Jesus, Minjung and Ideology

Chapter Three

JESUS, MINJUNG AND IDEOLOGY

Jesus and Messianic Theology

Questions are often raised about the Christian identity of the Student Christian Movement, in Korea and else- where in Asia. So is about the Christian identity of minjung theology. Also, people raise the question as to the relationship between minjung theology and ideology. Sometimes even before they ask us minjung theologians about the "red connection," they condemn us as "communist sympathizers," and Marxists. Some Christians and Korean authorities argue that minjung theology is a Korean "cousin" of Latin American liberation theology and the liberation theology is Marxist, therefore, minjung theology is... And therefore, it is ideologically dangerous to follow the praxis of minjung theology in Korea. And when some Christian friends raise the question of Christian identity of minjung theology they ire precisely asking the same question with almost the same assumption.

Our answer is that the basis of minjung theology is Jesus Christ who came to the world for minjung and worked for minjung and lived with minjung and acted like minjung ind died for minjung on the cross. In the biblical research of Professor Ahn Byung Mu, especially in the study of the gospel of Mark, makes a clear notion of minjung in terms if Mark's use of the word "ochlos" as opposed to the word, "laos". For him, the minjung is definitely ochlos

rather than laos. Ochlos, the minjung of Jesus, according to Mark, are the sinners, the tax collectors, the sick, those who opposed the powers in Jerusalem, the despised people of Galilee, prostitutes, the underdogs of Judaism and the lost sheep of Israel. Mark does not define ochlos in a deterministic way, but rather, describes the ochlos and uses the term in referring to a social historical class. On the other hand, the term laos refers to a national and religious group. Professor Ahn is rather particularistic: the laos is no minjung. And Jesus said "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17b)

Precisely because of this identification of Jesus with ochlos he was condemned and executed on the cross, in spite of a declared claim to be the Messiah. "Whereas according to the expectation of the Jews the Son of Man was to appear at the last judgement only as the judge of the sinners and the redeemer of the righteous, Jesus actually turned towards the sinners and the lost." Jesus abandoned the traditional role of Messiah to call upon the righteous. And Jesus who abandoned the "true role" of Messiah is the false Messiah, and he had to die. He was the blasphemer. The Jewish leaders preached the victory of the righteousness of God according to the law with the exaltation of the righteous who suffer injustice on earth, and the putting to shame of the lawless and godless. But Jesus preached the imminent kingdom of God not as judgement, but as the gospel of the justification of sinners by grace. He lived with sinners and tax collectors and worked for the sick and the poor, giving the Messianic hope to them. The false Messiah was not only blaspheming God, but also deceiving the sinners and the tax collectors, with the false hopes for them, according to Jewish authorities. John the Baptist came to preach the Messianic kingdom, the kingdom of God: "The kingdom of God is at hand," "Therefore", he said, "repent", in order to

endure the last judgement. Jesus preached using the same words, but with a different content: The kingdom does not come as judgement, but as the unconditional and free grace of God by which the lost are sought out and those without rights, and the unrighteous are accepted. The kingdom of God will come only by Jesus' living offering of himself to the poor, the sinners and the tax collectors. The kingdom of God was preached by the sinners and tax collectors. The kingdom of God was preached by Jesus to the poor and for the poor. So there was the messianic politics for the oppressed in the preaching of Jesus.

Minjung theology identifies itself with the Jesus who stood with the poor and lived for the poor, the oppressed and sinners. It also identifies itself with the messianic politics of Jesus. Kim Yong-Bock writes:

The minjung are the permanent reality of history. Kingdoms, dynasties and states rise and fall; but the minjung remains as a concrete reality in history, experiencing the comings and goings of political powers. (2)

This is to say that messianic politics is to make minjung a concrete reality of history, and upon that reality minjung will rise itself as the subjects of history. Minjung is the protagonist in the historical drama. It is the subject; and in Kim Yong Bock's phrase, 'its socio-political biography is the predicate of the historical drama. But this does not mean to say, like in communism, the messianic politics aims at the "dictatorship of the proletariat." The concept of "minjung" is different from the Maoist notion of "inmin''', for the Maoist notion upholds the supremacy and dictatorship of the proletariat and it believes in total dictatorship. The notions of 'the dictatorship' and of 'the proletariat' and 'totalitarianism' are both foreign and

antagonistic to the idea of the messianic politics of minjung.

