Poch’ŏn’gyo and the Imperial State: Negotiations Between the Spiritual and Secular Governments

Abstract

In the 1920s, Ch’a Kyŏngsŏk (1880–1936), the founder and leader of Poch’ŏn’gyo, the second largest new religion in colonial Korea, was rumored to become the emperor of Korea. The Japanese imperial authorities therefore deemed this group to be politically dangerous and began to repress it, firstly by trying to capture Ch’a and arresting many members, then by outlawing it as a quasi-religion, and latterly by engaging in a “war” of attrition and disinformation aimed at impoverishing it and discrediting it with the Korean people. Poch’ŏn’gyo responded with compromise, faltering attempts at modernization, and buying a newspaper, which proved to be a public-relations disaster. Ch’a even denied he would be an emperor in a political sense. As Poch’ŏn’gyo was repeatedly outmaneuvered, Ch’a attempted to Confucianize his teaching to make it acceptable to the Japanese authorities as an ethical teaching. This bitterly disappointed members, and when Ch’a died, Poch’ŏngyo was easily eliminated.