세 종교 집단 간 문화 간 커뮤니케이션 탐사 연구: 국내 다종교 군사학교 사례 연구

Abstract

This study is about interreligious conflicts among Buddhists, Protestants, and Catholics in a particular military school, and its theoretical basis is a cultural approach to religion and religious pluralism. It employs a quantitative and a qualitative method complementarily. The quantitative data obtained through questionnaire packets gave general views whereas the qualitative data gained by in-depth interviews gave rich and grounded descriptions of the research topic and questions. The qualitative method especially helped to increase the depth and practicality of the research, which investigated the particularities that could easily be glossed over by the quantitative one. The findings revealed the contrasting attitudes toward each religious group. Buddhists were shown as “free” or “rational believers”, “pilgrims”, or “non-believers.” Protestants were viewed as “faithful believers,” “exemplary in every matter,” “restricted” or “strict,” or “quasi-Christians.” Catholics were seen as “free believers,” “proud” or, on the contrary, “non-believers.” There were close relations between the attitude toward other religions and the conflict, and the conflicts were mostly found between Protestants and non- Protestants. However, the nature of the conflicts was found to be subtle, covert, silenced, and latent due to the strong and rigid culture of military school. A few cases of overt conflict were found between the student leaders of different religions or between exclusivists and pluralists. Interesting findings were that religious inclusivism was used as the strategic means by the exclusive Protestants, whereas religious pluralism was used as pacifying tactics by Buddhists and Catholics.