(김진호) An Attempt at Ahn Byung-Mu Hermeneutics

8/3/2019 ( ) An Attempt at Ahn Byung-Mu Hermeneutics

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An Attempt at Ahn Byung-Mu Hermeneutics

- Focusing on the concepts of Discovery of Internality and Minjung Otherness

I. Ahn Byung-Mu Hermeneutics, its potentials and limitations

According toA complete Catalog of Ahn Byung-Mus works1published by Ahn Byung-

Mu Commemorating Works Committee for the 10th anniversary of Ahn Byung-Mus death,

the number of his articles (including papers, essays, colloquies, prefaces, books reviews,

columns, editors postscripts) is 918 (excluding duplicated publications), the number of his

books in Korean is 28,2 and the number of his co-authored books is 6.

Besides, his manuscripts, composed of preaching scripts/memos, lectures, syllabuses,

research notes, and so on, amount to five apple boxes, and most of them have not been

published yet. The recoding data of his lectures and preaching were scarcely collected, and

his letters, only part of which is kept safe, are not included in the complete catalog of his

works. For the present, therefore, it is impossible to use these resources for Ahn Byung-Mu

study.

On the other hand, among the periodicals published by Ahn Byung-Mu,A Voice from

the Wilderness,3

Presence,4

Theological Thoughts,5

Sallim,6

and so on are useful for reading

his concerns and thoughts. Especially, most of the articles inA Voice from the Wilderness and

Presence are written by Ahn Byung-Mu, and thus contain information useful for reading his

theology and contemporary consciousness expressed in his publishing plan of the two

periodicals. In addition, the titles of the periodicals, such asA Voice from the Wilderness,

Presence, and Sallim, hint the transition of his main theological imagination. However, there

is no library that keeps all the listed editions of these periodicals. Moreover, in the case ofA

1

Seoul: Tongmun, 2006.2 These books include 3 volumes ofAhn Byung-Mus Selected Works published informally by Ahn Byung-Mu

Commemorating Works Committee. The selected works are composed of 116 articles, which were discovered in

the process of publishing the compete catalog of Ahn Byung-Mus works, and had not been published in any of

Ahn Byung-Mus books including Ahn Byung-Mus complete collection. The titles of the three volumes are as

follows:Ahn Byung-Mus Selected Works vol. 1-The Spirit the Law in the Bible; Ahn Byung-Mus Selected

Works vol. 2-Christ and the State Power; Ahn Byung-Mus Selected Works vol. 3-Until Reaching Minjung

Theology. These informally published volumes were copied and bound in limited numbers, and donated to the

libraries of main theological seminaries.3 This monthly periodical was first issued in Nov. 1951 and continued until Jan. 19564 This monthly periodical was first issued in Jul. 1969 and was forced to cease the publication in Aug, 1980.5 This quarterly periodical started in Summer 1973, with Korean Theological Study Institute being established,

and still continues until now with the 134th

issue in Fall 2006.6 This Korean word means livelihood, housekeeping, (saving) life and so on. This monthly periodical was first

issued in Dec. 1988 and ceased its publication in Dec, 2002.

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Voice from the Wilderness, the entire volumes are too rare to find, and in the case ofPresence,

it is hard to find most of the editions as well. Therefore, we have not a little difficulty in

studying Ahn Byung-Mu through examining the publication of the periodicals.7

As things now stand, the most useful resources for Ahn Byung-Mu study are his books

because his 28 books including the 3 volumes mentioned in the footnote no. 1 contain most

of his 918 articles. In addition, the fact that we have the books, which collected many of his

articles and thus make it easy to find them, such as the 6 volumes of his complete collection

published by Hangil Press though not completed yet,8 and the 10 volumes of the selected

works series that have been published by the commemorating works committee for the

anniversaries of his death every year,9 means we have a very good condition for Ahn Byung-

Mu study in comparison with the limited academic circumstances for studying other figures

in Korea.

However, there are some difficulties in using these books as resources for Ahn Byung-

Mu study. Above all, these books hardly provide any information about the time and the

context of each article. Therefore, for most of his articles, we have to find the books in which

they were originally inserted and check the media context and historical-cultural context of

the text in order to get even a bit of information about them. In addition, it puzzles us that

Ahn Byung-Mus articles were often published in duplication, and especially the titles of the

articles are sometimes changed.10

This sometimes causes mistakes as follows. For example, Minjung Preacher and

Transmitter and Interpreter are same articles, but one finds no clue with the titles being

completely different. Consequently, this article has the title of Minjung Preacher in The

7 The commemorating works committee is discussing the digitalization of all Ahn Byung-Mus works, and it is

likely that we can see all the editions ofA Voice from the Wilderness and Presence in one place in the near

future.8History and Interpretation (Ahn Byung-Mus Complete Collection vol. 1. 1993); Talking about Minjung

Theology (Ahn Byung-Mus Complete Collection vol. 2. 1993);Jesus of Galilee (Ahn Byung-Mus CompleteCollection vol. 3. 1993);Jesus Stories Interpreting the parables in the Bible (Ahn Byung-Mus Complete

Collection vol. 4. 1993);Minjung and the Bible (Ahn Byung-Mus Complete Collection vol. 5. 1993);History

and Minjung (Ahn Byung-Mus Complete Collection vol. 6. 1993),9The Vein of the Bible 1 - The Way to Salvation (Korean Theological Study Institute, 1997); The Vein of the

Bible 2 - Jesus Being with Us (Korean Theological Study Institute, 1997); The Vein of the Bible 3 - Faith saving

life (Korean Theological Study Institute, 1997);Essays on the Bible 1 Sparks (Korean Theological Study

Institute, 1998); The Bible and Preaching The Transcendental Being Who Is Begging (Korean Theological

Study Institute, 1998); Theological Criticism Theology for a Reformation of Christianity (Korean Theological

Study Institute, 1999); Criticism Korean National Movement and the Reunification of North and South Korea

(Korean Theological Study Institute, 2001); un addition, the three books mentioned at footnote 1.10 Ahn Byung-Mus masterpiece, The Matrix in Which the Jesus Events Were Transmitted was published 6

times in duplication. A Biblical Illumination of the Reunification of North and South Korea was published 5times in duplication, and in the case of the latter 3 times, the title was changed into A Biblical Illumination of

the National Reunification.

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Vein of the Bible 3 - Faith Saving Lifepublished by the commemorating works committee for

the 1997 commemorating event, and has the title of Transmitter and Interpreter in

Theological Criticism Theology for a Reformation of Christianity published for the 1999

event, as if the titles designated two different articles.11

In my opinion, how such confusion happened can be explained as follows. Ahn Byung-

Mu preached [a sermon] under the title Minjung Preacher at Galilee Church on May, 1978;

however, the existence of the script for it was unknown until now. When we consider his

normal way of preaching, it seems to have been done with a brief memo. Then, in the

following year, he published this sermon with the title Transmitter and Interpreter in

Presence 101 (May, 1979), and this is the first document of the sermon as far as we know. By

the way, what happened next seems to be related to the reason for such confusion. The article

identical to Transmitter and Interpreter (except for some editorial changes in postpositions)

was republished with the title of the original sermon Minjung Preacher in a book of Ahn

Byung-Mus collected articles,In front of History, Together With Minjung,12 and it is noted at

the end of the article that it is his preaching at Galilee Church in May, 1978. Except for some

changes in postpositions, the only difference between this article and Transmitter and

Interpreter is that the former has the subtitles for the sections instead of the serial numbers in

the latter. This difference seems to be the work of the editors. Afterwards, these two articles

were circulated as if they were different ones though the contents are completely identical

except for the subtitles.

