Preaching on Social Suffering: Formulating a Homiletical Theology for the Contemporary Korean Context

By Jeremy Kangsan Kim and Sally A. Brown

In this book, Jeremy Kim criticizes current Korean and Asian American homiletical strategies for their lack of a theological point of view on social suffering. He argues that preachers must develop an alternative theological-homiletical viewpoint on social suffering, one that has pastoral and prophetic approaches. These two approaches offer people a refuge and a voice, not only in the church community but also in the larger social community. Thus, the author suggests that preachers adopt the biblical lament, highlighting its dual tasks of compassion (the pastoral dimension) and resistance (the prophetic dimension). The author, who is a non-Western Asian American preacher, also incorporates East Asian philosophical and hermeneutical research on ren, a positive element of Confucianism, into his argument. He applies this core concept of Confucianism to the preacher's homiletical strategy toward social suffering. Thus, the author proposes that Korean preachers should recover ren, which contains sincere compassion for others as well as a voice of resistance that reveals unjust social structures as the cause of social suffering and expresses both within Uri (we), the community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666743159

Jeremy Kangsan Kim

Jeremy Kangsan Kim received a PhD degree in practical theology (homiletics) at the University of Aberdeen. His academic interests center on homiletical theology based on Western/East Asian philosophy and hermeneutics, sociology, and psychology, especially in the socio-political and socio-cultural issues in both North American and Korean context, hoping to reshape contemporary Asian-American and Korean preaching.

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Introduction

What Should I Say?

In April 2014, a few days before Easter, I received numerous calls and texts from colleagues who were Korean preachers asking this question: What should I say? Their concern was about the homiletical theology they should preach on Easter in the midst of a nationwide crisis, the Sewol ferry incident, in which a vessel sank off the southwestern island of Jindo, South Korea (hereafter Korea).¹ The event was not just a maritime accident that resulted in over three hundred deaths due to the inexplicable actions of key crew members who fled the sinking vessel. The incident was also a traumatic event that paralyzed the whole nation.² First, Koreans watched on live television the tragedy of the sinking ferry and the last minutes of the dying victims while the Coast Guard performed an incompetent rescue operation. Second, people realized that the fundamental cause of the tragic event was the result of the corrupt relationship that existed between the government institutions and the ferry company. That immoral connection not only led to the overloaded and insufficiently inspected vessel being approved to carry cargo and passengers but also caused the delayed response of the Coast Guard’s rescue operation.³ In this atmosphere of nationwide suffering, what message should preachers deliver from the pulpit on Easter Sunday?

After the Sewol ferry incident, Korean preachers faced theological confusion over how they could proclaim the joy of the risen Jesus Christ in an atmosphere of national grief. Most preachers, however, delivered their sermons on the event following the conventional theology on suffering during the Eastertide. For instance, Chansoo Lee preached,

Do not condemn others; it is a criminal action in front of God. We have to repent to God. Please keep silent regarding this disaster. Moreover, pray to God, O Lord, this disaster occurred as the result of our sin. Our incompetence. Please give us the chance to awaken and repent to You in order to save our nation.⁴

Further, Samhwan Kim addressed his congregation as follows:

God did not sink the ferry without a reason. The reason is that God was about to sink this nation. However, instead, God has chosen these young students to give this nation one more chance. Stop blaming or condemning others for the cause of this disaster. Instead, we’ve got to reflect, mourn, and repent over what has happened. This has become our opportunity.⁵

Many other church leaders demonstrated a similar theological point of view regarding the sinking of the Sewol. These sermons became the subject of much controversy within Korean society. Lee’s sermon was very upsetting to people because the call to keep silent reminded them that the crew members had told the passengers to stay put—to stay in their cabins.⁶ Moreover, Kim’s sermon caused national outrage due to his message that interpreted the fate of the young victims as a sacrificial offering in which they stood in for others to bear the divine punishment for sin.⁷ These criticisms were based on the preachers’ theological misdiagnosis of the cause of the suffering. In fact, the incident was not a case of personal suffering that resulted from sin but collective suffering that had social causes.

