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Of the various religions of Korea Christianity has most emphasized selfidentification with a single religious tradition. It has also been arguably the most sectarian, which has shown itself in the divide between Korean Catholics and Protestants.1 To call oneself a 'Protestant,' 'Catholic,' or of any other religion such as 'Confucian' in 20th century Korea has often carried with it certain expectations as to one's livelihood, social role, personal behavior, and inwardly held beliefs. Transgressing the expectations of a religious, especially Protestant, identity has not been something to take lightly - indeed, a too jarring disconnect between a particular religious identity and behavior and belief necessitated the taking on of new religious identities, and even the obliteration from memory of previously held identities.
This phenomenon can be seen amongst a critical group in the modernization of Korea, the first generation of chaebol (conglomerate) founders, a generation that was born mostly in the first few decades of the last century when Korea was starting to enter an era of increasing religious choices. A significant minority of the first generation chaebol founders were Christian, mostly Protestant. Most of these Protestant founders extolled a life-long and consistent spiritual identity. An instructive few, however, had evolving 'Christian' religious identities linked to their business practices that shifted over time and to different audiences, and in one case was mostly carried on by the familial and corporate descendants. Two examples that will be looked at include the founder of the Doosan Group, Park Too-Pyung and the founder of the Hyundai Group, Chung Ju- Yung.
These examples also illustrate the relatively strict ethical and behavioral demands that Korean Protestantism places on individual believers, an allencompassing and sometimes exhaustive commitment that is probably a key reason why Korean Protestantism has both been the religion throughout South Korean history taking in the most new converts per year and then in the last few decades the religion losing the highest number of adherents per year, often to Catholicism. There are now more former Protestants in Korea than current Protestants.2
Finally, these two examples suggest that while the father's role in transmitting philosophical and religious values to a son has been the most publically valorized within Korean tradition, mothers, as masters of the domestic sphere, can...