The Korean Church and Confucianism

Background

The Joseon dynasty adopted Neo-Confucianism as its state ideology. Keeping an ancestral tablet (sinju, a wooden tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased) and performing ancestral rites on death anniversaries and major holidays were regarded as the essence of filial piety. When Christianity arrived, the central point of contention was whether ancestral rites should be regarded as idolatry or as a ritual courtesy honoring one's ancestors. The Catholic Church had already, in 1742 under Pope Benedict XIV, made the renunciation of ancestral rites a condition for entering the faith.

Developments

• The Jinsan Incident of 1791: The Catholic believers Yun Ji-chung and Kwon Sang-yeon burned their ancestral tablets and stopped performing ancestral rites. Relatives and neighbors denounced the two men as people who "know neither king nor parents," and both were beheaded in December of that year (the Sinhae Persecution). In the later Sinyu Persecution (1801), Gihae Persecution (1839), and Byeongin Persecution (1866), the refusal to perform ancestral rites is likewise cited as one of the principal grounds for repression.
• Early Protestant missions: Missionaries adopted the arguments of Chinese Protestantism against ancestral rites and the policies of the Shanghai missionary conferences of 1877, 1890, and 1907. Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries alike prohibited ancestral rites, holding that they violated the first and second of the Ten Commandments. John Nevius, who came to Korea in June 1890 to teach mission methods, had likewise been a strong advocate of prohibiting ancestral rites in China.
• The first record of a memorial service, 1897: The account appeared in the September 1897 issue of The Korean Christian Advocate (Joseon Geuriseudoinhoebo), published by Appenzeller and others. The article, which reported that Yi Mu-yeong, a member of Chungdong Methodist Church, held a worship service instead of ancestral rites on a death anniversary, is regarded as the earliest record of a memorial service.
• Conversion of Confucian intellectuals: Choi Byung-hun (1858–1927), a Confucian scholar who became a Methodist minister, wrote Seongsan Myeonggyeong. The book defends Christianity in the form of a debate in which representatives of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism engage with a Christian.
• The Catholic shift of 1939: On December 8, 1939, the Holy See permitted ancestral rites through its Instruction concerning the Chinese Rites. The instruction was published in the Korean Catholic periodical Gyeonghyang Japji in 1940.
• The indigenization debate from the 1960s onward: Amid discussions of indigenization theology, which sought to distinguish the gospel from culture, some called for reconsidering the Protestant prohibition of ancestral rites.

Outcomes and Impact

Today the Catholic Church in Korea permits ancestral observances according to the "Rite of Family Ancestral Memorial" prepared by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, though the rite omits enshrining an ancestral tablet and summoning the spirit of the deceased. Korean Protestant denominations generally honor the deceased through memorial services but do not perform ritual bows (see Ancestral Rites and Memorial Services). Although the memorial service initially met opposition on the grounds that it was merely a substitute for ancestral rites, it gradually became an established and encouraged custom. It is a practice rarely found in churches in other countries. Protestants, because they do not perform ancestral rites, have been criticized for neglecting filial piety, and the church has responded by emphasizing filial piety expressed through serving one's living parents.

Assessment

Histories of the Korean church have generally stated that Protestantism strictly prohibited ancestral rites from the very beginning. By contrast, Oak Sung-deuk argues that a tolerant position emerged among missionaries around the time of the 1890 Shanghai conference and that mission policy gradually became more moderate. He also points out that toward the end of the Japanese colonial period Protestants accepted Shinto shrine worship as a state ritual, and then, after liberation, re-emphasized the principle of prohibiting ancestral rites. Some hold the memorial service in high regard as a symbol of the indigenization of Korean Christianity. Conservative theologians, on the other hand, contend that permitting even ritual bows is undesirable and that any indigenization which compromises the teaching of Scripture must be guarded against.