Today, people experience collective suffering in society (which, as I explain in the chapter 1, I refer to as social suffering) that is caused by the moral calamities of human catastrophes, sociopolitical oppression, economic disadvantage, and various sociostructural issues.⁸ Korean preachers, however, have not been prepared theologically or homiletically to identify and address social suffering. As the largest religious group in contemporary Korea,⁹ the Korean Protestant church neither proposed sincere lamentation for the victims of the Sewol ferry incident and their bereaved families nor delivered hopeful messages in their sermons to the grieving public. Therefore, the victims and bereaved families were publicly wounded and ineradicably scarred by controversial sermons that were filled with questionable theological interpretations of the cause of social suffering.¹⁰ This failure to give a compassionate response to the event resulted in the Korean Protestant church being ranked the most untrustworthy group in society in 2014.¹¹

In fact, the Sewol ferry incident revealed the weakness of the church’s preparation for and response to social suffering in various arenas of Korean society. During the twentieth century, Korean society was exposed to multiple nationwide crises: imperialism, ideological conflict, brutal war, dictatorship, poverty, and economic depression. These various traumas were not limited to specific groups but rather were existential life-and-death issues for all the people. On multiple occasions of social suffering, the people not only overwhelmed the ordinary systems of care that give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning,¹² but they also experienced various types of suffering that include economic marginalization, psychological anxiety, political and social insecurity, and spiritual emptiness. Yet, the suffering caused by these consecutive traumatic social events was not given the chance to be healed or resolved and, as a result, each unresolved experience of suffering was transferred to the next event without closure. Therefore, people came to believe that the corruption, incompetence, and irresponsibility that resulted in the Sewol ferry incident were caused by Korea’s failure to effectively manage the social suffering of each of the earlier traumatic events. Indeed, the Sewol ferry incident led to significant research on social suffering in academia. These factors strongly influenced research on social suffering in theological fields in academia as well. Notably, studies on public theology, theodicy, pastoral care, and deconstruction of the Korean Protestant church were conducted, and the primary theme of this research was the incompetent and irresponsible attitudes of the church during the post-Sewol phase.¹³

Nevertheless, few homiletical studies of the incident have been conducted by theological scholars, although the controversial sermons of many church leaders resulted in the rapid decline of the Korean Protestant church’s reputation in society.¹⁴ Korean preachers did not regard the incident as a significant opportunity for developing a homiletical theology on social suffering. As a result, six years after the ferry incident, the Korean Protestant church once again faced a crisis related to preaching in the midst of another crisis of unanticipated social suffering: the COVID-19 pandemic.¹⁵ This pandemic has been traumatizing and has transformed the whole world in many ways. Korean society, in particular, underwent tumult starting with the initial stage of the pandemic (February and March 2020). The church itself has been the fundamental cause of three critical surges of COVID-19 in Korea.¹⁶ Mainline preachers (conservative and evangelical groups) promptly diagnosed the cause of the crisis as divine punishment from God due to people’s sins, in particular the persecution of Christianity by the Chinese government, despite the physical and psychological difficulties of many Koreans due to the pandemic.¹⁷ As in the case of the Sewol ferry incident, sermons were filled with an orthodox theodicy that asked believers for sincere repentance and emphasized personal piety in believers’ religious life as a fundamental way to liberate themselves from their suffering.¹⁸

This theological point of view led conservative churches to hold in-person worship services in the midst of the nationwide outbreak of COVID-19 and to state that the Korean church has a martyrdom spirit that responded with unceasing worship during the Japanese colonization era, as well as during the Korean war.¹⁹ As a result, the resistance of the Protestant church to restrictions on worship services put in place by the government and particular churches’ and other groups’ disobedient actions led to massive outbreaks of the virus. Church organizations, therefore, including the United Christian Churches of Korea (UCCK) and the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), made public statements of apology after the second (August 2020) and third (January 2021) waves of national outbreaks of COVID-19.²⁰

