Abstract

This chapter explores interactions between John Hick’s religious pluralism and Korean theology. Hick’s idea of religious pluralism awakened Korean theologians of indigenization about the necessity for interreligious dialogue. Although Korean society has been multi-religious, different religions have worked for people to build up the Way (Dao, 道) and to nurture Virtue (De, 德). Due to the fact that many imported religious traditions have become our cultural traditions, encounter with different religions for Koreans has been an internal dialogue or monologue for developing one’s own religious identity. The term ‘the religious other’ is very tricky in this Korean context, because ‘the religious other’ is not the other but part of us. However, this kind of attitude can cause some problems when ‘the otherness’ should be respected. That is, difference can be ignored in the name of sameness. In this context, Hick’s idea of religious pluralism stimulated Korean theologians to think of interreligious dialogue not only for inner maturity but also for acknowledging ‘the other’, ‘religious others’ that have been regarded as part of ‘us’. It further catalyzed an idea of a theology of religions whose subject is not Christianity but other religions.