Minjung theology identifies itself with the messianic politics of Jesus for the poor, the oppressed and alienated. Minjung theology recognizes the subjecthood of minjung in history, but it does not recognize the political power that is to dominate and manipulate minjung in the name of minjung. If we use Walter Brueggemann's language, messianic politics of minjung is to offer an alternative community in the prophetic imagination of Jesus. (3) The messianic politics of minjung is, therefore, more poetic than prose in its formation of the future socio- biography of minjung themselves. Minjung as subject of history transcends the socio-economic determination of history. Minjung will unfold its stories beyond mere historical necessities to historical novelty — a new drama beyond the present history, to a new and transformed history.

Minjung theology identifies itself with minjung in the reality of history, and it meets minjung in this history and hopes with minjung for the messianic kingdom of Jesus. Minjung theology does not take sides with those people in the church who claim the kingdom for the righteous, the powerful and rich, not only here on earth to dominate minjung and alienate sinners and powerless but also in heaven and for eternity. Minjung theology searches for an alternative community in the world in the prophetic imagination of Jesus himself in his messianic politics.

Jesus and Messianic Politics

In the messianic politics of Jesus, he had to confront with the ideology of the Jews, the High Priests and the Sadducees. Jesus had conflicts not only with the messianic theology of the Jews, but also with the messianic politics of the Jews and the Jewish authorities. Jesus did not go through the punishment for blasphemy executed always by

stoning as in the case of the death of Stephen. Instead, Jesus was crucified by the Roman occupying power. The death of Jesus was the death of a political criminal. Jesus was crucified for his messianic politics which is in conflict with the political ideology of the Jewish authorities. The messianic politics of Jesus was not only dangerous to the messianic politics of the Jewish authorities which was only interested in the domination of laws and Jerusalem, but it was more dangerous to the political religion of the Roman Empire. The Jewish authorities did not have to punish Jesus. They thought that the Romans had better reason to execute Jesus for his messianic politics: Jesus was a political and ideological threat to the Romans.

Jesus was crucified by the Romans not merely for tractical and immediate political reasons of peace and good order in Jerusalem, but basically in the name of the state gods of Rome who assured the Pax Romana. Jesus was condemned by Pilate as a political rebel as a Zealot. The real trial was the trial before Pilate which was a political trial made possible by the conspiracy of the Jewish authorities and the representative of the Roman Empire. Jesus not only offended the God of the Jews but also the state gods of the Romans. And thereby Jesus not only challenged the messianic politics of the Jews but also threatened the state ideology of the Romans. The end result was the execution on the cross, and the inscription over the cross reads: INRI — "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."

Certainly for Pilate, the case of Jesus of Nazareth was clearly on the same level as that of Barabbas, who was probably a Zealot. We know of him as a "rebel" captured "in the insurrection". (Mark 15:7) Was Jesus a Zealot? Was Jesus standing against the right wing politics of the Jewish authorities and the Roman empire taking sides with the left with politics of the Zealots? Was the messianic politics of Jesus the same as that of the Zealot? Then why

did Judas betray Jesus? Where does Jesus stand in his messianic politics ideologically? Why did he have to die on the political cross and why did the people shout for the crucifixion of Jesus?

Moltmann lists some features which could have led to the association of Jesus with the Zealots.⁴

a. Like the Zealots, Jesus preached that the kingdom of God is at hand.

b. Like them, he understood his ministry and his gospel as a mission to bring about the kingdom, i.e. as an anticipation of the kingdom of God.

c. The sources record Jesus' polemic against the Pharisees, but scarcely and polemic against the Zealots.

d. He adopted Zealot criticism in calling Herod a "fox" (Luke 13:32). In the eyes of the established political and social ruling class he formulated the fundamental alternative for himself and his disciples: "You know that in the world the recognized rulers lord it over their subjects, and their great men make them feel the weight of authority. That is not the way with you; among you, whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the willing slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give up his life as a ransom for many". (Mark 10:42-45),

e. Jesus actually attracted Zealots to himself. Amongst the Twelve there was at least one, Simon Zealot, who had previously belonged to the Zealot. It is very probable that Judas Iscariot belonged to the Zealot group known as the sicarii.

f. Among the disciples there were some who carried weapons. And even Jesus said (a post-resurrection utterance) to the disciples "And let him who has

no sword sell his mantle and buy one". In the Garden of Gethsamene some of the disciples carried swords.