The reputation of the Korean Protestant church drastically worsened during the pandemic; the church even became the target of hatred in society. A recent survey titled Research on COVID-19 and the Korean Protestant Church reveals the poor status of the church’s reputation.²¹ For instance, nonbelievers answered the question of the reliability of institutions concerning COVID-19 management as follows: medical institutions (93.5 percent), Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (84.1 percent), the central government (65 percent), the local government (58.7 percent), mass media (39.9 percent), the national assembly (13.0 percent), and the Korean Protestant church (3.6 percent). In this situation, Korean homileticians published several articles and a book about homiletical strategies during the pandemic. Their primary theme was rhetorical methods, such as how to preach in the rapidly transformed religious environment—in particular, how to preach online—rather than suggesting a homiletical theology in regard to social issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, three articles and one book have been published on the subject of Korean homiletics. All of these are focused on rhetorical strategies in the new-normal religious context.²²

Finding an Answer

These two cases—the Sewol ferry incident and the COVID-19 pandemic—reveal that Korean preaching has not developed the mature homiletical theology on social suffering that is needed to address current circumstances. Today, the deficiency of an adequate theological-homiletical perspective on suffering has brought about a crisis in preaching within the Korean Protestant church. Consequently, this book raises the fundamental question: How might a homiletical theology for preaching in situations of social suffering in the contemporary Korean context be formulated? This question leads to three specific theological, homiletical, and pastoral questions. The first question is, What might be an alternative theological-homiletical point of view on suffering in the Korean Protestant church, reframing it from the conventional perspective that is now being preached? Second, What is a helpful homiletic-hermeneutic strategy for responding to social suffering that specifically addresses the Korean sociocultural context? Lastly, How can the task of preaching on social suffering be performed in the larger social community rather than be limited to ecclesiological spaces?

This book investigates how homiletical theology can reply to these questions. Therefore, in chapter 1, I outline the foundation for understanding the concept of social suffering. First, the investigation concentrates on the sociocultural background that emerged in the research on social suffering in the eighteenth century on the European continent. Then, the chapter focuses on the rapid transformation of the religious perspective on the theme of suffering at that time. Further, I demonstrate the development of studies on social suffering up to today; I also propose a contemporary definition of social suffering. The chapter next discloses that the major traumatic events in modern Korean history—the Japanese colonization (1910–45), the trusteeship (1945–48), the Korean War (1950–53), the democracy movement (1961–87), and the International Monetary Fund economic crisis (1997–2001)—exhibit significant characteristics of the forms of social suffering. The book, therefore, explores how Korean society has responded to social suffering over the past century.

Chapter 2 covers the Sewol ferry incident as a case study. This incident is a representative event of social suffering in contemporary Korean society. It reveals that Korean society’s response to the tragedy was identical to the response to earlier traumatic events in the nation’s history. Moreover, it demonstrates that the Korean Protestant churches failed, particularly in their preaching, to effectively offer sincere comfort and support for those who were suffering.

In chapter 3, I analyze twenty-nine sermon samples that were preached in response to the incident in order to investigate why Korean preaching was at the center of the controversy during the post-Sewol phase. The analysis focuses on three main themes—suffering, the Sewol ferry incident, and the practical implications of preaching—that reveal the theological-homiletical understanding of Korean preachers of social suffering. The study discloses two distinctive theological-homiletical streams within Korean preaching. The first stream regards social suffering as a sign or warning from God, and these sermons stress the spiritual transformation of believers to recover their relationship with God. The second stream considers the incident a human-caused disaster, and thus the sermons ask for a reframing of society to prevent unjust evil and violence and urge people to have solidarity and compassion with the victims.

In chapter 4, I trace the theological-homiletical foundation of the two streams presented in the sermon samples. For this research, I examined sermon manuscripts of key figures of the Korean Protestant church and historical documents on Korean theology. My investigation concentrates first on the theological work of North American missionaries who introduced Protestant theology to Korea. Then, I discuss the sermons and theologies that were presented during several major traumatic events that occurred during modern Korean history. In doing the research for this book, I discovered that the significant characteristics of Korean homiletical theology developed in response to sociopolitical convulsions that impacted Korean society during the last century. The historical factors led the mainline (evangelical and conservative) church to emphasize the pastoral role (compassion), focusing on spiritual transformation and the prosperity gospel; the liberal church, however, underscored the prophetic role (resistance) in their preaching of minjung theology. Consequently, my examination of Korean preaching on social suffering uncovered a deficiency in these two roles. Without an appropriate homiletical theology, preachers have not been able to integrate the two perspectives.

