Minjung theology first began in South Korea in the 1950s and 1960s after theKorean War,[4] and was preached in a minority of Protestant churches.[5] The theology gained popularity in the 1970s during the dictatorship ofPark Chung Hee and theThird Republic of Korea.[6] The three Protestant theologians considered to be the creators of minjung theology areAhn Byung-mu, Suh Nam-dong, and Maria Yu, who were allKijang pastors who joined theminjung movement after the death ofJeon Tae-il.[7] Jeon Tae-il was a factory worker and union organizer who had burned himself to death along with a copy of South Korea's labor laws in an act of political and religious protest.[8] In 1972, Ahn Byung-mu wrote his first article on minjung as a theological theme, which he called "Jesus and Minjung."[9] A Catholic writer and artist namedKim Chi-ha is credited with inspiring much of minjung thought with graphic depictions of the Korean Christ suffering alongside the minjung.[10]Ahn Byung-mu, Suh Nam-dong, Hyun Young-Hak, andKim Yong-Bock are considered first generation minjung theologians.[1]
As South Korea has grown to be more a prosperous nation, later generations of minjung theologians have needed to reevaluate who are the poor and oppressed minjung of Korea.[1] As such, a number of minjung theologians such asPark Soon-kyung have focused on questions of reunification with North Korea, identifying the minjung as all those oppressed in both Koreas.[11] TheCatholic Priests' Association for Justice (CPAJ) and Fr. Park Chang-Shin are associated withliberation theology in Korea.[4]
In the 1970s theologians began exploring the theme of minjung liberation and many were removed from their positions at universities and seminaries for coming to the defense of those who were oppressed and imprisoned by the Park Chung Hee regime and theKorean Central Intelligence Agency.[12]
The word Minjung translates literally as "the mass of people," but a more comprehensive definition of the term is "those who are oppressed politically, exploited economically, alienated socially, and kept uneducated in cultural and intellectual matters." Another way of putting it is that the minjung arehan-ridden people, which is a Korean word that roughly translates as resentment.[13] Minjung theology is a belief that is concerned with the experience of the lower classes or themultitude.[14] Ahn Byung Mu viewed Jesus as a collective event wherein Jesus comes as the Messiah for the poor and oppressed masses of people.[15] In Korea, Jesus took on the role of the suffering and impoverished of thedemocratization movement.[16] Minjung theology focuses on Jesus being the friend of the poor and his powerlessness duringcrucifixion leading up to hisresurrection.[17] Minjung theology views the oppressed masses as subjects of change rather than objects of history.[8]
Minjung theology asserts that God speaks to all historical and cultural contexts including the conditions of Korea.[18] Proponents of Minjung theology believe that the context of Korea is similar in many ways to the stories found in the bible, and that God is demonstrably on the side of the poor and oppressed throughout the books of the Bible.[19]
Minjung is contrasted by the paeksung who accept oppression and the word inmin meaning a national identity.[20] The Old Testament was written from the perspective of people in positions of power, but the stories are often about the liberation of the minjung. For instance,the Exodus, a story told from the perspective ofMoses, is about the liberation of the Hebrew people from the oppressive rule of the Egyptian PharaohRameses II.[21] The Exodus story has parallels to Korean history because Koreans have endured under brutal governments for most of its history.[22]
In his bookGrassroots Asian Theology,Simon Chan criticizes minjung theology for being an elitist interpretation of grassroots theology in South Korea that ignores the actual beliefs of the minjung.[23]
William Huang of the conservativeMercatorNet has criticized believers in minjung theology for supporting restrictions on beef imports from America, encouraging peaceful dialogue with North Korea, and calling for theNational Security Act to be repealed.[4]
Hyunsook Park ofChristian Today has criticized believers in minjung theology for not taking a literal interpretation of the bible, being more concerned with collective sin andstructural violence than it is with individual sins, being more concerned with the material world rather than the eternal afterlife, for favoring the poor over other groups of people, and for being affirming ofLGBT+ people.[24]
Kim Jin-young ofChristian Today has criticized proponents of minjung theology for puttingKim Il-sung, liberation, and labor before God. He also compared minjung theology withJuche.[25]
Lee Youngjin ofChristian Today has criticized minjung theology for putting people first rather than God.[26]
^Kim & Kim 2013: "According to his memory, it was in 1972 that he had written for the first time an article dealing with minjung as a theological theme called 'Jesus and Minjung.'"
