I translated Cho's speech and his interview (Q & A) because it gives us an opportunity to talk about shamanism, exclusivism or pluralism. His speech centered on his coversion and ministiry experience, which shows a shamanistic understanding of life and faith. After the speech, he had a Q & A time in which the main topic was the issue of Christian exclusivism. He was "barbecued" by the questioners: "Do you believe that Jesus or Christianity is the only way to salvation, and that other religions are not true?" He answered and affirmed a mild form of pluralism or inclusivism, certainly not of an exclusivism. This kind of answer was a total surprising for many people because he is one of the most fundamental pastors (he is a pentecostal) who always say Christianity or Jesus is the only way; other religions are simply wrong in that matter. But on this day he spoke out boldly about his view of other religions. He said Buddhism has its own salvation. We (Christians and Buddhists) need to coexist. Guess what? After this day event, he was again severely "barbecued" by many fundamentalists or believers or followers. Soon I heard that he corrected his position in public (at his church), saying basically "I didn't mean that kind of pluralism" (in a way he defended his earlier position maybe because he was afraid of losing his secure place). This incident reminds me of Joel Osteen, who said a similar thing at his interview with the CNN Larry King Live; he answered to the similar question about other religions: "I don't know; God knows our hearts." What he says is that good works and heart are more important than any other. So he opened for other ways, even slightly. I don't know much about him, whether he changed what he said. He is also a pentecostal preacher whose message (sort of shamanism) and view of other religions resemble Yonggi Cho's in many regards; indeed, they are pentecostals. At any rate, I consider this event to be an excellent occasion to discuss about Christianity in Korea and interreligious dialogue. The ultra form of Christianity (the right wing) in Korea contains these two elements: shamanism and exclusivism. Of course, my claim is debatable. So let us engage each other.

Tips for Group Discussion

1) His life (context) was very much well addressed in his ministry. His distinct theology of the threefold blessing was well marked in his lecture. There are lots of things in his lecture that I can engage in terms of ethics and the Christian gospel in a specific sociopolitical, religious context. As you might understand, his theology is, I can say, just like saying "hope, hope! blessing and blessing, now and tomorrow" whereas there is no mention of the gospel of justice or the cost of discipleship. It is a typical example of charismatic/shamanistically driven faith we see today throughout the world. But at the same time I find something very positive in his ministry, especially his passion for the downtrodden souls struggling in their daily life here and now in the early 60-70s in Korea where many people literally searched for "life" on the edge. One woman's criticism against Christianity in this speech is so powerful: "Here is a hell already I live now. Show me a little bit of heaven now..." Cho's theology of "hopes" is contextual, theological response to the millions of people in Korea so that they might live with hopes in their desperate time of need. Moltmann can be a parallel figure in this train of thought.

2) He also, surprisingly enough, made bold statements about other religions in his lecture, especially during interview after the lecture. He said, religion is equal and Buddhism has its own concept of salvation and therefore it should be properly recognized with each other. I heard, however, that a few days later, standing at his church pulpit, he denied such sayings that he made. It is indeed a controversial issue for many Christians in Korea, who almost automatically exclude other religions in the discourse of salvation. Did he say what he wanted to say? I think so; because the occasion of his speech was not a worship, or preaching setting, but a cultural, inter-religious setting.

His lecture also confirms what I think about the partial aspects of Korean Christianity as I wrote in Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, (entry name: "Christianity in South Korea"), forthcoming in 2009 by the Cambridge University Press.

Discussion questions
In what context is his theology rooted? Is it good theology or bad? What are socio-political implications of his theology and ministry in Korea and the rest of the world? How can he be distinguished from the role of a shaman? How is his theology different from Shamanism? How does a shaman play in the contemporary religion or culture? Is his Jesus like a shaman? How can we compare him with Joel Osteen, an American pentecostal preacher? Is there any relation between pentecostalism and plurualism since both of them mildly affirm pluralism?

