The Eucharist and the Embodied Resolution of Han (恨, 한): Towards a Eucharistic Political Theology for the Divided Korean Peninsula

Since 1945, the Korean Peninsula has remained territorially, politically, and ideologically divided. The South Korean Protestant Church has been profoundly shaped by this historical reality, and its anti-communist discourse has contributed to the construction and reproduction of antagonistic memory, exclusionary identities, and collective suffering. This study develops a constructive political theology that addresses the enduring historical suffering of the divided Korean Peninsula. Employing a constructive political theological approach, it first examines the historical formation and development of anti-communism within the Korean Church, arguing that it gradually developed into a political theology of division. It then interprets the collective suffering produced by this political theology through the Korean concept of han, understood in Minjung theology as the theological grammar of historical suffering. Finally, the study reconstructs Peter Scott’s concept of Eucharistic Place into three interconnected theological places—the Place of Suffering, the Place of Resurrection, and the Place of Eschatological Vision—and brings this framework into constructive dialogue with Andrew Sung Park’s theology of the resolution of han. It argues that this Eucharistic political theology provides a constructive theological framework through which the collective han may be remembered, transformed, and progressively resolved.