Posted on 07/20/2023 8:24:31 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1898,* the second patriarch of the Donghak religion was put to death in Korea.
Like neighboring Japan, Korea was ripe for “new religions” late in the 19th century and into the 20th. And to the concussive effects of modernity were added, for Korea, those of colonialism: a fading dynasty pressured by both western and Japanese empire-building.
“Donghak arose at a time when Korea was on the verge of radical transformations,” writes Kirsten Bell.**
Internally, society was stagnating under a rigid Confucian social hierarchy, which saw destitute peasants over-taxed and generally ill-used by corrupt government officials and landed gentry (yangban). External forces such as the West’s encroachment into the East were also causing considerable alarm. Donghak arose in these circumstances and was … explicitly envisioned … as a rebuttal to the growing influence of the West in Korea; further, Donghak was constructed in explicit opposition to Roman Catholicism, known as “Western Learning.”
Donghak, or Tonghak, was “Eastern Learning” (that’s its literal meaning), a sort of synretic liberation theology for the peasantry in a put-upon peninsula.....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
“Donghak arose at a time when Korea was on the verge of radical transformations,” writes Kirsten Bell.**
Much like the Moonies.
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