by Yangrae Son

Minjung theology is an indigenous Korean theology. Arising from participation m the suffering of the minjung, it confronts socio-political injustice in Korea and challenges both the status quo and the privatized faith that accepts it. Out of their concrete experiences, minjung theologians have shaped this theology and in the light of these experiences they challenge the previously dominant theological presuppositions and understand the Bible in a new way. In many respects minjung theology is a good corrective to the privatized, fundamentalist theology which the missionaries brought to Korea. However, minjung theology’s most significant weakness shows in the way it approaches the Bible.

Minjung theology’s hermeneutical presuppositions, especially those of Nam-Dong Suh, put it at the extreme end of the spectrum of current theologies. Suh’s arguments about ‘detheologizing’ the Bible, the priority of the minjung’s stories over the biblical stories, and his action-oriented interpretation of Scripture, indicate the direction in which this theology may develop in the future. Suh, as an adventurous theologian and a “fearless prophet”1 attempts to transcend widely accepted rules in theology. By bringing to the Bible the experiences and questions which emerge from the minjung’s unique social and cultural context in Korea, Suh and other minjung theologians reinterpret the Bible and set a new direction for theology. Minjung theology shows a “paradigm shift”2 in theology, involving a radically different understanding of the task of theology. Minjung theology claims that the subject of theology is the minjung. The perspective of the minjung functions as a criterion by which the acceptability of all theological assertions must be judged.

1. Byung-Mu Ahn’s Hermeneutical Criticism of Nam-Dong Suh’s Use of the Bible in Theology

By locating the minjung at the centre of theological reflection, minjung theology sets in motion a process of theological dismantling and a reformulation of Christianity. Its break with Western theology and its vision of a new direction for theology are based on and reinforced by its interpretation of the Bible. However, we cannot easily identify any explicit hermeneutical theory developed by minjung theology. There is a debate between Nam-Dong Suh and Byung-Mu Ahn. But this debate is not really a debate; it does not consist of argument and counter-argument, but only of Ahn’s criticism of Suh’s hermeneutical presuppositions. There is no counter-argument from Sub, since Ahn’s criticism of Suh appeared only after Suh’s death. Before analyzing Ahn’s hermeneutical criticism, we will look briefly at Sub’s hermeneutical claims, which provoked Ahn’s criticism.

Nam-Dong Suh insists that the Bible and Christian tradition, in which ideological distortions remain alive, must be purified in terms of the minjung’s perspective, lest they function to support the status quo and the ideology of the rulers. Suh, in his article “De-Theologized Reflection on Folktales’ presents two examples of such ideologically distorted description of historical events in the Bible: the story of Jephtha’s daughter and the narratives about Jesus.3 Suh accepts Phyllis Trible’s argument that ancient Israel’s legends give a different understanding of the story of Jephthah from that found in the official canon. In the canonical Scriptures Jephthah is praised as a man of faith, who died a natural death. In contrast to this, Jewish legend holds that in death he was punished by dismemberment.4 The Galilean ‘minjung’s’ stories about Jesus also appear in the New Testament as distorted by the official church leaders to serve the ‘Christ-kerygma’.5 The minjung’s stories were distorted and even eliminated in the Bible. This insight led Suh to seek to retrieve the minjung’s stories by ‘de-theologizing’ the Bible. Observing that the theology of the official church leaders functioned as ideology and distorted the historical events in the Bible,6 Suh argues that an exegete must approach the Bible without any theological presuppositions in order to discern the historical events in it without ideological distortion. Sub’s attempt to find the minjung’s stories, which, he argues, are the authentic communication medium of God’s redemptive acts, is not limited to the Bible. He asserts that God’s redemptive acts can and must be found in the history of the Korean minjung and their traditional folktales.7 In Suh’s theology, the central focus is on the Korean minjung tradition, rather than on the ‘minjung’ tradition in the Bible.8 Sub’s emphasis on the Korean minjung tradition is clearly expressed in his essay “Confluences of Two Stories.”9 He understands the task of Korean minjung theology as being to “show that the minjung tradition in Christianity and the Korean minjung tradition are united in the mission of God in Korea.”10

