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This research is aimed to philosophically reflect how to dwell on the life in the aging society that the number of the population of senior citizens who must be anxious about their death is increasing. Traditionally considered in the western thought, the life is considered as delaying the imminent death by means of different kinds of steps. The death is an already-arriving and avoidable fate. So the image of death is associated with darkness and fear, and the image of life is regarded as something between death and death. In this study, we can not deal with specifically the western classical thoughts to refuse the reality of death because they have their own enormous history. Therefore, this researcher intends to limit the extent of our study and to focus on modern philosophers who are reasoning life through affirming death. To begin with, our study examine the issue of life that was dealt with in biology and medical science of 19th century, depending on M. Foucault’s thesis. An observation of philosophical clarification of his thought called “thinking over life through death” reveals us that it appears repeatedly in recent philosophy of the west just like unconscious episteme. And it develops clearly as follows: in Foucault death is regulating the essence of life, in M. Heidegger death is the event of activity, the best brightness and possibilities in the intrinsic existence of human-being which can be acquired through the way of running in advanced toward death. On the other hand, in Levinas death is the event of passivity and finiteness that the subject is not able to be his own master. And in M. Blanchot pushing Levinas’ thesis furtherly death means an impossibility of subject, “outside(dehors) experience” which is neither my own nor yours between you and I. This researcher, however, tries to find a clue of how to reason the life not through death but through life with help of Borges. Our study suggests that his idea on life(joyful endless deaths really means immortality) may be a way of philosophical and cultural well-being life in this aging society.

The current discourse of the sexuality of the elderly people in the aging Korean society is led by the study of the welfare of the aged. So this paper analysed the results from the study of the welfare of the aged on the understanding of the sexuality of the elderly, in oder to introduce the main concerns of the current discourse of the sexuality of the elderly people. The social prejudice about the sexuality of the elderly, ‘the old man has neither sexual desire nor sexual ability’ is being overcome by the empirical studies of the sexuality of the aged. The medical, psychological and social approaches to the sexuality of the elderly have led to the research result that the sexual life of the old people is possible, useful and even necessary for the health and welfare of the aged. So the social help is requested for the improvement of the sexual life of the elderly and for positive cognition of the sexuality of the aged. However this paper has showed that the approach of the welfare of the aged has inclined to the liberal understanding of sex. Just because the elderly people are old, the fact that they are sexual beings is not to be denied. The sexuality of the elderly should be recognized. But the old people should not be oversxualized. Not only direct sexual behaviors but also various indirect sexual expressions and alternatives are possible, useful and meaningful for the old life of human beings.

There are many difficulties in understanding Judah and Tamar’s attitudes as found in Genesis chapter 38. As such many scholars maintain this chapter to be redacted and unnatural in character and form. Scholars from the Historical criticism camp insist this chapter provides an explanation of the origins of the Judah tribe or Israel. Though their opinions are of reasonable merit this article supports another view that the chapter is necessary for redemptive fulfillment. To show this, this article articulates the Levirate marriage, the deception, prostitution, and the deceitful ways of Tamar, and provides interpretations through careful theological methods. Above all, this article seeks to show that these hard to understand portions in the text were negatively influenced by ancient near eastern countries, especially from Canaan. The primary intention of the biblical writer was not to pursue an ethical approach but a redemptive one. This text is written by the writer to emphasize redemptive goals, and that Perez became one of the messianic ancestors. That is the reason for Genesis 38. However, through out this article I have also tried to harmonize these two ways of interpretation. This article is comprised of 4 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapter 2 provides an explanation of the text according to story type. Chapter 3 provides an explanation of four themes according to ethical questions and writer’s answers. Finally in chapter 4, I provide a conclusion to this article according to the way of OT viewpoint.

If one analyzes preachers’ problems that have brought the Korean church to a serious crisis, one can find at least the following four points. The first is that preachers of the Korean church run short of understanding on preaching. The second is that preachers’ words are not in accord with their deeds. The third is that preachers use preaching as a means of their ministry. The fourth is that some of them cannot compose their sermons by their own efforts. However these problems must be corrected and overcome. Therefore four important subjects that should be discussed in connection with the preacher are discussed throughout this study. The first is that preachers have to establish their right identity as the Christian preacher. The second is that they must strengthen their ability that is connected with preaching. The third is that the Korean church has to strengthen education for preachers. The fourth is to strengthen the ethical education about preaching.

