Drew University Library : University Archives : Theses and Dissertations
    
authorHyeon Soo Cho
titlePreaching to young Koreans: The Images of Jesus as revealed in their life experiences, faith stories, and prayers
abstractThis thesis deals with the relationships between life experiences, faith stories, and prayers and Jesus images. Postmodernism is a kind of a new approache that help individuals to see the world differently from the previous approach that represented objectivism in terms of science and reason. There have been many changes in the notion of church from the early times to the present. In the postmodern age, people are no longer looking for a standardized meaning and are not limited to denominational realms, geographical distances or even theological differences. In order to research on the postmodern church, I used a methodology of narrative and image with hermeneutics based on Derrida’s deconstruction theory. Also, I dealt with Jesus images with a view to the historical Jesus, Jesus images for 2,000 years and global Jesus images of the 21 centuries.

Based on the above theological theories, I surveyed Jesus images that appeared in sermons, faith stories, and prayers in Chung Gong Church. Even though the approach is based on subjective analysis, each sermon reflects a specific Jesus image. Jesus images seen from pastor's sermons and Jesus images seen from the soldiers' faith stories have similarity. Even though some results are different, Pastor's sermons and soldier's faith stories show strong correlation in Jesus images. This means that the pastor's ministry is accordance with church people's faith more or less.

How can we use this approach in the church? If we use the approach of the thesis, we can analyze Jesus images that people have in the church and this analysis and diagnosis will be useful not only to help with sermon preparation, or church programs and but also to assist in planning for church growth. I think this research is a way of understanding postmodernism through modernism eyes.

schoolThe Theological School, Drew University
degreeD.Min. (2018)
advisors Carl Savage
Donna Ciangio
committee Younglae Kim
full textHSCho.pdf