Yohan Yoo

Song Chong Lee

This volume project explores how evolving values and identities in contemporary Korean society are interpreted, particularly through the lens of religion, positioning it as a window into Korea’s dynamic cultural and social landscape. As Korea grapples with rapid modernization, shifting religious beliefs and expressions reflect new aspects of the Korean people’s values and identity, in both personal and communal dimensions. We believe that this dynamic backdrop creates a complex web of tensions as Koreans negotiate between established norms and newly infused or internally emerging global ideas, inspiring and provoking efforts to navigate and advocate for future directions both within and beyond the country.

Identity and Values in a Changing World

Reimagining Korea

Song-Chong Lee

The articles in this volume present a variety of theoretical and historical cases to enlarge our understanding of religious conflict and coexistence. Seven out of the ten articles discuss cases of major religions in Korea, including Shamanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Christianity. They explore the particularity of Korean religions in seeking theological and philosophical inclusiveness, playing a positive role in society and building stable interreligious relations. The other three articles cover non-Korean themes including religious conflict of interfaith families, a biblical analysis of particularism and universalism and a new interpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans. All of these articles are aimed at identifying major causes of religious conflict and finding some effective solutions drawn from various theoretical and practical domains.

The Korean Context and Beyond

Religious Conflict and Coexistence

James W. Watts

This collaboration between two scholars from different fields of religious studies draws on three comparative data sets to develop a new theory of purity and pollution in religion, arguing that a culture’s beliefs about cosmological realms shapes its pollution ideas and its purification practices. The authors of this study refine Mary Douglas’ foundational theory of pollution as "matter out of place," using a comparative approach to make the case that a culture’s cosmology designates which materials in which places constitute pollution. By bringing together a historical comparison of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions, an ethnographic study of indigenous shamanism on Jeju Island, Korea, and the reception history of biblical rhetoric about pollution in Jewish and Christian cultures, the authors show that a cosmological account of purity works effectively across multiple disparate religious and cultural contexts. They conclude that cosmologies reinforce fears of pollution, and also that embodied experiences of purification help generate cosmological ideas. Providing an innovative insight into a key topic of ritual studies, this book will be of vital interest to scholars and graduate students in religion, biblical studies, and anthropology.

Yohan Yoo

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