신석구의 기독교 사회윤리사상 연구

Abstract

Shin Suk-Koo was born in the late 19th century to a family of Confucian scholars. In his childhood he set Confucianism above everything else, but in his youth he was in confusion and went astray. His encountering Christianity was a turning point in his life. His faith carried him through the ordeal and was quite certain that Christianity could realize the Confucian ideal and could save his peoples who lost their sovereignty. Since then, he lived his life as a pastor with penury and hardship, through which he acted up to his words thoroughly. Living through Chosun Dynasty, Daehan Empire and Japanese colonial rule, he became an evangelist on a mission to recover the lost ethnicity and was ever fearful for his peoples. As a result, he was qualified to stand proxy for national at the 1919 Independence Movement, although he putted religious persuation ahead of politics. At the end of Japanese colonial period, he languished in prison by reason of insubordination to shrine worshipping. Likewise, after independence,he was persecuted by North Korea as he putted his peoples ahead of ideology. He did not think of his brotherhood as distinct from Christian faith and believed that Christianism could be realized with national salvation. In particular,he distinguished the Christian gospel from the western culture and thus stroke out at the unconditional yearning for the western culture. Moreover, he maintained that Confucian ethics could be realized in Christianity and made his endeavors to embody it through ministry and national movement.