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The matter of trust becomes an important issue in this society. The foundation of trust in Christianity is the belief of God’s grace that it is given by God for people as a gift. Trust is not only the gift from God, but it also is a critical value which Christians need to regain. There are three points for this in Christian ethics; self-trust, we-trust, and the trust for the future. Christianity has been valued self-negation, as a humble piety, rather than self-trust. Ironically, this becomes a hinder to have a sound sense of trust. We-trust is a process to formulate this based on the sense of community. This is not the communal selfishness nor mass selfishness. Instead, this is the trust which comes from ‘embracement’ rather than exclusiveness.’ And the trust for the future does not mean a simple optimistic world view, but it is the critical thinking about the world with the hope of the Eschaton, as the Jesus’ community had. Thus, trust is the capability to reform the world that Christians do not only retrospect the present, but they also believe in the future of God.

In this study I argue that the phenomena of journalistic incredibility in this society are deeply related to the crisis of democracy the crisis of our democracy, and suggest the normative aspects that journalism should not evade in order to strengthen this vulnerable democratic situation. Preferentially, this study understands the concept of J. Habermas’ “public sphere”(Öffentlichkeit) from the perspective of journalism and considers the trust-loss of journalism in the context of the collapse of public sphere. The incredibility of journalism needs to be viewed in the association of the social context of what is called democracy. So this research examines the brief history of the collapse of public sphere of journalism in the course of the development of Korean democratization. And then this study deliberates normatively how to secure the public sphere for the purpose of credibility of Korean journalism. To the end, this study pays attention to ‘right’ ethic and ‘good’ ethic. The former shows us how journalism should do its roles for democracy, while the latter tells us what journalism does. The right journalism puts more importance on procedural justice in the formation of the public sphere, while the good journalism does much gravity onto the performance of public virtue for the society. Based on the norms of ‘right’ and ‘good’, this research continues to come up with some practical ways for the recovery of public sphers. In other words, Korean journalistic credibility by the way that we surveys the theory of Habermas’ public sphere and alternative journalism’s public sphere respectively.

This paper introduces the issues in relation to the inner freedom of religious conscience and conscientious realization in the public realm, asking the nature of the public through the thoughts of Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther. In the discussion of the comparison and relationship among the above traditional Christian theologians, such issues surrounding conscience, sin, will, and freedom are engaged to explore the role of religious conscience in the public realm. After reviewing all the factors of the above issues briefly, this paper comes to a conclusion that the Korean Christianity needs to make diligent efforts to bridge the gap between the inner freedom of religious conscience and Christian principles in the public realm. To achieve this goal, Christians are called to cultivate a sense of conscience and morality in the public, to revise the standard of christian education, and to stress spiritual awakening and the reformation of faith.

This study is to show the fact that it is an ‘imagined community’(Anderson’s term) that makes the moral life of individual possible. Morality finds its source on the one hand in the inner voice like conscience and on the other in the hand, the outside voice from the community. This article concerns the latter. The morality is formed and maintained by the works of the ritual and its symbols that the community members perform in everyday life. This is well documented by the Anderson’s work on nationalism. It is also supported by the concepts of the psychological and sociological scholars such as Freud, Winnicott, Durkheim, Bellah and Lacan, especially his concepts of the symbol and the imaginary. Though the community is imagined one, it has an imposing status to its constituents. The role and power of the imagined community is easily revealed when it happened to be de-constructed by the invasion of ‘the real’ in Lacan’s term. Christian church, with its ritual and symbols, also creates the imagined one, and this community allows the church to work as an outer voice of moral authority to its members.

This article aims first to explore the possibility of the union between love and justice, and later to show the possibility of the creation of the Christian ethic subject through the Ricoeur’s Hermeneutic. Christian Love, Agape, has been mostly understood as the opposite of distributive justice, which represents the economic equality. Ricoeur insisted that love should combined with justice. Ricoeur argued that we must resist to establish the ‘feature of moral judgement’ suggested by Gene Outka. He thought that we could obtain the concept of love through the interpretation of discourse. According to Ricoeur, the discourse of love has three characteristics: praise, the imperative command, and metaphor. Ricoeur accepted the justice theory by John Rawls as a discourse of justice. Ricoeur regarded anti-utilitarianism as the justice theory. Ricoeur attempted to unify love and justice dialectically. He pursued the reconciliation between the logic of equivalence, illustrated by the golden rule, and the logic of superabundance, incarnated in the new commandment. He thought that the commandment of love does not abolish the golden rule, but instead reinterprets it in terms of generosity. Ricoeur insisted that people could appreciate the new self before the newly interpreted text. This new interpreted text can be regarded as a turning point in creating the new Christian ethic subject..

This research delves into the ‘ontological adventure’ which is initiated by Emmanuel Levinas as his ethical foundation. This paper searches Levinas’ works from his early to the latest in order to track this adventure. Levinas started this adventure as he wondered the limitation of the Western Philosophy which is founded on ontology, and he focused on the differences between of existence and existents. He concentrated on the phenomenological meaning of the Other’s face and human relation. As humanity meets the face, he or she can listen to the petition of the face. This leads them to experience the Infinity. Through this experience, humanity realizes the significance of subjectivity which is based on the identity of selfhood rather than that of sameness. At this moment, the subject experience a completely new dimension of being, called, ‘substitution.’ Finally, the subject formulates the ‘ethical subjectivity’ who is responsible of the petition of the other. Thus, this research paper studies the ethical foundation of Levinas which is based on the conception of responsibility as this pursuits the ontological adventure.

