Protestant Confucianism: Kang Youwei’s Influence in Korea

Abstract

Abstract The impact of Kang Youwei’s Confucius-church movement has not been limited to China proper. Korean intellectuals in the early 20th century had been in contact with Kang and his students, set up affiliated institutions in their homeland, and authored creative manifestos on the reformation of Confucianism. This article surveys the reform proposals of four representative Korean Confucians and analyzes their support of, and negotiations with, Kang’s Confucius religion. It illustrates how some Korean reformers chose to adopt only Kang’s “state-protecting Confucianism” or join the movement in form but not in content, while others embraced his vision more fully, depicting their own perennial versions of the Great Unity, and developing original formats of Confucian religious practice. These proposals highlight the remarkable ways in which Protestantism served as a central model for the Confucian religious reforms of the early 20th century.