Popular Religion And Fullness Of Life:
An Asian Eco-Feminist Reflection

by Chung Hyun Kyung
Korea

Introduction

Last year, I did the most radical thing I have ever done in my life. I became a wandering Buddhist monk in the Himalayan Mountains. In Korea, we say, "You have to be Bul-Hok when you become 40 years old". Bul-Hok means not moving mind. We have this cultural ideal that you should not be swayed by outside circumstances when you become forty.

Well, what a great idea! I had past forty some years ago but still swayed so much by every wind of life brought unto me. I wanted to end this and my life's suffering once and for all. So I shaved my head and joined a Buddhist monastic order to learn how to end life's sufferings. After 100 days of intense training of more than 15 hours of meditation a day in a Korean Zen monastery, I was released to go to the Himalayas. I traveled ancient villages in the Himalayas and learned about a life full of elements.

At the end of my journey, I climbed up a higher mountain in the Tibetan village where I stayed and sat on the top of the mountain. I felt a strange sense of freedom. I felt my life was over and I was ready to die anytime. Throughout my life, I always asked this question. "What do I really want from my life?" Suddenly that question seemed silly. The question dropped. Now I just wanted to do "What life wants from me."

It was like a process of rebirth. That experience also redefined my identity and work as a theologian. I felt this deep inner urgency to stop "explaining God" and to start "expressing God" as honestly and beautifully as possible. It seemed like my theological "individuation" process. I wanted to gather wisdom from my experiences with various people's movements, many years of theological studies and spiritual practices. Then I would like to express that wisdom through Beauty. I wanted to become a theological artist.

I had this sense that the organizing core of the consciousness of the 21st century should be Beauty. I felt that people strived for the Truth in the 19th century and Goodness (justice, human rights, equal rights etc.) in the 20th century. Now is the time for Beauty, a flower from not so perfect and fragile roots of Truth and Goodness. This is also a cultural idea in North East Asia. You can attain Beauty only when you embrace Truth and Goodness.

I began to re-imagine my new theological metaphor for the 21st century with a longing for this Beauty, all encompassing Beauty which can save all of us. I came up with an image, "The Kiss of the Spider Woman," a cosmic weaver of embodied wisdom who transforms the evils of the world with the kiss. The kiss from the "power of the Erotic", the original stirring of the creator, which connects everything to all that is.

Possessed by this vision, I have just finished four volumes of books titled, Goddess-Spell According to Hvun Kvuna: A Letter From Goddess to the Earth Keeping Women Warriors the World. I wrote four volumes like a mad woman, as if my ten years of silence escaped from a solitary confinement of theological mental hospital. While writing the book, my principle as a theological artist became crystal clear:

1. I will only express what I truly know with every cell of my body and soul, through fully experienced and embodied wisdom and words.

2. I choose very common people as my theological audience. I will express my theology as simply, clearly and beautifully as possible. A theology easy to understand, a theology that is audience friendly.

3. I will do theology for the flourishing of Life; all life, in its fullness.

I. My Eco-Social Location

Now I see the world as a female Asian migrant worker who lives and works mainly in the people's republic of New York. I am an intellectual worker who produces and reproduces religious knowledge to change the world. I am uprooted from my motherland. I am located at the margins of Western Academia to teach mainly Western students about the perspectives of the East. Theoretically, I am a "Strategic Essentialist". Politically, I would like to think of myself as an "Eco-Feminist Cultural Guerilla". Culturally I would like to think of myself as "a Bridge Builder, a Boundary Crosser and Cultural Translator". Vocationally, I am a "Theological Artist".

Today I would like to reflect "the meaning of popular religion in Asia's search for fullness of Life" on my theological mirror which was made in my specific eco-social location. I also put the mirror in a wider context for today's theological question. According to my reading of the signs of time, the most important theological challenges we need to respond to now are:

1. Globalization
2. Ecocide of the Earth
3. Madness of Differences

Let us begin our reflection with this contextual background.

