Research On The Historical Changes And Social Influence Of South Korea's Christian Thought

South Korea and China are friendly nations. Both countries not only have long historical and cultural tradition, but there also are many similarities in their culture and tradition. For instance, regarding the attribute of Korean and Chinese language, two countries belong to the circle of East-Asian culture. However, when it turned to the modern age, South Korea and China became to present significant differences due to the distinct social system and cognitive patterns. It showed radical changes in the thought of content in their cultures, especially in the field of receiving and reconstructing western culture on the basis of the nation's traditional culture. There are so many distinctive differences in choosing the content and the method of adaptation that consequently the two countries became to shape their unique modern culture and thought. China accepted Marxism Scientific Atheism on the foundation of our nation' traditional culture and formed unique Chinese socialist culture and thought. At the same time, South Korea formed capitalistic thought and culture by accepting Christianity as the medium of the nation's traditional culture and western culture. As South Korea and China have more and more exchange and cooperation nowadays, it is necessary to do systematic analysis and research on the history, current status, and the trend of South Korean Christianity to understand and grasp the basic characteristics of modern South Korean culture and thought. South Korea is an pluralistic religion country and Christianity isthe only religion from the west. The history of South Korean Christianity is more than two hundred years. In South Korea, Christianity was imported as a kind of knowledge rather than a pure religion at the beginning. Considering the several hundreds years of spread and popularization of Christianity in South Korea, in the modern age, Christianity played the role as the enlightening thought and movement of finding their way to get out of national crisis, ignorance, and the situation of falling behind. It functioned as an spiritual activator of learning western culture and moving forward to modernization. At modern times, Christianity serves as the thought and cultural medium of receiving western capitalistic democracy and modern scientific culture. In South Korea, in the sharp clash and severe conflict between Christianity and the nation's traditional culture, Christianity is given the attribute of the nation, so that it becomes to be the spiritual support and the main stream of culture and thought of the social cognitive pattern in Korean modern society.