Chung Hyun Kyung

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chung Hyun Kyung (2014)
Chung Hyun Kyung (2014)

Korean spelling
Hangeul 정현경
Revised
Romanization 		Jeong Hyeon-gyeong
McCune-
Reischauer 		Chŏng Hyŏnkyŏng

Chung Hyun Kyung (* 1956 in Kwangju ) is a South Korean theologian. She is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Korea and an ordained Dharma teacher at the Kwan Um Zen School . She describes herself as a "Salimist" (Korean eco-feminist ), derived from the Korean word salim , " bringing something to life."

Chung is an Associate Professor of Ecumenical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Youth and Studies

Chung Hyun Kyung's father was a Confucianist and his mother a Christian. They had a respected social position, the mother found freedom from the strictly regulated role of the Confucian wife through voluntary work in the church.

After the father went bankrupt, the family lived in poor conditions. Hyun Kyung was eleven years old at the time. From then on she devoted herself entirely to learning in order to advance socially. So she was accepted into the most prestigious school in Korea. She first came into contact with the student movement in college. While reading the classics of European Protestant theology during her studies, she took part in study groups that analyzed the social reality in South Korea and the consequences of colonialism .

Chung graduated from Ewha Womans University in Seoul in 1981 with a master's degree. After further studies at the School of Theology in Claremont and the Women's Theological Center in Boston, she received her doctorate in 1989 from Union Theological Seminary ( Struggle to be the Sun Again: Emerging Asian Women's Liberation Theology ).

In 1987, Chung Hyun Kyung had met her birth mother ( ci-baji , surrogate mother), a simple woman from the country. The father chose her after it became clear that his wife could not have children. One year after the birth, as agreed, she gave her daughter to the Chung couple and thus got into a mental crisis. Faced with this life story, Chung began to develop an Asian women's theology. Both mothers had combined Christianity and Buddhism in a different way in order to use the life-promoting elements for themselves - at least that is how the daughter interpreted these two biographies.

WCC assembly Canberra 1991

Mudang in a kut ritual. Chung Hyun Kyung interprets Jesus Christ as a healer analogous to the mudang in Korean shamanism

In 1991, Chung Hyun Kyung became known worldwide through her presentation at the assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra . The theme of this was “Come, Holy Spirit, and renew all creation”. Before Chung's presentation there was a speech by Patriarch Parthenios III. from Alexandria on the program; But since the patriarch was prevented because of the Second Gulf War , Protopresbyter Georgios Tsetsis ( Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ) read the speech in the style of a dogmatic treatise. The contrast with what followed couldn't have been greater.

Instead of giving a speech in front of the 3,500 delegates and international observers, Chung Hyun Kyung appeared dressed in white to the sound of drums and gongs with a group of Korean dancers, also dressed in white, and two aborigines with body paint. She asked those present to take off their shoes to prepare for the encounter with God's Spirit. Then she read the names of downtrodden women and men from the past from a roll of rice paper and invited these deceased people to come. Besides humans, the spirit of the Amazon rainforest and the spirit of “earth, air and water, raped, tormented and exploited by human greed” were invited in this way. This corresponded to the sequence of a shamanistic Korean invocation ceremony. The spirits that have been summoned are, according to Chung, full of han (bitterness). The term han echoes the experience of Korean history, the suffering under foreign rule, as well as the suffering of Korean women from their subordination imposed by Confucianism .

In the further course, Chung combined biblical motifs with the Korean concepts of wandering ancestral spirits and the life energy ki . She interpreted the Holy Spirit with the Buddhist deity Kwan Yin , who delays her entrance into nirvana to help people. She is worshiped in Korea as the goddess of compassion and love.

One observer wrote: "There was passionate applause, but also passionate silence."