g. The entry into Jerusalem and the cleansing of the temple could perfectly well have been understood by the disciples, the Jewish inhabitants and the Romans as symbolic actions and gestures in support of the Zealots. The time of revolution has come at last, they might have thought.

h. Besides these features of similarity between Jesus and the Zealots there is another factor. Sociolo- gically speaking, Jesus came from the rural area, Galilee, the ecologically deprived area of the Palestine. Jesus was not only with the poor and the oppressed, but also with the people who belonged to the villages, farms and fisheries – the working class. Jesus did not belong to the political urbane people of Jerusalem, but to the ignorant and the rough people of the countryside. Certainly, he has the "revolutionary" background.

Could we, then, say that Jesus was certainly one of the Zealots that his messianic politics was revolutionary; and that his ideology was "left" wing and therefore dangerous? Was his ideology a left-wing ideology over against the dominant ideology of the Jewish authorities and the Romans? But there were some distinctive features that distinguished Jesus from the Zealots.

a. The Zealots anticipated the coming Messianic kingdom by the struggle for liberation from Rome. To use the expression of the time, they sought to "bring in the kingdom by violence". Jesus may have been referring to them by his saying: "Until now the kingdom of heaven has

suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force". (Matt. 11:12). It was the Zealots who will take the kingdom back by force, because the Kingdom was taken by violence by the Romans. In Moltmann's words: "Militant resistance against the godless, lawless Romans was the political worship of the Zealots: Anyone who sheds the blood of a godless man is like one who offers a sacrifice".6 The Zealots waged an eschatological "holy war" against the Romans. But the purpose of this holy war was solely to establish the law of God and above all the first and second command- ments. The Zealots were fighting for the legal righteousness of the messianic kingdom. On this point the Zealots were much closer to the messianic politics of the Pharisess than to that of Jesus.

Jesus saw this legalism in the radical right wing and also in the radicalism of the left wing politics of the Zealots. In Jesus's case, the anticipation of the Kingdom of God through his gospel to the poor, was brought about not by this kind of legalism but by the divine principle of free grace. Jesus was different from the Zealots not because of the issue of non-violence but because of the order of the messianic politics which Jesus himself declared: "My Kingdom is not of this world". (John 18:36). This does not signify that his kingdom is elsewhere or "unpolitical" in another sphere — that of heaven or of the heart. The messianic politics of Jesus is of a different pattern from this world. Yet, different as it is, it is in the midst of this world through Jesus himself. It is quite different from the systems and rules of the struggle for world domination and revenge.

b. Like Pharisees and the self-righteous Jews, the Zealots could not stand the sinners, the unclean, the sick, the prostitutes, lepers and tax-collectors. The notorious friend of tax-collectors and sinners was the problem. Jesus was not only the friend of the Zealots but also of those despised by the Zealots and the Pharisees. The revolution and holy war staged by the Zealots were not for the poor and oppressed but for the restoration of the kingdom of law. They might have fought for the "messianic kingdom", but not for the messianic kingdom for the poor and the oppressed. They might have been the radical elite of the left wing ideology oj the time. Jesus did not ottock the uncompromising political obedience of the Zealots. The main problem with Jesus was not about violence or non-violence. But the basic problem of Jesus with the Zealots was the elitism of the revolutionary Zealots and the legalistic kingdom of the Jews.

c. Perhaps because of their elitism and legalism, the Zealots as well as Pharisees were very serious about their revolutionary intentions and about themselves. For them it was not the time to be merry and happy. On the contrary, it was the time for mourning for Israel's lost freedom, and penance and the time to purify the abomination of desolation. Therefore, they took the serious attitude of "social-revolutionary rejection of consumption", as M. Hengel put it.7 For them, Jesus was nothing but a disgrace as a leader: he was a "glutton and drunkard" (Luke 7:34). Jesus did not fast with his disciples, but feasted, right in the middle of the misery of Israel. In spite of the economic distress, political servitude and religious oppression of his people, the kingdom of God was

like a marriage feast for Jesus. For the Zealots and the Pharisees, there was no room for feasting and laughter and jokes. But for Jesus with the people in his kingdom, there were lots of room for eating and drinking; and laughing and joking.

