초기 기독교수용의 성격에 관한 한일 비교연구

Abstract

The paper seeks to understand the characteristics of faith and church of Korea and Japan in the early Christianity. The paper analyzes the primitive seekers in the two countries, and the character that has been formed by the class of their Christian faith. And then the paper compares two different types of Churches that were formed in the process of Church growth. In early mission, Korea and Japan accepted the Christianity as a core of European civilization, and understood the acceptance of Christianity as a task of modernization. However, it is known that two countries made differences in forming churches and having faith due to the class of the initial seekers. At first, the primitive Churches in Korea were composed of seekers from lower social class, such as young trade-man, refugees of Manchuria, and supporters or servants for missionaries. Meanwhile the primitive Churches in Japan were composed of intelligent seekers from higher social class such as young sons of Samurai family(warrior). Second, Korea's early believers were interested in salvation of inner soul of individuals as value of faith, while Japan's early believers emphasized modernization and social reform in terms of acceptance of European culture as value of faith. Third, Korea's early Christians possessed the characteristics of worldly blessing as an attitude of lower class society, and the character of salvation of soul in Script reading, prayer, and confession of the sins as well. In contrast, Japanese early Christians sought the ethical norm of modern society from the Bible in order to take motivation for social reform as well as sought God instead of a feudal lord as the sense of filial piety and loyalty. Fourth, the early Korean Church bore shamanistic faith. It appealed religious emotions as the revival meeting to form the characters of people's religion, so that it might accumulate the energy to protest against aggression by foreign powers. However, the early Japanese Church built strong elite christian community to be oriented to independence through theological liberalism and strong ethical conscience based on christian faith, so it would initiate social reform. Today, these characteristics are shown in the churches of Korea and Japan. The two different styles of churches, together, can make up for the weak points and share fruits of achievement in the past century through interchange and cooperation.