Christianity in Korea
In 1603, Yi Su-gwang, a Korean politician, returned from Beijing carrying several theological books written by Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary to China.
[5] Catholicism was reintroduced[clarification needed] in 1785 by Yi Seung-hun and French and Chinese Catholic priests were soon invited by the Korean Christians.
[13][14] In the early 21st century, however, the growth of Protestantism has slowed, perhaps due to scandals involving church leadership, fundamentalism, and conflict among various sects.
[15] Professor James H. Grayson from the School of East Asian Studies at University of Sheffield states that Protestantism has been a dynamic force in Korean life, and had a positive influence on other religions.
The influence on higher education in Korea has been decisive as the Christians started 293 schools and 40 universities, including 3 of the top 5 academic institutions.
[12] Sukman argues that since 1945, Catholicism and Protestantism has been widely seen by Koreans as the religion of the middle class, youth, intellectuals, urbanites, and modernizers.
[16] Catholics tend to be better educated than most other religious groups in South Korea, in the sense that they have a high number of college graduates (50.4%) and post-graduate degrees (11.6%) per capita.
[18][19][failed verification] The Orthodox Christianity under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is a small minority religion in South Korea with about 4,000 official members in 2013.
The area was highly receptive to Catholic and Protestant missionaries in the late 19th century, who brought Western knowledge, and established hospitals and Western-style medical care, schools, and a window to the wider world.
In turn the sons became strong nationalists who considered the United States a rallying point in opposition to Japanese colonial imperialism.
Matteo Ricci's books, which he created to use Chinese ideograms and concepts to introduce Catholicism, provoked academic controversy when Yi Gwang-jeong brought them into Korea.
Early in the 17th century, Yi Su-gwang, a court scholar, and Yu Mong-in, a cabinet minister, wrote highly critical commentaries on Ricci's works.
Members of the Silhak (실학; "practical learning") school believed in social structure based on merit rather than birth (see class discrimination), and were therefore often opposed by the mainstream academic establishment.
[29] When Catholicism was finally established in Korea in the 18th century, there was already a substantial body of educated opinion sympathetic to it, which was crucial to the spread of the Catholic faith in the 1790s.
[31] As a result of the influence of the Silhak school, Catholicism in Korea began as an indigenous lay movement rather than being largely organized by a foreign missionaries.
[34] Although the Vatican ruled in 1789 that the appointment of lay-priests violated Canon law, in Korea indigenous lay-workers rather than foreign prelates carried Catholicism to many.
Hangul, a phonemic Korean alphabet invented around 1446 by scholars in the court of Sejong the Great,[35][36] was little used for several centuries because of the perceived cultural superiority of Classical Chinese (a position similar to that of Latin in Europe).
As early as the 1780s, portions of the Gospels were published in Hangul; doctrinal books such as the "Jugyo Yoji" (주교요지) appeared in the 1790s and a Catholic hymnal was printed around 1800.
John Ross, a Scottish Presbyterian missionary based in Shenyang, completed his translation of the New Testament into Korean in 1887,[38] and Protestant leaders began a mass distribution effort.
The Christian concept of individual worth has found expression in a lengthy struggle for human rights and democracy in Korea.
Minjung theology is based on the "image of God" concept expressed in Genesis 1:26–27, but also incorporates the traditional Korean feeling of han, a word that has no exact English translation, but that denotes a sense of inconsolable pain and utter helplessness.
[46] Both men spent decades opposing military governments in South Korea and were frequently imprisoned as a result, and both also served terms as President of the Republic after democracy was restored in 1988.
The military government imprisoned many of their leaders because it considered the movement a threat to social stability, and their struggle coincided with a period of unrest which culminated in the assassination of President Park on 26 October 1979.
[51] Most Korean Christians from philosophers, preachers, to laity incorporate the values of Confucianism into their lives, including "filial piety and loyalty" to family members.
[52] South Korea's rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s is usually credited to the policy of export-oriented industrialization led by Park Chung Hee to indigenous cultural values and work ethic, a strong alliance with the United States, and the infusion of foreign capital.
Many South Korean Christians view their religion as a factor in the country's dramatic economic growth over the past three decades, believing that its success and prosperity are indications of God's blessing.
[54] Barro and McCleary's model has been influential in subsequent scholarship and, to some observers, it supports the belief that Christianity has played a major role in South Korea's economic success.
In addition, with military service mandatory for men in South Korea, the part the chaplain's corps in the armed forces became equally important.
[60] Professor Son Bong-ho of Goshin University criticized the president for partaking in a national-level Christian prayers' gathering in March 2011 that signaled a potential danger of the strong Protestant influence in the secular South Korean politics.
[66] In 2012, following pressure from STR, the Ministry of Education announced that many high-school textbooks would be revised to remove certain examples of evolution, such as of the horse and the dinosaur Archaeopteryx.
