Prophetic Imagination and Empire in Asia

This paper seeks to understand Korean national activist Thomas An Chunggŭn's (1879– 1910) thoughts on peace and war from a religious point of view. Regarding Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909), the first Japanese resident-general of Korea, as evil, Thomas An resorted to armed struggle and assassinated Itō at the railroad station in Harbin, Manchuria on October 26, 1909 in the name of Korean independence and peace in the East. An's faith in religion served as a driving force in his engagement in national movements, both non-violent and violent, to make peace and restore national sovereignty. By comparing Japanese Christian pacifist Uchimura Kanzō (1861–1930), who rejected any kind of war, with An, this paper examines the similarities and differences between An's pacifism, which was developed in the context of a colonized Korea, and Uchimura's, which was formed within that of imperial Japan. In so doing, it explores whether Thomas An can be categorized as a Christian pacifist from the perspective of Christian ethics.

Journal of Church and State, 2008

Ecclesial Futures, 2024

This article assesses a significant Peace Declaration which was recently released by the Reformed Church in Japan (RCJ). Through this declaration the RCJ affirms her calling and responsibility-as a missional church which is part of a 1% Christian population-to proclaim and embody peace in Japan and beyond. The article uses an integrative literature review and in-depth theological reflection as its main research techniques. The systematic review addresses the question: What is the significance and meaning of the RCJ Peace Declaration within the wider field of Peace Studies and in connection with the notion of pacifism in Japan and globally? It is argued that theological understandings of peacebuilding can indeed constructively promote peace and justice in worldwide conflicts. The article further explains how a vast corpus of knowledge and practice includes the body of Christ in Japan which, through the RCJ Peace Declaration, represents a pro-active vision of God's shalom. Public witness is not an add-on to the church's mission. Instead, the Church realizes its missional calling when it publicly engages in testifying to true Christian peace by rejecting imperial claims.

Acta Koreana, 2012

An Chunggŭn is frequently portrayed as having killed Itō Hirobumi primarily out of a sense of wounded nationalism. However, in this article I argue through a close reading of An's unfinished prison essay, A Treatise on Peace in the East, and relevant court records, that in addition to nationalism, Catholicism, Confucianism and Asianism played an important role in shaping An's worldview and convincing him that killing Itō was not only justified, but practical, as it would put into motion events that would lead to peace in the East and the restoration of Korean independence. Moreover, I contend that these worldviews are not easily isolated variables within An's thought, but rather interacted with and shaped each other, with religion acting as an ethical foundation, as seen in the fact that An's Confucian-Catholic morality led him to absolutize Asianism into a religious principle equivalent to obedience to Heaven. I therefore argue that An killed Itō in part because his essentially religious worldview made it appear to be a more effective means of obtaining Korean independence and peace in the East than it really was. At the same time, I show that An's universal, religious morality prevented him from adopting a xenophobic form of Asianism and led him to search for a solution that would benefit all human beings as he sought not only East Asian, but world peace.

Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2012

In Klaus Koschorke et al., eds., „To Give Publicity to Our Thoughts“: Journals of Asian and African Christians Around 1900 and the Making of a Transregional Indigenous-Christian Public Sphere (Wiesbaden: Harassowitz, 2018), 285-298, 2018

Revista Română de Studii Eurasiatice, 2020

This paper want to examine, why it is important to look at the growth of new religious movements in terms to understand the liberations of Korea and Vietnam from their respective colonial rules. As a methodology, the author introduces first the new religious movements which evolved at the end of the Korean Ri-Dynasty (also known as Joseon-Dyansty), each for its own. After that the same is done for Vietnam after being annexed by France. In a third step, the characteristics of the described religions will be compared, so that one sees the commonalities and differences of the religions of Korea and Vietnam. A comparison between these two countries is meaningful, because both countries stood under Chinese influence and adopted Chinese religions, and both countries were colonized later. As a result, it turned out that both countries sought to get along with the colonial pain and their wish to restore the nation, by reviving native thoughts (without rejecting the well-established Chinese ones) and a nationalist political understanding, declaring their status quo of that time as being corrupted.

