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Amar Bakshi talks with Dr. David Yonggi Cho of the Yoido Full Gospel Church.
Korea News via Google
15 Comments
I like how Catholics aren’t Christians in Korea.
“Are you a Catholic?”
“No, I’m a Christian!”
usually, the source of that would be blame Japan,
But, in this case, please
Blame the US missionaries.
Breaktrack,
Some evangelical Protestant groups barely acknowledge that Catholics are Christians. There are missionary groups working in traditionally Catholic countries like the Philippines, Mexico, and even Ireland, trying to convert Catholics into “real” Christians. A college friend had on her wall a world map as seen by evangelicals. Nations were color-coded as “saved” (read: observant Protestant), “nominally saved” (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, nominally Protestant), and “unsaved” (everybody else). Savior of souls destined for damnation, she helped build a church in Ireland.
I think Sanshinseon or someone else has posted here about competition between later arriving North American Protestant missionaries and their earlier established European Catholic counterparts.
Barely acknowledge? Barely acknowledge means they do in fact acknowledge the fact that Catholics are Christian. Barely acknowledge is diffent from don’t acknowledge. The fact of the matter is, Catholics are Christians. I think Eusebius would agree.
Catholics are Christian????
Heh.
I liked this:
> you must “work to become Buddha through hardship,”
> but “Jesus the Living God is your friend,
> mentor and guide here and now.”
So, Buddhism is in accord with pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps hard-workin-values Conservative ideology, and Christianity is a free-lunch Socialist-leaning liberal-welfare giveaway?? Why, I Did Not Know That
> Hostile toward Christianity a century ago,
> Korea’s population is now 30% Christian (20% Protestant, 10% Catholic).
Remarkably, NONE of those points are true; way off.
(meaning: this is just another reporter who declines to do even the least bit of background-homework)
there is grace in Christ.
that’s what he’s talking about.
he said,
“Till Christ returns”
regarding how long US-Korean cooperation should continue.
I agree.
Oooooops, i posted in haste without checking, and just might be nearly as wrong as I accused the reporter of being. 2005 figures published just today in the Korea Herald by SNU sociology professor Kim Kyong-dong show a very steep rise in Korea’s Catholics, an amount nearly tripled since i last paid attention to that statistic — claims that they are now more than 5 million, almost 11% of South Korea’s population. He puts Protestants at 18.3% (don’t know if he’s counting Mormons, Unificationists and Christianoid cults in there, or not), and so that would indeed total close to 30% Christians.
Hmmmm, surprising. He attributes the source of these statistics to a 2005 report of the National Statistics Office; i have no idea how much validity to ascribe to them, but they don’t seem right. I suppose that the NSO just totals up what ever each individual charged claims to be its membership number…?
How to account for such a dramatic rise in the amount of Catholics that are claimed? I know that JPII was quite popular around the world, but… Perhaps Korea’s Catholic churches have adopted the Korean Protestant custom of having housewife-members register all their family-members even though those others may have no actual involvement in the religion…
This is not surprising. Korean Christians, whether they be pastors or lay congregation, who are in the 40-60 age bracket, are very pro-American, thankful for American involvement in the Korean War, and very anti North Korea. And if they also happen to have fought in the Vietnam War, forget it.
So, Buddhism is in accord with pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps hard-workin-values Conservative ideology, and Christianity is a free-lunch Socialist-leaning liberal-welfare giveaway??
That’s an interesting way of putting it.
In the Korean-American church, the form of Christianity as practiced by the first generation has been something of a syncretism of Christianity and Confucianism /Buddhism/ Shamanism. Long prayer meetings at the crack of dawn. Attending services at least 3 times a week. Volunteer church work ranging from cooking in the kitchen to driving old folks in the van. Strict adherences to tithing. Many unconsciously would believe that spiritual diligence would bring divine blessing upon their businesses.
The second generation churches tend to emphasize grace over the work ethic of the parents. Some even model themselves along the lines of the broader emerging church movement and practice a “post-modern” Christianity, which is really a syncretism of Christianity and US popular culture.
I agree with neither approach.
indeed, Netizen Kim.
indeed.
Actually the difference in terminology for Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity originated in China, where Catholics settled on “Religion of the Lord in Heaven” (i.e., Ch. Tianzhujiao = Kr. Ch’onjugyo) long before Western Protestant missionaries came to the scene and called their version of the faith “Christian” (Cf. Jidujiao = Kr. Kidokkyo). It was certainly not an attempt by Protestants to mislabel Catholics — Catholics (ultimately, the Vatican) chose that label for themselves. If anything, it was actually Protestantism who got mislabeled as a “new religion” (i.e., Ch. Xinjiao = Kr. shingyo), apparently Vatican propaganda against the Reformed Christianity (which was essentially a movement to return to the teachings of Jesus and the early church). Thus the Chinese terminology easily crossed into Korea before the Japanese interlude. And while some Protestant polemics against Catholicism harshly renounce it as less than authentically Christian, you can hardly blame them for using the Catholic church’s own chosen terms.
#13 - You can find plenty of North American Protestants - generally evangelical types - who believe that Catholics aren’t Christians, and cannot hope to be saved unless they become “true” Christians. (And, to be fair, some Catholics believe the same about their Protestant counterparts.)
Of course. What you have stated is common knowledge in both Korea and the West. Hopefully you understand that there are actually serious theological issues behind those beliefs even if you don’t personally agree with them. But my point was to explain the origins of the Korean terms, not to defend religious behavior or a particular theological position.