Religious Meaning-Making Narratives for Reconciliation in the aftermath of State Violence: South Korean Christian Perspectives

Abstract:This article examines how victims of violence adopt religious meaning-making narratives to deal with their trauma and, in doing so, engage with a social ethic of reconciliation. An analysis of the narratives of five South Korean Christians who lost their families during the Korean war (1950–1953) provides detailed information about how victims rely on religious narratives to make sense of the causes of violence and suffering and to repair the damaged sense of the self. This study finds that the interviewees tend to claim an eschatological view of the world when they recount the violent event and to internalize the divine meaning of suffering while describing their experience of social exclusion in the aftermath of their own loss. Furthermore, it is common for them to demonstrate the embodiment of the redemptive self-image. Through the narrative meaning-making process, the respondents assert that reconciliation ought to be a force for social change, deter the same violence from recurring, and be equated with the value of forgiveness.