Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. xi, 307 pp. US$56.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3965-9.
Since the late 1990s scholarly literature on colonial Korea has proliferated rather dramatically. One of the central and most contentious issues in such research has been the characterization of “modern” and modernization within the colonial paradigm, with “colonial modernity” emerging as a theorization attempting to reconcile the so-called “modernizing camp,” focusing on the modernizing characteristics of Japanese colonialism, and the “nationalist camp,” emphasizing the exploitative nature of the colonial regime. Through the lens of religion in the colonial era, a phenomenon similarly intersected by such conflicting historiographical narratives, Albert Park provides a welcome and skillfully crafted intervention into this important debate, offering fresh perspectives on the role of religious activism, theological thought, and their relationship to modernity within the post-1919 political milieu.
Building a Heaven on Earth focuses on three rural, faith-based agrarian movements—the YMCA (1925), the Presbyterian Church (1928), and Ch’ŏndogyo (1925)—that attempted to ameliorate the disruptive ruptures wrought by capitalistic modernity by embracing an agriculture-based economy that emphasized pastoral existence, communalism, and religious principles. For peasants caught between movements with a temporal orientation toward the future (leftists and bourgeois nationalists) and an idealized version of an idyllic past that rejected modern capitalism (agrarianists), these movements offered an alternative articulation of modernity that “sought to protect, enhance, and expand Korea’s agrarian heritage simultaneously through the adoption of contemporary ideas, practices, and institutions” (118). Park has thus challenged the dominant view of the 1920s as a period characterized only by the rise of secular critiques of religion and the retreat of religion into the otherworldly by illuminating the emergence of religious social engagement at the institutional level and the process by which such activism “rearticulated … religious languages and transformed religion into a vehicle to question the norms of modernity” (10).
Building a Heaven on Earth is divided into two parts, each of which consists of three chapters. In part 1, Park begins by tracing the origins of Tonghak/Ch’ŏndogyo and Christianity in nineteenth-century Korea, describing the process by which these religions furnished influential “languages, practices, and institutions” that came to be employed by followers to interpret the myriad social, cultural, and economic transformations that surrounded them. Park demonstrates that, although individual practitioners inspired by religious teachings engaged in various forms of social activism, up until 1919 these were conducted outside of the religious institutional purview. However, with the deepening of the capitalist economy and its transformation of the traditional socio-economic and cultural organization of rural society, coupled with the sharp religious critiques of the 1920s, Koreans witnessed the emergence of religion-based reconstruction campaigns that “seriously questioned the norms of modernity, addressed the extreme changes and problems caused by modernization, and set out to reform and stabilize the economic, social, and cultural lives of people” (79). Park then focuses his attention on theologies articulated by Yi Ton-hwa (Ch’ŏndogyo), Hong Pyŏng-sŏn (Protestant), and Pae Min-su (Presbyterian), all of which encouraged followers to engage with present social movements and experience religion in the quotidian rhythms of everyday life as a method to build a “heaven on earth” (chisang ch’ŏn’guk).
In part 2, Park characterizes rural Korea as a battleground where rival reform movements led by leftists, the colonial state, bourgeois nationalists, and agrarianists competed to “gain hegemonic control over peasants and achieve their ideal vision of the nation-state” (147). Within this crowded field, the YMCA, Presbyterian, and Ch’ŏndogyo movements distinguished themselves by promoting a modern capitalist economy centred on a reconstructed agrarian society with the potential to foster a durable, moral livelihood. Park then explores these agrarian theologies in action through analyses of rural economic cooperative movements carried out differentially by each organization but inspired in similar fashion by the Danish-style cooperative system. The book concludes with an account of each organization’s efforts to condition and discipline the minds of the rural population to the “truth” of rural capitalist modernity through literacy and education campaigns.
Park has produced a well-constructed, eloquently written work with a consistent argument solidly supported by thorough and diverse primary source research. Park’s utilization of theory is judicious and effective, demonstrating a firm command of a wide range of classic literature and social theory, as well as theology. Park’s book has the potential to break new ground in historiography on the Korean colonial period by highlighting the little researched but widely influential religion-based agrarian activism of the 1920s and 1930s. In this way, Park effectively problematizes the tendency of research on the colonial period to gloss over the relationship between religion and modernization while bringing to light significant faith-based responses to anti-religious attacks following the March First Movement, showing the durability of such discourse while simultaneously attempting to break down its hegemony.
Although the book does an excellent job of explicating the philosophical reasoning behind the agrarian movements and their implementation, what is less clear is the outcome of each movement. Moreover, Park’s assessments of the development and impact of the movements is almost uniformly positive, save for the perfunctory reminder to the reader here and there of the general difficulty of life on the farm. Due to this positive tone, the reader may be unsure at times whether the description of the movement is the position of Park or the movement leaders. Another aspect of the analysis that could have been more fully developed is the relationship between the colonial government and the agrarian movements. Park’s position is that the Japanese Government General quietly tolerated such religion-based activism because it diverted support from radical leftist movements, but without a close analysis of this relationship the Japanese presence appears more as the spectre of power and the potential arbiter of the movements’ ultimate fate rather than an interacting agent. Finally, the relationship between institutional leaders—many of them foreign missionaries—and those of the agrarian movements, although described to some extent, could have been explored in more depth to highlight the tension that existed between the conservative principles of leadership and the progressive tendencies of activists.
Despite these minor shortcomings, Building a Heaven on Earth succeeds in drawing scholarly attention to a major though overlooked aspect of the colonial landscape: religion-based agrarian activism. The book should be recommended reading for anyone interested in social movements and religion in colonial environments, in Korea and beyond.
Daniel Pieper
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
pp. 831-833