Considering such condition of Ahn Byung-Mus books in the form of selected works,

we should admit that it is quite difficult to do a full-scale study with these books. In 2005,

when Ahn Byung-Mu Commemorating Works Committee requested for me to be in charge of

publishing a book from his manuscripts, I raised the issue as mentioned above and pointed

out that this work also could be another trial and error. Though the best alternative wouldhave been to publish a new complete collection of Ahn Byung-Mus works through an

adequate system of classification and with a clear principle, it was an impossible option due

to the enormous cost involved. Instead, I proposed and planned to publisha complete catalog

of Ahn Byung-Mus works. Thereupon, the commemorating works committee employed a

researcher to work on it for 6 months and published a non-commercial completed catalog on

the 10th anniversary of Ahn Byung-Mus death (Oct. 15th, 2006). This catalog arranged the

11

This issue was not settled even in the complete catalog of Ahn Byung-Mus works recently published. In otherwords, the complete catalog lists the two titles as if they designated two different articles.12 Seoul: Hangil press, 1986.

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articles in a chronological order, and checked and indicated the cases of duplicated

publications and the same article with different titles. Though there still remain many points

to be examined such as the case of different articles with the same title, it is an additional

outcome of the project that many articles were newly discovered in the process of

cataloguing, as is mentioned before.

In that sense, I think that the publication of the complete catalog of Ahn Byung-Mus

works is a positive progress for Ahn Byung-Mu study. Though there have been many studies

on him including dissertations at home and abroad, almost all of them have been limited to

specific themes. In addition, most of them have been advanced with the arbitrarily selected

texts by each writer without textual criticism. Moreover, there have been no dialogues and

debates among the studies. Though there have been many collected results of Ahn Byung-Mu

study such as the essays contributed in celebration of the 60th anniversary of his birth and the

essays in celebration of the 70th anniversary of his birth,13 the featured articles on him in a

special edition ofTheological Thoughtright after his death,14 and three volumes of a

collection of Ahn Byung-Mus papers published by the commemorating works committee for

the anniversaries of his death,15 all these results of Ahn Byung-Mu study projects did not

provoke public debates. In addition, there have been rarely holistic and diachronic studies on

him which are inevitably required with particular themes. Even a few examples of more

holistic and diachronic studies, if any, could not avoid too many speculations and

exaggerations. These problems are inevitable when we consider the issue of the available

resources for Ahn Byung-Mu study as mentioned above.16

In short, the studies on Ahn Byung-Mu hitherto have been talking about Ahn Byung-

Mu separately with no converging points of discussion. Of course, we can find some

similarity in subject matters of the studies such as historical Jesus, theology of event,

life, and so on. However, even though the subject matters have overlapped, the discussions

13 The Compilation Committee for The Essays Contributed in Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Dr. Ahn

Byung-Mus Birth,History and Presence (The Christian Literature Society of Korea, 1982); The Compilation

Committee for The Essays Contributed in Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Dr. Ahn Byung-Mus Birth,

Jesus, Minjung, Nation: The Essays Contributed in Celebration of the 70 th Anniversary of Dr. Ahn Byung-Mus

Birth (Korean Theological Study Institute, 1992)14Theological Thought96 (Spring, 1997), A Special Edition: Ahn Byung-Mus Theology and Thoughts15 Ed. Ahn Byung-Mu Commemorating Works Committee,Jesus of Galilee and Ahn Byung-Mu (Korean

Theological Study Institute, 1998), The Vein of Ahn Byung-Mus Theological Thoughts no. 1 (Korean

Theological Study Institute, 2003), The Vein of Ahn Byung-Mus Theological Thoughtno. 2 (Korean Theological

Study Institute, 2006)16

Ahn Byung-Mu: The Witness of the Era and Minjung, Critical Biographies of Contemporary Theologians vol.11 (Sallim Press, 2006) written by Kim, Myoung-Su is the first critical biography of Ahn Byung-Mu. In spite of

its remarkable consideration for the readers, it has no exception for the limitation of research condition.

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have not been connected with each other, and consequently no talking points for discussion

have been made.

In that sense, the controversial titleIn an Era of Minjungs Death, We Re-view Ahn

Byung-Mu17 co-authored by the five scholars, including me, makes little sense, strictly

speaking. Since there is no standard reading of Ahn Byung-Mu, re-reading cannot be

established. Though I explained the reason for the assertion of re-reading at the preface of

the book, even the explanation presupposes our imagination about the existing conditions for

the study.

I admit that this article does not add momentum for a new progress overcoming such

limitation. It will take more time to make such progress. In fact, it is not only difficult but

also undesirable for a researcher working outside the established academic system like me to

be devoted to this kind of bibliographical works. Nevertheless, to some extent, it is expected

for me to do such a task.

In my view, Ahn Byung-Mu study is very important in the theological aspect of Korean

studies, and the results of the study should be accumulated on the foundation of

bibliographical studies. Then, it is more desirable that basic works including philological

studies and bibliographical studies based on them be performed in the institutionalized

academic setting of a university, where nonprofit academic works can be supported

institutionally.

On the other hand, I read Ahn Byung-Mu as a researcher working in an institute outside

the institutionalized academic system. This means that my task in dealing with Ahn Byung-

Mu is to raise more practical issues in more experimental ways. In other words, my focus is

on reading him in order to face our contemporariness, as implied in the expression of re-

view, rather than doing a bibliographical study on Ahn Byung-Mu. For this work, we need

to de-contextualize his texts to relocate them from the context of his own time and space toour own context. In that sense, the point of re-view Ahn Byung-Mu aims at Ahn Byung-

Mu hermeneutics rather than a bibliographical study on Ahn Byung-Mu.

By the way, such hermeneutical work requires bibliographical work in that only when

the objects of deconstruction are clearly delineated a re-reading of them is possible.

However, in the condition of the lack of such bibliographical works, I might drive myself to

the contradiction of performing simultaneously both a reading and a re-reading of Ahn

17 Kim Jin-Ho, Lee Jeong-Hee, Cha Jeong-Shik, Choi Hyung-Muk, and Hwang Yong-Yeon,In an Era of

Minjungs death, We re-view Ahn Byung-Mu (Samin, 2006).

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Byung-Mu. My self-consciousness as a researcher outside the established academic system

obliges me to accept the request for Ahn Byung-Mu study as an invitation to such

contradictive task. My discussion strategy for dealing with such a dilemma is insisting that

the more we are thorough about Ahn Byung-Mu (that is, if we make a thorough

bibliographical study on him), the more his theology turns out to fit our contemporary context

(that is, his theology has hermeneutical adequacy). In other words, while I intend to

deconstruct a bibliographical reading, such a hermeneutical reading involves a

bibliographical study.

