Korean Religious Culture and its Affinity to Christianity: The Rise of Protestant Christianity in South Korea

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2000 by Andrew E. Kim

CENTRALITY OF ETHICS AND FAMILY VALUES

The moral and social values of Confucianism figure prominently in the mental landscape of Koreans, and the high moral code taught by the Protestants converged with what many Confucian-minded Koreans felt and thought. Simply put, Protestant ethical values concerning the basic teachings of a way of life agreed with the Confucian-centered moral values of Koreans. The Church's teachings against dishonesty, political corruption, moral depravity, the abuse of power by the elite, and even gambling, licentiousness, and drunkenness were largely congruent with Confucian ideals. Moreover, like Confucianism, Christianity is more than a set of beliefs to be accepted, for it is a way of life to abide by. A frequently quoted text is found in the book of Matthew (7:21): "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." The early missionaries and Korean clergy also stressed the similarities between Christian and Confucian teachings on t he matter of practical morality and ethics. For example, they emphatically argued that even for thoroughly Confucianized Koreans, there is little to give up in accepting the Ten Commandments. The fifth commandment -- "Honor your father and your mother" -- was particularly stressed, for filial piety has been the supreme moral obligation for Koreans.

Protestant Christianity was also advanced as sharing the same values as Confucianism regarding the family (Park 1966). In an attempt to be more acceptable to the Korean people, proponents of Christianity compromised with the native social customs regarding family values. In the process, certain Christian principles were given prominence, unseen elsewhere. As mentioned above, the filial piety of Confucianism was shown to have its counterpart in Jesus's command to honor one's parents, and the lesson on obedience to one's parents had been a salient theme of sermons and Sunday school programs in South Korea. Furthermore, to encourage obedience to the mother-in-law, as the traditional custom demanded, Korean churches stressed the story of Ruth, in which her dedication to the care of her mother-in-law is recounted. The Confucian ideal of the subordination of wife to husband was also emphasized as being consistent with the Christian exaltation of wife's submission to husband, as in: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church" (Ephesians 5:22-23). Even in regards to the status of women in general, Korean Christianity conformed to the conventions of the host society. Although the role of the Church in improving women's social status in Korean society cannot be underestimated, it still maintained a conservative interpretation concerning the rights of women in relation to men. The Church held, in congruence with the centuries-old male hegemony of Buddhism and Confucianism, that women are to obey men, thereby making it justifiable for the existence of inequality between men and women. These illustrations alone reveal how the Korean Church endeavoured to stress the conservative features of Christianity in order to reconcile its ideals with those of the host culture. In addition, for a society that accorded the elderly a distinguished social status, Christian values that bestow reverence for the elderly and authority for men were comfortably acce pted by large numbers of Koreans who viewed the two traditions as stipulating the same values.