Daesoon Jinrihoe is still a new religion, so it has had to endure the criticism that new religious movements usually receive. It has been labeled a cult, it has been called a purveyor of superstition, and it has been denigrated for supposedly lacking the qualities that define a genuine religion. True to its teaching that we should do nothing to cause others to get angry with us, Daesoon Jinrihoe has not engaged in arguments with its detractors. Instead, it has let its history prove its detractors wrong. Despite its critics, it has thrived and grown large and respectable enough to become a major component of Korea's religious landscape. Yet, up to now, it has not received much scholarly attention. Most scholars of Korea's religious culture focus on its four major components: shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity. Those are all deserving of academic examination, of course, but a focus only on those four relegates to the shadows some of the more interesting, and more distinctively Korean, features of Korean spirituality. Fortunately, David Kim has stepped up to help us gain a more comprehensive view of contemporary Korean spirituality with this survey of the scriptures, theology, philosophy, ethics, rituals and even the sacred art of Daesoon Jinrihoe.

Early on in this book, readers will learn about a dizzying series of fissures in the community of those who believe that Kang Jeungsan was the incarnation of the Supreme God Above (Sangje). That will inspire questions about what is so special about Daesoon Jinrihoe that it was been able to rise above the fray and become the largest, strongest and most respected in the entire Jeungsan family of religions. Believers might answer that it is the result of Daesoon Jinrihoe sticking closer to the original message of Kang Jeungsan than other groups. Outside observers tend to give the credit to the organisational skills and charisma of Park Han-Gyeong, also known as Park Wudang. Evidence of Park's organisational skills can be seen in this study. Thanks to the example of Protestant missionaries who first began settling down in Korea near the end of the nineteenth century, for a religious organisation to be seen as respectable and modern, it should operate modem educational institutions and modern hospitals. Led by Park's skillful management in its first decades, Daesoon Jinrihoe has done both.

But that is not the only reason for Daesoon Jinrihoe's rise to prominence. Daesoon Jinrihoe has provided guidance for Koreans seeking to navigate through the typhoon-force winds of modernisation. It has shown Koreans how to be both modern and Korean, how to adopt the positive features of globalised modern life without jettisoning those beliefs and values that are uniquely Korean so that they can maintain their Korean cultural identity. It has done that by being both a modern religion as well as a Korean religion with distinctive Korean elements.

It is not just that Daesoon Jinri teaches that the Supreme God Above reincarnated on the Korean peninsula and lived as an ordinary Korean man for several years. It also teaches an ethical philosophy that draws on Korean ethical concerns from centuries past. And, though Daesoon Jinrihoe embraces elements from China's Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian traditions, those elements have been so Koreanised that few Chinese would recognise them. For example, both Daoists and Confucians in China believed that change in the cosmos was fueled by relations among five forces, to which were applied the labels of wood, metal, fire, water and earth. Those relations were dominated by mutual conflict, in which wood splits earth by growing out of it, metal chops wood, fire melts metal, water quenches fire, and earth dams water, followed by wood splitting earth again and so on (Yoke 1985, 11-24). This is a never-ending circle of destructive interactions. 

However, Kang Jeungsan and Daesoon Jinrihoe teach that the world dominated by mutual conflict is drawing to a close. Instead, we are about to enter an age of mutual production. Just as wood produces fire, fire produces earth (ashes), earth produces metal (mined out of the ground), metal produces water (through condensation), and water, in turn, produces wood, human beings will engage in mutually productive interactions with their fellow human beings leading to a world free of injustice, disease, and other problems, a world that Daesoon Jinrihoe labels a Sangsaeng (3, 194, mutually life-giving) world.

It is the emphasis on harmony, harmonious interactions within the human community, as well as harmony between human beings and nature, and harmony between human beings and spiritual beings, that resonates with Korean tradition and gives Daesoon Jinrihoe such persuasive power in Korea. Moreover, its approach to achieving such harmony, by eliminating the resentment that injustice has generated over the centuries, also has broad appeal, for who has not felt that they have been treated unfairly in the past and resented that mistreatment? Daesoon Jinri promises a better world in the near future, and also teaches techniques, such as its rituals and its ethical principles, that promise to hasten the end of the old world of constant conflict and lead to the emergence of the new world of mutual cooperation, peace and prosperity. 

Another reason Daesoon Jinrihoe appears distinctively Korean is that, arguably, it shows less Christian influence than other Korean new religious movements. It doesn't have regular Sunday services with hymns and sermons. Moreover, unlike Christianity, it promises a paradise on this earth, not in heaven above. Even more remarkably, Daesoon Jinrihoe promises that soon human beings will not need divine assistance. Not only does it agree with Buddhism and Confucianism that human beings are capable of becoming god-like through their own efforts, it also teaches that once the old era of constant conflict is over, human beings will no longer need gods for anything since humans will have become like gods. This means Daesoon Jinrihoe is more in tune with traditional East Asian anthropocentrism than Western theocentrism.

Daesoon Jinrihoe offers a fascinating glimpse into Koreans have coped with the challenges of globalisation and modernisation while nevertheless preserving a Korean core. There is much that scholars of Korea, not just scholars of religion in Korea but scholars of Korean culture and modern Korean history in general, can learn from this comprehensive study of Daesoon Jinrihoe. We should be grateful to David Kim for finally giving it the scholarly attention it deserves.

Donald L. Baker

University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada

Reference:

Yoke, Ho Peng. Li, Qi and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilization in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985.