Teaching East Asia: Korea Teaching East Asia: Korea | Page 221

Korean
Spirituality
B Y D ON B AKER
U NIVERSITY OF H AWAI ` I P RESS , 2008
151 PAGES
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3257-5, P APERBACK
Reviewed by Mary E. Connor
K
orean Spirituality by Don Baker, a professor at the University of British
Columbia, is an accessible and engaging guidebook to the distinctive
religious and philosophical belief systems on the Korean peninsula.
Its value is manifold. Because Korea has one of the most vibrant and diverse re-
ligious cultures of any nation in the world, lucid exposure to its beliefs and
practices provides a model of how adherents of diverse faiths can get along har-
moniously. An examination of Korean spirituality illustrates how differing re-
ligions can inspire and even modify one another when there is tolerance among
the faithful. Korean Spirituality also helps us deepen our understanding not
only of the Koreas, but also of the Koreans who live in the United States.
Don Baker defines spirituality as “attitudes and actions grounded in the be-
lief that there are invisible forces more powerful than we are, and that through
interaction with those forces we can better ourselves or make our lives more
pleasant or meaningful” (5). He asserts that South Korea provides a foundation
for studying modern spirituality because of the number and variety of religious
and spiritual or philosophical beliefs that the people draw on to address the
challenges of life. The many buildings for religious rituals, which have increased
500 percent since 1960, offer architectural evidence that the people of South
Korea are highly religious. Yet even with this growing religious fervor,
only slightly more than half of the population professes a specific religious
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orientation (3). South Korea could be the only country with an ethnically ho-
mogeneous population in which the Buddhists and Christians are close to
being equal in number. South Korea may also be the only industrialized nation
where folk religion continues to exist and remains independent of any institu-
tional control. Even those who considered themselves good Christians are still
influenced by a folk tradition that is deeply embedded in the culture. In spite
of differing beliefs and religious practices, these Koreans assume that they have
to align themselves with some power greater than their own in order to over-
come the limitations that they face as individual human beings. This assump-
tion unites their approach to spirituality.
This book surveys folk religion and animism, Confucianism, Buddhism,
Daoism, Christianity, and what he calls the new religions, such as Wŏn Bud-
dhism. Baker analyzes the roles that religions have played in the past, identifies
their commonalties, and explains how traditional Korean spirituality was pri-
marily based on ritual and concerned with ethics. What people did was more
important than what they believed, and their rituals emphasized the group,
such as the family or the village. He notes that with Christianity, doctrine is
emphasized and that the people enter “a personal relationship with that God
above the individual’s relationship with his or her family, neighbors, or gov-
ernment” (62). In the final section of Korean Spirituality, the author examines
spirituality in North Korea and how it is grounded in the political ideology of
juche—the only form of spirituality available to the overwhelming majority of
North Koreans. n
MARY E. CONNOR taught United States History and Asian Studies for thirty-five years
and now serves as President and Program Director of the Korea Academy for Educators,
a nonprofit organization that informs educators about Korean history and culture and
the Korean-American experience. She is the author of Asia in Focus: The Koreas (2009) and
the recipient of the Peace Corps Association’s Global Educator Award and the Organiza-
tion of American Historians Tachau Award.
Volume 16, Number 1
Spring 2011
221
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