For such discussion strategy, I will employ the point that Ahn Byung-Mu had relatively

serious disintegration of concepts. He put value on the political validity of a discourse in each

context rather than the consistency of concepts. This perspective puts emphasis more on

performances in praxis than logic and causality. Macroscopically viewed, Ahn Byung-Mus

discourses points to the context of 1970s and 1980s, but they have a multiplicity of micro

contexts within the macroscopic one. This implies that we who are living in the context of

after 1990s have relatively more room to selectively utilize the contexts of Ahn Byung-Mus

specific discourses which are similar to our own contexts. Therefore, through the selective

and arbitrary connection between his specific discourse and our specific discourse, we insist

on the connectivity between these two discourses. In so doing, hermeneutics looks like the

result of bibliographical works.

Ahns Times Our Times

In the position ,

making an arbitrary

connection between Ahn

Byung-Mus Times and

Our Time.

I Context 1 Discourse 1 Discourse a Context a A

II Context 2 Discourse 2 Discourse b Context b B

III Context 3 Discourse 3 Discourse c Context c C

This kind of discussion strategy implies that this article is just a tentative attempt at Ahn

Byung-Mu hermeneutics. I write this article in expectation of more substantial studies

devoted to hermeneutical tasks in the future.

II. Glancing through the development of Ahn Byung-Mus theology

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In spite of the danger of schematization, it is useful to introduce Ahn Byung-Mus

theology according to the division of its period for it helps us grasp the development of his

theology concisely. While a systematic theory of the division of periods is not developed, it is

common to divide his theology into two periods: before and after Minjung theology. This

division reflects the transition of his thought from existentialism to Minjung theology. We can

also divide his thoughts into three periods. This division understands Ahn Byung-Mus

theological imagination ofsallim (saving life) since late 1980s or 1990s as the occasion of

his theological leap. In this regard, Kim Myoung-Sus view is interesting. According to Kim,

the main themes of Ahn Byung-Mus theology are existentialism, Minjung, andsallim. It is

noteworthy that in his discussion of the division the relationship between the themes seems to

represent not a linear development of Ahn Byung-Mus thought but more complicated

interaction of the themes. This relation can be explained with the structure of concentric

circles, where the next theme is immanent in the previous theme and simultaneously

transcend it.18 For example, the thought aboutsallim was already immanent during the

existential period. Whether one agrees with my understanding of his view or not, his

discussion indicates a deserved but often missed point in establishing a theory of

periodization. The point is that we should not disregard the way in which the continuity of

theological thought is carried through.

Anyway, more holistic approaches to Ahn Byung-Mu study will produce a better theory

about the division of the periods of his theology. In this article, for convenience, I will divide

the period of his theology into four by adding Minjung period to the three periods divided

according to the titles of the periodicals published by him, that is,A Voice from the

Wilderness, Presence, Minjung, and Sallim. As I will discuss in detail later, these four terms

for period division are useful for reading the changes in his theology, and the continuity of his

thought carried through even in the change in logic. I will describe the relation of these termswith the following diagram rather than the structure of concentric circles. In the rest of this

article I will focus on the explanation of this diagram.

()

To understand the convergence and the divergence among the four terms representing

Ahn Byung-Mus theological development, I will define arbitrarily the characteristic of non-

expressed inner self-consciousness in his thoughts through two antithetical pairs:

18 Kim, Ibid.

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enlightenment-leaning versus internality, and internality versus otherness.

Enlightenment-leaning means Ahn Byung-Mus self-consciousness as a modern

intellectual. In my view, he had been in continuous discord with non-modern savagery such

as colonialism, anti-democracy, and anti-lifesaving since his first encounter with Christianity

in Myoungdong of Gando until his death. In addition, his public and social role as a

theologian, teacher, and a leading Christian intellectual of the time who had made continuous

social statements seems to have led him to accept the task of enlightening the unenlightened

masses as his ontological vocation.

Internality means Ahn Byung-Mus self-consciousness as someone who could not be

assimilated into the external world, namely, the space of the dominant discourse. His

existentialism seems to have worked as a mechanism to sharpen his inner self-consciousness

continuously resisting such external world order.

On the other hand, Ahn Byung-Mus Christian faith made him to be in continuous

discord with the model of modern self as an enlightened subject and pursue the exploration of

anti/post-modern thoughts of otherness. This concern with otherness is also connected with

his conflict with both communism and capitalized church-centric ideology. Especially, the

discovery of Minjung led him to a new way of critical consciousness about otherness.

In the following discussion, focusing on the tension between such internal self-

consciousnesses, I will consider Ahn Byung-Mus theological development through the three

part frameworks: (1) From A Voice from the Wilderness to Presence, (2) Discovery of

Minjung, (3) Imagination for Sallim.

II-1. From A Voice from the Wilderness to Presence: the shift or extension of the

narrative of internality

InA Voice from the Wilderness which was first issued in Nov. 1951, we encounter AhnByung-Mus first published articles. At that time, he was a young man in his late 20s. Right

after the independence of Korea from Japanese colonization, Ahn Byung-Mu organized

Student Christian Association in Seoul National University and Group for One Faith of which

the members were from SCA. We know little about the activities of these two groups at that

time. Since Ahn Byung-Mu was the leader of these groups, his thought must have played an

important role in the groups. Yet he kept silent about them. In addition, he is known to have

participated in the Korea Young Peoples Anti-communist Association; however, we know

none of his activities since he kept silence about it as well.

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Ahn Byung-Mus read ofA Voice from the Wilderness is with high skepticism. He

understood communism as a representative reality of evil in his own time. Yet in his view,

Christianity, which should be the reality that overcomes communism, is rather incompetent in

the face of the attacks of communist discourses. Moreover, the churchs hatred toward

communism is very regressive. Needless to say, capitalism was in violation of human rights,

exploitation, and hedonism.19

By extension, Ahn Byung-Mu understands the world to be structured by evil.20At this

point, he determines to separate his own internal self from the evil structure of the world. In

other words, he chose not the self captivated by the world but the self alienating itself from

the world. This existentialistic self-consciousness implies that the period ofA Voice from the

Wilderness represents the narrative of internality21 separated from the evil structure of the

world.

Ahn Byung-Mus narrative of internality is interlinked with his external activities such

as reorganizing the Group for One Faith which was scattered with the outbreak of the Korean

War and starting the community movement with the members of the group. For him, the

Korean War was the event which proved that both capitalism and communism cannot be the

leader of enlightening the Korean people.22The Church should have been the last fortress of

Christian modernity which was to overcome the non-modernity of both capitalistic South

Korea and communistic North Korea that had exposed their savageness through the war. He

understood the church as the symbol of modernity as many of the Koreans did. The fact of

the matter, however, is that the church didnt play such a role but followed the regression of

capitalism. Rather, the church was one of the leaders in [the formation] of corrupt state in the

formative period of Korean modern state, and led the politics of their savage violence.

