On Tuesday, March 8, Donald Baker, Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, delivered this year's Ahnkook Lecture on Korean Buddhism. This lecture is part of the series "Religious Identities in Asia," co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of World Religions, the Korea Institute, and the Asia Center.
Below, Baker spoke about his lecture, "From the Mountains into the Cities: The Transformation of Buddhism in Modern Korea," how he as a historian became interested in Korean Buddhism, the influence Christianity has had on Korean Buddhism, the comparison between religious pluralism in Korea and the United States, and how historical trauma has affected Korean religious groups.
HDS: Your lecture is entitled: "From the Mountains into the Cities: The Transformation of Buddhism in Modern Korea." Is this topic at the heart of your research?
DB: Most of my research focuses on Confucianism and Christianity in Korea rather than Buddhism. I am a historian, not a religious studies scholar, so I focus on how Korea's religious culture has changed over time (particularly over the last three centuries, since Christianity was introduced to Korea in the 18th century). I became interested in Buddhism in modern Korea because it has clearly been influenced by the rise of Christianity as the dominant religion in South Korea. Korean Buddhism is still Buddhism—it hasn't changed its core teachings. However, the way it operates within Korea's pluralistic religious environment today is very different from the way it operated a century ago because that environment has changed.
HDS: What in particular would you like people to take away from your lecture?
DB: I hope people will take away from my lecture the realization that Buddhism is not something set in stone. Instead, it changes in response to the secular environment it finds itself in, and it also changes in response to the changes in the type of religious rivals it competes with for adherents.
In particular, I hope my audience will see how Korean Buddhism differs from both Chinese and Japanese Buddhism and, although many of those differences predate the arrival of the Christian competitor, how many differences are clearly an attempt to respond to the rise of Christians in Korea (to 30% of the population). Korean Buddhism has been influenced by Christianity much more than either Chinese or Japanese Buddhism have, and that strong Christian influence has created a Korean Buddhism that looks even more distinctively Korean than Buddhism in Korea looked in the 19th century.
HDS: What do you think the future holds for Korean Buddhism?
DB: It will survive. In fact, it will probably continue to thrive. The predictions of Christian missionaries a century ago that Buddhism would disappear from Korea are clearly wrong. As the percentage of Koreans who call themselves Christians has grown, so has the percentage of Koreans who call themselves Buddhists. I am a historian, not a prophet, but I expect Buddhism to be an important feature of the Korean religious landscape for quite a long time. The emergence of modern urban temples in Seoul over the last three decades shows that Buddhism can adapt to the modern world, even a modern world shaped by Christianity, without losing its core identity.
HDS: What can we learn about religious pluralism in America from your work in Korea? Are we in a similar period of transformation?
DB: The situation in Korea is very different from the situation in North America. There is no dominant religion in Korea. Though about 30% of Koreans say they are Christians, another 21% say they are Buddhists, and there are dozens of new religions of Korean origin as well, around half of the people in South Korea say they don't have a religion. That is down from the 96% non-religious Japanese colonial officials found in Korea in 1940, and the 88% the South Korean government found in 1964. In the 1970s through the 1990s, in contrast to the situation in North America, there was a sharp increase in the percentage of Koreans who claimed a specific religious affiliation. This increase in religiosity (at least religiosity within a religious organization) appears to have leveled off since 1995. Nevertheless, Korea appears to have been moving in the opposite direction from the secularization trend we see in North America.
Religious tolerance is absolutely essential in a pluralistic religious environment. However, it is important to note that religious tolerance is very different in a society in which no one religion claims over half of the population than it is in a society in which one religion dominates and all the other religions are seen as minority religions and, because of their minority status, have trouble gaining the same degree of respectability and acceptance as the majority religion. In Korea, though there is some tension between religious groups (particularly between evangelical Protestants and Buddhists), in general religions have to respect each other because no one religion can gain the support of the majority to use against another religion. In North America, we are having to get used to the fact that the number of both the unaffiliated and the non-Christians is growing but those who call themselves Christians are still in the majority. That is not the case in Korea and probably will not be for decades, if ever.
HDS: You also teach and have written about historical trauma. How has historical trauma affected religion in Korea and/or in Asia more broadly?
DB: Yes, I have written about historical trauma. That's because I was unfortunate enough to be an eye-witness to a bloody military coup in Korea 1980. Because of my own experience, I have been interested in how others, particularly religious groups, viewed that event. There is a very clear difference between both Christians and Buddhists who actually saw the South Korean government send special forces to attack its own citizens, and those in other parts of Korea who had trouble believing that had really happened. Many Christians and Buddhists were radicalized by the 1980 Kwangju massacre and they both tried to create new theologies based on the notion that those who suffer are the most sacred members of their society. (This is so-called Minjung theology.) But other Christians and Buddhists saw Minjung theology, as well as any attempt to address the injustice of what happened in 1980, as Communist inspired and therefore a threat to South Korea's attempts to defend itself against the Communist north. Historical trauma, and how to remember such tragic events, causes splits in society, and religious groups are not exempt from that happening.
I believe that same bipolar effect of historical trauma on religious groups can be seen in the rest of Asia as well. Some people find that historical trauma stimulates them to work even harder to create a more just society on this earth. Others try to suppress memories of historical traumas out of fear that such memories may force them to redefine what it means to be religious.
—by Melissa Coles, MDiv candidate