This paper elaborates the main point that the complexity of abuses in gambling industry cannot be dissolved simply by enlightenment movements or national policies for morality recovery, but that it should be dealt with the complicate problems of people’s internal aspects. The government needs to prevent from the excessive urbanization, laying the administrative and institutional deployment for the balancing development of the regions, and also to commit to the ethical and pedagogical diffusion of the multi-dimensional approaches. Moreover, it needs to be stressed that, before the evil influence of gambling spreads more actively, it should be actively and specifically discussed at the level of Christian morals. In it, the Christian communities must produce proper policies or ideas, eagerly joining in the hot issues of the society, public or private. The Christianity should inspire the believers to live integral lives, so that they can cast the so-called Mammonism away and continually work for creating sound cultures in their lives. Even though the circumstances and surroundings of human societies are more and more contaminated by all different themes of pains, sufferings, and injustice, nevertheless there still lies in the basement of human nature full of expectations and desires of rest and play. Now the church must have an active interest in these cultural issues.

This study is a preliminary investigation of the ethics of Hermann Cohen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in terms of human behavior for the moral principles of Korean society. On the one hand, Cohen applies the scientific or transcendental philosophical method to ethics. The ethical concept of self-consciousness is here seen mainly in the context of the theme of autonomy, for it is only by self-legislation that the moral being can arrive at consciousness of himself. Cohen describes that Humanity is the ethically correlated to God, the highest self-consciousness that reason can project. Also, humanity gives the state its ideal for constitutional and international law. On the other hand, Bonhoeffer claims that the problem of subjectivity in philosophy of transcendental Idealism is overcome by recognizing the presence of Christ outside of human reason. Faith supposes an object outside of itself, but faith is a mode of being in the church. The concept of Christian ethical realism emphasizes the reality of being in Christ, which requires the responsibility of the church and believers for others in the world. Bonhoeffer addresses “this-worldliness”, “church exiting for others” thematically because the real theme is the claim of witnessing the presence of Jesus Christ in the present.

The purpose of this study is to suggest the ethical, missional tasks of the South Korean Church for the peaceful reunification of Korea based on the assumption that the reunification movement is the ethical and missional task of the Korean Church. For this purpose, first, this research explains the process of the division of Korea and the necessity of reunification. And this study argues the theological reasons for it: 1) the reunification movement is the action of fulfilling the mission of reconciliation, 2) it is the action of fulfilling the mission of love and justice, 3) it is the act of fulfilling the mission of the realization of the Kingdom of God. Lastly, this research suggests the ethical and missional tasks of the South Korean Church for the peaceful reunification of Korea such as the aspect of church ethics in terms of prayer, repentance and church renewal movement, the theological reflections that make paradigm shift from dualistic theology based on extreme anti- communism ideology and division to the peaceful reunification theology, and the social ethical viewpoints for justice, reconciliation, and peace.

With the development of the human enhancement techniques, we are witnessing the arrival of a new human being, called "post-human". "Post-human" exists no longer in the human dream, but it is present. Nature of the human ability to fundamentally beyond human after human, the future of human beings have been designed by the hands of man himself. Today’s science and technology has filed on the study of humanity as well as theology, "What is human being ?" "How does human dignity is maintained " and by the "What is a valid new ethics" Post-human inspires this discussion, again, from the traditional study of humanity and theology, but it raises anew. In this paper, the ethical question of "the future of humanity" in human enhancement techniques is argued from the point of view of Christian ethics. This study delves into first what the Post-humanism is, and what claim does. Then, this discusses the criticism of the post-humanism, and the final discussion of post-humanism as it is intended to discuss the Christian ethical understanding of this issue. For these discussions, ethical theme that this study relies on is a future ethics. The responsible relationship based on being and love is proposed here as the conceptualization the future ethics.

Since the enforcement of the cooperatives law in 2012, the issue of cooperatives has been a major social concern in Korea. The cooperative movement is considered as an alternative social movement to the new-liberal capitalistic society. For the Christianity it is the way of practice of Christian beliefs and the social responsibility of the churches. The history of the Korean church shows that the cooperative movement by churches is an effective way of mission and social ministry. It is very difficult to develop and sustain a cooperative successfully. To overcome these difficulties it is needed to understand the concept, categories and history of the cooperative movement. There are several reasons for churches to be interested in and participate actively in the cooperative movement. Especially, there are three shared values and Christian beliefs in the cooperative movement as follows. Firstly, the goal of the cooperative movement and Churches is the formation of a community which regard life and human beings as the most valuable thing. Secondly, the community is organized on the spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Lastly, the community is operated by a democratic decision. Even though the realities of the cooperative movement are insufficient, when comparing to Jerusalem community in the New Testament, the cooperative movement is a meaningful attempt to realize the Christian value in the world.

This research provides ethics with the unified reflections for reality so that it may contributes to the interdisciplinary studies in the humanities. The purpose of this study is to illuminate the solidarity between individual and social evil. This attempt can deal more profoundly with the reality of evil which appears in human existence and social structure. This research on the solidarity between human existence and social structure clarifies the relation between cultural science and social science, as it were, anthropology and history. Human being and social reality are mutually dependent and regulate with each other. Evil is at once a human and a social phenomenon. The concept of solidarity can be a theoretical basis for the necessity of social reform which is to be pursued not so much as through the institutional change but through the recovery of humanity. The concept of solidarity emphasizes the interaction of the human spirit and the spirit of time. Man actualizes his evil existence through evil deeds and rediscover his identity in the evil of social structure. The consciousness of solidarity provides a theoretical basis for the social responsibility of Christians who are being isolated in the world by clinging to the privatized spirituality and conduct. A christian comes to be responsible for himself as long as he is responsible for the society.