Rhee Syngman’s Protestant theory of liberty: 1894–1910

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article I highlight the ways in which Rhee Syngman, the first South Korean president (1948–1960), conceptualised the notion of liberty in the 1900s within a Protestant intellectual framework. The key contention is that understanding his theorisation of freedom requires us to take seriously his claims regarding Protestantism. That Rhee conceptualised freedom in Protestant terms serves to contest two intersecting trends in scholarly literature: firstly, the view that the theory of freedom was deeply compromised by nineteenth-century liberal imperialism; secondly, that in light of the Western modernity that in the late-nineteenth century gave rise to the turbulent formation of modern nation-state in East Asia, the notion of freedom was in essence a secularised notion, despite its connection with Protestant missionaries. Against these, the article locates the meaning of freedom for Rhee firmly within a Protestant conceptual grid. Three elements comprised his theory: anti-Catholicism, trade, and international law. With these Rhee offered a theory vindicating the political relevance of liberty on the grounds of a moral imperative to exchange and socialise. In the final analysis I reflect on the role of religious thought in the formation of modern political thought in Korea.