Kim, Dongsun

2018-05-22T12:43:29Z

2018-05-22T12:43:29Z

1994

The Bible reveals that the goal of God's saving acts is to establish a new society. And the desire of His people for a new society is manifest through their common sharing of food in His presence: moreover the table community is eschatologically opened to the messianic kingdom as it is frequently envisaged as a heavenly banquet. The meal has been recognised as a powerful language for the people not only in relation to one another but also in relation to God: it suggests strong ethical implications as well. The purpose of this work is (i) to discuss how the meal tradition in the particular context of Korea is to be reinterpreted in terms of main themes in the biblical meal tradition and (ii) to contribute some suggestions concerning theology and practice of the Lord's Supper which the Korean church, as a particular church, should share with the universal Church. A particular church, should share with the universal Church. This dissertation examines the meal tradition in the Bible (Part One), that of the Korean minjung (Part Two), and the understanding of the Lord's Supper within the Korean church (Part Three). Part One (i) sees that numerous meal traditions, affiliated with the exodus event in the Old Testament and the Jesus event in the New Testament, have been reinterpreted as an all important means for the formation of theology as well as for the transformation of a community, and (ii) argues that each of these natural meals reflects its own particular social situation and has been developed through the process of its historicisation in the light of salvation history. Part Two, by looking at the minjung's table-fellowship experiences in their own social, religious, and cultural lives, tries to find points of contact between the biblical and minjung tradition. The minjung's interpretation of rice is abridged as "Rice (bread) is Heaven," whilst the bread in the biblical tradition is summarised as "God is Bread" through the three-fold incarnation of Jesus. Part Three analyses how the Korean church, especially the minjung church, has understood and practiced the two meal traditions as a twin polarity — the common meal transmitted from their own socio-historical experiences and the eucharist inherited from the Church — in its celebration of the Lord's Table. The minjung church as a table community witnesses that the table community of the historical Jesus is represented in the midst of the congregation and that eucharistic worship is directly related to their society-transforming participation. Part Four, the conclusion, by putting the above meal interpretation together, rediscovers the ethical significance of the Lord's Supper as the internal basis of Christian social practice.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30353

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2018 Block 19

Already catalogued

Bread for today and the bread for tomorrow: the ethical significance of the Lord's Supper in the Korean context

The bread for today and the bread for tomorrow: the ethical significance of the Lord's Supper in the Korean context

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy