce Cummings, North Korea—Another
Country, New York 2004.
6
Cf. South Korea’s Minjung Movement. The Culture and Politics of Dissidence, ed.
by Kenneth M. Wells, Honolulu 1995; Korean Politics. Striving for Democracy and
Unification, ed. by Korean National Commission for UNESCO, Seoul 2002.
22 chapter one
min- (“people”) and jung (“mass”). Translated it should mean some-

thing like “mass of the people”. Yet because of its typically Korean
character the concept is seen as untranslatable in those circles that
use the term programmatically. It is not supposed to be confined by a
definition, but there are attempts like that of the sociologist Han Wan-
Sang: “the minjung are those who are oppressed politically, exploited
economically, alienated sociologically, and kept uneducated in cultural
and intellectual matters.”7 Whether intellectuals belong to the min-
jung, by virtue of suffering political persecution, as Han claimed for
himself during a discussion8, remains controversial.
In the early 1970s the dictatorial system was shaken to its very
foundations. As far as foreign affairs were concerned South Korea was
in danger of finding itself isolated once the Cold War faded in the
Pacific region. This development was perhaps made most obvious by
the rapprochement of the Nixon government towards China, com-
munist North Korea’s most important ally. For the first time since the
introduction of the five-year-plans the South faced an economic crisis
and opposition grew.
Already in 1969 Park had secured the possibility of a third term in
office for himself through a controversial change to the constitution.
But in 1971 he only narrowly beat opposition candidate Kim Dae-
Jung, and that not without being accused of election fraud. Through
the introduction of the Yushin-constitution (1972)9 Park hoped to
silence his opponents and gain unlimited power. But open resistance
arose through the minjung movement. It spoke up for the observance
of human rights, social justice and democratization, and for both
national self-determination and re-unification in the face of the divi-
sion of the country. Subsequently, a hermeneutical struggle on Korean
history and culture was waged between the dissidents and the military
and administrative elite.
The government tried to create new legitimacy for itself through
a revitalization of Korean culture and a re-interpretation of its his-
tory, thereby compensating for the loss of anti-communism as system-
7
Quoted in Hyun Young-Hak, Minjung: The Suffering Servant and Hope, in: Inter-
Religio 7, 1985, 2–14, 4.
8
Cf. ibid.
9
The Presidential constitution, which to a large extent annulled the fundamental
rights granted in the 1963 constitution.
stabilizing factor. The vernacular culture, which had been almost erad-
icated by the policy of assimilation under Japanese colonial rule and
the post-World War II Westernization of Korean society, was sup-
posed to serve as token of a common identity.10 Historical sites were
restored with a great deal of pomp and circumstance, several national
museums were opened,11 the national heritage was catalogued and
even important purveyors of culture were registered as living national
treasures. The independence memorial in Chonan, erected in 1987,
provides a tour through Korean history in its several pavilions.
The minjung movement countered all of this with an interpreta-
tion of Korean history as a history of the suffering and resistance of
the minjung.12 Centuries of Chinese hegemony, Japanese colonization
(1905–1945), the division of the country (1945) and a painful civil
war (1950–1953) are its basic material. In a cultural renaissance, sha-
manistic rituals (kut), the traditional mask dances (talchum), and the
one-man opera (pansori) were filled with new life in the worker and
student movements.13 The regime acted forcefully against its critics:
Worker activists lost their jobs; radical students and sympathizing
professors were removed from their universities. Arrests, torture and
long imprisonment were the order of the day.
3. Minjung Movement and Minjung Theology
Minjung theologians have emphasized time and again that they are
only part of this larger minjung movement. Christians represented only
10
The Korean cinema gives good evidence of the ways in which Korean culture had
become Westernized in the 1950s. It was not until the 1970s that traditional Korean
clothing made reappearance in films other than with a historical content on a broader
scope. A good overview was given in the festival “50 years of Korean Cinema” in the
Hollywood cinema in Seoul (1.–15.01.2004).
11
The (re)openings of the National Museum in Seoul (1972) and its branches in
Pujo (1971), Kongju (1973), Kyongju (1975), Kwangju (1978) and Chinju (1984) all
fall into this period. In Seoul (1975) and Onyang (1978) Folk Museums were opened.
Finally there was also the Korean Folk Village in Suwon founded (1974), where exam-
ples of traditional architecture from all regions of the country were reconstructed.
Artists and craftspersons, women and men, display their skills to the public. Today
many of these museums have already been replaced again by new buildings.
12
Cf. Kenneth M. Wells, The Cultural Construction of Korean History, in: id.,
South Korea’s Minjung Movement, 11–29.
13
Cf. Choi Chungmoo, The Minjung Culture Movement and the Construction of
Popular Culture in Korea, in: Wells, South Korea’s Minjung Movement, 105–118.
24 chapter one
a minority within a movement that also included adherents of other

religions, like Buddhists or Tonghak.14 Discussion of the movement’s
program was decisive for the epistemological break in the Christians’
theology.15 Since they adopted the objectives of the larger movement,
Minjung theology may be characterized as a political theology in the
Korean context.
The first generation of Minjung theologians are representatives of
an emerging middle-class intellectual elite that has studied at foreign
universities and made their academic carriers in Korea. For a long
time they adhered to a theology “imported” from the West.16 But the
confrontation with political and social realities made them question
the relevance of this theology for the Korean context. The encoun-
ter with church groups like the Urban Industrial/Urban Rual Mission
(UIM/URM), the Korea Student Christian Federation (KSCF) or the
Ecumenical Youth Council (EYC) and individuals who supported the
cause of the workers, farmers and urban poor was a crucial experience
for most of them.
In church circles the Minjung theologians remained a small minor-
ity; finding some support only in the UIM/URM. This work, begun
in the 1950s as traditional-style evangelization—the gospel was to be
preached to workers, farmers and the poor, women and men alike—
developed new forms through the years. Missionaries were unable to
find access to the workers and farmers. Only when church workers,
among them many students who left the university to live out their
commitment started to share their living and working conditions, did
communication become possible. Conscientization for labor rights
and spiritual renewal went hand in hand. The Bible studies and ser-
vices they conducted together opened new perspectives on the gos-
pel. The missionaries learned to read the Bible with the eyes of the
minjung, who in turn discovered their own experiences in the biblical
14
See below 53f.
15
Kim Yong-Bock recalls that since about 1978 the group met on a monthly basis,
to discuss a paper by one of the participants and afterwards eating and drinking
together. Important figures were Ko Eun, a Buddhist monk and poet, literary critic
Paik Nak-Chang and the economist Pak Hyun-Chae (interview with Kim Yong-Bock
Dec. 2, 2005).
16
“I was particularly interested in the Western way of questioning their own tradi-
tion particularly the critical effort to re-examine what is given in their tradition and
try to have dialogue with other disciplines, such as philosophy and social or natural
sciences” (interview with David Suh February 15, 1988).
stories. As a consequence they were converted to the poor of Jesus

Christ themselves.17
The reaction of the government to the newly awakened social con-
sciousness of the churches was not long in coming.18 The Christian
activists were not spared from interrogations, arrests and even torture.
The Minjung theologians at universities lost their jobs and were kept
under surveillance or imprisoned at times. They were forced either to
withdraw from public life or to go abroad. Later some Minjung theo-
logians described their experiences in jail as decisive for the radical
change in their theological biography.
To develop a closed theological system was probably never the
intention of the Minjung theologians. This should have been rather
difficult anyway because of the initial situation. What several theolo-
gians produced more or less independently from each other, remained
in many ways a fragment—it was more an indication of the problem
than an analysis. But the Minjung theologians were not interested in
an analysis of society comparable to that of Latin American libera-
tion theology anyway. All they wanted was to function as mediators,
by learning from the minjung themselves. Their theology was simply
supposed to give the minjung a voice.
The culmination of Minjung theology was a conference in 1979
(Oct. 22.-29.), co-sponsored by the Christian Conference of Asia
(CCA) and the National Council of Churches of Korea (NCCK), with
the harmless title “The People of God and the Mission of the Church”.
While some of the speakers were invited to write a contribution spe-
cifically for this conference and never published in this line of thought
since, others had already made their mark as Minjung theologians in
the course of the seventies. To this nucleus belong Ahn Byung-Mu
(1922–1996), Suh Nam-Dong (1918–1984), Hyun Young-Hak (1921–
2004) and Kim Yong-Bock (*1938). David Suh (*1931) stood in their
shadow for some time. In the wider circle belong the brothers Moon
Ik-Kwan (1918–1994) and Moon Dong-Hwan (*1921), Lee Oo-Jung
17
Cf. Presence of Christ among Minjung. Introduction to the UIM in Korea, Seoul
1981; In, Myun-Jin, Rethinking the Work of Urban Industrial Mission in the Presbyte-
rian Church of Korea in the Light of Minjung-Theology, PhD Seoul and San Francisco
1986.
18
Cf. Documents on the struggle for democracy in Korea, ed. by The emergency
Christian conference on Korean problems, Tokyo 1975; Democratization Movement
and the Christian Church in Korea during the 1970s, ed. by Christian Institute for the
Study of Justice and Development, Seoul 1985.
26 chapter one
(1923–2002), the grand dame of the Korean women’s movement and

the pastors Park Hyung-Kyu (*1923) and Huh Byung-Sub (*1941)—
the latter deserve mention more because of their practical engagement
than their theological contributions.19
The 1979 conference volume has become something like the mani-
festo of the movement.20 Park Chung-Hee’s assassination by the head
of his secret service in 1979, the renewed military coup d’état and the
brutal suppression of the people’s revolt in Kwangju in 1980 led to an
oppressive climate, which did not loosen up until the mid-1980s. In
1984 the suspended professors were rehabilitated. While the Minjung
theologians continued to participate in the political goings-on, their
publications of the later years remained in the vein of the 1970s.21
19
During an Easter sunrise service on Mount Namsan in Central Seoul in 1973
that was organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Mission Group placards with the slogan
“The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the resurrection of democracy” were shown. As
a consequence Park Hyung-Kyu “was charged with plotting to overthrow the gov-
ernment” (cf. Donald N. Clark, Growth and Limitations of Minjung Christianity in
South Korea, in: Wells, South Korea’s Minjung Movement, 87–103, 88). Between 1984
and 1990 he celebrated his Sunday service in front of a police station in downtown
Seoul, after he had been beaten up several times by thugs in his own church building
because of his political engagement. Huh Byung-Sub, pastor of one of the first min-
jung churches in one of the moonlight-towns, workers settlements on the mountain
slopes around Seoul, organized, among other things, a cooperative for day laborers.
20
Cf. Minjung Theology. People as the Subjects of History.
21
Chung Hyun-Kyung (*1956), the only Minjung theologian of the second genera-
tion to have an international reputation, has added a new aspect to the debate by rais-
ing the gender issue. Cf. id., Struggle to be the Sun Again. Introducing Asian Women’s
Theology, Maryknoll, New York 1990. See below chapter 8.
CHAPTER TWO
RE/CONSTRUCTING KOREAN IDENTITY

THE MINJUNG CULTURE MOVEMENT
The works of poet Kim Chi-Ha (*1941)1 and students performing

mask dances in the 1970s marked the beginning of a minjung culture
movement which came to full flower in the 1980s in literature, the-
ater, music and visual arts. The minjung artists also felt obliged to the
political program of the movement. They devoted their creativity as a
means of communication in service to the common goal.
Great colored flags in protest marches and huge banners with paint-
ings and political slogans attached to the front of university buildings
and assembly rooms were the most evident testimonies of the use of
visual arts in the minjung culture movement. However, the favored
media of minjung artists was the woodcut. Unlike oil painting for
example—a rather time-consuming method, which is limited to the
production of unicates—woodcuts are easily reproducible. They were
photocopied in many leaflets and in books published by the political
opposition. This way minjung art became accessible to a broad public
and prices were reasonable, making this a form of democratization of
art. Besides mere propaganda art, it comprised a wide spectrum of
aesthetically durable products. Minjung art found its motifs within the
everyday life of the common people. In this way genre art experienced
a politically motivated renaissance.
Minjung artists have adopted German expressionism, especially the
works of Käthe Kollwitz and Erich Heckel, but also the Chinese wood-
cut of the 1940s, which was likewise influenced by expressionism, as
well as the genre painting of the Korean Yi-dynasty and traditional
Buddhist painting. Wall paintings especially were also inspired by the
1
Cf. Kim Chi-Ha, Cry of the People and Other Poems, Hayama, Japan, 1974; id.,
The Gold-Crowned Jesus and Other Writings, Maryknoll, New York 1978; id., The Mid-
dle Hour. Selected Poems, Stanfordville, New York 1980; id., Heart’s Agony. Selected
Poems, Fredonia, New York 1998; John C. England, Kim Chi-Ha and the Poetry of
Christian Dissent, in: Ching Feng 21, 1978, 126–151; Fumio Tabuchi, Der katholische
Dichter Kim Chi-Ha als narrativer Theologe im asiatischen Kontext, in: Zeitschrift für
Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 69, 1985, 1–24.
28 chapter two
Latin American muralists.2 Nevertheless minjung artists created their

own style.
In the visual arts, Hong Song-Dam (1955),3 together with the late
O Jun (1946–1986),4 Lee Chul-Soo (*1954)5 and Kim Bong-Chun
(*1954),6 is one of the most prominent representatives of the minjung
culture movement.7 Song-Dam was born on the island of Haui and
raised in Kwangju, both located in Cholla province. In his youth he
used to work as a studio assistant until his talent was discovered. He
was then able to study fine arts at the Chosun University in Kwangju.
His university years were overshadowed by poverty that forced him
to earn money to sustain his living, and by severe tuberculosis. In the
sanatorium Hong came in contact with the workers who fell ill due to
poor working conditions and social activists who were seeking shelter
there from the police and secret service.8 The artist got conscienticized
and took part in the 1980 Kwangju uprising. The fact that he survived
the bloody suppression of the revolt became a special obligation for his
artwork: “To pay off for my survival I want to portray my time!”9 His
political involvement made him suspect in the eyes of the regime.
2
Cf. Burglind and Albert Jungmann, Der Minjung-Holzschnitt. Versuch einer
Annäherung vor dem Hintergrund westlicher und östlicher Traditionen, in: Lim
Chung-Hee and Andreas Jung (eds), Malttugi. Texte und Bilder aus der Minjung Kul-
turbewegung in Südkorea, Heidelberg 1986, 133–141.
3
Cf. Prints of Hong Seong-Dam [Korean], Seoul 1990, Unerwünschte Bilder. Hong,
Sung-Dam. Holz- und Linolschnitte aus Südkorea, ed. by Evangelische Erwachsenen-
bildung Niedersachsen, Calsowstr. 1, 3400 Göttingen, Göttingen 1990; Resistance and
Meditation. Hong Sung-dam, in: East Wind, ed. by Queens Museum of Art, Queens,
New York 2003; Ritual Paper Flower or Avatar, Catalogue, Seoul 2004.
4
O Jun’s works have hardly been accessible after his untimely death. This has
changed with the publication of the catalogue Dokkaebi with Mirth: Oh Yoon, Seoul
2006 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his death by the National Museum
of Contemporary Art in Seoul. The exhibition has shown how influential his style
became for his colleagues.
5
Cf. from a large variety of publications in Korean: Lee, Chul-Soo, Dawn is Com-
ing, Beat the Drum. Collected Wood Prints, Seoul 1989; id., Birds also have Weight.
Collection of Buddhist woodprints, Kyongsam-Namdo 1990; id., One Sound. Printing
and Writing, Chonam 1994; id., Lee Chul-Soo’s Small Gift. Woodprints 2000–2002,
Seoul 2005; id., Song of Life. Wood prints 2003–2004, Seoul 2005.
6
Cf. Kim Bong-Chun, Sound of Water in the Mountains. Brush Paintings and Writ-
ings from the Mountain Atelier [Korean], Seoul 1997; id., The Old Future which I
have found in the Forest. The Story of Kim Bong-Chun’s Wood Prints [Korean], Seoul
2001.
7
During my visits to Korea I had the privilege to meet with Hong, Lee and Kim
several times in their studios and was able to discuss their work with them.
8
Cf. Unerwünschte Bilder, 35.
9
Lim and Jung, Malttugi, 144.
re-/constructing korean identity 29
In July 1987 Hong was arrested because of an alleged violation of

the national security law. He had sent slides of the mural painting “The
history of the national liberation movement of Korea” that he had
painted together with about 200 other artists to the World Youth Fes-
tival in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. The painting, the original
of which had been destroyed by the South Korean police, was recon-
structed there in its original format by North Korean artists. Hong
was tortured and put into solitary confinement. As a result Amnesty
International adopted him as prisoner of conscience in October 1989.10
After his release from prison in 1992 he first lived as a freelance art-
ist in Kwangju, but decided in 2000 to move to Illsan near the 38th
parallel, both to gain some distance from Kwangju and to work for
Korean reunification. In spring 2005, after his marriage, he resettled in
Ahnsan, an area where many migrant workers live. The artist started
to engage in cultural work with them.
Hong initially finds his subjects in the life of the common people.
Apart from the depressing scenes of the Kwangju massacre, he mainly
concentrates on events of everyday life and illustrations of traditional
tales, but also religious topics. In the latter cases Hong draws frequently
upon traditional Korean stylistics, profiting from having been trained
in Buddhist painting (t’eanghwa and tanchong) and from restoring old
Korean cultural assets with his master. The iconography which I am
going to present below is based on the œuvre of Hong Song-Dam. It is,
however, also applicable to minjung woodcut in general. To prove my
case I will consult the works of other artists mentioned above now and
then. I find it useful to differentiate among three comprehensive cat-
egories: pictures from the political resistance (1), sketches from everyday
life (2), and finally cultural-religious motifs (3)11 under which I sub-
sume the portrayal of traditional feasts, Korean style opera (pansori)
and the mask dance or the illustrations of legends as well as topics
from the sphere of Shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity and Tonghak.
Overlaps between the individual categories are inevitable.
10
The trial and its further details are documented in: Unerwünschte Bilder, 11–29.
11
The first two categories both refer to the socio-economic and political dimension
of the context, this categorization is therefore reminiscent of the classical typology of
contextual theologies. See above 4–7.
30 chapter two
1. Pictures from the Political Resistance
A volume with woodcuts of Hong Song-Dam, published in 1990 in

Korea contains 50 prints originating over the past decade and gath-
ered under the title “Kwangju”.12 In these pictures Hong portrays the
horror of the Kwangju massacre of 1980. Kwangju is the capital of
the Cholla province, then the most poverty-stricken region of South
Korea. Due to a strong provincialism, every president of the Republic
provided financial support only for his home province and of course
for Seoul and its surrounding areas. Cholla was never part of the privi-
leged ones. This province has always been a flash point in the modern
history of Korea, a spot from which political unrest arose.
The political spring following the assassination of President Park
Chung-Hee in 1979 did not last long. The military soon revealed itself
as the ruling power behind the scenes. In its internal struggles Gen-
eral Chun Doo-Hwan, later president, overcame his opponents in
December 1979. The disappointed hopes of the people burst out in
demonstrations all over the country. In Kwangju the demonstrators
were able to gain temporary control over the city during May 1980.
The government sent troops to resolve the conflict—Special Forces
which were said to be starved and drugged, to make them act with
brute force against their fellow countrymen. The soldiers fired at
random into crowds of people. Both rapes and cruel mutilations
happened in public. Dead bodies were taken away on trucks and piled
up in a bus station. The American headquarters must have agreed to
the transfer of Korean forces from the 38th parallel into the interior
of the country—at least tolerated it.13 Kwangju remained a collective
trauma for the Korean people for a long time. Some of the responsible
figures were still holding high government positions years after the
incident.
Hong Song-Dam has transformed this experience in a great num-
ber of depressing art works of enduring aesthetic value. In addition,
however, the collection also contains some pieces which I would clas-
sify as propaganda art. Partly they can be assigned to the genre of the
12
Cf. the catalogue Prints of Hong Seong-Dam.
13
Not until December 1994 was the supreme command transferred to the Korean
Army, with an exception in case of war. According to recent negotiations the war time
command should also be handed over by 2012.
political cartoon. Their message does not reach beyond an unmistak-

able political statement. Frequently script is used as additional form
of expression.
The late laborer, Chun Tae-Il (Fig. 1; 1986, 414x557 mm)

The worker activist Chun Tae-Il seems about to jump out of the
picture. The sole of his bare right foot points toward the observer.
With his left foot he pushes himself forward. In his raised left hand
he carries the labor law, while in his right he holds a big bowl of rice
before him. The Chinese character on the bowl means “blessing”. Rice
becomes a metaphor for “life in fullness” to put it into biblical lan-
guage. Flames lick his upper body like a big halo. With its wrinkled
forehead and wide open mouth his face resembles an ancient mask.
This man, who set himself on fire to protest working conditions for
Korean laborers is said to have died with the sentence “we are not
machinery” on his lips.
Let’s go to the Province Hall (Fig. 2; 1988; 550x409 mm)

A typical scene of street fighting in the 1980s. These fights were carried
out almost like a ritual. The students in the foreground throw stones
and Molotov cocktails against the police who have formed a line,
dressed in black combat uniforms that remind one of ancient samurai
warriors. Behind them thugs in civilian dress are ready to move for-
ward to beat up the demonstrators and take them in. Some people are
pushing a bus toward the police. An overthrown car is burning in the
street. Minutes later the air will be filled with teargas and the police
will attack the students.
Blood and Tears 4 (Fig. 3; 1981; 399x264 mm)

A woman far advanced in pregnancy lies on the ground in an unnatu-
rally distorted position. Her cloths have been torn to pieces. The left
hand lies on her belly; the right one is bent beside her body. Her
mouth hangs open and the eyes are hollow. A young child crawls on
her chest, trying to reach out for the mother’s face. The child is cry-
ing. It seems plausible that this picture was directly inspired by Käthe
Kollwitz’s “Widow II” (Fig. 4) from the series “war”. In Kollwitz’s pic-
ture there is also a dead woman with a little baby motionless on her
32 chapter two
chest. The woman’s hands rest loosely on the child’s back.14 The dif-
ferences in technique are evident. Whereas Käthe Kollwitz carves her
figures into the wood with fine, almost fragile lines with the effect that
the black space is absolutely dominant in the print, Hong maintains
the contours, he prefers a strong line and thereby creates great white
spaces.
Mother (Fig. 5; 1982; 231x229 mm)

A young man’s head is tilted downwards with his face resting in the
crook of a woman’s arm. His gaze is vacant. The woman’s hand that
lies on his shoulder is sturdy and furrowed, formed by a life full of
hard work. Her head, bent over the young man’s neck, closes the semi-
circle, formed by her right arm. Her coarse features look careworn; her
hair is hidden under a scarf, the typical headgear of a simple woman.
In this case the artist is not portraying a specific individual. This pieta15
is the expression of the suffering (han)16 of all mothers who work their
whole lives so their sons might have a better life some day. How many
of these promising young men were killed in the struggle against the
regime?
Burial under cover (Fig. 6; 1989; 263x343 mm)

The middle of the night. A crescent moon sheds its light over a stand
of trees. Two soldiers dig a grave somewhere in the fields. They want
to get rid of the dead body of a girl lying in a puddle of her own blood
in the foreground of the picture: obviously a student or worker activist
probably tortured and raped before being murdered.
My son, this earth, our mother will never die!

(Fig. 7; 1987; 390x580 mm)
With a sharp knife a geisha cuts the fingers off the left hand of a
woman who is tied to pegs. A man dressed in stars and stripes boxer
shorts and topper forces a nuclear missile into her vagina with an out-
14
Cf. Jungmann, Der Minjung-Holzschnitt, 135f.
15
Cf. Theo Sundermeier, Minjung-Kunst und die Minjung-Theologie Koreas, in:
Johannan Hesse (ed.), “Mitten im Tod—Vom Leben umfangen” Gedenkschrift für
Werner Kohler, Frankfurt a.M. 1988, 256–271, 265.
16
See below 84f.
sized hammer. These figures symbolize Japan and America, who in

many of these pictures act together as oppressors of Korea. The body
of the woman is reminiscent of the shape of the Korean peninsula. In
the upper left corner one can read the title as the motto of the picture,
which I would classify as a political cartoon.
2. Sketches from Every Day Life
Drought (Fig. 8; 1981; 312x266 mm)

The work of a farmer is tiring and the income hardly enough to sur-
vive. A man sits in the center, nodding off next to a small fire. To
his right lies his hoe, with which he had tried to break up the dried
out ground. A few stars are twinkling high above the hills behind
his back.
On the road to Seoul (Fig. 9; 1981; 375x290 mm)

A young country girl has packed her few belongings in two bags to
go and work in one of Seoul’s numerous factories. Hesitantly she
turns back to her mother, who carries a child on her back, and to her
younger brother, who walked with her for a while. The boy covers his
eyes with his right hand to hide his tears. A little dog has accompanied
them too. A bit further up in the fields beside the road an open pavil-
ion where the villagers used to meet stands under a tree. Their houses
lie on the slopes of the hills in the background. A new day is dawning
full of hard work, but even that still cannot feed a family.
Night Work 2 (Fig. 10; 1984; 527x420 mm)

People are working in a small and crowded room. Their backs are
bent; their eyes have turned to slits from tiredness. The production
process illustrated by Hong Song-Dam takes place on two different
levels, i.e., from the upper left to the lower left corner. The man on
the ladder tears the garment from the sewer’s needle. One has to hurry
up! In the lower right edge, half covered by the ladder there is a girl
who has a nosebleed—a symptom of total exhaustion. An overturned
bottle spills stimulants onto the table beside a water kettle. The label
says “timing” in Korean transcription. Another girl sitting with her
back to the ladder is swallowing some of the uppers from those spilled
over the table with a glass of water.
34 chapter two
Street restaurant (Fig. 11; 1980; 315x288 mm)

After a long working day the laborers have a simple meal, soup, rice
and kim chi, in one of the countless tent restaurants, mainly run by
women, along the streets of Seoul. Bowls of various sizes containing a
variety of side dishes made of cabbage and turnip are spread all over
the table. A glass on the table holds chopsticks. Everybody seems to be
concerned with his own sorrows. The man at the upper left corner of
the table has fallen asleep. Often the men drink too much soju, cheap
Korean rice wine, to forget their hardships.
Worker’s barrack (Fig. 12; 1980; 333x278 mm)

Men wrapped in blankets sleep on the floor of a traditional ondol
bang, a room heated from below. Two sleep open-mouthed, probably
snoring. An empty soju bottle and two cups lie above the head of the
middle sleeper. The third in the row is still awake writing a letter,
probably to his loved ones whom he had to leave behind in the coun-
tryside to earn their living. The envelope is already prepared next to
him. A single bulb shades the light. A door, a window, no furniture,
only three nails for hanging jackets.
Laborer family (Fig. 13; 1987; 207x278 mm)

A worker who is lucky enough to have his family living with him. His
wife, a child in her arms, stands right behind him. Two more figures,
whether children or grandparents one cannot tell, sit opposite him in
the dark. They share the same sparse food of soup, rice and kim chi.
By the light of a single bare bulb the father of the house says grace
before eating.
3. Cultural-Religious Motifs
Next to traditional festivals and customs (1), the liberating and life-
enhancing resources of the religions that are practiced by Koreans are
of special interest to minjung artists. Shamanism (2), Buddhism (3),
Christianity (4) and Tonghak (5), a new religious movement, are those
that are to be dealt with here.17 There has been much debate whether
17
Cf. Fritz Vos, Die Religionen Koreas, Stuttgart etc. 1977; Religions of Korea in
Practice, ed. by Robert E. Buswell Jr., Princeton, NJ 2006.
Confucianism is a religion or a philosophy. It is probably more an

ethos oriented to creating harmony through a system of hierarchic
relationships18 than a full-fledged religion, but ancestor veneration
adds something of a religious dimension to it. Confucianism was at
its height in Korea under the Yi dynasty (1392–1910), but is certainly
not so much a resource for someone who has a progressive political
agenda. Nevertheless, having seen the Minjung theologians interacting
with their pupils and staff, one understands how deeply Confucianism
still penetrates the Korean way of life, even today.
(1) Culture of Life and Resistance
Tomorrow is Chusok (Fig. 14; 1981; 289x295 mm)

Chusok, the harvest moon or midautumn festival is celebrated on the
15th day of the 8th month (end of September). In many aspects it is
similar to Thanksgiving Day. On this day families all over the country
visit their ancestors’ tombs and have a picnic. Elements of nature reli-
giosity and ancestor worship have undergone a symbiosis.
The full moon stands behind the tree on the wayside and shines
down on the young man who cheerfully strolls along the path. His
backpack frame—the symbol of his everyday burden—is empty; on
his shoulder he carries the staff on which the frame can be leaned. In
his right hand he carries a package tied up with string: probably delica-
cies for tomorrow’s feast.
Maltugi (Fig. 15; 1985; 480x415 mm)

Maltugi is one of the protagonists of the Bongsan mask dance. The
figure of the dancer dominates the entire picture. With out-stretched
arms he sweeps the extra-long sleeves of his costume through the
air. They whirl in a circle that expands from his body to the edge of
the picture. The dancer raises his left leg, knee bent, in front of his
18
This comprises the three bonds between the king and his retainers, parents and
their children and husband and wife, as well as the five moral rules in human rela-
tions: between king and retainer there should be righteousness; between father and
son affection; between husband and wife obedience, between the younger and the
elder respect and between friends faithfulness. Further there is the principle of the
three obediences for women: before marriage a woman should obey her father, after
marriage she should follow her husband and in case her husband dies, she should
follow her son. Finally there are the four virtues: a woman should know her place
and behave accordingly, not talk too much; cultivate and adorn herself to please her
husband and keep the house properly.
36 chapter two
body. Hong has captured him in motion, filling the picture with great
dynamism.
In the mask dance maltugi presents himself as the servant of three
yangban, members of the Korean aristocracy. With sly jokes he makes
fun of his masters and exposes them to ridicule. maltugi is a clown—
an identification figure for the minjung, whose han he relieves with
laughter. The mask dance gives the people the opportunity to mock
the religious and secular authorities. They are passing through a phase
of “critical transcendence” which enables them to look at the circum-
stances of their lives from an outside perspective.19
Kosu (accompanying drummer; Fig. 16; 1982; 250x230 mm)

The kosu accompanies the actor in the pansori,20 a kind of traditional
one-man opera, with origins in the same period as the mask dance,
the late Yi dynasty at the beginning of the 18th century. It made its
way however from the people’s culture into the aristocratic sphere of
the yangban. The dramatic artist performs the story through gestures
(pallim), speech (aniri) and singing (sori). The drummer beats time
and interrupts the player with funny comments. The themes stem
from traditional tales, like the Buddhist story of the turtle who tries to
get hold of the liver of a hare, a medicine that is needed by the king
of the sea. The turtle first seduces the hare into jumping on her back,
promising him a wonderful life on an island far off in the sea. When
she tells him her real purpose while they are already on their way, the
hare says regretfully that he left his liver behind, pretending that he
had just been rinsing it in a river. The turtle believes him and returns
to fetch it. As soon as the hare feels ground under his feet, he mocks
the stupid turtle.
Some of Kim Chi-Ha’s ballads have been used to revive the pansori
as a kind of minjung opera. In the grotesque “Five Bandits” (1970)
Kim alludes to the corruption of the Park Chung-Hee government.
The five bandits are a plutocrat, a member of parliament, a ministry
official, a general and a secretary of state. They engage in a competition
to decide who is the greatest bandit ever in oppressing and exploiting
the people. The chief of police, who wanted to arrest them, becomes
corrupted himself by their riches. In the end however they are all killed
19
Cf. Hyun, A Theological Look, 50–54. See below 90f.
20
Cf. Lim and Jung, Malttugi, 84.
at once by a thunder stroke. “The story of the sound” (1972) describes

the ill fate of a day laborer in metropolitan Seoul who is thrown into
prison for some arbitrary reason. His head and limbs are chopped off.
But his trunk rolls against the walls of the prison cell, making a sound
that frightens the rich and powerful. The drummer in the picture sits
somewhere out in the fields and practices, singing passages of the dra-
mas by himself.
(2) Priesthood of han—Shamanism

In turning to the national cultural heritage, the minjung movement
also discovered Shamanism21 for its purposes. According to this inter-
pretation the shaman (mudang) is the priestess of han,22 who cures the
suffering of the people through the kut.
Kut is the Korean expression for a shamanistic ritual. There are sev-
eral variants, each well suited to the individual occasion. In principle,
one may distinguish between those rituals accompanying the cycle of
human life and those that are oriented towards the annual cycle of
nature. The kut has its ‘setting in life’ (“Sitz-im-Leben”) in times of
radical change, when those cycles are in crisis—whether it is the birth
or death of a human being or the transition from winter to spring
and the awakening of nature to new life. The shamanistic ritual is an
“encounter of human beings, gods and shamans”.23 The shaman, in the
specific Korean context mostly female, is basically able to fulfill her
mediatory function as a link between her customers, the gods and the
spirits, in two different ways. This may happen either indirectly, when
21
The “use of the term ‘shamanism’ for Korean religious phenomena dates at least
from the early years of this century and was not guided by any conceptions à la Eliade”
(B.C.A. Walraven, Korean Shamanism [Review article], in: Numen 30, 1983, 240–264,
241). Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, rev. & enl. edition
New York 1964 (French edition 1951) as well as Hans Findeisen, Schamanentum,
Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag 1957, focus their research mainly on the Northern Eur-
asian peoples. Eliade extends his research field to drawing upon comparative material
from other cultures as well. Korean Shamanism has no special relevance for either
author. Cf. above all Cho Hung-Youn, Koreanischer Shamanismus. Eine Einführung,
Hamburg: Hamburgisches Museum für Völkerkunde private print 1982; Laurel Ken-
dall, Shamans, Housewives and Other Restless Spirits. Women in Korean Ritual Life.
Honululu 1985; Youngsook Kim Harvey, Six Korean Women. The Socialization of
Shamans, St. Paul 1979; Susanne Knödel, Schamaninnen in Korea. Heilrituale und
Handys, Hamburg, 1998.
22
See below 90f.
23
Cho, Einführung, 7; cf. id., Mu. Koreanischer Schamanismus, in: Zeitschrift für
Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 69, 1985, 116–129.
38 chapter two
she enters into contact with the gods through a vision or audition, or
directly, when the gods seize hold of her and speak through her lips.24
Symbolically, the latter may even be intensified during the ritual when
the shaman puts on the robes attributed to the embodiment of the
individual deity.25
Shamanism is the primal religion of the Koreans. Long before Bud-
dhism, Confucianism and finally Christianity came to the country sha-
mans had already been in Korea. Originally Korean Shamanism was a
“tribal” or “amphictyonic religion”26 in which the office of the shaman
and that of the ruler were combined in one person. The increasing
differentiation of society led to the separation of those two functions.
From then on, the king was assisted by several official shamans who
served him as “fortune-tellers, priests and healers”. At the same time
there were the “normal shamans, who satisfied the peoples’ religious
needs”.27 With the rise of Buddhism and later of Confucianism, Sha-
manism lost its function as official religion, even though the members
of the court continued their contacts with the shamans for a long time.
Shamanism became a folk religion28 and the shamans were regarded
as among the lowest strata of the population and were discriminated
against. The number of female shamans increased disproportionately
and Shamanism oriented itself more and more towards its female cli-
ents in general.29 It is for this reason that recent ethnological studies
are aimed at demonstrating the correlation between female socializa-
tion within Korean society and Shamanism.
In this regard, the research of Youngsook Kim Harvey and Lau-
rel Kendall has to be given special attention. Kim Harvey’s interest
is not so much in the religious phenomenon of Shamanism, rather it
is in the shamans’ social status and function. Hence in the center of
her approach are the life-stories of six Korean shamans who “come
24
Cf. Kendall, Shamans, 21.
25
Cf. Cho, Einführung, 58.
26
Op. cit., 11.
27
Ibid.
28
When I use the term “folk religion” in the sense of a sociological category, I
am not referring to the popular or actually practiced variant of a certain religion. Cf.
Justus Freytag, Dialog mit der Taiwanesischen Volksreligion?, in: Jahrbuch Evange-
lische Mission, 1968, 75–81, who has also decided to apply the term “folk religion” to
Taiwan’s primal religion.
29
Kim Harvey speaks of a “metamorphic process” (id., Six Korean Women, 3) in
the course of which a “shamanistic subculture” (op. cit., 13) developed.
from very different social and educational backgrounds, time periods,

regions, and personal experiences”.30 During the Yi dynasty only four
professions were permitted to women: palace woman, a special kind
of female physician (uinyo), courtesan or shaman. Officially, only the
shaman was allowed to get married.
Since modern career women must sustain their efforts to maintain dual
roles in a cultural milieu that remains stubbornly conservative in the
realm of family life and particularly in the realm of women`s role expec-
tations, they might benefit from the experiences of shamans, the pio-
neers of dual careers in Korea.31
Kim Harvey considers the individual life histories of her six infor-
mants a good example.32
Kendall evolves the thesis that within the Korean family husband
and wife share in the ritual functions and complement each other.
While the husband performs the Confucian ancestor rites, thereby
representing the diachronous aspect of family continuity, his wife is
responsible for the worshipping of the household gods, i.e. for the syn-
chronous aspect. According to Kendall, this splitting of sacral com-
petence is a reflection of the traditional Korean dichotomy between
husband and wife. The man is “the outside person” and the woman
is the “one inside”.33 “Public powerlessness and private strength, this
contradiction permeates a Korean woman’s entire life”.34
The Buddhism prevailing during the United Silla (668–892) and
Koryo dynasties (918–1392), the Confucian Yi dynasty, the Japanese
occupation forces and the Western-oriented South Korean régime in
the period following World War II:35 all shared a negative attitude
towards Shamanism and pursued its eradication. The Korean people’s
primal religion has nevertheless been able thus far to withstand all
such attempts.
30
Op. cit., 235.
31
Op. cit., 4.
32
Cf. op. cit., 240.
33
Laurel Kendall, Let the Gods Eat Rice Cake: Women`s Rites in a Korean Village,
in: id. and Griffin Dix (eds), Religion and Ritual in Korean Society, Berkeley: Institute
of East Asian Studies. University of California 1987, 118–138, 125.
34
Kendal, Six Korean Women, 164.
35
There is little information available on the situation of Shamanism in North Korea.
The régime’s policy on religion however is normally known to be very restrictive.
40 chapter two
Ryu Dong-Shik36 distinguishes between three kinds of transmission

of Shamanism. “Simple transmission” refers to the ‘orthodox’ hand-
ing down of tradition from generation to generation. Simultaneously,
however, shamanistic ideas found their way into the other religions
and substantively transformed them. Ryu refers to this phenomenon
as “syncretistic transmission”. A third variant is the “sublimated trans-
mission”, in which Shamanism forces its way into new religious move-
ments. Good examples for this are Hwarangdo at the time of the Silla
dynasty and the Tonghak Movement during the Yi dynasty.
Kut (Fig. 17; 1984; 305x425 mm)

