해방정국기 한경직의 건국신학 연구: 전도입국론을 중심으로

Abstract

This thesis examines the Rev. Han Kyung-chik’s theology of nation-building during the period after Liberation, and investigates what kind of contribution it made to both inside and outside the church and what limitations it had. The Rev. Han was a leading pastor who represented northwest region of Korea at the time of Liberation, and after moving to the south, he emerged as a representative of the Korean church through the process of founding and developing the Youngnak Church. Therefore, since his view of the state and the principle of the separation of church and state in the post-Liberation years is one of the prototypical views of the related issues of the Korean church today, it is necessary to explore his theology of nation-building. Immediately after Liberation, the Rev. Han began to deliver sermons to establish a Christian democracy through the pulpit of the Youngnak Church ahead of the national and historical task of establishing a nation. However, while the Rev. Han thought that the church could not engage directly in the political movement according to the principle of the separation of church and state, he instead started the movement of nation-building in a way that only the church could do, that is, evangelism. He established the discourse on ‘Evangelism for Nation-building’, arguing that “evangelism is the greatest political movement,” and presented it as the church's methods for nation-building. He maintained that if many Presbyterian churches practising the system of representative democracy were established, church members would come to learn the system through church life, spread the spirit of democracy into every branches of the society and democratize a newly established country. The main purpose of this study is to explore the intellectual background of the Rev. Han’s discourse on Evangelism for Nation-building from where it came and how it was formed. To this end, by using the research methodology of intellectual background history, I intend to restore in detail the ideas that the Han encountered and what he learned through his teachers. Furthermore, by analyzing Nation-building and Christianity(『건국과 기독교』), a collection of sermons given during the period after Liberation, I attempt to unearth his identity and his view of the state. Through this, I want to examine the origins of the relationship between church and state which has run through the modern history of Korea after Liberation and raise a question whether his theology of nation-building, his methodology, and his view of the principle of the separation of church and state are still valid, especially regarding the unification in the future. Finally, I want to contribute to the re-establishment of the Korean church’s view of the state.