Therefore, Ahn Byung-Mu crystallized a new church movement, namely, the

movement for a faith community as a life community. His article, Lay Ministry: theDirection of Group Movement23is a kind of inaugural statement for the movement. In the

article he discusses why it should be a life community. He states that the life community is

19 Ahn Byung-Mu, The Sons of Light, and the Sons of this Generation: Christians are being stolen,A Voice

from the Wilderness 5 (Jul. 1952)20 Ahn, The Meaning of Sufferings,A Voice from the Wilderness 1 (Nov. 1951).21 Since modern society, the mechanism of social integration of the masses being extremely expanded by a

modern nation, the self not simply captivated by the external regulations, that is, the physical and symbolic order

of social structure became an important issue. The term of internality is generally used to represent the very

self not simply captivated by the external regulations of social structure.22

As he often said in private occasions, Ahn Byung-Mu describes in Seoncheondaek(Beomwoo Press, 1996),that he experienced communism as savageness rather than modernity.23A Voice from the Wilderness 7 (Jan. 1953)

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the antithesis and alternative to the church which has been limited to the space of religiosity

retreated from life.24 When he wrote this article towards the end of the war, Korean people

were returning successively from the war to their daily lives. Thus it was the time when the

suffering of the war was rapidly transferred into the suffering of life. Then, the urgent

survival game was being transferred into the war of memory. In the disaster of war, no one

could be merely a victim of the survival game, and no one could survive without returning

savageness with savageness. As a matter of course, people had to be not only a victim but

also a victimizer of the horrifying savageness. War was a game in which one was able to

survive only through such a process. However, in order to be the winner in the war of

memory which those who returned to their daily lives must engage in, one should separate

her/himself from the memory of having harmed others. The losers of this war after the war,

namely, the war of memory had to pay the cost of mental damage and self-destruction.

Therefore, ones suppressed memory of having harmed others is transferred to his or

her unconsciousness. In this way, people endured the new war after the war. However, the

unconscious memory of having harmed others is not simply confined in the storehouse of

forgetfulness. Rather, it haunts consciousness the self in different ways and torments it.

Accordingly the church translated peoples trauma through religious language to guilty

conscience. Of course, through this process an enormous religious market was formed, in

which the religious product of salvation goods were madly consumed. Ahn Byung-Mu

observed that the church degenerated into a religious market and those in ecclesiastical

authority falling in corruption and exploiting peoples guilt conscience to secure their own

power in the market. In that sense, the community movement which he pursued was a solitary

voice in the wilderness to the corrupted church and a voice of salvation from the wilderness

to the injured people.25 In short, for him, the discovery of internality in discord with the world

was a true declaration of the Enlightenment to save people in the world.

26

It was a confessionof his modernistic faith for the national modernization abandoned by the church which should

have saved modernity from savageness.

24 Ibid. 554 (This page number is in the Theology for a Reformation of Christianity in which the article was

republished). This concern continued into Ahn Byung-Mus latter thought. For example, in the Hanbaik Church

established by him in 1987, he renamed dedication offering as offering materials, and suggested a common

meal instead of Communion.25 When Ahn Byung-Mu reorganized the Group of One Faith and discussed with the members the community

movement, he dreamed to be a pastor, and understood his own view of pastorate as a faith confession reactive to

the voice of peoples suffering. Theory of Pastorate If I Serve as a Pastor,A Voice from the Wilderness 3(Feb. 1952).26 Lay Ministry, 554. That was a solitary praxis with the determination to be willingly suffered.

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On the other hand, the narrative of internality in the Period of Presence adds an

important element of change while it still maintains the value of the Enlightenment, that is,

the modernistic view of salvation. This addition resulted from his clear recognition of reality

that it was not that easy to choose the internality alienating itself from the conventional and

dominant value of the world. Therefore, he started to emphasize a new point, which was

unfamiliar expression of the Period of a Voice from the Wilderness such as telling his

comrades to be ready for sufferings27 and denouncing the church leaders as religious

prostitutes.28The new point is the masses of Christians.29He began to take seriously the

new concern of a colonized internality being captive to the interests of those in ecclesiastical

authority and internalizing their interests as its own desire. At first glance, the position that

the inside is already captivated by the external world seems to have no need for specific

conceptual term of internality as an independent subject. However, for Ahn Byung-Mu who

was strongly influenced by existentialism, the inside captivated by the external world did not

mean an automatic destruction of the subject. Otherwise, he would have not used the

existentialistic term of presence. In my judgment, though he did not say explicitly, the

feature of Ahn Byung-Mus narrative of internality in this period is the viewpoint that even

colonized internality cannot be regarded as simple internalization of the external world, for it

has its own mechanisms of desire.30

It seems to be related to this context that Ahn Byung-Mus unique and deconstructive

point about sin appeared in this period. As mentioned before, in the critique against the

Christian church doctrine of sin in the Period of a Voice from the Wilderness, he

understood sin as having to do with the sources of the power of those in ecclesiastical

authority and thus criticized the power-oriented system of ecclesiastical authority. We can

find this critique especially in such article as Theory of Pastorate If I Serve as a Pastor.31

On the other hand, in many of the articles marking the Period of Presence, sin wasunderstood as the mediation between the colonized internality and the external world.32 In

other words, sin is none other than conventional discourses, namely, the mechanism of

internalizing the dominant narrative. Such technique of reproducing the existing system

seriously distorts the possibility of the masses alienation from the system.

27 Ibid.28 Ahn, Religious Prostitutes,A Voice from the Wilderness 12 (Jan, 1956).29 Ahn, The Image of Korean Christians, Presence 31 (May and Jun, 1972). This article was republished in

Sparks with the changed title of The Image of Christians.30

For this view about internality, refer to Jong-Young, The Forms of Internality (New Current Press, 2002).31A Voice from the Wilderness 3, Feb. 1952

32 Ahn, What is Sin?, Presence 1 (Jul, 1969)

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Therefore, the internality is disintegrated in Ahn Byung-Mus thought during this

period. One is the internality which is captivated by the frame of the external system and is

addicted to the game of desire allowed in it, and the other is the internality alienating itself

from the external world, which resists the conventionality scheming to dominate the inside.