d. Both Jesus and Zealots condemned social injustice. Both considered it difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. His beatitudes for the poor were paralleled by woes concerning the rich (Luke 6:24; 12:16ff). But Jesus did not call upon the poor to revenge themselves upon their exploiters nor the oppressed to oppress their oppressors. Instead, he commanded: "Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you". This was the beatitude upon the peacemakers, the new people to break the pattern of oppression and not to be concerned with power. Moltamann calls it "the Magna Carta of agape", (5) and claims that this was actually a revolutionary thing in the message of Jesus. This was "revolutionary" because it could break the vicious chain of revenge in the legalism which advocates "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". This is a revolutionary alternative to revolutionary circles. For Jesus, God comes not to carry out just revenge upon the evil, but to justify sinners by grace and love, whether they are Zealots or tax collectors, Pharisees or sinners, Jews or Samaritans, and therefore, also, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. This liberation from legalism makes Jesus a humane revolutionary in the delightful God's law of grace and love.

e. Let us look at closely the temptation story of Jesus in the desert: When he was taken up to the mountain-top by Satan and was offered the domination of the world with political power, he

refused and rejected sharply: "Get behind me, Satan!". This offer might have come from the Zealots. On the road to Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27-33) when Jesus warned his disciples about his forthcoming suffering in Jerusalem, Peter tried to stop Jesus' plans. Jesus' reaction was rather severe: "Get behind me, Satan!". Moltmann thinks that "in spite of the general rejection of the Zealots' ideal in the tradition, this indicates that it would have been dangerously easy for Jesus to have followed this course". (9)

Let us sum up the above observations in a triangular form. We can easily perceive Jesus standing in between the right wing religious-political leaders of the Jewish authorities and the Romans on one side, and on the other side the left-wingers of the Zealots.

Like the Zealots, Jesus was against the status quo. That was against the High Priest and the Romans. And that is why Jesus was crucified as a security risk. But Jesus was different from the Zealots in his stance against the legalism of the Zealots. He came not to restore the law, but to proclaim the kingdom of freedom through joy in God's righteousness of grace.

Both left-wingers and right wingers — were not happy with Jesus's messianic politics. As a matter of fact, they hated it. For Pharisees and Zealots, he was a "traitor" to the sacred cause of Israel. For the Romans, he was another leader of the Zealots; one more instigator of social and political unrest- To them he was a revolutionary political leader. But for the Zealots, he was nothing, not radical enough and not even a revolutionary at all. The Zealot Judas could not stand the sight of Jesus being so happy while being anointed perfumes by a prostitute. He might have thought that Jesus had nothing to do with messianic politics whatsoever. Judas could not stand the almost

"feminine" powerlessness of Jesus at the crucial moment of revolution during time of a passover in Jerusalem.

Certainly, our observations seem to show that Jesus was rather closer to the Zealots and even Pharisees than to the Jewish authorities. It may be right to say that Jesus was a political dissident of the time- and anti-Roman and an anti-status quoist. Perhaps he belonged to the left-wing camp. But he was not with the legalistic and self-righteous stance of the Zealots and Pharisees. And he was not with the messianic politics of the Zealots. He was more closer to the people, the minjung, the sick and the poor; the oppressed and alienated. It was not the Jewish legalistic ideology of the messianic politics that was his primary concern, but the real people who were suffering and anxiously waiting for the coming kingdom of love. That is why Jesus feasted with the people as the sign of the coming kingdom of God in love.

The freedom of Jesus and his proclamation of God's law of grace and love affected not only the Pharisees and Zealots, but equally the cultic and political-religious foundations of the Pax Romana. His sense of freedom and his law of love stood against both right wing religious politics of the Jewish authorities and the Romans and the left wing ideologies of the Zealots. Jesus opposed the violence of Romans as well as the violence of the Zealots. He actually opposed violence before revolution and violence after revolution. And he opposed the legalism before revolution and legalism after revolution. Jesus in his freedom and critical transcendence always presents a prophetic alternative to the status quo that is oppressive and alienating.

Korean Mask Dance and Critical Transcendence

Minjung theology tries to identify itself with the messianic politics of Jesus himself. Perhaps people on the right »of Minjung theologians accuse the latter being left,

because they identify themselves with the poor and the oppressed. They are accused of being "communist symphathisers". But the people on the left feel that minjung theology does not offer any ideology or a political program, nor the revolutionary strategies or tactics to bring about societal changes. That is to say, more sharply, minjung theology has no ideology and no political vision. In this sense it is quite easy for us to understand the problem that Jesus had to face in the midst of religio-political dynamics of Judaism, of the Zealots and of the Roman Empire. In the light of our description of Jesus' stance on his messianic politics and his problem, as we have depicted above, the student Christian movement finds itself standing alongside with Jesus.

