A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited.
Park, Joon-Sik
A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited
By Volker Kuster. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. xx, 167. 89 [euro]/$132.
Minjung theology, which grew out of the particular experience of
South Korean people in their political and socioeconomic struggles for
justice in the 1970s and 1980s, affirms Korean culture and history as
the context for a proper Korean theology. Considering "the
emergence of con textual theologies ... an empirical and hermeneutical
turn in the history of twentieth century theology" (p. 1), Volker
Kuster of the Protestant Theological University (Kampen, Netherlands)
seeks to introduce minjung theology as an Asian contextual theology
with"a clearly Protestant profile" (p. 17). Unlike Latin
American liberation theology, it rejects the Marxist analysis of society
and regards the biblical stories and the social biographies of the
suffering minjung ("people") as the two primary reference
points.
The author's keen interest in minjung theology has led him to
make multiple visits to Korea since 1987 for field research, and his
intimate knowledge and deep insight into Korean Christianity and society
are clearly reflected throughout the book. Exploring the socioeconomic,
political, and cultural context of Korea in the beginning chapters,
Kuster devotes the major part of the book to providing biographical
portraits of representative minjung theologians: Ahn Byung-Mu, Suh
Nam-Dong, Hyun Young-Hak, Kim Yong-Bock, and Chung Hyun-Kyung. In the
concluding chapters he examines contextual challenges and
transformations of minjung theology, setting it in intercultural
perspective and addressing the question of its continued relevance.
Kuster perceptively identifies two prominent and perennial issues
facing minjung theology: the subject of theology and the relation
between truth and experience. These topics could have been probed in
greater depth, however, for some critical questions regarding the
subjecthood of the minjung were not adequately considered, partly for
the fear of interpreting it with traditional Western theological
categories. Minjung theology began as a theological exercise among
intellectuals and educated groups. Whether it has become a theology
among and by the minjung is still a troubling question. Without a
grassroots movement like base communities, it has not been successful in
developing itself as an organic theology.
A Protestant Theology of Passion is a fine introduction to, and one
of the few resources available in English for the study of minjung
theology. One of its important contributions is a careful reflection on
how the generations of minjung theologians differ in their theological
practices in response to the changing context. A valuable feature of the
book is inclusion of several works of art as a concrete, visible source
for this particular contextual theology.
Joon-Sik Park is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of World Evangelism
at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, Ohio.