At first sight Hong Song-Dam’s woodcut “kut” reminds one of the
genre paintings of the Yi dynasty, especially of the pictures of Kim
Hong-Do, who was fond of portraying scenes from people’s lives.37
Significant for his style is the concentration on the characters and the
objects being used in the specific activities shown. The background
remains largely unstructured.
Hong reduces the depiction—also due to the technique he applies—
to the interplay of line and space, avoiding engraving. Furthermore,
with the screen and the tree in the upper third of the picture he is
changing the style typical of Kim Hong-Do. But the group of figures in
the foreground remains reminiscent of Kim’s style. The center of the
picture is dominated by a dancing shaman. Insiders might recognize
the gods or spirits she is communicating with or representing by her
clothes. In her left hand she holds a trident (sangi-ch’ang) and in her
right a moon sword (woldo). The assignment of those “shamanistic
weapons”38 to the right and left hand, respectively, is commanded by
the ritual. They are employed in various phases of the kut. During
a healing kut for example the shamans use them to drive away “the
various spirits and gods that are considered to be responsible for the
disease in question” (66).
36
Ryu Dong-Shik, Shamanism: The Dominant Folk Religion of Korea, in: Inter-
religio No. 5, Spring 1984, 8–15.
37
Cf. Jungmann, Der Minjung Holzschnitt, 133–141; Kunstschätze aus Korea, ed.
by Roger Goepper et al., Hamburg and Cologne 1984, 222: “Similar to Sin Yun-bok
(cat. no. 245–6) Kim Hong-do is famous for his illustration of everyday occurrences.
But whereas Sin Yun-bok restricted his illustrations almost exclusively to the life and
pleasures of the upper classes Kim Hong-do’s paintings referred to the life of the com-
mon people.”; Hwang Su-Young, The Masterpieces of Korean Art, Seoul 1987, 66f.
38
Cf. Cho, Einführung, 65–67; further page references in the text.
During the kut the shaman is usually supported by two assistant

shamans. This function might be assigned to the two women at the
left edge of the picture. Musicians also form part of the staff. A cross-
flutist is squatting in the foreground to the right. According to the
shamanistic way of thinking the tone of this instrument symbolizes
the flash of lightning (cf. 62). Somewhat behind him kneels a female
drummer.
The left drum skin is beaten with a thick and round wooden stick,
whereas a thin bamboo stick is used for the right one. In Korean Sha-
manism the first one symbolizes the gate of hell whereas the second is
considered as this life’s gate. For this reason the shamans regard the
drum also as the key to the Hereafter (61).
Finally there is the woman who plays the cymbal. The two parts of
this instrument symbolize sun (yang) and moon (yin; ibid.). It is hard
to tell whether the man sitting behind the two women is also a mem-
ber of the orchestra, even though his headgear seems to suggest it. It
is very likely that the three women sitting in the lower foreground
belong to the family that has arranged the kut. The pipe of the one
looking towards the beholder distinguishes her as an elderly woman,
because only for them is it seemly to smoke.39 Everyone in the picture
is dressed in hanboks, the Korean national costume.
The sacrificial altars in the background, loaded with delicacies, are
also arranged according to a ritual codex. For the insider they indicate
the occasion and the person the ritual is destined for. Behind the sac-
rificial altar, which holds a whole pig, and which often has a function
in the ritual activities themselves, there is a larger table with food and
beverages. Behind and to the left of the altar, an earthenware vessel
contains makoli, Korean rice wine, which is drunk from a halved dried
bottle gourd that floats on the surface of the wine. In front of this
are three censers and beside it a plate of beef knuckles (or possibly
pork knuckles). Right beside the table stands a candlestick and a large
bowl of boiled rice, and behind this another earthen vessel topped
with three dried fish. Often, such dried fish are thrown in front of
the door during the kut as food for roaming ghosts.40 In front of the
39
Cf. Kim Harvey, Korean Women, 136, fn. 3.
40
If a Korean dies without a male descendant who can perform the ancestral cer-
emony, the continuity of the ancestral line is interrupted and he is condemned to
roam as a ghost. But a sudden death or an injustice suffered may also be the reason
42 chapter two
folding screen at the back of the picture are three round tables, each of
which holds small pyramids of fruit. The favorite fruit for this purpose
are nagi, pears, which in contrast to the sort familiar to Europeans,
are much bigger and—above all—round. Right behind them there are
piles of multicolored rice cakes.
In the upper right corner of the picture grows a tree in front of
which a further sacrificial altar is located. In the majority of cases the
kut takes place in the house of the arranging family or in a shaman
temple rented solely for this purpose. The folding screen also seems to
indicate a room. Is the tree there merely to suggest to the observer a
view into the surrounding nature?
Only someone who is familiar with Korean Shamanism will recog-
nize that here the artist has illustrated a sacred tree, which—pars pro
toto—is supposed to symbolize a completely different ritual.41 In for-
mer days, every village had one or sometimes even two such holy trees,
which were venerated as the abode of gods and ghosts. Every year dur-
ing the New Year season—in some areas even more frequently—this
tree is the center of a kut. While the kut in the foreground is oriented
more towards the individual’s fate within the cycle of life, the village
kut is oriented more towards the destiny of the entire village commu-
nity within the cycle of the year and the participation of a shaman is
not essential for it.42
Griffin Dix43 has given a very detailed description of such a New
Year’s ritual and its sociological dimension. The ritual itself consists
of two phases which can be clearly differentiated according to their
functions. At the center of the first phase is the sacrificial ceremony
for the existence of such a spirit. Through the dried fish these ghosts participate in the
rite but at the same time are being signaled to move on.
41
Griffin Dix, The New Year’s Ritual and Village Social Structure, in: Kendall and
Dix, Religion and Society, 93–117, is not speaking of a kut in this context, although he
proves shamanistic elements in the New Year’s ritual. “In the New Year’s ritual, the
two major ‘isms’ of village life, household shamanism and the extended kin group ide-
ology of Confucianism, face each other, and the ritual demands harmony of opposed
people because of residential link.” (115f ). Kil-Song Ch’oe, The Meaning of Pollution
in Korean Ritual Life, op. cit., 139–148, 141, distinguishes between a shamanistic vil-
lage kut (pyolsin kut or tang kut) performed by a mudang, and a village ritual (tongje)
whose officiant is a ritual elder (chegwan) selected by the villagers from their own
ranks. Both the syncretism inherent in the ritual according to Dix and the common
usage in Korea however justify applying the term village kut also to the New Year’s
ritual.
42
Cf. Vos, Die Religionen Koreas, 119f.
43
Dix, New Year’s Ritual; the page references in the text are to this essay.
for the mountain spirit (sansin), which is celebrated in front of the

holy tree. It is directed by a man (chegwan) chosen by the village com-
munity from its midst. He is assisted by scribes who introduce him to
his tasks. Mostly, this phase of the ritual has been confucianized. All
members of the village community undergo certain purification pro-
cedures beforehand. The rite is supposed to make the gods and spirits
merciful. The village community acts as one unit.
Not so in the second stage of the ritual. Now the protagonists are a
band of musicians, who in general are low-status villagers. They move
from farm to farm, preferably however to rich people’s homes, and
perform purification rites, especially in the kitchen and near the large
earthen vessels that contain the food stocks. These are the same places
from which the female shaman calls the spirits during a kut (104). In
return, the farm owners have to provide the musicians, who are mostly
accompanied by a large group of villagers, with food, and especially
with rice wine. Thus this rite, frequently extending over a period of
several days, turns into a cheerful celebration at the expense of the
rich villagers.
Returning once more to the picture: The sacrificial altar is decorated
with fruit, rice cake, a bowl of rice, a candlestick and a censer. Next to
it stands a bowl of rice wine with another drinking cup floating on it.
A rope is tied around the sacred tree. It is either the rope which is put
across the entrance to the village during the preparation of the village
kut (100) or the one used for the ritual tug-of-war (109).44 In either case
it is a left-twisted rope. The white pieces of paper that are interspersed,
though, give reason to believe that the first option is more likely. The
rope is coiled around the tree, always in a counterclockwise direction.
Inversion is the dominant motif of the performance of the entire vil-
lage kut. During the transition period there is discord between yin and
yang,45 but the rite itself returns both elements to harmony.
44
A hemp rope is also placed across the gate of the chegwan’s house (Dix, New
Years Ritual, 98f ). Ch’oe, Pollution, 143, mentions straw ropes that are placed across
the entrance when a child is born. These ropes mark the boundary between an area
that must be kept clean for ritual reasons, and the profane. They signal that the ritu-
ally unclean must not enter this zone, and inversely, e.g. after a childbirth, the danger
of becoming unclean.
45
Yin and yang, as dualistic-complementary categories of Chinese cosmology,
have also found their way into Korean thinking (cf. John S. Major, article: Yin-Yang
Wu-Hsing, in: Encyclopedia of Religion 15, 1987, 515f ).
44 chapter two
In contrast to the genre painting of the Yi dynasty, Hong Song-Dam

does not want to present an idyllic view of the life of the people. He
is interested in the function of the kut in times of radical change and
crisis. From his perspective, the kut is not “opium for the people”.
Through the ritual the shaman resolves the unarticulated suffering of
the minjung. The inversion of the social conditions during the village
kut allows the “have-nots”—ritually sanctioned—to urge the rich to
pass something on to them. Thus, in the scope of the cultural renais-
sance initiated by the minjung movement the kut is interpreted as a
liberating rite. Shamanism has therefore often been regarded as the
genuine minjung religion.
(3) Everyone is a Buddha—Buddhism

Buddhism was introduced to Korea through China as early as the
fourth century during the Three Kingdoms period (326–663). After
Koguryu (372) and Paekche (384), Silla (528), too, received it officially.
From Korea Buddhism spread to Japan (in 538/552).46 While Shaman-
ism became a religion of the people, Buddhism quickly advanced to
the state religion in a unified Silla kingdom (668–918). Even though
Silla was the last of the Three Kingdoms to adopt Buddhism, its rulers
quickly discovered how to make use of this religion as a unifying fac-
tor and Buddhism remained the dominant religion under the Koryo
dynasty (918–1392). Only during the Yi-dynasty (1392–1910) was the
influence of the Buddhist monasteries, which had grown rich and dec-
adent in the intervening time, contested by Neo-Confucianism. The
Japanese colonial government later tried, with the help of some Japa-
nese Buddhist monks, to co-opt Korean Buddhism and to use it against
Christianity, which was considered a seat of resistance.47 Buddhism,
neglected as it was by the former Korean dynasty, was therefore rather
weak and susceptible to conspiracy. Korean Buddhism is still divided
into two factions over this collaboration today. The descendants of the
pro Japanese factions are easily identifiable even today because they
46
Dates according to Vos, Religionen Koreas, 133–155.
47
Choe, Chong-Sok, Modernisierungsprozesse im modernen Buddhismus, in:
Modernisierung und Religion in Südkorea. Studien zur Multireligiösität einer ostasi-
atischen Gesellschaft, ed. by Siegfried Keil et al., Köln 1998, 163–172.
are married like Japanese Buddhist monks. Directly after the end of
the colonial regime 90% of the Korean monks were married.48
Only a few Buddhists participated in the anti-colonial struggle and
later in the minjung movement. “Engaged Buddhism”49 did not flour-
ish in Korea as it did in South East Asian countries like Thailand or
Sri Lanka. Activists who nevertheless claim Buddhism for their pur-
poses may refer to the Mahayana teaching that everyone is potentially
a Buddha, as a kind of egalitarian ethos. Or they allude to the fact
that Buddha Shakyamuni himself abolished the cast system. Further-
more Wonhjo (617–686), one of the most prominent Korean Bud-
dhist monks was not only a prolific writer and intellectual but has also
popularized Buddhism. He drank, danced and sang with the people
and is sometimes referred to as the founder of minjung Buddhism.
For social activists the most suitable school within Buddhism is prob-
ably Maitreya Buddhism.50 The hope for the future Buddha has always
stimulated the aspirations of the people for social change.
Unju-Miruk51 (Figs. 18–21; 1984; 212x302 mm)

The Unju-Miruk series consists of 4 prints. The black edging and
the cartouche with the title in a consecutive numbering in the upper
right corner—only in the first picture it is located in the left corner
for compositional reasons—are reminiscent of the traditional Korean
woodcut.
Unju was the name of a remote temple in the Mansan valley in the
Cholla province, which fell into ruin a long time ago. Actually the
significance of the place does not lie in the temple, but in the great
number of stone Buddhas and pagodas that are to be found in this
48
Cf. Choe, Modernisierungsprozesse, 170.
49
Regarding this trend in Buddhism, cf. Grudrun Löwner, Religion und Entwick-
lung in Sri Lanka. Die Entwicklungsarbeit der protestantischen Kirchen in Sri Lanka im
Vergleich mit der Sarvoyada-Bewegung und dem Aufbruch buddhistischer Mönche in
die Entwicklungsarbeit, Erlangen 1999. Wege zu einer gerechten Gesellschaft. Beiträge
engagierter Buddhisten zu einer internationalen Debatte, Hamburg 1996; Christopher
S. Queen and Salbe B. King (eds), Engaged Buddhist. Buddhist Liberative Movements
in Asia, Albany 1996.
50
Maitreya is the Buddha of the coming era, the successor of Shakyamuni. Cf.
Lewis R. Lancaster, article: Maitreya, in: The Encyclopaedia of Religion, New York
1987, 136–141.
51
Cf. Jochen Hiltmann, Miruk. Die heiligen Steine Koreas, Frankfurt a.M. and New
York 1987.
46 chapter two
valley. Miruk is the Korean name for Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha
of the future.
The archaic Buddha statues of the Mansan valley are silent relics
of this minjung Buddhism. The sculpturing of the rocks does not
go beyond an ornamental and relief-like style. The physiognomy is
designed in basic geometrical patterns—such as line, triangle, and
oval. The statue’s body—if indicated at all—is only given structure by
the folds of the robe. Occasionally limbs are outlined (Fig. 21). With
these objects clumsy hands tried to express their belief in an artis-
tic way. The pictures themselves do not give a hint of the connection
between the first print of the series and the other three. Therefore the
observer needs to know the story behind the prints.
The first print (Fig. 18) shows a man, severely wounded by arrows,
on his knees and leaning on a bamboo pole. His face is distorted with
pain, his mouth hangs open and his eyes are wide; they seem to be
directed at the observer. His clothes are blood-drenched and a pool of
blood has formed on the ground. His simple clothes show that he is an
ordinary man, probably a farmer. The black space in the right upper
corner—spreading raggedly in direction of the figure—appears like the
shadow of death, which hangs heavily over the dying person.
In the second picture (Fig. 19) the motif of the bamboo pole appears
once more, but this time in its function as vegetation. A miruk forms
the center of the picture. Only the head characterizes the cone-shaped
object as a body. It is an oval with geometrically designed features:
large, recumbent ears and yuk-kye, one of the 32 iconographic char-
acteristics of Buddha “an outgrowth on the top of his head . . . as sym-
bol of supreme inspiration.”52 At the foot of the monument there are
various pieces of rock. The Buddha defines the space: without him, the
bamboo branches would be floating in the air.
In the third woodcut (Fig. 20) six miruk stones are placed in a land-
scape, covering the entire surface of the picture. With the exception of
the two figures standing together in the foreground, they are defined
solely by the conical shape known from the previous picture. The
miruks give structure to an area in the lower left corner and delimit it
from the rest of the landscape.
52
Dietrich Seckel, Buddhistische Kunst Ostasiens, Stuttgart 1957, 31.
The last picture (Fig. 21) shows two fallen Buddha figures on a
mountain slope sliding towards the lower left corner. Next to the figure
portrayed in lotus position in the foreground, there lies a smaller one
in an upright position with his arms folded in front of his chest. The
clothes of both figures are outlined through the fall of the folds, while
each has one bare shoulder. A branch that reaches into the picture
from the left, a chain of hills and a smaller tree remind the observer of
the landscape of the previous picture. It is striking that on the miruk
portrayed in a sitting position the yuk-kye has been chopped off. The
head has been deformed and the missing part lies beside it.
The origin and history of these one thousand Buddhist stones (chon
bul-dong) is shrouded in mystery. A legend, however, tells that they are
stone witnesses of a revolt of the minjung. In the year 936, the capital
of the Paekche empire that had been conquered in 660 would be relo-
cated if 1000 miruk stones could be erected in the course of one night.
As a matter of fact the later Three Kingdom period saw a number of
peasant uprisings. One of the rebel leaders Kyonhwon proclaimed in
892 the foundation of Later (Hu) Paeckche (892–936). Behind this leg-
end the desire for political change is recognizable, because whenever a
new dynasty came into power the capital was moved to a new place.
No matter if one intended to build a new house or a new capi-
tal or if he was trying to find the best place for his ancestor’s tomb,
one always consulted geomancy (pungsu) in order to find the ideal
location.
Geomancy is based on the knowledge of the right distribution of the
double potency of yin and yang within the universe. It is the theory
of atmospheric and telluric influences on the human being during his
lifetime and after his death.53
Any possible deficiencies of the respective location may be corrected;
for example by the erection of a stone monument. The miruks and
stone pagodas are monuments of a symbiosis of Buddhism and geo-
mancy, i.e. equally signs and structural elements of a sacral place.
The revolts eventually failed and the Koryo-dynasty (918–1392)
seized power. The two Buddhas at the top of the hill were never
erected. The legend says that the rulers chopped off one figure’s
yuk-kye in order to break its power. This reveals the interrelation
53
Fritz Vos, Die Religionen Koreas, 127.
48 chapter two
between the first rather violent picture of the series and the seemingly
contemplative illustration of the miruk stones. In this series Hong
Song-Dam has illustrated a legend of his home country by reviving
the political message of its silent witnesses.
(4) The Cross of the Suffering People—Christianity 54

The Christ event has been intertwined by different artists with the most
important episodes of the minjung becoming the subjects of history.
In the religious landscape of Korea, Christianity is a latecomer. None-
theless the history of Korean Christianity is already a success story.
Apart from the Catholic Philippines, Korea has in percentages the larg-
est Christian population in Asia, mainly belonging to the Protestant
branch.55 In 1984 the Catholics could celebrate their bicentennial and
the Protestants their centennial. There are some particular features of
Korean Christianity that make it attractive for minjung activists:
– For Koreans Christianity was not the religion of the colonizers. Korea
has been under the hegemony of China for centuries. It became a
Japanese protectorate in 1905 and was annexed as a colony by Japan
in 1910. The Western colonial powers appeared as the only ones
who were strong enough to humble the regional powers China and
54
Cf. International Review of Mission 74, No. 293, 1985 (special issue on Korea);
Donald N. Clark, Christianity in Modern Korea, New York etc. 1986; Min Kyong-
Bae, A History of Christian Churches in Korea, Seoul 2005; Robert E. Buswell Jr. and
Timothy S. Lee (eds), Christianity in Korea, Honolulu 2006; Jeong Ae Han-Rhinow,
Die Situation der protestantischen Kirchen Südkoreas heute, in: Kerygma und Dogma
53, 2007, 189–207.
55
Even if the available statistics have to be regarded with some restraint (cf. for
instance the odd collapse in the Buddhist and Christian numbers in the 1985 census)
one still can detect certain long term trends. In fact Protestantism stagnates or even
decreased by one percent and Catholicism is the fastest growing religious group. Most
of all it is stunning that nearly fifty percent of the Korean population have no clear
religious affiliation. Some statistics list Confucianism as religion. This has not gone
unquestioned. Shamanism is despised as anti-modernistic and is therefore not taken
into account in official government statistics.
Protestants Catholics Buddhists No Religion

1980 19,1% 3,5% 32,9% Not listed
1985 16,0% 4,6% 19,9% 42,6
1995 18,6% 7,0% 26,3% 53,6
2005 18,3% 10,9% 22,8% 46,9
Japan. Christianity was considered to be one of the reasons for the

superiority and success of the Westerners.56
– Local agency played an important role ever since the Catholic arrival.
There is some evidence for first contacts with Nestorian Christianity
during the United Silla dynasty (661–918).57 The Japanese invaders
of the 16th century were accompanied by Christian chaplains and
some Korean prisoners of war were later converted to Christianity in
Japan. But it was the initiative of Confucian intellectuals that really
established the Christian faith in Korea. They read and discussed
whatever they could get hold of on Christianity and finally won over
Yi Sung-Hun (1756–1801), the son of the Korean tribute envoy to
Bejing, to inquire more about Christianity. Yi was even baptized by
a Catholic priest in Beijing and received the name Peter before his
return to Korea in 1784. It still took some years under local leader-
ship until Koreans’ longings for a priest were satisfied and the first
Chinese missionary, James Chou Wen-Mo (1753–1801), crossed the
Korean border in 1794. The government soon crushed the new reli-
gion, and the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Catholic
Church.58 The inroads for Protestant missionaries, after the opening
of the country in 1876, had also been prepared by Chinese Protes-
tant literature.59 With the inauguration of the Nevius method and its
three principles of self-support, self-government and self-propaga-
tion, they also subscribed to the priority of local agency. In its policy
statement the council of missions further opted (1) for the prior-
ity of the conversion of the working classes over that of the higher
classes; (2) the conversion of women and the training of Christian
56
Nevertheless one should not overlook the fact that since the Meji restoration
(1868–1912) Japan has been considered as pioneer in introducing Western modernity
into Asia; in response, America therefore supported its colonial ambitions. The mis-
sionaries got carried away in their servility over against the Japanese occupiers. The
1907 revival was not only the beginning of Korean church growth, but also a con-
certed action against political involvement of Korean Christians. Theologically they
remained in Western captivity for decades.
57
Cf. John C. England, The Hidden History of Christianity in Asia. The Churches of
the East Before 1500, New Delhi and Hong Kong 1996, 102–107; The Korean Christian
Museum at Soongsil University. Christian history and the national culture of Korea,
Seoul 2006, 14.
58
Cf. The Founding of Catholic Tradition in Korea, ed. by Chai-Shin Yu, Missis-
sauga, Ontario 1996.
59
Cf. Sung-Deuk Oak, Chinese Protestant Literature and Early Korean Protestant-
ism, in: Buswell and Lee, Christianity in Korea, 72–93.
50 chapter two
girls as multiplicands in their influence on future generations and

(3) the use of hangul, the Korean script in Bible translation.60
– Christianity was embraced by Koreans as the religion of modernity.
The curiosity about Western thinking was a motivating force behind
the initiative of the Confucian intellectuals towards Catholicism,
and the Protestant missionaries epitomized Western modernity in
their mission work. Because they were not allowed to evangelize
among the Korean population, the first missionaries modernized
the Korean health care and educational systems by opening hospi-
tals and schools. At the same time the Protestants did not use Chi-
nese characters but the Korean alphabet hangul. The Korean script,
in contrast to the thousands of characters in use in Chinese, consists
of only forty signs and allowed the illiterate to learn how to read and
write their own vernacular.
– Christianity was perceived as a political religion. The Yi dynasty
authorities feared Catholicism’s power to subvert its already shat-
tered authority. The Confucian intellectuals who brought Christi-
anity to Korea belonged to the pragmatic school (shilhak) that was
excluded from governance and therefore was indeed reform ori-
ented.61 The language policy of the Protestants meant a conscious
decision to focus on women and children of the lower echelon of
society. The offspring of the upper class was supposed to study
the Chinese classics and they were therefore not attracted by the
Christian schools. Under Japanese colonialism conservative Korean
Christians opposed Shinto worship and Christians played a leading
role in the March First Independence Movement.62 These troubled
years were followed by a period of political abstinence in the late
colonial period and under the government of Syngman-Rhee, who
was a Christian himself. Yet in the 1970s Christians entered the
struggle for human rights, social justice, democracy and the reuni-
fication of the Korean peninsula.
60
Cf. Kim, Protestantismus in Korea, 43f; Suh, Korean Minjung, 26.
61
Cf. Vos, Die Religionen Koreas, 175–183.
62
Cf. Wi Jo Kang, Church and State Relations in the Japanese Colonial Period, in:
Buswell and Lee, Christianity in Korea, 97–115.
Father of the minjung (Fig. 22; 1980; 255x185 mm)

Jesus extends his wide-open right hand, with the pale gaping wound
of the nail, from which blood is dripping. He bends his head toward a
person looking up at him. This creature seems more like a head on a
trunk than a fully developed human body. The blessing hand of Jesus
will awaken him to full humanity.
Jesus, the fool (Figs. 30–32)

Kim Bong-Chun portrays the crucified Jesus as a Korean farmer (Fig.
30; 1986; 260x360 mm). The coarse hands and feet, the gaunt body,
give evidence of a life of hard manual labor. In a poem he wrote, Kim
Bong-Chun draws parallels between the life and death of Jesus of Naz-
areth and the story of his friend, a farmer’s son, who died in a tragic
accident in Inchon at the age of 30. The title, “Jesus the fool,” refers to
Paul’s fools Christology in First Corinthians. In the Hellenistic world
Jesus’ death must have appeared as foolishness. A son of God dying
a wretched death on a cross was unthinkable in that context. Yet the
fool is the one who holds up the mirror to the world.
The logo for the eighth General Assembly of the Christian Confer-
ence of Asia (CCA) held in Seoul (1985), designed by Lee Chul-Soo
(Fig. 31; 1985; 120x120 mm) points in a similar direction. In this styl-
ized depiction of the maltugi mask, the sign of the cross is made vis-
ible. In the character of the fool from the Bongsan mask dance, Jesus
Christ takes on a Korean form, whose death on the cross was “a stum-
bling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (I Cor 1, 23b).63
Another print by Kim Bong-Chun (Fig. 32; 1983; 230x280 mm)
depicts the crucified Jesus as a partisan who fought against the Japa-
nese colonizers. He appears to be a strong man with a muscular body,
dressed only in shorts and wearing a headband, tied to the cross. The
large sun directly behind the cross is reminiscent of the red circle on
white ground of the Japanese flag.
63
See above 35f and below 89–91.
52 chapter two
Human cross (Fig. 33; 1983; 3500x5500 mm)

This huge banner, reminiscent of a Buddhist tanka,64 was jointly
painted by Kim and his artist group turong for a NCCK conference.
It is the last one in a series of five pictures depicting Jesus’ birth, suf-
fering among the minjung, death and resurrection, and is much big-
ger than the others. People gather in the shape of a cross. Coming
together from the four directions. They form a circle at the center, as
in a traditional dance. In spite of all their hardships, the minjung also
have joy and hope. A similar picture by the artist focusing only on the
circle of people is titled “Song of April” (Fig. 34; 1983; 350x260 mm),
an allusion to the April 19 student revolt against the Syngman Rhee
government in 1960. The banner stirred a heated debate because of its
formal associations with Buddhism and the theological implications of
Jesus’ resurrection among the minjung. Like many others, this paint-
ing was lost in the turmoil of a demonstration.
Kwangju (Fig. 23; 1983; 410x520 mm)

Hong Song-Dam’s woodcut shows only the torso of the crucified
in the lower third of the picture. At its center, however, there is a
lorry with three bodies lying on the open truck bed. At first glance
the observer recognizes three men. It is hard to tell whether they are
heavily wounded or dead. One of them has lost his right arm. His feet,
bearing the stigmata, hang over the loading platform. Beside the head
of the second man there is a pool of blood. There is a wound on his
right hand, and his left forearm and part of his abdomen are hidden
under the legs of the third man. The latter is draped over the side of
the lorry, his left arm hanging down out of sight, while his right is bent
over his face. His feet, too, are wounded. There are pools of blood on
the loading platform; blood runs from these to the ground, forming
another puddle. The bodies look almost like sacks—carelessly flung
down: human material in complete disregard of human dignity. The
lorry too seems somewhat deformed, its left side is cut off. The back-
ground of the picture is black, interrupted only by some lines in the
upper right corner, which seem to be mountains in outline.
The crucified one does not have particularly Asian features. The
beard corresponds with traditional Christian iconography; it would
64
Tankas are Buddhist scroll paintings originating in Tibet. The painting on cloth
is usually framed in textile with rods at the top and the bottom.
have been rather rare for a Korean the age of Jesus to have a beard.
Jesus does not wear a crown of thorns. His arms extend beyond the
edge of the picture. The hands bearing the stigmata are not depicted.
Instead the wounds of the tortured bodies on the lorry’s loading plat-
form are meant to symbolize the stigmata of Jesus Christ. By drawing
a link between the passion of Christ and the sufferings of the Korean
people during the Kwangju incident, Hong has created an icon of
Minjung theology.65
(5) “Treat every man like God”—Tonghak 66

Tonghak, the “eastern learning”, dissociates itself explicitly from
Catholicism, or “Western learning” (sohak). After his heavenly enlight-
enment in 1860 at the age of 36, the movement’s founding figure Ch’oe
Che-Son (1824–1864), called himself Ch’oe Che-U, which means
‘savior of the not yet enlightened people’. He also regarded Catholi-
cism as the reason for the success of the Western colonial powers in
Asia. Therefore Ch’oe blended elements from Confucianism, Bud-
dhism and Taoism in order to create an Asian counter-religion. Even
though Shamanism is not mentioned, most likely because it was
despised in Korean society, shamanistic elements can also be traced
in the mix. A closer look further reveals that his ideas are also con-
taminated by Christian teaching. His central doctrine was Si Ch’onju,
“man bears divinity”, focusing on worship and submission to a per-
sonal god. Its later reformulation as In nae Ch’on, “man and God are
one”, is ascribed to the third Tonghak leader Sohn, Uian (Pyong-Hui,
1861–1922), who also changed the name to Chondogyo, Religion of
the Heavenly Way.
The second leader of the movement, Ch’oe Hae-Wol (Si-Hyong
1827–1898) is said to have drawn the ethical consequence that “every
65
In 2007 Hong painted a large scale way of the cross for the Catholic Namdong
church in Kwangju. The color paintings were hung on May 16., but were taken down
again only one day later, even before the May 18th Memorial day. Staging the suffer-
ing and death of Jesus in the context of the Kwangju uprising still seemed to be too
provocative.
66
Cf. Benjamin B. Weems, Reform, Rebellion and the Heavenly Way, Tucson Ari-
zona 1964; Yong Choon Kim, The Ch’ondogyo Concept of Man. An Essence of Korean
Thought, Seoul 1978; Sung-Soo Kim, Die Tonghak-Bauernbewegung in Korea. Sozio-
ökonomische Hintergründe und ideologischer Wandlungsprozeß, PhD dissertation
Frankfurt a.M. 1980; Ok Soong Won-Cha, Der Einfluß der Donghak-Bewegung auf die
Ausbildung der Minjung-Theologie in Korea, PhD dissertation Frankfurt a.M. 1986.
54 chapter two
human being has to be treated like god” (Sain yoch’on). Together with
the other ethical principal tong hwi il ch’e, “all life evolves toward social
oneness”, this leads towards an egalitarian ethos. Ch’oe’s attempt to
create a religion able to deal with social change and to reform Korean
society attracted both the poor oppressed farmers and those yangban
and literati who could not participate in the system. This led to the
Tonghak rebellion and finally to the Sino-Japanese war, in which all
three Tonghak leaders were killed. In many ways their teachings and
the movement itself were Minjung theology avant la lettre.67 In its
stress on Asian thinking and its egalitarian ethos, Tonghak or Chon-
dogyo religion remains attractive for progressive Korean intellectuals
today.
In minjung art one can find portrayals of some of the Tonghak lead-
ers. Kim Bong-Chun portrayed Ch’oe Si-Hyong, the second Tonghak
leader, sitting on a rock, dressed in simple traditional Korean clothes
(Fig. 24; 1990; 250x350 mm). The man locked in a wooden fetter is a
portrait of Chon Pong-Jun, a great military leader, who died in prison
(Fig. 35; 1982; 240x350 mm). O Jun has a portrait of Chon dancing
surrounded by pea blossoms (Fig. 36; 1985; 250x350 mm). Chon was
widely known under the nickname General Green Pea, an allusion to
his small stature.68
Next to the pictures that are directly inspired by the political resis-
tance, there are those which depict the milieu of workers, farmers and
the poor partly in an ideal typical way. The cultural-religious motifs
are the expression of a cultural renaissance, which revives Korean tra-
dition in a selective way and adopts it along the lines of the political
agenda of the movement, referencing the hopes for liberation inherent
in this tradition. A religion therefore is relevant if it provides liberating
resources.69
67
Cf. Jin-Kwan Kwon, A Preliminary Sketch for a New Minjung Theology, in:
Madang 1, 2004, 49–68, 53–55.
68
Hong Song-Dam refers to the Tonghak movement in his murals. Cf. East Wind,
88f.
69
A similar tendency can be seen in Chung Hyun-Kyung’s plea for a “survival-
liberation centered syncretism” (see below 109f ).
CHAPTER THREE
THEOLOGY AND BIOGRAPHY

THEOLOGICAL IDENTITY RE/CONSTRUCTED
Contextual theologies are grounded in communities. Nevertheless the

person of the author is important, especially when he or she formu-
lates theology from the communal experience with the people as an
organic intellectual.1 The autonomy2 won by the texts of contextual
theologians is comparable to that of the biblical texts and the Christian
tradition in general, and is always a relative one. Contextual theolo-
gies—just like every other text—would lose a crucial dimension, were
we unable to speak about the author or at least the milieu from which
he or she originates. I regard biography therefore as the micro context.
My hypothesis is that the epistemological rupture that initiated con-
textual theologies correlates with a biographical one. Still, theology is
directly deducible neither from its context, nor from the biography of
the person behind it. In what follows I will focus on the special case of
writing a theological biography,3 the location of which is the triangle
of relations between individual—God—community.
The notion of biography itself is ambiguous. It includes autobio-
graphy, written by a single person, just as much as biography, writ-
ten about someone else, and autobiographical self-reflection. For all
of these variations the same holds: the portrayed “I” does not deplete
itself in a single representation and his/her biography is more than
the sum of all its representations. But this biography “in itself ” is, in
the end, only a fragment. Like contextual theology, the closely related
theological writing of biography is an open system. In both cases it is
about the re/construction of identity, which is always only an identity
1
Cf. Antonio Gramski, The Intellectuals, in: id., Selections from the Prison Note-
books, New York 1971, 3–23.
2
Cf. J. Severino Croatto, Biblical Hermeneutics.
3
Cf. Albrecht Grözinger and Henning Luther (eds), Religion und Biographie,
Perspektiven zur gelebten Religion, München 1987; Walter Sparn (ed.), Wer schreibt
meine Lebensgeschichte? Biographie, Autobiographie, Hagiographie und ihre Entste-
hungszusammenhänge, Gütersloh 1990; Biographie und Autobiographie—Theologische
und geschichtswissenschaftliche Kriterien, Verkündigung und Forschung 39, 1/1994;
Stephanie Klein, Theologie und empirische Biographieforschung, Stuttgart 1994.
56 chapter three
in progress, a never-finished process. The motivation for this kind of

theological writing of biography, is not self-justification or the presen-
tation of a closed image of one’s life, but auto/biographical reflection
on the self coram deo and coram communione. This process is recipro-
cal in both directions. The encounter with other people is constitutive
for my own process of identity re/construction and vice versa. Self-
perception and outside perception of someone else create different
perspectives on the individual biography without depleting it. Only
the knowledge of being accepted by God, however, the feeling of being
part of the history of the triune God, enables us to accept our own lives
in their fragmentarity.
Henning Luther considers God therefore to be the addressee of
theological writing of biography. He then broadens this view by the
hypothesis “that the religious dimension can be discerned most of all
in the formal structure of biographical reflections”.4 The human being
in reflecting on his or her biography, imagines a “fictive other”, who
is “loving and critical at the same time and also the one in the other”.5
“Within the Christian tradition”6 he finds this “fictive other” in God.
In contrast, Oswald Bayer denotes “God as the author of the story of
my life”.7 Both agree that the fragmentarity of people’s experiences can
only be secured and healed in God.8 The theological writing of biogra-
phy is an ongoing process, as with the changing context the biography
is also re/constructed. This cannot happen constantly however—every-
day life demands a great measure of convention and routine—but it
takes place preferentially in situations of crisis. Crises are key experi-
ences, “stories of reference”,9 which are the sources or the focus of the
re/telling of our biography. Crises interrupt life, demand reflection,
steer our attention back to decisions taken, but also to the possibilities
excluded by these decisions, and open these up again for the future.
Living in this tension, we have to give new meaning to the present.
4
Henning Luther, Der fiktive Andere. Mutmaßungen über das Religiöse an Biogra-
phie, in: id., Religion und Alltag. Bausteine zu einer Praktischen Theologie des Subjekts,
Stuttgart 1992, 111–122 [also, id., in: Religion und Biographie, 67–78], 121.
5
Op. cit., 118.
6
Op. cit., 120.
7
Oswald Bayer, Wer bin ich? Gott als Autor meiner Lebensgeschichte, in: Theolo-
gische Beiträge 11, 1980, 245–261.
8
Cf. Bayer, Wer bin ich?, 247f/253f.
9
Peter Biehl, Der biographische Ansatz in der Religionspädagogik, in: Religion und
Biographie, 272–296, 276.
theology and biography 57
Fragments—be it the ruins of the past, or the fragments from the

future—point beyond themselves. They exist and function in a tension
with that wholeness that they are not and that they do not represent,
but which the observer tries to complete. Fragments make one search
for wholeness that they themselves, however, do not offer and do not
disclose.10
In this connection the category of memory, which has its central theo-
logical foundation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ
also becomes crucial. Without the “dangerous memory”11 of this event
the eschatological dimension—the faith in the beginning of the King-
dom of God in the person of Jesus Christ and the messianic hope that
we are included in this process—would be lost. The memory of the
suffering of the concrete human being Jesus of Nazareth is always at
the same time the memory of the rupture marked by his resurrection
as well. Personal suffering can be interpreted in the horizon of this
experience of faith. The history of the victims paradoxically contains
within itself the seed of the hope for resurrection. This is also and most
of all valid for contextual theologies.
The epistemological rupture correlates a biographical one; on this
hypothesis the effort to re/construct the history of Minjung theology
from the Korean context and the biographies of its protagonists is
founded. With the five theological biographical portraits that follow, I
have tried to capture an impression from the beginnings of this theo-
logical movement. My criterion in selecting the five persons portrayed
was whether there was a definite continuity to their part in the formu-
lation of Minjung theology and whether they made a genuine contri-
bution. As a representative of the younger generation of theologians I
10
Henning Luther, Identität und Fragment. Praktisch-theologische Überlegungen
zur Unabschließbarkeit von Bildungsprozessen, in: id., Religion und Alltag, 160–182,
167. “We are always simultaneously in a certain way ruins of our past, fragments of
broken hopes, stifled wishes for our lives, missed and wasted opportunities. We are
ruins because of our failing and our guilt, just as much as because of wounds inflicted
on us and our experiences of loss and defeat. This is the pain of the fragment.
On the other hand, every level reached in our personal development always is a
fragment of the future. This fragment caries within it the seeds of time. Its essence is
longing. It’s focused on the future. Within it is a lack, an absence of the fulfilled shape.
The differentiation that separates the fragment from its possible fulfillment does not
only work negatively, but also refers positively to the future” (168f ).
11
Cf. Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society. Toward a Practical Funda-
mental Theology, London 1980; id., Memoria Passionis. Ein provozierendes Gedächtnis
in pluralistischer Gesellschaft, Freiburg etc. 2006.
58 chapter three
chose Chung Hyun-Kyung, who became famous through her appear-

ance at the seventh assembly of the WCC in Canberra 1991.
Methodological Remarks12
During my first stay in Korea in 1987–88, I had several opportunities

for discussion with the Minjung theologians; this was partly docu-
mented in a series of semi-open13 interviews that I recorded and tran-
scribed later.14 We usually conversed in English, because my knowledge
of Korean is very basic; with Ahn Byung-Mu I was able to speak Ger-
man. If there were obvious repetitions, as is often the case in spoken
language, I took the liberty to shorten them, indicating the omission of
longer pieces of text by parenthesis. To add to the scarcity of materials
through interviews with the authors is not only in line with inductive
hermeneutics; the concept of story telling and socio-biography are also
preferred methods of Minjung theology.15
12
Concerning the discussion on method, I refer to Herwart Vorländer (ed.), Oral
History. Mündlich erfragte Geschichte, Göttingen 1990 and Hans Fischer, Feldfor-
schungen. Berichte zur Einführung in Probleme und Methoden, Berlin 1985, without
entering the theoretical discussion here. From a specifically theological perspective
cf. Jürgen Seim, Zur Methode der Biographie, in: Evangelische Theologie 39, 1979,
431–450 and Luther, Der fiktive Andere.
13
Point of departure always was the question for the personal biography. With
the help of a list of catchwords I interrupted at suitable moments to secure a certain
amount of comparability in the evaluation of the interviews. Regarding interview-
techniques cf. the relevant passages in Vorländer, Oral History and Biehl, Der biogra-
phische Ansatz, 284f.
14
Suh Nam-Dong had passed away already in 1984, In his case I had to rely on
information given by third parties. Chung Hyun-Kyung resided in the US at the time
and had not drawn attention to herself theologically yet, however, a long autobio-
graphical text of hers has been published a few years later. I met her later on several
occassions (see below chapter 8).
15
See below 100f.
CHAPTER FOUR
JESUS AND THE MINJUNG