In chapter 5, I propose lament as a theological-homiletical strategy to complement the deficiencies of these divided roles in Korean preaching. Notably, the book argues that the dynamic nature of lament simultaneously contains both compassion and resistance. This dynamic enables preaching as lament not only to provide an individual the space to express their agony to God but also establishes the solidarity of the sufferers in order to identify the fundamental cause of the social suffering. Therefore, by presenting preaching as lament, the book underscores the fact that the pastoral task, which offers compassion, and the prophetic task, which calls for resistance, should be integrated instead of viewed as two separate tasks in preaching on social suffering.

In chapter 6, I suggest ren (仁, humanity) as a homiletic-hermeneutic concept for the praxis of preaching as lament in the contemporary Korean context. The indigenous concept of ren has deeply influenced the formation of the collectivist culture of Uri (we) in Korean society. It has also influenced Confucianism, which has strongly influenced the sociopolitical and sociocultural systems of Koreans. I demonstrate that ren (仁, humanity) strengthens the nature of both compassion and resistance in lament through the corresponding characteristics of ceyin zhi xin (惻隱之心, the heart of compassion) and yi (義, righteousness). Thus, the revitalization of ren as a homiletic-hermeneutic strategy proposes not only recovering the genuine nature of community, which is the ultimate way to resolve the issues of social suffering in Korean society, but also transforming the church’s theological perspective on social suffering through the dynamic of lament.

Chapter 7 presents my final conclusion on the questions of this research project regarding the theological, homiletical, and pastoral aims of formulating a homiletical theology for preaching on the theme of social suffering in the contemporary Korean context.

1. For more information on the sinking of the Sewol, see chapter 2.

2. Lee, Gwangbong 1945 Huimang 2045.

3. The delayed response of the Coast Guard was due to pressure from the ferry company, which had a contract with Undine Marine Industries for the exclusive right to carry out rescue missions related to the Sewol ferry. Hong, Causes and Tasks, 149.

4. Lee, Dangsin Eomneun Insaengeun.

5. Kim, Mideumui 3 Yoso.

6. Lee asserted that the purpose of the sermon was to ask people to refrain from hasty actions such as spreading rumors using social media. However, this explanation was not accepted by the enraged public. Lee, Lee Chansoo Moksa.

7. Park, Kim Samhwan.

8. Wilkinson and Kleinman, Passion for Society, 14.

9. In 2018, the Korean Protestant church had 9.6 million members—the population of South Korea was 49.05 million at the time—which made it the largest religious group in Korean society. The census is conducted every ten years. This is the first time that Korean Protestantism has had more members than Buddhism since the former was established on the Korean peninsula in 1885. Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, 2018 Hangugui Jonggyo Hyeonhwang, 108–16.

10. This was one of the causes, in the post-Sewol phase, of the exodus of 80 percent of the victims and bereaved families from the church. Pyo, Sewolho Yugajogi.

11. In fact, right after the incident, the Korean Protestant church responded instantly with prayer meetings, fundraising campaigns, and volunteer workers on the scene. Yet, the controversial sermons and speeches of prominent church leaders, and the conservative churches’ political attitude regarding the incident, made the support of many churches a wasted effort. Jung, Diagnosis for the First Anniversary, 3–4.

12. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 33.