Byung-Mu Ahn critiques Nam-Dong Suh as tending to “regard our context as the text and the text as merely the context.”11 Pointing out that Suh’s starting point is other than the Bible, Ahn raises a hermeneutical question: “Then Suh examines legends or folktales, does and can he analyze them without any particular viewpoint?”12 Ahn argues that Suh’s point of view is inevitably influenced by the Bible. When theologians try to interpret the minjung or the minjung tradition, they cannot prevent themselves from being influenced and determined by the biblical viewpoint.13 Ahn clearly acknowledges the boundaries within which he operates as a Christian biblical scholar. He says in a contrast to Suh, “my ‘paradigm’ is only the Bible, from whose viewpoint I read Korean history and discern the minjung-events and Korean church history. I do not deal with minjungology but with minjung theology.”14 Considering that throughout his works Ahn himself acknowledges his indebtedness for hermeneutical insights to Bultmann, Ahn’s criticism of Suh’s use of the Bible in theology is obviously inspired by Bultmann’s hermeneutics, especially his idea of ‘pre-understanding’.15

Ahn further claims that it is unacceptable and unjustifiable to separate the text and the context of the interpreter, and rules out any tension between them. Using Bultmannian language, Ahn says, ‘just as we cannot objectify history while we are within history. I cannot objectify the text and the context when I read the text within my context.”16 He rejects any subject-object schema separating the context and the text. But if there is an undeniable historical distance between the interpreting subject and the interpreted object, Ahn’s claim about the inseparability of the text and the context raises some questions. How does he deal with the problem of historical distance? How does he try to overcome this distance in order to attain objective interpretation?

Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical notion of the tension between the horizons of the author and the interpreter is instructive for avoiding a fall into subjectivist interpretation.17

But in Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics, we find no awareness of the significance of this tension. Prior to discussing this tension further, we will look at some of the similarities and differences between Ahn and Bultmann; this will lead us to discern that Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics is a version of Bultmann’s existentialist hermeneutics, but become more subjectivist than Bultmann’s. This comparison will show that such subjectivist interpretation in Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics can be corrected and overcome by recognizing the tension created by the historical distance between the horizons of the text and that of the interpreter.

Throughout his work, Ahn shows his awareness of the fact that there is no interpretation without presuppositions. All understanding presupposes participation in varying conglomerates of pre-understanding, in terms of which the interpreter marks sense of reality. Following Bultmann, Ahn asserts that there is no neutrality or objectivity; the historical-critical method itself is motivated by particular presuppositions. Ahn says, “in the term ‘historical-critical’, ‘historical’ itself inevitably involves a special perspective on history, and ‘critical’ itself means choosing a particular position from which something can be criticized.”18 For Ahn, the consequence of this point is that the essential and only way to read the Bible is from the perspective of the minjung. He insists that “the key to reading the Bible” is “to take on the side of the minjung”.19 This conclusion is reminiscent of Bultmann’s existentialist hermeneutics. Expounding the impossibility of interpretation without presuppositions, Bultmann argued that the subjectivity of the interpreter must not be understood merely as choosing a special viewpoint for his or her question to the text. Before choosing a point of view, the interpreter already has a relation to the subject-matter (Sache) about which he or she questions the text. Bultmann called this relation the ‘life-relation’, which bonds the interpreter and the text. The interpreter’s presuppositions, which are brought to the text, are prompted from his or her relation to the subject-mailer. Bultmann claimed that our ‘life-relation’ to the Bible, which we have in advance, is about the question of human existence. Just as Bultmann took an existentialist viewpoint to his interpretation of the Bible, Ahn is emphatic about the perspective of the minjung and the ‘key’ to opening the Bible. For Ahn’s hermeneutics, the life-relation between the interpreter and the Bible is the passion for the minjung’s suffering and their liberation. Ahn’s claim that “true interpretation is possible only through participation in the liberation~events”20 echoes Bultmann’s dictum that “only the historian who is excited by his participation in history will be able to understand history.”21

In spite of many affinities between Bultmann’s existentialist hermeneutics and Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics, there are two significant differences between them. First while Bultmann strongly repudiates any attempt to absolutize any perspective (despite his view that existentialist philosophy offers the most adequate perspective for the interpretation of the Bible), Ahn tends to absolutize the minjung’s viewpoint in interpreting the Bible. Whereas Bultmann insists that the interpreter’s pre-understanding must risk modification through encountering the Bible (although his theological assumption and hermeneutical theory permit only a limited revision of pre-understanding), Ahn hardly says anything about the continuing openness to criticism of one’s pre-understanding in the process of reading the Bible. Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics tends to read out of the Bible only what it has put into it.