AHN BYUNGMU 19221996
Ahn Byung-Mu1 was born on June 23, 1922 in Shinanju, a city in

South-Pyungan province that now belongs to North Korea. He was the
first son of the traditional doctor Ahn Bong-Shik and his wife Chung
Won-Sik. When Byung-Mu was one year old, his family moved into
Manchuria. In those years, many Koreans fled to China, Russia or
overseas because of Japanese colonial politics. Ahn portrays the situa-
tion of the three million Korean immigrants in Manchuria as depress-
ing. In retrospect, he compares the situation to that of Galilee in Jesus’
time. While initially raised in a Confucian way, Byung-Mu converted
to Christianity in childhood.
In the village where we lived, there was no church. I had never heard
anything about Christianity, neither at school, nor at home. But there
was a man, who worked as a servant for a rich family, whom they called
a Catholic. The children laughed at him. It was a funny climate back
then—also when the Buddhist monks came, the children laughed and
made fun of them. I did not pay any attention to it, in the beginning. Yet
one day, I do not remember what age I was, but it was in my pre-school
period, I came to a village about four kilometers away, where there was
a Catholic congregation. Behind the village, there was a crucifix. It was
the first time in my life that I saw such a crucifix. I asked what it was.
The children then told me that someone had been crucified. This seemed
odd to me. Afterwards, I forgot about it again.
Then, at the end of fourth grade, I took part in a strike against the
principal of the school who was always very unfair to the pupils. I was
suspended from school because of this. It made me decide to leave the
village and go to school in a small city about twenty kilometers away.
There were two or three churches there and I came across a crucifix
again. I thought, there must have been such a man here as well. I got
1
Cf. Andreas Hoffmann-Richter, Ahn Byung-Mu als Minjung-Theologe, Gütersloh
1990; Sunhee Lee, Die Minjung-Theologie Ahn Byung-Mus von ihren Voraussetzungen
her dargestellt, Frankfurt a.M. etc. 1991. Hoffmann-Richter explicitly claims that he
portrays Ahn from a theological-biographical perspective. However, he disavows this
attempt in his preface, where he characterizes the biographical parts as “illustration”
(op. cit., 13).
60 chapter four
interested and asked what it was all about. The children answered: “If
one comes here, one cannot have a concubine nor drink alcohol.” Pecu-
liarly, they gave me this answer. I liked it, because my father had a con-
cubine and I suffered from it. He also drank. Although he was a doctor,
he still drank, mostly during the afternoon. So I liked it and I decided
that I wanted to join them. It was in the fifth grade, so I must have been
twelve. I joined, even though my father strongly opposed it.2
The harsh conflicts with his father over his involvement with the Chris-
tian youth program, eventually led to a break. His mother divorced her
husband and took both sons with her. Ahn contributed to their subsis-
tence with temporary jobs. After about a year, he entered the secondary
school of the Canadian Presbyterian mission in Yongchang. Among
the teachers and students, Ahn encountered people who would join
him as allies on his future path in life: Ham Sok-Hon (1901–1989),
the ‘Korean Gandhi’, Kim Chai-Choon (1901–1987)—co-founder of
the Hanguk Theological Seminary3 of the Presbyterian Church in the
Republic of Korea (PROK, in Korean: kichang) and one of the most
well-known Korean theologians of Ahn’s teacher-generation—and
finally his school friend Moon Dong-Hwan (*1921). After finishing
the mission school, Ahn traveled to Japan in 1941. He completed the
College of Taisho University and in 1943 started studying philosophy
with a sociological emphasis at Waseda University. Ahn read Kierke-
gaard extensively. When the Japanese army threatened to recruit him,
Ahn interrupted his university studies and hid in Manchuria, where
he served a congregation as a lay preacher for some time. When the
war was over, with the Japanese leaving a power vacuum behind, he
became involved in self-governance by negotiating with the occupy-
ing Soviet troops. In 1946 Ahn flew from the communists and went
to Seoul. He managed to support himself and his mother by teach-
ing English. At the same time he resumed his study of sociology at
Seoul National University (1946–1950), choosing religious studies as
a minor. In these years he was also elected as the chair of the Korea
Student Christian Movement (KSCM).
2
Interview with Ahn May 14, 1988.
3
In 1981 the theological seminary was enlarged with humanities and social sci-
ences and the name was changed to Hanshin University. This step was motivated by
the Missio Dei concept: the university wants to train Christian leaders who can play a
crucial role in the society at large.
jesus and the minjung 61
During the Korean War Ahn and his student friends founded a
Christian community to demonstrate an alternative to the institutional
Church. The group also understood this step as a reaction to the ‘signs
of the times’. They developed a concept of lay mission. According to
Ahn, this project failed because of some members’ family ties. The
Hyang-rin congregation4 in Down Town Seoul, which still emphasizes
the lay element today, came out of this group. In co-operation with
other community members, Ahn also produced the magazine “The
Voice in the Desert”, which was discontinued after just twelve issues.
The title reflects his critical contemporariness. He was already involved
in political events then. Time and again Ahn warned of the danger of
impending war. Interpretation of his experience with the help of bibli-
cal symbols is deeply rooted in his thinking.
Beginning in 1950, Ahn worked as a junior lecturer at the Chungang
Seminary, an interdenominational seminary that served the training of
lay people, which he co-founded. In 1953 he became a senior lecturer
there, teaching sociology and ancient Greek, which he had learned on
his own during his years as a student. He then began to offer courses
in New Testament, always focusing on the question of the histori-
cal Jesus. At that time he developed an interest for Rudolf Bultmann
(1884–1976). Rising conflicts in the community made him decide to
go to Germany to further explore his Jesus studies. From 1956 till 1965
he studied in Heidelberg with Günther Bornkamm (1905–1990) who
was a student of Bultmann. Besides his exegetical studies, Ahn started
to turn to classical Asian literature again.
As a Korean or an Asian, I had to redefine where I stood. [. . .] I wished
to free myself once and for all from Western theology and ask from a
different perspective. With a conscious skepticism I wanted to find out
whether my enthusiasm for Jesus was a coincidence.5
Ahn received his doctor’s degree in 1965 with a study on “Kung-Tse
[Confucius] and Jesus about Love”.6 Having returned to Korea, he
resumed teaching at Chungang Seminary. From 1965 till 1971, the
year Hanguk Theological Seminary appointed him as a professor, he
also served as the president of Chungang Seminary. The Hyang-rin
4
The Korean Name Hyang-rin means “good neighbour(hood)”.
5
Interview May 14, 1988.
6
Ahn, Byung-Mu, Das Verständnis der Liebe bei Kung-tse und bei Jesus, type-writ-
ten PhD dissertation, Heidelberg 1965.
62 chapter four
congregation elected the returned Ahn as their leader. Nevertheless

he stubbornly refused to be ordained, so that the congregation had to
invite an ordained minister to officiate when necessary. Eventually the
denominationally independent congregation joined the PROK. Upon
his return to Korea, Ahn’s mother—who was suffering from cancer—
begged him for a daughter-in-law. Against his ideal of celibacy and a
simple life of imitating Christ, which he had proclaimed in the com-
munity, Ahn married in 1969.
Ahn made a great contribution to theological training and the devel-
opment of Korean theology by founding the “Korea Theological Study
Institute” in 1973.7 The translation of German and English theological
literature done by the staff of this institute enabled Korean theologians
to participate in international discussions. The institute also published
two theological magazines: the monthly “Presence”8 especially for lay
people, and the academic quarterly “Theological Thought”, which
became the mouthpiece for Minjung theology. At times, the govern-
ment banned both journals. Ahn had conceptualized this institute as
interdenominational and ecumenical, thereby installing a board of
trustees, which included representatives from various theological col-
leges. The institute was meant to be a theological forum for both lay
people and theologians.
His commitment to human rights issues—which is reflected in
many lectures and essays—has deeply influenced Ahn’s theological
thinking.9 According to him the first public presentation of Minjung
theology took place in 1975.10
In April 1975, a group of political prisoners was released from jail. We
wanted to prepare a welcome ceremony for them in the Saemoonan
church. I was to give a lecture. The meeting was forbidden by the KCIA11
and we were afraid they would put me under detention. Therefore, I left
home earlier and arrived at the Saemoonan church after taking many
7
He was financially supported by the Deutsche Ostasien Mission (DOAM)
which was then chaired by Ferdinand Hahn, who had been an assistant to Günther
Bornkamm during Ahn’s stay in Heidelberg.
8
This journal was already started by Ahn in 1969.
9
Cf. Ahn Byung-Mu, Jesus und die Menschenrechte, in: id., Drauβen vor dem
Tor. Kirche und Minjung in Korea. Theologische Beiträge und Reflexionen, Göttingen
1986, 66–71.
10
Kim Yong-Bock claims to be the first one to have introduced the term in English
(see below 99).
11
Korea Central Intelligence Agency.
detours. The church was closed. We did not dare to enter. There was a
small building next to it, which provided space for about four hundred
people. There were four thousand people. But many hundreds of KCIA-
people and policemen blocked the main entrance. It was the first time I
spoke about Minjung theology in public.12
Due to pressure from the government, Ahn was banished from the
college in June 1975. Together with other dissidents, he established
the Galilee congregation, which dedicated itself to family members of
those who were politically prosecuted. The PROK entrusted him with
the task of founding a Mission Education Center, which was supposed
to focus primarily on the continuing education of ministers, especially
in the area of urban and rural mission (UIM/URM). However, the
political situation of these years made Ahn set up a theological train-
ing course in 1977 for those students who had been discharged from
the universities and who had partly served in prison for some time.
Most of them had not enjoyed any previous theological training. In
1978, Suh Nam-Dong took over leadership of this institute. The ros-
ter of tutors, including many professors who, like Ahn, had lost their
positions for political reasons, can be read as a ‘who’s who’ of Minjung
theology: besides Ahn and Suh, the brothers Moon Ik-Hwan and Moon
Dong-Hwan taught Old Testament and religious education, and Lee
Oo-Jung, classical languages. The synod of the PROK acknowledged
this training center in the autumn of 1979.
Thus, more than fifty people came together. It was a great occasion for
me. I am proud of this plan and of the fact that it was my idea. [. . .]
When Suh Nam-Dong was released from prison I conferred my position
upon him. We had a close relationship and focused on the development
of Minjung theology [. . .]. Although we called it a ‘theological course’ we
also studied quite thoroughly our history and social sciences, economics
and political science. We discussed in groups. It was an entirely different
way of learning. We gave lectures in the morning and discussed during
the afternoon. We concentrated mainly on our situation and asked our-
selves what imperialism, colonialism etc. was, where dictatorship came
from, and so forth. It was a very important period for us as well as for
the young generation. Together we developed new thoughts.13
12
Interview with Ahn July 20, 1988. The lecture is available in German: Ahn,
Byung-Mu, Nation, Volk, Minjung und Kirche, in: id., Drauβen vor dem Tor, 79–84.
13
Interview July 20, 1988.
64 chapter four
On March 1st 1976, Ahn was arrested for signing the “Declaration
of Democracy and National Salvation”.14 He was sentenced to sev-
eral years of imprisonment, but international pressure led to his early
release in December of the same year.
We were arrested by the KCIA. We did not sleep at all for ten days,
night or day. They did not let us sleep. We had to sit, while the guards
could go on and off duty. The entire day, twenty-four hours, they never
left us alone for a minute. Ten days without sleep, and they did not let
us close our eyes for a moment. It was torture, great torture. They did
not need to hit us. This was torture enough. Of course we did not have
anything to hide.
After ten days, at three or four o’clock in the morning, while it was
still dark, they took us to prison. It was the first time that I was ever in
prison. I had often been interrogated by the KCIA only for a day, never
for such a long period of time. I had always been released the same day.
Eighteen people were interrogated and eleven were taken into custody.
Kim Dae-Jung was one of them, Moon Ik-Kwan, Moon Dong-Hwan,
I Moon-Yong, Suh Nam-Dong, and myself, as well as some Catholic
priests. The latter did not sign anything, but they had supported us
when we read the declaration during a worship service in Myongdong
cathedral.15
In prison, they brought me to some cell and when I looked around I
saw that there was no toilet, but a bucket instead. I am very strong on
hygiene. I thought I would not survive this for long. I would have to
clean up everything myself. I could not stand it. Still, I had not had any
sleep for ten days and already I was powerless. So I fell asleep some-
how, sitting or lying down. Then someone yelled and I woke up again.
I noticed that my cell was visible from other cells: there were only bars
between. Like in the zoo! Around midday a guard came and took me to
another cell. It was very small, but I was alone and there was a door. And
there I sat. I did not know what to do.
They took pictures of me. I was only a criminal, a sinner. I sat there,
helpless, without a book or anything. It was very cold at that time. And
then there were these prisoners, young people, who had to work, clean-
14
Cf. Widerstand in Korea: Erklärung zur demokratischen Rettung der Nation, epd.
Dokumentation 43/77, 11–15. This manifesto focuses on the important themes of the
political resistance: democratisation, social justice and reunification. Significantly, it
bears witness to a firm anti-communism. It is a follow up to the 1973 declaration
of Korean Christians that was written in response to the introduction of the Yushin
constitution in 1972. Theologically the authors of this earlier declaration, whose
names have been concealed, stressed God’s option for the poor and the coming of
the messianic kingdom. Cf. Documents on the Struggle for Democracy in Korea, ed.
by The Emergency Christian Conference on Korean Problems, Tokyo 1975, 37–43.
See below 135.
15
Main Catholic Church in the center of Seoul.
ing or serving the meals and the like. They were thieves and violent
criminals. I used to regard such young people just as criminals. They
were not real people to me. The eleven of us were isolated. The sur-
rounding cells were kept empty. No one but the guards was allowed near
us. But these young prisoners threw food into our cells and thick woolen
stockings and so on. One of them was discovered and beaten, but still
he kept on doing it.
Then, all of a sudden, I heard people calling from all sides: “Prof. Ahn,
Dr. Ahn!” So more than three thousand prisoners had come to know
that I had been arrested. These criminals have played such a role. I was
confused. And for ten long months I lived with these people. They were
really pure human beings. They were only criminals if looked at from the
so-called moral perspective. But they were simply human, naive and very
different from the intellectual class. They were well aware of what was
right or wrong. Their language was barbaric. They uttered dirty words.
Our language is a refined, pure one. They spoke brutally. In the begin-
ning I could not stand it. I had to cover my ears. I shivered, because I
hated it so much. [. . .] After a while, though, I became a close friend to
those young people. We judged these people according to our catego-
ries. But this standard was wrong. I had to learn to think the other way
around, how I appeared to these people. I was more dirty, cunning and
cowardly.
This was the turning point for me. I started to look at the world with
different eyes. I asked myself what the church and Christianity would
look like from their perspective. Intellectual speculation, philosophy and
theology did not make any sense to these people. Their language emerged
from the center of their own lives. I really lived in an entirely different
world and I thought through what minjung means. Of course we had
already started with the Gallilee congregation. But then it was mostly the
parents or family of those in prison. Our standards had to change. So I
read the Bible anew—After some time I had received a Bible—and I read
it from the beginning, without any commentary. My view had changed
dramatically. What seemed senseless to me before now appeared full of
sense to me and vice versa. [. . .] It was like I was born again. I will never
forget that experience.16
After Park Chung-Hee was assassinated in 1979, a short period of
democratization allowed Ahn to return to the theological seminary in
February 1980. Just six months later the military seized power again
and Ahn was suspended from university service once more. Only in
September 1984 was he rehabilitated along with most politically pros-
ecuted college teachers. He became dean of the Graduate School of
16
Interview July 20, 1988. Ahn characterizes this experience of imprisonment as a
hyondschang-experience; see below 86 and 107.
66 chapter four
Hanshin University until his retirement in 1987. By establishing the

sisterhood “Diakonia” in Mokpo (1980),17 Ahn made another attempt
to realize his idea of a Christian community.
Ahn belonged to the group of advisors of opposition leader Kim
Dae-Jung. His wife Park Young-Suk obtained a seat in parliament for
Kim’s Peace and Democracy Party through the elections of spring
1988. Yet Ahn did not only gain fame as a committed critic of the
regime and a well-known theological teacher, but also as a New Testa-
ment scholar, who had an enormous impact on the ongoing theologi-
cal discussion by publishing prolifically. In Western languages several
exegetically oriented essays18 are available, in addition to his many
meditative and social-kerygmatic works.19
Encountering Western Theology
The essential impulse for Ahn to turn to academic theology in the

first place came from Bultmann. Ahn had been fascinated by Bult-
mann’s major book on the synoptic tradition20 and the idea that the
biblical texts had a “Sitz im Leben”, even though the social dimen-
sion that Gerd Theißen and others later added to this concept was
at best implied. Probably even more important was Bultmann’s exis-
tential approach that spoke to the Korean situation after the civil war
(1950–53). According to Kang Won-Don, Ahn’s close assistant and a
second generation Minjung theologian himself, “before Minjung the-
ology Ahn was an existentialist”.21
Bultmann has been the only teacher with a large influence on me, as a
theologian and a New Testament scholar at the same time. [. . .] If I had
not encountered Bultmann, I would never have started doing theology.
He showed me how to do theology.22
17
In 1998 the mother house was moved to Chonan near Seoul, a branch remained
in Mokpo.
18
Cf. for instance Ahn Byung-Mu, Jesus and the Minjung in the Gospel of Mark,
in: Minjung Theology, 138–152; id., The Transmitters of the Jesus-event, in: CTC Bul-
letin, vol. 5 nr. 3–vol. 6 nr. 1, Singapore 1984/1985, 26–39. His Jesus of Galilee trans-
lated and published posthumously (Hong Kong 2005) shows that Ahn really was at
the height of the exegetical discussion of his time.
19
Cf. Ahn, Drauβen vor dem Tor.
20
Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 1. Aufl. Göt-
tingen 1921 [engl. 1968].
21
Interview with Kang Won-Don May 13, 2008.
22
Nevertheless Ahn is theologically self-educated. He had already read

exigetical literature extensively before he decided to go to Germany to
study with Bultmann. When Ahn found out that his chosen Master
was already retired, he went to Heidelberg, where Günther Bornkamm,
a member of the Bultmann school, taught. Even during the following
years he studied predominantly on his own. Yet Ahn had the oppor-
tunity to meet with Bultmann several times.
I never gave up the question of the historical Jesus. Almost the whole
time that I was in Germany, I focused on this issue. I regularly partici-
pated in the Bultmann conference. It was almost the only opportunity
for me to get to know the New Testament circles. I have not been to
any courses except for Günther Bornkamm’s private seminary, which
he offered to his students during semester periods. These meetings every
two weeks, from eight o’clock in the evening till twelve or one o’clock at
night, were important to me.23
For his struggle for human rights and democratization, Ahn later
referred also to Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945). That the confess-
ing church opposed the German Christians and the Nazi regime,
encouraged Ahn to confront the conservative Korean churches and
later the military dictatorship. His early essays are still drenched with
the concept of the “church for others”. As a Christian intellectual,
who rejected the established, conservative structure of the church and
who wished to strengthen the lay element, he translated this concept
into a plea for a Christian pro-existence in following Christ.24 This is
demonstrated in his effort to found a Christian community as well as
in the establishment of Chungang Seminary, the Korea Theological
Study Institute or the Mission Education Center. As an intellectual he
wanted to contribute to conscientization. The vertical structure of the
“for others”—which intends to elevate the other to one’s own stan-
dards25—was finally broken down by Ahn’s new Minjung Christology,
which made him emphasize participation. Jesus is sharing in the pain
of the people. He is not suffering for but with others.
Ahn does not deny the Western influence on his theology. On the
contrary, his commitment to the translation of Western theology into
23
24
Cf. Ahn, Drauβen vor dem Tor, 36.
25
Cf. Theo Sundermeier, Konvivenz als Grundstruktur theologischer Existenz
heute, in: id., Konvivenz und Differenz. Studien zu einer verstehenden Missionswis-
senschaft, 43–75, 52–54.
68 chapter four
Korean shows that he valued it highly.26 Nevertheless, he seeks the

discussion with Western theology from the position of an independent
Korean theology.
Yes, and I have stayed in Germany for a long time; when I came back,
I started to teach German theology here and I discovered that our
questions were Western questions and the answers were also Western
answers. Therefore, the one who should be posing the question was lost.
[. . .] So we have to ask ourselves honestly what we want and who we
are. And the answer has to be given by us; we have to be involved in it.
Almost one’s whole life, one would digest and learn Western theology,
digest it and teach it. That used to be all. But it does not work. We were
dishonest and could not keep on acting like parrots.27
With this new self-understanding, Ahn criticized the praxis-deficiency
of German academic theology.28
Studies on the Gospel of Mark
In his studies on the Gospel of Mark, Ahn time and again stresses the
close relationship between Jesus and the ochlos.29 His core thesis can be
paraphrased as follows: German historical-critical exegesis viewed the
Markan ochlos from the perspective of form criticism as a dramatic ele-
ment similar to the “antique choir” ,30 thereby failing to acknowledge its
social and theological significance.31 In contrast, he emphasizes Jesus’
unconditional commitment to the ochlos, which is displayed in the
Gospel of Mark. Ahn’s thesis can be divided into three hypotheses,
26
“I was educated by Western theology. I cannot divert from it. It is within me;
it is part of me. My thoughts, my language, also logics plays a role [. . .]. I admit it,
whether I like it or not, consciously or unconsciously, I cannot reject it” (interview
July 20, 1988).
27
28
“German theology is a theology which for the most part lacks the praxis of life”
(Ahn Byung-Mu, Das leidende Minjung, in: Evangelische Kommentare 20, 1987, 12–
16, 14).
29
The Greek word ochlos signifies in the Gospel of Mark a group of socially uprooted
people, who come together wherever Jesus appears during his public life. Compare my
analysis of Ahn’s theses in: Volker Küster, Jesus und das Volk im Markusevangelium.
Ein Beitrag zum interkulturellen Gespräch in der Exegese, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1996
[Korean translation 2006], to which I shall refer in what follows.
30
Cf. Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, Tübingen 19932, 50,
54f, 64, 72f.
31
Cf. Ahn, Jesus and the Minjung, 138–139.
which investigate a research-historical, a terminological and a redac-

tion-critical aspect of the role of the ochlos in the Gospel of Mark:
– Research historical deficit: German historical-critical exegesis has

neglected the Markan ochlos as a social group.
The role of the ochlos in the New Testament scriptures has rarely
been thematized in exegetical literature. There have been voices
which have pointed towards a special esteem of the ochlos in the
gospels. Their perspective, however, differed and was often ecclesio-
logical. Ahn rightly drew attention to a deficit of Western histori-
cal-critical exegesis, which he tries to overcome by the second and
third hypotheses.
– Terminological innovation: the evangelist Mark designates a social
group with the term ochlos, which is assigned a special meaning in
his gospel.
Mark used the word ochlos—applied only peripherally in Jewish-
Hellenistic literature (LXX, Philo, Josephus), it was supposed to
characterize a “crowd” and had a pejorative connotation—to refer
to a central group of people in the Gospel of Mark that experiences
an enormous boost by Jesus’ direct and immediate commitment
towards them.
– Redaction critical innovation: the role of the ochlos is relevant for
Markan theology.
The political interpretation of the Gospel of Mark by Ahn is com-
patible with the traditional historical-critical exegesis of Mark:
a. The geographical opposition Galilee—Jerusalem, already noted
by Ernst Lohmeyer,32 corresponds with the account of two con-
flicts: a double normative conflict between Jesus and the local
upper class as well as the religious authorities in Galilee and a
conflict about his authority with the aristocracy of the temple in
Jerusalem. In addition the hostile attitude of the people of Jeru-
salem towards Jesus reveals an urban-rural-conflict as well.
b. The “messianic secret” (Wiliam Wrede)33 can be understood as
a protective secret that Jesus wants to keep from his adversar-
ies, the local religious and political authorities of Galilee and the
32
Cf. Ernst Lohmeyer, Galiläa und Jerusalem, Göttingen 1936.
33
Cf. Wiliam Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein Beitrag
zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums, Göttingen 1901.
70 chapter four
aristocracy of the temple in Jerusalem. Immediately after Jesus’

claim to be the Messiah becomes publicly known (14.61f ) the
decision to kill him is taken (14.64).
The Galilean ochlos, an amorphous, and in its membership varying

group of people from the Galilean lower class, is the addressee of Jesus’
mission. The call to follow him, which is not only addressed to the
apostles, but also to the ochlos (8.34), presupposes the will to suffer as
well (8.34–38). In Mk 10.45, Jesus interprets his imminent death sote-
reologically for the first time. With this christological core sentence he
responds to the apostles’ struggle for status (10.35–42). Jesus contrasts
the political power relations of his time with the inner organizational
structure of the group of apostles. He postulates a radical change of
positions—whoever wishes to be first shall become the servant of all
others. The Gospel of Mark is a scripture with a hierarchy-critical ten-
dency, which displays a short period of Jesus’ human life before he
was put on trial as the “biography of the exemplary suffering right-
eous one”.34 He proclaims the kingdom of God to the ochlos, whose
magnificence is experienced by these people in the short period of his
public actions in his unconditional commitment to them. The Jesus-
movement appears as a counter community (Mk 10.42–45), which is
characterized by inner solidarity and a willingness to endure conflicts
with its surroundings.
The Jesus Event and Kerygma
Ahn was shocked when he discovered in Germany that Bultmann’s

attitude towards the question of the historical Jesus leads into a dead
end street. This explains his polemical criticism of the kerygmatic the-
ology of his master—a kind of theological patricide—against all Asian
conventions. Ahn castigates the convergence of radical criticism and
the Lutheran doctrine of justification—which becomes apparent in
Bultmann’s theology—as conservative. Bultmann simply replaced
Luther’s “gospel” with “kerygma” thereby suspending the question
of the historical Jesus. In contrast, Ahn wants to differentiate funda-
34
Cf. Diether Lührmann, Biographie des Gerechten als Evangelium, in: Wort und
Dienst 14, 1977, 25–50.
mentally between the eschatological kerygma of the institutionalized

Church and the Jesus event of Minjung theology. His thesis can be
divided in two hypotheses:
– In Early Christianity one needs “to distinguish the two different tra-
ditions, namely, the kerygmatic tradition and the narrative tradition
of the Jesus event”.35
– These traditions are transmitted by the institutionalized Church and
the minjung respectively.
These hypotheses are not inextricably linked together. As Ahn admits,

the socio-historical proof of the existence of different transmitters of
tradition first needs to be furnished.36 The relation between the institu-
tionalized Church and the minjung remains unclear in Ahn’s explana-
tion. This differentiation is probably not least motivated by his critical
attitude towards the institutional Church.37 The second, speculative
hypothesis may not, in any case, cast a cloud over the first’s worthi-
ness for discussion.
Over against Bultmann’s dictum that the gospels are the expanded
kerygma, Ahn states: “In the beginning there was the event, not the
kerygma.”38 The Jesus event was secretly communicated as a rumor.39
In the early Christian community the Jesus event, transmitted by the
minjung, was robbed of its historical dimension. The kerygma “was
primarily concerned with the meaning and not with the description
of the Jesus event”.40 Its formulation was influenced by the striv-
ing to reduce conflicts with the outer world and the stabilization of
the institution in the inner circle. The concrete suffering of Jesus on
the cross, his being abandoned by God, completely disappears into
35
Ahn, The Transmitters of the Jesus-Event, 28.
36
Op. cit., 26.
37
Ahn regards the apostles as the representatives of the Church hierarchy. This is
probably why they do not appear as characters of identification in his theology. They
lead a shadowy existence in his exegetical works.
38
Ahn, The Transmitters of the Jesus-Event, 27.
39
“. . . the transmitters of the Jesus-event were the minjung of that time and they
spread the stories about the Jesus-event in the form of rumors both as a witness to
the truth of the Jesus-event and as a means of expressing their own sufferings and
aspirations. For they saw reflected in the Jesus-event and particularly in his passion
their own fate” (op. cit., 37).
40
Op. cit., 30.
72 chapter four
the background. In the Christ-hymn of Philippians for instance, “the

incarnation appears merely as a transition point between the pre-
existence and the exaltation of Christ”.41 Ahn thereby contrasts it with
the portrayal of the life of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, which is based
on the minjung tradition, that was spread in rumors.
Overall, Ahn criticizes theology with the help of exegetical argu-
mentation. He emphasizes the historical dimension of Christian faith,
the dangerous memory of Jesus suffering on the cross and his res-
urrection, which at once allows the minjung to identify and offers a
source of hope.
Paul
As can be said for Third World theologies in general, Paul plays an

insignificant role in Ahn’s thinking.42 His skepticism towards keryg-
matic theology extends itself to Paul as its alleged founder.43 Yet Ahn
pleads that the Pauline letters be read in their biographical and social
context.44 He arrives at the following conclusion:
If Paul had preached without taking a stance in the problems of his
time, like the “Full Gospel Church”45 does today, then he would not have
encountered any problems. But they slapped him, because he did not
preach like that. That is why he was persecuted day and night and had
to suffer again and again.46
In a Bible study on I Cor 1.26–31, Ahn speaks of an “urban ochlos”
in Corinth analogous to the “rural ochlos” in the Gospel of Mark.47
According to the image of the Corinthian community we get from
Paul, it was composed primarily of lower class people. Unlike Mark’s
41
Op. cit., 29.
42
An exception is Elsa Tamez, The Amnesty of Grace. Justification by Faith from a
Latin American Perspective, Nashville, Tennessee 1993.
43
Cf. Ahn, Jesus and the Minjung in the Gospel of Mark, 139–140. One of the rea-
sons for this imbalance might be the literary genre of the letter chosen by Paul, which
blocks a narrative reception, unlike the stories of Jesus.
44
Cf. Ahn, Byung-Mu, Theologie der Ereignisse. Predigt über 2 Kor.11.23–33, in:
id., Drauβen vor dem Tor, 21–25, 22.
45
The ‘Full Gospel Church’ founded by reverend Cho Yung-Ki (David Cho) on
the isle Yoido in Seoul, is the greatest single congregation in Korea, with about eight
hundred fifty thousand members.
46
Op. cit., 23.
47
Cf. Ahn, Byung-Mu, The chosen Minjung. Bible study about 1st Corinthians, Chap-
ter 1, verses 26–31 (WARC, 2 September 1979), unpublished manuscript 9 pages, 4.
“wandering ochlos”, they were settled. Paul clearly takes sides with
these weak ones whom God has chosen. “But this means, as a mat-
ter of fact, that Paul announces a revolution here.”48 Unfortunately,
Paul does not answer the question as to how this revolutionary change
should be brought about. Ahn certifies a socio-ethical deficit in Paul.
“We, as historical beings, must deal particularly with this ‘how’. This
is exactly the sphere for which Christians hold responsibility.”49 On
other occasions, Ahn reproaches Paul for turning social conflicts into
eschatological ones by removing differences in the image of the Body
of Christ in I Cor.12.12–20 and similar statements, such as Gal.3.28
and Phil.16.50
Christological Consequences51
In contrast to liberal theology’s Jesus-research in the 19th century,

Ahn is interested in the “historical” Jesus, in the sense that he is
present in our history time and again. Thus, he criticizes Bultmann’s
kerygmatic theology, but after all agrees with him that a pure historical
reconstruction of Jesus does not make sense.
And he was also correct in thinking: Why do we ask for the historical
Jesus? [. . .] A Jewish young man, what does it mean if we could recon-
struct precisely who he was?52
When asked about his hermeneutics, Ahn denies having any special
method. But then he goes on to describe his doing theology in the
form of the hermeneutical circle.
I often hear about this minjung methodology. Honestly, I do not have
any special methodology or hermeneutics. In the beginning we did not
want to start a new theological school; we wanted to live. But then life
offered us a different perspective. [. . .] I have always looked at things
from above and now I regard them from below. I have always handled
48
Ahn, The chosen Minjung, 6.
49
Op. cit., 7.
50
Cf. Ahn, Das Subjekt in der Geschichte im Markusevangelium, 138f: “In this
context Paul takes a clear theological stance. He proclaims that it is God’s will to side
with the poor. Nevertheless he did not think of establishing a church for the poor. For
him there could only be one church for all (Rom 10,12–13).”
51
Cf. Theo Sundermeier, Das Kreuz in koreanischer Interpretation, in: id., Das
Kreuz als Befreiung, München 1985, 17–38.
52
74 chapter four
things intellectually, but now I see everything from the perspective of

the lives of the minjung, from the perspective of those who suffer. One
cannot separate the interpretation and the content of a text. We would
easily slide into a subject-object-framework. I interpret the Bible and
at the same time I interpret my life. Text and context—what is the text
and what is the context? The question as such is already wrong. Then
I insisted differently. But now I think there is no text without context
and no context without text. Like Bultmann said, the interpreter is also
part of the story, i.e. of the text. We interpret a two-thousand-year-old
text, but as Koreans, who live in the contemporary world, we interpret
our history. Considering this, it is not the Jesus who lived two thousand
years ago. It is the historical Jesus, but he is also present today.53
To have elevated the life of Jesus to an integral part of Christology
again remains Ahn’s lasting contribution. Jesus’ life, death and res-
urrection are the event in which God revealed himself to the world.
The concept of event54 manifests the historicity of the Christian faith.
Closely connected to this is the question: “Who is Jesus for us today?”
Christology becomes the hermeneutical key for human experience, a
possibility to identify with and a source of hope at the same time. The
minjung recognize their own suffering in Jesus Christ’s Passion. Simi-
larly the Minjung theologians are “encountering the suffering Christ
in the suffering minjung”.55 For Ahn, the Jesus-event becomes pres-
ent in minjung events, such as the textile worker Chun Tae-Il setting
himself on fire or student Park Chun-Chul’s death by torture.56 This
is exactly where the question of faith comes in, according to Minjung
theologians.
In our everyday lives, we often overlook God’s vertical interference. But
we have to believe the reality of the miracle of God’s interference. What
the world may testify to everyday—God came to the world!57
53
Ibid.
54
Wolfgang Kröger, Erfahrung—ein Streitpunkt im ökumenischen Gespräch.
Reflexion auf das Programm einer Befreiungstheologie im Kontext der Ersten Welt,
ausgehend von Erfahrungen in Südkorea, in: Ökumenische Rundschau 37, 1988, 185–
199 speaks of a “theologia eventorum” (op. cit. 185).
55
Ahn, Byung-Mu, “Was ist die Minjung-Theologie”, in: Junge Kirche 43, 1982,
290–296, 295.
56
Cf. Ahn Byung-Mu, “Minjung-Bewegung und Minjung-Theologie”, in: Zeitschrift
für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 73, 1989, 126–133 [= Zeitschrift für
Mission 15, 1989, 18–26].
57
Ahn, Theologie der Ereignisse, 25.
Both major themes of Ahn’s theology, the historical Jesus and the
minjung converge in this concept of a corporate theologia crucis.
The Gospel of Mark does not depict a personal biography of Jesus’ life
and actions, but it is a social-biography.58 [. . .] If one considers Jesus’ life
with this presupposition in mind, one should not look for traces of Jesus’
behavior as an individual, but for what happened between Jesus and the
people surrounding him.59
Ahn postulates an analogy between the Markan ochlos and the Korean
minjung. The ochlos is a group of reference, which shows God’s option
for the minjung. Considering this, according to him the passion of
Jesus can be understood as “a condensation of the suffering fate of the
minjung”.60 He has been accused of identifying the minjung with Jesus,
thereby idolizing them. Here, a distinction has to be made between
identifying in the sense of remembering or recognizing one’s own suf-
fering in Jesus’ passion or recognizing Jesus’ passion in the suffering
of the minjung, and a direct identification of Jesus with the minjung
and vice versa.61 In this respect, the hermeneutical circle can also be
a helpful model of clarification. Through interpreting Christ’s suffer-
ing on the cross as sharing their lot, the minjung who are alienated
in their suffering re/construct their identity and become the subjects
of history. God’s option for the poor empowers them in their identity
re/construction.62
Postscriptum: R.S. Sugirtharajah who re-printed what probably is
Ahn’s single most influential article “Jesus and the Minjung in the
Gospel of Mark” in his prize-winning anthology Voices from the Mar-
gin in 1991 as an example “how historical-critical tools can be used to
liberate biblical texts”,63 later took a more critical stance:
58
Ahn, Das Subjekt der Geschichte, 161. The concept of social biography was intro-
duced by Kim Yong-Bock; see below 100f.
59
Ahn, Das Subjekt der Geschichte, 164.
60
Op. cit., 167.
61
David Suh, who seems to oppose this differention (see above xiv–xvi), might well
represent an extreme position within the group of Minjung theologians. Cf. Kwon, Jin-
Kwan, Jesus, Symbol of Minjung—Minjung, Symbol of Jesus [Korean], Seoul 2009.
62
63
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Voices from the Margin. Interpreting the Bible in the Third
World, London 1991, 85.
76 chapter four
. . . recent exegetical examples of minority discourse worked out by Ahn

