Once again Christianity is in the Korean news (or at least it will be by tomorrow). As many of you already know - the Foreigners’ Cemetery at Yanghwajin is something that I am very concerned about. By extension I am also concerned about the Seoul Union Church (SUC) - which is one of the oldest Western establishments in Korea.
According to SUC’s history webpage:
“The year was 1885, the month June, the place Seoul. Signs on the street warned, on penalty of death, to have nothing to do with foreign devil worship. But Dr. Horace Allen wrote in his diary for June 28, 1885, “Held our first stated Sunday service this eve after dinner… Dr. and Mrs. Heron, the elder Mrs. Scranton, and wife being present.” Thus was initiated what eventually became the Seoul Union Church, the oldest Protestant church in Korea.”
I have posted before the perceived threat to the Foreigners’ Cemetery - the Hundredth Anniversary Church (HAC) - but now it appears that the HAC is also a threat to SUC. Somewhat ironic considering the existence of the HAC is to honor the establishment of this first church. Both churches occupy the same building and, according to SUC and others, the building was built to not only honor the establishment of the Protestant mission in Korea but also to provide SUC with a permanent home. HAC is quick to deny this and declares that the SUC is merely a guest.
This morning the SUC has apparently worn out thier welcome - at least in the eyes of the HAC. According to SUC sources - the HAC demanded that the SUC acknowledge the cemetery and the land it is on belongs to the HAC. When the SUC would not acknowledge that the HAC announced that the service times would change and the SUC would, starting today, no longer be able to hold their services in the morning. To ensure that they couldn’t - they locked the doors and had some large members of their (HAC) congragation - who were described as being akin to bodyguards - prevent SUC from entering the church. SUC was forced to hold their services on the grounds in front of the church. Of course the media was well-informed in advance that this confrontation was going to take place and camera crews from various tv stations along with newspaper journalists were there to record the events.
I think it is quite obvious to most that there is more going on here than just standard church politics. There are allegations of nationalism, colonialism and, of course, charges of racism from both churches. I am more than willing to speculate that money has a great deal to do with some of the actions taken - especially considering that region is undergoing redevelopment.
My concern is not so much the churches - my concern is the cemetery. I think that recent events in Korea and abroad have shown just how extreme some religious organizations are and how their actions often endanger not only the reputation of Korea, but also lives of the members. I think the cemetery, which has been turned into a virtual parking lot on Sunday by members of the HAC, needs to be protected from its present caretakers. It should be removed from the control of both churches and protected by the Seoul or Korean government as a place of historical significance.
38 Comments
Could someone provide links to the Korean media coverage of this controversy?
Robert, I share your concern over the cemetery but the title of your piece is a bit cliché, isn’t it?
Why not simply state that the dispute over the Foreigners’ Cemetery escalates?
So, the soulless bodies of the dead are being threatened by the soulless bodies of the living.
Anyhow, I wonder if there is some legal reason the Korean government seems to be so reluctant to get involved in material disputed by religious groups. Like when those monks fought over control of Jogyesa a few years back. Seems to me that there should be contracts and deeds and things confirming the legal status of these various groups. Really, shouldn’t Korea 2007 be past the thick-necked-goon method of resolving disputes?
(Yeah, I know it is not… but it really should be).
Too bad the people arguing are all Protestant. We could have torn apart a communal wafer in protest.
The last line of #2 was in exceptionally poor taste.
Ah, Christians. Ya gotta love ‘em.
“Ah, Christians. Ya gotta love ‘em.”
That’s not what the first Herod said.
The first Herod didn’t get to experience them. If he had, he would have realized how much fun they are to watch.
#3~#2
It was not even funny. If you are going to be sardonic or iconoclastic, at least be clever. Ham fisted and low. I wonder if he has other cave art on view?
Since when do people get all uptight about an insubstantial transubstantiation joke?
Anyhow, my main point/question still stands about the legal status of the various parties in this dispute.
Noah -
These people take that wafer stuff seriously. Not seriously enough to acknowledge that it effectively makes them cannibals, but still very seriously. As I say, ya gotta love ‘em.
