Paving the Way For Religion Freedom on the Korean Peninsula: The Catholic And the Tonghak Fight Against Persecution

Abstract

To talk of "religious freedom" in Korea before the twentieth century is an anachronism. The words "religion" and "freedom" did not exist in Korea until they were imported from Japan near the end of the 19th century. That does not mean that pre-modern Korea did not have what we can now label as religions. Instead what we now call religions were called by a variety of different terms, such as gyo (teachings), do (a way), beop (laws, methods), hak (scholarship, ways of thinking), and even sul (techniques, practices). What is important to notice here is that none of these terms refers to beliefs or practices which can claim freedom from interference by the government. In fact, it was assumed in traditional Korea that the government had a moral obligation to interfere in matters we would now call "religious" in order to ensure that its subjects did what were supposed to do, an did not do what they were not supposed to do.