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다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper attempts to examine how the modern Korean Buddhism responded to the concept ‘religion’, a western term newly imported in the late 19th century Korea. The concept ‘religion’ made a controversial effect on the modern Korean religious terrain. ‘Religion’ originally meant the recovering of relationship between man and God after the Sin’ in the context of the western history. So it implied that only Christianity could be ‘a religion’ or a ‘true religion’ according to the definition of religion. With the introduction and the spread of the concept ‘religion’, ‘宗敎’, in the modern Korean society, Buddhism faced an identity crisis as a religion. Many Christians criticized Buddhism as ‘an idolatry and superstition’, ‘a kind of atheism’ or ‘a philosophy’. That is to say, they labelled Buddhism as a ‘non-religion’ or ‘pseudoreligion’. So modern Korean Buddhists made some important responses to this threat of Christianity. First, modern Korean Buddhists argued that Buddhism was not only a philosophy but also a religion including philosophy, that is, 'a philosophical religion’. Secondly, they accepted the idea of Buddhism as an atheism, but they went further. They insisted that atheism was a higher form of religion than theism in the evolutionary stages of religion, so Buddhism was superior to any other religion. Finally, they concluded that Buddhism had its own religious characteristics and values that were very unique and unsurmountable by any other religion. Adopting the typology of religion, modern Korean Buddhists could categorize Buddhism as a ‘religion of meditation’ whereas theistic religion was categorized as a ‘religion of prayer’. Through those reactions, the modern Korean Buddhism could secure its genuine religious identity among many religions of the world.

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