Of course, Ahn Byung-Mu understood the latter as the picture of true Christians.33

By the way, the deeper recognition of the disintegrated internality requires a stronger

determination of the subject. In that sense, Ahn Byung-Mu was still existentialistic in

pursuing the Enlightenment as well. It is noteworthy that in this period he began to speak to

the masses instead of his comrades in the community. This means he came out to the public

square. It was, on the one hand, due to the failure of the community movement which he

pursued with the comrades in the Group for One Faith. On the other hand, it was probably

due to his contact with Western political theology which was in dialogue with Marxism and

pursued a theology rooted in praxis instead of speculative theology.34 Anyway, he went out to

the outside of the castle gate. The castle here means the church-centric ideology that has

turned away from history and the self-enclosing net that safeguards the fortress of speculative

theology. He willed to pursue the determination of presence to escape from the castle and

open his ears, mind, and body to the current of history.35

By the way, there was another reason for Ahn Byung-Mus going out to the public

square. In the context of Christian resistance against dictatorship in 1970s, he was

increasingly getting involved with the anti-dictatorship struggle. In 1973, the professors of

Korea Theological Seminary36 started to join in the struggle against the dictatorship of Park

Jeong-Hee, and Kim Jae-Joon was in the head of the line. Through this occasion, Ahn Byung-

Mu probably started to take seriously theological questions about engagement. Such

questions must have stimulated his interest in Western political theology. Above all, the

movement of young pastors devoted to the poor in the slum quarters, namely, urban ministryin the metropolitan area seemed to strengthen his concern about such theological questions

all the more.37Interestingly, in an article written in 1971 (The Ethics of the Remnants38),

33 Ahn, In What Sense Are You Christian?, Presence 27 (Jan, 1972)34 Ahn, The Current of Contemporary Theology: The Current of Political Theology - Political Theology (1),

Christian Thoughts (Jul, 1972); The Current of Contemporary Theology: Theology of Revolution - Political

Theology (2), Christian Thoughts (Aug, 1972); The Current of Contemporary Theology: Political Worship -

Political Theology (3), Christian Thoughts (Sep, 1972)35 Ahn, To the Outside the Castle Gate, Presence 54 (Sep, 1974)36

This seminary was transformed into Hanshin University in 1980 [translators footnote].37 Kim, Ibid. 52 and the following pages.38Presence 26 (Dec, 1971)

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Ahn Byung-Mu specified that the ethics of the one standing in front of the determination of

presence to choose the internality alienating itself from the external world is functioning as

the mouth of those suppressed who have mouth but cannot say and witnessing what they have

to say, that is, the unfairness that they suffer. In short, the theological concern about the

masses, especially, the masses at bottom of society began to enter his theological thought.

At this point, we need to pay attention to the way Ahn Byung-Mu critical receives

Western political theology. He strongly insisted that the politics placed on the agenda by

Western political theology should be reinterpreted not as Confucius politics but as historical

Jesus politics.39 This politics is not a political game played in the dominant political

discourses, but the life sharing with the masses in the fields of life of the masses colonized by

politics. For Ahn Byung-Mu, this was the meaning of the urban ministry in the metropolitan

area and his own critical interpretation of Western political theology.

In the preceding discussion, I attempted to discuss about Ahn Byung-Mus faith

pursuing the Enlightenment which continued from a voice of the wilderness to presence,

and show that the process of the development from the former to the latter is based upon the

deepening and reflecting of internality. Such current of his thought was a ceaseless journey

towards self-discovery. It was also a journey of questioning about the contents of the

determination of the presence of a being in time and space. What should we determine? He

continuously pursued anti-power. Regarding power as consistent logic of domination, he

struggled not to allow his self to be captivated by the game of a lust for power. In the period

of a voice from the wilderness, such an effort was expressed through the community

movement, and it was a strategy of alienating the self from the mechanism of the public

square. On the contrary, in the period of presence, he comes out to the public square,

and speaks to the masses absorbed into the logic of the public square, and speaks on behalf

of them.Ahn Byung-Mus journey to the ethics of the self as mentioned above was experience

of an extreme conversion when he encountered the Jeon Tae-il event. This event was the

occasion for the conversion from exploration of internality to otherness.

II-2. The Discovery of Minjung: the Shock of Otherness

Ahn Byung-Mu remembers the Jeon Tae-il event in 1972 as the occasion for a

39 Ahn, Political?, Presence 31(May, 1972).

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paradigm shift in his own theological thought.40 Hence, he thought it was in 1972 that he had

written for the first time an article with Minjung as a theological theme, namely, Jesus and

Minjung.41 However, his first article with the theological theme of Minjung is Nation,

Minjung, and the Church, which was published first in Christian Thoughts in April, 1975.

The article was an essay originally written for the preaching and lecture at the remembrance

service for the March 1st Movement. The service was held by the Christian Professors

Council to celebrate the conditional release of Kim Chan-Kook and Kim Tong-Gil who had

been imprisoned on the suspicion of the masterminding the Peoples Revolutionary Party

Incident.42 In this article, Ahn Byung-Mu used the word ochlos to indicate Minjung. The

term is used to indicate Jesus masses in the Gospel of Mark. He also published in 1979 the

article Jesus and Ochlos,43which is the first article that explored the theory ofochlos on a

full scale since he mentioned it first in 1975.

In my view, for Ahn Byung-Mu, the Jeon Tae-il event was probably not experienced

as a preceding event through which he discovered Minjung, but experienced later in the

process of his forming and developing theology about Minjung. Of course, right after the

Jeon Tae-il event, he wrote an article of mourning for him in the form of editors postscript in

Presence.44 However, he described the event simply as a death of a martyr for democracy,

which was hardly different from a general description of Minjung at that time. The sign for

the theory ofochlos had not yet appear in the article.

Ahn Byung-Mus uniquely Minjung theory, as mentioned before, started with the

article Nation, Minjung, and the Church, which was a sermon manuscript for the

remembrance service for the March 1st Movement in 1975. It was the first article in which he

interpreted Minjung as ochlos and presented the frame for his theory on Minjung. Therefore,

40 Ahn, Talking about Minjung Theology (Korea Theological Study Institute, 1990), 25741 Ibid., 2542

Coincidentally, Suh Nam-Dong published his first article with the theological theme of Minjung, About aTheology of Minjung, in the same issue ofChristian Thoughts (Apr, 1975). The article was a response to Kim

Hyoung-Hyos criticism on his previous article of Jesus, Church History, and the Korean Church published in

Christian Thoughts (Feb, 1975), where he declared that liberation from poverty should be one of the main

theological subjects. In his article, About Truth in the Time of Confusion (Literay Thoughts, Apr, 1975), Kim

Hyoung-Hyo, a scholar of philosophy, criticized the tendency of critical theology discussing poverty and

liberation including Suhs article. Kim insisted that such theological tendency was nothing but demagogy

drawing on the concept of Minjung which is a mere fabrication. Thus these two articles by Ahn and Suh were

the starting articles for a debate on Minjung theology.43 Presence 106 (Nov. 1979)44 Ahn, Human Torch, Presence 15 (Oct and Nov, 1970). The publication date of this issue is printed as Nov.

1, but the Jeon Tae-il event was on Nov. 13. This means that the real publication date was Nov. 13 or right after

the date. It is probably that he inserted promptly the article of mourning for him in the form of editors postscriptin his encounter with the event. Then, when he wrote the article, he did not have enough time to reflect the Jeon

Tae-il event.

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we can say that the article was the beginning of Ahn Byung-Mus own way of discovering

Minjung. In addition, it is important that his theory on Minjung was connected with the

theory ofochlos from the beginning.

Ochlos in Ahns theory is ochlos whose usage is limited to that in the Gospel of Mark.

