일제하 '사상 논쟁'에 나타난 '종교' 개념의 충돌 - 천도교와 좌익 언론 간의 논쟁을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The ‘ideological controversy’between the leftist press and the new school ofCheondo religion in the early 1930s, under Japanese rule, had its backgroundboth at home and abroad. On the one hand, there was the movement againstreligion abroad, in the Soviet Union and Japan, and, on the other hand, therewas the struggle for leadership of the social movement between the socialist andthe new school of Cheondo religion, at home. The controversy grew red-hotwhen the leftist press rebelled against ‘the demand for leadership over Korea(朝鮮􃖄導權) from the Young Men’s Party of the Cheondo religion(天道敎靑年黨), and came to deal with comprehensive subjects, including the doctrine,history, and organization of the Cheondo religion. While the leftist press criticized the Cheondo religion from the point of ‘theanti-religious conception’ based on ‘scientific’factuality and class consciousness(partisanship)’, Kim Hyungjun, representative of the new school of Cheondoreligion, distinguished ‘the new religion’from ‘the pre-existing religion’, andjustified the Cheondo religion as‘ the new religion’from the point of‘ historicity’(the doctrine of religious evolution) and ‘actuality’(popular-based opposition tothe colonial power). Kim Hyungjun’s concept of ‘the new religion’stemmed from that of LeeDonhwa in the late 1910s. Considering the conception of ‘the new religion’interms of the relation between ‘religion and science’, we can label both of them‘romanticist concepts of religion’, though Kim Hyungjun’s concept wasproposed as a defense, and became narrower in conceptual denotation. The ‘ideological controversy’provided a place where the religious debateduring the colonial period came to address the issue of‘ religion-science’, freeingitself from the one-sidedness of the ‘religion-politics’formula. Prior to thiscontroversy, the Cheondo religion had extended its activity into the socialmovement, subordinating ‘science’to religion and advocating ‘the unity ofreligion and politics(敎政一致)’, while, subsequently, the leftist press, using‘science’as its slogan, attempted to exclude the Cheondo religion from thesocial movement. The knowledge-discourse over ‘religion’, however, could nothave a solid foothold in the colonial context, in which the foundation formodern knowledge was not enough.