Ecumenical Review, 2017

Building on his prior book, The Lotus and the Sun, Preman Niles continues his exploration of what he terms the "social biography" of Asian theology in Is God Christian? Christian Identity and Public Theology: An Asian Contribution. His books seek to articulate distinctively Asian theological voices that will be able to effectively address vital issues in their societies. He says, citing his colleague and friend Felix Wilfred, that public theology (at least in Asia) is more "public" than theology-that is, it addresses Asian issues in a distinctly relevant and effective Asian manner. Niles draws on his vast knowledge and long relationships with pioneers in Asian theology who have sought methods and approaches to reconcile the "two stories" that they carry-as Asians and as Christians. Traditional Christian theological language and biblical teachings are often seen in Asia as "Western," entangled in complex colonial histories. If there is a separate Christian God, then that God is often seen as incompatible with Asian deities and traditions; the Christian God is a Western deity that denigrates or misunderstands Asian cultures and realities.

Why and how did Korean religious groups respond to growing rural poverty, social dislocation, and the corrosion of culture caused by forces of modernization under strict Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945)? Questions about religion's relationship and response to capitalism, industrialization, urbanization, and secularization lie at the heart of understanding the intersection between colonialism, religion, and modernity in Korea. Yet, getting answers to these questions has been a challenge because of narrow historical investigations that fail to study religious processes in relation to political, economic, social, and cultural developments. In Building a Heaven on Earth, Albert L. Park studies the progressive drives by religious groups to contest standard conceptions of modernity and forge a heavenly kingdom on the Korean peninsula to relieve people from fierce ruptures in their everyday lives. The results of his study will reconfigure the debates on colonial modernity, the origins of faith-based social activism in Korea, and the role of religion in a modern world. Building a Heaven on Earth, in particular, presents a compelling story about the determination of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), the Presbyterian Church, and the Ch'ŏndogyo to carry out large-scale rural movements to form a paradise on earth anchored in religion, agriculture, and a pastoral life. It is a transnational story of leaders from these three groups leaning on ideas and systems from countries, such as Denmark, France, Japan, and the United States, to help them reform political, economic, social, and cultural structures in colonial Korea. This book shows that these religious institutions provided discursive and material frameworks that allowed for an alternative form of modernity that featured new forms of agency, social organization, and the nation. In so doing, Building a Heaven on Earth repositions our understandings of modern Korean history.

Journal of Korean Religions, 2018

Guest Editors' Introduction The Cold War is commonly understood as a global conflict that was principally about secular ideologies, the confrontation between two mutually exclusive visions of modernity that we refer to as capitalism and socialism. This understanding prevails in the existing academic literature concerning the second half of the twentieth century, and it also affects how we conceptualize the constitution of the contemporary world. The decade following the end of the Cold War witnessed rising ethnic nationalism of a religious nature, especially, but not exclusively, in the former Eastern Bloc. The Bosnian War (1992-1995) in the former Yugoslavia was one of the most shocking and tragic examples in this regard. The ensuing decade saw a series of other military crises-conventional and unconventional-which were often conducted in the name of specific religious doctrines or as countermeasures to these manifestations of religious fundamentalism. This situation provoked prolific debates, both in academia and the broader public, about the nature of modern secular society. Concerned commentators questioned what had happened to the ethics of secularism and whether modern political systems could coexist with forces that denied religious freedom and pluralism, the cardinal principles of modern political life. The whole situation reinforced the impression that religion had reentered politics in today's world, and the related understanding that our time is in contrast to the Cold War era in which secular, rather than religious, ideologies held sway. Recent studies of Cold War history clearly show, however, that the above impression is misguided. Religious ideas and forces played formative roles in the making (and unmaking) of the bipolarized world of the Cold War era. For instance, Andrew Preston (2012) has explored the role of American Christian groups and movements in shaping US foreign policies during the Vietnam War. Observers of Central Asia and the Middle East are well cognizant of the fact that questions of Islamic fundamentalism, which are debated furiously