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The Korean Catholic Church is usually considered to be a unique case in the whole history of Christianity, since its evangelization was supposedly started without foreign missionaries in the 1780s. The early Korean converts did indeed study Jesuit books and convert prior to the arrival of European priests in Chosŏn. This article is aimed at rethinking this topic beyond a Korea-centered perspective. More precisely, it focuses on Chosŏn envoys in Beijing through a comparison of Chinese and Korean historio- graphies. My main idea is to present Beijing as a “contact zone” where the Catholic experience of Chosŏn envoys was not just limited to visiting the four churches and their European missionaries. To be sure, Chosŏn officials also gained much knowledge about Catholicism through their encounters with Chinese literati and converts. Stated differently, this article explores several facets of the early encounters between Koreans and the Catholic faith. It demonstrates that these encounters and the birth of the Korean Church were not only linked to reform-minded Korean literati, but also to the complexity of Sino- Korean relations in Qing times and missionary methods used in Beijing (such as the conversion from top to bottom and the apostolate through books). This article more generally suggests a new research direction which explores the emergence of the Korean Catholic Church beyond national boundaries and on different scales.

Less than 30% of the South Korean population is Christian. Nevertheless, you cannot understand Korea’s modern religious culture unless you take into account the impact Christianity has had on how religion in general is defined today and on how modern religious communities, both Christian and non-Christian, express their beliefs and values. Over the last three centuries, due to the influence of Christianity, monotheism has become an important feature of Korea’s religious landscape. Moreover, Koreans are much more likely now than they were three centuries ago to form distinct communities composed of both clerics and laity who meet together on a regular basis to affirm their shared beliefs through communal ritual displays of those beliefs. In addition, Christianity has had impact on the secular realm as well. The increased visibility of women in the public sphere today compared to the cloistered lives most of them lived in the Chosŏn dynasty is partially the result of Christianity both providing more formal education for women and also assigning women important tasks outside of the home. Moreover, the vibrant democracy we see in South Korea today would not have come about if Christians had not insisted that the state should not interfere in religious affairs, and if Christian faith had not inspired so many to fight authoritarian governments. For all those reasons, it is no exaggeration to say that it is impossible to understand modern Korean history without taking into account the role Christianity has played in making Korea what it is today.

Suffering is a human universal experienced within distinct historical contexts that poses an especially serious theological challenge to Christians: how does one reconcile suffering with belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and just God? This article will explore how Korean Christians have developed theodicies, attempts to explain this apparent contradiction, that speak to their particular historical contexts by surveying the thought and actions of six Korean Christians (three Catholics and three Protestants): scholar and catechist Augustine Chŏng Yak-chong (1760–1801), author of the Silk Letter Alexius Hwang Sa-yŏng (1775–1801), assassin of Itō Hirobumi Thomas An Chung-gŭn (1879–1910), nationalist preacher Kil Sŏn-ju (1869–1935), miracle worker Kim Ik-tu (1874–1950), and pacifist and historian Ham Sŏk-hŏn (1901– 1989). By bringing together Koreans from different Christian traditions and times, this article will reveal the similarities and differences in Catholic and Protestant theodicies, how those theodicies developed in response to the particular historical contexts Koreans faced, and how they helped shape the historical choices made by their authors and their audiences. In particular, this article will show that while Korean Christians were willing to passively accept individual suffering, they could be driven to take direct, even violent action, when their communities were faced with this-worldly existential threats.

This article examines the changing position of Protestant schools in the modern society of Korea. The historical process of secularization enabled Protestantism to take a lead in developing modern education in Korea’s public sphere. By way of educational mod-ernization and national education, Protestant educational institutions made a great contribution to the development of modern public education in colonial Korea and post-colonial South Korea. I argue that since the late twentieth century, however, Protestant schools have transformed into a field in which the religious and the secular clash in Korea. In particular, religious education has exposed the acute conflict between Protestant churches claiming freedom of religion and students and civil society calling for liberty from religion. Apart from the development of the nation’s educational system, the socio-political transformation of contemporary South Korea has increasingly required the equal representation of religious differences in the public sphere. Protestantism, once the symbol of modern civilization, has been largely viewed as an obstacle to progress in the official education of a globalized South Korea.