When we talk about an ideological stance of Jesus in his time and characterize it as a stance of critical transcendence with the new law of love and grace, we come to think of the critical transcendence of the Korean minjung in their mask dances. There are many varieties of mask dances in Korea. But one of the typical forms is Bong-San mask dance which has been most popular among the Korean students and even among the international theological communities. (10)

Korean mask dance has the religious origin of Shamanism, because its performance is concluded by a Shaman ritual. But later, in the late 18th century and the early 19th century with the development of village market economy, the performance of mask dances become an urban affair and thus a market-centered community affair. It is a community activity, mainly around the harvest time, but sometime at the close of the village market day. The mask dance performances usually take place at night at the center of a village where many village people of all walks of life come to watch and participate. Because it takes place at night, usually camp-fire or bon-fire is set on the ground. Every actor and actress in the mask dance wears a

mask. Hence, the people who act in the play are not recognizable. Less than ten persons are in the play. One or two persons, sometimes the people in the play, take turns to play musical instruments. There are some group dances, some solo dances, some singing and some narratives. There are definite plots in the play, but the lines are rather free. Some players improve the lines and sometimes they make impromptu speeches.

The most popular Bong-san mask dance has generally the following three scenes or acts.11 The first scene is the "Old Buddhist Monk" scene. There is a parade of Buddhist monks dancing onto the stage (ground). A group of young monks lead in an old monk, Nojang, a prominent religious leader of the village. But the old monk does not show any interest in what the young monks are doing. He is impotent, and acts like a dead person. The young monks sing aloud some popular songs, but the old monk will not respond. So they even sing a requiem mass but no response is evoked from the old man.

The young monks then bring in a pretty young girl to get the old man's attention. The old monk gets excited at the sight of a young girl. He invites her to dance with him; he gives her his most precious beads and bribes her. Finally they dance together, rather beautifully and lovingly. At this juncture, some in the audience would clap hands to keep a good rhythm, but some among the audience would boo the old monk. Most of the audience would laugh at the old monk. He is supposed to be a dignified Buddhist monk who has not shown any interest in the worldly affairs and worldly pleasures. He is supposed to be praying for the suffering people of the world or meditate himself to complete his religious duties. He has nothing to do with the secular world where people gather together; he should have stayed in the mountain where he belongs. But he is in the secular world; and he is breaking the religious rule and the ascetic teachings that he himself preached to the people. A

hypocrite! This Nojang represents a senile spirituality and a metaphysical religion that is separated from this world, thus meaningless and irrelevant. As such, the value and leadership of this so-called "higher" religion is the target of jokes, satire and laugher.

The second-scene is called Yangban or Village landlord scene. Yangban in Korean means the highest social class with higher education. The members of Yangban are supposed to have passed the state civil examinations in Chinese characters, not in the Korean language. They are the ones who receive the land from the king and by inheritance they are the largest landowners. The magistrate of a village comes from this class. They are the masters of the nation and the landlords in the village; they are the political rulers, and the masters of the people. They own slaves and servants: in short, they were the most powerful segment of the feudalistic Korean society up until a century ago.

Three yangban brothers are introduced by their servant, Maltuki. The servant announces the arrival of the Yangban: "Yangbans are here! But don't think these Yangbans are scholars or civil servants holding high government posts". The servant ridicules the Yangban brothers who pretend to be dignified, but fail as the servant makes them talk. A dialogue between the servant and the masters go on for a while. One example: the master looks for the servant, and then the servant finally shows up. But instead of the master, the servant shouts at the master: "Where were you? I was looking for you all over the world, but couldn't find you anywhere. So I went to your home and found your wife alone. I did it many times. As I was leaving after a sumptuous feast your wife gave me a penis as a gift". The Yangban brothers protest and beat him up. But the servant corrects himself: "No, no, your wife gave me a stick of dried fish". Another scene is that the servant and the master start a poetry contest — a

favorite pastime of the Yangban in which they are supposed to be quite skilled. In this sport Maltuki, the supposedly ignorant servant, proves to be far more able and learned. At this juncture, the audience shouts at the Yangbans and boos at the supposedly learned scholars and rulers of the village.