13. According to the Korean Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), as of July 2022, research on the incident has been extensive. First, 320 theses—69 doctoral-level and 251 master’s-level theses—have been published on the topic of the Sewol ferry incident in Korea. Fourteen theses—3 doctoral- and 11 master’s-level theses—have been published in theological fields. This research, both at the doctoral and master’s level, is predominantly focused on the theme of public theology and trauma. Second, 1,280 articles regarding the incident have been published in major academic journals in Korea, 63 of these from a theological perspective. The six most popular topics of these articles are as follows: public theology (19.4 percent), theodicy (19.4 percent), trauma (12.9 percent), solidarity (11.2 percent), deconstruction (9.7 percent), and minjung theology (4.8 percent). Lastly, 905 books have been published in Korea in which the incident is the main topic, and sixteen of these books were published by theological institutions or theologians. The four primary topics covered in these sixteen books are as follows: public theology (43.8 percent), pastoral care (18.7 percent), solidarity (12.5 percent), and deconstruction (12.5 percent). The majority of the research on the incident was published between 2014 and 2017. Studies on the event are difficult to find in academia since 2017, although the investigation of the incident is not yet completed. It is difficult to find a reasonable cause for this in academia, but after the 2017 impeachment of President Park, in part for her role in the event, research on the incident has declined.

14. After the Sewol ferry incident, only two academic papers were published with a homiletical background. The first was Sungmin Yoon’s Theodicy from the Perspective of Homiletics. However, this paper cannot be properly considered homiletical research on the incident. As the paper was published on April 20, 2014, the author could not effectively cover the Sewol ferry incident. Instead, the paper mainly dealt with the case of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in 2013. Yoon, Theodicy from the Perspective of Homiletics, 225–51. The second paper was Preaching on Suffering and the Providence of God, which was published by Seungjin Lee in 2015. But, similar to Yoon’s paper, the main arguments in this paper responded to the catastrophic earthquake in Japan in 2013 with the conventional theodic approach on suffering. Lee, Preaching on Suffering and the Providence of God, 252–88.

Immediately after the event, the only seminar on preaching was held by the Council for Church Renewal on May 22, 2014. Under the seminar title of The Pastor in an Era of Suffering: What and How to Preach, three papers were presented on the following topics: (1) disaster and suffering: a psychological analysis of the sorrow of bereavement, (2) research on pastoral counseling for the preaching on the Sewol ferry event, and (3) the pastor in an era of suffering: what and how to preach? These three papers did not clearly diagnose the incident as a form of social suffering. Further, only the third paper proposed a theological-homiletical strategy to address the suffering, but the author underscored lamentation and hope while claiming that the cause of the incident was the people’s sin.

15. According to the Law of Disaster and Safety Management 3.1 of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of the government of South Korea, the pandemic can be categorized as a social disaster or social suffering because elements of the pandemic, including the cause of the outbreak, the massive spread, prevention, and treatment, are deeply related to sociostructural factors.

16. The three countries of Italy, Iran, and South Korea suffered in the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Religion played a crucial role in the spread of the virus in each of these countries. Kim, Uncontact, 253. The first massive outbreak of COVID-19 in Korea was caused in March 2020 by a secretive Christian sect known as the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. Over 65 percent of the five thousand confirmed cases in March were related to actions of this sect. The second outbreak was initiated by a far-right political rally in August 2020 in Gwanghwamun Square located in the center of Seoul that was held by GwangHoon Jeon and his Sarang Jeil Church. And the third wave was ignited in January 2021 by InterCP (a heretical missional parachurch), IM ministry, and Busan Yeolbang Church, all of which allowed in-person gatherings and worship in violation of the government’s guidelines for the prevention of epidemics. Kim, COVID-19: The Pandemic, 197–220.

17. Representative sermons are as follows: Kim, Wuhan Corona Virusui Gyohun; Ji, Jeonyeombyeongeul Kkeunnaeneun Gil; Park, Wuhan Pyeryeom Jeonyeombyeong; Lee, Jaeanggwa Yeongjeong Daechaek.

18. Kim, COVID-19: The Pandemic, 197–220.

19. Choi, Christian Ministry, 171–200.

20. Yang, Protestant Churches Apologize, Yang, S. Korean Protestant Groups Apologize.

21. The survey was conducted by Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul January 6–17, 2021, in the midst of the third wave of COVID-19 in Korean society; 1,402 persons participated in the survey. The results of the survey were publicly presented on April 14, 2021. Choi, COVID-19 pandemic Ihu.

22. Oh, Change of Sermon in the New Normal Era, 117–44; Cheong, Study on Preaching in the Age of POST-COVID, 147–74; Cho, Evaluating Preaching via Video, 181–209; Choi et al., Korona Ihu Yebae Seolgyo Ripoteu.

