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This study is to examine about the relationship between Jesus and the disciples in the Last Supper in Luke's Gospel in terms of an anthropological approach. This article uses the following steps to examine four functions of the Last Supper. The form of the Last Supper in Luke 22:14-38 is compared with the structures of symposium, passover meal, and Jesus' farewell address. In the Last Supper Jesus is a host and the disciples are a chief guest or guests like all the Hellenistic symposia. In the Last Supper Jesus utilizes the Supper as the place to share his values and commissions and tasks with the disciples. The characteristics of Jesus' meal shows a social-scientific model, as ceremony, as mirrors of social systems, in terms of body symbolism, reciprocity, and social relations. Meals-as-ceremony replicates the group's basic social structure, its boundary or identity, and its values and classifications. To affirms clearer on the values of the meal, we need to describe these as map of persons, map of things, map of places, and map of time. There are various levels of status at a table even in the same class or social group. Jesus' position and role as a host at the meal bolster the disciples' identity and boundary. Concern of the place appears very clearly at the Last Supper. Although a place at a meal shows one's social status, Jesus wants his followers not to use the place at a meal as the place for showing off their position. At the Last Supper Jesus gives a farewell address which shows the relationship between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus recognizes that the disciples are the successors who should keep Jesus' value and interests. So he gives them a commission to be done in his church and promises their status in the Kingdom. Finally, the character of reciprocal exchange and patron/client relations in the Last Supper confirms the fact that Jesus feeds and supports his people. From this study, we see that Jesus, presiding over the Supper which is a ceremonial meal and a farewell meal is given at, shows his authority as a host and a patron of the Messianic banquet to come and gives his disciples, the clients, four-fold teachings; group identity, group structure, shared values, and a shared commission.

Christianity is the religion of practice. Even though the elements of the practice and the actual performances vary by cultural and denominational traditions, it is undeniable that Christianity is a system of ought to do. In the face of the crisis of the COVID-19 that results in the hardship of keeping religious practices in the ways that church members have been used to, many churches try to develop new tools for their members' practice of faith. This process is always followed by the division between essential and nonessential. We may ask, "which element should be contained in the new way of worshipping?" In this regard, the writer looks into the Eucharst, one of the most primary Christian ritual. Most Christians, if not all, believe that the Eucharist was enacted by the Lord Christ. However, even the most important ritual has been differently taken by most Christians in theory as well as in practice. This paper skims through the historical debates over the Eucharist. "Why is the special eating special? How is this special as well as non-special piece of bread the body of Christ? What is the actual meaning of eating the body of Christ?" The answers raised by Paschasius Radbertus, Ratramnus Monk of Corbie, Martin Luther, the Council of Trent, Anabaptists, and John Calvin are all different. Radbertus argues that the bread is the historical body of Jesus. Ratramnus argues that the bread is mystical body of Jesus. Luther argues that the special eating performed by the individuals in faith is the authentic way of receiving divine grace. The Council of Trent argues that the special eating offered by the Church is the authentic way of receiving the divine grace. According to Anabaptists, the special eating is helpful for evoking one's own faith. According to Calvin, the special eating is helpful for leading the participants to Christ. Despite all the warring opinions, these arguments reveal Christians' seriousness of practicing their faith. The implicit faith, also supported theoretically by John Zizioulas, is that human beings are realized through the continuos event of communion. Thus, in the crises of Christian practice during the COVID-19, churches should be aware that human beings are always ritual beings regardless of circumstances. It is more important than prioritizing the elements of worship service or sorting out the essential Christian practices in order to adapt the church to the changing situation.

