The progressive Christian church and democracy in South Korea

Journal of Church and State, Spring, 1998 by Chang Yun-Shik

The priests' conference made it known through their "First Position Statement on Current Affairs" that the Catholic church had the right and duty to instigate, enlighten, and protect human dignity and to defend the basic right to a decent living; thus, they demanded the withdrawal of the Yushin constitution.(7) Subsequently, the Conference of Catholic Laymen Apostles joined forces with the priests' conference in voicing its dissent against authoritarianism. The Catholic Student Association and the Catholic Women's Association also issued statements condemning the government for moving away from democracy. Pressured by dissenting fellow Catholics, the Conference of Bishops established the Committee on Justice and Peace as an official organ to voice Catholics' concerns about social justice and democracy.(8)

Both Protestant and Catholic groups agreed that the revival of democracy would lead to the liberation of the people. They stressed that liberal democracy was the most desirable political system for the realization of individual freedom and social justice, and they expressed their determination to fight for democracy until the authoritarian regime was toppled.

In the wake of the rising authoritarian regime, Protestant leaders' response to the call of the democratization movement was indirectly supportive of student activism. Looking back upon their allegiance with Rhee's government and their inaction during the 1950 student uprising,(9) these leaders felt shame for not reacting to "the injustice, corruption, and infringements of human fights" that they had witnessed in the past. For them, to join the democratization movement was to return to the original posture of the church and to act in accordance with their religious conscience.(10) When some of the elderly leaders hesitated to take action or criticized the young Protestant dissident leaders' political activism, however, the latter appealed to the elders' religious conscience and urged them to join their movement. Stressing the need to unify the forces of the church in a struggle for democracy and against the autocratic government, young leaders demanded that elders cease conducting breakfast prayers for high-ranking government officials.

It should also be pointed out that the political climate in the Christian community was conducive to such a movement. The arrival of liberation theology (also known as secular theology, participation theology, and people's theology) from Latin America in the 1960s encouraged a small number of dissident priests and pastors to reexamine critically the role played by churches in the past and to redefine the relationship between the church and the state.(11) Their efforts to redefine their social roles led to reinterpretations of the Bible and rationalized their participation in secular politics in support of democracy and the popular masses. They claimed that because God created all humans in his own image, the suffering of the powerless at the hands of the powerful was an affront to the divine truth. In the past, Christian churches held that the powerless were destined to suffer and that the duty of the church was to render charity. Church leaders did not think it their business to expose the structural causes of suffering. A rereading of the Bible made it apparent to them, however, that Jesus Christ was a revolutionary who died for the oppressed. With this realization, church leaders argued that Christian churches should be more than propagators of Scripture and saviors of individual souls. They now considered it their duty to seek out the oppressed rather than wait for them to come to the church. Churches, they asserted, could no longer afford to stand apart from the people and the world. The church should not hesitate to take sides with the oppressed and share their pain, to defy the order and system that generate human suffering, and to help build a just society. The church should not leave social problems to the politicians but should try to solve them with all the resources it can muster. Evangelical work was no longer an instrument of the church; rather, the church was now an instrument of evangelical work broadly defined.(12)