The Division of the Korean peninsula was began in 1945 when it was liberated from the Japanese colonial rule. After the liberation, The Korean peninsula is divided by the United States and the Soviet Union. However, in 1948 North Korea and South Korea had established the governments each other. Korea War and the armistice in 1953 was solidify the division of the Korean peninsula. Although the Korean peninsula meet the 60 anniversary of the armistice in this year, the structure of the division of the Korean is continuing without fundamental change today. Before and after the 1990, Although the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Eastern European communist countries ended the Cold War, the North and South Korea are still unable to overcome the Cold War in the post-Cold War era and remains the only divided country. In the Korean Peninsula, this paper at first will discussed the history of the Church in Korea Unification Movement. Second, This article will discussed the theology and ideological backgrounds that appeared in the history of Unification Movement of the Church in Korea. From the end of the 1960s, the churches of South Korea divided into conservative and progressive groups in social participation. Because of Korean unification issues, the Korea church is especially experiencing the extreme conflict and division. In these situations, The background of conflict and division of korea church on the reunification of the Korean peninsula have originated from different ideological orientation between these two groups. Therefore, this paper will examined the theological and ideological backgrounds of Unification theory in conservative and progressive parties. Finally, this paper will be proposed a simple method for Unification Movement of the Korean peninsula to South Korea church.

From the perspective of Christian ethics, the village community movement could be said as a very significant challenge despite it’s secularity. The first reason is that the movement as an alternative against the global capitalism tries to build a grassroots democracy and the social economy. Secondly, it has ethical values such as “mutual caring and sharing for the neighborhood” and “a simple life for the every life” based on the relation of human and human, and of human and nature. Hence, this study will start from a recherche in the political and economic background and the importance of the korean village community social movement, and reveal the ethical importance from the perspective of the ethics of hope by J. Molttman. This study, however, aims also to find out the reasons why the Korean Church unlike the German Church had to be excluded from the village community movement by the korean civil society in spite of the intersection between the ethics of solidarity in the village community movement and the ethics of love in the Church. For the conclusion, it is for the resurrection of the Village Church that this study does not only stress to take a role for the responsibility for the social welfare in the local community, but also for the ministry of Kerygma to proclaim the space and the time of the Holiness in the world of the Profane. This holy work of the Village Church will make the human life to build the stability and the depth of his being without being obsessed with the daily Profane.

We can easily find some spaces that strengthen instrumental effectiveness rather than human dignity, ‘success myths’ of capitalism, and hierarchical social orders in Korea. When we try to critically read multiple and deep contradictions of these spaces, we could make some chasms in them and differently arrange and create new types of spaces. For spaces could make a great effect on those who live there in terms of their ways of life and knowledge. If we mainly experience some spaces that make us accept one-sided and uniformed ways of life, it can be a space of control and violence in our lives. Henri Lefebvre defines space as a product that does not mean just an object but a globality, that is, a second environment. It means that a space as a product can function as a context for another process of space-making. And it can be related to opening a reciprocal relationship in new spaces. For him, thus, space is not only a product but also a productive action itself. Space is not just a space of control and violence but also a dynamic space for solidarity, communication, and even deterritorialization when different and heterogeneous components are connected to pre-existed spaces. And space also includes bodies inside itself. They can be moral agents who can raise critical questions inside the spaces and make new movements toward a more humane society. Their critical reading of spaces can reposition different relationships around themselves and reset themselves in the world as a process of being in the world by being against ‘device paradigm’ and continually making self-criticism based on their moral communities. All these processes are based on a theological concept of church as a cosmic body of Christ or as an earth community. When church can be a communal source for aresistance against social evils that make a humane life impossible, church can be claimed as a ‘sacred space.’ The point is not about space as a being but as a change of usage of it. That will be a continual process of making new relations in the church.

This article is designed to examine a Durkheim’s concept of cult of humanity in the movement of 2008’s candlelight rally. The cult of humanity, a neglected Durkheimian concept, is a cult that considers humanity as a pivotal object of worship. According to Durkheim, this cult should not be regarded neither as an individualism nor as an egoism. It is rather an expression of faith for human values such as life, dignity, human rights, equality and so forth. He believed this cult would flourish in the future: the more the society becomes an age of division of labor, the more the cult would prosper. The judgement of Durkheim on this subject may prove to be right when we look over the ‘civil movements’ that take place these days all over the world. Among them was the 2008’s candlelight rally. This civil was not an expression of egoism or individualism in its common sense. The incident was something to do with claiming human values such as human right, life, health, family and future that they believed were threatened by the decision of importing the unhealthy meat. People in the rally, while protesting against their government’s decision, tried to protect the ‘sacred’ rights and congregations, worshipped these values and rights, formed a ‘moral community’ and established a cult of humanity. The implication of the cult to Christianity is one of the concerns of this study. This cult believes humanity as the most prominent element that can serve well the modern or post-modern people’s value system. Christianity also valued it, but not more than divinity. The primary object of worship in Christian church is not the human but the God. The cult of humanity can be thus a crisis or challenge to Christianity and its believers.