II. Definition Of Popular Religion

When I first began my research, I felt confused by the "loose" use of the term "popular religion". It seemed that anything went in this area. I discovered many people use popular religion, folk religion, people's religion, traditional religion, indigenous religion, national religion, primary religion, primitive religion, new religion, civil religion, paganism, superstition, and little tradition in a loose, interchangeable way. They are all different but they overlap in our usage of common language. In order to get some clarification of the term, I turned to The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, (ed. John Bowker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). When I found "popular religion" in the dictionary, it stated, "See folk religion". So I searched for "folk religion". The dictionary defined it in two major ways: "1. Religion which occurs in small, local communities which does not adhere to the norms of large systems. 2. In a wider sense, folk religion is the appropriation of religious beliefs and practices at a popular level." Then, it gave some more characteristics of popular religion as "non-official", "eclectic" and "unorganized". Then, it stated something I never expected; nevertheless, it can form systems of beliefs and practices, as in the cult of Elvis Presley, where his home at Graceland has become a shrine: see further New Religious Movements (p. 350).

The dictionary used popular religion, folk religion, cult, and new religious movement almost interchangeably. It did not help me much. I needed some help. I called two of the best Korean scholars in History of Religion and Anthropology of Religion, Dr Kil Hee Sung and Dr Kim Sung Rye. They told me that the definition itself is a major discussion topic in the study of popular religion

After having read many dictionaries and encyclopedias of religion, I decided to make a tentative working definition for my purpose, a definition which is comprehensive enough to start a theological reflection. Here is my definition of popular religion. Popular Religion: non-official, non-elite, unorganized, eclectic and lived religion, which comes from people's everyday need for well-being, protection and healing. It does not emphasize the importance of scriptures, literary tradition, institution, clergies or doctrinal purity. It is syncretistic and implicit in its nature.

With this tentative definition, let us explore a deeper meaning of popular religion.

III. Anatomy Of Popular Religion

1. Religion Underside of Religion: Carol Christ, in her research on ancient Goddess, claims that many traditions of Goddess religions were lost by the rise of the patriarchal religions that persecuted the former in the name of male, macho, and warrior God. Therefore, many Goddess traditions which were based on land, fertility, and the well being of everyday life were either kidnapped and murdered or tamed and subdued by the dominating forces of monotheistic patriarchal religions. The latter oppressed the former. Many goddess religions became a "religion underside of religion". Dominating monotheistic religions, however, were also influenced and transformed by the religion underside of religion and became "accumulated monotheism".
   
   In other words, popular religion is a loser's religion in relation to universalizing so called "world religions". It is a religion not at the center but at the margin. It is often referred to as "primitive", "pagan", and "superstitious" by the ruling religion of the given society. It is also called "animism", "little tradition" and "syncretism" by the elite. It has the position of "the other" mainly carried by the people of the lower strata of society. Sometimes popular religion takes the form of a civil religion when it is manipulated by the hegemonic power of political elites like in the case of Nazism in Germany or Kim II Sung Worship in North Korea.

2. People's Transformation of Mainline Religion (world religions): Vu Chun Fang, a leading Kuan In scholar makes a case that male Avalokitesvara's gender change into female Kuan In China was due to the peoples' need to modify the lacking aspects of the "official" religion which became overly masculinized. There have always been "popular" forms of world religions such as popular Christianity, popular Buddhism, popular Islam, etc. People pick and choose, appropriate and adopt from indigenous or alien traditions in order to transform the mainline religion so that it can work better for their everyday life. This is an unconscious, eclectic, and syncretistic process. Most of the time, it is initiated by laity, not based on scriptures but based on their urgent need for survival and liberation. For example, we can see this in the "rise of the Feminine" in many patriarchal religions or in the messianic forms of Buddhism and Christianity in the time of historical crises.

3. Cosmic Basis for Meta-Cosmic Religions: Aloysius Pieris names cosmic religion as the ground of meta-cosmic religion. Popular religion in most cases is cosmic religion that provides "matter", "body", and "vernacular" of the meta-cosmic religion. It is organic, ecologically based, and elemental. Popular religion manifests itself as "embodiment" or "incarnation" of meta-cosmic religion. It is mainly an oral and local tradition. When Thomas Berry claims that paganism has saved Christianity, he witnesses so called "pagan" comic resources which makes Christianity alive and relevant.     Popular religion is an ambiguous religious practice which can both liberate and oppress people with the influences of political, economic, and cultural factors. In a liberative aspect, popular religion is a democritization of religion by the people, of the people, and for the people. It is a people power religion which fulfills everyday real needs of ordinary or oppressed people. It manifests peoples' creativity, messianic hope and unbreakable faith. In many marginalized and oppressed groups, popular religion has been a seed for revolutionary practices which overcome and uproot injustice in a given society. It also, in many cases, provided room for religious leadership for women which were not possible for main line patriarchal religion. Popular religion, however, played oppressive roles also in many cases by becoming opium of denial, blind accommodation, or by imitating oppressive structures around it lacking prophetic and ethical norms. It was drowned in the water of immediate comforts sometimes when peoples' ultimate concern became golden cows.

