백색 순교에서 적색 순교로-손양원 목사의 순교와 신학적 의미

Abstract

Rev. Yang-Won Son is one of the most famous martyrs recorded in the History of Christianity in Korea. He was born and reared at a presbyterian Christian family in south Kyungsang and got nationalistic influence strongly from his father who was a builder of his hometown Church and imprisoned one year for participation in the March 1st independent movement in 1919. In 1921 Son went Japan for study on his way at a middle school in Tokyo. Then and there he contacted many non-presbyterian faiths and theologies such as Japanese non-Churchism, Methodism, and Holiness revivalism. Two years later he came back home with an enthusiastic desire for evangelism and ministry and started theological study at the High Biblical School of Kyungsang Presbytery and later graduated from the Presbyterian Theological School in Pyeng Yang in 1938. He begun his ministry at Sang-Ae Won, a leper home founded by the Australian presbyterian mission in Pusan and finished it at Ae-Yang Won, also the other leper home founded by the American southern presbyterian mission in Yeo Soo. By doing ministry for the lepers he experienced and practiced his faith of kenosis, self-emptying and self-sacrificing love, embracing leper patients bodily, sometimes sucking their wounded bodies with his mouth. Rev. Son had faith firmly on the Biblical text and eschatological adventism. In that faith he, in the late hard days of Japanese imperialistic colonialism, could resist against governmental compelling demand of worship of the Japanese Shinto shrine and Japanese emperor. He also preached openly to his adherents that worshiping of Shinto shrine was an idolatry guilt against God's commandment. Japanese religio-political regime regarded this anti-worshipping of the Shinto shrine and the emperor as an anti-governmental resistant movement not only in religious but also in political aspect. So the Japanese police had arrested Rev. Son in Sep. 1940, just after preaching at the Wednesday night prayer meeting of the Ae-Yang Won Church, and prosecuted as a criminal against the national security law. At the national liberation of Aug. 1945 Rev. Son, releasing from his imprisonment of five years, came back to Ae-Yang Won Church and resumed ministry for the lepers. And he also performed nationwide revival meetings, proclaiming the message of repent to the unfaithful sins and non-Christian activities of the Korean Church leaders under the Japanese imperialism. He explained therefore the south/north division of the Korean peninsula was a result of not thoroughly repentance of Christians. And there were many civilian victims by the ideological violent conflicts and struggles between the communists and the non-communists in south Korea. Rev. Son also lost his two sons, Dong-Il and Dong-Sin, then students of the middle and the high schools in Soon Chun, killed by communist students in Oct. 1948, when Soon Chun and Yeo Soo were occupied several days by the communist rebellious soldiers antagonistic to the south Korean government. But Rev. Son forgave an offender student who had participated in massacring and adopted him as his son. This loving-enemy story was published in a book titled ‘Atom bomb of love.'Two years later form his two sons' martyrdom, burst out the Korean war in Jun. 25 1950, and Yeo Soo was occupied very soon under the north Korean communist armies. But Rev. Son remained at Ae-Yang Won Church, refusing advices and requests to escape of the neighboring pastors and Christians. He kept his pulpit with a mind of good shepard who must sacrifice his own life for the sheep in peril until Sep. 13rd 1950 when he was arrested by the withdrawing communist soldiers and killed finally with other anti-communist citizen at an orchard garden not far from the Ae-Yang Won in the night of Sep. 28th 1950. Thus Rev. Yang-Won Son with his two sons became a representative martyr family of Korean Christianity. In the faith and theology of Rev. Son the martyr we can find out three characteristic points as follows: firstly, the Biblical absolutism which supported him a non-surrendering resistance against the Japanese coercion of Shinto shrine worship, secondly the eschatological calling-consciousness which kept him as a sincere pastor for the lepers and enduring to the long imprisonment hardship, and thirdly the redemptive self-sacrificing spirit which gave his own life for the sake of reconciliation and peace of the Korea people. Thus, in his kenosis ministry for the lepers, spiritual preaching at the revival meetings, practice of loving-enemy and final self-sacrificing martyrdom, Rev. Son could be awarded honor to be an example of perfectio Christi(Christian perfection) in Korean Church history.