한국의 장묘 문화에 대한 기독교 상황화 연구

Abstract

When someone close to us passes away, we stop our busy life for a moment and think about the reason and purpose of our life. That's because death will knock on everyone's door eventually;it is a regulate truth that no one can avoid. Even so, many people overlook their final days on the earth and the life after death. Thus,death offers an opportunity of salvation for us to reflect the existence of God and ourselves. Christianity ought to engage in researching funeral ceremonies which are directly linked to the life and death issue more often and to use it for an opportunity to spread the gospel. The contextualization strategy for the gospel is the key for this opportunity. The cultural diversity needs to be accepted in a wide spectrum as long as the fundamental of the gospel remains unchanged. The power of the gospel is not static but dynamic, so the recipients should express dynamic reactions. In a word, the power of gospel should appear outwardly as concrete actions in the recipient's life. A thorough examination has been conducted regarding the issues dealing with burial and cremation in Korean funeral ceremonies. Korea, influenced by its Confucian influences, has considered burials as important throughout the history. Thus, there has not been any major conflicts with Christianity regarding the issues since the funerals in the Bible are burials in most cases. However, the point should be made that burials are not the only form of burial determined by God, so it irrelevant to the fundamental of the gospel. As examined earlier, burials are introduced in the form of funeral to show the culture of the time in the Bible. Korea is now encouraging cremation over burials to go with the flow and to meet the social needs. But, Christianity is misunderstood as a narrow-minded selfish religion against its will. When it can serve as a good opportunity to spread the gospel,Christianity is misunderstood as a stubborn religion that only compels their members to choose burials not considering the social conditions and needs. Therefore, it is appropriate for Christianity to accept the diversity of cultures as well as cremation to keep up with the transition of Korean cultures and to develop diverse funeral cultures to practice love, the fundamental of Christianity. The origin of cremation can be referred to Buddhism, but the majority of cremation procedures that being practiced and required in the present Korean society are not Buddhism based but a modified modern cremation. Ultramodern charnel houses serve as good examples. Yoido Full Gospel Church with the largest congregation in the world expanded its churchyard and constructed a charnel house for the remaining family members to worship together in memory of the past ones which is acceptable. However,considering the size of the land and maintenance expenses in the future, alternatives such as natural burials, woodland burials, or monuments should be considered instead. Furthermore, it is necessary to simplify funeral procedures to establish a Christian cremation and charnel house funeral cultures. Burial shrouds which have been indiscreetly used are no longer significant. Thus, an alternative Christian funeral garb to bring a cost reduction in funeral process and to cherish a beautiful parting from the dead needs to be regulated. The Confucian way of wearing burial shrouds is an apparent obstacle in leading Christian funeral cultures, because the Confucian funeral custom is followed in the process of wearing burial shrouds. When ceremonial reformation of Koreans precedes, this change process will follow after. Therefore, it is important that Christian churches educate their members the meaning of life and death actively and establish and implement a standardized Christian funeral process accordingly