IV. Rise Of New Popular Religion In Our Time

When I finish the above description and analysis of the traditional way of looking at popular religion, something in my heart begins to bother me. The above descriptions do not seem to work perfectly in this world of massive globalization. Organic local traditions and identities are broken down in many parts of the world through electronic media and neo- liberal capitalist invasions. Many of us live in a world which is characterized by "CNNization", "M-TVization" or "Coca-Colonization" of the world. After the so-called "Collapse of the socialist countries, the world became a cruel hunting ground by neo liberalist capitalist cowboys. More than ever in human history, we are forced to live in the culture of acquisitiveness, addictions, amnesia and violence. New oppressions of humanity come with "the manipulations of desire". Increasingly invisible oppressors use the method of "seduction" to pacify people with their material New Heaven and New Earth. Now what seems like our "ultimate concern" or "ground of being" is our desire to have more money, material convenience, and material possession. "Money Worship" seems like the newest popular religion of our time regardless of class, gender, race, national boundary and sexual orientation. How much money you have and how you spend it seems to equal what kind of a person you are. In this culture of acquisitiveness, our souls exiled from ourselves. Without our soul, we become "hungry ghosts" constantly wandering around with a sense of "cosmic homelessness".

The world-wide rise of fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, and new age movement seem like our soul's response to fear, insecurity and loss of identity we feel in our everyday lives. Where is abundant life, life in its fullness in the midst of this madness of materialism, consumerism, and money-worship and rapid death of earth?

I have also searched for the meaning of what it means to be human and life in its fullness in the Western academia where exaggerated difference became the newest commodity of the intellectual market. Discourses on post modernism and post colonialism pushed the whole notion of difference to the extreme where we do not have much common ground left to hold on to for the collective political change. Many of us sound like a broken record repeating ourselves. While we had many discussions of differences in Academia, the world becomes one big hunting ground for neo liberal capitalist cowboys.

In order not to be despaired, I have been searching for alternatives all around the world. The signs of hope. I have seen the signs of the hope where indigenous people rose up against NAFTA in Chiapa, Mexico, when people all around the world gathered together to protest against WTO in Seattle, U.S.A. and to fight against G7 in Geneva, Italy. I also saw a strong sign of hope when women in Kenya plant trees building up Greenbelt Movement and women of Chipko movement in India hugging the trees to save the forest. I also see this sign of hope when Korean women demonstrate against the Japanese government for their denial of using women of many nations as military sexual slavery.

Out of all these signs of hope, what excites my religious, theological and spiritual imagination most is vision of Eco-feminism. I think feminism has been an alternative religion for many women who were sick of patriarchal religions of the world in the latter part of the 2Oth century. Feminism ignited the fire within many women, women's ultimate concern; fullness of life for women and many others oppressed people by the patriarchal system. Eco- feminism has appeared when women began to understand the intimate connection between oppression of women and oppression of nature or all living beings. Patriarchal capitalism is destroying women, nature, and the mother Earth. Eco-feminism tries to tame patriarchal capitalism with its radical egalitarianism of life and alternative politics and life style. Therefore eco-feminism is life-feminism which promotes an abundant life for all. Eco-feminism can be an alternative popular religion against the money worshiping popular religion of today's world. As a Korean woman, I would like to call Korean eco-feminist, or Korean life-feminist "salimist". Salimist came from the Korean word, "salim" which literally means, "life giving" or "making things alive". It commonly defines a typical Korean woman's everyday household chores: cooking, washing, cleaning and nurturing to make everyday life possible. Salimist, Korean eco-feminist tradition has deep roots in our people's history and her- story from ancient Shamanism, Buddhism, Taoism, Dong-Hak peasant movement and new peoples' movements in the 19th century. Today I would like to show you "what constitutes life" from a salimist perspective. I call it "Salimist Ten Principles of Life". I gathered these principles from my last ten years of work with Korean women and people around the world. These principles are based on basic elements of historical and spiritual wisdom from Korean women and insights from people all around the world which resonate with many Korean eco-feminists' ultimate longing for life in its fullness.