Secondly, Ahn’s rejection of the historical-critical method in theology stands in contrast to Bultmann’s commitment to it. As we have seen above, Ahn dismisses the method simply because it cannot bring out objectivity in interpretation. In addition, his idea that historical criticism is inapplicable and alien to Eastern thought underlies his rejection of that method. Ahn puts it this way: “The historical-critical method is always used to justify the investigating subject’s opinion. This method is not the only way to reach the truth. If we are not forced into a Westernized way of thinking, it is possible in hermeneutics to have other methods besides the Western method.”22 Ahn regards the historical-critical method as a product of Western civilization, in which the subject-object schema prevails. He urges the use of some other method to surmount the historical-critical method, by turning back to Eastern thought in which the subject and the object are not yet separated.23 Since Ahn’s attempt to find a new methodology for his hermeneutics seems to be just in the beginning stage, our analysis of Ahn’s rejection of the historical-critical method is limited to seeing how he tries to gain objectivity of understanding without the historical-critical method, and to looking at the consequences of his repudiation of it.

In dealing with the problem of the historical-critical method, Ahn attempts to justify his repudiation of historical criticism by arguing that Bultmann also makes a negative assessment of that method in his theology.24 Aim’s interpretation of Bultmann’s view of historical criticism is short-sighted. It is true that Bultmann rejected 19th century liberation theology’s use of the historical-critical method for attempting to ground faith upon the result of that method. Bultmann regarded as a delusion liberal theology’s confidence that such a critical method could lead to the historical Jesus on faith could be grounded. Bultmann’s background, Lutheran theology and Heideggerian hermeneutics, ensured that he regarded such a basis for faith as illegitimate and impossible. But it is also true that Bultmann, throughout his entire work, carried on and was committed to historical criticism. For Bultmann, the historical-critical method is the method of self-criticism. It is a critical method which constantly questions and reflects on the results of research. For Bultmann, the historical-critical method is employed “not to establish casual dependence, but rather in the service of sell-reflection as the method of endless questioning.”25

When interpreters bring their questions to the Bible, questions which arise from their participation in the minjung movement and re-interpret the Bible from the perspective of the minjung, how can it be shown that their re-interpretation is not arbitrary? Throughout his works Ahn demonstrates that his re-interpretation of the Bible from the minjung’s viewpoint is not arbitrarily subjectivist but stands on historical fact which is established through a sociological approach to the Bible. This shows that Ahn is correctly aware that every interpretation of a historical event described in a text must be tested in the light of its actual historical situation. From this viewpoint, Ahn argues that the historical Jesus must be sought as the measure of the multiplicity of interpretation of him. In addition, he asserts that Jesus of Nazareth should be understood as an “Event’ of the minjung which has continuously happened in history, not simply as a ‘person’ who once lived in Galilee. In spite of his disagreement with Bultmann over the historical Jesus, Ahn, just as Bultmann, emphasizes present events in which Jesus Christ is proclaimed, rather than the actual historical person, Jesus of Nazareth. Ahn’s concern for the present effect of the Jesus-event is evident in his description of Jesus as “a volcano,” which belongs to “the volcanic range of the Messiah.”26 Both the minjung-events happening in the present situation and the “Jesus-event’ of the past belong to the same ‘range’. Ahn contends that without participating in the minjung-events we cannot discern the Jesus-event.27 In Aim’s understanding of Jesus, Jesus is meaningless unless he is related to the minjung, the ochks. Against his intention to gain a correct interpretation of Christ in the light of the historical Jesus, Ahn prompted by his experiences in the minjung-events refuses to modify his preunderstanding through encounter with the historical Jesus. Ahn’s quest for the historical Jesus is merely a starting point for his strategy of removing from the historical Jesus the cloth of Western dogma and then covering him with minjung cloth. Kwang-Shik Kim, a theologian of indigenization, comments aptly on Aim’s minjung hermeneutics: Ahn “meets the minjung instead of Christ.”28

Ahn’s quest for the historical Jesus results in replacing Jesus with the minjung; his hermeneutics rejects the historical-critical method. The consequences of this are that the Bible (in Ahn’s hand) is not allowed to say what it has to say, and the minjung’s cries overwhelm Jesus so that the minjung fail to hear what the historical Jesus says. In Ahn’s minjung hermeneutics, the minjung are the judge of all interpretations of the Bible. The interpreter’s pre-understanding, prompted by his/her participation in the minjung’s suffering, is too dominant and reduces the richness of the interpretation of the Bible to the question about the minjung-movement. The historical-critical method and the historical Jesus are necessary to save Ahn’s interpretation of the Bible from falling into sheer subjectivism.