Byung-Mu, Kuribayashi Teruo, Hisako Kinukawa, and James Massey
may appear to be original Korean, Indian or Japanese products, yet in
a subtle manner they are based on and rework historical-critical prin-
ciples. It is worth noting that most of these authors are transplanted or
uprooted professionals who return to their caste, community, or tribe to
re-present themselves as articulate members of various subaltern groups
after learning their craft and Western theories of oppression at cosmo-
politan centers. Since they are denied entry into the local mainstream
interpretative arena, they adopt a negative attitude to their local tradi-
tions and share an antagonistic relationship to the dominant culture;
hence they are attracted to these foreign theories.64
Sugirtarajah has come the other way round trading Third World theol-
ogy to the West at the University of Birmingham. In the course of the
1990s he reinvented himself as a postcolonial critic in the Diaspora
arguing from the lectern of Western academia, by making use of a
discourse that was initiated by Third World intellectuals like Frantz
Fanon (1925–1961) and Edward Said (1935–2003) who were contem-
poraries of the first generation contextual theologians and share their
experience of being forced to reconstruct one’s identity in a post-
colonial situation in the chronological sense. Christian theologians in
Africa and Asia had the delicate task of explaining how they, as adher-
ents of the religion of the former colonizers, can contribute to nation
building. What they came up with in many ways matches the ideas of
Fanon and Said and therefore can be interpreted as postcolonial theol-
ogy avant la lettre.65
Sugirtharajah’s critique, directed primarily against Latin American
liberation theology, but en passant extended to what he calls “identity
specific readings”,66 consists of four major queries:67
64
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Asian Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonialism. Contesting
the Interpretations, Maryknoll, New York 1998, 129.
65
Korea is regarded with curiosity by postcolonial critics because it has not been
colonized by a Western power but by Japan. They frequently overlook that Japan was
considered the model pupil of Westernization and sustained in its colonial enterprises
by its Western masters. See above 49 fn. 56.
66
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, Oxford
2002, 105. He has ommited Minjung theology and Black theology here.
67
Cf. R.S. Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World. Precolonial, Colonial and
Postcolonial Encounters, Cambridge 2001, 203–243; id., Postcolonial Criticism and Bib-
lical Interpretation, 65–67 and 103–123.
– they are reproducing Western thought patterns of historical critical

exegesis;
– their hermeneutics of suspicion stops in front of the biblical text;
– they do not take into account the cultural-religious dimension;
– they remain christocentric.
What might be partly true for some Latin American liberation theo-
logians certainly is a distortion in Ahn’s case. He did of course make
use of Western methodology, but like many others, Ahn went through
a painful process of emancipating himself and developing his own
theological position. He became not only suspicious of the findings of
Western historical-critical exegesis, but also criticizes the kerygmatic
structure of the Bible itself. Already during his years in Heidelberg
Ahn began to study Asian cultures and religions.
His dissertation on “Kung-Tse and Jesus about Love”68 is an early
account of this. With his newly awakened interest in ki,69 he turned
back to these issues during his last years. Upon his return to Korea
in 1965, however, the situation soon forced him to take a political
stance. Minjung theology, even though belonging to the liberation
branch, took into account the cultural religious dimension. Jesus
Christ becomes a hermeneutical tool to find traces of God’s acting
in history. Sugirtharajah in fact castigates Ahn for what postcolonial
theology is propagating as “liberating interdependence”70 and “contra-
puntal reading”.71
What then is the legacy of Ahn Byung-Mu? Of course his rediscov-
ery of Jesus’ option for the poor, his hermeneutic Christology and the
theology of events, but probably even more his general attitude, the
openness towards doing theology as a theologia semper reformanda.
Ahn understood his own biography and his theology equally as open
systems, which must reconstitute themselves in new situations, over
and over again.
68
Ahn, Das Verständnis der Liebe bei Kung-tse und bei Jesus.
69
Korean ki or Chinese chi referred to as “breath” or “life force”, is a key concept
of Asian spirituality. The canalization of ki in the human body plays an important role
in traditional medicine, as well as in martial arts.
70
Musa W. Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, St. Louis 2000,
123.
71
R.S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Reconfigurations. An Alternative Way of Reading
the Bible and Doing Theology, St. Louis 2003, 170.
78 chapter four
Therefore, if someone asks: yesterday you talked like this and you used
to write like that, and why do you speak this way today, I will not react
at all; yesterday is yesterday and today is today. I do not want to let
myself be captured in a particular framework. The minjung is a living
substance as well and how can I let the minjung be captured in a par-
ticular framework?72
Ahn Byung-Mu anno 2009 would be reading Richard Horsley’s Jesus
and Empire73 and surfing the net for the latest trends in progressive
theological thinking. He would join the global flow of liberation the-
ologies searching Jesus among the victims of globalization on the par-
ticular local level.74
72
73
Richard Horsley, Jesus and Empire. The Kingdom of God and the New World
Disorder, Minneapolis 2003.
74
Cf. Kang, Won-Don, Ethical Thoughts of Byung-Mu Ahn, in: Theological Thought
vol. 139, 2007, 227–265, with an abstract in English, 264f.
CHAPTER FIVE
A CONFLUENCE OF TWO TRADITIONS

SUH NAMDONG 19181984
Suh Nam-Dong, who proved himself to be an expert on modern West-

ern theology,1 is often regarded as the systematic alter ego of the exe-
getically oriented Ahn Byung-Mu. Ahn confirms this view by pointing
to his co-operation with Suh in the Mission Education Center: “Suh
Nam-Dong and I agreed: You have to look at things from a systematic
point of view and I from an exegetical point of view.”2 Many consider
these two to be the grand old men of Minjung theology. Suh was born
in 1918 in Muan in the province South Cholla and grew up on the
island of Chindo. He died in 1984, at the age of 66.
Like Ahn, Suh completed most of his university studies at a col-
lege of the colonial power Japan (1937–41). In March 1941 he left the
Doshisha University in Kyoto with a BA in theology. After returning
to Korea, he taught at the Pyongyang Johan Theological Seminary for
one year.3 Between 1943 and 1952, Suh served as a pastor in three dif-
ferent congregations.4 In 1952 he followed a call to Hanguk Theologi-
cal Seminary, which gave him a leave for further studies in Canada
a few years later (1955–57). In May 1956 Suh obtained an MDiv at
the Victoria Seminary of Toronto University. Exactly one year later
he acquired a ThM at the same institution. In 1963 Suh joined the
Faculty of Theology of Yonsei University where he had been teaching
part-time since September 1961.
In 1975 Suh was discharged as a professor because of his politi-
cal commitments. He was arrested several times and tortured. After
he had served his last prison term in 1984 Suh did not return to the
university. Instead he chose to continue working as director of the
Mission Education Center, an assignment he had already taken over at
the insistence of Ahn Byung-Mu after his first release in 1978.5 In May
1
Cf. Suh, Nam-Dong, Theology in Transition [Korean], Seoul 1976.
2
Interview with Ahn July 20, 1988.
3
From September 1941 until December 1942.
4
At Taegu Cheil, Bomu and Tongmun church.
5
Interview with Ahn July 20, 1988.
80 chapter five
1984—shortly before his death—his Canadian alma mater granted

Suh an honorary doctorate. The election as chairman of the Korea
Christian Faculty Fellowship and of the Korea Association of Christian
Studies witness to Suh’s academic recognition in Korea.
Chi Myong-Kwan6 has spread the rumor that Suh was first con-
fronted with poems of regime critic Kim Chi-Ha7—who was arrested
in those days—in a Bible study during a conference of the Faith and
Order commission in Nairobi (1974). On his return trip, Suh stopped
over at Tokyo to acquaint himself with data published in Japan on the
Korean Democratization Movement.
The Catholic lay theologian Kim Chi-Ha became very influential
with regard to the development of Suh Nam-Dong’s Minjung theol-
ogy.8 Like Suh, he was a son of the rebellious Cholla province, born in
1941 in Mokpo. Kim joined the student movement at an early stage.
Although he enrolled at Seoul National University9 only in 1959, he
participated in the student revolt of April 19th, 1960 which led to the
fall of Syngman Rhee. He quickly advanced to being a spokesperson
of the student-initiated reunification movement. Park Chung-Hee’s
military coup forced him to go underground, and he wandered about
and managed with occasional jobs. In 1963 Kim returned to the uni-
versity and immediately joined the resistance movement against the
Korean-Japanese normalization treaty.10 Again, he was forced to hide
out before graduating in 1966. His jobs in the docks and coalmines
caused him to contract tuberculosis and he spent a long period in a
sanatorium. Kim’s first poems appeared in the magazine “The Poet” in
6
Cf. Chi, Myong-Kwan, Thy Kingdom Come: Toward Mission in the 1980s, in:
CTC Bulletin 3, 1982, 15–21, 18; similar Ahn in the interview May 14, 1988. This
episode is an indicator of the success of the propaganda politics of Park’s regime that
was aimed at the new middle class.
7
See above 27 fn. 1.
8
On the occasion of presenting this chapter to the Suh Nam-Dong Society on
April 16, 2008 several of the members emphasized that Ham Sok-Hon had a similar
important influence on Suh. Unfortunately the material accessible in Western lan-
guages does not provide any evidence for this fact. Cf. Ham Sok-Hon, Queen of Suf-
fering. A Spiritual History of Korea, London and Philadelphia 1985.
9
At the department of aesthetics of the faculty of humanities.
10
In 1965 the Korean Government signed the so called “Normalization Treaty”
with Japan. The two countries agreed that Japan would pay 800 million Dollar repara-
tions for the colonization of Korea and that they would resume diplomatic relations.
Many Koreans thought the contract to be inequitable. The students hit the streets in
protest.
a confluence of two traditions 81
1969. At that time he also made overtures to Catholicism, recognizing

a revolutionary power in Christianity. In 1971 Kim was baptized.
Time and again Kim Chi-Ha succeeded in staying hidden, because
his illness prevented him from being arrested. His work provoked cen-
sorship and those magazines that published his writings anyway were
banned, the editors and publishers held responsible imprisoned. In
July 1974 a military court sentenced him to death, but international
pressure caused this to be commuted to life imprisonment. Following
his unexpected release in 1975, Kim was again apprehended. He was
forced to confess under torture to being a communist. Kim revoked
this confession in a declaration of conscience that was smuggled out
of prison.11 Not until December of the year 1980 was Kim released
from prison on parole. He remained under strict supervision and his
writings were further suppressed.
A large part of what Suh Nam-Dong envisioned theoretically had
previously been articulated by Kim Chi-Ha in his plays, poems and
pamphlets in the form of a narrative theology. Time and again, Kim
occupied himself with the character of Jesus Christ. In his poems
he interweaves different aspects of Jesus’ story, such as in the often-
cited ballad of Chang Il-Dam,12 but also extrapolates it in the play
“The Gold-Crowned Jesus”.13 It is always Jesus who identifies “with
the oppressed, the exploited, the troubled and the despised”14 and
Kim wants to imitate him.15 The confluence of Christian and Korean
minjung traditions—which is of crucial importance to Suh’s theo-
logical program16—finds its programmatic equivalent in Kim Chi-
11
Cf. Kim Chi-Ha, A Declaration of Conscience, in: id., The Gold-Crowned Jesus,
13–38. In the late 1980s Kim declared in the daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo, that this
declaration was written by his late friend and lawyer Park Young-Nae.
12
Cf. Suh, Nam Dong, Historical References for a Theology of Minjung, in: Min-
jung Theology, 155–182, 177–180.
13
Kim, The Gold-Crowned Jesus, 85–131.
14
Kim, Declaration of Conscience, 18.
15
Ibid.
16
Just a small part of Suh’s oeuvre is available in European languages. My pre-
sentation of his theology is based on the following two articles that are available in
English and German: “Towards a Theology of Han” (in: Minjung Theology, 55–69; cf.
Moltmann, Minjung Theologie, 27–46) and “Historical References for a Theology of
Minjung” (in: Minjung Theology, 155–182; cf. Moltmann, Minjung Theologie, 173–
213). For the German edition both articles were translated directly from a Korean
version and revised by the author. They therefore diverge from the English version
(cf. Moltmann, Minjung Theologie, 245f ). Suh incorporates the concluding part of the
first article in a different shape into the conclusion of the second article. The story
82 chapter five
Ha’s dictum of the “unity of God and revolution”. Moreover, the key
concept of Suh’s theology, Missio Dei,17 can also be found in Kim
Chi-Ha’s writings. From the way he uses the term one can deduce
that Kim—who is a man of wide reading in theology18—took it from
ecumenical discussions, to signal the presence of God in his specific
Korean situation.
The greatest single influence on my thinking, however, has been my
participation since 1971 in the Korean Christian movement for human
rights. This experience convinced me that the Korean tradition of resis-
tance and revolution, with its unique vitality under the incredibly nega-
tive circumstances prevailing here, are precious materials for a new
form of human liberation. This rich lode will be of special value to the
Third World. Shaped and polished by the tools of liberation theology,
our experience may inspire miraculous new forms of Missio Dei in the
gritty struggle of the South Korean people.19
Suh, Nam-Dong who has dealt most intensely with the problem of the
interaction between gospel and culture in the group of Minjung theo-
logians, shares with Kim Chi-Ha the liberation theological perspective.
Both thinkers are concerned with uncovering traces of the liberating
acts of God in history, in order to participate in the Missio Dei. Suh
makes a large number of references to the gospel, the Christian tradi-
tion and Korean history and culture, which would paradigmatically
illustrate the possibilities of a “symbiotic interpretation” of gospel
and culture. They all share a liberating impetus. In the message of
the Bible—which is especially revealed in the Crucifixion-Resurrection
of the Han of the bride can only be found in the German version of the first article
(Moltmann, Minjung Theologie, 33f ). A theological reflection has taken the place of its
original conclusion. Where I refer to the German version for passages that are lacking
in the English it is indicated in the footnotes.
17
See above 1.
18
“I also benefitted from the writings of the liberation theologians: Fredrick Her-
zog, James Cone, Richard Shaull, Paul Lehmann, Jürgen Moltmann, J.B. Metz, Tödt,
Hugo Assmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others. Papal statements
after Vatican II as well as such encyclicals as Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo
Anno provided insights” (op. cit., 26).
19
Kim, Declaration of Conscience, 26f.
Table 3: Periodization of Korean History20

Neolithic period: since ca. 4000 BC Communal clan-centered society
Bronze age: since ca. 800 BC Walled-town states and confederated
kingdoms
Three kingdoms: since ca. 50 BC Aristocratic societies under
monarchical rule
Since ca. 650 The fashioning of an authoritarian
monarchy
Since ca. 750 The age of powerful gentry families
Since ca. 950 The hereditary aristocratic order
Since ca. 1200 Rule by the military
Since ca. 1300 Emergence of the literati
Since ca. 1400 The creation of a yangban society
Since ca. 1450 The rise of the neo-confucian literati
Since ca. 1650 The emergence of landed farmers and
wholesale merchants
Ca. 1800–1850 Instability of the yangban status
system and the outbreak of popular
uprisings
Ca. 1850–1900 Growth of the forces of enlightenment
Ca. 1900 Nationalist stirrings and imperialist
aggression
Since 1919 Development of the nationalist
movement
Since 1945 The beginnings of democracy
event,21 the millennialism of the early church, and in theologies of the

Holy Spirit as Joachim of Floris and Thomas Müntzer have formulated
them—the liberating dimension that has been characteristic for Chris-
tian Faith throughout history, and which gives it its latent revolution-
ary power, is highlighted. Joining the historian Lee Ki-Baek—whose
theses have been widely discussed in Korea—Suh Nam-Dong presents
the history of Korea as a process that, “after an initial narrowing”, is
characterized by “a progressive expansion of the social base of the rul-
ing power” that culminates in the subjecthood of the minjung and in
the democratization of Korean society (see table 3).22
20
Cf. Suh, Historical References, 167–169 following Lee, A New History of Korea.
21
Unlike Ahn, who reintroduced the Life of Jesus into Christology, Suh refers here
to the traditional formula of “Crucifixion-Resurrection”.
22
In his account of Lee’s proposed sixteen eras and their corresponding social sys-
tems, Suh remains close to the original ideas (cf. Suh, Historical References, 167–169).
84 chapter five
This identity re/construction traces the history of suffering and resis-

tance back to the mythical beginnings of Korean history. Suh charac-
terizes these historical experiences with the help of the concept of han.
Analogous to the rejection of a translation for the term minjung, Suh
denies “suffering” as an adequate translation for the specific Korean
experience of han.23 Again Kim Chi-Ha’s influence on Suh surfaces.
According to Suh, it was Kim who expressed the idea that the han of
the Korean people carried a revolutionary potential during his impris-
onment.24 For Minjung theologians, the concept gained a paradoxical
meaning. Whereas han adequately refers to a deep, inexpressible pain,
it also time and again gives impulse to opposition movements.
Han is an underlying feeling of Korean people. On the one hand, it is a
dominant feeling of defeat, resignation, and nothingness. On the other,
it is a feeling with a tenacity of will for life, which comes to weaker
beings. The first aspect can sometimes be sublimated to great artistic
expressions and the second aspect could erupt as the energy for a revo-
lution or rebellion.25
Kim Chi-Ha wanted to vanquish han with the philosophy of dan.
“Dan is to overcome han. Personally, it is self-denial. Collectively, it
is to cut the vicious circle of revenge.”26 The poet describes himself as
priest of han, a role, which he ideally also prescribes for the Church
clergy. The ballad of Chang Il-Dam is an expression of this idea. As a
third generation butcher—an outcast profession in Korea—a son of a
prostitute like his father and grandfather, the experiences of suffering
of the Korean minjung come together in the character of Chang. Kim
describes Chang’s path from an escaped prisoner to a revolutionary
and a preacher of liberation. The birth of a child in the gutter becomes
It is striking that Lee is also adopted by official governmental organizations. His book
was marketed in Korean museums and in gift shops at the airport. This gives fur-
ther evidence to the hermeneutical struggle over the interpretation of Korean history
referred to above 22f. A quite different assessment is given by Theo Sundermeier, Plu-
ralismus, Fundamentalismus, Koinonia, in: Evangelische Theologie 54, 1994, 293–310,
who emphasizes the category “event” and postulates: “history does not play a role in
Minjung theology” (op. cit., 296). For him Minjung theology is “undoubtly commited
to a postmodern worldview” (op. cit., 310).
23
Under the heading “suffering”, the lexicons indeed do not suggest “han” as a pos-
sible translation. Translating “han” into “suffering” would by no means cover its use.
24
Cf. Suh, Towards a Theology of Han, 63.
25
Op. cit., 58.
26
Kim quoted op. cit., 65. Today Kim puts the emphasis more on hung (mirth) as
a counterbalance to han.
a key experience for him. He kneels before the mother, a prostitute

having the mark of death on her, and cries out: “Oh, my mother, God
is in your womb. God is the very bottom.”27 As he said this, he kissed
her feet. Betrayed by a disciple, he is handed over to the arbitrary
will of those in power. After being sentenced to death and beheaded,
he rises from death on the third day, cuts off his betrayer’s head and
replaces it with his own. In this gesture, revenge and reconciliation go
together, the head of the hero rests on the shoulders of the betrayer.
From the perspective of han, Suh questions the traditional under-
standing of sin. “Sin is language of those in power, han is language of
the minjung.”28 Suh turns the discriminating concept of sin against its
creators, the religious and worldly authorities. Sinners are those who
are “sinned against”, in his reading.29 This structural understanding of
sin does not neglect the individual sinfulness even of the minjung but
it shifts the emphasis. God sides with those who are usually despised as
sinners. He is present in the suffering of the ‘little people’. Suh is most
outspoken about the participation of the minjung in God’s works of
salvation. The han-experiences form the underside of Korean culture
and history. For Suh, Pansori and mask dance, but also Maitreya-Bud-
dhism and the Tonghak Movement are points of contact “ ‘paradigms’
or ‘archetypes’ ”,30 in which traces of God’s liberating acts in history
become visible in the suffering of the Korean people.31 Suh decidedly
declines the use of the theologumenon “revelation”, because of its reli-
gious connotation.32 Minjung theologians can build on their danger-
ous memories of the Jesus event when they want to recognize and act
according to the Missio Dei in their own situation.
27
Op. cit., 66.
28
Translated from the German version, Moltmann, Minjung Theologie, 46. Cf.
Andrew Sung Park, The Wounded Heart of God. The Asian Concept of Han and the
Christian Doctrine of Sin, Nashville 1993.
29
Cf. Raymond Fung, Good News to the Poor—A Case for a Missionary Move-
ment, in: Your Kingdom Come. Mission Perspectives, Report on the World Conference
on Mission and Evangelism, Melbourne, Australia 12–25 May 1980, Geneva 1980,
83–92.
30
Suh, Historical References, 157. See above 34–54.
31
Suh obviously went too far, in regarding the Mun sect as a successful incultura-
tion. Cf. Kim, Der Protestantismus in Korea, 169.
32
“The word ‘reference’ is used here in preference and in contrast to the word
‘revelation’, which is a term from and a tenet of traditional theology. While the word
‘revelation’ belongs to the category of, shall we say, pure religion, the word “reference”
belongs to that of history” (Suh, Historical References, 157).
86 chapter five
Now, the task for Korean Minjung theology is to testify that in the Mis-
sion of God in Korea there is a confluence of the minjung tradition in
Christianity and the Korean minjung tradition. It is to participate and
interpret theologically the events, which we consider to be God’s inter-
vention in history and the work of the Holy Spirit.33
Suh Nam-Dong calls this Hyonjang34 theology, a local theology aris-
ing from a concrete situation. Whereas Ahn focused on the biblical
text and developed his corporate theologia crucis from his exegetical
investigations into the relationship between Jesus and the ochlos in the
Gospel of Mark, Suh found a new approach to Christology by focusing
on the context. Korean culture and history constitute for him a sphere
where God intervenes through the Holy Spirit. While Ahn sees the
relationship between Jesus and the ochlos as analogous to the presence
of Christ in the minjung, Suh gives the matter a whole new twist by
distinguishing between the “traditional Christological interpretation”
and his “pneumatological-historical interpretation”.35 “The pneuma-
tological interpretation goes further and asserts that I imitate the life
of Jesus and repeat in my life the events of the life of Jesus.”36 His
aforementioned sympathies for Joachim of Floris refer to a specific
interpretation of trinity that brings the three persons into a successive
order of three ages.37 Rather than Christ being present in the Spirit,
he is imitated in the Spirit, since we are now in the age of the spirit.
This paves the way for Suh to argue that the context itself is the text.
According to Ahn, he and Suh had a discussion about this after one of
Ahn’s lectures, shortly before Suh’s death. Suh criticized Ahn for refer-
ring to the Bible as text and the Korean situation as context: “Why?
Our history is our text and the Bible is the context”.38
33
Op. cit., 177.
34
The first syllable Hyon means “present”, the second -jang means “location”. Cf.
Suh, Theology of Han, 57; see above 65 and below 107.
35
Cf. Suh, Historical References, 177.
36
Ibid.
37
Suh, Historical References, 163.
38
Interview with Ahn July 20, 1988. See below 110f.
CHAPTER SIX
FOOLS FOR CHRIST’S SAKE

HYUN YOUNGHAK 19212004
In age, Hyun Young-Hak belongs to the founding generation as well.

Like a number of Minjung theologians he was born in the territory
of today’s North Korea in 1921. His father, who died at an early age,
was a Methodist minister working as a teacher of religious education
at a girls’ secondary school. Fulfilling his father’s wish that one of his
sons should follow in his footsteps, the fifteen-year-old Young-Hak,
as the first child, changed his career plans and stopped preparing for
the admission test to study medicine. Hyun regarded this as an act
of obedience to Confucian family virtues. Conforming himself to this
ideal, he enrolled at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, his father’s
alma mater.
The young man could not help but be aware of the contradictions
of the times. Korean Christians were among the spokespersons of the
resistance against Japanese colonial rule, and he was studying at a
Japanese university. The keenness of the Japanese on progress—the
occupiers tried to suppress Korean culture and force their own West-
ernized culture on the colonized—also pervaded the atmosphere at the
seminary attached to Kwansei Gakuin. Hyun comments laconically on
this ambience: “When the best elements of Western culture are fur-
ther developed and spread universally the Kingdom will come”.1 The
Korean churches he visited in Japan were situated in the ghettos of
the burakumin,2 which were the only places Koreans were allowed to
live. Hyun saw the settlements of the poor and the workers which had
been built under the aegis of the Christian socialist Toyohiko Kagawa
1
Hyun Young-Hak, Theology with Sweat, Tears and Laughter, in: Inter-Religio 7,
1985, 28–40, 29.
2
The burakumin (outcasts) are a relic of the feudal society, although “ethnically
speaking purely Japanese” (44), they are still discriminated against in contemporary
Japan. Cf. the chapter “Für Recht und Freiheit der benachteiligten Gruppen”, in:
Brennpunkte in Kirche und Theologie Japans. Beiträge und Dokumente, ed. by Ter-
azono Yoshiki and Heyo E. Hamer, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1988, 44–67; Küster, Many
Faces, 163–177.
88 chapter six
(1888–1960). With other students, he even ventured into the red light
districts a couple of times. “The seminary teaching was far removed
from all these realities I was experiencing and observing”,3 Hyun states
critically in looking back. Still he stuck to his intentions and after five
years successfully completed his studies in 1943. Subsequently he
became assistant pastor in a Japanese parish (1943–44).
From his return to his homeland (1944) till the capitulation of
Japan (August/September 1945), Hyun worked in the metal process-
ing industry in Buk Chong in the South Hamyung province to avoid
forced recruitment into the Japanese army. In October 1945, he and
his mother and brothers, like many Korean Christians, fled the Rus-
sian occupiers and went to the South. Hyun accepted a post as Eng-
lish teacher in a secondary school and worked as an interpreter for
an American lawyer. Relatively soon, the 25-year-old theologian was
entrusted with his first teaching position at Ehwa Women’s University.
Through the mediation of a friend he received a scholarship, which
enabled him to go to the US for further studies (1947–56). On receiv-
ing a Bachelor’s Degree from the Biblical Seminary in New York—a
very conservative institute in his opinion4—Hyun changed to Union
Theological Seminary.
At that time Reinhold Niebuhr was very popular at Union Seminary.
One of the questions I had on my mind was how the biblical message is
related to Korean reality, to the Japanese colonization, to the problem
of poverty, to the problem of oppression and so on. Korean Christianity
was fundamentalist and revivalist up to that time; we were told that the
biblical message has very little to do with daily life, and mostly to do
with life after death. It was very exciting to hear Reinhold Niebuhr at
Union and to read his books. He was shouting down from the prophetic
mountain top on the secular world, criticizing everything. I was very
excited, because the biblical message did have a lot to do with current
reality after all. [. . .]
Many years later, I went back to Union. At that time Secular Theol-
ogy was fashionable. I was asked to do a book report on Harvey Cox’s
Secular City.5 I read the book for the first time and decided that it was
very un-Christian. I read it a second time, and I thought—maybe. I read
it a third time, because I had to write a book report, and I decided—this
3
Hyun, Theology with Sweat, 30.
4
“I don’t regret that I spent two years at a very conservative place, because I read
more Bible during those years than any other time”. Interview with Hyun April 14,
1988 at Suanbo, South Korea.
5
Harvey Cox, The Secular City, New York 1965.
fools for christ’s sake 89
is it! Theological thinking has to start with the reality we live in. I also
decided that the reality I had to start from is not the American secular
city, but the secular world of Korea, or better: the non-Christian world
of Korea. When I returned to Korea with this new knowledge, I was able
to do good business with Secularization Theology and made a decent
living from it for many years, like I did before with Reinhold Niebuhr’s
theology.
In the meantime, Korea was modernized, Westernized or industrial-
ized and I came in contact with Urban and Industrial Mission. I was
shocked by the inhuman working conditions and the degrading situa-
tion of the poor in the urban squats. The people working in those areas
on a daily basis—frontline missionaries—asked us theologians to give
them more theological foundations. The materials they used to educate
the poor and the workers were translations from Western languages.
That’s why they asked us: “Why don’t you theologians produce some-
thing in the Korean language that poor people uprooted from rural areas
can understand?” At that time, university students were performing tra-
ditional mask dances, because they were not allowed to criticize what
was happening in Korea directly. [. . .] I decided to find out what these
mask dances meant in the past and currently mean among students.
That is how my first article, after doing Western Theology, A Theological
Look at the Mask Dance in Korea, came into being.6
Similar to Ahn and Suh, Hyun was also strongly influenced by West-
ern theology. However, his entry into Minjung theology was qualita-
tively different from those of his two more prominent colleagues. They
expounded their views mostly through their speeches and opinions in
politically critical circles of intellectuals, whereas Hyun was directly
involved in the work of the Urban Industrial Mission. His articles are
prime examples of narrative theology. Hyun tells stories, which he
interprets only very frugally in a theological way. This also counts for
his before-mentioned contribution to the conference of 1979.7 After
some introductory remarks on the historical development of the mask
dance, a dense description of the three key scenes of the Bongsan
mask dance follows.8 The main figures are No-Jang, an elderly Bud-
6
Interview with Hyun April 14, 1988; cf. Hyun, Theology with Sweat, 29–31 and 37.
7
Hyun Young-Hak, A Theological Look at the Mask Dance in Korea, in: Minjung
Theology, 47–54.
8
Mask dance from the Bongsan region. Cf. Masks of Korea, The National Folklore
Museum, Seoul 1981, 128 f. Hyun speaks of ten scenes (Mask Dance, 48), whereas
the museum publication lists seven acts with two scenes in the second and three
in the fourth. This also gives a total of ten. The division in acts seems more plausible
to me.
90 chapter six
dhist monk (4th act), maltugi, the servant of three yangban brothers9
(6th act) and the old Miyal and her husband (7th act). The mask dance
exposes religious and secular authorities to the realm of the ridiculous.
For example the elderly monk, who gets involved with a young sha-
man,10 who then prefers a playboy in the full bloom of his life as her
husband, or the yangban brothers who are mocked by their servant
maltugi. The irony does not spare the spectators themselves. Their own
precarious situation can be best recognized in the stories of the life of
the elderly couple. Torn apart in their youth by the troubles of war,
they meet again in the twilight of their lives, marked by war’s trials.
When the old lady discovers her husband’s concubine, a serious quar-
rel starts, in which Miyal is beaten to death by her husband.
Hyun interprets the mask dance as an experience of critical tran-
scendence. With their laughter the minjung create a distance from
their own situation. The people, to certain extent, can become their
own ‘over against’, and observe themselves from an outsider’s perspec-
tive. Their han breaks free in liberating laughter. This is not a one-off
event, the minjung are—as Hyun calls it—conscientized, hinting at
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.11 The people recognize the
causes of their suffering and reconstruct their identity over against
them. Somewhere else, but also in connection to the Bongsan mask
dance, Hyun distinguishes three manifestations of han.12 The more
passive jung-han, the enduring of the painful situation, is the priestly
face of han. Won-han leads to “anger, revenge, revolution and jus-
tice”,13 which for Hyun is the prophetic face. The third face is mir-
rored in Hyun’s Christological interpretation of the paradox included
in the Korean meaning of the word: “It is a face with humor, satire and
laughter, which I would call a servant-King’s face”.14
Whereas Suh Nam-Dong tried to overcome the de-historization
of Christian faith15 by avoiding the use of traditional theological ter-
9
Korean word for aristocrats.
10
Hyun calls her only “pretty young girl”, (Hyun, Mask dance, 48) and takes some
of the additional edges off the scene, namely the conflict between the officially recog-
nized Buddhism and the popular religion of Shamanism.
11
Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
12
Cf. Hyun Young-Hak, Minjung Theology and the Religion of Han, in: East Asia
Journal of Theology, 1985, 354–359, 359.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
See above 85.
minology such as “revelation”, Hyun actually appropriates the term

“transcendence”, to gain back its historical dimensions:
Transcendence is not movement into some metaphysical world out
there, or into “Spirit”, but is deeply rooted in the historical experience
of the human. The idea of transcendence as a dichotomy between meta-
physical and physical categories had to be re-examined.16
In the liberating acts of God in history, the transcendent is present in
the immanent. When the minjung transcend their experiences, and
face their own situation, the possibility to discern traces of God’s lib-
erative action opens up to them. Both theologians are primarily con-
cerned about the history of God with the people. Hyun’s dictum that
“God was not carried piggy-back to Korea by the first missionary”,17
is the historico-theological program of Minjung theology in a nutshell.
God though, and that is the next sentence, which always has to be kept
in mind, is a liberating God, who chooses the side of the minjung.
As Christians we have to start with the premise that God, as the Lord
of History, has worked in and through our history and that God, as
revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has a special
concern for the underdogs, namely, the minjung.18
More clearly than his colleagues, Hyun Young-Hack inclines towards
a functional view: “Otherwise, the Christian God would have no place
in our history, in the events of our time, or for that matter in the
future”.19
The mask play culminates in a common dance, in which the audi-
ence joins the performers. It becomes a feast of fools. Hyun’s inter-
pretation has a visual parallel in the maltugi-logo that was made by
minjung artist Lee Chul-Soo.20 maltugi becomes a Christ-like figure.
This emerging Christology of Fools has many layers. It is both a prom-
ise of salvation and a call to imitation of Christ, in a Pauline sense.
Through the condescension of Jesus Christ, the foolish and the weak,
the minjung have been granted the presence of God in their midst.
Traditional images of God and expectations of the Messiah are radi-
cally criticized by the life of Jesus, through his entry into Jerusalem on
16
Hyun, Mask dance, 54.
17
Ibid.
18
Hyun, Mask dance, 53.
19
Ibid.
20
See above 51 (Fig. 31).
92 chapter six
the back of a donkey and his death on the cross. Whoever would be
a co-worker in the Missio Dei, has to become a fool for Christ’s sake,
like the Minjung theologians who had to experience their imitation
of the suffering of Christ bodily. Hyun portrays Jesus as an ambiva-
lent figure: he is on the one hand the spirit filled with han, who arises
like a shadow in his memory of experiences with the minjung,21 but on
the other hand also the dokaebi, a Korean goblin, who tricks the peo-
ple.22 This image of Jesus mirrors Hyuns experience with the Korean
minjung.
In 1980 Hyun was discharged from the university, just like Ahn,
Suh and other dissidents. A visiting professor from Union Theological
Seminary made it possible for him to leave the country. Hyun resumes
in hindsight:
I was asked to come to Union Theological Seminary as a visiting profes-
sor in 1979. But I was expelled from the university in 1980. I couldn’t
get my passport. After negotiating with the government I was allowed to
leave Korea in January 1982. I spent a year and a half at Union lecturing
on Minjung theology. I returned to Korea in the fall of 1983. In 1984
most of the expelled university teachers were reinstated. After a year and
a half I had to quit, because I reached the legal age of retirement.23
After his retirement, Hyun stopped with writing for health reasons.
From the time at Union derive three lectures that he gave as the Henry
W. Luce Visiting Professor of World Christianity on April 13th and
20th and on November 4th in 1982 at the James Memorial Chapel
of the Seminary.24 Hyun interweaves the story of Minjung theology
with his own life story. He accounts for the way he has learned to do
“Theology with Sweat, Tears and Laughter”. Jokingly he announced
his lecture “Theology as Rumor-Mongering” as “an anti-theological
21
Cf. Hyun, Young-Hak, Minjung: The Suffering Servant and Hope, in: Inter-Reli-
gio 7, 1985, 2–14, 7.
22
Cf. op. cit., 9.
23
Interview with Hyun April 14, 1988.
24
Published together as “Three talks on Minjung Theology”, in: Inter-Religio 7,
1985, 2–40. Lecture 1: Minjung: The Suffering Servant and Hope, 2–14; Lecture 2: The-
ology as Rumor-Mongering, 14–28 [with minor edits in CTC Bulletin Vol. 5 No. 3–
Vol. 6 No. 1, 1984/85, 40–48]; Lecture 3: Theology with Sweat, Tears and Laughter,
28–40.
anti-lecture”.25 Hyun Young-Hak whole-heartedly admitted that his

theology is based on “feeling”.
Because of the social conditions of the world, the minjung is forced to
live with, by, and for the body. Bodily life produces bodily responses
to reality in the form of feeling. This feeling is the total human response
to the whole of reality. It is raw and concrete, not refined or abstract. It is
honest, authentic and truthful. On the other hand the ruling class grasps
the reality second hand, that is through reflection.26
This is a way to express that theology and praxis are indivisibly
bound together and that Christian faith should prove itself in the
orthopraxis.
It was the “praxis” that made both the biblical passages and the theologi-
cal statements alive. For us the “praxis” meant not only the prophetic
sweating, but also the priestly shedding tears and the royal laughter.
Theology has become not mere intellectual speculation, or an aesthetic
appreciation of the workings of God in history but an artistic creation.
Theology tastes like bitter-sweet wine to me today. It makes one a bit
drunk and spiritually possessed. It loosens your muscles and makes you
mingle with other bodies. It makes you a fool, a fool for Christ.27
25
Op. cit., 15.
26
Hyun, Mask dance, 51. ”Most of the things I wrote and talked about, were new
ways of looking at things, my hunches that I expressed. But I feel that these hunches
and feelings are very important. For instance, when you talk about theory and praxis,
that to me still sounds very dualistic, that’s why I like the term “feeling”. Feeling is not
separated from the rational, it’s before this division between rational and emotional.
It’s a kind of a total human sense of reality” (interview April 14, 1988).
27
Hyun, Theology with Sweat, 39.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEOLOGY AS A SOCIAL BIOGRAPHY OF THE MINJUNG

