한국교회의 문화 이해: 문화신학, 문화선교, 문화목회 개념을 중심으로

Abstract

Due to rapid modernization and urbanization, an era of drastic church growth has emerged in Korea since the 1960s. Particularly, mainstream Korean church focused on its interest in promoting church growth rather than socio-cultural reform. On the basis of the negative perception of secular culture, Korean church devoted itself in disseminating ‘Church culture’ or ‘Christian culture’ which was formed inside the church itself. However, this tendency was changed in the 1990s with the weakening in church membership. In other words, after Korean church faced a new situation of cultural pluralism, it began to have much interest in secular culture as well as discuss the church’s role of transforming secular culture. After the new millennium, Korean church newly approached to the ‘culture’ concept in a pastoral level to breakthrough the situation of church decline and fall of public confidence. In this context, this article will analyze the concepts of ‘cultural theology’, ‘cultural mission’ and ‘cultural ministry’ in order to comprehend how Korean church has viewed the concept of culture up to this time. On this basis, it will suggest how the relation of Korean church and culture should be established in the future. Specifically, this article attempts to reveal that Korean church has used secular culture as the means of church growth. Although this sort of understanding on secular culture can be accepted internally, it can be argued that it limited Korean church’s opportunity for a serious conversation with secular culture. Therefore, this article will trace how cultural theology, cultural mission, and cultural ministry have understood the concept of culture. On the basis of the result, it will show that each concept demands for an extended comprehension of culture. Moreover, this article will conclude by arguing that Korean church should pay attention to inter-transformation between church and culture and transformation of secular culture.