The term ochlos appears 154 times in the Greek Bible (New Testament), among which it

appears 128 times in the narratives related to Jesus tradition. In Genzo Tagawas observation,

it is only in the Gospel of Mark that the ochlos has high probability of being categorized as a

specific class group.45 It seems to me that Tagawas theory was transmitted to Ahn through

Suh Nam-Dong who introduced Tagawa to Korea for the first time.

In Tagawas theory, ochlos in the Gospel of Mark means a kind of low-class people,

such as patients, tax-collectors, prostitutes, and the destitute. This point of view was accepted

as in full in Ahn Byung-Mus article, Nation, Minjung, and the Church. However, while

Tagawa interpreted ochlos as limited to the audience of the Gospel of Mark, Ahn Byung-Mu

insisted in the article that the ochlos was also the masses surrounding the historical Jesus.

Here, Ahn did not explain about the leap, that is, how the masses in the Gospel of Mark can

be regarded as the masses surrounding the historical Jesus. Though he took it for granted, his

insistence has never been self-evident in the history of the historical Jesus studies.

4 years after the publication of the article, Ahn Byung-Mu published Jesus and

Ochlos in 1979, where he began to develop the theory ofochlos full-scale. Of course, the

point of this article is not so much different than that of Nation, Minjung, and the Church.

However, it was an important advance in his theory ofochlos in that he presented

sociological aspects ofochlos in the article more explicitly. In other words, he defined ochlos

as the masses deprived of the place to which they belong. It seems to me that he was not

aware of the important meaning this definition implied. In my view, if the anthropological

reference that the general mechanism of social integration in an ancient village society wasthe pure-impure system can also be applied to the historical Jesus studies, such information

from comparative historical sociology suggests that the definition of the masses deprived of

the place to which they belong implies a very meaningful historical understanding of the

masses around the historical Jesus.

Yet Ahn Byung-Mu did not resolve the problem mentioned before. Is it possible to

identify the masses around Jesus described by the Gospel of Mark with the masses around the

45 Genzo Tagawa, translated by Kim Myoung-Shik, The Gospel of Mark and Liberation of the People A Study

on the Early Christianity (Four Season Press, 1983)

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historical Jesus? If so, what is the ground? It was a German biblical scholar Gerd Theissen

who provided a breakthrough for Ahn Byung-Mu. He provided a breakthrough through form

criticism, which was in a crisis of losing its function as a historical critical method, by

reutilizing it in a literary sociological approach with three categories for analysis. The three

categories are analytic inference, constructive inference, and analogical inference. It is in the

analytic inference that his creative interpretation is outstanding. Especially, paying attention

to the peculiarity of oral transmission distinct from literal transmission that the former

presupposes the congruence between the transmitted contents and the life of the transmitter,

Theissen believed that presupposition of oral transmission is an important clue for analytic

inference. This opened a huge possibility for historical imagination. The conclusion he

reached through this approach was that Jesus radical and deviant sayings could be

transmitted only by wandering charismatic prophets who could live up to such sayings of

Jesus.

However, the hypothesis of Theissen has a serious flaw. It has to do with that he

locates the units of oral transmission in the material of Jesus sayings (Q source). The

problem is that the text in the form of sayings is not so much oral as it is literal. The rule of

oral transmission of which he made good use, specifically, the congruence between ones

sayings and life, is a hypothesis originally drawn from folklore studies not through the texts

in the form of sayings but through texts of oral narratives. Therefore, the text more useful

for applying Theissens hypothetical method is not the text of Jesus sayings but the Gospel of

Mark.

Transmitter of Oral TransmissionForm of

Transmission

Literal

Transmission

J

E

S

U

S

Wandering Charismatic ProphetsFragmentary

Sayings

Jesus Sayings

(Q)

Theissens

Hypothesis

Ochlos (Minjung) Narrative The Gospel of

Mark

Ahn Byung-Mus

Hypothesis

In that sense, Ahn Byung-Mus focusing on the Gospel of Mark in his exploration of

properties of Minjung language and the issue of transmitter opened a new historical

possibility that he himself didnt imagine at all. The two articles published at that time, The

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Transmitter and Interpreter46 and Christianity and Minjung Language,47 show such

concerns though only vaguely.48

The concerns raised in these two articles led to the suggestion of a probable hypothesis

about the route of transmission from the historical Jesus to Gospel of Mark. In The Subject

of History in the Light of the Gospel of Mark,49 presented in 1981, Ahn insisted that there

was oral transmission by ochlos between Jesus and the Gospel of Mark. Moreover, in 1984,

his previous view that such transmission by ochlos (Minjung) was in the form of narrative

was specified into a remarkable insight that the form of transmission was a rumor.50

Contemporary studies on rumor show numerous examples of the congruence between ones

sayings and life not in terms of the contents of the transmitted sayings but in terms of

emotional sympathy.51 In that sense, I think that Ahns theory of rumor is a revolutionary

achievement which opened a new possibility for historical Jesus studies through the Gospel

of Mark.

The following table shows the summary of the above discussion.

The Historical Jesus The Gospel of Mark : Text

Ochlos as the

subjectof the Jesus

events

Ochlos as the

Transmitterof the

Jesus events

Ochlos as the

interpreterof the Jesus

events

: Matrix of

Transmission

Rumor The first Jesus Biography: Form of

Transmission

Of course, Ahns understanding of Minjung cannot be reduced entirely to this theory

ofochlos. We can find another tendency in his understanding of Minjung, in which Minjung

is understood as a non-conceptualized term indicating subjugated people and a kind of

politicized mass, as is generally found in the usage of the term by other Minjung theorists of

various areas in his time. Such usage of Minjung resulted in a more obscure understanding of

46Presence 101 (May, 1979).47Presence 108 (Jan and Feb, 1980).48 For the significance of the two articles for Ahn Byung-Mus theory ofochlos, refer to my article, Two kinds

of Gospel Jesus Behind whom Minjung is Concealed and Jesus Transmitted by Minjung,In an Era of

Minjungs death, We re-view Ahn Byung-Mu.49 This article was published originally with the title of Minjung Theology Focusing on the Gospel of Mark

in Theological Thoughts 34 (Fall 1981).50 Ahn, The Matrix in Which the Jesus Events Were Transmitted, The Development of Korean Minjung

Theology in 1980s, (Korea Theological Study Institute, 1990). This article was presented originally at The

Theologians Conference for the Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Korean Protestant Church held by

the Korean Association of Theological Seminaries in 1984.51

A pioneering study reflecting this kind of view was done in advertisement communication studies. Hwang Ui-Rok and Kim Chang-Ho, A Literature Review on Oral Communication, Studies on Advertisement26 (1995

Spring).

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the substance of Minjung, for it grants the term an excessive significance such as the bearer

of sufferings and the subject of history (revolution) while its definition was non-

conceptualized. As a result, since the mid-1980s, Minjung theory was replaced by the class

theory in the area of social sciences.