This paper aims to investigate the significance of peaching as the Word of God in terms of sacramentality, the concept that indicates the divine encounter in and through the physical matter or action. Drawing on the expanded concept of sacramentality, I attempt to claim that preaching as the Word of God can be restated as the sacramentality of preaching. In particular, I investigate how Martin Luther, Karl Barth, and David Buttrick understood the sacramentality of preaching and what common ground they share with their contemporary sacramental theology. While Luther claimed of the real presence of Christ in preaching, as he claimed of Christ's real presence in the sacraments, Karl Barth developed the Reformed confession of preaching as the Word of God to the preaching as the Word-event, emphasizing the eventfulness of the revelation. Meanwhile, David Buttrick articulated preaching as the symbolic event or the hermeneutical event, in which the Christ-event is reconstructed in human consciousness. These homiletical discussions are related to the sacramental theological conversations in each period. While Luther's conviction of the real presence of Christ in preaching was a reaction to the Thomist objectivism, Barth's dialectical theology of the revelation was the reaction to liberal theology and impacted Roman Catholic sacramental theology, as Karl Rahner and Edward Schilleebeckx show. Also, Buttrick's hermeneutical and symbolic model for preaching runs on the same track with the sacramental theologians who attempted to explain the sacramentality by employing Heideggerian hermeneutical phenomenology. These scholarly models show that homiletics and sacramental theology have a point of contact for the discussion of preaching as the Word of God in terms of sacramentality, as preaching functions as a mode of revelation as the sacrament does.

The purpose of this research is to explore the situation of women and their desire in the late Middle Ages by analyzing the narratives of the female saints. In order to explore women's perceptions of the social situation and women's mentality, 󰡒The Golden Legend󰡓 which is a collection of narratives of the saints would be analyzed. This book was edited by Jacobus de Voragine in the thirteenth century. This book was intended to educate future preacher and very popular book. This book was not created with the intention of the Jacobus, but was the narratives that has been transmitted orally, and would contain the social situation and desire of the people. In this book, 41 saints among 200 saints are the female, all the saints except 4 saints (3 male saints and one female saint) are ancient saints. And all female saints are virgins except 5 saints. In this book the female saints were noble origin, beauty, and wisdom. Because they rejected the love of pagan kings, they faced cruel torture and terrible martyrdom. The sign of religious person was virginity. Martyred female saint for preserving their virginity contributed Europe as a Christian world. Women was able to infiltrate the male religious realm through martyrdom. This view was strengthened by emphasizing that Jesus' lineage was the Virgin Mary, not Joseph. Various religious women's movements appeared in the thirteenth century, and the church authority looked at these women with suspicion. In this social situation, religious women would have tried to officially recognize for their activities. This desire of women could be identified with the situation when ancient female saints were martyred to protect virginity. In the thirteenth century, women were the mainstay of charity work. The female saints played an important role in spreading and defending Christianity in Europe by their terrible martyrdom. The women who were martyred in the early church were also heroes of the war. Through these efforts, women gained the freedom to live the life of charity they wanted. And the most representative figure of such female saints was the Virgin Mary, the mother of God.

Today we are living with many problems in the world. Human beings are dying and expelled out of their living places even at this moment. Many people are forced to get out of their hometowns and wandering as refuges. Korea is another country where there many problems arising from evil structures. Above all, the division of Korea into north and south is the most painful suffering for all Koreans. After experiencing Japanese colonial rule for 36 years, Korea was divided in 1945, with its south occupied by the United States and its north by the Soviet Union. This division was solidified by the Korean War in 1950 to 1953. In Korea, all people are suffering from the same wound. It is characterized as so-called ‘han.’ That is, Koreans have suffered numerous invasions by surrounding powerful nations so that the very existence of the Korean nation has come to be understood as han. Of course, the term han is not only applied to Koreans but also to all other suffering peoples in the world. How should we, as Christians, understand and respond to the problem of han? It is important to search for solutions to their problems theologically. It is an important task for all Koreans to solve it. Further, it is one of essential issues for Christians to deal with the personal and social dimension of han. In this article, I focused on the case of Korea, centering on the concept of han. I first examined the concepts of han in several ways: the definitions of han; the stories of han; and the roots of han. Then, I explicated the biblical and theological basis for resolving the problem of han. Third, I searched for pastoral ways of healing han with regard to Christian healing ministry. In conclusion, I maintained that we must actively engage in work for justice and peace for the resolution of han. It is related to the social dimensions of Christian ministry, so-called social healing. Then, I briefly pointed out tasks for further studies.