Ahn’s criticism of Nam-Dong Suh’s use of the Bible is inspired by the hermeneutical theory (especially Bultmann’s) of ‘pre-understanding’. But Ahn’s understanding of that theory and his appropriation of it are shallow and selective. Even though Ahn rightly employs Bultmann’s hermeneutical insight that pre-understanding is unavoidable and determinative for understanding in his criticism of Suh, he fails to recognize that the interpreter’s pre-understanding must be open to correction in the process of reading the text.

2. The Impasse of Mlnjung Theology

Both Byung-Mu Ahn and Nam-Dong Suh critically observe that the Bible has often been used to legitimize Christian participation in oppression. Furthermore, they argue that ideological distortions are presenj within the Bible. However, they diverge on the issue of whether, in spite of these distortions, the Bible must remain as a ‘normative source’ for theology. Ahn considers the Bible as the only “reference” (prism), through which he discerns and interprets reality.29 However, Suh refuses to limit his perspective to the Bible, and attempts to find “references” which can provide a hermeneutical framework for interpreting the people’s rights movement not only in the Bible but also in the history of the church and the tradition of the minjung movement in Korean history.30

If the Bible itself is made the criterion for the use of all sources of theology, nothing specific is said, because the Bible is a collection of religious literature written, collected, and edited through the centuries by various religious communities. This character of the Bible leads an exegete to choose one perspective as the norm, in the light of which he! she interprets and evaluates the biblical books.31 As we saw above, both Ahn and Suh reinterpreted the Bible and sought to create new accounts of the gospel in the light of their own norm, i.e. the liberation movement of the minjung. Aim derives this norm from the Bible; the minjung tradition within the Bible is his norm. In this sense, the Bible can be regarded as the norm for Ahn’s theology because his theological norm is derived from it. But for Sub the norm is not derived solely from the Bible. Despite Suh’s statement that the events of the Exodus and Crucifixion-Resurrection in the Bible are the primary point of reference, his central focus and primary source, from which his norm is derived, is the minjung tradition in Korean history. Now we will see how Suh theologically justifies giving priority to the Korean minjung tradition over the Bible.

In his critical essay on C.S. Song’s theology, “Cultural Theology, Political Theology and Minjung Theology,” Nam-Dong Suh agrees with Song’s view of the relation between creation theology and redemption theology; in Asian cultures and histories not only “God’s work of creation” but also “God’s work of Redemption” are operative.32 God’s activity in creation and God’s activity in salvation are two sides of the same reality.”33 Even though they advocate the framework of Creation for doing theology in Asian cultures, the two have different approaches to these cultures. While Song derives the ‘proto-model’ only from the Bible and applies it to Asian cultures34, Suh derives the proto-model, i.e. the ‘archetype’ in Suh’s terms, from the events of the Exodus and the Crucifixion-Resurrection, the history of the church, and the tradition of the minjung movement in Korean history. Whereas Song interprets and judges Asian people’s folktales in the light of the biblical stories, Suh does not consider the biblical stories as the norm by which to assess the peoples’ folktales. D. P. Niles sums up the difference between Song and Suh; “in his criticism of C. S. Song, the late Nam-Dong Suh bemoaned the unnecessary hurry to Christianize or theologize the Asian stories without allowing them to speak on their own terms.”35 The problem is how these two lots of stories are related. Besides Christianizing the Asian stories (Song) and giving priority to the Korean minjung tradition over the Bible (Suh), what kind of connection of these two traditions can provide a framework for Asian theologies?