The Yangbans are the ruling elite. They are supposed to be scholarly, learned, respectable, and the people supposed to know what is going on in the world. But in the mask dance, they are ridiculed because of their incompetence and their ignorance, not only about their learning but about the village affairs and about the world. They are so preoccupied with their own status and this pre-occupation makes them blind to the reality of the world around them.

Actors in the mask dance play, and the village audience — high or low, young and old, men and women point their fingers at the religious leaders and the ruling aristocrats, shouting boos at them and laughing whole-heartedly. It is a noisy performance: almost chaotic. Perhaps it is the only time they could come together at night and shout, sing, dance and laugh and drink to their heart's content. But as they laugh, and laugh at the so-called holy people and powerful people, they are pointing a critical finger at them- selves. This is the moment they become critical of the existing order and social system. By satirizing the aristocrats they stand over against the ruling aristocrats. And by laughing at the impotent old monk they stand over him, physically, morally and even spiritually. The minjung audience transcend the status quo in their laughter and shouting.

Now-a-days when the Korean students re-enact mask dance plays, the government authorities ban the performance because authorities are aware of what is being acted out behind the masks. The Jewish authorities and the Romans knew what Jesus was up to, and they knew that Jesus was dangerous. The authorities today know what the

students in the traditional mask dances are doing and they know that it is dangerous because it criticizes the status quo, and conscientizes the people.

But at the same time the mask dances do not have any political programs. Mask dances do not present any political alternatives to the authorities. It is critically transcendant over against ideologies which legitimize the existing political order. It may be dangerous, but it is powerless; and almost silly to some serious people, like the Zealots, who lost the sense of humor and took themselves and their revolutionary tasks too seriously. If revolution is humorless, and the minjung laugh at revolutionary seriousness, the revolutionaries would be the ones who might at the end take away laughter and humor from minjung for whom the revolutionaries claim to work. The humorless Zealots departed from Jesus. And the humorless Romans took Jesus' humor by giving him the royal robes and by forcing down the thorny crown on his head, even to the point of putting up the inscription on the cross: "King of the Jews". Jesus was a big joke (like Herod's shout in the musical play, Jesus Christ Super Star). But it was a joke of critical transcendence, a serious joke and a dangerous one — dangerous enough to be killed on the cross.

Ideology Today

In a neutral sense the term 'ideology' signifies a complex of ideas, values, beliefs and symbols which inform the life of a people. In this sense, theology is an ideology. But sometimes, it is used to signify a false consciousness or a distortion of reality. Also it is used to point out partial understanding of reality which is projected as a total understanding of reality. The most serious pejorative use of the term ideology is to indicate a corpus of values, beliefs and practices which is employed to legitimize a particular socio-political system.

However, an ideology can function positively to criticize and correct a particular understanding of reality. It helps to uncover the distorted understanding of reality both at an intellectual level and at the level of political, social and economic relations. Through this critical perception a new set of ideas, values and beliefs are articulated as a new ideology. In articulating a new ideology an option is taken to change the prevailing system. In the formation of a new ideology three inter-related stages seem to take place: a critical analysis and uncovering of the prevailing ideology; a critical perception which surfaces the distortions of reality implied in that ideology; and the articulation of a perception of reality in new ideas, values and symbols, which would lead to a new political praxis. (12)

The foremost ideology, or false consciousness, prevailing in Asia today is perhaps the ideology of development or economic development. Capitalist models of development in Asia declare that the Utopia, the New Society, Welfare Society, is indeed being actualized. This is what Kin Yong-Bok calls, "Political messianism":

Modern technology, in its Korean form, is being experienced as another form of national messianism. There seems to be a conviction that technology and science, organized into the capitalist system, can solve all the human problems of the Korean people; and the political regime integrates and controls all the economic, military and cultural institutions. While doing this, the regime places itself and its authority above law and criticism, and claims the loyalty of the people by emphasizing filial piety, which was formerly a cardinal virtue of Japanese ultra-nationalism. (13)

In other words, economic development has to be on a top priority. And development means the increase of

productivity and the rise of the GNP figures, no matter what. For the economic development, only the technocrats are being mobilized. What the technocrats do is to plan the economic development – five-year plans and ten-year plans. In order to carry out the economic development plans, a stable and strong government is required. The unit which has the skill to maintain order and stability is the military. The military controls power. The new ruling class emerges: the military-technocrats. In this process, countries scarce in resources depend on export business with the heavy load of imported raw materials. Transnational corporations (TWC's) and transnational banks (TNB's) dominate the development plans. TNB's and TNC's require even more stronger security and stability which means no disturbances from the laboring sector.