I take this opportunity to share with you my theology based on the essence of Christianity. Presently, I am serving as a pastor of 750,000-members Yoido Full Gospel Church - a member church of a larger ecclesial body of Kidokkyo Daehan Hananim Sunghwe, which has 2,000 churches along with its 1.5 million members. Worldwide, we are part of 50 million members of the Assembly of God. Roughly, 200 million people worlwide share a similar faith with us.

Born into Buddhist culture, I did not grow up with Christian atmosphere. It was not a coincidence that our house was surrounded by the Buddhist temples such as Sunnam Temple to the north and Bulguk Temple down the road, and Tongdo Temple toward Busan. I went to bed listening to the bells in the temples and woke up with the same sound in the morning. My grandmother, as a devoted member of the Tongdo Temple, had Buddhist name heaven-flower and studied Zen Buddhism for her life. As the first son in my family, I used to have Buddhist meditations. Often, my father said to me, “heart is Buddha; Buddha is not somewhere else but in your heart; if you are enlightened in your heart, Buddha is there.” He also told me about “kae-you-bool-sung" which means that every thing (all) has Buddhist mind." I grew up with this kind of Buddhist teaching.

Then at the age of 17 toward the end of the Korean War in 1953, I collapsed due to an aggravated lung disease. Terminally ill, I vomited a large amount of blood. Because of the Korean War, our people massively suffered from poverty and hunger; our family fled to Busan to seek a refuge, leaving behind the burnt house attacked by the communists. While in Busan, even with hard work, our daily condition did not improve at all. I came down with malnutrition with blood-vomiting continued. Later days at a hospital, I found the right side of my lung failed. Then a chief doctor told me that my life would soon end within 6 months. At that time a large scale surgery could be performed only in Norway; but I could not afford it. I felt much fear and hopelessness, with an understanding that my life soon die out. I said to myself, “Hey, man! From a long-term perspective, what makes difference between dying at teens and dying at nineties? Don’t worry about your death. It is eventually the same thing whether you die now or late.” I lied down on the floor of the rugged card-boarded house, and looked up the roof; I could not resist bitterness of my destiny - sadness and hopelessness despite my own justification for an impending death. Deep down in my heart, however, I had a yearning for living longer even though I did not know what to do given my condition of rough breathing with blood vomiting. In this darkest moment of my life, my father came to pray for me in a Buddhist way: “being born-aging-sickening-dying is a matter of heart. Transcend it.” At such a young age, however, I could not get over it despite my father's urge that I have Buddhist meditation. I cried one day, “I don’t care whoever will save me. It could be a Buddha, a Jesus or a Mary. If any one makes me alive, I will dedicate my life to the savior until I die. Help me to live. I do not want to die now at the age of 17. Please give me another chance.” I made a last desperate shout in the midst of the gravest suffering. A few days later, a friend of my sister's, a devoted Christian, visited my sick bed, and asked me to have faith in Jesus Christ. With my father’s opposition to her visit, I received a Bible but did not feel good because I grew up with Buddhist way. Upon her request, I began to read the books of Matthew, Mark and John and found that they were a very different kind of stroy books; until that time I read only Zen magazines for a long time that were published in Japan. In the Zen magazines, there are a vast amount of in-depth philosophy and logic - a level that defies our verbal expressions. I felt that this Bible seemed to lack philosophy, logic and profundity of the story. However, the Bible's story touched on my soul and body. Because I was a dying person with no hope of finding cure by the contemporary medical advancement. I was indeed a person whom doctors and my family gave up. I needed a miracle. I needed this story of miracles, because I searched for a person who would make me alive now here on earth, not a person who will lead me to the other world of the spirits after death. In the story books of the Bible I found such a figure Jesus who expelled demons, healed the sick, erected dead persons, fed the five thousand people with the miracle of two fishes and five loaves of bread, and who himself arose from the grave three days after his death. From the eyes of Buddhism with logical thoughts, the biblical stories seemed very foolish and unpractical, but for me they were much-needed stories in my hopeless situation. As a person of desperate hopelessness, I could not live by logic or theory but needed a supernatural miracle. My father’s teaching was a transcendence of the deadly situation; it is true that a living person dies; separation of life and death is evident. Nevertheless, in reality I could not live with the transcendental spirit of Buddhism; rather, I was full of desires to live with. Such desires matched the Bible of Christ. Before this time, I never attended a church nor read the Bible. Then I thought to myself, “If Christ is alive today as in the Bible, I can live.” So I knelt down and prayed: “if you let me live, I would be a monk for you, Jesus. So let me live.” Fearing my father’s scolding or opposition, I prayed by myself without being noticed. I thought, my in-youn (Buddhist term, close to meaning of karma or fate) was connected with Jesus. Before this prayer, fear and terror of death bombarded me like the spiraling whirlwind hitting my head, but after this prayer, peace of mind visited me. I got an unthinkable conviction that I can live; it is not a psychological peace. Though I vomited blood with coughing, and received the doctor’s declaration of impending death, I could get stronger belief that I could live. The Bible was accepted deep in my heart even though seemingly nonsensical through the mind’s eye. With this conviction that I do not die I told my family members that I won't die because of my faith in Jesus. Then all my family members wept, thinking that my last day came near. In other words, they thought that I became confused or schizophrenic. My mother prayed (to Buddha) that in the next incarnation I would be born into a rich family with a happy life, because in this life I suffered a lot. But I said, “don’t say that. I will live.” I wanted to sing songs even though I did not know any Christian songs; I felt peace and joy in the midst of hopelessness. Then I got up and sang a song “O, Night of Shilla, Hear the Bell of the Bulguk Temple” (note: this song is a popular folk song in Korea). My loud singing shook my house. Gradually, my fever and blood-vomiting disappeared. I began recovering taste of the food. In six months, my breathing became normal. Finally, I recovered completely in a year. What a great belief (conviction) – something that cannot be accomplished by humans – that changed me! Great peace came to me even when I could not see, hear and capture anything with my eyes, my ears, and with my hands, or when my way ahead was so dark like black. The heaven (thekingdom of God) came into my heart, as it is said in the Bible that the kingdom of God (or heaven) is in one’s heart, not here or there.