KIM YONGBOCK *1938
Born in Cholla province in 1938 Kim Yong-Bock was by far the young-
est among those who were working in the spirit of Minjung theology
long before the CCA conference in 1979, although they may not yet
necessarily have used the term as such. Already in the early seven-
ties—after finishing his study of theology in the US (1963–68)—Kim
worked as an advisor for the CCA in Japan. In Tokyo he set up a
center of Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA) and was
in charge of a URM research project on the role of trans-national cor-
porations in Asia.1 Coming from the world of the “little people,” Kim
rose rapidly in the Asian ecumenical scene and pursued his vision of a
political theology in the Asian context with determination. Regarding
the following autobiographical protocol, Kim expressed himself just
like Ahn fully according to my presupposition that theological biogra-
phy is fundamentally an open process: “Well the story of your life is
not an objective account as to what happened, the story of your life is
always different, when you tell it, according to the time and according
to the context.”2
My father died very early, when I was six years old. It was January 1946,
right after the Korean independence in 1945 and by the end of World
War II. By that time my family was completely ruined. My father was
a truck-driver. Like any young man he was forced to go to Manchuria,
to be a truck-driver in the coal mine. So he got tuberculosis, because of
malnutrition, cold and hard work. He came home to die. I remember
very little about him.
Together with my mother and my little sister, I lived in my uncle’s
house. My life was a very difficult one. The first time that I was exposed
to the church was in my primary school age. My aunt was a Christian
and she had a son of my age, who took me to Sunday school. I found
1
Cf. Kim Yong-Bock and Phil J. Harvey (eds), People Toiling under Pharaoh.
Report of the Action-Research Process on Economic Justice in Asia, URM/CCA 1976.
The economic question runs like a red thread through his later publications; e.g. id.,
Messiah and Minjung, 255–323.
2
Interview with Kim May 28, 1988.
96 chapter seven
that church was a place where I could find a friendly community. I had
to do a lot of household chores in my uncle’s house, but on Sundays I
sneaked out, because the church was attractive to me.
At the end of my high school period, I began to think about my future.
I should say that I already had a certain sense of mission for my life, not
just for myself, but also for my people and for my country. During pri-
mary school and junior high, I was very much influenced by the readings
related to the great national leaders who fought against the Japanese.
Some of them were military leaders like Ahn Jung-Gun and Han Chan-
Ho. During that time, I was also reading some European biographies. I
don’t know whether you know Grundtvig3 of Denmark, he was a great
educator of the people. I was deeply moved by that particular book. So
I wanted to be a teacher at that time. Even in high school I was reading
all the educational theoretical books I could find.
But it was very difficult for me to think about going to university,
because I didn’t have any means to go there. So I was thinking about
getting a scholarship. There was a possibility to enter a military academy.
I thought about it quite a bit. If I became a military officer, I would be
in a powerful position. But, because of my Christian faith and church
experience, I thought that spiritual work was much more powerful.
In the last year of high school I was involved in the strike against the
school administration. We were preparing to go to university, but the
high school was not really responding to our needs. I was dismissed
from the high school. That caused a profound crisis in my life. Because I
was a very good student, the principal of the school decided to reinstate
me after three weeks. This crisis had raised many philosophical ques-
tions, though, and I think I became more or less religious, so to speak. I
decided to study theology, to become a pastor.
I took the examination for the Presbyterian Theological Seminary
[. . .], but at the same time I took the examination for the Philosophy
Department of Yonsei University. There were lots of discussions in my
family. Everyone said: “Oh, you are hopeless, because financially we
are zero, nobody can pay for your tuition.” At the same time, my high
school teachers were saying: “Why don’t you go to Yonsei instead of
to that theological seminary?” At that time a theological seminary was
regarded as a very poor school, whereas Yonsei is one of the top schools.
I decided then, that even when you do theology, you have to do philoso-
phy. So I went to study philosophy. I studied philosophy and history
and I didn’t care so much about the school curriculum. My grades were
good, though. I didn’t intend to become first in my class, I mean my
3
Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872) established the rural schools that
are so typical of the Danish adult education. He opened the first adult education cen-
tre in Rödding in 1844. Grundtvig made a stand for a national church of the people
(Volkskirche) and succeeded in forcing through the right to form free electoral congre-
gations within the state church. He created a joyful religious art of nature-poetry.
theology as a social biography of the minjung 97
whole department. But three or four times I became first in my depart-

ment. So I was happy, for if you become the number one, then your
tuition is automatically paid for you.
The most important experience I had at the university was the
involvement in the April 19th student revolution.4 This revolution was
not long in preparation, but the students took the initiative without a
theoretical foundation or an organized movement. All the discussions
about interpretation of history and the question of reunification came
after the event rather than before. The current movement is a far more
advanced and mature movement than the innocent movement it was at
that time. As soon as the political situation changed, we began to work
for the democratization of the university. I was one of the organizers of
the committee for the democratization of the university. It created lots
of turmoil in the university, which I still experience today. Of course we
were victorious, but the university authorities never forgive. We ended
up in jail, because we were involved in the strikes. I was in jail for forty
days, not too long, forty days.
After coming out of jail, we graduated and I was planning to go and
study theology. But I had to finish my military service first. So I went
to the military air force. In the military I was not happy. Fortunately, I
was picked up by a military chaplain to assist him. It made life in the
military easier, but it was still very difficult. That’s the reason I took the
examination to go abroad. Of course I didn’t have any money, but I
took the examination at the ministry of education and I passed. What
do you do, if you pass? Well, I applied at many seminaries in the States.
Fortunately, Princeton accepted me with a full scholarship. But I didn’t
have the money to go to the States, so I hitch-hiked. Do you know what
hitch-hiking is? Hitch-hiking is traveling without money, from Seoul to
Princeton, New Jersey, with a twenty-dollar bill. It took a long time. But
that’s another long story.5
In Princeton Kim made a stand against the traditional curriculum,
which focused solely on Western needs. Instead of the required knowl-
edge of the European languages German and French, he requested that
Japanese and Chinese be accepted instead. For him, this was related
to a more fundamental question: he wanted to preserve his identity as
an Asian Christian. His tenacity must have convinced the leadership
of the seminary, because they accepted an interdisciplinary study of
theology and East Asian history based on his ideas.6 His dissertation
4
Kim refers to the student riots in April 1960 that led to the fall of Syngnam
Rhee.
5
6
“Then they allowed me to write my own program, so the way I wrote my pro-
gram was a combination of a study of East-Asian history of the last century—Japan,
98 chapter seven
Historical Transformation, People’s Movement and Messianic Koino-

nia7 is a historical-theological sketch that describes the influence of
Christianity on the Korean people becoming the subjects of history
from the rise of Protestant mission to the March First Independence
Movement of 1919.
For Kim, the roots of Minjung theology go back to the beginnings
of Protestant Christianity in Korea. The first American missionaries—
who entered the country as medical doctors—tried a double strategy:
to gain influence at the court and at the same time to be active as
missionaries among the ordinary people, the minjung, by building
hospitals and schools. Rather than do as the Catholic missionaries did
one century before among the Confucian upper class, who favored
Chinese, the protestants made use of hangul, the Korean script.8 Kim
regards this choice as one of the major factors that caused the success
of Protestant mission. The translation of the messianic message and
the system of symbols that is characteristic of the biblical narratives
into Korean by 1900 enabled the Korean minjung to speak of their
hopes for liberation for the first time.
The main significance of the translation of the Bible was the fact that it
created a major language-event, introducing a messianic language to the
common people of Korea, who were oppressed and exploited, and were
suffering under social chaos and foreign threat.9
From its beginnings, according to Kim, Protestant Christianity was
highly politically motivated even when the conservative missionar-
ies tried to prevent this by all means possible. The suppression of the
China, Korea—at the Princeton university secular Oriental studies department and
the study of theology at the department of theology. My program was therefore inter-
institutional. That’s the way I hammered out my methodology of relating East-Asian
traditions to theological issues. So if you read my dissertation there is not a single
quotation from Western theologians” (interview May 28, 1988).
7
Kim Yong-Bock, Historical Transformation, People’s Movement and Messianic
Koinonia: A Study of the Relationship of Christian and Tonghak Religious Communities
to the March First Independence Movement in Korea, Princeton Theological Seminary
1976, UMI Dissertation Information Service, Ann Abor, Michigan 1994 (copyright
by Kim Yong-Bock 1980). The dissertation that was written with Richard Schaull
remained unpublished. The English publication of the conference volume, however,
contains a longer article that summarizes the results: Kim, Yong-Bock, Korean Chris-
tianity as a Messianic Movement of the People, in: Minjung Theology, 80–119. My
account on Kim’s thesis is based upon this text.
8
A precursor of this strategy however was the catholic martyr Augustine Chóng
Yak-Jong (1760–1801); cf. Hector Diaz, A Korean Theology. Chu-Gyo Yo-Ji: Essentials
of the Lord’s Teaching by Chóng Yak-jong Augustine (1760–1801), Immensee 1986.
9
Kim, Messianic Movement, 84.
resistance to the protectorate treaty with Japan—which for Kim, was a

final flaring up of the powers of the old order—left a vacuum behind,
which Korean Christians entered eagerly.10 They developed a “creative
political and historical hermeneutics”11 that shed a different light on
their experiences from a Christian perspective. “The language of the
Bible was directly applied to the history of the Korean people. It was
becoming a historical language and not just a ‘churchy’ language”.12
The central events of the biblical faith, the exodus and the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ became transparent for the experi-
ences of the Korean people under the yoke of Japanese colonial rule.
Korean Christians did not identify Israel with the church, but with all
Korean people, who hoped for the exodus out of the grip of the Japa-
nese colonial power. They recognized their own suffering in the suffer-
ing of the Cross.13 The political commitment of the Korean Christians
culminated in the March First Independence Movement. For Kim, this
event marks a change of times. In a kind of “root experience”,14 the
people discovered their own role as a subject of history. “It [i.e. min-
jung messianism]15 supplies the motivation, scope, and direction for
the minjung to create their own future.”16
Although the concept of minjung is not used in his doctoral thesis—
Kim consistently speaks of “people”17—the dissertation is nonethe-
less essential to the understanding of his (later) theological thinking.
Whereas Hyun Young-Hak’s contribution—in the framework of the
10
“Confucianism was already too bankrupt to be an effective antithesis to the
Japanese challenge. In this situation of crisis, the existence of the Christian koino-
nia, though dominated by the missionaries, was bound to trigger some movement.
It was almost inevitable that the great vitalization of the Christian koinonia and
its biblical symbols took place and induced a mass movement on a very large scale”
(op. cit., 90).
11
Op. cit., 104.
12
Op. cit., 108.
13
“Thus the language of Jesus’ Cross was the language of the suffering of the
Korean people. In traditional Korean culture there was no idea of innocent suffering
being meaningful” (op. cit., 117).
14
Kim, Yong-Bock, Messiah and Minjung: Discerning Messianic Politics over
against Political Messianism, in: Minjung Theology, 183–193, 189.
15
See below 101.
16
Kim, Messiah and Minjung, 189.
17
Kim claims to have been the first to use the Korean term minjung in an English
speech in 1976 (interview May 28, 1988). He refers thereby to the article “Christian
Koinonia in the Struggle and Aspirations of the People of Korea” that was published
under the shortened name Y. Kim for security reasons, in: Yap Kim Hao (ed.), Asian
Theological Reflections on Suffering and Hope, Asia Focus, Singapore 1977. See above
62.
100 chapter seven
theological project of a symbiotic interpretation of Christian and

Korean minjung traditions, which was outlined by Suh Nam-Dong—
can clearly be located in the cultural domain, Kim investigates mainly
the historical domain. Following his study of the early phase of Korean
Protestantism, Kim developed a “theological-political hermeneutics”
that reconstructs a view on Korean history ‘from below’ from the per-
spective of the minjung by making use of messianic as well as apoca-
lyptic categories. Methodically, Kim is close to the new developments
in the secular historical sciences such as social-historical research and
oral history, but in his concept of the “social biography” of the min-
jung pre-rational and analytic moments melt together.
At present, the only way to understand the social biography of the min-
jung is to approach it through dialogue and involvement with the min-
jung and through the minjung’s telling of their own story.18 [. . .] Social
biography encompasses the minjung’s subjective experiences as well as
objective conditions and structures and societal power relations.19
Kim interprets Korean history as a dense web of stories of the min-
jung. For him, minjung is a political-theological concept that identi-
fies itself in a double relation to the respective ruling power and to
the messianic promise under which it stands. History unfolds itself
as a drama between the minjung as protagonists and those in power
as antagonists. By telling their stories, the minjung undergo a process
of growing awareness that allows them to become cognizant of their
broken identity. Phrases like “people as the subjects of history” or “the
emancipation of the people”—with which Kim alludes to Bonhoeffer’s
“emancipation of the world”—are primarily expressions of a histori-
cal-theological concept. The minjung live under the promise of the
messianic redemption of their life circumstances; their subjecthood is
an eschatological one. The decisive role that Kim ascribes to Korean
Christianity rests on the identity re/constructing function that the
promise of the Kingdom has for the minjung, not on the ability of
the people to redeem themselves. The “people realize their corporate
subjectivity in participating in the Messianic Kingdom”,20 which has
come with the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, at least according
18
Cf. Kim, Yong-Bock, Theology and the Social-Biography of the Minjung, in: CTC
Bulletin, vol. 5 nr. 3–vol. 6 nr. 1, Singapore 1984/1985, 66–78, 70.
19
Op. cit., 71.
20
Kim, Messiah and Minjung, 187.
to the understanding of present eschatology. In the expectancy of the

Parousia “the subject hood of the minjung is in between the times of
the ‘not yet’ and the ‘already’ ”.21 Kim draws the outlines of a “symboli-
cal-analogical interpretation”22 that makes the stories of the minjung
and the biblical stories transparent and recognizable to each other. To
the reproach that he is deifying the minjung he replies by making a
distinction between “messianic politics” and “political messianism”.23
In the Korean context, he characterizes Maitreya Buddhism, the Tong-
hak religion, but also Protestant Christianity, as religious experiences
that support the messianic resistance movement against the Japanese
colonial power. Over against forms of political messianism, such as
Buddhism during the Silla dynasty and Confucianism during the
Yi dynasty, but also modern variants, such as Japanese colonialism,
North-Korean communism and the South-Korean development dic-
tatorship, Kim emphasizes the powerlessness of messianic politics. He
rejects a kind of cynical realistic politics, even though he admits a cer-
tain degree of realism. Here, the historical-theological vision collides
with the needs of everyday politics.
After Ahn Byung-Mu’s death in 1996, Kim Yong-Bock is, together
with David Suh the last of the core group of first generation Min-
jung theologians who is still productive. His political theology is based
on reformed concepts. In the 1980s he applied Calvinist covenant
theology to overcome economic justice in a “Covenant with the
poor”. To the upswing of neoliberal capitalism and the American
empire he responded with the call for a status confessionis. As chair-
person of the Theological Commission of the WARC he was one of
the key figures in the “processus confessionis” that led to the Accra
Confession 2004, which took a faith stance against the negative aspects
of globalization.24
Even today, his reputation as former radical student leader makes
Kim suspect in established university circles in Korea. He remains iso-
lated in his church (The Presbyterian Church of Korea, in Korean:
Tonghap). At the institutional level, the authorities tried to benefit
21
Op. cit., 186.
22
Cf. Kim, Messianic Movement, 109.
23
Cf. Chai, Soo-Il, Die messianische Hoffnung im Kontext Koreas, Ammersbek bei
Hamburg 1990; Sang Taek Lee, Religion and Social Formation in Korea. Minjung and
Millenarianism, Berlin / New York 1996.
24
Cf. Covenanting for justice: the Accra Confession, in: Reformed World 54, 2004,
169–174.
102 chapter seven
from his international connections, but reduced his influence as much

as possible. In 1992 he was elected as the president of Hanil Theo-
logical Seminary in his home province Cholla. Within two years he
expanded the former theological training center for women into a
campus with brand new buildings that was recognized by the govern-
ment as a university in 1994. After being discharged from his presi-
dency (1999), Kim decided to start his own school independent of the
churches. He envisions an interdisciplinary curriculum for “the study
of life” (salim).25 In spite of his marriage to an American and inter-
national job offers, Kim Yong-Bock preferred to stay in his Korean
homeland. He understands himself to be a patriot. Korea is the place
of his theological existence.
25
CHAPTER EIGHT
A PLEA FOR A SURVIVALLIBERATION

CENTERED SYNCRETISM
CHUNG HYUNKYUNG *1956
Chung Hyun-Kyung created a major stir with her presentation at the

7th General Assembly of the WCC in Canberra 1991. The very fact that
she was invited to give one of the two keynote speeches on the theme
“Come, Holy Spirit—Renew the Whole Creation”,1 had already made
her overnight the first internationally-renowned representative of the
second generation of Minjung theologians. Chung put the audience
under a spell with a performance that went far beyond the boundar-
ies of an academic lecture, successfully weaving music, dance, sym-
bolic acts and slide projections together with her speech in a synthesis
of the arts.2 The film documentation still conveys something of the
fascination her performance held. In the aftermath the discussion on
the relation between gospel and culture gained new urgency.3 Chung’s
appearance was a kairos: the theological thoughts that she herself, but
also others, mostly Asian theologians, had repeatedly expressed, were
now unexpectedly given an ecumenical forum. This event created deep
rifts in the ecumenical movement. The bad word syncretism circled
1
Chung Hyun-Kyung, Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Whole Creation, in: Signs of
the Spirit. Official Report Seventh Assembly Canberra, Australia, 7–20 February 1991,
ed. by Michael Kinnamon, Geneva and Grand Rapids 1991, 37–47. For a close reading
of Chung’s performance cf. Volker Küster, Chung Hyun-Kyung—“Komm Heiliger
Geist, erneuere die ganze Schöpfung”. Canberra revisited, in: Akke van der Kooi et al.
(eds), Ontmoetingen. Tijdgenoten en getuigen. Studies aangeboden aan Gerrit Neven,
Kampen 2009, 290–300.
2
There was a sharp contrast between Chung’s performance and the preceding
lecture of the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Parthenios III.
His manuscript had to be read by Grand Protopresbyter Dr. Georges Tsetsis because
the patriarch was unable to be present due to the Gulf war.
3
The WCC started an international consultation process on this issue that even-
tually led to the World Mission Conference in Salvador de Bahia in 1996 under the
theme “Called to One Hope: The Gospel in Diverse Cultures”. Cf. Wesley Ariarajah,
Gospel and Culture. An Ongoing Discussion within the Ecumenical Movement, Geneva
1994; Called to One Hope. The Gospel in Diverse Cultures, ed. by Christopher Durais-
ingh, Geneva 1998.
104 chapter eight
around.4 Not only Evangelical, but also Orthodox theologians5 took

positions against it.
Self-confidently Chung calls herself a second-generation liberation
theologian.6 According to her “first-generation liberationists” were
characterized by their support for “nation-building” and moderniza-
tion, and they “were critical of the behavior and culture of the min-
jung, since the latter’s ‘ignorance’ seemed to hinder the advancement
of Korean society into the modern world”.7 Whereas, she says, the
teachers were unable to free themselves from the urge “to prove them-
selves to their former colonizers”,8 the students trust their own experi-
ences and try to “use our national and cultural traditions to express
the God-experiences of our people.”9 While the efforts of the fathers
were reactive, the constructive phase begins with the students. Her
critique does not apply, however, to the Minjung theologians of the
first generation, judging from the portraits above. As a matter of fact,
many of their well-known themes and patterns of argumentation can
also be found in her work. A change of perspective is inserted by the
fact that she is a woman. Her contributions allow, mostly in a narra-
tive way, deep insights into the role of women in Korean society. An
4
The major part of the estranging experience was caused by the accompanying
music and dance, which for Chung was supposed to pave the way for the Holy Spirit
(Chung, Come Holy Sprit, 37–39). The aggressive Korean music, the deafening sounds
of several drums and gongs, the Koreans in their traditional white dress, with some
spontaneously included half-naked Australian aborigines interspersed—in the end the
spectators were left on their own to interpret this mingling of cultures. In my semi-
nars in Heidelberg, students reacted very differently depending on whether they were
immediately confronted with the video of the event, or whether they had first dis-
cussed the text. Those who read the text first encountered fewer problems. This does
not take away from Chung’s presentation, but points at insufficient ability to perceive
and interpret the other. See below 124.
5
Cf. Reflections of Orthodox Participants to the Seventh General Assembly, in:
Signs of the Spirit, 279–282. Athanasios Basdekis, Canberra und die Orthodoxen.
Anfragen und Forderungen an den ÖRK im Anschluß an die 7. Vollversammlung,
in: Ökumenische Rundschau 40, 1991, 356–374.
6
Chung, Hyun-Kyung, Struggle to be the Sun again. Introducing Asian Women’s
Theology, Maryknoll, New York 1990, 109.
7
Chung Hyun-Kyung, Opium or the Seed for Revolution? Shamanism: Women
centered popular religiosity in Korea, in: Theologies of the Third World, 96–104, 101.
Cf. similar critic uttered by Sugirtharajah, see above 76f.
8
Chung Hyun-Kyung, “Han-pu-ri”: Doing Theology from Korean Women’s Per-
spective, in: The Ecumenical Review 40, 1988, 27–36, 28.
9
Chung, Han-pu-ri, 28.
a plea for a survival-liberation centered syncretism 105
impressive example can be found in the autobiographical text Follow-

ing Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming.10
Daughter of Two Mothers
Only after the death of her parents, in 1987, when she was 30, Chung
was told by a cousin that her father had begotten her with a sur-
rogate mother. For a man, this is, according to Confucian ethics, a
socially sanctioned way of behavior, as he is obliged to continue the
family line. Women are exposed to discrimination however: the foster
mother because of her infertility, and the birth mother because she
was involved in an extra-marital affair. If it becomes known that a
child was born of a surrogate mother, the child is discriminated against
as well.11
Hyun-Kyung was born in Kwangju in 1956. When she was one
year old, her father and his wife took her away from her mother and
brought her to Seoul. The surrogate mother, who did not want to part
with her, stood no chance to hold her ground over against these afflu-
ent people. She was temporarily psychologically disturbed after this
experience. Her son by her deceased lover12 committed suicide out of
desperation over this. To spare her child the shame of an extra-marital
birth, she observed Hyun Kyung’s life from a distance for 30 years.13
In the history of the suffering of her birth mother, Chung recognizes
10
Chung Hyun-Kyung, Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming, in: Inherit-
ing Our Mother’s Gardens. Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective, ed. by Letty
M. Russell et al., Louisville 1988, 54–72.
11
In the acknowledgements in her PhD dissertation, Chung mentions her College
lecturer Chang Won as her third mother, without further dwelling on the role of this
‘spiritual counselor’.
12
Her birth mother came from a poor landless farmer family. She had a teenage
love affair with the son of the landlord by whom she conceived a son. The parents of
her lover were so upset, that they send him to study to Japan, where he got engaged
to a girl from a wealthy Korean family. Chung’s mother sometimes claims that he
died under Japanese colonialism and other times that he died during the Korean War.
She does not really want to talk about the past and Chung stopped asking her. E-mail
Chung to the author February 11, 2009.
13
Things are even more complicated than Chung reveals in her article. Her father
went back to her birth mother out of bad conscience and fathered a second daugh-
ter with her that Chung only got to know about after she discovered her biological
mother. Her foster mother had adopted a boy from the orphanage in order to have
her “own” child. E-mail Chung to the author February 11, 2009.
106 chapter eight
the “many nameless crucified people”.14 To her she becomes an “icon

of God”,15 who opened her eyes to “what God was telling me about
my mission”.16 The differentiated use of the concepts icon and image—
also in her talk in Canberra—indicates that Chung in this regard is
pointing consciously to the theological implications of Orthodox icon
devotion. The icon is the representation of the sacred in image. It is
the revelation of the transcendent in the immanent.17 Her argument
matches the credo of first generation Minjung theologians, who claim
to have encountered the suffering Christ in minjung events.
Hyun-Kyung grew up in a protected environment. But the family
was impoverished by her father’s bankruptcy when she was ten years
old. In retrospect the daughter regards this as a lucky coincidence.
We became very poor after that, and I learned how the majority of
Korean people lived. Through the experience of poverty after my father’s
bankruptcy, I could see the class privilege of our family and the role we
played in Korean society. This experience prepared me for the student
movement and Minjung theology and finally enabled me to welcome my
birth mother without feeling ashamed of her.18
Despite the family’s precarious financial situation, her foster mother
succeeded in making it possible for her to study at the best schools.
Though her father remained a practicing Confucian all his life she her-
self turned to Christianity, the religion of both her mothers. Chung
recounts nevertheless how she was fascinated by both Confucian rites
and traditional Shamanism. After acquiring a Master’s Degree in The-
ology at Ehwa Women’s University, she continued her studies in the
US. At the School of Theology in Claremont, CA she took her MDiv
and then went to the Women’s Theological Centre in Boston. Chung
obtained her PhD in Systematic Theology at Union Theological Semi-
nary in New York with James Cone, one of the leading representatives
of Black theology in the US. The book published with the title Struggle
to be the Sun again, gives first of all an insight into the theology of
Asian women, as it developed in Christian Conference of Asia (CCA)
14
Similar Ahn in the interview of May 14, 1988: “If I say minjung, I immediately
think of my mother”.
15
Chung, Struggle, 4f.
16
Op. cit., 5.
17
Cf. Icons. Windows on Eternity. Theology and Spirituality in Colour, Faith and
Order Paper 147, ed. by Gennadios Limouris, Geneva 1990.
18
Chung, Following Naked Dancing, 69.
circles and those of the Asian branch of EATWOT.19 Like many Asian
theologians, Chung represents a decisively democratic concept of
theology:
Every Asian who believes in and reflects upon the meaning of the good-
ness of creation, the radical egalitarian values of Jesus Christ, and the
coming of God’s justice in her midst—and tries to live out that real-
ity—is a theologian.20
Middle class theologians who received good education, like herself, do
not do “theology for the poor women”,21 but in solidarity with them.
They view their work as a “process of metanoia to poor women”.22 She
refers to this kind of theologizing into the present situation or context
as Hyun jang theology, a term already used by Suh Nam-Dong.23
In the closing contemplations of her book Chung propagates a
“survival-liberation centered syncretism”, a theological program that
she filled with life in her performance at the WCC General Assem-
bly. In the uproar that followed the Canberra event the situation
became unbearable in Korea, where Chung then taught at her alma
mater Ehwa Women’s University. She finally accepted an invitation to
teach as associate professor at Union Theological Seminary in New
York (1996).
Theology as a Product of Survival-Liberation

Centered Syncretism
Also for Chung’s theology the theme of suffering (han) is constitutive.

She regards it the root experience or the “collective consciousness” of
the Korean people, from which any “meaningful Korean theology”24
19
This is a continuing process to which historical and social context an introduc-
tory part is devoted. In four systematically oriented chapters Chung then refers to
anthropology, Christology, Mariology and spirituality from the point of view of Asian
women. Cf. Virginia Fabella, A Third World Women’s Theological Journey, Manila
1993; Kwok Pui-Lan, Introducing Asian Feminist Theology, Cleveland, Ohio 2000.
20
Chung, Struggle, 101–103.
21
Op. cit., 102.
22
Ibid.
23
“Hyun jang is translated as the place where historical events are happening. Hyun
jang theology evolves around the concrete issues Korean women confront in their
everyday lives” (Chung, Struggle, 107). The different way of writing here as compared
with that of Suh (see above 86) derives from a different transcription of Korean. The
transliteration chosen by Suh is closer to the Korean pronunciation.
24
108 chapter eight
should begin. If this suffering is not treated, it can be transcended

beyond death. In Canberra Chung told about the “Han-ridden ghosts”
that wander about in her native lands, because they are unable to find
peace.25 To her, these ghosts are the voices and icons of the Holy Spirit.
In the spirit God is present in their suffering and at the same time
comforts them.26 With her large scale ritual which played with sha-
manistic motifs, Chung invoked the Spirit at the beginning of her pre-
sentation, which is just as much the Spirit of Hagar and Uriah as the
Spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Biko and other known and unknown
martyrs—who are bound together by the experience of unjust suffer-
ing as well as the Spirit of exploited nature. In a certain way they
are her witnesses of God’s presence in suffering. The litany ends in a
kind of inclusio with the invocation of “the Spirit of the Liberator, our
brother Jesus, tortured and killed on the cross” (39), who at the same
time is the Spirit of “the compassionate God” (40).
In her early article “Han-pu-ri”: Doing Theology from Korean Wom-
en’s Perspective Chung describes a shamanistic ritual consisting of three
parts that is supposed to relieve the han of the predominantly female
clientele of the shamans, who are mostly women as well:27 (1) speak-
ing and hearing about the han, (2) naming the cause and (3) changing
the unjust situation by action. This became the structure of Chung’s
Canberra performance. Music and dance invite the Holly Spirit and
prepare the way, the litany calls the martyrs by name and gives a
short description of their fate and the lecture names the problems and
distinguishes among the spirits, before she calls for repentance and
change (metanoia).
The center of Chung’s deliberations however, is the suffering of
Asian women, whom she calls the victims of a double oppression, “the
minjung within the minjung”.28 She demands their divinely intended
equality in society.29 The coping with the own experience of suffering
fluctuates between passive acceptance (jung han) and rebellion (won
25
Cf. op. cit., 28–30.
26
“The spirit of this compassionate God has been always with us from the time of
creation” (Chung, Come Holy Spirit, 40).
27
See above 38f.
28
29
“In their suffering, Asian women meet God, who in turn discloses that they were
created in the divine image, full and equal participants in the community with men”
(Chung, Struggle, 52).
han).30 The overcoming of this suffering (han-pu-ri) is the purpose and

the end of Chung’s theological thinking. Analogous to the role of the
shaman in the shaman ritual (kut), women theologians should act as
priestesses of han and liberate women from their suffering to a new
life. “Life” is in Chung’s theological terminology antonymous to suf-
fering. All religion should serve life, further life. This concept can be
found in Korean Shamanism, where rituals are oriented at the circle of
life and seasons, as well as in Christianity.31 Chung is very conscious,
however, of the double function of religion, both as a source of lib-
eration and as a means to oppression. With her plea for a “survival-
liberation centered syncretism”,32 she establishes the selective use of both
the cultural-religious tradition of Asian countries and of the Christian
Scriptures and tradition as her hermeneutic program. The criterion of
this theology is its life- and liberation-enhancing function. In this con-
cept the socio-economic, political and cultural-religious dimensions of
the context are integrated. With regard to her reception of Shamanism
Chung writes:
My interpretation of Korean Shamanism is also defined by the contem-
porary People’s Movement for liberation in Korea. This means that my
interpretation of the ‘liberating’ and ‘oppressive’ dimensions of Shaman-
ism is made through the eyes of the people who are participating in the
Third World liberation struggle. In other words, I intentionally limit my
examination of Shamanism to those aspects which liberation activists
find useful.33
When Chung describes the ongoing process of contextualization as
“syncretism”, she revaluates a notion which was used in discussions
up till then mostly in a pejorative sense; this has also been used to
disparage her.34 That she is also using the image of “the making of
30
Chung, Struggle, 42–43; see above 90.
31
Theo Sundermeier, Inkulturation und Synkretismus. Probleme einer Verhältnis-
bestimmung, in: Evangelische Theologie 52, 1992, 192–209, 205f points in this con-
text to the proximity to the relationship between African tribal religion and Black
Theology.
32
Chung, Struggle, 113.
33
Chung, Opium, 98. Cf. Volker Küster, The Priesthood of Han. Reflections on a
Woodcut by Hong Song-Dam, in: Exchange 26, 1997, 159–171.
34
Especially in evangelical circles, the term has a negative connotation, the min-
gling of religions is a heresy. The history of religions approach takes a neutral stance.
When religions meet syncretism is an inevitable phenomenon. Contextual theologians
finally developed a positive view of syncretism. The Indian Theologian M.M. Thomas
110 chapter eight
babies” indicates that she reckons with the development of something

new, which is equally Christian and Asian.35 Chung had the privi-
lege of education, which her mothers lacked, and now lifts up their
pre-reflexive approach36 to the program of Christian theology in the
Asian context. The “traditional symbols and metaphors”37 help her,
to express both her experiences of the world as an Asian woman and
her Christian faith. “Asian women also use their religio-cultural and
socio-political traditions for theologizing. They claim their identity as
both Asian and Christian.”38
From Christo-Centrism to Life Centeredness
With her postulate “Our life is our text, and the Bible and the church
tradition are the context which sometimes become the reference for
(1916–1996) still spoke of “Christ-centered Syncretism”. As long as the other religions

or elements derived from them are directed towards Jesus Christ there is no reason to
worry about syncretism. Mercy Amba Oduyoye, the mother of African women’s the-
ology, talks about “creative syncretism”. She wants to adopt African religious believes
and practices that can enhance and strengthen Christian faith in Africa. Chung’s posi-
tion is certainly the most vulnerable, because for her no longer Christ but the survival-
liberation centered dimension of a religious believe or practice is the criterion. All
three are variants of inculturation theology. I would propose the degree of “integra-
tion” with which the elements of other religions have been received and processed
in Christian faith as a criterion. Cf. M. M. Thomas, The Absoluteness of Jesus Christ
and Christ-centered Syncretism, in: Ecumenical Review 37, 1985, 387–397; Mercy A.
Oduyoye, The Value of African Religious Beliefs and Practices for Christian Theology,
in: Sergio Torres and Kofi Appiah-Kubi (eds), African Theology en Route, Maryknoll,
New York 1979, 109–116; Leonardo Boff, In Favor of Syncretism: The Catholicity of
Catholicism, in: id., Church: Charism and Power. Liberation Theology and the Institu-
tional Church, London 1985, 89–107.
35
“. . . It is like making babies. This image suits the best. Both sides have the pos-
sibility to determine, what Christianity in our own country should look like. Because
our religion, our culture and our religiosity meet with Christian religiosity and bring
forth a child that is able to distinguish itself clearly from Western Christians” (transla-
tion of German quotation in Gudrun Löwner, Kontextuelle Theologie: Herausforder-
ung für die Mission?, in: Junge Kirche 52, 1991, 529–536, 534).
36
“My mothers made “chemical changes” in traditional religions by infusing them
with the liberative thrusts of already existing religions. Since women were excluded
from the public process of determining the meaning of religion, they were free to carve
out a religion on their own, without the constraints of orthodoxy. Their “imposed
freedom” allowed them to develop in private a religious organic whole that enabled
them to survive and liberated them in the midst of their struggle for full humanity”
(Chung, Following, 67).
37
38
our ongoing search for God”39—which was already put forward by Suh
Nam-Dong—Chung seems to exchange the two constitutives of the
hermeneutical circle: the context becomes text and the text context.
Yet this claim ultimately questions the concept of revelation. Already
the first generation of Minjung theologians insisted that the history
of God with the Korean people could not have started only with the
arrival of the first missionaries. They did however assign a herme-
neutical key function to the Jesus event in their search for traces of
the liberating acts of God in their history. Chung is skeptical of this
Christocentrism because of her feminist perspective. Nevertheless she
remains in the realm of Minjung theology by pointing to the presence
of Jesus Christ in the suffering of Asian women. “The image of a suf-
fering Jesus enables Asian women to see meaning in their own suffer-
ing.”40 Chung emphasizes the potential ambivalence of the meaning
of this theological statement too. It refers however to the active suf-
fering of Jesus Christ and is not meant to put women off to the world
hereafter.41 Asian women theologians therefore give new meanings to
the traditional Christological titles, or create their own, new images
of Christ to mirror their experiences of suffering in the story of Jesus
Christ.42
At the end of her performance in Canberra, Chung had a depic-
tion of Kwan In projected on the screen, to convey her image of the
Holy Spirit to the audience. An image as it appears to her from her
cultural background. Kwan In is a popular bodhisattva,43 who often is
seen with androgynous characteristics or even depicted as a woman
in popular beliefs.44 This change of gender was most likely influenced
39
“. . . the text of God’s revelation was, is and will be written in our bodies and our
peoples’ everyday struggle for survival and liberation. God did not come first to Asian
women when Western missionaries brought the Bible to Asia. God has always been
with us throughout our history, long before Jesus was born. The location of God’s
revelation is our life itself ” (Chung, Struggle, 111).
40
41
“Jesus is a compassionate man of integrity who identified himself with the
oppressed. He ‘stood for all he taught and did’ and took responsibility for the con-
sequences of his choice even at the price of his life. This image of Jesus’ suffering
gives Asian women the wisdom to differentiate between the suffering imposed by
an oppressor and the suffering that is the consequence of one’s stand for justice and
human dignity” (Chung, Struggle, 57).
42
Cf. Chung, Struggle, 53–73.
43
A person that has reached Buddhahood before entering nirvana.
44
Cf. Horst Rzepkowski, Art. Kuan-Yin, in: id., Lexikon der Mission, 258; Dietrich
Seckel, Kunst des Buddhismus. Werden, Wanderung und Wandlung, Kunst der Welt,
Baden-Baden 1962, 224–228.
112 chapter eight
by Christian iconography of Mary in the cultural circulation along the

Silk Road. Later Jesuit mission in China (but also Japan and Korea)
took Kwan In as a model for Asian images of Mary.
Against this background Chung’s rhetorical question if “perhaps
this might also be a feminine image of the Christ who is the first-born
among us, one who goes before and brings others with her”45 sounds
quite plausible. Kwan In’s compassion and the androgynous legend
that surrounds her predestine her to be a feminist portrayal of Christ.46
Yet in a certain sense the Christus praesens, Christ being present in the
spirit then becomes the icon of the Holy Spirit. Chung’s short refer-
ence to the life energy ki would have been a possibility to give the per-
son of the spirit a more specific profile. Besides the introductory litany,
her reference to Kwan In was one of the main points of contention in
the reproaches of syncretism made against her.
With the first generation Minjung theologians Chung Hyun-Kyung
shares the basic conviction that God’s history with the world is a pro-
cess that started with creation and the corporate perspective. In the
suffering of women she recognizes the suffering Christ. Certainly not
the least through the external reason of her invitation to Canberra,
the Holy Spirit gains importance for her theology. The re-orientation
from Christ-centeredness to life-centeredness in the spirituality and
theology of Asian women she has propagated, implies a shift of empha-
sis from Christology to Theo-logy and the Theology of Creation.47 At
the same time she is clearly thinking in Trinitarian constellations—it
is the Spirit of the compassionate God and the crucified Jesus—but
unlike her orthodox critics she in not arguing in the categories of
classical Trinitarian teaching. With her emphasis on the relationality
of the triune God, Chung has opened a pneumatological approach to
45
Chung, Come, Holy Spirit, 46.
46
Besides this accentuation of the feminine side of Jesus, Chung is also involved
in the new, feminist inspired, ecumenical Mariology. “Jesus and Mary, therefore, are
two models of the fully liberated human being from whom Asian Christian women
find their source of empowerment and inspiration” (Chung, Struggle, 74f ). However,
the chapter on Mary lags behind the chapter on Christology in regard to the meaning
of her overall concept.
47
“That is why so many theologians, both female and male, in Asia emphasize a
creation-centered theology and not so much Christocentrism. When we start with
creation, then our entire history and culture, also before Christianity, comes alive”
(Das Echo auf Canberra. Interview with Chung Hyun-Kyung, November 20, 1991 in
Berlin, in: id., Schamanin im Bauch, 31–37, 36).
cultural-religious pluralism beside the one via creation theology. God’s