V. Salimist Ten Principles Of Life

1. Forest: Forest principle came from the Chipko movement in India. According to Vandana Shiva, Forest Principle is also a feminine principle which embraces diversity, differences and sustainability for better flourishing of the forest. It is also based on interconnectedness and reciprocity of all living things. It is power of caring and nurturing which embraces life giving differences.

2. Water: Water principle came from Taoist practitioners. In Tao Te Chin, the sage talks about the never drying power of water in a valley. We all come from Water. Water is our origin. It is a soft, gentle power of transformation that is persistent and resilient. "Living Water" is also a metaphor of God in the Christian tradition. It is a rain of spirit that revives our desert like existence.

3. Fire: Fire has made major transformation in human civilization. We need another fire of heart to transform the present materialistic civilization. Many feminists are inspired by the work of Audrey Lord, a black, radical feminist scholar-poet. She urged us to find "the power of the Erotic" to transform the world. The power of the Erotic is the power that is connected to the deepest core of ourselves. People who are connected with this power, they cannot be colonized in an ultimate sense.

4. Air: Air blows into empty space. Air teaches us about the necessity of emptiness, simplicity and renunciation in our lives. Without it life cannot sustain itself. We need to prepare empty space in our lives to make life flourish. Holy Spirit, Wind of God blows into a place that is emptied. We learned about the importance of emptiness from various mystical traditions of world religions.

5. Justice-love: This is the principle that Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated so clearly. Justice-love for the most oppressed of the world. It is demonstrated everywhere in the world when people try to restore justice without revenge. Without this justice-Love, there is no peace, no earth.

6. Beauty: Many indigenous people around the world know the prophetic and healing power of Beauty. One Native American sage told me "Eventually, beauty will save us all". She said whenever there was violence and destruction, her people would create something beautiful (e.g.. Garden, beadwork, quilt, etc.), to restore order and spirit in the world. In this way their spirits and their community survived the genocide. We need a "counter beauty" which will subdue capitalist commercial construction of beauty, which destroys our ability to feel true beauty. True beauty comes from balance and harmony based on truth and goodness.

7. Joy and Celebration: Celebration is ancient epistemology of knowing god. Diego lrarasaval, a Chilean Catholic priest who has been working with indigenous people in an Andean village in Peru for twenty years, confessed that his theological epistemology "faith seeking understanding" has changed into "Celebration seeking understanding" or "Joy seeking understanding" through his encounter with indigenous people. He said most oppressed indigenous people meet their God through their fiesta, music, and vibrant colors of clothing, food, and dance. They experience "temporary" wholeness when they celebrate through Joy. Ultimately, people who celebrate enthusiastically cannot be anybody's slave.

8. Ant and Spider: Ant and spider power is the power of the common people, rather than the elephant and tiger power of the elites. When small ants make a hole in the big pyramid structure of oppression, it will eventually collapse. We also need networking in every level of our lives like a spider. We have to make connections with others through the embodied fabric of our experiences in the community.

9. Seventh Generation: Native American people teach us to make decisions today by thinking about the consequences of our decisions and how the result will affect the seventh generation of our children. We especially need living land to pass unto our children. Joanna Macy, an eco-feminist activist, also urges us to "think like a mountain". Native Americans are very land-based people. Living land and continuation of community make our lives possible.

10. Compassion-Ahimsa: We need non-violent social change when the whole world is filled with multiple forms of violence. But this is not always possible. Therefore, we need compassion to forgive others and ourselves. Otherwise, we will die with our political correctness.

I believe that the worldwide rise of eco-feminism can be an alternative new popular religion which can counter today's prevailing money worshiping religion, Manmonism. To conclude my reflection, I would like to share with you a vision of Salimist, which is a manifestation of eco-feminism from Korea. My definition of Salimist is inspired by the word, "womanist" which was created by an African American feminist, Alice Walker.

