Title: Sacrifice Culture and Christianity
Did you have a good Chuseok holiday? Those who have been to their hometown must have had a lot of trouble on their way back and forth. Still, when family and friends get together after a long time, share stories about the past, and enjoy a hearty feast, the stress of modern life can be relieved to some extent. That's why I don't know if the saying "just be like Hangawi" originated.
However, there are people who are worried about the holidays. I am always uncomfortable because of the sacrificial issues, but the church does not give proper guidelines on what to do or does not consider the reality and only doctrinalizes it, so there are always invisible conflicts with unbelieving family members.
There is no need to worry about families who are all Christians and hold memorial services. However, it can be troublesome for those who have to participate in the family where the sacrifice is held. Today I'm going to try to think about this issue a bit.
[Early Catholic Understanding of Sacrifice Culture]
In the early days of missions when Christianity first came to Korea, the thing that troubled Christians the most was the issue of sacrificial rites. Catholics, who came to this land about 100 years before Protestants, did not understand our traditional culture of offering food for the dead and bowing down.
The first commandment of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not serve any other gods before me,” and “Whatever you are in heaven above, or in the earth below, or in the water under the earth, that you may serve, They thought it was a violation of the second commandment, “You shall not make an idol after a woman.”
So, eventually, Catholicism came to reject the sacrificial culture, and this attitude of Catholics turned upside down the Joseon society at the time, which made filial piety to one's ancestors the foundation of human morality. Refusal of ancestral rites is an insolent sin of denying ancestors' blessings, and Catholicism, which teaches that such dishonest things are right, had to be understood as an evil religion that harms human morality.
Moreover, at that time, the factional battle was in full swing, so scholars from the southern faction, mainly excluded from power, including Dasan Jeong Yak-yong, turned to Catholicism. also did
But now, Catholicism allows the sacrificial system, but in Protestantism, most churches not only do not allow the sacrificial system, but also criticize the Catholic Church that allows it for idolatry.
[Is honoring ancestors idolatry?]
Then, why is the issue of sacrificial rites different and confusing in each church? The reason for this is that the sacrificial culture is a mixture of ethical and religious characteristics.
It is undoubtedly a wonderful and beautiful filial piety to not forget and give thanks to the ancestors who gave life. The fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments we read together today, “Honor your parents. Then you will live a long time in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
At the time when the Ten Commandments were given, the greatest blessing a man could receive was to live a long time on this earth and to multiply his descendants from generation to generation. At that time, there was no belief in the resurrection. Neither Abraham nor Moses nor David had any knowledge or faith in the resurrection. The time when the people of Israel opened their eyes to faith in the resurrection was after they came into contact with Zoroastrianism after the Babylonian captivity.
So, the Bible says that Abraham also obeyed God and believed his word, so his descendants were blessed to multiply like grains of sand. Also, the reason why many of the ancestors of faith in the Old Testament are recorded as longevity are records indicating that living for a long time on this earth is one of the greatest blessings that a person can receive.
However, the Bible says that if there is one thing that you must follow in order to live a long life on this earth, it is to honor your parents.
However, this respect for parents does not simply exclude immediate parents, that is, grandparents or older, or those who are returning. Rather, the people of Israel honored their ancestors from generation to generation. They went back to David, back to Moses, and back to Abraham to honor their ancestors.
[Which one is correct?]
However, while the spirit of honoring and honoring ancestors has something in common, our traditional ritual culture includes a deeper religious ritual.
The 'ancestral worship ritual', which goes beyond merely respecting and appreciating the ancestors, that their personality is still alive as a soul, and that the family will be blessed and live a good life by offering good sacrifices, is accepted by Christians because it contains a religious element. This could be the hard part.
However, this issue is also subject to other interpretations. This is because modern people attach more meaning to ethics than to religious factors. The consciousness of serving ancestors as gods is gradually disappearing, and more and more people are offering sacrifices based on filial piety.
I am also of the position that there is no problem in affirming and accepting the ritual culture as it is. This is because I think that bowing down to our ancestors and giving thanks from our hearts on holidays or anniversaries is no different from paying tribute to our parents or adults.
However, even if we affirm the ritual culture as it is, there are some points to point out in modern society. It is because the content of the traditional culture of thanking and honoring ancestors is good, but the excessively consuming form itself, which requires an excessive amount of food regardless of whether or not you can afford it economically, needs to be improved.
If so, I think that it would be good to preserve the good content, that is, traditional etiquette to honor ancestors, but change the sacrificial system as a problematic form to a simpler one.
In that sense, I think that the ‘mourning service’ in our Christianity itself can be a good alternative. If it is not a memorial service as an exclusive foreign culture that rejects the sacrificial system as idolatry, but a memorial service that inherits the beautiful customs and customs of the old ritual to give thanks and respect to the ancestors even if the form is changed, it can be recognized as a good alternative culture. I am thinking that it is not.
I think the rituals as traditional culture are good as they are, and also our Christian memorial service is good. However, I think that defining Christian memorial services as a worthless foreign culture, or defining traditional rituals as idolatry and claiming that only one side is correct is cultural exclusivism that needs to be overcome.
[God who sees the heart]
One of my favorite sayings is that people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. When Samuel the prophet went to Jesse, David's father, and tried to find out who was worthy of a king, God gave Samuel a warning when he saw the handsome eldest son and lost his heart. In the end, the person God chose was not the eldest son of a handsome long-haired man, but David, who was young and pretty and had a girlish appearance.
I need to sort out my words. Alumni who have continued to offer memorial services, and who still place more importance on memorial services, would like to continue offering memorial services. However, I hope that the alumni who think that traditional rituals are meaningful are to offer them comfortably.
God spoke through Samuel, who visited the Davidic family 3,000 years ago. “People look at the outward appearance, but I, Jehovah, look at the heart.”