Kurzbeschreibung
This work begins with a critical analysis of sustaining causal and functional explanations of "new religions", not only in the sociological disciplines, but also (rather in subtler form) in the Study of Religion. Relating to the latter, the analysis of works of South-Korean students of Study of Religion on "new religions in Korea" shows that the researchers have more or less (eu-)functional expectations from the religions, and as a result, two special designations for "korean new religion" minjok chonggyo ("the national religion") and minjung chonggyo ("religion of people") have been formed as academic terms in South Korea. Opposing this trend, namely seeing the main reason of the existence of "new religions" in their positive roles for the society, another way of understanding of "new religion" is proposed. That is the understanding of new religion in its own dynamic. It includes the process how a new religion develops and consolidates its identity or self-image, especially in view of its own religious tradition(s) on one hand and of the actual changing socio-political environment on the other. The "Won-Buddhism", a Korean new religion, is selected as research object for this approach, because its religious elites have produced a great deal of academical publications on their own religion as well as on Korean religion in general. In order to understand the whole range of their discourses, 374 articles from the two important academical journals from the religion Hanguk Jonggyo ("Korean Religions") and Wonbulgyo Sasang ("The Thoughts of Won Buddhism") during the period from 1975 to 1990 are analysed. It aims to illustrate how religious elites of a new religion constantly reestimate and reinterprete their religion in light of "tradition" and "modernity", and furthermore how they try to reconcile the above seemingly opposing issues for the matter of identity of their religion. (authors abstract)
Klappentext
Ausgehend von einer kritischen Analyse gängiger kausal-funktionalistischer Erklärungsmodelle zu neuen Religionen aus Soziologie und Religionswissenschaft betrachtet diese Untersuchung den wissenschaftlichen Diskurs über neue Religionen in Südkorea. Jenseits der Erwartungshaltungen, die etliche koreanische Wissenschaftler besonders im Bezug auf die alten neuen Religionen formulieren, sucht die Autorin einen Zugang zu dem komplexen Prozess der Identitätssuche einer Religion über das Medium ihrer wissenschaftlichen Publikationen. Der Won-Buddhismus, eine 1916 in Korea gegründete neue Religion, verfügt bereits seit langem über die Infrastruktur für Forschung in eigener Sache. Eine breit angelegte thematische Analyse dieser Publikationen zeigt, dass Öffentlichkeitsarbeit und Selbstdefinition als zusammengehörige Polpunkte einer fortgesetzten Positionierung innerhalb der Bezugssysteme fungieren. Zugleich liefert diese Untersuchung eine instruktive Übersicht zu Positionen der ostasiatischen Geistesgeschichte (Buddhismus, Konfuzianismus, Taoismus), die in den Diskussionen zur spezifisch "asiatischen" Identität wirksam sind.