2014.08.13 为什么韩国是如此独特的基督教国家

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为什么韩国是如此独特的基督教国家
对于基督教来说，亚洲大多是一片荒芜的土地--但韩国除外。为什么？
2014年8月13日


作者：A.F.C.


韩国是增长的动力，也是信仰的火种。本周，教皇方济各将在那里度过五天，参加亚洲青年节，并为124名早期殉道者授职。在韩国的5千万人口中，大约有540万是罗马天主教徒。也许还有900万人是基督教徒，有很多种类的新教徒。汝矣岛全福音教会的100万成员组成了地球上最大的五旬节教派聚会。信仰的更远端包括统一教会，该教会不久将纪念其创始人文鲜明 "升天 "的周年纪念日。已故的俞炳彦（Yoo Byung-eun）是4月沉没的Sewol号渡轮背后的多面手，该渡轮造成304名青少年乘客死亡，他也创立了自己的教派（以及God.com网站，现在在其他人手中）；其追随者在韩国有史以来最大的一次警察搜捕中隐藏了他。

所有这一切都特别引人注目，因为亚洲对基督教来说大多是石质的土地。西班牙的统治给菲律宾留下了浓厚的天主教色彩，但韩国却没有那么简单。18世纪，好奇的知识分子在北京遇到了天主教，并将其偷运回家。儒家君主不允许对手效忠，处决了大多数早期皈依者：因此，所有这些殉教者，韩国的圣人数量在全球排名第四。新教后来才出现，但表现得更好。到19世纪80年代，韩国开始开放，以美国人为主的传教士做出了两个明智的举动：开办第一批现代学校，招收女生；将《圣经》翻译成白话的韩文字母，而不是文人喜欢的汉字，这在当时被认为是下策。

这样播下的种子在日本统治时期（1910年至1945年）得到了孵化，此后便疯狂地发芽。日本征服的创伤侵蚀了对儒家或佛教传统的信仰。韩国人可以与《旧约》中的以色列人的苦难联系起来（请不要开天选的玩笑）。然而，到1945年，只有2%的韩国人是基督徒。最近的爆炸性增长伴随着经济的增长。引出韦伯的新教伦理：对于保守的大多数人来说，世俗的成功意味着上帝的祝福。但韩国也孕育了自己的解放神学（minjung），赞美穷人和受压迫者。快速的社会变革往往会产生精神上的发酵和像文鲜明和俞炳彦这样的企业家：对一些人来说是救世主，对另一些人来说是骗子。先知和利益可能模糊不清：两个人都曾因欺诈而坐牢。甚至Yoido的创始人David Cho也在2月因挪用1200万美元而被定罪。但这些都是罕见的异类。

今天，23%的韩国人是佛教徒，46%的韩国人表示没有信仰。这代表了基督教的发展空间，还是世俗化的萌芽？2012年，只有52%的人声称自己有宗教信仰，比2005年的56%低。但现在世界是他们的囊中之物：只有美国派出了更多的传教士。韩国基督徒在阿富汗被抓，在伊拉克被斩首，在也门被大使馆阻止唱圣歌。许多人在中国卧底工作。有些人冒险帮助朝鲜人逃亡：据说有多达1000人的中国签证被取消。其他人有更大的野心，要在朝鲜传播基督教。在日本时代，平壤是新教的温床，现在有些人回来了，他们经营着私立的平壤科技大学，该大学自2010年以来一直在教育朝鲜的未来精英；严格禁止传教。鉴于朝鲜基督徒的精力和毅力，可以肯定的是，预言有一天平壤的天际线会像首尔一样布满霓虹灯十字架。



Why South Korea is so distinctively Christian
Asia is mostly stony ground for Christianity—except in Korea. Why?
Aug 13th 2014

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By A.F.C.


SOUTH KOREA, a dynamo of growth, is also afire with faith. This week Pope Francis will spend five days there, for Asian Youth Day and to beatify 124 early martyrs. About 5.4m of South Korea’s 50m people are Roman Catholics. Perhaps 9m more are Protestants, of many stripes. Yoido Full Gospel Church’s 1m members form the largest Pentecostal congregation on Earth. Belief’s farther shores include the Unification Church, soon to mark the anniversary of its founder Sun-myung Moon’s "ascension". The late Yoo Byung-eun, the shifty and versatile tycoon behind the ferry Sewol which sank in April, killing 304 mostly teenage passengers, had also founded his own sect (and the website God.com, now in other hands); its followers hid him during Korea’s largest-ever police man-hunt.

All this is particularly striking, because Asia is mostly stony ground for Christianity. Spanish rule left the Philippines strongly Catholic, but Korea is less simple. In the 18th century curious intellectuals encountered Catholicism in Beijing and smuggled it home. Confucian monarchs, brooking no rival allegiance, executed most early converts: hence all those martyrs, ranking Korea fourth globally for quantity of saints. Protestantism came later and fared better. By the 1880s Korea was opening up, and the mainly American missionaries made two astute moves: opening the first modern schools, which admitted girls; and translating the Bible into the vernacular Hangul Korean alphabet, then viewed as infra dig, rather than the Chinese characters favoured by literati.

The seeds thus sown incubated under Japan’s rule (1910-45), and have sprouted wildly since. The trauma of Japanese conquest eroded faith in Confucian or Buddhist traditions: Koreans could relate to Israel’s sufferings in the Old Testament (no Chosen jokes, please). Yet by 1945 only 2% of Koreans were Christian. The recent explosive growth accompanied that of the economy. Cue Weber’s Protestant ethic: for the conservative majority, worldly success connotes God’s blessing. But Korea also bred its own liberation theology (minjung), lauding the poor and oppressed. Rapid social change often produces spiritual ferment and entrepreneurs like Moon and Yoo: saviours for some, to others charlatans. Prophet and profit can blur: both men did time for fraud. Even Yoido’s founder, David Cho, was convicted in February of embezzling $12m. But these are rare outliers.

Today 23% of South Koreans are Buddhist and 46% profess no belief. Does this represent scope for Christianity's growth, or incipient secularisation? In 2012 only 52% claimed to be religious, down from 56% in 2005. But the world is now their oyster: only America sends more missionaries. Korean Christians have been seized in Afghanistan, beheaded in Iraq and stopped by their embassy from hymn-singing in Yemen. Many work undercover in China. Some, riskily, help North Koreans to flee: as many as 1,000 have reportedly had their Chinese visas cancelled. Others have a grander ambition, to spread Christianity in the North. In Japanese days Pyongyang was a Protestant hotbed, and now some are back, running the private Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, which since 2010 has been educating North Korea’s future elite; strictly no preaching. Given Korean Christians’ energy and tenacity, it is a sure prophecy that one day the Pyongyang skyline will be as studded with neon crosses as Seoul’s.