The Movement of Copying the Bible in South Korea: An Embodiment of Christian and Confucian Spiritualities1

This article examines a new and growing movement in Korean Christianity: making hand-written copies of the Bible. Over the last ten years, the practice of copying the Bible has become increasingly popular among ordinary Christians beyond the boundaries of denomination, age, gender, and profession. It is reported that, by December 2006, there were over 300,000 participants. The Centre for the Bible-Copying Movement, established in 1991, aims at increasing this figure to one million by 2010. In an attempt to uncover the rationale which motivates the practice of copying the Bible, this article situates this movement within the distinctive Korean cultural context of the continuing interplay between Confucianism and Christianity. It is based on the fact that Korea, once the most Confucianised state in East Asia, has become one of the most dynamic Christian countries in the world during the last century. This article argues that the movement of copying the Bible represents a harmonious combination of Christian and Confucian spiritualities: Christian piety for embodying the Word of God and Confucian devotion to self-cultivation through learning.