The basic argument for economic development was that it is for the people. But as we know, in the process of economic development, the people are always excluded from the process of development plans and from all the decision- making processes. The people are treated only as the in- competent, face-less mass who are ignorant about what is good for them. Through mass communications the people are told again and again that the national income per capita is rising and that they are much better off. The people are manipulated into the consumer psychology and live in a false consciousness of development. They are told that the more the nation earns, the richer they would be and the bigger the pie is going to be baked, the greater the share will be. In practice, the rich get richer and the government spends more and more, but the poor get poorer.

The basic problem in this ideology of development is that it is forgetful of the people for whose sake the economic development has been planned. Economic development was to liberate the people from poverty, hunger and sickness. It was for the people, not the

government, nor the already rich. But in the process of economic development, the people are denied their fundamental right to be the subject and planners of their own destiny and history. A situation of economic need is exploited with promises of good things to come. People are used and manipulated; and their rights violated. The messianic politics of minjung oppose this political messianism of the military-technocracies.

The minjung theologians who raise the critical voice against this type of political messianism — nationalistic and military-technocratic ideology — have been persecuted because of this critical stance. The same people are also raising critical questions about marxism. Most Korean Christians have experienced anti-Christian stance and cruel persecution of the North Korean communist regime against the Korean Christians. Because of this, there is a deep sense of anti-communism in the blood of Korean Christians. But the minjung theologians are accused of being procommunists or neo-Marxists, whatever that might mean. Perhaps this is the logic — a logic of black and white; "if you are not for us, you are against us; and if you are against us, then you should be a communist."

We should admit that like any other scientific tools used to analyze human society, Marxist analyses provide us with the tools for understanding the socio-economic situations of oppression and injustice. While recognizing this fact and beyond this mere recognition, utilizing whenever and wherever necessary the tools provided by it, we also face the problem that political realization of Marxist or communist thinking in Asia lead to further forms of domination and oppression instead of liberation.

Our basic problem with Marxism as it manifests itself, is that it does not take seriously its commitment to the people, although it can play a role in uncovering the problems inherent in our societies and in pointing to the radical changes that have to be made. Very often it tends to

analyse and understand the human condition in purely economic terms and leaves out other vital dimensions of Asian reality: the rich and long tradition of eastern faiths and the dynamic and revolutionary powers that can mobilize the people as well as that enrichers the people. Also the initiative and execution for change — the revolution — is, like in the ideology of economic develop- ment, taken by the party elite and party bureaucracy which control the people. They are committed to an ideal, almost legalistically, but they are not committed to the people. They are like "The left wing, legalistic Zealots, the revolutionary," who are forgetful of the people and even resent the people who do not and cannot follow their legalism and messianism. The people are forced into an ideology and the people become slaves of that ideology. This is subversion of an ideology which should serve the people. The people are locked into the ideology of the future and Utopia and the people are denied freedom and an open future.

The messianic politics of Jesus is critical of an ideology that is to force the people into servitude — the ideology that takes ideology more seriously than the people themselves. And the minjung theologians take the people messianic politics of Jesus seriously and therefore they try to take the people (the minjung) seriously. In this light 1 would like to suggest a theological method: "non- ideological interpretation of the Gospel", which may be understood in the sense of Bonhoeffer who suggested from his Nazi prison: "non-religous interpretation of the Gospel". With Bonhoeffer, when we look closely at the Gospel free from religious prejudices and metaphysical frame of mind — we were able to meet Jesus and his work with the people, the minjung of Galilee: the poor, the sick and oppressed and the suffering neighbours. Perhaps with minjung theologians, when studying the bible closely and free from ideologies, we may be able to see the people in

our societies. And perhaps, we could be critically transcendent as the people in the mask dances transcended their own plot and themselves. As we go on with this non- ideological interpretation of the Gospel, we may be able to unmask the false consciousness of given ideologies.

Now is the time to loosen up our serious ideological faces, to relax and laugh at them and laugh at ourselves...