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South Korea’s multi-faith society is to blame for religious conflicts such as the recent trouble between Buddhists and Protestants in the country, according to a Seoul professor.
Yoon Yee-heum, honorary professor of religious studies in Seoul National University, this week told a symposium held by the Korean Association for Religious Studies that South Korea is experiencing a multiplicity of religions unparalleled in its history.
But Yoon, who professes no religion, claimed a religion has absolute conviction that “there must be only one, myself, in the world,” which has created recent religious conflicts.
Yoon said religions filled with such a conviction have faced a dilemma because they must accept the fact that they exist in a multi-faith society. He defined pluralism as “creating new relationships among groups who have their own identity.”
Another speaker, Reverend Shin Jae-shik, professor at Honam Theological University and Seminary, asked “Why on earth does Protestantism in the country behave like that?”
He noted that Korean Protestants have been involved in every recent religious conflict, giving the example of Protestant students who prayed for the destruction of a Buddhist temple last October.
Shin said, “The [Korean] Protestant church has not adapted itself to the country’s new multi-religious situation,”
suggesting local Protestants should acknowledge the present religious pluralism in the country.
Park Hee-taek, director of the Buddhist Academy, said in his presentation that the 2005 census disclosed more people favored Catholicism than Protestantism because the Catholic Church does not force people to believe its precepts and promotes religious peace.