ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a brief summation of how Christianity was given birth in Korea through the auspices of the Korean Confucian literati and the fate the Korean Christians suffered on account of their rejection of the Confucian rites and ancestor veneration. It examines the challenges confronted by both the Christians and Confucians with the rise of the New Culture Movement leading up to the Communist ban on religions. The most documented and clear-cut case of Confucian-Christian engagement began with the Portuguese Jesuit Roman Catholic mission to China sometime toward the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century. The legal cases revealed a more substantive and underlying theological issue that served as a permanent divide between Christianity and the Confucian tradition. The chapter concludes with an exposition of the major theological themes highlighted in the contemporary Confucian-Christian encounters that took ascendancy with China’s Reform and Opening-Up policy in the late 20th century.