#9 - Yes, we do take it seriously. And the cannibalism objection has been satisfactorily answered numerous times over the past two thousand years. (Hint: that’s why He gave us His body under the appearance of bread and wine.) But it’s far easier to throw around snarky, intellectually dishonest insults than to do your homework.
http://www.encyclopediaofstupi.....gLabel.jpg
michael, only the content advisory on that label seems to be objective truth, and the other 2 labels are opinions.
but it’s a funny one.
God stands with those with the biggest guns.
I know some Christians have a sense of humor….
Ut videam:
Odd that the purpose of eating your savior’s flesh and drinking his blood (ugh) wasn’t answered in the Bible itself, eh? Again, God needed theologians to say things he wasn’t smart or eloquent enough to say in his book.
And Michael (14): You are, alas, sorely mistaken.
And Ut videam:
“This is my body, this is my blood.”
What part of “is” can’t you understand? Had Jesus meant what your theologians say he did, he would have said it.
I thought the whole wind-and-bread and eat-your-god things had origin in Greek mythology.
*wine-and-bread*
Eh… so the point of that was to say that arguing about a religious tradition rooted in mythologies seems pointless. If it gives Christian some sense of whatever they’re looking for, all the power to them.
Alright enough Jeebus and church photos
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD POST RACING GIRL PICS MARMOT
OK I feel better now
I agree with Emraptor. Let ‘em believe what they want. But we non-believers evidently are not allowed to discuss their beliefs without Chrislims and Mustians or whatever they’re called jumping in and getting huffy.
I also agree with Michael. Churches…cemeteries…zzzzzz…
In response to #10:
It’s a lot easier to swallow church mythology, I mean doctrine, whole than it is to question the motives of Christian indoctrination, i.e., might the bible not actually be a means to blind people to the reality of their being, so as to keep them docile, so as to maintian power, status quo, in the hands of the minority? Or do you really believe that there is such thing as The Devil or places such as heaven and hell where souls go for eternity after one life on earth, be it 90 years or 5 months long… my well-researched and free intellectual inquiry finds these notions ABSURD, and belief in them childish and ignorant.
But, hey you have free will, waste it if you want to…
Well, anyone who actually believes the stuff contained in the bible, or who is bent on recruiting people for a religion that might as well have the purple spaghetti monster as it’s root is missing something in their lives…probably logic!
But this story obviously demonstrates that neither of these churches is adhering to the message of Jesus and should make anyone who attends these places wary.
22,
very few actually believe because some authority figure said so. That crumbles down pretty quickly and practically disappears by the time a person reaches puberty and struggles with adolescence.
most people come to faith as full grown adults making adult decisions. Free will, indeed.
#15 - It was answered in the Bible, smart guy. Gospel of John, chapter 6.
#16 - He took bread, broke it, and gave it to them saying “This is my body.” He said the bread was His body. He obviously meant it. We take Him at His word, and “our theologians” wrestle with the how.
#22 - From your incorrect characterizations of these concepts, it’s obvious your “intellectual inquiry” wasn’t nearly as well-researched as you claim.
“might the bible not actually be a means to blind people to the reality of their being, so as to keep them docile, so as to maintian power, status quo, in the hands of the minority?”
Ouch, haven’t heard this canard for awhile. I used to believe it too when I was an anti-Christian socialist. But then I got to know a good number of Christians over the years (and became one, too) and found that the ridiculous stereotypes that non-Christians have are just that, ridiculous stereotypes. Are there people who are overly dogmatic, people who don’t question things? Gee, sounds just like many non-religious persons in the general public. Christians have no monopoly on a closed mind and in fact, I’ve met plenty of Christians who do question and who do have open minds about life and the world (for example, there is a wide perspective of opinions on pretty much everything, from evolution to abortion to the claims of literal truth of the bible). I don’t think most Christians are any more dogmatic than many leftists who hold their own set of ‘religious’ doctrines and ’sacred’ beliefs. In fact, I’ve found some leftists to be some of the most dogmatic and close-minded people I’ve ever met.
wjk: most people come to faith as full grown adults making adult decisions
If that were true, the vast majority of people would not stay in the superst- oops, faiths that they were born into, and Christianity and Islam would have made more headway in the territories of the other.