Spirit is present in cultures and religions.
Once chosen, Chung Hyun-Kyung remained faithful to the direc-
tion of her Canberra performance. For years she traveled all over the
world to contribute to women’s gatherings in search for a new spiritu-
ality. She has been practicing Zen meditation for more than 15 years at
Kwan Eum Zen School in Providence, Rhode Island in the US, which
was founded by Korean Zen master Seung Sahn. With his permis-
sion she practiced Zen meditation for 100 days in Shin-Won temple
in Korea, living together with Buddhist nuns and monks and joining
them in their winter retreat. “At that time I lived with them as if I were
a nun even though I was a lay person, eating, sleeping, dressing like
them, shaving my hair.”48 From there she embarked to the Himalayas,
more specifically the Mustang area at the border region between Tibet
and Nepal. There she practiced solo meditation in old Tibetan temples
and simple village homes for the rest of her one year sabbatical (1999–
2000). In 2008 Chung was officially initiated as a Dharma teacher by
Seung Sahn at Kwan Eun Zen School. Nowadays she considers herself
to be a Buddhist-Christian.49
The popularizing tone of her dissertation reverberates in four books
in Korean which were written for a broader public and have been well
received.50 Her professorship at Union gave Chung finally the space to
return to Korea regularly and mingle freely with the women’s move-
ment there.
48
E-mail from Chung January 12, 2009 to the author.
49
9/11 and growing Muslim fundamentalism kindled her interest in Islam. Chung
set out on a one year journey to 18 Muslim countries (2006–2007). Her contact per-
sons were about 200 Muslim women who are actively engaged in peace-making. The
interview material and her travel impressions will be published under the title “99
Tales to the Heart of Mecca.”
50
In the End, Beauty Will Save Us All: A Feminist Spiritual Pilgrimage, 2 vol., Seoul
2002, Vol. 1 is an account of feminist spirituality based on her own life experience.
Vol. 2 is her reflections on Buddhist spirituality and the transformation of the self
based on her Himalaya journey. Letter from the Future: Goddess-Spell According to
Hyun Kyung, Seoul 2003 is written for young Korean women. It includes her salim
manifesto on eco-feminism from a Korean perspective. Hyun Kyung and Alice’s
fabulous Love Affair with God, Seoul 2004 she wrote together with Alice Walker, the
author of The Color Purple, in order to prepare Walker’s journey to Korea and her
encounters with the women’s movement there.
CHAPTER NINE
CONTEXTUAL CHALLENGES
MINJUNG THEOLOGY IN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE
The title phrase “contextual challenges” is equivocal. The Christian

community in Korea was challenged by the socio-economic and
political situation under the military dictatorship. How was the web
of generative themes restructured by those who responded to these
challenges and how did they tackle the relevance-identity dilemma
(1)? The resulting Minjung theology challenged and was challenged in
its turn in intercultural discourse, thereby putting the dialogue criteria
into practice (2). Two themes recurred throughout these debates: who
is the subject of theology (3) and what is the relation between truth
and experience (4)?
1. Reweaving the Web of Generative Themes
Poverty, oppression and division of the country—or to put it posi-

tively justice, human rights, democratization and reunification—were
the generative themes of the South Korean context in the 1970s and
1980s. How did they affect and interact with the web of generative
themes of the Christian text? Taken together the five preceding bio-
graphical-theological sketches allow me to give an overview of how
this web was rewoven in Minjung theology.
The discovery of Christ among the minjung made Christology the
link from which the reweaving process got started. With his relecture
of the Gospel of Mark, Ahn Byung-Mu elevated the life of Jesus to a
constitutive part of Christology again, which had long focused only
on his death and resurrection.1 All three aspects together constitute
what Ahn calls the Jesus event. Jesus lived among the Galilean ochlos,
the uprooted ‘little people’, whom Ahn sees as analogous to the
Korean minjung. They were the primary addressees of Jesus’ mission.
1
Similar thoughts can be found in feminist theology. Cf. Kathryn Tanner, Jesus,
Humanity and the Trinity. A Brief Systematic Theology, Minneapolis 2001.
116 chapter nine
The interpretation of his death as a sacrifice is bypassed. Jesus is not

suffering for but with the minjung. The hope for resurrection becomes
the hope for liberation of the minjung.2
The sacrificial interpretation that Jesus has suffered for humanity,
presupposes that human sin cannot be overcome by human beings
themselves. That the minjung are also sinners on a personal basis is
not neglected by Minjung theologians, but is certainly not their major
concern. Minjung ministers of the second generation who lived among
the minjung had to cope with their factual shortcomings, like egoism,
fraud and violence. Nevertheless they had deep experiences of con-
version to the poor of Jesus Christ by living with them and reading
the Bible together. By taking over the concept of “sinned againstness”,
Minjung theologians highlighted the social dimension of the doctrine
on human sin. The minjung are suffering under the “structural sins”
of oppression and poverty, as Latin American liberation theologians
would put it.3 Jesus Christ shares in the lot of the minjung, not only
back then in Galilee and Jerusalem under Roman occupation, but also
today through dying on the cross of the military dictatorship and the
division of the country. The Jesus event is reenacted in the daily life
struggle of the minjung. In practice this corporate interpretation of the
theology of the cross fulfills a similar function than the sacrifice meta-
phor. Christ’s presence among the minjung reaffirms them in their
human dignity before God and men against all hardships of their daily
life. God’s rightousness restores the right of the minjung.
Suffering (han) is the generative theme at the core of Minjung theol-
ogy. In the presence of God in Jesus Christ among the minjung text
and context fuse. That God is acting in history through the Spirit and
the risen Christ is present in the Spirit (Christus praesens) is taken for
granted here. The presence of God amidst human suffering is a key
idea already in Martin Luther’s Heidelberg disputation on the theology
of the cross from 1518 in the birthing of Protestant theology. With his
statement “God is to be found only in suffering and cross” (support-
ing argument for thesis xxi) Luther makes the cross of Christ the her-
meneutical key to discover traces of God’s presence in history—“the
theology of the cross names things by their right name” (Thesis xxi).
2
Cf. Ahn’s text Die Todesprozession, in: Theo Sundermeier, Das Kreuz als Befrei-
ung. Kreuzesinterpretationen in Asien und Afrika, München 1985, 11–16.
3
Cf. José Ignacio González Faus, article: Sin, in: Mysterium Liberationis, 532–542,
536–539.
contextual challenges 117
Minjung theology is a relecture of the theology of the cross in the

Korean context. Alluding to its roots in Paul’s theology (I Cor 1,23b)
Hyun Young-Hak formulated a Christology of fools. By following
the way of the cross Jesus Christ made himself appear foolish to the
world. His presence among the minjung reveals him as a tokaebi, a
Korean goblin, who makes fun of himself and the people alike. He
allows them to relieve their han in a state of critical transcendence, by
laughing at the miserable circumstances of their own life. By imitating
Christ and working with the minjung, Minjung theologians become
fools for Christ’s sake themselves. They are the priesthood of han that
has to relieve the suffering of the minjung. According to Calvin’s Insti-
tutes this presupposes perseverance: “although the preaching of the
cross is not in accordance with human wisdom, we must however,
humbly embrace it if we would return to God our maker”4. The will-
ingness to follow the way of the cross is constitutive for any liberation
theology.5
This emphasis on perserverance can therefore also be found in Latin
American liberation theology, which is still influenced by the spiritu-
ality or mystic of passion of the Catholic colonizers from Spain and
Portugal. While in Latin America the emphasis is put on Calvary and
Christ’s being in the tomb on Easter Saturday6, in Minjung theology
suffering is paradoxically overcome through suffering. The Christian
theology of the cross matches well with the Korean concept of han
that comprises both aspects, the passive jung han, that seems to endure
everything and the active won han that breaks through the silence and
in Christian terms affirms the presence of the Messiah among the min-
jung and the hope for liberation.7 In South African Black theology,
the other early Protestant liberation theology, the Crucified was also
4
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, Michigan 1989,
II,6.1, 239.
5
Cf. L.R. Lekula Ntoane, A Cry for Life. An Interpretation of „Calvinism“ and Cal-
vin, Kampen 1983; Akke van der Kooi, De ziel van het christelijk geloof. Theologische
Invallen bij de Praktijk van Geloven, Kampen 2006, 137–154. My thanks also go to
my colleagues Akke van der Kooi and Rinse Reeling Brouwer in Kampen for a good
discussion on the subject.
6
Cf. Küster, Many Faces, 41f.
7
Wonhee Anne Joh, Heart of the Cross. A Postcolonial Christology, Louisville 2006
tries to develop this line of thought further in the context of the Korean diaspora in
the US by introducing the Korean concept of jeong (right relation) as a counterbal-
ance to han.
118 chapter nine
thought to be present among the cross bearers.8 Their belief in the

Black Messiah enabled Black theologians at a very early stage to opt
for reconciliation between black and white. In Minjung theology the
reconciliation aspect could still become fruitful today to overcome the
deep rifts in Korean society that Japanese colonization, the division of
the country and the various dictatorships have caused.
Even though in Korea the history of Christianity is rather short,
“God did not come piggy back with the first missionaries” as Hyun
Young-Hak puts it by way of an aphorism. Suh Nam-Dong responded
theologically to the reinvention of Korean history and culture by the
minjung movement in their struggle to overcome the military dictator-
ship. In the mission of God (Missio Dei) in Korea he sees a confluence
of Christian and minjung traditions. The Christ event then becomes
the hermeneutical key to discern God’s acting in history. Christology
is embedded in the Trinitarian concept of Missio Dei. History in all
its dimensions—past, present, future—is interpreted through the lens
of revelation—a terminology that Suh himself neglects because of its
Christian connotation. Minjung events like the suicide of Chun Tae-
Il become transparent for the Jesus event. God’s revelation in Jesus
Christ is therefore considered exemplary but not exclusive. In Suh
Nam-Dong’s “pneumatological historical interpretation” the Holy
Spirit is ascribed the role of the one in whom the minjung is imitat-
ing Jesus Christ—the already cited reenactment of the Jesus event. For
Chung Hyun-Kyung on the other hand the spirit of the compassion-
ate God and our brother Jesus is present in the spirits of the poor and
oppressed who have been martyred.
With her dictum “we are the text” Chung only echoed the new
anthropology of the first generation. Kim Yong-Bock had already iden-
tified the stories or social biographies of the minjung as resources for
doing theology in Korea and Asia at large.9 In these stories the Messiah
discloses himself. At the same time Kim interprets the Christian text
as a liberating language event. The confluence of these two traditions
as Suh Nam-Dong would put it, empowers the minjung movement to
develop messianic politics over against the political messianism of the
8
Cf. Takatso A. Mofokeng, The Crucified among the Crossbearers. Towards a Black
Christology, Kampen 1983.
9
Cf. the writings of C.S. Song and Kosuke Koyama; Küster, Many Faces, 118–133
(literature!).
powers that be. Alluding to the concept of “realized eschatology”10 one

could probably speak of realized salvation, as far as Minjung theol-
ogy is concerned. The tension between the “already” and “not yet” is
extended in a certain sense. The presence of Christ among the minjung
has practical repercussions. If this was not the case, according to Hyun
Young-Hak, then the Christian message would have no relevance.
Critical transcendence makes a difference in this world.
As far as the mere theological outcome is concerned the formula-
tion of a genuine theology of the cross in a context where the suffering
of God seemed to be unthinkable is certainly the major achievement
of Minjung theology.11 At the same time through the fusion of the
Korean concept of han with the Christian theology of the cross, this
“Protestant theology of passion” also had practical impact on the resis-
tance movement against the military dictatorship.
2. Entering the Ecumenical Forum
The 1979 Minjung theological conference co-sponsored by NCCK and

CCA/CTC itself was meant to introduce Minjung theology to the Asian
Christian community. Jung Young Lee, a Korean minister working in
the US, later invited a number of outstanding theologians from differ-
ent cultural backgrounds and theological orientations to respond to
the conference proceedings.12 This offers the reader the rare occasion
of an intercultural discourse on one particular contextual theology in
a single volume.
Robert McAfee Brown raises the question: “What can North Ameri-
cans learn from Minjung theology?”13 He starts by stating “it is not ‘our’
theology” (35) and “we are not entitled to impose our themes upon it,
or to seek to interpret it with the categories of our traditional Western
theology” (36). Minjung theology as he sees it is contextual, engaged,
10
Cf. Charles H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, rev. edition Digswell Place
1961 (1935).
11
Yet the generative theme of compassion is familiar in Asian religions as well. In
trance the shaman is cutting her body with knives and swords and dances on knives.
She sheds tears of pain sharing the han of her clients. According to some of the jataka-
stories the Buddha has even sacrificed himself in previous lives out of compassion.
12
An Emerging Theology in World Perspective. Commentary on Korean Minjung
Theology, ed. by Jung Young Lee, Mystic, Connecticut 1988.
13
Robert McAfee Brown, What can North Americans learn from Minjung Theol-
ogy?, op. cit., 35–47. Page references in the text.
120 chapter nine
narrative and messianic. All these attributes recur in several articles of

the volume and this indeed points to a different understanding of the-
ology, as far as its subjects and methodologies are concerned. With his
emphasis on the necessity of the dialogue criteria, McAfee Brown sets
the tone for the whole volume: “Various indigenous theologies will
have to test themselves against other indigenous theologies, to ensure
that, in attempting to respond to their own situations, they have not
simply become parochial, and have thereby skewed the message” (47).
The various authors indeed engage in a kind of comparative approach
to relate their own theological agenda to that of Minjung theology.
Without, however, sharing McAfee Brown’s appreciative approach of
asking themselves how they might benefit from it in the first place.
With her emphasis on the significance of experience as a source
of theology, Letty M. Russel is exemplary for a number of contribu-
tors. “Feminist theologies share with minjung theologies both their
appeal to the authority of experience and their refusal to let the clas-
sical norms of theology determine what qualifies as ‘theology’ ”.14 In a
similar line of thought J. Deotis Roberts argues that Minjung theology
has more in common with Black theology than with Latin American
liberation theology, because both are first attempts to integrate the
socio-economic and political and the cultural religious dimensions of
their contexts.15 “This more comprehensive view, which balances cul-
tural and political interests, has the advantage of a strong affinity to
both African and Asian theological developments.”16
While Kwesi Dickson shares this view in general, he is still criti-
cal about the perception of culture in Minjung theology. “Yet despite
the stated commitment to culture, one is given little real insight into
what the authors’ understanding of culture as a theological factor is.”17
Kosuke Koyama’s argument points in a similar direction. He misses,
for instance, a sound discussion of Shamanism.18 C.S. Song comes to
a quite different assessment by elaborating on the writings of the Min-
14
Letty M. Russell, Minjung Theology in Women’s Perspective, op. cit., 75–95,
86.
15
Cf. James Cone, Preface, in: Minjung Theology, ix–xix.
16
J. Deotis Roberts, Black Theology and Minjung Theology: Exploring Common
Themes, in: Emerging Theology, 99–105, 99.
17
Cf. Kwesi A. Dickson, And What of Culture?: An African Reflection on Minjung
Theology, op. cit., 171–181, 174.
18
Cf. Kosuke Koyama, “Building the House by Righteousness”: The Ecumenical
Horizons of Minjung Theology, op. cit., 137–152, esp. 149–152.
jung theologians and further illustrating them with his own percep-
tions of minjung culture. “So theology is not just concepts; it is the life
of the minjung. [. . .] The biography of the minjung is the biography
of their culture.” 19 It would be fair enough to state that as far as the
cultural-religious dimension of the Korean context is concerned the
sheer awareness of its significance has been a major step forward in
the development of Korean theology. Other religions have so far never
been part of the seminary curriculum and only a small group of Meth-
odist theologians in the 1960s had dealt with the subject previously.20
Dickson and Koyama are also both critical about the selective use of
the Bible in Minjung theology.21 This criticism is certainly not appli-
cable to Ahn. The other Minjung theologians are not biblical scholars,
but in the writings of Kim Yong-Bock, for instance, their hermeneuti-
cal method is thoroughly reflected.22
The Latin American liberation theologian José Miguez Bonino ques-
tions the concept of subjecthood of the minjung. “Can we really say
that the uprooted and marginalized masses thrown into the ghettoes
of the monstrous cities of the Third World keep the memory, the con-
tinuity of the subjecthood, even the symbolical transcendence of his-
tory?” He also problematizes the theological dimension, namely the
difference between “to identify” and “identical”. “To say that Jesus
identified himself with the people or the poor is one thing. To say that
the latter are ‘identical’ with Jesus Christ is a different proposition”
19
C.S. Song, Building a Theological Culture of People, op. cit., 119–134, 126.
20
Yun Sung-Bum (1916–1980), Ryu Dong-Shik (*1922) and their pupil Byun Son-
Hwan (1927–1995) wanted to indigenize Christian faith (tochakhwa) and formulate
a Korean theology of religions. While Yun and Ryu warned against syncretism and
thought inclusivistic Byun was a pluralist. Yun who initially searched for points of
contact between the Korean Tangun myth of origin and the biblical creation story,
soon concentrated on Confucianism with his “theology of honesty”. His colleague
Ryu opted for a christocentric universalism with his pyungryu theology. He empha-
sized Shamanism as the primal religion of Koreans. Byun finally turned to Buddhism.
Referring to Aloysius Pieris he propagated a “liberation theology of religions”, which
should bring the Methodist inculturation theology into dialogue with Minjung theol-
ogy. Byun was excluded from the Methodist church in 1995, a decision that was not
revised in spite of a wave of national and international protest. Cf. Lee, Hu-Chun, The-
ologie der Inkulturation in Asien. Das Inkulturationsverständnis bei methodistischen
Theologen in Südkorea, Choan-Seng Song/Taiwan und Aloysius Pieris / Sri Lanka, type-
written PhD dissertation, Heidelberg 1996.
21
Cf. Dickson, Culture, 178–181; Koyama, Righteousness, 151f.
22
Yet the conference volume to which the various authors are responding remains
of course fragmentary as Minjung theology as such.
122 chapter nine
(167).23 Bonino misses the identity reconstructing function of Chris-

tology that is central to Minjung theology.24
Minjung theology’s “challenge to redefine theology” (John B.
Cobb)25 keeps the reflections circling around the interconnected ques-
tions of who is the subject of theology as well as what is the role of
human experience. These issues will be dealt with in the following
two sections. The appendices of Lee’s book contain two letters from
a correspondence between German theologians and Korean Minjung
theologians which suits for an in depth study of the much-debated
issue of subjecthood.
3. Who is the Subject of Theology?
As part of a process of reflection on “Methods and Form of Pres-

ent-day Missionary Activity” (G 1,183), the theological commission
of the Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany
(Evangelisches Missionswerk—EMW) in Hamburg approached the
Minjung theologians of South Korea.26 During the resultant discus-
sion the meaning that the Korean theologians assigned to the concept
of minjung proved to be most controversial. The word minjung was
tacitly translated into “Volk” (“people”).27 The German theologians
traumatic historical experience tempted them to suspect Minjung the-
ology—or, in their translation, ‘theology of the people’—of heresy. To
their minds Minjung theology was based on “structurally the same
theological approach” (G 1,191) that was behind the nationalistic
people’s theology of the German Christians.28 Therefore the German
theologians opposed the identification of the people of God with the
23
See above 73–75.
24
See above 84.
25
John B. Cobb, Jr., Minjung Theology and Process Theology, in: Emerging Theol-
ogy, 51–56, 52.
26
Cf. Minjung-Theologie—ein Briefwechsel, Hamburg 1989. This publication con-
tains three letters. The initial German letter, a reply from Korea and a response by the
Germans. The first two letters are available in English translation, in the Appendices
of Emerging Theology, 183–207. Page references in the text are to the English transla-
tion (G1 and K) only in the case of the third letter I am translating directly from the
German original (G 2).
27
For translation and meaning of the term minjung see above 21f.
28
The German Christians were a church political group that supported the Nazi
regime in Germany (1933–45) and shared its ideology. They identified “being Chris-
Korean people.29 By falling back on the first thesis of the Barmen Dec-
laration30 they rejected theological tendencies that turned history into
“a second source of revelation” (G 1,191).
The Korean theologians contradicted the German authors’ equation
of the concept of minjung with that of “Volk” and opted for a general
refusal to translate or define the term. They countered the accusation
of “natural theology” by questioning the conception of revelation that
was behind this argument. Though—in agreement with the Barmen
Declaration—they affirm that “history, as such, is not for us a second
source of revelation” (K, 203), they insisted that there is “no revelation
outside of history” (ibid.). While countering the Western theological
emphasis on the ephapax, they believe “Jesus Christ to be the event
of God” (ibid.), who “reveals himself constantly throughout history”
(ibid.).
The German theologians did not grasp what was meant by the cat-
egory “event” and thought it implied the equation of “contemporary
Minjung or Liberation events with Jesus’ death and his resurrection
by God” (G 2, 30). They overlooked the fact that the Koreans were
unambiguously concerned with a hermeneutical category. The Jesus
event is the hermeneutical key to their experience, “the standard and
the criterion for revelation in history” (K, 203). Behind this reasoning
the question for the Christus praesens is concealed: “How does Christ
exist in history with us today?” (K, 204). Within their context, the
Korean theologians have encountered him in the suffering minjung.31
That they “acted in solidarity with the minjung” (K, 203) is the imi-
tation of the way of the cross in the here and now. Ecclesiologically,
they appeal to “the distinction between the visible and the invisible
church” (K, 207). The decisive factor for being part of God’s people
is not membership in an institution, but being accepted by God and
taking part in God’s acts in history. Participating in the Missio Dei is
tian” (“Christentum”) with “being German” (“Deutschtum”). Christianity had to be

cleaned of everything “jewish”. Jesus was considered as an “aryan hero”.
29
The Germans rely in their first letter mainly on the anthology published by Jür-
gen Moltmann, Minjung. Theologie des Volkes Gottes in Südkorea, Neukirchen-Vluyn
1984. The issue of nationalism has caused heated debates (see above the comment of
David Suh xivf ).
30
“Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God
whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death”
(www.warc.ch).
31
See above 73–75.
124 chapter nine
working for God’s kingdom, an activity which is not ascribed the qual-
ity of ‘self-redemption’ (cf. G 1, 192f ). The “expectation of an intra-
historical kingdom of God” (G 1,185)—which was also opposed in
this respect—has an eschatological dimension to it, as Kim Yong-Bock
explained in his historical-theological concept of the social biography
of the minjung.32 The discussion about present and future eschatol-
ogy—which could have served as a bridge within the debate—seemed
to have been forgotten.
The fundamental misunderstanding about the subjecthood of the
minjung is the result of a diverging understanding of theology between
the two partners in dialogue. It is thus not a matter of dissimilarity
between Western and Eastern understandings of science as such—as
the Minjung theologians suggest in their reply (cf. K, 197f )—but a
fundamentally different way of doing theology (cf. K, 197). Whereas
the paradigm of academic theology in the West is Theology and Sci-
ence, that of Minjung theology—which is representative of a great
variety of contextual theologies—is Theology and Praxis, or Theology
and Experience. The exchange of letters between the two partners in
dialogue, however, was not a discussion about this fundamental dif-
ference, but about Minjung theology as the position of one of them.
Notwithstanding assurances to the contrary stating that “we are not
measuring Minjung theology with the dogmatic yardstick of Western
theology” (G 1, 190)33, the German theologians took their own theo-
logical tradition as the standard for all theology and checked Minjung
theology on the basis of traditional dogmatic topoi. Therefore the lack
of a hermeneutics of the other on the German side is the second cause
of the diagnosed misunderstanding.34 This leads us to a discussion of
the role of human experience in theological reflection in cross-cultural
perspective.
32
See above 100f.
33
Cf. the stance of Mc Affee Brown (see above 119f ).
34
The German theologians took the Korean reference to the Bible as “the source
of all theology” (K, 207) as an opportunity to offer studying the Bible together. The
following argument in favor of an ecumenical learning process necessarily requires the
development of an intercultural hermeneutics and a repertoire of rules for dialogue.
4. Truth and Experience
Time and again Eurocentric as well as evangelical critics have com-

pared contextual theologies to the theology of the German Christians
and thus disavowed them.35 In this respect, the reception of Minjung
theology can also be seen as representative for many other contextual
theologies.36
For their rejection of Minjung theology, its opponents often refer
to the first thesis of the Barmen Declaration already quoted above.
Even though the six evangelical truths of the theses claim to be valid
beyond the situation they have been formulated in, making it a stan-
dard for contemporary contextual theologies means, however, pulling
this text out of its context. Barmen was an inner churchly, theologi-
cal critique of a church party that wished to force the church into
line with the National Socialist state. Those uttering this criticism
must have been aware that they exposed themselves to the reprisals of
the governing powers.37 This clarifies the political dimension of the
Barmen Declaration.
The theological declaration was a contextual confession with a clear
Christological focus38 that opposed a concrete heresy, which to the
fathers of Barmen was nevertheless a logical consequence of the his-
tory of German theology.39 The criterion for the criticism uttered by
those gathered in Barmen was “Jesus Christ, as proclaimed to us in the
35
See above 9f.
36
Cf. Klauspeter Blaser, Volksideologie und Volkstheologie. Ökumenische Entwick-
lungen im Lichte der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung, München 1991.
37
Cf. Helmut Gollwitzer, Das eine Wort für alle. Zur 1. und 6. These der Theolo-
gischen Erklärung von Barmen, in: Das eine Wort für alle. Barmen 1934–1984. Eine
Dokumentation im Auftrag der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland, ed. by Hans-Ulrich
Stephan, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1986, 59–74.
38
Cf. Wolfgang Huber, Die Theologische Erklärung von Barmen und das Kairos-
Dokument. Über das Verhältnis von Bekenntis und Politik, in: Ökumenische Rund-
schau 41, 1992, 40–57.
39
Cf. Hans Asmussen, Vortrag über die Theologische Erklärung zur gegenwärti-
gen Lage der deutschen Evangelischen Kirche, in: Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen
Evangelischen Kirche Barmen 1934. Vorträge und Entschliessungen, ed. by Karl Immer,
Wuppertal Barmen 1934, 11–24,17: “. . . we protest against the same phenomenon, that
since more than 200 years slowly prepared the devastation of the church. Because it
makes only a relative difference, whether one counts next to the holy scripture his-
torical events or reason, culture, esthetics, modernization or other powers as binding
for the church.”
126 chapter nine
Holy Scripture.”40 Most contextual theologies with a stronger socio-

economic and political orientation share this Christocentrism with the
Barmen Declaration. Some contextual theologies of reformed descent
even fully place themselves within this tradition, such as Minjung the-
ology and South African Black Theology.41 They appeal to the “ideol-
ogy-critical function”42 of the Barmen Declaration in their resistance
against the South Korean military regime and the racism of a white
minority respectively.43 However a shift of emphasis can be detected
in these contextual theologies: it is the suffering Christ whose presence
these theologians recognized in the poor and oppressed peoples of the
Third World. This emphasis on the theologia crucis in its historical
dimension was missing in the Barmen Declaration—this probably also
explains why the Confessing Church44 did not mention the suffering of
the victims, especially among the Jewish people, neither in Barmen nor
elsewhere.45 Jesus Christ is also the criterion in those theologies with
a strong orientation towards the cultural-religious dimension of the
context. M.M. Thomas put it into the now classical formula “Christ-
centered Syncretism”.46
The confession to Jesus Christ was the guideline of the Barmen
synod in a church political and theological conflict. The hermeneuti-
cal dimension of the Jesus event within God’s acting in history was
not acknowledged. To Third World theologians in their search for
traces of God’s liberative action in history Jesus Christ has become the
hermeneutical key of their experience. For Karl Barth (1886–1968)—
40
Quoted from the central sentence of the first thesis (www.warc.ch).
41
Cf. Ahn, Byung-Mu, Zur dritten These der Barmer Erklärung, in: Draußen vor
dem Tor, 146–150; Nico Koopman, The reception of the Barmen Declaration in South
Africa, in: Ecumenical Review 61, 2009, 60–71.
42
Cf. Wolfgang Huber, Die Aktualität der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung, in:
id., Folgen christlicher Freiheit. Ethik und Theorie der Kirche im Horizont der Barmer
Theologischen Erklärung, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1983, 23–30.
43
Cf. The Theological Declaration of Korean Christians (1973), the South African
Kairos Document (1985) and the Belhar Confession (1986). The Korean Theological
Declaration and the Belhar Confession stand together with the Barmen Declaration on
the homepage of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (www.warc.ch).
44
The Confessing Church founded as opposition against the German Christians
claimed to be the legitimate Protestant Church in Germany. Its first synod issued the
Barmen Declaration in 1934.
45
Cf. Eberhard Bethge, Barmen und die Juden—eine nicht geschriebene These?, in:
Das eine Wort für alle, 114–133; Wolfgang Huber, Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage, in:
Folgen christlicher Freiheit, 71–93.
46
Cf. M.M. Thomas, Christ-Centered Syncretism.
co-author of the Barmen Declaration—on the other hand, experience

as the “factor determining the existence of the man who knows”47
through the Word of God48 was a pure theological category. From this
determination through God, Barth derived his freedom as a Christian
to be politically active. This theological conviction also influenced the
second thesis of the Barmen Declaration.49 The contextual theologians
understood the experience of being accepted in Jesus Christ as con-
stitutive to their identity. But against the background of their peoples’
experience of suffering, it is the experience of being accepted in spite
of their miserable life circumstances that liberates them and enables
them to propagate God’s justice. For contextual theologians experi-
ence is thus a theological notion as well. This is true for the classical
writings of Gutiérrez50 and Cone,51 who took the experiences of the
poor of Latin America and the black people of North America respec-
tively as their points of reference. Likewise the Minjung theologians
encountered Christ in the suffering of their people. In feminist the-
ologies in the West, however, which take the specific experiences of
women as source for their theologies, the validity of the Jesus event as
criterion or hermeneutical key for theology was under debate: “Can a
male savior save women?”52
Whereas the authors of the Barmen declaration and the Confess-
ing Church were concerned with taking a theological stand, which—in
the face of the political situation—could not remain without practical
consequences, the Third World theologians participate in practice and
47
CD, I,1 § 6,3 The Word of God and Experience, 226–260, 226.
48
“By experience of The Word of God which is possible to men on this presupposi-
tion as to its reality, we understand the determination of their existence as men by the
Word of God” ( Op. cit., 227).
49
“As Jesus Christ is God’s comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all
our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God’s vigorous announcement of his
claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the
godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures” (www.warc.ch). Cf.
Wolf Krötke, Gottes Anspruch und menschliche Verantwortung, in: Das eine Wort
für alle, 74–86.
50
Cf. Guttierez, Theology of Liberation, xxix–xxxiii.
51
Cf. James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation, 21–39.
52
Cf. Christine Schaumberger, Erfahrung, in: Wörterbuch der Feministischen The-
ologie, Gütersloh 1991, 73–78; Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God Talk.
Toward a Feminist Theology, Boston 1983; Doris Strahm and Regina Strobel (eds),
Vom Verlangen nach Heilwerden. Christologie in feministisch-theologischer Sicht, Fri-
bourg and Luzern 1991.
128 chapter nine
reflect theologically on their experiences. If theology and practice in

Barmen were only indirectly related, they are clearly connected in the
Third World. To Barth the experience of being initially determined
by God, the wholly other, makes freedom possible, while the repre-
sentatives of contextual theologies search for traces of God’s liberative
action in their concrete experiences.53 In the history of the Confessing
Church as well as in Barth’s biography theology and practice are still
inseparably related to each other. Yet this relation is broken down
in the reception of the Barmen declaration and Barth’s theology that
elevates these to the level of space-less and timeless truths.54
The orientation towards practice in Minjung theology does not sus-
pend the question for truth, however. The practice of faith is not a cri-
terion for truth in this regard, but rather a criterion of truthfulness or
accountability, whether faith proves itself in practice. Faith is necessar-
ily connected with truth claims, which have to be critically tested theo-
logically. From the relational triangle individual—God—community
in which every theology must place itself 55 a relational concept of truth
can be derived. The twofold verification of truth claims of contextual
theologies—through the hermeneutical circle that runs between text
and context and through the intercultural forum—releases a plurality
of contextual truths. The storytelling and interpreting community of
53
Within the German context, Gerhard Ebeling (1912–2001) has programmatically
addressed ‘the complaint about theology’s deficiency of experience as a matter of its
genuine subject’ in his speech at the inaugural conference of the Scientific Society for
Theology (Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Theologie, 1974; cf. Gerhard Ebeling, Die
Klage über das Erfahrungsdefizit in der Theologie als Frage nach ihrer Sache, in: id.,
Word und Glaube, vol. 3, Beiträge zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekkle-
siologie, Tübingen 1975, 3–28). Ebeling defines his concept of experience along the
lines of the discussion about the scientific character of theology, and then confronts
it with the theological dimension of the experience of God. To Ebeling, all experience
is directed towards God. Experience is therefore always “experience with the expe-
rience”, e.g. the experience of God. This distinguishes Ebeling from the contextual
theologians who characterize their experiences as primarily open to the experience
of God’s acting in history, without regarding them as being determined by God. To
Ebeling “scripture and experience can both be the source of theological statements”
(cf. Gerhard Ebeling, Schrift und Erfahrung als Quelle theologischer Aussagen, in:
Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 75, 1978, 99–116) without them being directly
related to each other in a hermeneutical circle. In agreement with the presumptions of
contextual theology, he then opts “for the priority of experience and for the unfinished
and open character of theology” (Ebeling, Erfahrungsdefizit, 26).
54
Cf. Berthold Klappert, Versöhnung und Befreiung. Versuche Karl Barth kontex-
tuell zu verstehen, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1994, who claims to tread new paths in this
respect.
55
Cf. Ebeling, Schrift und Erfahrung, 101.
Christians is based on the belief that God’s Spirit reveals glimpses of

truth we cannot possess. This eschatological notion of truth opposes
an ontological perception of truth and claims a fundamental openness
of our theological reasoning in the context of our experiences of the
liberative action of the triune God in history.
CHAPTER TEN
CONTEXTUAL TRANSFORMATIONS
MINJUNG THEOLOGY YESTERDAY AND TODAY
It was younger Korean theologians themselves who introduced the dis-

tinction of generations in Minjung theology. While the differentiation
between first and second generation is evident age wise and in terms of
content, the third generation is not so easy to delimit. They still have
to come of age theologically by addressing the contextual challenges
under the impact of globalization. In this case generation is therefore
meant more thematic than biological, which at the same time makes
the transitions more fluent. Whether in the end what comes out of it
should still be called Minjung theology is an open question. The fol-
lowing sections ask how the generations differ and how precisely the
ever-changing context affects them in their doing theology.
1. The Discovery of Christ among the

Minjung—The First Generation
Despite the individuality of each biographical-theological sketch, there

are a certain number of commonalities that bring to the fore a milieu
in which Minjung theology thrived. Denominationally, Minjung the-
ology is a Protestant affair. This is true despite the co-operation with
the Catholic Church, found especially in the political and social fields
and in the lasting influence of the Catholic lay-theologian Kim Chi-
Ha on Suh Nam-Dong. Minjung theology had its strongest support-
ers in the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK; kor.
Kichang), the most ecumenically oriented among the diverse Presby-
terian denominations.1
1
The PROK (Kichang) originates from a schism in the period after World War II
(1953), over the question of verbal inspiration and infallibility of the Bible over against
historical criticism. A second major split took place in 1959 over the question of mem-
bership in the World Council of Churches. The anti-WCC group (PCK Haptong)
split from those who advocated a critical membership (PCK Tonghap). Cf. Yung-Jae
Kim, Der Protestantismus in Korea und die calvinistische Tradition. Eine geschichtli-
che Untersuchung über Entstehung und Entwicklung der Presbyterianischen Kirche in
132 chapter ten
It is striking that the leading Minjung theologians have their roots

either in Manchuria or North Korea (Ahn, Hyun, David Suh, the
Moon-brothers and Lee Oo-Jung), or in the structurally poor Cholla
province (Suh Nam-Dong, Kim and Chung).2 Without exception they
have studied, at least temporarily, abroad. The elder among them com-
pleted at least part of their education in the country of the colonial
power Japan (Ahn, Suh Nam-Dong, Hyun and Park Hyung-Kyu).
The younger ones have studied mostly in the US (Hyun, Kim, David
Suh, Moon Dong-Hwan and Chung).3 Suh Nam-Dong was educated
in Canada. Ahn was the only one to go to Germany, led there by his
interest in Bultmann’s theology.
Whereas the fathers of the movement on their return regarded them-
selves first as mediators of Western academic theology in their Korean
faculties, the younger ones stood from the beginning under the influ-
ence of the irrupting contextual theologies. Kim and Chung had two
of the pioneers of contextual theologies as dissertation supervisors,
namely Richard Shaull and James Cone respectively. The epistemo-
logical break had biographical consequences in both cases: the painful
process of emancipation from Western theology and the search by the
elders for their own identity changed for the younger into a struggle
for self-determination within a setting still under the influence of 19th
century missionary theology. The struggle for a Korean Christian iden-
tity which enables one to communicate the relevance of the gospel in
the Korean context is therefore common to all those portrayed.
Through bringing the Christ event and the Korean concept of han
into a fruitful interaction, Minjung theologians came to a new percep-
tion of suffering in the Korean context that was unique in the Asian
sphere up till then. It is to the credit of Minjung theology to have
articulated God’s capacity to suffer as well as tracing God’s presence in
the suffering people of Asia. Compared to the two extremes of contex-
Korea, Frankfurt a.M. et al. 1981, 141–156. The Jeju declaration of the Presbyterian
Churches in Korea on the occasion of the centenial of the mission to this island South
of the peninsula (24.09.2008), signals for the first time a rapprochment of the major
Presbyterian denominations. My thanks go to Malte Rhinow, Seoul for providing me
with his draft translation of this document.
2
Age-wise Chung belongs to the second generation; content-wise she is closer to
the first generation (see below 136f ).
3
Here parallels can be discerned to the development of the military and admini-
strative elite. Whereas Park Chung-Hee even served in the Japanese army, the younger
generation is clearly oriented towards the US.
contextual transformations 133
tual theology in Asia—Indian theology which is rich in tradition and

determined by its dialogue with Hinduism and Filipino theology which
is strongly oriented towards Latin American liberation theology—
Minjung theology was the first synthesis between the socio-economic,
political and cultural-religious types of contextual theology in the Asian
context. In the meantime Dalit theology in India has forged its path by
criticizing the older dialogue theology for its neglect of the cast issue.4
Critics like Pyun Sun-Hwan,5 who has accused Minjung theology of
selectivity in relation to Korean religions, would be countered by second-
generation Minjung theologians like Chung Hyun-Kyung with a pro-
grammatic affirmation of this very fact.6 In contrast to Latin American
liberation theologies, first generation Minjung theologians kept their
reservations toward historical materialism. The cause of this reticence
should not be considered a submission to official anti-communism,
but is grounded in the personal experiences of this generation—the
flight and expulsion from North Korea and the destructions of the
Korean War left deep scars. This becomes impressively clear from
the memories of a contemporary witness:
I grew up in North Korea and my father was a Presbyterian minister in
Pyongyang. When the Korean War broke out, he was taken in by the
North Korean secret police. Later we found his body floating in the Tae-
dong-river.7 He was shot by the North Korean soldiers. We buried him
in the North, in Pyongyang, and we came down to South Korea with
the retreating South Korean and US Army. Because of this experience
in my family, I have a lot of hatred towards the North Korean Com-
munist system. [. . .] Under this very oppressive regime, Christians and
their leaders were almost helpless. The only things they could do were
either to resist or to give up Christianity. My father took the position of
total resistance.
4
Dalit is the name for the castless people. Cf. M.E. Prabhakar (ed.), Towards a Dalit
Theology, Delhi 1989; Xavier Irudayraj, S.J. (ed.), Emerging Dalit Theology, Madras and
Madurai 1990; Arwind P. Nirmal (ed.), A Reader in Dalit Theology, Madras 1991,
Indigenous People: Dalit. Dalit Issues in Today’s Theological Debate, ed. by James Mas-
sey, Delhi 1994; V. Devasahayam, Frontiers of Dalit Theology, Madras 1997. Since
1997 there are regular meetings between Dalit and Minjung Theologians alternately in
South Korea and India. Cf. Dalit and Minjung Theologies: A Dialogue, ed. by Samson
Prabhakar and Jin-Kwan Kwon, Bangalore 2006; special issue of Madang vol. 8, Dec.
2007.
5
Cf. Pyun Sun-Hwan, Other Religions and Theology, in: East Asia Journal of Theo-
logy 3, 1985, 327–353, 332.
6
Cf. a similar attitude in the minjung culture movement. See above 34–54.
7
One of Korea’s main rivers, flowing through Pyongyang.
134 chapter ten
More than 600.000, some people even estimate a million, North

