JB Life March 2017

WORLDVIEW
40
By DAVID VAN MINNEN
JB Life Co-Editor
NOTE: This article is part of a multi-issue series investigating
the religious roots of North Jeolla and Korea
throughout history until the present. It is the aim of this
series to sketch out the way Jeolla natives think. This is
for the purpose of greater understanding, multicultural
sensitivity, and to tear down the walls of misunderstanding.
Jeonbuk civilization has its own unique, complex
blend of history and mindset. The picture in this series is
admittedly painted with a broad brush; but it may be a
helpful backdrop to your interactions and appreciation
of our beautiful host culture.
A
worldview is a collection of presuppositions.
These presuppositions are like lenses, and we
see the world through them. Everybody has
a worldview. Some are as simple as a pair of 3D movie
glasses, and others are as complex as a kaleidoscope.
Most of us go through life without really analyzing
our worldviews and enjoy the show in Plato’s Cave all
through life. Some of us spend a lot of time and money
and studious effort to become ‘enlightened’ and say
pithy things like, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
At the end of the day, we all inescapably have a
worldview, and we all can benefit from careful reflection
-- and from an outside perspective.
If we are in a foreign culture, the more we understand
our host’s worldview, the less we will be baffled, annoyed,
and indignant when strange things happen. Such
understanding can temper our frustrations into compassion,
and our reactions into responses; and even respect.
It can also trigger a critical examination of our own
worldviews that we brought with us.
In previous installments of this series, we began to survey,
in chronological order, the mixture of contributing
mindsets that compose Jeonbuk’s basic worldview. We
started with Jeolla province’s manifestation of grassroots
Animism and interviewed a local mudang. Next
was a too-brief glimpse at the very dominant Confucianism,
which is something hard to understand merely by
reading about it. It’s like explaining saltwater to someone
who’s only known a lake. To really get a grasp of the
Confucian way, you have to come here, to Korea. Last
issue’s article spoke of Buddhism’s influence, and featured
Jeolla’s own contribution, Won Buddhism: practical
Buddhism made simple and accessible to all.
Now let’s turn our attention to the next major influence
to land on Korean soil: Roman Catholicism.
A quick Google search will show that “Catholic” is
천주교 (cheon ju kyo) in Korean, stemming from the
Chinese “heaven lord religion,” or a less wooden translation,
“The religion of the Lord of Heaven.” Records
show the first Catholic missionary here was a Portugese
Jesuit who landed in Busan in 15-something, but then it
gets pretty foggy. Mentions of early Korean Christians
are scattered through histories, and many places claim
to be the real birthplace of the faith on this peninsula,
but it’s pretty much uncontested that the faith as a movement
flourished here through 솓 instumentation and
martyrdom of a Korean man named Yi Seung-hun.
It was Koreans who embraced the faith, and who shared
it here in Korea; not European missionaries. The faith
was taught freely and simply, accessible to all classes,
and to women, and to beggars, without prejudice.
Yi Seung-hun was Yangban (nobility) born in Seoul in
1756. He accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission
to Beijing, where he converted to Catholic Christianity,
entered the priesthood, and brought the
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Jeonbuk Life 41