The world is getting smaller and integrated in diverse dimensions, due to the acceleration of globalization. But, on the other hand, a life of a person and community are being scattered. Due to the labor market change, family members are being scattered to find a work all over the world. Local communities are controlled by the market values. People are at a point of losing their traditional culture by the profit oriented foreign cultures. In a situation like this, the church has to do not only comfort the dis-connected and isolated communities but also try to provide the concrete ways to guarantee their rights as human beings and promote the socially inclusive culture. Christian social ethics should always concern the least ones first. Under these circumstances, Churches should promote the global culture which protects all human rights and security, especially for the migrant people. The time like this is an opportunity for the church to fully function as a critical majority to bring a constructive social integration. Korean church should enhance the cultural understanding of migrant workers to facilitate their settlement in Korea in order to accommodate the cultural diversity caused by the accelerated globalization. The criticism that the Korean church receives as not having fulfilled her social responsibility is, at the same time, pointing to the fact that the Korean Christian has not truly lived a life of faith. Therefore, we must first re-affirm the basics of what it means to be a Christian. The acknowledgement of the close relationship between faith and life, a new confession of the sovereignty of God, and a continuous self-renewal founded on the confession of deep rooted sins are important pre-requirements that need to be addressed in order for the Korean church to properly carry out her social responsibility. Such a life of re-evaluation and re-assessment of the basic foundations of faith help the individual Christian to live a more responsible life as a citizen, combining a life of “love God” with a life of “solidarity and journeying together with the weak and poor” which is the core of human rights. Taking into the consideration of the ambivalent impact of multiculturalism and the strong incumbent nationalism in our society, the Church should make efforts to provide the foundation for human rights and the integrated social culture.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the crisis of publicness of the Korean Church, to suggest social mission as an alternative for recovering publicness of christianity and to suggest life mission, justice mission and peace mission as christian social mission. All statistics show that the Korean Church is the most distrusted religion among representative religions in Korea. This crisis of public confidence of the Korean Church results from the loss of publicness of christianity. But originally christianity is not a private religion but a public religion. The reason is as follows: ① God of christianity is not a lonely being but public being in community. God is a social, participatory being. ② The world created by God is not a private domain for a certain group or nation but a symbiotic domain for all creatures. ③ All humans were created not as lonely beings but as beings in relationship with God and other creatures. ④ Kingdom of God is not a private character of kingdom which a certain group or nation can monopolize but public character of kingdom which all humans enjoy justice, peace and joy in Holy Spirit. ⑤ Church is not a private being for itself but a public being for common good of society and the world. On the ground of the above statements, christianity is a public religion in which publicness is a key element. The Korean Church lost publicness. What are the reasons of it? The reasons are as follows: ① Individualistic understanding of salvation ② Dualistic thought which separate soul and body, individual and society, the world beyond and this world and think body, society and this world less importantly than soul, individual and this world ③ fundamentalism ④ collision with shamanism ⑤ collision with confucianism ⑥ collision with economism ⑦ collision with a nation What is an alternative for recovering of publicness of the Korean Church? First, it is to recover the identity of christianity as a public religion Second, it is to perform the task of social mission. Here social mission means all activities which churches and christians perform in relation to social responsibility. What are the contents of social mission? Those are life mission, justice mission and peace mission. First, the task of life mission is to build culture of life and ecological community which affirm and respect life, and to resist powers which drive the socially weak and ecosystem to death. Second, the task of justice mission is to criticize all forms of concentration of power by minority, to resist unilateral dominion of a few vested interests and to change unjust political, economical social system into just political, economical social system. Third, the task of peace mission is to oppose violence, war, war weapons and nuclear weapons, to try to solve conflict relations and hostile relations, to curtail aggressive elements which become the cause of war, to get rid of structural violence such as poverty, oppression, discrimination and alienation. and to build culture of peace in which every people and every nations respect each other. As Moltmann said, the Korean Church today face double crises. One is the crisis of identity, the other the crisis of relevance. The former is the crisis of recognition, the latter is the crisis of praxis. In terms of these double dimensions, the Korean Church face the loss of publicness. If it is the cause of loss of public confidence of the Korean Church, recovering publicness of the Korean Church is a urgent task in order to recover credibility of the Korean Church. In conclusion, the Korean Church has to perform life mission, justice mission and peace mission as social mission in order to recover publicness of christianity. Because a public character of christianity is most clearly revealed through social mission as a christian response of contemporary political, economical, social problems.

In the consumption society are increasing the consumers right as well as their responsibility for the society. In the past, consumer ethics have emphasized on the economic-rationality which consumer should buy the high quality product with lower price as possible. However, in ethical consumption it asked consumer to be responsible of the environmental health and animal welfare, local community, and the farmers and workers human rights in underdeveloped countries. In other words, in ethical consumption are implied the ethical values such as sustainability, communal life and fairness(social justice). The value of sustainability means consciousness of the healthy environment and animal welfare, and also the environmental right of the next-generation. It asks consumer to be a green consumer who is buying eco-friendly and energy saving products. The value of communal life seeks to build a community in a local area against a global economy. The movement of local food and community currency is known helpful to build symbiotic relationship between consumer and producer in a local area. The value of fairness seeks equity in international trade based on dialogue and respect. It asks consumer in industry countries not to show individual charity or relief of the poor, but to pay fair price for products like coffee and handicraft in underdeveloped countries. For the fostering ethical consumption by the local churches, it is important to make conscious of ethical consumption of the church members as an consumer. And the church as an consumer should make a role model for social responsible consumption through buying the eco-friend, local produced, and fair price payed products.