Korean Christians took refuge in South Korea. If South Korean Chris-
tianity has any ideology, then it is anti-communism, which is very
emotionally, existentially and experientially motivated. Therefore South
Korean Christians resist or reject any kind of learning or understand-
ing of Marxism, or of the developments in Eastern European countries,
Russia, or China.
This is the kind of situation in which some people, myself included,
try to talk about peaceful co-existence with North Korea and about the
recognition of the existence of Christian communities there. But I have
an internal struggle to fight. The North Korean regime is the murderer
of my father, and I am trying to make peace with my enemies. On top of
it, I am a Christian and I ask myself: how can you really love your enemy
in a true sense? And how can you talk about peace and peaceful co-
existence without repentance for the hatred of your own brothers? This
internal struggle is at the same time a theological problem. South Korean
Christians cannot talk about peace or reunification without repentance
for the deep-seated hatred towards the brothers and the sisters in the
North.8
David Suh (*1931) is an eloquent interpreter of Minjung theology, who
affiliated himself with the movement early on.9 Halfway through the
1980s he took on the problematic issue of Korean reunification. This
theme had consistently been fraught with risks in the minjung move-
ment, and hardly been addressed theologically up till then.10 Again,
theological language serves to articulate the aspirations of the Korean
people. Suh calls Korean Christians to repent that they fell into the
trap of the ideology of national security and economic development.
This has been a sin against God.11 The question of peace and reunifi-
cation gets lifted to the level of status confessionis. Suh was one of the
key speakers at the 1988 NCCK International Consultation on Justice
and Peace in Korea in Inchon (April 25.–29.). The NCCK had declared
1995 the jubilee year for Peace and Reunification: after fifty years of
8
Interview with David Suh February 15, 1988.
9
“I was told by my friends that I am more or less the spokesperson of the Minjung
theologians. I interpreted what my friends were doing theologically for the Western
world. This is why I have more writings in English than in Korean” (interview Febru-
ary 15, 1988).
10
Cf., David Kwang-Sun Suh, Penitence for Peace. Toward a Theology of Reuni-
fication, in: Korea Scope 6, 1986, 75–79; id., The Theology of Reunification: A Korean
Theology of the Cross and Resurrection, in: id., The Korean Minjung in Christ, Hong
Kong 1991, 177–188.
11
Suh, Penitence for Peace, 59.
division the two Koreas should be reunified.12 Suh interprets the divi-
sion in straight forward Christological terms. The “cross” of division
from which the people are suffering will be overcome in the “resur-
rection” of reunification. Referring simultaneously to the traditional
festivals hanshik and chusok, the spring and autumn festival respec-
tively, Suh intertwines the Christian language with traditional ancestor
veneration. Many refugees to the South are longing to visit the tombs
of their ancestors located in the North on these festival days. Yet Suh’s
effort to reshape Minjung theology did not find much international
resonance any more.13
Supporters of Minjung theology remain a disappearing minor-
ity among Korean Christians. It was undeniably at its height during
the CCA Conference in 1979. This was the culmination of its criti-
cal, theological potential, which had been developing since the early
1970s. Despite exterior political pressure, a phase of consolidation
ensued. The Minjung theologians (Ahn, Suh Nam-Dong, Hyun, Kim
and David Suh) met on a monthly base at Ahn’s institute. Some of
the progressive thinkers of the secular minjung movement attended
as well. Only after the expelled professors were rehabilitated did these
informal round table talks taper off.
On the basis of their ecumenical contacts and their international
fame, the Minjung theologians gained a certain political influence
in the church, which has found its expression not least in important
church documents.14 They also played a considerable part in politics.
Some among them belonged to Kim Dae-Jung’s circle of closest advi-
sors. His Peace and Democratic Party (PDP) was in a serious crisis
after its defeat in the elections of 1987. That it united and managed to
12
Cf. Declaration of the Churches of Korea on National Reunification and Peace,
February 1988, in: Reunification. Peace and Justice in Korea. Christian Response in
the 1980s, ed. Christian Conference of Asia, Hong Kong 1988, 87–96 (also: www.warc
.ch). This official church document is based on the earlier 1973 and 1976 declarations
of individual Christian theologians and lay people (see above 64), but focuses on the
reunification issue. To begin with it confesses the “sins of hatred and division” bet-
ween South and North Koreans. The three declarations follow the tradition of Barmen
(1934), the Stuttgart Confession of Guilt (1945) or the so-called Ostdenkschrift of the
Protestant Churches in Germany on “The Situation of the Exiles and the Relation of
the German People with their neighbors in the East” (1965). They may also be com-
pared with the South African Kairos document (1985) and the Belhaar confession
(1982–86) or the confession of guilt of the Japanese Kyodan (1967).
13
Cf. also Noh, Jong-Sun, Liberating God for Minjung, Seoul 1994; id., The Third
War. Christian Social Ethics, Seoul 2000.
14
See fn. 12.
136 chapter ten
catch up with the government party in the parliamentary elections of

1988 was mostly to the credit of some prominent dissidents from the
sphere of Minjung theology joining the PDP. Park Young-Suk, wife
and political companion of Ahn, and Moon Dong-Hwan, attained
leading positions in the party and were members of parliament (1988–
1992). Moon became the chairperson of the parliamentary commis-
sion investigating the Kwangju-massacre (1988–89).15
2. Building the Minjung Church—The Second Generation
In these same years some young ministers, mostly students of the first
generation Minjung theologians, founded little minjung parishes in
worker-neighborhoods and slums. They saw themselves in the tradi-
tion of the UIM centers, some of which had turned into churches in
the meantime. But they were operating on a much smaller scale with
an average of about 20 members each. These parishes tried to organize
themselves and find a theological voice. To strengthen their position
over against the established churches and to intensify the exchange of
experiences, the Council of Minjung Churches in Korea was founded.
This organization was necessary, not least for economic reasons. Even
today there is no central organ for the joint and equal payment of
pastors’ salaries. It is up to the parish involved to take responsibil-
ity; salaries are thus dependent on the parish’s financial situation, and
many of the young minister’s families lived below the poverty line. The
main theological theme was ecclesiology: how can being-a-church be
shaped in these particular circumstances? The question of the relation
between Christian faith and culture has also been high on the agenda
in these circles through their efforts towards a Korean liturgy.
Besides these ministers, who were deeply rooted in the praxis of the
parish, there were a number of theologians with academic ambitions,
who referred to themselves as “the second generation”.16 Unlike their
predecessors, they did not have the advantage of studying abroad in
the first place; they received their theological education in Korea.17 An
15
See above 30 and 52f.
16
Cf. for instance the former assistants of Ahn Byung-Mu, Kang Won-Don (*1955)
and Park Song-Joon (*1940).
17
Eventually some of them went abroad at a later age to aquire a PhD, the afore-
mentioned Kang to Germany (1993–98) and Park to Japan (1994–1997). The later had
the chance to move on to the US (1997–2000), as a visiting scholar at Union Theolo-
essential bone of contention with the first generation was the issue
of ideology, as the younger did not share their skepticism regarding
Marxist analysis. Because the second generation published in Korean
it is difficult for the outsider to gain insight. In retrospect Hwang
Hong-Eyoul sees ideological orientation as one of the obstacles of the
second generation:18 “the revival of Marxist ideology was a backdrop
to the formation of the minjung church” (9).
The gap between community organization and conscientization
on the one hand and building a Christian faith community on the
other seemed to be unbridgeable. The workers participated in all sorts
of social activities during the week but nevertheless did not attend
the Sunday worship services. Only in the 1990s did minjung pastors
come to the conclusion, that “for minjung mission to be effective it
needs to rely heavily on the spirituality of the cross” (21), which brings
them back to one of the core ideas of the first generation. It came to
a rediscovery of spirituality and religion as a way of life (22). At the
same time they emphasized the imbededness of the minjung spiritual-
ity in “the spirituality of eastern religions where life and doctrine are
one” (22). The minjung was seen as bearer of traditional culture and
religion. This meets with the “survival-liberation centered syncretism”
propagated by Chung Hyun-Kyung, who belongs to this generation
age-wise, but is theologically closer to the teachers’ generation. With
her feminist perspective however she went beyond them.
The Korea Association of Minjung Theologians, which was founded
in September 1992 under the chairpersonship of Ahn Byung-Mu and
David Suh, functioned as a forum for an encounter among the various
groups within Minjung theology. Besides the continuing struggle for
peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula, ecology became an
issue. This was a point of contact with so-called civil movements. The
changing context has certainly lessened the attendance at and influ-
ence of this forum, though it still exists today.19
gical Seminary. Since 1998 he stayed with his family mainly in Pendle Hill, a Quaker
center, where he focused on peace studies.
18
Hong-Eyoul Hwang, The History of the Minjung Church in South Korea from
1983 to the Present, unpublished manuscript. Page references in the text.
19
One year after Ahn’s death the Ahn Byung-Mu society was founded (1997). In
2007 former students of the Mission Education Center and collegues, among whom
David Suh played a crucial role, founded the Suh Nam-Dong society. There are some
overlaps im membership but for the rest the three societies function independently.
138 chapter ten
3. What Subject of Which History?—The Quest

of the Third Generation
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, one of the augurs of the American empire

in times of globalization, proclaimed the end of history in a much-dis-
puted article.20 With the breakthrough of liberal democracy, the evolu-
tion of ideology would have brought history to its finishing point. The
collapse of the bipolar world order—which is symbolized by the fall
of the Berlin Wall in the same year and accompanied by the extension
of neoliberal capitalism and the increasing compression of the world
by means of new communication technologies—can be viewed as the
end and the beginning of an era.21
Many peaceful regime changes took place in the Third World too. In
South Korea Chun Doo-Hwan decided not to strive for a second term
due to the pressures of the ongoing demonstrations in 1987. Unfor-
tunately, the opposition was unable to reach agreement on a single
candidate, which provided once more for the victory of the military in
the person of Roh Tae-Woo.22 A few years later, however, he and his
predecessor Chun had to give account in court of their involvement
in the Kwangju massacre.23 Both leaders of the opposition in 1987
were chosen as presidents one after the other: Kim Young-Sam from
1993–1998 and Kim Dae-Jung from 1998–2003. With President Roh
Moo-Hyun (2003–2008), a former human rights lawyer, the younger
generation that had fought the military dictatorship took office. In 2008
the conservative party won again with the previous Seoul major Lee
Moon-Back. His pro US policy and the change of attitude in relations
with North Korea have not gone unquestioned by the Korean people.
Nevertheless his administration has managed an economically neo-
liberal and politically authoritarian about-face. Both former president
Roh Moo-Hyun and president Lee have been accused of corruption,
which has shaken the young Korean democracy to the ground.
20
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History?, in: The National Interest 16, 1989, 3–18;
id., The End of History and the Last Man, New York etc. 1992.
21
Cf. Schreiter, The New Catholicity.
22
Cf. Lost Victory. An Overview of the Korean People’s Struggle for Democracy in
1987, Seoul 1988.
23
In 1997 Chun got a life-sentence and Roh 17 years imprisonment. They were
released only 8 months later, however, due to an amnesty granted by then president
Kim Young-Sam.
Within 30 years South Korea has gone through a development

which took Europe more than 100 years. The price that the “little peo-
ple” had to pay for this was high. The minjung movement and with
it Minjung theology made a large contribution to the democratization
and the social progress of large sections of the population.24 Although
the social and political set-ups have changed radically in South Korea,
the reunification issue remains virulent.25 Korean activists have care-
fully watched the reunification process of Germany and have thereby
matured into realistic politicians.26 To many Korean contemporaries,
the historical-theological project of the minjung movement appears
to be a myth of times long gone. The question as to who is minjung
today, still asked now and then, indicates that for many, not only has
this story come to an end, but its subject seems to have gone missing.
Nevertheless, the spirit of the minjung movement is still alive in the
civil movements of South Korea.
Fukuyama was right in proclaiming a new era—what we call today
the age of globalization—but his perspective was Western, he had no
eye for the non-simultaneousness of simultaneous processes (Ungleich-
zeitigkeit des Gleichzeitigen) and the plurality of modernities. The
hyperculture of neoliberal capitalism—which icons led social scien-
tists to new terminologies such as McDonaldization or Coca-Coloni-
zation—is opposed by hybrid local cultures gaining strength. Roland
Robertson speaks of this as Glocalization.27 Though the first generation
Minjung theologians were ahead of the minjung culture movement
and later used artistic resources, nowadays most of the small group of
progressive theologians has lost contact with secular intellectuals and
artists. Whereas the latter have responded to the contextual changes
in a variety of ways, theological reflection on these matters is still very
24
Still 20% of the population live beyond the poverty line and many people work
for leasing firms, getting only a portion of the salaries of the regular employers of the
big companies they work for.
25
Cf. Ji-Seok Jung, Korean Reunification Theology: A Theological Reflection on
Peace in the Situation of Conflict and Division between North and South Korea, in:
Madang 2, 2005, 27–48.
26
Cf. Yang Sung Chul, “The Implications of German Unification for Korea: Legal,
Political and International Dimensions”, in: Korean Politics. Striving for Democracy
and Unification, ed. Korean National Commission for UNESCO, Seoul 2002, 585–
598.
27
Cf. Roland Robertson, “Glocalization: Time—Space and Homogenity—Hetero-
genity”, in: Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (eds), Global Modernities, London 1995,
25–44.
140 chapter ten
limited. While there is at least some reaction from theologians to the

socio-economic impact of globalization and empire,28 the cultural reli-
gious side is neglected. By revisiting the artists introduced in § 2 some
of the contextual transformations become visible. The categorization
introduced above is still applicable.
(1) Pictures from the political resistance

Hong Song-Dam tried in the 1990s to cope with his prison experience
in an artistic way, as he did with the Kwangju massacre in the 1980s.
He switched his technique, however, from woodcut to oil painting.29
Born on an island surrounded by water, the artist strives to gain back
the positive memories of his youth after being exposed to water torture
during his imprisonment. The guards forced liters of water down his
throat or pressed his head under water for long minutes. In the series
“The twenty days in water” (8 pieces; 1999) Hong describes the meta-
morphosis of the one tortured with water into a fish which cannot live
without water.
The first image of the series (Fig. 37; 650x530 mm) shows the victim
tied to a chair naked and upside down in water. His feet are bound to
the front legs of the chair while flowers blossom from the legs of the
chair which stick slightly out of the water. These flowers only grow in
coastal areas. Near the moment of death, when the torture has reached
a point where one’s resistance fades, Hong recalls these flowers of his
youth. In the early morning hours as fog covers the ground up to one’s
knees, the flowers seem to drift on the sea. It looks to him as if even
these beautiful flowers have forsaken him. A bowl of rice floats on the
water next to the chair. While for Kim Chi-Ha rice as the basic food of
Asia is a symbol of life, Hong Song-Dam has a much more ambivalent
notion of it. One can only be tortured if he or she eats sufficiently.
Rice then becomes part of the torture process. Fishes swim around the
body. To the right a single tree grows on the cliffs. In the upper left
corner one can see an island from afar which probably reminds the
artist of his own home island Haui.
28
Cf. e.g. the contributions of Kim Yong-Bock and Kang Won-Don in Madang.
29
The mural style of the protest years is resumed by Hong in a number of oversized
oil paintings. After earlier tableaus denouncing the ecological crisis in more recent
works he has created mytho-poetic worlds, mixing elements of Korean history and
culture with fantasy.
The second picture (Fig. 38; 650x530 mm) shows him face down,
his features mirrored in a bathtub. A piece of soap on a dish and two
toothbrushes are visible at one side. Hong was hung head down and
drowned in the bathtub by guards in his prison cell. At the bottom
of the next picture (Fig. 39; 650x530 mm) we see the top of his head,
eyes closed as if he is dreaming of the tray above him with soup, rice
and kim chi on it. One plate holds the bones of a small fish. The tray is
reminiscent of a take-out meal from a Korean restaurant. The torturers
ordered food for the prisoner in order to keep him strong enough to
bear the pain. A streak at the top of the work marks the surface of the
water. In the fourth picture (Fig. 40; 650x530 mm) the former prisoner
has grown fins and is swimming with a fish. Together their bodies
form a circle, reminiscent of the yin-yang symbol. Only the face, eyes
closed, breaks the surface of the water in the fifth picture (Fig. 41;
650x530 mm). The artist has painted flowers and trees on the forehead.
His thoughts roam to a nature that only can be sustained by water.
For the last three pictures Hong choose the shape of a mandala. On
number six (Fig. 42; 1200x1200 mm) man and fish circle around the
chair, where some of the restraints still hang over the backrest. In the
seventh picture (Fig. 43; 1200x1200 mm) man and fish are surrounded
by depictions of memories from the artist’s life. Close to death, one’s
life passes before the inner eye. The two, man and fish, now swim
around a rice bowl. In the concluding picture (Fig. 44; 1200x1200 mm)
the man has been totally transformed into a fish. The two fish still
circle around the rice bowl, the color of which has changed from the
yellowish tint of the preceding picture to pure white, color of purity
and reconciliation.30
Hong Song-Dam recovered from his trauma through his artwork.
One of the torturers who had been traced by an investigative TV pro-
gram showed no remorse, even saying that they obviously did not
torture him enough because he is still politically active. While Hong
Song-Dam has gone through a process of aesthetic self-reconcilia-
tion, mutual reconciliation and forgiveness have not even begun in
Korea.31
30
In the series “Meals,” 68 square paintings in mixed media, Hong has created
variations on the rice bowl, given to him through a square hole at the bottom of his
prison wall (cf. the painting Distributing meals, in: East Wind, 67).
31
Cf. Chai Soo-Il, Die Überwindung der Gewalt aus der Sicht der Opfer—Das
Beispiel von Hong Sung Dam, in: Benjamin Simon and Henning Wrogemann (eds),
142 chapter ten
(2) Sketches from every day life

Kim Bong-Chun who was deeply involved in the struggle during the
1980s as well, retreated to the countryside like many others. Always
interested in the farmer’s life and culture, he specializes nowadays in
pastoral scenes. Sometimes he produces hand colored woodcuts using
a particular stamp technique. He also began with sculpture: colored
clay figures in a naive style that depict mainly animals. By turning
a storage house into a temporary gallery and opening farmhouses as
inns, Kim organized a very successful art exhibition in his small village
Munmak, for which the local people exposed visitors to country life.
The artist is convinced that minjung culture will survive in the coun-
tryside. The farmers are still poor and suffer from hard work and low
incomes. Many young people have left for metropolitan areas seeking
better education and job opportunities.32
Turong (Fig. 25, 1983, 240x350mm)

The name of the artist collective around Kim Bong-Chun founded
in 1982, turong, indicates his interest in rural life. The Korean word
denotes the small earthen dam around the rice paddies, where people
take a rest from their hard work, eat together and enjoy life. On an
early woodcut with the same title farmers sit around a rice mat spread
on the ground. Rice bowls, side dishes and cups are placed on the
mat. In the upper left a mother breastfeeds her child. Next to her, her
mother-in-law sits, watching her. Two young guys eating their rice
sprawl either side of the mat. At the near end the grandfather and
another man, probably the child’s father, sit. They have put their tools,
a spade and two sickles, aside. In the accompanying poem a wanderer
describes the scene. It is noon and he feels hungry. The farmers invite
him to join their meal. First he is hesitant but then enjoys their hospi-
tality. No doubt he is the guy sitting to the left of the rice mat.
Eco-farming (Fig. 45, 1998, 200x270mm)

A family sits on the turong. The father has opened a small canal so that
water can flow into the rice paddy. Mother and child release ducks
into the water. The ducks will catch the vermin and provide a little
Konviviale Theologie, Festgabe für Theo Sundermeier zum 70. Geburtstag, Frankfurt
a.M. 2005, 287–298; Volker Küster, Gott/Terror. Ein Diptychon, Frankfurt a.M. 2009.
32
Lately Kim has become involved in cultural work with the Korean diaspora, espe-
cially in Russia.
extra income. No expensive chemicals will be needed and the food will
be pure. Healthy food makes the body healthy as well. Human beings
and the earth form one body. In the back stand an ox and a small tree
beneath two clouds. The rice paddy forms a microcosm.
Shade (Fig. 46, 1998, 200x270mm)

In another color print from the same period a father rests under a
shady tree, as his little daughter sleeps on his chest. Two pairs of
slippers and a rake lie at their feet. In the poem that accompanies
the picture the father compares the treetop to a roof and the ground
underneath to a traditionally heated floor (ondul bang). He wants to
feel the heartbeat of his little daughter while they sleep. What a dif-
ferent atmosphere from Hong Song-Dam’s exhausted farmer in his
woodcut “draught”.33
Avatar (Fig. 47, 2002, 193, 5x782 mm)

During the Soccer World Cup 2002, hosted by Japan and Korea, the
Koreans fervently supported their own team, that even beat the Japa-
nese. The fans dressed in red like the players on the field and called
themselves “red devils”.34 Hong Song-Dam has produced a series
under the title “Avatar” to deal with this phenomenon. The blue skin
of the figures standing in several rows and their red clothes are remi-
niscent of the colors of the Korean national flag. They wear scarves
inscribed “Korea—We will be there for you”. The artist is suspicious
of the looming nationalism. Kim Chi-Ha gives a quite different assess-
ment.35 He sees a chance to overcome the Korean “red complex”. The
color red used to be the color of the King, but was later banned as a
symbol of communism.
(3) Cultural-religious motifs

Lee Chul-Soo also started as a radical political artist in the 1980s.36
After the fierce years of struggle, however, he bought a farm in the
countryside with his wife. Nowadays Lee is a famous artist in Korea.
33
See above 33 (Fig. 8).
34
Conservative Christians were initially offended by this name choice. Yet their
nationalism proved stronger. The confessing Christians among the players publicly
refered to Jesus’ presence on their side.
35
Interview with Kim Chi-Ha November 26, 2005.
36
Cf. Lee Chul-Soo, Dawn is coming, Beat the Drum.
144 chapter ten
In the early 1980s Lee sympathized with Minjung theology. Some of

his works were used as illustrations for covers of church publications
or theological books. He produced critical prints about the attitude of
the mainline churches towards poverty and oppression in those days.
Like Kim Chi-Ha, Lee turned more and more towards Asian cultures
and religions, especially Buddhism.
Church (Fig. 48, 1983; 450x600 mm)

A man crouches in the foreground. His forearms are crossed on
the ground, and his head rests on them, forming a square with the
shoulders. His right leg is bent close to his body, the sole of the bare
foot on the ground. The depiction is more rock than human being.
A big church building dominates the upper half of the picture above
the man, and seems to press him even more firmly to the ground.
The artist reverses one of the central ecclesiological ideas of Minjung
theology, namely that the minjung church is outside the gate with the
minjung, as Christ himself went outside the gate (Hebr 13,11–13).
The church in this picture keeps the minjung outside its gate.
Some gravestone (Fig. 26; 1992; 480x420 mm)

Another of Lee’s prints is dominated by three huge triumphalistic
crosses with little halos atop the beams. On the crossbeam of the largest
cross in the foreground, somebody has hung himself. The text beneath
states that he could not find a place on earth. His spiritual needs were
frustrated. He failed to reach God through the Christian churches,
Protestant and Catholic alike. The artist thematizes his renunciation
of Christianity in an ironic way.
Rice is heaven (Fig. 49; 1987; 420x500 mm)

This colored woodcut shows a rice bowl containing the whole cosmos.
Rice is the basic food in Asia. Koreans are accustomed to eat it three
times a day together with soup and kim chi. All ingredients are grown
on Korean soil and foreign food was frowned upon until recently.37
A pine branch divides the circular inside into two parts. In the upper
half the sun rises above mountains and rain falls from the clouds. The
lower half is filled with the moon and stars. Sun and moon are located
on a diagonal opposite to each other.
37
The recent protests against the import of Amercian beef (2008) still echo this.
The whole composition alludes to the yin-yang symbol of cosmic

harmony. Only the rice bowl itself is a reminder of human beings who
are an integral part of the cosmos. Lee created this woodcut early on,
in 1987, at the height of the struggle, anticipating the spirituality of life
of the years to come.
“Happiness of rice, joy of one bowl of rice”

(Fig. 27; 2001; 420x500 mm)
A rice bowl containing water stands at the center of a circle. Kore-
ans use to drink water out of the rice bowl after they emptied it. The
circle is a symbol of harmony, with the bowl in the center focusing
the concentration of the viewer. Pictures that serve such meditational
practices are known from ancient times as mandala.
Samsara (Fig. 50; 1990; 370x375 mm)

On the fringes of the yellow ball of the sun green-leafed plants grow.
Without sunlight plants cannot survive. Sun and plants are one. The
leaves of one of the plants are turning red, beginning to fade. If the
leaves fade, however, the sun will also fade. The black dot in the center
is the point of highest concentration—the self.
Emptied space (Fig. 28; 1990; 250x300 mm)

To draw a circle is to create a world. In Zen thinking “absolute noth-
ingness” is paradoxically enough, not “nothing” in the Western sense.
The circle is decentered. The self has stepped outside, leaving a space
without words behind. In the poem accompanying the picture the self
reflects on the empty space. “I think this world is supposed to be filled
with stories from all different walks of life.”—“I know this world is big
enough to contain stories from all different walks of life.”
Lee Chul-Soo shows a clear tendency to simplify and minimalize
forms in his prints. This does not mean, however, that their content
becomes easier to interpret. The general frame of reference is his long-
ing for harmony and oneness, virtues Lee found in Asian cultures and
religions. Sometimes his prints and the accompanying texts and poems
contain a certain paradox or irony not unfamiliar to Zen Buddhism.
They can easily serve as a kind of visual koans.38
38
In Zen Buddhism the master responds to questions of the pupil seeking the way
to awakening, with koans, a kind of paradoxical, riddle-like sayings.
146 chapter ten
“Obuba”—“Come on my back” (Fig. 29, 1996; 210x270mm)

In addition to pastoral scenes, Kim Bong-Chun also references Bud-
dhism in his works. Here a mother carries her child the traditional
way, in a special cloth on her back. The head and shoulders of both
are surrounded by a double halo, but they look in opposite directions.
In the poem the artist refers to the Mahayana teaching that all humans
are Buddha. The love of the mother for her child cannot be divided
from Buddha’s heart. Paradoxically enough, her child’s disobedience is
also Buddha’s act. For the artist Buddhism opens the life of the com-
mon people to transcendence.
Lotus of Silk Road (Fig. 51, 1995, 1200x1650mm)

In the upper part of this colorful picture three key religious figures
with halos round their heads are to be seen. In the middle the Buddha
sits in the lotus seat dressed in white. The mudra of his hands sym-
bolizes ki. Above his head two heavenly creatures with lotus flowers
float. To his right sits Mary with the child Jesus on her left thigh. She
is dressed in a brown monastic dress with cowl. The space between
her and the edge of the picture is filled with some star ornaments. To
Buddha’s left kneels Mohammed, holding the Qur’an in his right hand
and a short dagger in his left. Ornaments that recall Arabic calligraphy
fill the gap beside him.
In front of them a naked woman with two children lies on a blanket
in the color and shape of a lotus flower. In her right arm she holds a
baby wrapped in white cloth who seems to drink from her breast. Her
other arm is put around the neck of a little girl watching from behind
her back.
Below them a desert landscape is spread. Kim, who had the oppor-
tunity to travel the middle-east, filled the scenery with two camels with
colorful saddlecloths, birds, date palms and a monkey. At the bottom
of the picture a herdsman on a donkey appears from the left with
his sheep. On the right ancient style Egyptian figures depict what is
probably a pharaoh with his wife and two female servants with lotus
flowers in their hands and hair. Beside them is a little pond with lotus
flowers. Kim envisions peaceful exchange between cultures and reli-
gions along the Silk Road as a model for the hybridization of cultures
and religious syncretism in a globalized world. This new civilization
of peace emerges in Asia. It is grounded in mutual respect, an attitude
that seeks comparability rather than claiming the absoluteness of one’s

own tradition.39
4. Where is Jesus Christ Today?—In Search for a New

Minjung Theology
Due to the dynamics of the socio-economic, political and cultural

parameters the question for the Christus praesens has to be asked time
and again by Christian theologians. If one holds that Christ is prefer-
ably present in the poor and oppressed, as liberation theologians do,
then in contemporary South Korea Christ is to be found, for instance,
among the migrant workers. The images are strikingly comparable.
Whereas in the 1980s the urban poor whom the government chased
from the ‘moonlight towns’ searched for church asylum, during my
visit in winter 2003/04, the migrant workers who were threatened
with deportation did the same. This situation concerns, however, only
a part of the churches’ social welfare work.40 The generative themes41
of suffering and solidarity of Jesus with the poor lost the integrative
power they had for Minjung theology in the social struggles of the
1970s and 1980s.
In the 1990s, the circle of Minjung theologians had proposed “life”
(salim)42 the precise antonym of the theme of “suffering,” as a new
generative theme. During the final years of his life, Ahn Byung-Mu
was especially concerned with the Asian principle of ki or chi, the
power of life. Kim Yong-Bock is striving to start a university for the
study of life. Minjung pastor Huh Byung-Sub has founded a Green
39
Cf. Kim Chi-Ha, Where I stand right now, in: graceful respect—dynamic life. The
Transformation of the 21C & Life Culture “Salim”, WLCF2003 Paper Book, ed. by
world life-culture forum_gyeonggi 2003, 63–67.
40
Park Jong-Wha—student of Ahn Byung-Mu, former Professor of Theology and
General Secretary of his church, today minister of the oldest congregation of the Pres-
byterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK)—has made medical care for labor
migrants and an aid program for North Korean child refugees an inherent part of his
parish work. By permanently reviewing these projects with the members of his con-
gregation he tries to find an adequate form of diaconic work on the parish level.
41
See above 5 fn. 17.
42
Salim could probably best be translated as “taking care of the household”. It has
a relational connotation in the sense of “doing something good for others”. In the
current debate it is understood along the lines of a “sustainable living together”.
148 chapter ten
University.43 The students of the Minjung theologians even renamed

their society of minjung ministers “Life Mission Solidarity”. Chung
Hyun-Kyung’s “survival-liberation centered syncretism” integrates
the life enhancing elements of other religions.44 Her line of thought is
followed by Jin-Kwan Kwon who sketches an interreligious pneuma-
tology.45 He rereads the “spirit languages” of different religions from
a minjung perspective, abandoning what is oppressive and bringing
into dialogue what is life centered. The solidarity with the poor and
the oppressed is continued in these theological projects. But after the
harsh years of the struggle for human rights, social justice and democ-
ratization, many protagonists of the minjung movement and Minjung
theology seek spiritual contemplation. While minjung artists such as
Lee Chul-Soo or Kim Chi-Ha have turned to Buddhism46 or Tonghak
resp. Chongdogyo, Ahn Byung-Mu and Kim Yong-Bock left Seoul and
moved into the mountains, to Chonan and Irisan respectively. They all
share a growing interest in Asian cultures and values.
The concept of “life”—which has been stretched a lot in the ecu-
menical discourse—has become a metaphor for the increasing com-
plexity of late modern societies. This holistic discourse will become
concrete only in the way the generative subthemes of nature, culture
and religion that determine it are tackled theologically. The panorama
drawn above with the help of visual arts can give some hints here.
To be sure, Minjung theology was more public theology than church
theology,47 but it brought a lot of recognition to the Christian faith in
Korea. As stated before, nowadays, both theology and the church have
become alienated from the public discourse.48 According to the few
progressive theologians,49 a passionate theology of life could induce a
43
Many former minjung activists have joined the Environmental movement. They
are discussing the establishment of a green political party.
44
Cf. Chung, Struggle, 113f.
45
Cf. Jin-Kwan Kwon, The Holy Spirit and Minjung, in: Third Millenium. Indian
Journal of Evangelization, 6, 2003, 33–44.
46
To many activists this turn to Buddhism also meant a turn away from Christia-
nity. Kim Chi-Ha publicly declared that Christianity has often served as an entrance
gate to Western culture and therefore he turned his back to the Catholic Church. Cf.
Kröger, Befreiung des Minjung, 18 fn. 11.
47
Kwon, Sketch, 56.
48
Kwon, Sketch, 50. Chai, Soo-Il, Missio Dei: Ihre Entfaltung und Grenze in Korea,
in: Missio Dei heute. Zur Aktualität eines missionstheologischen Schlüsselbegriffs, Ham-
burg 2003, 115–131.
49
They have organized themselves around first generation Minjung theologian Kim
Yong-Bock in the Korea Association of Progressive Theologians and their Journal of
Contextual Theology in East Asia Madang.
“new reformation” and break this isolation. If the term Minjung theol-
ogy should gain acceptance as umbrella term for such emerging the-
ologies then it will nevertheless carry a quite different connotation.50
Once confined to the experience of the Korean people, now its scope
would be glocal.51 Minjung theology then would simply become the
brand name of a Korean-made theology.
50
Jin Kwan Kwon therefore considers using the term “multitude” as introduced
by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of
Empire, New York 2004, especially outside Korea. Cf. Jin Kwan Kwon, Theology of the
Multitude: Between Suffering and Hope, in: Madang, vol. 8, 2007, 47–60.
51
Cf. Kwon, Sketch, 61.
EPILOGUE: CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGIES AS OPEN SYSTEMS
Already in 1988, Hyun Young-Hak answered the question about the

future of Minjung theology laconically:
The minjung theological way of looking at the poor people, Korean
society, history, reunification issue and so on may change, even theo-
logically. And whether the expression Minjung theology will stick or the
name will change, that we do not know, but I personally don’t care, so
long as there is a new generation coming up that tries seriously to deal
with the Korean history and reality in the light of the biblical message.1
This attitude shows an enormous openness with regard to one’s own
doing theology. The often-cited epistemological break with Western
theology that Third World theologians executed is of a methodical
nature. They perceive theology as a critical reflection on Christian
Faith2 that places the relevance for one’s own context and the ortho-
praxis, the correct way of acting, to the fore.
As the example of South Korea vividly shows, Third World societies
are subject to permanent changes. Yet, if the context changes, contex-
tual theology has to change along with it or even has to be replaced.
According to the theory of contextual theology sketched in the pro-
logue, this change provides for new perspectives on the text and evokes
new generative themes in the hermeneutical circle. At the same time
this theory that has been developed in the last two decades also has to
be reshaped under the impact of the changes that globalization brings
about. The very term globalization itself became a catchword only dur-
ing the 1990s. In the same period postcolonial criticism which has its
roots in the 1960s and 70s in the writings of people like Frantz Fanon3
and Edward Said4 had a renaissance through the hype of cultural stud-
ies. Both discourses were drawn into the theological debate on contex-
tualization where they led to a revaluation of the universal dimension
of Christian faith.
1
Interview with Hyun Young-Hak April 14, 1988.
2
Cf. Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation, 3–12.
3
Cf. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, London 1961.
4
Cf. Edward W. Said, Orientalism. Western Representations of the Orient, Har-
mondsworth 1978.
152 epilogue: contextual theologies as open systems
Contextual Theologies in the Age of Globalization
The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 has become a symbol of the transi-
tion from the old epoch to the era of globalization. It is marked by the
extension of neo-liberal capitalism after the breakdown of the commu-
nist bloc and the compression of the world through new communica-
tion technologies. With the coordinate system of the East-West and
the North-South conflict developed after 1945 the complex interrela-
tions of globalization defy comprehension now.
In Europe there occurred a clear reorientation towards the East-
ern markets. The eastward enlargement of the European Union
has torn down the last vestiges of the “iron curtain” from the Cold
War. The remaining superpower, the US, is frequently referred to as
the new empire.5 At the same time the traditional deployment zone
in the South has lost its strategic importance after the disappearance
of the enemy. Thereby Africa became for some almost the forgotten
continent, experiencing globalization only as something to watch from
the back door. African theologians like Laurenti Magesa (Tanzania)
and Tinyiko Maluleke (South Africa) counteract this tendency with
a strong emphasis on African agency.6 Next to these effects of global-
ization the political landscape has changed dramatically within Third
World countries themselves. The proclaimed rise of a new epoch is
therefore not only true from a Western perspective. Young democra-
cies and populist regimes replaced the former military dictatorships of
Latin America. In South Africa Nelson Mandela performed a peaceful
change (1994) and in South Korea Kim Dae-Jung, the symbolic figure
of the democratization movement, finally—though latish—got elected
to the presidency (1998). The old concepts of internal enemies proved
to be no longer effective. Notwithstanding this, the gap between poor
and rich is still widening.
Reconciliation, reconstruction and reparation are the new genera-
tive themes in the socio-economic and political sector. In Third World
countries people strive for good governance and turn against their own
5
Cf. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Cambridge, MA 2000.
6
Cf. Laurenti Magesa, African Religion. The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life,
Maryknoll, NewYork 1997 arguing that African Religion is a World Religion; Special
Issue [ed. Tinyiku Maluleke]: The Agency of the Oppressed Discourse: Consciousness,
Liberation and Survival in Theological Perspective, Journal of Theology for Southern
Africa, No. 120, nov. 2004.
epilogue: contextual theologies as open systems 153
corrupt elites. A convincing political theology of justice is still a desid-