On the contrary, Ahns theory ofochlos has the potential of a new conceptualization of

Minjung, which even he himself didnt recognize.52 First of all, it is noteworthy that he

understood Minjung/ochlos from the perspective of being deprived of belongingness. This

perspective reminds us of a leper in Jesus time who was expelled from his/her village and

had to live in the place of excluded people. She/he was pushed out to the outside. Now,

while the outside is her/his routine place now, it always remains only as the outside of

his/her original place from which she/he was expelled. It is because s/he cannot settle in the

new place of her/his daily routine and always desires the inside. In other words, her/his

self-definition is interlocked not with her/his place of living but with the place of her/his

exclusion. This means that the language from the place of ones non-existence defines her/his

existence. One who is existent but is regarded as nonexistent, one who has to interpret her/his

own being in the language of others, such a being is called subaltern by postcolonial

scholars. For Ahn Byung-Mu, such a being is none other than ochlos.

The point of having no language of ones own to define his/her existence coincides

with the empirical studies showing that one of the general characteristics of subalterns today

is a phenomenon of the deprival of language. The one seized with aphasia in the Bible can be

read as a metaphoric description and ancient symbol of such deprival of language. Besides,

the scene in the story of a mad person in Garasenes, in which the evil spirit answers on his

behalf to Jesus question, Whats your name?, shows that he lost his own language to

identify her/his own being, and exists like a doll ventriloquized by another person (the evil

spirit). The other person represents not the main value of the society which excluded him butthe evil nature of the society. In short, the mainstream society conceals its own evil nature by

transferring it to those such as the mad person in Gerasenes. Now, the society can play the

role of a righteous judge who expels and punishes the symbol of evil nature. On the other

hand, the expelled one does not realize that he himself is a scapegoat, for she/he is deprived

of his/her own language to identify her/his own being.

According to field studies on the mode of life in slum districts of the city which are

52

The following points is a brief sketch of the discussion about re-understanding Ahn Byung-Mus Minjungtheory which was attempted in my article The death of Minjung and Re-reading Ahn Byung-Mu,In an Era

of Minjungs death, We Re-view Ahn Byung-Mu.

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the places of subaltern beings, such areas have s higher rate of crime and shows a higher level

of family violence as well as more serious dependency on drugs and alcohol.53 Therefore,

these excluded people are not only the bearer of sufferings but also the bearer of evil nature

of the society. While Ahn Byung-Mu did not realize this point in his theory ofochlos, his

imagination of the deprival of the place to which one belongs can be considered as having

opened the possibility of it developing into such a point.

Such imagination ofochlos served as an occasion for him to cut himself off from

his epistemological exploration for self-reflective subjectivity such as in a voice from the

wilderness and presence. He theologized this experience of cutting off as a

soteriological experience. Generally speaking, theology understands salvation as

experiencing self-transcendence through otherness without being connection to the self. Thus

such experience has been named and understood as grace of God. Through the period of a

voice from the wilderness and presence, Ahn Byung-Mu only made an existential

reinterpretation of this soteriological frame of self-transcendence while he accepted almost in

whole the soteriological framework of theology. In other words, his soteriology was

presence (Dasein), that is, the value of function for the time within history which is drawn

from thefunction where the self and God as otherness work as the variables. In this case,

presence as the value of function for salvation (function) was represented as the being of a

voice from the wilderness that is in discord with the dominant values of the time.

However, the discovery of Minjung/ochlos served as an occasion for the cutoff from

this kind of epistemological soteriology. Such a discovery made it possible for Ahn to

experience self-transcendence not through the abstract otherness in the highest form but

through the otherness ofochlos in the lowest form that has a voice from the wilderness to

change ones presence. Thus he described the discovery ofochlos as an event of salvation.

Jeon Tae-il was a symbolic representative of such event of salvation. It was in this contextthat the identification of Jeon Tai-il with Jesus and the theory of Minjung Messiah were

brought forward. In addition, for him, the theological praxis to recover human rights of those

who lost the ability to express themselves due to the deprival of their own language is

represented as witness. Thus the witness of Minjung theology is, on the one hand, speaking

for those who suffer enforced silence due to the deprival of their own language, and on the

other hand, the praxis of exposing the mechanism of such domination. Therefore, he insisted

53

Park Byung-Hyun and Choi Seon-Mi, A Consideration about the Concepts of Social Exclusion and LowerClasses and the Implication for Korean Policies for Poverty Reduction,Journal of Korean Social Welfare

Studies 45 (2001, Summer).

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that doing theology in Minjung theology is not the process of discovering the otherness of

exalted God but that of discovering the otherness of God identifying Godself with those in

the lowest places.

This Minjung theological discovery cannot be logically verified by the theology of the

church, for in Ahns view the history of the theology of the church has been nothing but the

concealment of Minjung. Thus his quest for the historical Jesus; for Jesus indeed is the

decisive proof of the epiphany, or rather, the incarnation54of the otherness of God in the

lowest places.

The starting point of Ahn Byung-Mus quest for historical Jesus was trying to

overcome subject/object dichotomy. In other words, Jesus didnt soliloquize, but brought

about events together with the masses/ochlos. He employed the overcoming of such

dichotomy as a method of interpreting the text, which resulted in a new understanding of

transmitter. Among the transmitters were not only the specialized charismatic people but

also the uneducated masses. The Gospel of Mark in particular was an oral text of the

narratives transmitted by these uneducated masses and put into writing later. Therefore, the

study on the Gospel of Mark is not so much the study on the theology of the anonymous

theologian Mark as the study of politics reflecting the desire of the transmitting masses

which they tried to realize through Jesus narratives. Then, the sociological interpretation of

ochlos the masses of the Gospel of Mark, which is theorized by Tagawa, plays an important

role in this case. The ochlos were not only the audience of the Gospel of Mark, but the

transmitters of the narratives transmitted to the Gospel and furthermore the subject of the

events of historical Jesus. In short, Ahn Byung-Mus method of studying historical Jesus was

reasoning the similarity in their social experiences from the similarity in their social class,

and reading the similarity in their memories from the similarity in their social experiences.

The process from the historical Jesus to the Gospel of Mark can be described as a kindof hermeneutical genealogy. The main performers in this genealogy were the ochlos. At this

point, another important point is raised. As discussed above, the Gospel of Mark is the

salvific story of the Jesus Event performed and transmitted by the ochlos. The ochlos here

were those deprived of their own language, those seized with aphasia, but they brought about

the Jesus Event together with Jesus. In this way, they were healed and recovered their

language. Telling the Jesus stories, those deprived of their own language recovered their lost

54 Ahn Byung-Mu interpreted such a case as incarnation rather than epiphany. Ahn, Sallim: Is Minjung

reincarnated Jesus? Sallim 20 (Jul, 1990).

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language. The Jesus stories, their own memories of Jesus, were exactly the events of the self-

recovery of those made other, that is, the stories of the salvation of Minjung.

Ahn Byung-Mu reads this kind of story in the story of Jeon Tae-il. In other words, he

read the Jeon Tae-il event as a reappearance of the Jesus-ochlos events in Korea. This view is

not a biological identification of Jesus with Jeon Tae-il, but a realization of the genealogical

continuity between the Jesus Event and the Jeon Tae-il event in Korea. This is the point

where he experienced salvation and made it his theological task to work as a witness for

Minjung/ochlos.