Chung Hyun Kyung's contribution was particularly disturbing for delegates from the Eastern Orthodox churches. They made an official statement that their tradition had always shown respect for local and national cultures, but that this invocation ceremony crossed the line of syncretism . When the World Council of Churches ceased to exercise its task of promoting Christian unity, the Orthodox members would have to review their further participation in this organization. A public hearing on Chung's presentation was held on February 16. "On the one hand, your presentation was taken seriously by most of the feminist and Third World delegates, on the other hand, the presentation was uncomfortable for the Orthodox and Western delegates."

The discussion about whether it was legitimate to merge Korean shamanism and Buddhism with Christianity, however, had the deficit that Chung's contribution was not a ritual performed by any Christian group in Korea or elsewhere: it was “an ad hoc one Conference event ”.

Further theological development

Chung Hyun Kyung stayed true to the direction taken in Canberra and worked as a speaker worldwide for many years.

At the Kwan Um Zen School in Rhode Island, founded by the Korean master Seung Sahn , she practiced Zen meditation for over fifteen years. With his recommendation, she spent a winter retreat with Buddhist monks and nuns in the Shin-Won Temple in Korea on her sabbatical 1999/2000. From there she set out for the Himalayas and visited Tibetan temples and farming villages. In 2008, she received ordination as a Dharma teacher through Seung Sahn .

Publications

  • Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming . In: Letty M. Russell et al. (Ed.): Inheriting Our Mothers' Gardens: Feminist Theology in Third World Perspective . Louisville 1988. pp. 54-74. ISBN 978-0-664-25019-5 .
  • Struggling to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women's Theology. SCM Press London 1991. ISBN 978-0-88344-684-3 .
  • Come, Holy Spirit - Break Down the Walls with Wisdom and Compassion . In: Ursula King (Ed.): Feminist Theology from the Third World: A Reader. Orbis Books, Eugene 1994. ISBN 978-1-4982-1997-6 . Pp. 392-394.
  • (together with Alice Walker :) Hyun Kyung and Alice's Fabulous Love Affair with God . Seoul 2004
  • Shaman in the stomach, Christian in the head. Women of Asia on the move . Stuttgart 1992. ISBN 978-3-7831-1204-7 .

literature

  • Marion Haubner: Han. Christology in the work of Chung Hyun Kyung , Frankfurt / New York 2004 ISBN 978-3-631-52105-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Volker Küster: A Protestant Theology of Passion: Korean Minjung Theology Revisited . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010, ISBN 978-90-04-17523-5 , pp. 105 .
  2. ↑ Chung Hyun Kyung: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming . 1988, p. 61 .
  3. ↑ Chung Hyun Kyung: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming . 1988, p. 58 .
  4. ↑ Chung Hyun Kyung: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming . 1988, p. 66-67 .
  5. ↑ Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro: The Jesus of Asian Women . Logos Press, New Delhi 2010, p. 101 .
  6. ↑ a b c Peter Steinfels: Beliefs. In: The New York Times. March 16, 1991, accessed November 20, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Kwang-Hong Min: Relationship between the World Council of Churches and the Churches of Korea. (PDF) p. 46 , accessed on November 20, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Yong Sung Kim: Theodicy as a problem of philosophy and theology: on the question of suffering and evil in view of the almighty and good God . LIT Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6341-7 , p. 97-103 .
  9. ↑ Kwang Hong-Min: Relationship between the World Council of Churches and the Churches of Korea. (PDF) Retrieved November 20, 2018 .
  10. ^ Henning Wrogemann: Intercultural theology and hermeneutics: basic questions, current examples, theoretical perspectives . Gütersloher Verlag, Gütersloh 2012, ISBN 978-3-579-08141-0 .
  11. ↑ Volker Küster: A Protestant Theology of Passion. Korean Minjung Theology Revisited . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010, ISBN 978-90-04-17523-5 , pp. 113 .
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Chung is the family name here, Hyun Kyung is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Chung, Hyun Kyung
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chung, Hyun salim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South Korean theologian
DATE OF BIRTH 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Kwangju