In this study, I try to connect religion to psychology, while considering the relationship between the self and others. Heinz Kohut’s self psychology provides us with a very important clue with which we postulate the relationship between God and human beings at the juncture of religion and psychology. This is because Kohut emphasizes the relationship between the self and selfobjects in his self psychology, and because, in this context, this indispensable relationship of self/selfobjects can be applied to the relationship between God and human beings, by means of analogy of God as a selfobject. Selfobject functions, such as the mirroring selfobject function and the idealizing selfobject function, along with the alter-ego/twinship selfobject function, are essential not only for the child’s narcissistic needs but also for the maintenance of the cohesive self in one’s later life. Kohut demonstrates how basic the psychological unit of self/selfobjects is for psychic life, and how important the functions of selfobject are via empathy for the cohesive self in the lifelong narcissistic needs. The relationship between God and human beings is inevitable to weak and vulnerable human beings. Kohut recognizes a fundamental human need for the restoration of the fragmented human being before God via his concept of the Tragic Man. His concept of Tragic Man implies one of the bases of Christian theology, i.e., the human limitation and dilemma before God. I am not talking about the whole paradigm of Christian theology in the broad sense, but, specifically, about the psychological relationship between God and human beings. I believe that this relationship to God can be a basic presupposition of Christian theology, based on the analogy of Kohut’s theory, particularly of Kohut’s matrix of self/selfobjects. Through this method of analogy, I can see the attribution of Kohut’s self psychology, particularly of his theory of self/selfobjects, to religion especially in God-talk. Finally, we can function as selfobjects for others and we may serve one another as selfobjects while empowered by God’s empathic selfobject function.

In this paper, I critically examine hope in transhumanism through theological perspectives. In relation to this concern, the primary task of pastoral caregivers and pastoral counselors is also explored. Transhumanism is both a philosophical movement and techno-centered science. By operating scientific and technological imagination transhumanists seek to transcend human conditions and limitations with the help of science and technologies. Compared to transhumanism, this article argues that the primary task of pastoral care and pastoral counseling is to embrace paradoxical and ambiguous hope in suffering by practicing theological imagination. By using ironic imagination, death is not separated into life; despair from hope; pain from cure; human limitation from human possibility; past from future From the perspective of Christian faith, hope is always associated with the darkness of suffering, pain, agony, crying, and despair.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of shame and assess shame through cognitive therapy and spiritual movements. The characteristics of shame are explained into five; unexpected expose, the self become the object, incongruity between one’s situation and one’s thought or another’s thought, whole self involvement, and hindrance of communication among others. Also, shame can be understood as just negative effect but, shame has positive and negative effects. Shame prevents negative reactions such as violence and makes people try to restore relationship with others; shame prevents the self merge into the other’s self; shame keeps honor and respect people in social relationship. Shame also has a lot of negative effects such as withdrawal, attacking the self, avoidance, and attacking the others. In order to heal the shame, cognitive therapy provides several assessment for shame. Verbalizing the shameful event, reevaluating the cognition of the client, helping clients see the difference shame and guilt, and warm positive acceptance will be a useful assessment for shame in cognitive aspects. Three spiritual movements are available for assessing shame. Contemplative and creative spiritual movements and compassion for others help people find the true self and God. True self makes people to develop their spirituality. In order to find true self, people need spiritual and psychological practice.