eratum. In Korea reconciliation is at stake in at least three respects:
between those who cooperated under Japanese colonial rule and the
few who opposed it, between those who accommodated themselves to
the military dictatorship and those who fought for democratization,
and between North and South Koreans.
The complex concepts of culture provoke the question: “Incultura-
tion in what culture?” The hyper-culture of consumerism spreading on
a global level contrasts with local cultures gaining strength. Contexts
and cultures are nowadays increasingly hybridized and deterritorial-
ized. As a consequence of glocalisation South Korea has developed a
hybrid modernity as well.7 Retro-hanboks8 or the refinement of the
Korean alphabet of hangul by designers are the new insignia of this
culture. The Korean wave (hallyu)—Korean TV-series, films and pop-
music—swept across Asia after the economic crisis of the 1990s. What
probably started because of competetive prices of the Korean products
vis à vis American and Japanese competitors soon became popular be-
cause of its hybrid Asian modernity. The mixture of Asian (Confucian)
values, sad stories of great feelings inspired by the Korean concept of
han and the pride in things Korean with fine nationalistic overtones
attracted consumers from all over Asia.9
At the same time “local logics” like ethnicity and fundamentalism
provoked violent conflicts.10 Samuel Huntington, another ideologist of
the new American empire, tried to fill the gap that the Soviet super-
power left behind with the theory of an upcoming clash of civilizations
between the West and Islam.11 9/11 may then seem to be the fulfillment
of this prophecy even though things are much more complex than
Huntington portrays them.12 The attempt to go beyond the exclusive-
inclusive dilemma of the theology of religions with the integration of
the position of the other in a theology of dialogue comes up against its
7
Cf. Korean Anthropology: Contemporary Korean Culture in Flux, ed. by Korean
National Commission for UNESCO, Seoul 2003.
8
The hanbok is the traditional Korean clothing for both men and women.
9
Kim Dae-Jung actively supported the culture industry during his presidency.
Even though there have recently been signs of decline Korean popular culture remains
an important economic factor.
10
Cf. Schreiter, New Catholicity, 21–25.
11
Cf. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World
Order, New York 1996.
12
Cf. Harald Müller, Das Zusammenleben der Kulturen. Ein Gegenentwurf zu Hun-
tington, Frankfurt am Main 1998; Küster, Gott/Terror.
154 epilogue: contextual theologies as open systems
limits. In the conservative climate of South Korean churches and semi-

naries still influenced by 19th century evangelical missionary theology
only a few theologians have so far dared to address this controversial
issue. Who is with whom in dialogue about what?13 Fundamentalists
and terrorists do not share the necessary attitude of respect and open-
ness in dialogue towards believers of other religions. Therefore the
self-purifying powers of the religions in intra-religious dialogue are
of utmost importance. Women have already taken on themselves an
avant-garde position in this, by invoking the founder of the particular
religion against its patriarchal and fundamentalistic abuse.
The Postcolonial Subject
Postcolonial critics have declared both colonized as well as coloniz-

ers to be subjects of the intercultural discourse on justice, culture and
religion. The EATWOT leadership correspondingly ascribed a more
pro-active role to its theological partners in the West. The moratorium-
debate of the 1970s14 and the incommunication postulate15 are over-
come by Third World and diaspora intellectuals themselves. They also
claim their place in the global discourse. In South Korea the cultural
renaissance of the 1970s and 1980s has been extended to the question
of the contribution of Asian values to global culture.16 At the same
time, contextual theologies have developed into “global flows” that
intensively influence one another. Robert Schreiter ponders whether
they are the new “universal” theologies.17 Even though Schreiter imme-
diately problematizes the attribute “universal”, it raises wrong associa-
tions and would be better not used. The notion “global flow” refers to
the fluidity of these theologies. Ambiguity is significant for their way of
doing theology. One has to be aware of the four aforementioned inter-
related dilemmas of particularity—universality, relevance—identity,
13
Cf. Volker Küster, Who, with whom, about what? Exploring the Landscape of
Inter-religious Dialogue, in: Exchange 33, 2004, 73–92.
14
Cf. Ludwig Rütti, Westliche Identität als theologisches Problem, in: Zeitschrift
für Mission 4, 1978, 97–107.
15
Cf. the special issue of Risk 9, 1973.
16
Cf. Kim Chi-Ha, Where I stand right now.
17
Cf. Schreiter, New Catholicity, 20f.
epilogue: contextual theologies as open systems 155
exclusivism—inclusivism and plurality—unity. “Glocalization” might

probably describe best the new mode of contextualization.18
As open systems contextual theologies give evidence of a structural
kinship to the reformed idea of ecclesia semper reformanda. One could
therefore even speak of a theologia semper reformanda. Theology and
the Church both live here and now and therefore both must respond
to the signs of the times.
18
Cf. Volker Küster, Von der Kontextualisierung zur Glokalisierung. Interkultu-
relle Theologie und Postkoloniale Kritik, in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 134, 2009,
261–278.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MINJUNG THEOLOGY
Primary Sources
Minjung Theology. People as the Subjects of History, second revised edition, Maryknoll,
New York 1983 [1981].
Moltmann, Jürgen (ed.), Minjung. Theologie des Volkes Gottes in Südkorea, Neukirchen-
Vluyn 1984.
Ahn, Byung-Mu, Das Verständnis der Liebe bei Kung-tse und bei Jesus, type-written
PhD dissertation, Heidelberg 1965.
——, Jesus and the Minjung in the Gospel of Mark, in: Minjung Theology, 138–152
[cf. Moltmann, Minjung, 110–132].
——, Das Subjekt der Geschichte im Markusevangelium, in: Moltmann, Minjung,
134–169.
——, The chosen Minjung. Bible study about 1st Corinthians, Chapter 1, verses 26–31
(WARC, 2 September 1979), unpublished manuscript, 9pp.
——, “Was ist die Minjung-Theologie”, in: Junge Kirche 43, 1982, 290–296 [cf. epd
Dokumentation 6a/82, 7–16].
——, “Die missionarische Aufgabe in Korea heute”, in: Spuren . . . Hundert Jahre
Ostasien-Mission [Festschrift], ed. by Ferdinand Hahn et al., Stuttgart 1984, 176–
187.
——, The Transmitters of the Jesus-event, in: CTC Bulletin, vol. 5 nr. 3–vol. 6 nr. 1,
Singapore 1984/1985, 26–39.
——, Drauβen vor dem Tor. Kirche und Minjung in Korea. Theologische Beiträge und
Reflexionen, Göttingen 1986.
——, Das leidende Minjung, in: Evangelische Kommentare 20, 1987, 12–16.
——, Art. Koreanische Theologie, in: Lexikon missionstheologischer Grundbegriffe, ed.
by Karl Müller and Theo Sundermeier, Berlin 1987, 230–235.
——, Gerechtigkeit und Frieden, in: Junge Kirche 49, 1988, 188–192.
——, Minjung-Theologie. Ein Interview mit Dr. Ahn, Byung-Mu, am 6.5.1987 in
Seoul/Südkorea, in: Zeitschrift für Mission 14, 1988, 83–93.
——, “Minjung-Bewegung und Minjung-Theologie”, in: Zeitschrift für Missionswis-
senschaft und Religionswissenschaft 73, 1989, 126–133 [= Zeitschrift für Mission 15,
1989, 18–26].
——, Jesus of Galilee, Hong Kong 2004.
Suh, Nam-Dong, Historical References for a Theology of Minjung, in: Minjung
Theology, 155–182 [cf. Moltmann, Minjung, 173–213].
——, Towards a Theology of Han, in: Minjung Theology, 55–69 [cf. Moltmann,
Minjung, 27–46].
——, Theology as Story-telling: A Counter-theology, in: CTC Bulletin Vol. 5 No.
3–Vol. 6 No. 1 (Dec. 1984–April 1985), 4–11.
——, Cultural Theology, Political Theology and Minjung Theology, op. cit., 12–15.
Kim, Chi-Ha, Cry of the People and Other Poems, Hayama, Japan, 1974.
——, The Gold-Crowned Jesus and Other Writings, Maryknoll, New York 1978.
——, The Middle Hour. Selected Poems, Stanfordville, New York 1980.
——, Die gelbe Erde und andere Gedichte, Frankfurt a.M. 1983.
——, Heart’s Agony. Selected Poems, Fredonia, New York 1998.
——, Where I stand right now, in: Graceful respect—dynamic life. The Transformation
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158 bibliography on minjung theology
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——, “Do you love me?”, in: CTC Bulletin 3, 1/1982, 2–7.
——, Cripple’s Dance, in: East Asia Journal of Theology 3, 1985, 209–212.
——, Minjung: The Suffering Servant and Hope, in: Inter-Religio 7 [“Three talks on
Minjung Theology”], 1985, 2–14.
——, Theology as Rumor-Mongering, op. cit., 14–28 [with minor edits in CTC
Bulletin Vol. 5 No. 3–Vol. 6 No. 1, 1984/85, 40–48];
——, Theology with Sweat, Tears and Laughter, op. cit., 28–40.
——, Minjung Theology and the Religion of Han, in: East Asia Journal of Theology,
1985, 354–359.
Kim, Yong-Bock and Harvey, Phil J. (eds), People Toiling under Pharaoh. Report of the
Action-Research Process on Economic Justice in Asia, URM/CCA 1976.
Kim, Yong-Bock, Historical Transformation, People’s Movement and Messianic Koino-
nia: A Study of the Relationship of Christian and Tonghak Religious Communities to
the March First Independence Movement in Korea, Princeton Theological Seminary
1976, UMI Dissertation Information Service, Ann Abor, Michigan 1994 (copyright
by Kim Yong-Bock 1980).
——, Christian Koinonia in the Struggle and Aspirations of the People of Korea, in:
Yap Kim Hao (ed.), Asian Theological Reflections on Suffering and Hope, Asia Focus,
Singapore 1977.
——, Korean Christianity as a Messianic Movement of the People, in: Minjung Theol-
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——, Messiah and Minjung: Discerning Messianic Politics over against Political
Messianism, op. cit., 183–193 [cf. Moltmann, Minjung, 215–229].
——, Theology and the Social-Biography of the Minjung, in: CTC Bulletin, vol. 5
nr. 3–vol. 6 nr. 1, Singapore 1984/1985, 66–78.
——, Bundesschluß mit den Armen. Auf dem Weg zu einem neuen Konzept ökono-
mischer Gerechtigkeit (EWM-Informationen 85), Hamburg 1989.
——, Messiah and Minjung. Christ’s Solidarity with the People for New Life (URM
Series 4), Hong Kong 1992.
Chung, Huyn-Kyung, “Han-pu-ri”: Doing Theology from Korean Women’s Perspec-
tive, in: The Ecumenical Review 40, 1988, 27–36.
——, Opium or the Seed for Revolution? Shamanism: Women centered popular
religiosity in Korea, in: Leonardo Boff and Virgil Elizondo (eds), Theologies of the
Third World. Convergences and Differences, Concilium 199, Edinburgh 1988, 96–
104.
——, Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming, in: Inheriting Our Mother’s Gar-
dens. Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective, ed. by Letty M. Russell et al.,
Louisville 1988, 54–72.
——, Struggle to be the Sun again. Introducing Asian Women’s Theology, Maryknoll,
New York 1990.
——, Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Whole Creation, in: Signs of the Spirit. Official
Report Seventh Assembly Canberra, Australia, 7–20 February 1991, ed. by Michael
Kinnamon, Geneva and Grand Rapids 1991, 37–47.
Suh, David Kwang-Sun, Theology, Ideology and Culture (WSCF Asia/Pacific Book 9),
Hong Kong 1983.
——, Penitence for Peace. Toward a Theology of Reunification, in: Korea Scope 6,
1986, 75–79.
——, The Korean Minjung in Christ, Hong Kong 1991.
Kwon, Jin-Kwan, The Holy Spirit and Minjung, in: Third Millenium. Indian Journal
of Evangelization, 6, 2003, 33–44.
——, A Preliminary Sketch for a New Minjung Theology, in: Madang vol. 1, 2004,
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bibliography on minjung theology 159
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2007, 47–60.
Noh, Jong-Sun, Liberating God for Minjung, Seoul 1994.
——, The Third War. Christian Social Ethics, Seoul 2000.
Minjung-Theologie—ein Briefwechsel (Weltmission heute 5), Hamburg 1989.
Prabhakar, Samson and Kwon, Jin-Kwan, (eds), Dalit and Minjung Theologies: A
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Secondary Literature
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Buswell Jr., Robert E. (ed.), Religions of Korea in Practice, Princeton, NJ 2006.
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——, Missio Dei: Ihre Entfaltung und Grenze in Korea, in: Missio Dei heute. Zur
Aktualität eines missionstheologischen Schlüsselbegriffs, Hamburg 2003, 115–131.
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Sung Dam, in: Benjamin Simon and Henning Wrogemann (eds), Konviviale
Theologie, Festgabe für Theo Sundermeier zum 70. Geburtstag, Frankfurt a.M. 2005,
287–298.
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Chung, Ha-Eun, Das koreanische Minjng und seine Bedeutung für eine ökumenische
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by Christian Institute for the Study of Justice and Development, Seoul 1985.
Documents on the struggle for democracy in Korea, ed. by The Emergency Christian
Conference on Korean Problems, Tokyo 1975.
England, John C., Kim Chi-Ha and the Poetry of Christian Dissent, in: Ching Feng
21, 1978, 126–151.
——, The Hidden History of Christianity in Asia. The Churches of the East Before 1500,
New Delhi and Hong Kong 1996.
Hoffmann-Richter, Andreas, Ahn Byung-Mu als Minjung-Theologe, Gütersloh 1990.
Hwang, Hong-Eyoul, The History of the Minjung Church in South Korea from 1983 to
the Present, unpublished manuscript.
In, Myun-Jin, Rethinking the Work of Urban Industrial Mission in the Presbyterian
Church of Korea in the Light of Minjung-Theology, PhD Seoul and San Francisco
1986.
International Review of Mission 74, No. 293, 1985 (special issue on Korea).
Joh, Wonhee Anne, Heart of the Cross. A Postcolonial Christology, Louisville and
London 2006.
Kröger, Wolfgang, Grundlinien der Minjungtheologie. Theologie der Befreiung im
koreanischen Kontext, in: Evangelische Theologie 48, 1988, 360–369.
——, Erfahrung—ein Streitpunkt im ökumenischen Gespräch. Reflexion auf das
Programm einer Befreiungstheologie im Kontext der Ersten Welt, ausgehend von
Erfahrungen in Südkorea, in: Ökumenische Rundschau 37, 1988, 185–199.
——, Christologische Implikationen in der koreanischen Minjung-Theologie, in:
Hermann Dembowski and Wolfgang Greive (eds), Der andere Christus. Christologie
in Zeugnissen aus aller Welt, Erlangen 1991, 170–185.
160 bibliography on minjung theology
——, Die Befreiung des Minjung. Das Profil einer protestantischen Befreiungstheologie
für Asien in ökumenischer Perspektive, München 1992.
Küster, Volker, Minjung-Theology and Minjung Art, Mission Studies 11, 1994, 108–129.
——, Theologie im Kontext. Zugleich ein Versuch über die Minjung-Theologie, Nettetal
1995.
——, Jesus und das Volk im Markusevangelium. Ein Beitrag zum interkulturellen
Gespräch in der Exegese, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1996.
——, The Priesthood of Han. Reflections on a Woodcut by Hong Song-Dam, in:
Exchange 26, 1997, 159–171.
——, The Many Faces of Jesus Christ. Intercultural Christology, Maryknoll, New York,
2001.
——, A Protestant theology of passion. Korean Minjung Theology revisited, in:
Passion of Protestants, ed. by Pieter N. Holtrop et al., Kampen 2004, 213–228.
——, Chung Hyun-Kyung—“Komm Heiliger Geist, erneuere die ganze Schöpfung”.
Canberra revisited, in: Akke van der Kooi et al. (eds), Ontmoetingen. Tijdgenoten en
getuigen. Studies aangeboden aan Gerrit Neven, Kampen 2009, 290–300.
——, Gott/Terror. Ein Diptychon, Frankfurt a.M. 2009.
Lee, Hu-Chun, Theologie der Inkulturation in Asien. Das Inkulturationsverständnis bei
methodistischen Theologen in Südkorea, Choan-Seng Song / Taiwan und Aloysius
Pieris / Sri Lanka, typewritten PhD dissertation, Heidelberg 1996.
Lee, Jung Young (ed.), An Emerging Theology in World Perspective. Commentary on
Korean Minjung Theology, Mystic, Connecticut 1988.
Lee, Sang Taek, Religion and Social Formation in Korea. Minjung and Millenarianism,
Berlin and New York 1996.
Lee, Sunhee, Die Minjung-Theologie Ahn Byung-Mus von ihren Voraussetzungen her
dargestellt, Frankfurt a.M. etc. 1991.
Lienemann-Perrin, Christine, Die politische Verantwortung der Kirchen in Südkorea
und Südafrika. Studien zur ökumenischen und politischen Ethik, München 1992.
——, Paradigmenwechsel öffentlicher Theologien in Südkorea und Südafrika in den
1990er Jahren, in: Klaus Koschorke (ed.), Falling Walls. The Year 1989/90 as a
Turning Point in the History of World Christinity, Wiesbaden 2009, 373–391.
Link-Wieczorek, Ulrike, Reden von Gott in Afrika und Asien. Darstellung und
Interpretation der afrikanischen Theologie im Vergleich mit der koreanischen
Minjung-Theologie, Göttingen 1991.
Löwner, Gudrun, Kontextuelle Theologie: Herausforderung für die Mission?, in: Junge
Kirche 52, 1991, 529–536.
Lost Victory. An Overview of the Korean People’s Struggle for Democracy in 1987, Seoul
1988.
Ogle, George E., Liberty to the Captives. The Struggle against Oppression in South
Korea, Atlanta 1977.
Park, Andrew Sung, The Wounded Heart of God. The Asian Concept of Han and the
Christian Doctrine of Sin, Nashville 1993.
Park, Chung-Jin, Minjung und Mission. Eine Untersuchung über die Minjung Theologie
in Korea aus der Perspektive der Mission, Ammersbek bei Hamburg 1992.
Park, Il-Young, Minjung, Schamanismus und Inkulturation. Schamanistische Religi-
osität und Christliche Orthopraxis in Korea, Diss. Freiburg 1987.
Park, Myung-Chul, Das Gespräch der Minjung-Theologen mit der koreanischen Nation-
albewegung und dem Dschutsche-Sozialismus, Ammersbek bei Hamburg 1993.
Presence of Christ among Minjung. Introduction to the UIM in Korea, Seoul 1981.
Pyun Sun-Hwan, Other Religions and Theology, in: East Asia Journal of Theology 3,
1985, 327–353.
Reunification. Peace and Justice in Korea. Christian Response in the 1980s, Hong Kong
1988.
bibliography on minjung theology 161
Schüttke-Scherle, Peter, From Contextual to Ecumenical Theology? A Dialogue between

Minjung Theology and ‘Theology after Auschwitz’, Frankfurt a.M. 1989.
Song, C.-S., Christ behind the Mask Dance, in: CTC Bulletin 3, 3/1982, 29–43.
Sundermeier, Theo, Das Kreuz in koreanischer Interpretation, in: id., Das Kreuz als
Befreiung, München 1985, 17–38.
——, Minjung-Kunst und die Minjung-Theologie Koreas, in: Johannan Hesse (ed.),
„Mitten im Tod—Vom Leben umfangen“, Gedenkschrift für Werner Kohler, Frank-
furt a.M. 1988, 256–271.
——, Inkulturation und Synkretismus. Probleme einer Verhältnisbestimmung, in:
Evangelische Theologie 52, 1992, 192–209.
——, Pluralismus, Fundamentalismus, Koinonia, in: Evangelische Theologie 54, 1994,
293–310.
Tabuchi, Fumio, Der katholische Dichter Kim Chi-Ha als narrativer Theologe im
asiatischen Kontext, in: Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissen-
schaft 69, 1985, 1–24.
Uko, Hans, The People and the People of God. Minjung and Dalit Theology in
Interaction with Jewish-Christian Dialogue, Münster etc. 2002.
Wells, Kenneth M. (ed.), South Korea’s Minjung Movement. The Culture and Politics
of Dissidence, Honolulu 1995.
Widerstand in Korea: Erklärung zur demokratischen Rettung der Nation, epd.
Dokumentation 43/77, 11–15.
Won-Cha, Ok—Soong, Der Einfluß der Donghak-Bewegung auf die Ausbildung der
Minjung-Theologie in Korea, PhD dissertation Frankfurt a.M. 1986.
This bibliography covers publications in English and German. For further (unpub-
lished) PhD dissertations etc. that touch on Minjung theology also refer to the collec-
tions of the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov) and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
(www.d-nb.de).
INDEX OF PERSONS
Abraham, K.C. 4 Chóng, Yak-Jong Augustine 98

Ahn, Bong-Shik 59 Chou, James Wen-Mo 49
Ahn, Byung-Mu xi, xx, 25, 58, Chul, Yang Sung 139
59–78, 79f, 83, 86, 89, 92, 95, 101, 106, Chun, Doo-Hwan 30, 138
115f, 121, 126, 132, 135–137, 147f Chun, Tae-Il 21, 31, 74, 118
Ahn, Jung-Gun 96 Chung, Hyun-Kyung 26, 54, 58,
Ariarajah, Wesley 108 103–113, 118, 132f, 137, 148
Asmussen, Hans 125 Chung, Won-Sik 59
Assmann, Hugo 82 Clark, Donald N. 26, 48
Clooney, Francis X. 14
Balz, Heinrich 13 Cobb Jr., John B. 2, 122
Barth, Karl xv, 126–128 Colonese, Louis Michael 16
Basdekis, Athanasios 104 Cone, James H. 16, 82, 106, 120, 127,
Bayer, Oswald 56 132
Bedford-Strohm, Heinrich 16 Costas, Orlando 9
Bethge, Eberhard 126 Cox, Harvey 88
Beyerhaus, Peter 9 Croatto, Severino J. 8, 55
Biehl, Peter 56, 58 Crüsemann, Frank 2
Biko, Steve 108 Cumings, Bruce 20f
Blaser, Klauspeter 125
Boesak, Alan A. 16 Deotis Roberts, J. 120
Boff, Leonardo 4, 110 Devasahayam, V. 133
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 67, 82, 100 Dibelius, Martin 68
Bonino, José Míguez xiv, 5, 121f Dickson, Kwesi A. 120f
Bornkamm, Günther 61f, 67 Dix, Griffin 39, 42f
Bühlmann, Walbert 2, 12 Dodd, Charles H. 119
Bultmann, Rudolf 61, 66f, 70f, 73f, Dube, Musa W. 77
132 Duraisingh, Christopher 103
Buswell, Robert E., Jr. 34, 48–50
Byun, Son-Hwan 121 Eagleson, John 16
Ebeling, Gerhard 128
Calvin, John 117 Eliade, Mircea 37
Cardenal, Ernesto xix Elizondo, Virgil 4
Ch’oe, Che-Son 53 Ellacuría, Ignacio 15
Ch’oe, Hae-Wol 53f England, John C. 27, 49
Ch’oe, Kil-Song 42f Exler, Adolf 14
Ch’oe, Si-Hyong 53f
Chai, Soo-Il 101, 141, 148 Fabella, Virginia 3, 6f, 107
Chang, Il-Dam 81, 84 Fanon, Frantz 76, 151
Chang, Won 105 Faus, José Ignacio González 116
Chenu, Marie-Dominique 4 Ferm, Dean William 1
Chi, Myong-Kwan 80 Findeisen, Hans 37
Cho, (David) Yung-Ki 72 Fischer, Hans 58
Cho, Hung-Youn 37f, 40 Floris, Joachim of 83, 86
Choe, Chong-Sok 44f Freire, Paulo 5, 90
Choi, Chungmoo 23 Freytag, Justus 38
Chon, Pong-Jun 54 Friedli, Richard 11f
164 index of persons
Fukuyama, Francis 138f Kendall, Laurel 37–39, 42

Fung, Raymond 85 Kidwell, Clara Sue 6
Kierkegaard, Søren 60
Gandhi, Mahatma 108 Kim Harvey, Youngsook 37–39, 41
Glazik, Josef 15 Kim, Bong-Chun xii, 28, 51f, 54, 142,
Goepper, Roger 40 146
Gollwitzer, Helmut 125 Kim, Chai-Choon 60
Göthel, Ingeborg 19 Kim, Chi-Ha xii, 27, 36, 80–82, 84,
Gramski, Antonio 55 131, 140, 143f, 147f, 154
Grözinger, Albrecht 55 Kim, Dae-Jung 22, 64, 66, 135, 138,
Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik Severin 96 152f
Gutiérrez, Gustavo 5, 15, 127, 151 Kim, Hong-Do 40
Kim, Il-Sung 20
Hahn, Ferdinand 62 Kim, Sung-Soo 53
Ham, Sok-Hon 60, 80 Kim, Yong-Bock xi, xx, 24f, 62, 75,
Hamer, Heyo E. 87 95–102, 118, 121, 124, 132, 135, 140,
Han, Chan-Ho 96 147f
Han-Rhinow, Jeong-Ae 48 Kim, Yong-Choon 53
Hardt, Michael 149, 152 Kim, Young-Sam 138
Harvey, Phil J. 95 Kim, Yung-Jae 50, 131
Heckel, Erich 27 King, Salbe B. 45
Hennelly, Alfred T. 15 Kinnamon, Michael 103
Herzog, Fredrick 82 Kinukawa, Hisako 76
Hesse, Johannan 32 Klappert, Berthold 128
Hick, John 14 Klein, Stephanie 55
Hiltmann, Jochen 45 Knitter, Paul F. 14
Hoffmann-Richter, Andreas 59 Knödel, Susanne 37
Hollenweger, Walter J. 11 Ko, Eun 24
Hong, Song-Dam xii, xx, 28–30, 32f, 36, Kofi, Appiah-Kubi 110
40, 44, 48f, 52–54, 109 Kollwitz, Käthe 27, 31f
Horsley, Richard 78 Kooi, Akke van der 103, 117
Huber, Wolfgang 125f Koopman, Nico 126
Huh, Byung-Sub 26, 147 Koyama, Kosuke 118, 120f
Huntington, Samuel 153 Kröger, Wolfgang 17, 74, 148
Hwang, Hong-Eyoul 137 Krötke, Wolf 127
Hwang, Su-Young 40 Küng, Hans 14
Hyun, Young-Hak xi, xviii, 22, 25, 35, Küster, Volker xif, xx, 1, 5f, 8f, 13f, 16,
87–93, 99, 132, 135, 151 68, 87, 103, 109, 117f, 142, 153–155
Kwok, Pui-Lan 107
I, Moon-Yong 64 Kwon, Jin-Kwan 54, 75, 133, 148f
Immer, Karl 125
In, Myun-Jin 25 Lancaster, Lewis R. 45
Irudayraj, Xavier S.J. 133 Lange, Ernst 1
Lash, Scott 139
Joh, Wonhee Anne 117 Lee, Chul-Soo xii, 28, 51, 91, 143–145,
Jung, Andreas 28, 36 148
Jung, Ji-Seok 139 Lee, Hu-Chun 121
Jung, Young Lee 2, 119 Lee, Jung Young 2, 119
Jungmann, Albert 28, 32, 40 Lee, Ki-Baek 19, 83
Jungmann, Burglind 28, 32, 40 Lee, Moon-Back 138
Lee, Oo-Jung 25, 63, 132
Kagawa, Toyohiko 87 Lee, Sunhee 59
Kang, Won-Don 66, 78, 136, 140 Lee, Timothy S. 48–50
Keil, Siegfried 44 Lehmann, Paul 82
index of persons 165
Lienemann-Perrin, Christine 16 Park, Young-Suk 66, 136

Lim, Chung-Hee 28, 35 Pemberton, Carrie 6
Limouris, Gennadios 106 Pieris, Aloysius 7, 121
Lohmeyer, Ernst 69 Prabhakar, M.E. 133
Löwner, Gudrun 45, 110 Prabhakar, Samson 133
Lührmann, Diether 70 Pyun, Sun-Hwan 133
Luther, Henning 55–58
Queen, Christopher S. 45
Magesa, Laurenti 152
Major, John S. 43 Radford Ruether, Rosemary 127
Maluleke, Tinyiko 152 Reeling Brouwer, Rinse 117
Mandela, Nelson 152 Rendtorff, Trutz 10
Margull, Hans Jochen 11f Rhee, Syngman 20f, 50, 52, 80, 97
Massey, James 76, 133 Rhinow, Malte 132
Mbuy-Beya, Bernadette 4 Rinser, Luise 19
McAfee Brown, Robert 119f Robert, Dana L. 2
McFague, Sallie xv Robertson, Roland 139
Metz, Johann Baptist 1f, 12, 57, 82 Roh, Moo-Hyun 138
Min, Kyong-Bae 48 Russell, Letty M. 105, 120
Mofokeng, Takatso A. 118 Rütti, Ludwig 4, 154
Moltmann, Jürgen xiv, xx, 1, 81f, 85, Ryu, Dong-Shik 40, 121
123 Rzepkowski, Horst 111
Moon, Dong-Hwan 25, 60, 63f, 132,
136 Sahn, Seung 113
Moon, Ik-Kwan 25, 63f, 132 Said, Edward W. 76, 151
Müller, Harald 153 Samuel, Vinay 10
Müntzer, Thomas 83 Sang, Taek Lee 101
Mveng, Engelbert 7 Scharper, Philip 16
Schaull, Richard 98
Nasser, Gamal Abdel 3 Schaumberger, Christine 127
Negri, Antonio 149, 152 Schottroff, Luise 2
Nehru, Jawaharlal 3 Schottroff, Willy 2
Neven, Gerrit 103 Schreiter, Robert J. 1, 7, 13f, 138, 153f
Niebuhr, Reinhold 82, 88f Seckel, Dietrich 46, 111
Nirmal, Arwind P. 133 Seim, Jürgen 58
Noh, Jong-Sun 135 Shaull, Richard 82, 132
Noley, Homer 6 Shimray, Shimreingam 6
Ntoane, L.R. Lekula 117 Simon, Benjamin 141
Simpfendörfer, Werner 13
O, Jun 28, 54 Sin, Yun-Bok 40
Oak, Sung-Deuk 49 Sobrino, Jon 15
Oduyoye, Mercy Amba 6, 110 Song, C.S. 118, 120f
Ok Soong, Won-Cha 53 Sparn, Walter 55
Stegemann, Ekkehard 2
Padilla, Rene 9 Stegemann, Wolfgang 2
Paik, Nak-Chang 24 Stephan, Hans-Ulrich 125
Pak, Hyun-Chae 24 Strahm, Doris 127
Park, Andrew Sung xv, 85 Strobel, Regina 127
Park, Chun-Chul 74 Sudgen, Chris 10
Park, Chung-Hee 21f, 26, 30, 36, 65, Sugirtharajah, R.S. 75–77, 104
80, 132 Suh, David Kwang-Sun xi, xx, 24f, 50,
Park, Hyung-Kyu 26, 132 75, 101, 123, 132, 134f, 137
Park, Jong-Wha 147 Suh, Nam-Dong xi, 25, 58, 63f, 79–86,
Park, Song-Joon 136 89f, 92, 100, 107, 111, 118, 131f, 135
166 index of persons
Sundermeier, Theo 1, 12f, 32, 67, 73, Walker, Alice 118

84, 109, 116, 142 Walraven, B.C.A. 37
Weems, Benjamin B. 53
Tamez, Elsa 72 Weizäcker, Carl Friedrich von xix
Tanner, Kathryn 115 Wells, Kenneth M. 21, 23, 26
Terazono, Yoshiki 87 Wi, Jo Kang 50
Teruo, Kuribayashi 76 Wiedenhofer, Siegfried 13
Theißen, Gerd xix, 2, 66 Willeke, Bernward 15
Thomas, M.M. 109f, 126 Wilmore, Gayraud S. 16
Tinker, (“Tink”) George E. 6 Wrede, William 69
Tito, Josip Broz 3 Wrogemann, Henning 141
Tödt, Heinz Eduard 82
Torres, Sergio 3f, 6f, 110 Yap, Kim Hao 99
Tsetsis, Georges 103 Yi, Sung-Hun 49
Yu, Chai-Shin 49
Vorländer, Herwart 58 Yun, Sung-Bum 121
Vos, Fritz 34, 42, 44, 47, 50
FIGURES
168 figures
Figure 1. The late laborer, Chun Tae-Il

figures 169
Figure 2. Let’s go to the Province Hall

170 figures
Figure 3. Blood and Tears 4
Figure 4. Käthe Kollwitz, Widow II

figures 171
Figure 5. Mother
172 figures
Figure 6. Burial under cover

figures 173
Figure 7. My son, this earth, our mother will never die!

174 figures
Figure 8. Drought
figures 175
Figure 9. On the road to Seoul

176 figures
Figure 10. Night Work 2

figures 177
Figure 11. Street restaurant

178 figures
Figure 12. Worker’s barrack

figures 179
Figure 13. Laborer family

180 figures
Figure 14. Tomorrow is Chusok

figures 181
Figure 15. Maltugi

182 figures
Figure 16. Kosu

figures 183
Figure 17. Kut

184 figures
Figures 18–21. Unju-Miruk

figures 185
Figure 22. Father of the minjung

186 figures
Figure 23. Kwangju

figures 187
Figure 24. Tonghak leader (Ch’oe Si-Hyong)

188 figures
Figure 25. Turong

figures 189
Figure 26. Some Gravestone

190 figures
Figure 27. “Happiness of rice, joy of one bowl of water”

figures 191
Figure 28. Emptied space

192 figures
Figure 29. “Obuba”—“Come on my back”

figures 193
Figure 30. Jesus, the fool

194 figures
Figure 31. Maltugi

figures 195
Figure 32. The Partisan

196 figures
Figure 33. Human cross

figures 197
Figure 34. Song of April

198 figures
Fig, 35. Tonghak leader (Chon Pong-Jun)
Fig, 36. Tonghak leader (Chon Pong-Jun)

figures 199
Figure 37. The twenty days in water 1

200 figures

figures 201

202 figures

figures 203
Figure 45. Eco-farming

204 figures
Figure 46. Shade

figures
Figure 47. Avatar

205
206 figures
Figure 48. Church

figures 207
Figure 49. Rice is heaven

208 figures
Figure 50. Samsara

figures 209
Figure 51. Lotus of Silk Road

Küster, A Protestant Theology of Passion Korean Minjung Theology Revisited

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A Protestant Theology of Passion

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Küster, Volker, 1962–

Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

printed in the netherlands

Foreword by David Kwang-Sun Suh .............................................. xi

Prologue: Theology in Context ........................................................ 1

I. People as the Subjects of History ......................................... 19

II. Re-/constructing Korean Identity

III. Theology and Biography

IV. Jesus and the Minjung

V. A Confluence of Two Traditions

VI. Fools for Christ’s Sake

VII. Theology as a Social Biography of the Minjung

VIII. A Plea for a Survival-Liberation Centered Syncretism

IX. Contextual Challenges

Epilogue: Contextual Theologies as Open Systems ..................... 151

Bibliography on Minjung Theology ............................................... 157

David Kwang-Sun Suh

As a remnant of the so-called first generation Minjung theologians,

On the whole, I have the impression that the author appears to be

politically oppressed, economically exploited, and culturally alienated.

Experience and Truth: Action (Praxis) and Reflection2

Most of the first generation Minjung theologians were political activ-

reflection. Therefore, Minjung theology is first and foremost a situ-

Minjung and Jesus3

While we were experiencing minjung realities in Korea in the 1970s,

In the framework of Western theology this issue of minjung-Jesus

Minjung Theology in “Intercultural” Perspective?7

Minjung theology has been categorized as “Korean-style liberation

came to Korea in the 1980s for conversation with Minjung theologians

Doing Theology is Personal

revolutionary political engagements and theology. Some of them seri-

I belong to a generation of theological students who became interested

Moltmann had published an anthology and a couple of months before

Volker Küster Seoul, Easter 2009

The emergence of contextual theologies1 marks an empirical and her-

This development coincides with a demographical shift of Christianity

1. The Irruption of the Third World

resulted in the East-West conflict. At the same time a thrust toward

The inaugural meeting of EATWOT in Daresalam, Tanzania in 1976

2. Typology of Contextual Theology

From the beginning one could distinguish between two “schools” of

of primal religions that with their holistic approach to nature made

influence of preeminent figures like Engelbert Mveng (Cameron)22 and

Table 1: Typology of Contextual theology

3. The Hermeneutical Circle

Methodologically the basic structure of contextual theologies is the

Illustration 1: The hermeneutical circle

4. On the Reception of Contextual Theology

At least three models of the reception of contextual theology can be

their own contextual experiences, took a different attitude from the

Table 2: Critical positions vis-à-vis Third World Theologies

5. The Emergence of Intercultural Theology

The ecclesiastical and theological irruption of the Third World in the

the center of gravity of Christianity had shifted to the Third World,36

and North American Working Group of the Department on Studies in Evangelism,

Heinrich Balz44 on the primacy of hermeneutics over against commu-

and communication”,51 Schreiter revaluates the universal dimension

6. The Functions of Intercultural Theology

Intercultural theology explores the interconfessional, intercultural

– The heuristic function: Intercultural theology develops methodical