Byung-Mu Ahn criticises Suh’s tendency to “erase” the biblical stories in favour of the minjung’s stories.36 Again, Ahn’s criticism of Suh’s view of the biblical stories throws light on the problem of the relationship between the biblical stories and the minjung’s stories. Ahn and Sub, as Korean theologians, have inherited the biblical stories as well as the Korean minjung’s stories. They cannot escape the impact of these two traditions, the Korean minjung tradition and the biblical-Christian tradition. Suh is fully aware of this historical embeddedness of Korean theologians, and thus defines the task of Korean minjung theology as being “to testify that in the activity of the Missio Dei there is a confluence of the minjung tradition in Christianity and the Korean minjung tradition.”37

But Suh neglects the hermeneutical problem of how these two stories are related. His lack of attention to this problem invites Ahn’s criticism that Suh dissolves the meaning of the biblical stories in the Korean minjung’s stories. Despite Suh’s fruifful argument that Korean theologians stand within two traditions, his attempt to erase one set of stories in favour of the other is open to criticism. Here Gadamer’s hermeneutical argument about “the fusion of horizons” would provide an insight to solve the problem of the relationship between the two different traditions.

In interpreting the two lots of stories, the Korean minjung stories and the biblical-Christian stories, Suh’s prejudices, prompted by his involvement in the present socio-economic and political situation, play a determinative role. How must the present horizon and these two past horizons be related in Suh’s minjung hermeneutics? The interpreter must recognize the ‘otherness’ of the other horizons, understood through historical study. and then be encountered by them. Through this dialogical encounter and the fusion of horizons, the interpreter’s horizon is enlarged and enriched, and his or her ‘prejudices’ can be modified. The relationship between the Korean minjung’s stories and the biblical-Christian stories must be dialogical. recognizing their ‘otherness’. It is this which makes the dialogue ongoing, not once for all. The naive optimism about the ‘sameness’ of the minjung tradition in Christianity and the Korean minjung tradition must be abandoned. We must recognize the hermeneutical insight that the interpreter, who participates in the present minjung events, cannot extricate him/herself from his or her own horizon and leap into the past horizon of the minjung tradition (of the Bible and the Korean culture). Otherwise, one story’s domination over the other is unavoidable and the meaning of the past horizon within the present horizon will inevitably be lost. The two horizons of present and past must be fused, while recognizing the ‘otherness’ and the temporal distance between them. A confluence of the two stories must be a fusion of the two without neglecting their differences.

Suh’s commitment to the historical-critical method in his hermeneutics must be maintained in order to ascertain the ‘otherness’ of the other horizons. In addition, his use of socioeconomic criticism, in order to analyse ideological distortions within the Bible and the interpreter’s hermeneutical situation, should be endorsed. According to J. Habermas, understanding comes about within the framework of dialogue free from ideological distortions, and thus the hermeneutical task is to seek emancipation from ideological domination of the present context which systematically distorts human communication in tradition.

Ahn and Suh’s use of the historical-critical method and an ideological critique lead them to the view that ideological distortion exists within the Bible. Historical criticism helps them to lay bare the “infra-structure”, in the light of which they attempt to dismantle the traditional “supra-structure”. They generally regard the Bible and Christian tradition as systematically distorted by the ideology of the rulers. Their criticism of tradition for the ideological distortion hidden within it and their search for the real infra-structure have some affinities with Habermas’ criticism of Gadamer, viz, that he is too trusting toward the established language and tradition (in which ideological values are deceptively hidden), and with Habermas’ project to discover the “pre-linguistic basis” (“infra-linguistic conditions”) of language. But minjung hermeneutics does not seriously tackle (and seems to be unaware of) the problem of how the interpreter can criticize the tradition without neglecting his/her embeddedness in the present horizon, which makes it difficult for the interpreter to distance himself/herself from ongoing tradition and criticize it. The minjung theologians’ use of the historical-critical method without adequate awareness of the problem of the interpreter’s inability to escape from ongoing tradition and from human “conditionedness and finitude” tend to make their interpretation subjectivist. In order to solve this problem. minjung theology must seriously consider Habermas’ attempt to find a way for the interpreter to step outside his/her context and adopt a viewpoint outside the context in order to criticise it yet avoid falling into objectivism. However, Ahn, who argues for the inseparability of the text and the interpreter’s context would refuse the interpret any distance from the hermeneutical situation he/she interprets and criticizes. However, without any critical distance from his/her own present situation, and without some viewpoint outside the context the interpreter is bound to be totally immersed in his/her present situation and unable therefore to be related to it critically.