The church community is a religious group that seeks to practice the love for the object as an “ideal” through self-transcendence in a mutually organic relationship. The church community, which is supposed to be altruistic like this, has recently been criticized by the public for its (partly) collective selfish attitude and disregard for social law, and is increasingly becoming a target of disgust. Examples include the hereditary in the church, the political ideology of the church, and the collective rational paralysis of holding gathering like worship while ignoring the government's recommendations in the danger of COVID-19. The most decisive cause of criticism and disgust at the church community is undoubtedly the pastors' desire for power and superiority. However, the cause of this problem cannot be determined only by the desire of pastors. Because for pastors' desires to be realized, it is impossible without the sympathy and support of the congregation. So I thought a multifaceted study of this problem was necessary, and in this paper I used the concept of 'obsessional neurosis' of Sigmund Freud to analyze and study the psychology of the congregation blindly following the pastor and relying on it. And I suggested solutions from the pastoral theological point of view for freedom from the obsessive attitude of the congregation toward the pastors. I hope that through this study, the congregation will be aware of the irrational and irrational problems that take place within the church community and have the will to resolve these problems. Furthermore, I hope this study will serve as an opportunity to redefine the relationship between pastors and church members and to deliberate the essential meaning of the church community.

This paper explores the public concern of pastoral care and counseling toward social justice and the change of pastoral care paradigms in the Korean context. In the history of its development, pastoral care and counseling seems to have more focused on caring for individuals rather than for society. Modern models of pastoral care and counseling may face limitations of care ministry because of their individualistic approach to pastoral practice. Stephan Pattison argues that several factors, including professional psychotherapy, individualism, and secularization have influenced our understanding of pastoral care as personal. Pastoral theologians including Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Donald Browning, Edward P. Wimberly, Seward Hiltner, and John Patton explain the development of pastoral theology to include larger communities with a public and historic perspective. Through a historical overview of the pastoral care and counseling movement in the North America, Patton describes the change of pastoral care patterns as a historical shift between three paradigms: classical, clinical pastoral, and communal-contextual. Jae-Sang Lyu argues that all three paradigms co-exist in a combined model within the Korean pastoral context due to the shorter history of pastoral care and counseling in Korea. A paradigm shift in pastoral care would influence the Korean church on achieving meaningful progress toward publicness through extended practices for marginalized people and communities.

This paper discusses the aims and objectives of Christian education. The aims of Christian education is to bring people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, to train them in a life of discipleship, and to equip them for Christian service in the world today. It is to develop in believers a biblical world-view that will assist them in making significant decisions from a Christian perspective. It is helping believers to ‘thinking Christianly’ about all areas of life so that they can impact society with the message of gospel. In essence, it is development of a Christian world-view. Worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, and service are all drawn from the Scriptures and are included in any purpose and value statement for Christian education. Effective Christian education can be measured upon the accomplishment of these important functions. An objective needs to meet theological standards, and these have to have enough relevance to provide guidance. It needs to be within the teaching possibilities of those responsible for the educational program. It must allow room for the work of God, of the teacher, and of the pupil, with a rationale for each. Aims, objectives, and values of Christian education are derived from a theological foundation that is biblically based.

Parenting is challenging for parents in the mainstream society, and also particularly complicated and demanding for immigrant parents. Due to linguistic and cultural differences, immigrants must devote more time and energy to take root in new surroundings, leaving children with less attention and affection than they deserve. The purpose of this study is to explore the primary parenting challenges that Korean mothers experience in the United States, particularly in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. For this purpose, semi-structured one-on-one interviews were primarily utilized. Because of Covid-19, they were temporarily staying in Korea and both interviews were able to be conducted in Korea. The participants provided various concepts on parental challenges they faced in the United States. Those concepts related to the following core categories: acculturation, differences in parental practices, language barriers, and working mothers. From these four categories, socio-cultural differences and situational specialties have emerged as the primary themes of this study. From the study with two Korean immigrant mothers, the following hypotheses are proposed: 1) Cultural differences centered upon language barriers deeply affect Korean immigrant mothers’ parenting practices. 2) Korean immigrant mothers grapple with additional burdens because of their instabilities. Based on the data collected and analyzed in this study, the researcher could find that socio-cultural differences deeply affect Korean immigrant mothers’ parental practices. Among the socio-cultural differences between Korea and the United States, language barriers seem to be the most difficult challenges that the participants faced. Furthermore, the participants demonstrated that their parental practices in the United State were significantly influenced by their unstable status. This qualitative study provides the following implications for the Christian educators, church leaders, and many other Korean parents who are still struggling with parental challenges. First, the parental education of immigrant mothers can be an avenue for the improvement of their parental practices. Second, a Christian community can help suffering immigrant parents. Third, churches can provide some educational programs for the 1.5 and 2nd generations.

