This course will be an overview of a development of the theological methods in relation to Korea’s cultural context. Completing the course, the learners can understand cultural influences on the dynamic development of Korean churches and indigenous theology; they can also gain an insight into their own image of God and theological imagination in their own cultural context.
God is Rice
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From the course by Yonsei University
Re-imaging God in Korean Context
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From the lesson
God as Rice: A Dialectical Imagination of Minjung Theologians
The module 4 will focus on Kwok Pui-lan’s proposal of biblical interpretation as “Dialogical Imagination” in which the Korean Minjung theology strengthens the power of theological imagination. This module will demonstrate how the immanent image of God as rice to the Korean Minjung theology became the central theme of the Christian social movement in Korea.
Meet the Instructors
Soo-Young KwonProfessor
College of Theology
Chang Il-dam is a butcher and a son of a butcher.
That is the symbol of killing the best in human beings.
Speaking of his lineage, three generations were killed during the Donghak upheaval.
And only a son of a prostitute survived, but
was killed during the liberation movement in the Japanese colonial period.
A son of his, again, begotten through a prostitute survived.
He was later killed allegedly as communist during the Korean War.
And, again, a son by a prostitute survive, this one is Chang Il-dam.
A lineage of three generations of butchers and
prostitutes is a symbol of Han lineage.
Again, Han is bitter feelings of being victimized.
But Chang Il-dam's spiritual lineage includes revolutionary
rebels like Im Geok Jung, Chang Il San, Hong Gyeong Ne, Chom Bung Jun, and so on.
When Chang Il-dam is executed, he is 33 years old.
His birth and life as a priest of a liberation, the betrayal of a disciple,
trial and execution, prophecy and
resurrection are all reproduced from the life of Jesus.
When Kim Chi-ha wrote this memo in 1977,
he was also 33 years old.
With Chang Il-dam the, poet, identifies that the Korean Minjung,
Jesus Christ and even himself in one composite image.
In the story, he brings together the human rise movements of
the Korean church and the exodus from the bondage in Egypt.
And finally, he juxtaposes Jesus Christ with the Han of the Korean oppressed.
Kim Chi-ha sees the acts of Chang Il-dam as
repetition of the events of Jesus Christ.
So that when one commits oneself to these acts,
salvation, and liberation are actualized.
Since the turn of the 1970s, however,
social economic problems have been the target of mission work, and
preaching conducted amidst social participation.
Economic construction programs of the Korean government had been carried out
steadily in the 1970s.
However, economic subjugation and
corruption on the part of those in power continued.
The government sought to ensure stability
by a piecemeal policy of suppressing this content without dealing
democratically with the whole situation in dialogue with the people.
Within this economy, social setting for
Minjung poet Kim Chi-ha, the image of heaven shifted to rice.
The solidarity in the symbol of rice became
the central theme of the Korean Minjung movement today.
And also directly affected a leading Japanese theologian
Masao Takenaka, who presented his idea, God is Rice,
at the conference of the World Council of Churches in Geneva in 1986.
Rice is an important food of Koreans and other Asians.
There is somewhat indescribable,
majestic quality which rice has for Asians in general.
Not just any rice like Uncle Ben's rice or Minute Rice.
A rice with Asian root that is made in a specific rice pot or
cooker, and rice grains that stick together, literally.
The Korean rice is clearly different from the rice that you can easily see
at an Indian restaurant.
Again, the Korean rice grains stick together.
In addition, it is imperative to stress that
rice has many symbolic meanings in the Korean culture contexts.
The Korean's rice may have many religious connotations.
Kim Ji-ha picks up on various specific qualities of rice.
Kim says in his book, Pap, the rice.
Rice is made by the cooperation of heaven, earth, and human.
In other words, only the whole work of nature,
rice seed, plant, worm, soil,
air, wind, rain, snow, frost,
thunder, sunshine, a human body and spirit can make rice.
He points out that this rice means, not only material rice,
but also spiritual rice, or rice of spirit.
That is, without rice, no one runs any business, or
does any creative work, or even commits a crime, or even war.
So rice is the rice of material and body.
Likewise, rice is of spirit, and rice is of soul.
The Chinese letter for peas is composed of the letters for rice and mouth.
In Asia, the peace of people is linked to having a full stomach.
Also, Kim claims that since we cannot see any distinction between mind and body,
and between spirit and material in the concept of life, rice means unification.
Life is union, and so is rice.
In this sense, he understands Jesus saying,
I am a loaf of bread, or I am rice.
First Corinthians, chapter 11, as the life of union.
As such, the rice is the spiritual rice that unites heaven and earth,
mind and body, work and play, and I and thou.
As I mentioned in the last module, Chon, heaven,
is transcendent in so as it produces things and human kind.
