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South Korea New Religions
Ch'ondogyo, generally regarded as the first of Korea's "new
religions," is another important religious tradition. It is a
synthesis of Confucian, Buddhist, shamanistic, Daoist, and
Catholic influences. Ch'ondogyo grew out of the Tonghak Movement
(also called Eastern Learning Movement) established by Ch'oe Cheu , a man of yangban background who claimed to have
experienced a mystic encounter with God, who told him to preach
to all the world. Ch'oe was executed by the government as a
heretic in 1863, but not before he had acquired a number of
followers and had committed his ideas to writing. Tonghak spread
among the poor people of Korea's villages, especially in the
Cholla region, and was the cause of a revolt against the royal
government in 1894. While some members of the Tonghak Movement--
renamed Ch'ondogyo (Teachings of the Heavenly Way)--supported the
Japanese annexation in 1910, others opposed it. This group played
a major role, along with Christians and some Confucians, in the
Korean nationalist movement. In the 1920s, Ch'ondogyo sponsored
Kaebyok (Creation), one of Korea's major intellectual
journals during the colonial period
(see The Media
, ch. 4).
Ch'ondogyo's basic beliefs include the essential equality of
all human beings. Each person must be treated with respect
because all persons "contain divinity;" there is "God in man."
Moreover, men and women must sincerely cultivate themselves in
order to bring forth and express this divinity in their lives.
Self-perfection, not ritual and ceremony, is the way to
salvation. Although Ch'oe and his followers did not attempt to
overthrow the social order and establish a radical
egalitarianism, the revolutionary potential of Ch'ondogyo is
evident in these basic ideas, which appealed especially to poor
people who were told that they, along with scholars and high
officials, could achieve salvation through effort. There is
reason to believe that Ch'ondogyo had an important role in the
development of democratic and anti-authoritarian thought in
Korea. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ch'ondogyo's antecedent, the
Tonghak Movement, received renewed interest among many Korean
intellectuals.
Apart from Ch'ondogyo, major new religions included
Taejonggyo, which has as its central creed the worship of Tangun,
legendary founder of the Korean nation. Chungsanggyo, founded in
the early twentieth century, emphasizes magical practices and the
creation of a paradise on earth. It is divided into a great
number of competing branches. Wonbulgyo, or Won Buddhism,
attempts to combine traditional Buddhist doctrine with a modern
concern for social reform and revitalization. There are also a
number of small sects which have sprung up around Mount Kyeryong
in South Ch'ungch'ong Province, the supposed future site of the
founding of a new dynasty originally prophesied in the eighteenth
century.
Several new religions derive their inspiration from
Christianity. The Chondogwan, or Evangelical Church, was founded
by Pak T'ae-son. Pak originally was a Presbyterian, but was
expelled from the church for heresy in the 1950s after claiming
for himself unique spiritual power. By 1972 his followers
numbered as many as 700,000 people, and he built several
"Christian towns," established a large church network, and
managed several industrial enterprises.
Because of its overseas evangelism, the Hold Spirit
Association for the Unification of the World Christianity, or
Unification Church (T'ongilgyo), founded in 1954 by Reverend Sun
Myong Moon (Mun Son-myong), also a former Christian, is the most
famous Korean new religion. During its period of rigorous
expansion during the 1970s, the Unification Church had several
hundred thousand members in South Korea and Japan and a
substantial (although generally overestimated) number of members
in North America and Western Europe. Moon claimed that he was the
"messiah" designated by God to unify all the peoples of the world
into one "family," governed theocratically by himself. Like Pak's
Evangelical Church, the Unification Church has been highly
authoritarian, demanding absolute obedience from church members.
Moon, for example, has arranged marriages for his younger
followers; United States television audiences were treated some
years ago to a mass ceremony at which several hundred young
"Moonies" were married. Also like Pak, Moon has coupled the
church's fortunes to economic expansion. Factories in South Korea
and abroad manufacture arms and process ginseng and seafood,
artistic bric-a-brac, and other items. Moon's labor force has
worked long hours and been paid minimal wages in order to channel
profits into church coffers. Virulently anticommunist, Moon has
sought to influence public opinion at home and abroad by
establishing generally unprofitable newspapers such as the
Segye Ilbo in Seoul, the Sekai Nippo in Tokyo, and
the Washington Times in the United States capital, and by
inviting academics to lavish international conferences, often
held in South Korea. At home, the Unification Church was viewed
with suspicion by the authorities because of its scandals and
Moon's evident desire to create a "state within a state." His
influence, however, had declined by the late 1980s.
Data as of June 1990
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