I went to a foreign missionary because I swore that I would live for Jesus as a monk if I were recovered. With the guidance of that missionary I came to Seoul, and studied theology and graduated in 1958. I bought a piece of 24-persons-tent at the Namdaemoon market and pitched it as a church at one of the poorest villages in Seoul. Many poor people coming from Kyungsangdo and Jellado lived on the top of the mountain at Bulkwang village and temporarily built boarded houses. I had my tent pitched there to evangelize people. I said, “Go to heaven with faith in Jesus and if you don’t, you will go to hell. Repent by believing in Jesus.” With my surprise, however, nobody came to my church. They did not listen to me and my efforts of evangelism failed. They were the people of the poorest, making a bare living day by day. With this absolute poverty, what abounds was alcoholics, the vulgarly or thieves. Then, a turning point came to my life. A couple with their nine sons moved from Bukcheong, North Korea. The husband had become an alcoholic for the past ten years, drinking from morning to evening. This father of nine sons would take out some money from his sons who brought it home by hard working at the shoe polishing shops, and used to buy alcohols. The wife was very weak and had the heart and stomach diseases. I knocked on the door of this family. The wife asked, “Who are you?” I answered, “I am an evangelist working at a tent church up the village. Let us go to heaven by believing in Jesus.” Then, staring at me angrily, she said to me, “I won’t go to heaven. You all religionists are liars!” I answered, “I did not tell a lie.” The woman continued to say, “If at death such a beautiful heaven is given, why it is not possible to have a little bit of heaven here and now on earth? In our home heaven is not an expensive thing.” “Heaven at our home is like this: we need a piece of blanket with which my kids can sleep; rice to eat day after day so that they might go to school; the cure of my husband from alcoholic. How on heaven can God lie if he cannot make this kind of small things for us now? I do not need a beautiful heaven after death. You religionists are tricksters who make money by giving the poor a psychological relief.” This woman was a well-educated person from North Korea. I was shocked and dumbfounded. It was not I but she who evangelized me. She said: “Right? If there is a heaven up there, the place we go after death, why can you not show a little bit of such heaven here and now, and save us out of this miserable situation?” Nevertheless, I still insisted, “you go to hell if you don’t believe.” Then, this woman, laughingly answered, “the hell? Wake up, man! Here is the hell we live now. We, eleven family members, live in the small square-feet room, and we are worse off than dogs or pigs. For the past ten years we never have eaten white rice but flour. With no shoes, clothing, or hospitals to go, we have here a living hell, hotter than any other thing, no matter what you say about the hell. I have pains with my neck because of my nine sons. What can your religion provide for us?” I returned to my tent church without saying further. This woman’s saying sounded a bang to my ear: “if there is a heaven, we need a heaven now, not the one after death. Heaven now!” Then, my father’s Buddhist teaching also ringed to my ears: “Heart is thus a Buddha. Buddha is not only in the paradise but also in my heart.” Wherever Buddha is, there is a Christian heaven/paradise, or a Buddhist paradise. If one lives now the living hell and go to heaven only after death, can such a thing not be an actual lie? The heaven must come here as she insists. In fact, she lives now in hell. Then what should I say to her?

