Tonghak

About 5 pages (1,391 words)

Chondogyo Summary

Tonghak

Tonghak (Eastern Learning) is the oldest indigenous organized religion in Korea. Founded in 1860 by Ch'oe Che-u (1824–1864), by the end of the nineteenth century it had attracted enough followers to pose a serious threat to the Choson dynasty (1392–1910), which had ruled Korea since the late fourteenth century. In the first half of the twentieth century, under the name Ch'ondogyo (the Religion of the Heavenly Way), it was a major contributor to nationalistic resistance against Japanese colonial rule. In recent decades in South Korea, it has retreated from political activism, returning to its purely religious roots. In North Korea, however, a Ch'ondogyo-centered political party is a nominal junior partner to the ruling Communist Workers' Party.

The Origins of Tonghak

As its name reveals, Eastern Learning appeared in Korea in response to the penetration of Western Learning, a premodern Korean term for Catholicism. Though there were only about 20,000 Catholics in Korea in the mid-nineteenth century, Ch'oe knew that China had recently suffered its second major military defeat in three decades at the hands of Europeans, whom he identified with Catholicism. This frightened him, since China was for him, as it was for most Koreans at that time, the font of those values and moral principles that defined civilized society. He therefore began preaching Eastern Learning to counter the destabilizing and immoral effects of Western Learning.

In his attempt to defend traditional beliefs and values, Ch'oe created a new form of Korean religion. Drawing on Confucianism for his ethical principles and on Korea's folk religion for his rituals, Ch'oe added two elements borrowed from the Catholicism he was fighting against: a focus on one God, and the notion that those who shared belief in that one God constituted a separate and distinct community within Korean society.

Ch'oe's monotheism alarmed the Korean government, especially since one of the terms he used for God, the Lord of Heaven, was the same term the outlawed Catholics used for God. Since Korea's small Catholic community had insisted that loyalty to their God superseded loyalty to the king, Ch'oe's use of Catholic theological terminology made him appear subversive, as did the formation, without government authorization or oversight, of a community of Tonghak believers.

That subversive potential seemed to be realized in 1862 when there were outbreaks of antigovernment violence across the southern third of the Korean peninsula. These antigovernment protests were fueled by anger at government corruption and excessive taxation and had no connection with the infant Tonghak religion. Nevertheless, the government assumed the attacks on its authority were the result of peasants becoming emboldened by Ch'oe's claim that his Lord of Heaven was superior to any king. Ch'oe was arrested and hanged in 1864 for spreading doctrines that undermined the authority of the state.

Ch'oe's death did not end the faith in his teachings. Instead, after his death, a distant relative who was also one of his earliest converts, Ch'oe Shi-hyong (1827– 1898), succeeded him as head of the Tonghak community. The second patriarch systematized Tonghak thought by collecting Ch'oe Che-u's essays and poems and publishing them as Tonghak scripture. He also organized the Tonghak community into a nationwide underground hierarchical network, linking individual believers in their villages through their district head to regional and national leaders.

As the Tonghak community grew not only larger but also more organized and more conscious of its identity as a distinct community within Korean society, it began demanding that the government recognize it as a legitimate organization, starting with a retraction of the 1864 condemnation of Ch'oe and his ideas. Tonghak demands for an end to government persecution grew louder after a treaty between Korea and France in 1886 gave Catholics, but not Tonghak followers, the freedom to practice their religion openly. Starting in November 1892, large groups of Tonghak believers began gathering near government offices in the countryside to call for the exoneration of their founder and an end to attacks by government officials on their community.

The Tonghak Peasant Rebellion

This religious protest was overshadowed by a peasant rebellion that broke out in 1894. It was led by a local Tonghak leader, Chon Pong-jun (1854–1895), who used the Tonghak underground network to mobilize peasants throughout southern Korea for attacks on local government offices. That network helped the peasant rebellion spread rapidly and become the largest peasant uprising Korea had ever seen, strong enough to seize control of Chonju, the capital of the southwestern province of Cholla, less than two months after the rebellion began.

Chon's rebellion had not been organized or even authorized by the second patriarch. In fact, Ch'oe Shihyong was at first opposed to the use of the Tonghat name and organization in armed rebellion. Tonghak doctrine, however, included the assertion that Korea was on the verge of a revolutionary transformation into a utopian community. This millenarian strain in Tonghak thought made many followers receptive to rebellion. Not only had Chon utilized the underground organization Tonghak had built, some Tonghak doctrines, such as Ch'oe Che-u's proclamation that humanity was on the verge of a Great Transformation, appeared on banners carried by the rebels. Thus this rebellion is often called the Tonghak Revolution.

That appellation, however inaccurate it may have been in the early stages, gained credibility in October 1894 when the second patriarch declared that the rebellion was just and that Tonghak believers should participate in it. Ch'oe Shi-hyong's decision to join forces with Chon Pong-jun was a tactical error. Chon's rebel army was annihilated by a joint Japanese-Korean force before the year was out. Chon was quickly captured and executed. Ch'oe went into hiding, but within four years he too was captured and executed.

The defeat of the Tonghak Revolution and the execution of the second patriarch did not mean the end of the Tonghak religion. Before Ch'oe was captured, he passed the torch of Tonghak leadership to Son Pyong-hui (1861–1921), revered today as the third patriarch.

From Tonghak to Ch'ondogyo

In 1905, Son, who had fled from Korea in 1901, returned when he discovered that the government had grown too preoccupied with Japanese threats to Korean sovereignty to pay much attention to him and his followers. In a successful effort to distance his followers in 1905 from the rebels of 1894, he dropped the name Tonghak and proclaimed himself leader of a new religious organization he called Ch'ondogyo. It is as the Religion of the Heavenly Way that Tonghak has survived into the twenty-first century. Under Son's guidance, the Religion of the Heavenly Way began to operate openly as a mainstream religious organization, opening worship halls and holding regular worship services. Nevertheless, it retained a revolutionary potential because of the challenge its doctrines posed to inequality in society. Ch'oe Cheu had called for men and women to serve God. Ch'oe Shi-hyong added that just as people should respect God, they should also respect their fellow human beings. Son Pyong-hui further amplified that statement with the phrase "God dwells within each and every human being," which has become a core tenet of Ch'ondogyo doctrine.

Because of their belief that all human beings deserve respect, followers of Ch'ondogyo resisted Japanese colonial rule over Korea. Son Pyong-hui was one of the chief architects of the 1 March 1919 declaration of independence from Japanese rule, which resulted in nationwide protests.

After liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, Korea was divided into a Communist zone in the north and a non-Communist zone in the south. Political activists among Ch'ondogyo members gravitated toward the north, where the Ch'ondogyo Young Friends Party was officially recognized as a junior partner within a united front dominated by the Workers' Party. Perhaps because of the taint of collaboration with Communists in the North, Ch'ondogyo has not been able to play any significant political role in South Korea. It survives in the Republic of Korea today as a small religious organization claiming around 1 million members and slightly less than 300 worship halls.