포스트모던시대의 한국 토착적 이머징 교회에 관한 연구

Abstract

This study is to articulate the Korean indigenous emerging church in the post-modern era. These days, the Korean church faced crises and needs a suitable model for growth because it has been slowed down in post-modern era. The Korean church faces both the internal and external problems of the society and the church itself. For this, first, the study will look at the characteristics and global trends of postmodernism which has come to the Korean context. The study will examine the emerging church in the Western cultures that have experienced a dismantling crisis before the Korean church faced. It also discusses background understandings of the emerging church as historical and theological understandings and figures out its characteristics. With theoretical bases, this will apply them to the Korean church context as well. Four characteristics of post-modern culture are derived as features of the emerging church: returning to the original church to restore the tradition of early church, focusing on empirical church, leading to participatory church, and getting actively acceptance of post-modern culture. Next, this study figures out the characteristics of the Korean culture and its elements appearing in the traditional Korean church. The elements of Korean postmodernism in society and the characteristics of the Korean original church will be discussed. The sense of community as “one group”(uri) in Korean culture can be combined with post-modern culture to emphasize relationship in the Korean church. It is manifested in spirit of union in Korean church. Also, “gi(the energy)” in Korean can be experienced in post-modern culture in Korea. It is an autogeny and independent church. The feature of community adds up “heung” and “sinbaram” in Korean presenting as “excitement” It indicates that the church has only created a unique religious mentality. In addition, “Jeong”(Affection) in Korean can be a directional image which is combined with the post-modern church in Korea. This enables Korean church to share the pain with Korean people. Finally, this study will challenge the changes in time for the Korean church in the post-modern era. For this, the study suggests three basic features for the Korean indigenous emerging church. The first feature is the recovery of the early original Korean tradition church. Basically Korean church needs to return to being early churches in the first-century showing in the Acts of the Apostles and also return to being early original Korean church in the 19th century. The Second feature is to breed a laity for the next generation in the Korean church. The third feature is the appearance of the church to foster better relations within the community.