We can find the idea of this viewpoint outside the context implicit in minjung hermeneutics. Younghak Hyun shows that in and through the mask dance the minjung “experience and express a critical transcendence over this world and laugh at its absurdity.”38 Though the mask dance the minjung transcend the suffering of their present situation and also see it more objectively. By satirizing the rulers and laughing at oppressive social conditions, the minjung stand over against the rulers and their own conditions. By transcending the existing situation, they “envision another reality over against and beyond this one which. . . both the rulers and leaders cannot see.”39 The reality they envisage is not apart from their own context but it is rooted in and emerges from “the accumulated suppressed feelings of the minjung’s every day life,” i.e. han.40 David KwangSun Suh sums up the essence of the mask dance: “because [the minjung] saw the world and history from another dimension, i.e. the dimension of ‘worldly transcendence’, they would continue fighting for a better world. There is this element of faith and trust in the human spirit that people can transcend the present history.”41 This point, however, brings us to the culmination of minjung theology’s process of dismantling theology. An overemphasis on human responsibility and freedom (“faith and trust in the human spirit”), results in the elimination of the ‘Divine Spirit’ in minjung theology. This parallels the replacement of the Christian tradition with the Korean minjung tradition. Minjung theology veers toward the minjung tradition to such an extent as to threaten the integrity of Christian theology. This is the impasse at which minjung theology has arrived.

3. Conclusion

Nam-Dong Suh’s effort to relate the biblical stories and the minjung stories, and his emphasis on the embeddedness of the interpreter in his/her cultural and religious tradition are hermeneutically insightful and demonstrated in his endeavour to find a confluence of the two traditions. Yet Suh’s project of uniting the two sets of stories has resulted in erasing one set in favour of the other. His connecting of the two is not a fusion but the disregard of the biblical stories in favour of the minjung’s stories. The interpreter must not assimilate but fuse the two stories in his/her own situation, keeping in mind their differences. The two stories should be in a process of continuing dialogue.

This undialectical character brings us to the problem of theological identity in minjung hermeneutics. The quest of minjung hermeneutics for a contemporary and ‘situated’ interpretation of the Bible for the minjung of Korea perpetrates a hermeneutical error, when, in effect, it replaces Christian tradition with the Korean minjung tradition and thereby threatens the identity of theology as theology. The problem of theological identity in minjung theology is also found in its view of the minjung as their own saviours and liberators. Its strong emphasis on the minjung’s responsibility and freedom replaces theology with minjungology. It is worth comparing minjung theology and the thought of S. Ogden, who stands on, the ‘left’ in the demythologizing debate. Both emphasize human responsibility and freedom. But while Ogden sees the ‘primordial love of God’ as the only ground for salvation, minjung theology places the subjecthood of the mmjung at the centre of theology and argues that the minjung liberate themselves. Ogden subjects his thoroughgoing existentialist interpretation of the gospel, which aims to meet the demand of relevance for the contemporary age, to “the apostolic witness of faith attested by scripture and tradition.”42 As against this, minjung theology has no theological ‘mirror’ in which to reflect its political interpretation of the gospel. If its pre-understandig is not corrected, it is bound to be dogmatized.