To the Korean public, An Chunggŭn is a figure who is recognized as a hero without much controversy. However, this phenomenon also makes it difficult at times for Koreans to approach An’s activities and thought in an objective manner. Meanwhile, partially or wholly differing perspectives on An can be found in several Korean literary works, making them potential sources of insight. Taking into consideration the release dates of historical materials and the genres of the works, one can find five distinct takes on An’s activities, especially the aspect of the “individual act of violence,” in which An undertakes the Itō shooting alone with only limited, non-organized aid. The first suggests a Confucianist revenge from the traditional perspective that a liege will risk his own life to avenge the king if he is humiliated; the second suggests absolute fair revenge enacted as a hero of the people; the third suggests justification from a religious perspective, taking An to be an instrument of justice accompanied by religious symbolism. On the other hand, one can also find perspectives that put An in relative contexts in two ways: some works portray him as a self-reflective and developing figure and offer critiques on his choices of method, and others set up imaginary histories in order to objectify An’s actions in alternate contexts.

This article explores how Liáng Qĭchāo 梁啓超 (1873–1929) and Zhāng Bĭnglín 章炳麟 (1868–1936) received the assassination of Itō Hirobumi 伊藤博文 (1841–1909) by An Chunggŭn 安重根 (1879–1910) to further develop their discourse on Chosŏn Korea. Since Liáng and Zhāng represent the two major strands of the Chinese modernization movement, the constitutionalists and the revolutionists respectively, an analysis of their views should shed some useful light upon the broader Chinese perspectives on this event. Did Liáng and Zhāng judge An’s direct activism according to their specific political inclinations? How did they view the emergence of Japan as a new great power in Asia, and also its political leader, Itō? How did they perceive the Japanese-Korean relationship in terms of Chinese national interests? By considering, and hopefully answering, these questions, it becomes possible to present a more objective under-standing of the Chinese viewpoint on An and Chosŏn Korea than has hitherto been available.

Individual terror of the modern kind came to be practiced by some of Korea’s militant nationalists at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. The historical background for this was the frustration brought on by the inability of the Taehan Empire to defend itself effectively from the ongoing colonization by Japan. Culturally, nationalist individual terror was rooted in the Confucian respect towards those “killing themselves in the name of humaneness” (salsin sŏng’in), but was also influenced by reports on the deeds of Russian, Polish and other “nihilists” that often appeared in the Korean press in the first decade of the twentieth century. The topic of this article is the reverse gaze—the perceptions of the Korean nationalist terror by Russian and, later, Soviet observers. That the Russian press outlets influenced by revolutionary radicals fully justified An Chunggŭn’s 1909 assassination of Itō Hirobumi, was to be expected. However, even some conservative dailies also took An Chunggŭn’s side, ascribing the assassination to the brutalities accompanying the Japanese colonization of Korea. A number of Maritime province-based news outlets, such as Priamurye, attempted a balanced, neutral approach of sorts. Given the lingering hostility towards Russia’s erstwhile battlefield enemy, Japan, and the prevalence of individual terrorism inside Russia’s own anti-autocracy struggle, the semi-sympathetic stance towards An Chunggŭn’s shooting of Itō was perhaps natural. Similar attitudes towards Korean nationalist acts of individual terror continued further into the Soviet period: militant nationalists were expected to become Korean Communists’ allies in the future.

This article explores the distinctive transformation of Korean Sŏn Buddhism through the vigorous interactions that took place between Buddhism and Confucianism in late Chosŏn. Many literati during this period supported Buddhism financially and ideologically. They made large donations to monasteries and temples and advocated harmony between Buddhism and Confucianism. Some of them even developed their own insights into Buddhism by reading Buddhist texts, studying doctrines, and denouncing kanhwa Sŏn technique, the major practice of the Korean Sŏn tradition of the time. This yanban approach challenged the traditional Sŏn Buddhist notion that intellectual activities would hinder the goal to which only Sŏn could lead. The nineteenth-century Sŏn master Ch’oŭi Ŭisun embraced the yangban intellectual approach to Buddhism. In doing so, he not only removed the distinction between Sŏn meditation and Kyo doctrinal studies but also unified Buddhism and Confucianism in the Confucian dominant society of late Chosŏn by interpreting Confucian practices from a Buddhist perspective.