And it is immanent in silver as it is ubiquitous as
the cosmic principle, which is manifested as heaven and earth.
In this sense, it is reasonable to say that for Koreans, rice is within heaven,
God was heaven, God as rice is within them.
In the history of Korean Protestantism,
heaven as an image of God has shown an important dynamic at work.
Through the images and symbols of Minjung and rice, the story of the Bible
brings new meanings to the stories of the present Minjung and rice eaters.
The symbol of Minjung plays an essential role in using the logical imagination.
Imagination constructs the concept of God, and
substantiates experience by the employment of images and symbols.
The symbol, Minjung, represents its dialectical move through imagination,
which constructs the new concept of God, and
embodies experience in concrete human contexts.
According to the initiator of Minjung theology, Suh Nam-dong,
Jesus was truly a part of the Minjung, not just for the Minjung.
Therefore, Jesus was the personification of the Minjung and their symbol.
In his essay, Symbol, Myth, and Ritual, are the method of the Minjung.
Young-Chan Ro, Professor of George Mason University,
sees symbol as a comprehensive way of experiencing
reality that does not require philosophical analysis.
Then Professor Ro considers Minjung as a religious symbol in which people
can fully participate rather than a concept for philosophical speculation.
Ordinary Korean people find their self-identification in the symbol Minjung,
at the same time, they find the image of Jesus and rice in this symbol.
Minjung history starts as early as the beginning of Korean modern history.
It is believed that step by step, the Minjung have prepared the ground for
themselves in order to become the subjects of Korean history.
In fact, the Han of hunger began to be activated or
instigated by a protest of a drive of desire through the Minjung movement.
Modern and contemporary major Minjung movements are,
The Tonghak Peasant Revolution in 1894,
The March 1st Independence Movement in 1919,
and the April Student Revolution in 1960.
These stories are interwoven in Chang Il-dam's narrative.
The collective psyche for the resolution of Han of hunger
has continually developed within the Korean Minjung's
underworld until rapid modernization from 1966 throughout 1980.
The image of God as Rice can allow me to meditate
on the Korean immanent image of Chon, heaven.
Young-Chan Ro claims that in terms of this theological method,
Minjung theology goes beyond the Western theological method,
unlike even liberation or Black theology.
He argues, when Western theology is mostly
a logos-oriented system that educes logos from myths,
Minjung theology has rediscovered the power of myth.
Myth-making in the dialogical imagination between social biography and
the Bible is understood to be essential to Minjung theology.
Since Han must be told, heard, touched, felt, imagined,
and resolved by telling the tragic stories concerning events in contemporary Korea.
Many Christians in Korea today tend to act together and share comradeship emission
on the basis of social participation rather than in established sets.
Today, participation theology is also being
practiced under a strong international solidarity.
More conservative churches continue to expand their influence
at a rapid phase through the Pentecostal movement.
While these churches do stress the power of God
in their own personal lives, healing, success, wealth, and so forth.
They seem to lack social political concerns.
In fact, they think of their God as transcendent heaven
rather than immanent rice.
In the next module, I'll explore the enormous rise and
development of the Pentecostal movement in Korea.
It is also embedded in a very important cultural,
collective representation of God.
God as spirit.
Please, wait for the next module with great anticipation.
I'm going to ask some questions that you can meditate on deeply.
How does the German meaning of imagination, that is, Einbildungskraft,
the power of shaping into one, makes sense to you when you imagine your God?
Can the dialogical nature of imagination found in the Korean Minjung theology
be found in the theological imagination of your own culture?
Minjung is the word for the oppressed masses of people in Korea.
How do you think the Minjung became the subjects of theology?
How can you understand the Minjung as symbol that can converse with
Jesus and or people in the Hebrew Scriptures?
What could you learn from the Korean representation of God as rice
in this module?
How does it affect the way you imagine God in your own cultural context?
Can a Korean imagination of God as rice and
the American imagination of God as bread be the same?
If you think that they cannot be the same, then how would you explain it?
The argument that rice is heaven in
the Minjung theology is a paradoxical imagination.
How would you explain this to theologians in the west?
Examine any of your immanent images of God.
Where do you think it comes from?
What is the theological imagination that can make your immanent image
harmonize with the transcendental image of God?
As I mentioned earlier,
Suh Nam-dong has been considered as the initiator of Minjung theology.
He was a proud professor of theology at Yonsei University.
His book has been translated into English in the early 1980s.
But there are a number of secondary sources of Minjung Theology available for
those who want to learn more about Minjung Theology, and
I want to recommend this primary material by all means.
I hope you have enjoyed listening to this module.
Thank you for your time and interest.
See you all in the next module,
God as spirit, goodbye.
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