1. D. P. Niles, “A Tribute to the Memory of Professor Nam-Dong Suh”, CTC Bulletin, Vol. 5 No. 3 - Vol. 6 No. 1, Dec. 1984- Apr.1985, p.1.
2. I am indebted to Rebecca Chopp’s use of Thomas Kuhn’s concept of ‘paradigm’. Chopp uses ‘paradigm shift’ for “a shift in basic assumptions, categories, and the ordering of issues in frameworks of interpretation.” See Rebecca S. Chopp, The Praxis of Suffering (NY: Orbis Books, 1986), p.155.
3. Nam-Dong Suh, “De-theologized Reflection on Folktales,” The Search for Minjung Theology (Seoul: Hangilsa, 1983), pp.275-312. Here Suh introduces Phyllis Trible’s article “A Meditation in Mourning: The Sacrifice of the Daughter of Jephthah,” Union Seminary Ouarterly Review, 36(1981), pp.59-73.
4. IbId., pp.281-283. Cf. P. Trible, Text of Terror (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). pp.94-116.
5. IbId., pp.296-299
6. Nam-Dong Suh, “De-theologized Reflection on Folktales,” The Search for Minjung Theology, p.299.
7. Ibid., p.169.
8. Won-Don Kang, “New Horizons of the Theological Hermeneutics-Accomodation of Minjung Culture Movement in Minjung Theology,” Theological Thought, Vol. 53, Summer 1986, p.278.
9. Nam-Dong Suh, “De-theologized Reflection on Folktales,” The Search for Minjung Theology, pp.45-82.
10. Ibid., p78.
11. Byung-Mu Ahn, The Story of Minjung Theology (Seoul: Korean Theological Institute, 1987), p.68.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., pp.68-69.
14. Ibid., p.75.
15. See Kwang-Shik Kim, Indigenization and Hermeneutics (Seoul: Korean Christian Literature Society), p.96. Kim notes that “Byung-Mu Ahn attempts to present ‘minjung hermeneutics’ by modifying Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation.”
16. Eyung-Mu Ahn, op.cit., p.69.
17. Gadamer proposes the notion of “the fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung). When we try to understand a horizon other than our own, Gadamer argues, we cannot extricate ourselves from our own horizon and leap into the horizon of the past, like Schleiermacher’s psychological divination. However, even though the temporal distance between the two horizons and historical consciousness helps us to discern their differences, i.e. the ‘otherness’ of the other horizon, our horizon and the other one are not totally different since they are in ‘one great horizon’ and ‘the continuity of meaning in tradition’ lies in both. Two horizons encounter each other and become fused. Cadamer’s concept of the fusion of horizons contains the recognition of distance. Without the awareness of the distance or tension between the present horizon and the past horizon, there is no fusion but a “naive assimilation.” In other words, Gadamer does not cover up this experience of distance but brings it to consciousness: “the hermeneutic task consists in not covering up this tension by attempting a naive assimilation but consciously bringing it out.” Truth and Method (London: The Seabury Press, 1988, 2nd ed.) p.273
18. Byung-Mu Ahn, op.cit., p.69.
19. Ibid.,p.85.
20. Ibid.
21. R. Bultmann, History and Eschatology, p.122.
22. Byung-Mu Ahn, op.cit., pp.63-65.
23. Ibid., p.70.
24. Ibid., p.60 and pp.63-64.
25. Karl Barth - Rudolf Bultmann: Briefwechsel, 1922-1966, ed. B. Jaspert (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1971), pp.9-10. (letter to Barth of 31/12/1922). Quoted in D. Soelle, Political Theology, pp.11-12
26. Byung-Mu Ahn, op.cit., p.26 and p.104.
27. Ibid., p.147.
28. Kwang-Shik Kim, Indigenization and Hermeneutics, p.107.
29. Byung-Mu Ahn, op.cit., p.75.
30. See Nam-Dong Suh, “Historical References for a Theology of Minjung”, Minjung Theology, ed. Yong-Bock Kim, pp.156-157
31. P. Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol 1 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951), pp.50-51.
32. Nam-Dong Suh, The Search for Minjung Theology, p.363.
33. Nam-Dong Suh, “Cultural Theology, Political Theology and Minjung Theology,” CIC Bulletin, Vol.5 No.3-Vol. 6 No.1, Dec. 1984- Apr. 1985, p.12.
34. See C. S. Song, “The Decisiveness of Christ,” Asians & Blacks, (Bangkok: East Asia Christian Conferences, 1972), pp.17-33.
35. D. P. Niles, “Story and Theology - a Proposal, “CTC Bulletin, Vol. 5 No. 3- Vol. 6 No.1, Dec. 1984- Apr. 1985, p.85.
36. But Ahn admits that he may one day “go beyond the canon,” as Suh did. He says, “I am thinking currently that at some stage I will go what Suh did. I could probably find myself in the same position as [Suh]. [My theology] is still open. See “Symposium on Korean Theology,” Theological Thought, Vol 47, Winter 1984, p.820.
37. Nam-Dong Suh, “Historical References for a Theology of Minjung,” Minjung Theology, p.178.
38. Younghak Hyun, “A Theological Look at the Mask Dance in Korea,” Minjung Theology, p.46.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Kwang-Sun Suh, “Minjung and Theology in Korea: A Biographical Sketch of an Asian Theological Consultation,” Minjung and Theology, p.31.
42. Ogden. On Theology (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986), p.140.