MINJUNG THEOLOGY RECONSIDERED FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF LABOR

This paper is an attempt at reconsidering minjung theology (hereafter MT) from the perspective of labor. He has a view that minjung theology has been developed and changed as it has gone through different intellectual and social-historical phases in modern Korea. He suggests that there have been three stages in the development of MT: roughly 1970-1983 for the first-generation MT, which is the time of the Urban Industrial Mission, and 1983-1995 for the second-generation MT, when minjung churches was active, and 1995-the present for the third and fourth generations MT, when social intellectual situation changed significantly. The author reviews the development of MT focusing on the relationship between labor and theology. He suggests that history and society have been transformed by the work and power of the subjects. He further argues that the subjectivity of minjung is conditioned both by their class-relations and by discourses in the society, and that class and discourse must play a crucial role in making minjung theology relevant to the neo-liberal capitalist society. Lastly, this paper suggests that Korean society must strive for a society where three major elements of society, labor, capital, and state, are in dialectical and dialogical relation to build a sangsaeng (living together, mutual and common living) society.