Faith or Family? How Shincheonji Church of Jesus Members Navigate the Tragic Dilemma Between Religious Commitment and Filial Familism
In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, popular media and prominent Protestant figures alike have portrayed the Shincheonji Church of Jesus (hereon Shincheonji) as a destructive force on South Korean families, specifically alleging that it ruins the parent-child relationship. Based on...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
|
| In: |
Nova religio
Year: 2025, Volume: 28, Issue: 3, Pages: 7-29 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Shincheonji
/ South Korea
/ Conversion (Religion)
/ Parents
/ Child
/ Family
|
| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion AZ New religious movements KBM Asia KDH Christian sects NCB Personal ethics TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
South Korea
B Shincheonji Church of Jesus B Filial Piety B Ethical Dilemma B Family |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, popular media and prominent Protestant figures alike have portrayed the Shincheonji Church of Jesus (hereon Shincheonji) as a destructive force on South Korean families, specifically alleging that it ruins the parent-child relationship. Based on the evidence of my qualitative interviews and written correspondences with a sample of Shincheonji members, I realized that members typically must contend with a seeming incompatibility between being faithful believers according to Shincheonji and good children according to traditional South Korean parenting. In this article, building on the work of Cheryl Mattingly, I argue that my participants and Shincheonji practitioners are faced with a tragic ethical dilemma following and feel torn between being faithful believers and being good children. To account for the tragic dimension of this dilemma, I first examine the importance of what I call South Korean filial familism. Second, I present a case study of one of my research participants, whom I refer to as Young-ja, to show the consequences of this tragic ethical dilemma. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1541-8480 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Nova religio
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/nvr.2025.a949118 |