The purpose of this study is to put forth an educational approach to theodicy. I propose an ‘experiential theodicy’ through spiritual mentoring for the sick, who suffer one of the most prevalent suffering in the world. The methodology for this study is a modified version of R. R. Osmer’s ‘Consensus model’ of practical theology. I begin with a descriptive section that includes for context the concrete story of a sick man whom I had the chance to observe in a pastoral role and descriptions of three theological responses to his suffering: atheistic rage, understanding of sickness as punishment, and communal participation. In the interpretive section, I systematically explore diverse themes and types of theodicy in light of these theological responses: theoretical theodicy, practical theodicy, and the integrated view of the two. In the normative section, I select useful elements for an effective theodicy for the sick from critical discussions on the themes of theodicy: the sufferer’s voice, the compassionate God who suffers with the sick, emotional/spiritual healing within transformative suffering, and spiritual growth. With these elements, in the fourth, normative section I formulate an ‘experiential theodicy’ as an effective theodicy for the sick. In the final, pragmatic section, I show that the practice of spiritual mentoring can play an effective facilitating role in the process of experiential theodicy, and thus propose spiritual mentoring as the most suitable educational method for the sick. As conclusion, I argue that ‘experiential theodicy’ should be regarded as an effective educational approach to the sick. ‘Experiential theodicy’ has its purpose and method in common with Christian education, spiritual growth and mentoring, which allows ‘experiential theodicy’ to function as an educational approach to theodicy. Thus, this new type of spiritual mentoring for the sick should be added to the repertoire of the ministry of Christian educators.

This paper explores the integration of biblical values and character traits found in the Bible into the systematic design and delivery of study abroad programmes aimed at fostering global competency in undergraduate students. Global education has become a core subject in many undergraduate programmes worldwide, including in South Korea, due to increasing global interdependence and the consequent need to be educating students to be global citizens. However, to date, there has been a lack of systematic design and delivery in global education programmes, and this has resulted in disparities in the growth of participating students in terms of their global competency. An additional absence in research and practice in the global education field is the exploration of the potential of biblical values to inform how educators design global competency programmes. The paper presents the findings from a study abroad programme for Korean college students in the United Kingdom, in which biblical principles were applied to develop students’ understanding of multiculturalism. Although the objectives of global education curricula are often narrowly defined in the pursuit of creating a global and technology-savvy workforce, the findings demonstrate that the integration of biblical values holds potential to facilitate students’ personal growth in a broad range of areas as part of the global education experience. This study aims to open up a broader conversation among Christian educators on how global education programmes might benefit from the integration of religious values, as part of a more systematic approach to programme design and delivery.

As James McClendon stresses out, the study of life stories is central to the study of theology. Thus, telling a life story of a historically meaningful figure in a theological perspective brings about a theological reflection which leads to the construction of a theology and its implication. Donald Owens was a significant person in the beginning history and the construction of the theological identity of the Church of the Nazarene in Korea. Thus it is valuable to investigate the life story of Donald Owens for the purpose of understanding not only of his theology, but also of the characteristics of the early Church of the Nazarene in Korea. This paper will explore Owens's personal, social, cultural and ecclesiastical background through which the characteristics of Owens's theology and Christian ministry will be understood and defined. In turns, the paper will deal with Owens's biographical summary beginning with the birthplace and hometowns, going on to the migration to California in his formative years, to moving back to the hometown in Missouri in his late teenage years. The conversion experience was an important event in which he became a Christian and decided to live according to God's will and guidance. The paper continues to talk about his army experience in Philippines and Japan right after the World War Two and to introduce the significant incidents in Bethany-Peniel College in which Owens was called to be a missionary and met a his lifelong friend and soul-mate, Adeline Lois Preuss. Donald Owens and his wife, Adeline Owens, came to Korea in 1954 with the objective to do educational missionary work for the Church of the Nazarene in Korea and ultimately stayed in Korea until the summer of 1965. Owens was a pioneering missionary, pastor, educator, theologian and church administrator who established the Nazarene Bible School (currently the Korea Nazarene University) as well as influenced the polity of the Church of the Nazarene in Korea. Donald Owens loved, cherished, and was proud of being the first Korean Nazarene missionary. The paper concludes that the life story of Donald Owens will indicate the historical connection between the Church of the Nazarene in America and the beginning era of the Church of the Nazarene in Korea. Moreover this paper will encourage the further study on the significance of the history and theology of the early Church of the Nazarene in Korea.

