earticle

영어

The cultural diverse in Korean society has impacted many social communities including Korean Christianity. Particularly in this postmodern ear, cultural trend and influence play a significant role to reform a content and frame of those communities. In this stream, the Korean Protestant churches started to pay attention to new worship patterns including praise and worship, seeker's service, and emerging worship, etc. However, before approaching those new trends, the Korean Protestant Church is genuinely asked who we are as a Korean. This paper tries to demonstrate an answer for the question not only from liturgical understanding but also from pastoral aspect. The Korean Protestant Church is asked “self-reformation.” The Korean Protestant Church is urgently claiming its openness toward Christian’s and non-Christian’s living context and culture. Thus, in this paper, I examine the current situation of the Korean Protestant Church in terms of a process of to-chak-wha (indigenization/inculturation), and look for an adequate possibility of to-chak-wha for the Korean Protestant Church. I describe several terminologies regarding of encountering local culture and Christian faith, such as adaptation, indigenization, contextulization, incarnation, and inculturation. Furthermore, I present the current address of Korean Church in terms of inculturation and look for the future possibility for the inculturated Korean Church; the ancestoral worship and church music. Ancestor worship has embraced a beautiful Korean tradition. Because Korean Protestant church observes Chu-do-sik to be in memory of the ancestors, I believe that a Korean Protestant church also, like a Korean Catholic Church, provides a Christian liturgy. Instead of a Confucian one, the Korean Protestant church should present a liturgy in terms which Christians can make ancestor worship into a Christian family worship together with ancestral souls. The church music needs to rediscover its criteria based on the context of Korean worship community. It is not right to treat Korean traditional music as simply a part of the products of pagan culture, but the heritage in which emotion of Koreaness is evoked. Rather by rediscovering the value and function of Korean traditional music in Christian culture, the Korean church can provide various and rich worship service in which Korean people constantly experience encounter with God. It is inculturation. I strongly believe that Jesus was the one who had a strong desire to inculturate the Gospel.