Christianity considers it important to give hopes to the needy. How is Christianity the religion of hope? In the doctrine of Christianity, God created heaven and earth, and made the Garden of Eden in which God put Adam and Eve to live joyfully. But they rebelled against God and fell into sin. As a result, three disasters were brought in. The first disaster is this: humans became slaves of the devil after sinning. All kinds of injustice, evil, and corruption took place. The second disaster: Because of the curse of environment, earth produced thorns and thistles, and humans had to work hard with sweats to live. The third one: Humans become old, sick, die and return to earth. All humankind from their birth lives in these three disasters, sinning, becoming slaves of the devil, living and dying with the suffering of hunger, sickness and poverty. Christ came to save us from these three disasters. Christ came not to teach ethics or religion. He is the Lord who came to redeem us. Such is the principle truth taught by the Bible.

Doctrines or commandments come after Jesus Christ, who came to rescue us through his death and who took all our burdens of sins, curses, sickness, and death. Therefore, whoever believes in Jesus, male or female, young or old, poor or rich, is saved. I was reminded by my father’s teaching of WonHyo, a great Buddhist monk in Korean history. WonHyo says: “there are too many commandments, but a person can be saved not by keeping all of them but by reciting ‘namooami-tabul.’ Likewise, Jesus Christ, with the blood on the cross, atoned for our sins and took instead of us the curses, death, and infirmities. Therefore, the simple message is that whoever believes in him will receive the three-fold blessing: souls are well; all things go well; you can live healthy life. That is why we call this holistic salvation, which is not just about the soul but also about the spirit (soul), the body (flesh) and the present life. Such a holistic message of salvation is central in our Christianity. Our Christianity sometimes teaches that we have to keep the commandments rather than to believe in Jesus. Though some churches incessantly teach that we have to keep the law and the commandments, I believe that by the simple faith and God’s grace we are forgiven from sin; being free from curses; receiving the blessings of God; healed from diseases; being saved.

I have been connected with Jesus Christ because of this hope. Out of the complete hopelessness, I read the Bible and found a great pillar of the fire of hope. I realized that what this woman needs are hopes, not heaven or hell that people go after death, or by keeping the law. So I went to see that lady again. She said, “Why did you come back? I don’t have anything to give you.” Then, I replied, “No, won’t you change your destiny?” This lady retorted back, “What can you do to change my life?” “I know a person who will change your lot. If you turn to him, you will have your husband back with no more alcohol addiction, have food to eat, have free education for your children, and have a good house with sanitary facilities,” I said. This woman asked, “Who is he? Where?” I said, “Follow me and I will let you meet him.” She followed me with sandals on her feet. This was a surprise to me. She did not listen to me when I tried to win her through the law and the commandments of the gospel. In fact she resisted my efforts of evangelization. But now she follows me when I talk about hopes.