In short, I find the essence of Ahn Byung-Mus theory ofochlos in the following

schema of soteriological process: self-salvation events ofochlos salvation events of

intellectuals/citizensMinjung praxis of intellectuals/citizens. As discussed above, event

as a Minjung theological concept, the overcoming of subject/object dichotomy, and the theory

of Minjung Messiah can be understood as part of the theory ofochlos. In addition, I pointed

out that the epistemological rupture between seeking for salvation in internality in his

previous thought and experiencing salvation through otherness was inseparably interlocked

with the discovery of Minjung. In that sense, the internality alienating itself from the external

world was reoriented from thefunction with the exalted otherness to thefunction with the

lowest otherness.

II-3. Imagination for Sallim: Towards the discourse of reflective otherness

In an article which seems to have been presented in the first half of 1987,55 being

reminded of the presence of some Korean people being tortured and groaning in secret

rooms, Ahn Byung-Mu confessed, I met Minjung in these people. He barely read hope here

from hopelessness. However, in July, 1987, watching the huge parade in the funeral

ceremony to mourn the death of Lee Han-Yeol, he couldnt hide his restless heart.

Why, their dead bodies became whips and drive those who had shut themselves in

the caves of resignation and selfishness to come out to the streets.

Why, it was a parade not only for mourning the dead.

Why, it was a solemn parade for a national festival. Thus, they did not only weep.

Cheers, cheers. That was it. The parade made us experience national revival. In the

huge parade, I encountered both the event of crucifixion and that of resurrection at

55 Ahn, Come and See,Nevertheless, God didnt Return Them to Eden (Korea Theological Study Institute,

1995). As long as we know, it was in Sallim (Apr, 1992) that this article first appeared. Though we have no ideawhether this article was a preaching or a manuscript for a media, it must have been written in the first half of

1987, immediately after the experience of the Kwon In-Sook event and Park Jong-Cheol event.

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the same time.56

However, his excitement did not last long. Running up against a head wind of history,

that mass uprising soon failed. Thus, in an interview around August, 1989, he gave an

unexpected answer to a personal question about a face that he yearns to see, I long for

rioting, the uprising of Minjung! Though it can be an eschatological illusion, I long for

such revolution changing the world completely.

It was at a time when he had to review history more thoroughly. He had to reexamine

the events of 1987 and reflect on the Minjung theory of 1970s and 1980s. Entering such

reflections, he started the monthly periodical Sallim in Dec, 1988. The code of the reflections

was Sallim, the title of the periodical.We should not think that Ahn Byung-Mus reflections simply overlap with the

discussion advocating the citizen theory based upon ecological movements as an alternative

to the Minjung theory of 1980s. Rather, properly speaking, Ahn Byung-Mus Minjung theory

at this point was radicalized rather than retreated in that he was reflecting on the

ideologized Minjung theories. This reflection coincides with the insistence that Minjung

should be thoroughly materialized.57The ideological views of Minjung, as manifested in such

a hastily made discourse of Minjung as the subject of history, failed not only to read the

desires of Minjung but also to speak about the suffering of Minjung.

At that time, Ahn Byung-Mu often talked to the editorial staff ofSallim as follows,

For example, try to tell about the suffering of Minjung in a cup of coffee we drink

everyday. In his statement on the foundation of the periodical Sallim, Editors Note on the

First Edition the Movement of the monthly periodical Sallim,58 he said that Sallim is

interlinked with the expression of getting over killing. In other words, telling about

Sallim is inseparably interlocked with understanding killing, the concrete reality of killing.

Ahn Byung-Mus theory ofochlos discussed before made us pay attention to the killing

of Minjung deprived of their own language. However, his unique Minjung theory was not

totally free from his times common view of history. The historical experience of the savage

dictatorship and the unprecedented economic development confused the intellectuals who

56 Ahn, Christ in Minjung Events, Christ in Minjung Events (Korea Theological Study Institute, 1989). We do

not know about the media and the time in which this article was published. Though the book says that this

article was published in Jun, 1987, it is contradictory to its content already containing Lee Han-Yeols funeral.

Considering his extraordinary passionate expressions in the article, I judge that it was written right after his

watching the parade in Lee Han-Yeols funeral.57 Ahn, Realization of a Community Sharing Meal, Talking about Minjung Theology.58Sallim, the first edition (Dec. 1988)

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were not free from the sense of the Enlightenment. From the view of the Enlightenment,

these two phenomena were contradictory. Ahn Byung-Mu understood correcting this

abnormal modernization as democratization and an alternative way to overcome the structure

of killing Minjung. Therefore, while the theory ofochlos at that time provided a logic and

historical foundation for the determination of presence through otherness in the lowest

place, the internality alienating itself from the external world which was strengthened in this

way was too deeply entangled in the frame of thought combining developmentalism and

democratization.59

By the way, this tendency of thought makes it difficult to think about the suffering of

Minjung particularly in a society pursuing developmentalistic democratization where its

political structure is transformed from dictatorship to democracy. Therefore, the theory of

Minjung/ochlos inevitably has to pursue a new kind of internality alienating itself from the

external world. The otherness in the lowest place that had challenged the existential

internality in the past did not apply to the changed order of the external world. Thus, Ahn

Byung-Mu had to radicalize the concerns implied in the theory ofochlos. Sallim is a

Minjung theological concept that resulted from such radicalization of the theory ofochlos. In

other words, it is a code of Minjung theological thought requiring reflective rethinking about

otherness in a changed epistemological horizon of democracy.

However, Sallim was limited to the area of declaration. Though Ahn Byung-Mu tried

to raise sharp issues through the concept of Sallim, he could not realize the concreteness.

III. Doing theology in the market of suffering

Ahn Byung-Mu is one of the main figures who introduced the concern of internality

into Korean theology. In particular, he focused on the internality alienating itself from the

external world which is in discord with the dominant order. When he reached the idea thatsuch internality was motivated by discovering the suffering of others in the lowest place,

Minjung theology appeared on the stage of history.

Especially, the theory ofochlos is his important framework for critical discourse in

which to theorize critical epistemology of Minjung theology which uncovers the structure of

concealed suffering. In addition, the concept of Sallim is a mediation resituating the theory

ofochlos to make it valid for us who are living in the society after democratization.

The development of such theological thought of Ahn Byung-Mu leads us to the special

59 Ahn, Korean Democratization and the Responsibility of Intellectuals,New East Asia 333 (Jun, 1987).

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concern about social suffering. Following his thought, recent Minjung theology tries to

discover the market in which suffering is traded in our society. This market of suffering is a

chain of curse, like death, for some people, but others trade their desires in this mechanism

that makes it possible. Especially, in our society rushing towards globalization, this market

forms our routine life, with getting bigger and more elaborate becomes its hallmark.

Therefore, the content of doing theology for Minjung theologians following Ahn Byung-Mu

[present context] is to read and to expose the structure of such an order and its theology of

Beelzebub, and exploring an alternative to it.

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Documents

(김진호) An Attempt at Ahn Byung-Mu Hermeneutics