This study analyzes factors associated with moral success and failure in the ethical theory of Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836), better known as Tasan. According to researchers who emphasize the cognitive and conative role of moral sentiments, moral success is ultimately driven by Tasan’s “moral mind” or “innate moral inclination.” According to them, moral sentiments are not blind, capricious feelings, but are able to intuitively perceive and discern good and evil; only by faithfully following one’s innate inclination toward good, is one well on the road to moral success. Tasan, however, in analyzing criminal acts in Hŭmhŭm sinsŏ (欽欽 新書; A new book on criminal law), notices a curious kind of moral failure caused by a strong moral emotion or passion toward socially endorsed moral virtues such as loyalty, filial piety and fidelity. Without much reflection on one’s inner mind or consideration on the proper method of one’s action, people fall prey to their “moral” emotions and commit crimes like taking revenge on the wrong person or committing suicide for the wrong reason. In his ethical theory, naturally, Tasan emphasizes not only moral sentiments and willpower but also the judging and weighing function of the mind, i.e., the cogitative mechanism of the spirit called kwŏnhyŏng (C. quanheng 權衡), literally meaning weighing and balancing. In this article, I attempt to describe the cogitative function of kwŏnhyŏng as judgment and decision and conclude that it is the actual and essential moral agency in Tasan’s ethical theory. Kwŏnhyŏng estimates and judges the issue at hand by inferring principles (K. ch’uri; C. tuili 推理), which is reminiscent of the rational and intellectual inference in Thomism. Although Tasan’s ethical theory was much influenced by Thomistic tradition, Tasan uniquely interprets “inferring the principle” as “inferring others’ minds from one’s own” (K. ch’usŏ; C. tuishu 推恕), which is a purely Confucian notion distinct from that presumed by Jesuit missionaries.

In the 1880s King Kojong, ruler of the Korean Kingdom of Chosŏn, implemented balance-of-power politics, seeking to attract American aid to free Chosŏn from the interference and control of Qing China. This study seeks to demonstrate how his decade-long effort conformed to the logic of balance-of-power politics in keeping with traditional East Asian tributary interstate practices. Kojong looked to the United States for assistance to counterbalance Qing in Chosŏn. His policy of playing the “American card” against the heavy-handed Chinese government was typical balance-of-power politics. Kojong’s American policy of the 1880s was characterized by the following features. First, in order to achieve his goals, Kojong employed the classical Chinese maxim of befriending a distant state and engaging in conflict with a neighboring state. Second, Kojong employed “soft balancing,” by which he actively sought to win the goodwill and friendship of the American government and create closer Chosŏn-United States ties short of a military alliance. Third, Kojong conducted balance-of-power politics within the framework of the East Asian tribute system. His goal was to achieve full autonomy in the domestic and foreign affairs in his kingdom while continuing the ritual practices and conventions of the Qing-Chosŏn tributary relationship. In sum, Kojong’s American policy of the 1880s conformed to the logic of balance-of-power practices under the East Asian tribute system.

This paper has focused on Yi Ki-ji’s 1720 mission to survey the unique characteristics of his embassy to Beijing. The level of interest that Yi recorded in his yŏnhaengnok in Western painting, astronomy, and calendrical science—including accounts of the nine visits he made to the missionaries at the cathedrals—is difficult to find in other yŏnhaengnok of his time. Given that the scholarly consensus has until now been that it was only in the late eighteenth century that yŏnhaengnok began to display an active, explicit reception of “Northern Learning” (Pukhak),1 we cannot but conclude that Yi’s record was ahead of its time. The unique aspects of Yi Ki-ji’s yŏnhaengnok reveal the necessity of reconsidering the conventional wisdom regarding these embassies and their records, which holds that it was not until the mid to late eighteenth century that the objective realities of Qing life were recognized among Chosŏn’s ambassadors or that the cultural attributes of the Qing were actively sought out and favorably accepted. Yi Ki-ji’s embassy to Beijing alerts us to the fact that—though exceptional—the act of asserting Chosŏn’s autonomous identity, while at once working earnestly to recognize and accept the realities of Qing China when necessary, was not impossible in the early eighteenth century.