The coming into faith that you talk about (whether coming into Christianity or Islam) is almost invariably adults re-connecting with the faith with which they were indoctrinated in childhood.
Ut videam: So we agree, you are eating Christ’s body and not something that merely stands in for it or appears like it, as you had said in your earlier post. Don’t be so snarky; I take a bemused anthropological interest in you people. Where’s this turn the other cheek attitude you praise yourselves for?
Leftists…..Am I to believe that there are no liberals that are religious?
How much energy is involved in containing and maintaining a soul for eternity? There must be some sort of cosmic infrastructure.
Some of the people in those graves still have living relatives, right? Have they been reached?
#27 -
With you right up to “as you had said in your earlier post.” I said no such thing. I said we eat the Body and Blood of the Lord under the appearances of bread and wine. The substance of bread and wine is changed to that of the Body and Blood of Christ—hence the term transubstantiation—while the accidents of bread and wine remain. At least, that’s the best framework that theologians have been able to come up with to help understand this great mystery.
Ah, anti-Catholicism, the last acceptable prejudice. If you used these same words in a conversation about African-American culture, you’d be crucified. Incidentally, it’s precisely this type of snarky, insincere, condescending arrogance from you that merited my tone.
First, I don’t praise myself for anything. I’m not in the business of smarmy self-congratulation—in marked contrast to you, from the looks of things. Second, even the devil can quote Scripture—always and exclusively out of context, of course—to suit his own purposes. Smartass atheists are no different. You kids love to heap derision upon believers and then toss out “turn the other cheek” when and if they respond in kind. Yes, Jesus said “turn the other cheek.” He also called the Pharisees “whitewashed tombs,” and fashioned a whip of cords and drove the moneychangers out of the temple. He’s not the pushover you’d like Him to be, nor should His followers be.
discourse about black-american culture is just a few steps away from discoure about black-americans. so indeed there are norms one should attend to when engaged in the act of the former (inasmuch as they apply to the latter).
the same can’t be said of religion or a faction of a religion. someone bashes Catholicism when it’s uncalled for. rude? absolutely. wrong in itself, in a general sense? nope. it’s just a religion, just like any culture, any set of beliefs, superstitions and such that pretend to have truth value. they are debatable, bashable species of meme.
@#32
Looks like the cat has found another ball of yarn to play with.
“Some of the people in those graves still have living relatives, right? Have they been reached?”
Oh, no joke. I believe the SUC cemetery hosts the remains of a number of prominent missionary families, including the Underwoods. A departed acquaintance of mine, Gail Clarke, is buried there. Her husband Peter Underwood is still in Korea, I believe. His father was laid to rest a few years ago in rites befitting a former president of Yonsei University.
@#20
#33 -
Aye, yet another example that there’s more than one variety of ipsation that takes place in front of computer screens the world over.
Herod:
I was raised as an atheist, and was raised firm in the belief that there is no God, my sole exposure to anything remotely related to the Bible being learning about secular Jewish culture.
I was an agnostic in my 20s and early 30s, still a rational materialist with a man-centered view of the Bible (that the Bible was an ad hoc collection of works written and put together by various power interests to rationalize and maintain their positions of status).
Now, in my mid 30s, I’m a born-again Christian, firm in my belief that the Bible in its current form was assembled together by authors and collators guided in their activities by the Holy Spirit.
I’ve heard all the criticisms and canards, because I used to agree with most of them myself. I despised Christians, most of all the evangelical kind. Write what you want, but miracles do happen.
And don’t even be tempted to go there with any argument about the historical relationship between Christians and Jews. It’s a long, sordid history, and it’s what held me back for 20 years to confessing faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. What we have is 2000 years of certain Gentile Christians not reading Romans 11:13-24 and considering the clear admonition it has regarding them.
As for this story, alas, Christians are still sinners, even though many behave as if they think they are perfect and non-Christians are not. That is an erroneous dichotomy. Their sins have been paid for, but they are still sinners. This is a clear example of just how much a whole church can be led astray by sin.
Creating a universe with life in it just to demand that it worship you still seems arrogant and impractical to me.I still have faith that the original events got misinterpreted by the primitive minds witnessing them.