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Kiyul Chung was known as a 'rabble rouser' when a chaplain at the University of Maryland in the 1980s and 1990s. In this book he reflects upon the meaning for Koreans today of the mostly peasant rabble rousers who sparked the Donghak rebellion in the context of 'religion and social transformation.' An important part of that revolt was a religious ideology in which the distance between God, human, and the material world as conceived in the West is narrowed and brought into dialectical synthesis of holism: thus 'God/Heaven' and 'Human as God.' Kiyul is an activist and a scholar seeking to bridge the distance - political and economic but also profoundly spiritual - between East and West. He is an important voice in Korean liberation movement. (John C. Raines, Professor of Religion, Temple University) In his first book, Chung persuasively demonstrates how the Donghak's holistically inclusive concept of God/Heaven, the most traditionally representative Korean thought tradition, resulted in great social change during upheaval of the Donghak Peasant Revolution in late 19th Century. Even though more than 10 dissertations have been written on Donghak in the United States, those works mainly focused on either historical issues in colonial Korea or comparative studies with Chinese peasant revolutions. Dr. Chung's work is very rare and precious because he aims to explore the quintessence of Korean traditional thought, which can play a crucial role in a dialogue between the East and the West. Furthermore, he has paid special attention to the active and positive driving force of religion itself, which can give rise to social transformation. His conclusions are very meaningful because they sound an alarm for many established religious institutions enjoying their vested rights. (Dr. Sang Yil Kim, Visiting Professor, Center for Process Studies, Claremont School of Theology)

« In his first book, Chung persuasively demonstrates how the Donghak's holistically inclusive concept of God/Heaven, the most traditionally representative Korean thought tradition, resulted in great social change during upheaval of the Donghak Peasant Revolution in late 19th Century. Even though more than 10 dissertations have been written on Donghak in the United States, those works mainly focused on either historical issues in colonial Korea or comparative studies with Chinese peasant revolutions. Dr. Chung's work is very rare and precious because be aims to explore the quintessence of Korean traditional thought, which can play a crucial role in a dialogue between the East and the West. Furthermore, he has paid special attention to the active and positive driving force of religion itself, which can give rise to social transformation. His conclusions are very meaningful because they sound an alarm for many established religious institutions enjoying their vested rights.

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The Author: Kiyul Chung is Adjunct Professor at Methodist Theological Seminary, Seoul, Korea. He received his Ph.D. in religious philosophy from Temple University. In addition to numerous articles in professional journals and magazines both in Korea and the United States, he is the author of two books in Korean: From Programmed to Deprogramming: A New Methodology for History Education and A Holistic Understanding of the American History and the World.

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