This study intends to find reconciliation, justice, and peace between South and North Korea in the missiological perspective. This year(2020) marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean War and the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Inter-Korean Joint Declaration. However, a complete end to the War is not yet achieved. Otherwise, North Korea has blown up a joint liaison office that is symbolized as a communicational place between North and South Korea. In this crisis on the Korean Peninsula, we need to find a moral imagination to achieve peace and reconciliation. There are two opposite (the Conservative and the Progressive) opinions about peace and reconciliation at the Korean Church. Although the Conservative and the Progressive Korean Protestant Church have different approaches to build relationships with North Korea, they must respond to a cooperative way for reunification. For this reason, I attempt to rethink about peace and reconciliation in the Korean Peninsula by understanding sociological, theological, and missological perspectives. First, there are three different sociological methods for North Koran studies: 1) A Totalitarian Approach, 2) An Immanent Approach, and 3) a Micro Approach. Especially, “An Immanent Approach” was developed by focusing on the emic approach (‘study how North Koreans think’). Contextual theology is similar to an immanent approach because it considers the significance of a particular culture. However, contextual theology has emphasis on Christian faith in the Christian worldview. Second, in order to find peace and reconciliation in Korean Peninsula, I discuss the theological and missiological concepts that are the Jubilee, forgiveness, embrace, the alternative community, Kingdom of God, and Kyum-Hu (humility). Without forgiveness, embrace, and humility, it is impossible to make authentic reunification in Korea.

Christian practices are the activities that have been cooperatively performed over time addressing the fundamental needs of human existence, aiming to grow into a deeper knowledge of God, respond to God's active presence, and participate in God's continuous creation of the world. Hospitality is one of Christian essential practices deeply embedded in teachings of Christian tradition. Recently, ethical awakening of hospitality has arisen more and more, as the hatred tendency toward the different race or the refugee aggravates across the globe. Christian hospitality indicates a true willingness to accept others warmly without condition. Hospitality is not accidental but core to Christian belief and life. Christian doctrine confirms the very truth of God's hospitality with which S/He has embraced whole humanity and has offered the way of redemption. In this study, we will look into Christian practice of hospitality by reviewing the narratives of the Scriptures and then attempt to illuminate distinctiveness of Christian hospitality. When we are reminded of the term, "hospitality to needy stranger," it is easy for us to superficially misconstrue it as something "hierarchical" and "one directional flow" of power. However, Christian hospitality has nothing to do with "the powerful," "the dominant," or "the superior." Jesus, the best example of great hospitality and most wonderful host to the outcast, never is at the center or in power in society. Rather, Jesus identifies himself with the stranger, the marginalized, and the outcast. The core of Christian hospitality is in mutuality. The marginal Messiah welcomed other marginal people. Jesus invited others, cared for others, and offered generosity to others, while he sat at other people's tables as a guest and a recipient. In addition, genuine Christian hospitality means accepting others warmly and freely as strangers without coercion to change one’s difference and strangeness. One step further, Christian hospitality indicates not merely a one-time event but spiritual attitude to accept Others as the image of God in any circumstances. By practicing hospitality, Christian community promotes a resocialization process to restore the self-esteem of the marginalized. We also expect people who has experienced restoration of their self-esteem, in turn, can empower and inspire the others toward spiritual revival and redemption. Christian community can participate in God's work of redemption and restoration by practicing and extending God's hospitality in the world.