Salimist - Noun

1. (From Korean word Salim, which literally means making things alive) a Korean eco-feminist or anybody who wants to join the vision of a Korean eco-feminist. Salimist makes things alive, especially dying things like Earth. Salim means a Korean woman's everyday household chores. Eg. Gathering wood, water, and food, cooking, cleaning, washing, weaving, raising children, healing the sick, caring for the old, flowers, trees, wells, cows, chickens, dogs and the household spirits. Salim also means mending broken things. Eg. Pots and pans, shoes and hearts. When Korean people say, "Oh! She is a 'Salim-kun' (salim expert)", it means she has perfected the skill, art or expertise of making things alive, e.g.. Feeding everybody so that they are all full and happy, generating the peace, health and abundance of the family (very large extended family of all forms of life) and creating a beautiful living environment.

2. Also, a salimist touches everything like a magician, a revolutionary or a God/ess. When she touches, everything starts to smite, grow and become vivid, colorful and alive. She loves to cook vegetarian dishes (but, very seldom, she cooks some bad guys in her big boiling soup pot when she is really, really mad), movement strategies and a vision of fundamental social change. She conspires like Latin American eco-feminists, conspirators. She survives no matter what! She loves to clean laughing children, polluted rivers and the politics and economics of dirty old men. Some Salimists call the smelly garbage of dirty old men "patriarchal capitalism". She is an 'inclusivist," or 'embracist". She thinks differences are "wonder-full", good and boosting our immune system. Different plants and trees make a forest strong, people from different races make the most gorgeous babies, and different colored threads make rainbow shawls. She includes everybody: men, women, young, old, poor, rich, outcast, in cast, educated, uneducated, able-bodied, differently-able, homo, hetero, bi, multi, and transsexuals in her party , in her worship service and in her demonstration against injustice, if they have good intentions and hearts. But she is a tough inclusivist like mother Kali. If she sees wicked intentions and evil hearts, she cuts off every evil head with her sword of Justice when she has to. Then she includes those beheaded evil heads in her necklace. She sings like a strong South African mother. "Now you have touched woman. You have struck a rock", roaring at injustice. In the end she embraces everything. Good and bad, light and shadow, clean and dirty, joy and sorrow, suffering and liberation, and anger and compassion because they are good "compost" material for her soul, meditation and poetry. She especially loves to embrace trees like the Chipko women in India hugging the tree and saying to loggers with axes, "Over my dead body, please!"

3. Salimist recycle everything: paper, milk cartons, glass bottles, politicians and leadership positions, ex-Lovers, ex-husbands, ex-Gods and life itself. When people are despaired because revolution seems too slow to come, at least not in their life time, she encourages people in the movement laughing, "Hey, hang loose. We can come back again and again, a million times. We just do what we can do the best here and now. Then, let's dance!"

4. Salimist is a peace activist who "thinks like a mountain". In Korea, some salimist are married. Their husbands call them "An-Hae" which means "the sun of the household". With her warm, compassionate and wise "Sunshine Policy",* she promotes conflict resolution, non-violent resistance, peace, reconciliation and harmony wherever she goes. (According to some imaginative linguists, Korean Salim, Hebrew Shalom and Arabic Salam came from the same linguistic origin because originally all human beings came from Africa. But this theory has not been proven).
   
   "Sunshine Policy" is the policy of the South Korean government toward North Korea. This policy made 50 years of ice of hatred; suspicion and violence melt a little bit. The heads of the North and South Korean government met for the first time in June 2000 after 50 years of separation. Both South and North Korean woman thought that we would have had unification of Korea a long time ago if we had had a woman president in both North and South Korea.

5. Salimist loves women, nature, earth, and Goddess (or some God or God like men such as Jesus, Buddha or Rumi for a change) She loves rice, lotus, everything "feminine", and "feminist" according to her own definition. She also loves emerging "Salim-kun" men and everything flowing like tears, rivers, clouds, life energy: ki, shakti, prana, ruah, and her menstrual blood. She loves drumming, dancing, singing and loves making love. She whispers, "Life is an organism (or orgasm)! Multiply!!". Then she comes, she comes again, and she comes again and again like a Spring. Salimist celebrates her womb and the womb of the universe, their creative power. And of course she loves herself. Because of, in spite of, well, no matter what!

6. If womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender, salimist is dark green, the color of "En-Darken-Ment", which makes purple and lavender flowers more beautiful.