Chapter 1

Social Suffering in Modern Korean Society

Suffering is an unavoidable aspect of human life. It usually appears in our daily lives in the form of sudden destruction and loss caused by either human actions or acts of nature.²³ Solomon Ibn Gabirol, a medieval poet, describes human suffering well in his poem My Pain Is Great. He writes that suffering has at least one of the following three components: incurable physical illness, psychological and spiritual affliction, and an alienated community that does not understand the sufferer.²⁴ These various sources of suffering make it one of the most profound and disturbing of human experiences.²⁵ In this respect, over the past century, Koreans have undergone various distressing experiences, including imperialism, ideological conflicts, brutal wars, dictatorships, poverty, and an economic crisis. These various traumatic events were not limited to specific groups; rather, everyone experienced these existential life-and-death traumas. Moreover, these collectively encountered forms of suffering have created serious psychological, sociopolitical, and sociocultural issues within society as well as within individuals. Thus, in this chapter I describe the suffering that Koreans have experienced within modern history as social suffering,²⁶ which is a form of suffering that is caused by the moral calamities of human catastrophe, sociopolitical oppression, economic disadvantage, and various sociostructural issues.

The chapter first examines the origin of the concept of social suffering and its significance as a perspective for understanding specific events causing suffering in modern society. Second, the chapter analyzes traumatic events in modern Korean society divided into four distinctive periods—the period of Japanese colonial rule (1910–945), the period of division (1945–1953), the period of the democracy movement (1961–1987), and the period of economic crisis (1997–2001)—from the social suffering perspective, and it also identifies five distinctive characteristics of how Korean society has dealt with these events.

Understanding Social Suffering

The concept of ‘social suffering’ emerged within the rapid industrialization and the increasingly intellectual atmosphere of the eighteenth century on the European continent. Notably, the fundamental recasting of the conventional understanding of suffering advanced during this era.²⁷ The experience of suffering was no longer portrayed as linked to some form of divine providence; rather, it was cast as a consequence of conditions brought about by human behavior and arrangements. As a result, traditional providentialism declined and the rapid transformation of the sociocultural and intellectual contexts in the new industrial society encouraged people to regard the transcendent God of providence as a God who was remote and functionally detached from public secular affairs.²⁸ Therefore, people who live in a rapidly changing society realize that their lived experience of pain, damage, injury, deprivation, and loss does not arise from their relationship with God; some suffering is based on an embodied experience of social structural violence and political oppression.

The Emergence of Social Suffering

The term ‘social suffering’ was first proposed in Descriptive Sketches, a poetic narrative written by William Wordsworth in 1792–93 that describes the transformation of country life in the early period of the Industrial Revolution in France and the Swiss Alps.²⁹ In one passage, he portrays destitute and sick peasants living in the forest along the banks of the upper reaches of the Rhine with the phrase social suffering. He writes:

The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,

Hang o’er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom

His burning eyes with fearful light illume.

The mind condemn’d, without reprieve, to go

O’er life’s long deserts with its charge of woe,

With sad congratulation joins the train

Where beasts and men together o’er the plain

Move on—a mighty caravan of pain:

Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,

Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.³⁰

In this passage, Wordsworth was moved to reflect upon the stoic attitude adopted by people struggling to survive in conditions of extreme adversity, and he drew a picture of hope for humanity.³¹ Indeed, he supported a cultural movement to promote social sympathy as a political virtue; the eighteenth century saw the development of an enlightenment of sympathy³² that claimed that people had the capacity to participate in the suffering of others both as a socializing force and as a motive for the creation of social systems.

While the poem effected a political awakening for revolutionary social reform, it also provoked a philosophical debate over the potential of social sympathy to serve as a foundation for civil society among Scottish Enlightenment figures, including Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith. Hume highly valued the potential of sympathy as a social virtue since it served to produce a more compassionate society. Moreover, he argued that the power of sympathetic attachment to others is the ability to form social solidarity and, thus, maintain society.³³ Smith, however, expressed concern because people have always been caught up in the prevailing opinion in the struggle