Abstract

Separation of church and state as part of secularization involves the problematic dichotomy between public and private spheres. Politics have intervened in differentiation of private and public spheres as well as conceptualization of religion and secularity. This paper will examine the history of religious education in Korea which well represents the role of power in defining spheres and concepts. At the end of the five-hundred-year-old Confucian State, Koreans encountered Western Christians. While most of Africa and South America were colonized by Christian countries in Europe, Korea was colonized by anti-Christian Japan in the early twentieth century. This religious difference complicated the relationship between American Protestant teachers, Japanese colonial administrators, and Korean students in missionary schools. Their complicated relationship and politics about teaching religions in schools challenged the distinction between public and private spheres, the separation of church and state, and also the Western concepts of secularity and religion. Religious education in missionary schools still matters in contemporary Korea regarding religious freedom of students. This paper will suggest that religious education needs more secularization.