Editing Olive Tree (religious movement)

{{short description|Christian new religious movement founded in South Korea by Park Tae Son}}
'''Olive Tree''' is the most common English name of a [[Christianity|Christian]] [[new religious movement]] founded in [[South Korea]] by Park Tae Son ({{Korean|hangul=박태선|hanja=朴泰善|mr=Pak T'aesŏn}}).<ref name="WRSP">{{cite web|url=https://wrldrels.org/2020/03/31/olive-tree-movement/|title=Olive Tree Movement|last1=Baker|first1=Don|author-link=|last2=Kim|first2=Yuri|author-link2=|date=2020-04-02|department=|website=wrldrels.org|series=|publisher=World Religions and Spirituality Project|at=Quote at one fifth of page|language=English|type=Profile of a religious group|format=|access-date=2022-03-18|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210510215806/https://wrldrels.org/2020/03/31/olive-tree-movement/|archive-date=2021-05-10|quote=Elder Park was Park T'aesŏn (朴泰善1917-1990), the founder of this religious community. However, he is no longer called Elder Park. Instead, he is called God (Hananim). However, that change came more than two decades after he founded the Olive Tree Movement.}}</ref> The movement was originally known in Korea as ''Jesus Christ Congregation Revival Association of Korea'' ({{Korean|hangul=한국예수교전도관부흥협회|rr=Hanguk Yesugyo Jeondogwan Buheung Hyeophoe}}) and later as ''The Church of Heavenly Father'' ({{Korean|hangul=천부교|hanja=天父敎|rr=Cheonbugyo}}).<ref name="Calgary">{{cite book|last= Kim|first=Chang Han|date=2007|title= Towards an Understanding of Korean Protestantism: The Formation of Christian-Oriented Sects, Cults, and Anti-Cult Movements in Contemporary Korea|location=Calgary|publisher=PhD Diss, University of Calgary|url=https://ucalgary.scholaris.ca/bitstreams/5b4a5fcf-5ba4-424d-a294-3f3dc44d911a/download|pages=213–236}}</ref> In a revised 2009 version of his 1996 doctoral dissertation on the history of Korean Pentecostalism,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Purinton|first=William T.|date=2009|title=Review of Lee, Young-Hoon, "The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea: Its Historical and Doctrinal Development"|url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25912|journal=H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online|access-date=12 January 2020}}</ref> pastor [[Young Hoon Lee (pastor)|Young Hoon Lee]] called the Olive Tree "the fastest growing and largest of the Korean syncretistic religions during the 1950s and 1960s," although he noted it had become "largely insignificant" by the end of the 20th century.<ref name="Lee">{{cite book|last= Lee|first=Young-hoon|date=2009|title=The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea: Its Historical and Theological Development|location=Oxford|publisher=Regnum Books International|pages=61–63|isbn=978-1-870345-67-5}}</ref>

The Olive Tree is regarded as a [[cult]] by mainline Christian denominations in Korea, and Korean scholar Kim Chang Han has argued in his doctoral dissertation that combating the Olive Tree was a main reason for the emergence of an organized [[anti-cult movement]] in South Korea.<ref name="Calgary" />

==Origins==
Park Tae Son was born in Yup nam ri, Duk Chon, [[North Pyeongan Province (Republic of Korea)|North Pyeongan]] province of present-day [[North Korea]] in 1915.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://busan.grandculture.net/Contents?local=busan&dataType=01&contents_id=GC04201395 |title= 박태선|access-date=21 June 2024|publisher=부산역사문화대전 }}</ref> He was raised as [[Presbyterian]] in a poor family that could only allow him to receive a primary school education. To improve his life, he went to [[Japan]] where he worked as a milkman and newsboy during the day and was able to complete Technical High School through evening courses.<ref name="Moos 1967">{{cite journal|last=Moos|first=Felix|date=1967|title=Leadership and Organization in the Olive Tree Movement|journal=Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch|volume=43|pages=11–27}}</ref> According to American anthropologist Felix Moos, Park felt discriminated against in Japan as a Korean, which explains why he maintained a strong anti-Japanese orientation in later life.<ref name="Moos 1964">{{cite journal|last=Moos|first=Felix|date=1964|title=Some Aspects of Park Chang No Kyo—A Korean Revitalization Movement|journal= Anthropological Quarterly|volume=37|issue=3|pages=110–120|doi=10.2307/3316952|jstor=3316952|hdl=1808/1133|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

In 1944, Park returned to Korea where he started attending a Presbyterian church near [[Namdaemun|Namdaemun gate]] in [[Seoul]] and became a moderately successful businessperson by launching his own Korea Precision Machine Company.<ref name="Moos 1967" /> In 1954, he became an elder in the Presbyterian Church and started conducting revival services. In 1955, he was one of the main preachers at a large [[Camp meeting|Presbyterian revival meeting]] organized at [[Namsan (Seoul)|Namsan Mountain]] near Seoul. There, he claimed to have instantaneously healed a man who had been a cripple for thirty years.<ref name="Choe">{{cite book|last=Choe|first=Joong-Hyun|date=1993|title=The Korean War and Messianic Movements: Two Cases in Contrast |location=Syracuse, NY|publisher=PhD Diss, University of Syracuse}}</ref>

The incident converted Park into a nationally well-known preacher, and in April 1955 he formed the Jesus Christ Congregation Revival Association of Korea ({{lang|ko|한국예수교전도관부흥협회}}), originally as part of the Presbyterian Church. The latter saw it as a potentially schismatic organization and was suspicious of Park’s claim of supernatural powers and messianic status. Park was tried for [[heresy]] and expelled from the Presbyterian Church in 1956.<ref name="Calgary" />

No longer a Presbyterian, Park started his own church. He gathered thousands eager to be healed through a ritual he called ''anch’al'' (laying on of hands), a sort of strong massage supposed to transmit divine energy from Park to the infirm. Even the water with which Park’s feet had been washed was drunk by his devotees for healing and spiritual purposes.<ref name="Moos 1967" />

Park revealed that he was one of the [[two witnesses]] mentioned in the [[Book of Revelation]] and called "Olive Trees"<ref name="Kim">"{{cite journal|last1=Kim|first1=David W.|last2=Bang|first2=Won-il|date=2019|title=Guwonpa, WMSCOG, and Shincheonji: Three Dynamic Grassroots Groups in Contemporary Korean Christian NRM History|journal=Religions|volume=10|issue=3|page=212|doi=10.3390/rel10030212|doi-access=free|hdl=1885/204914|hdl-access=free}}</ref> or perhaps both of them in one person,<ref name="Moos 1964" /> hence the name "Olive Tree" popularly designating the movement. Park also claimed to be the "righteous man from the East" mentioned in the [[Book of Isaiah]] 41.2 and identified "the East" with Korea. His followers at that time believed he was not God, but the last prophet of God before the millennial kingdom and God’s only authorized spokesperson on Earth.<ref name="Calgary" />

==Success and controversies==
Although the exact number of followers he gathered is a matter of controversy, Park’s became one of the largest new religious movements in Korea, with perhaps two million members in the mid-1960s.<ref name="Moos 1967" /> It built three "Christian towns," model villages where followers lived communally.<ref name="Lee" />

At the same time, mainline Christian denominations and several Korean media regarded Park’s movement as a cult and organized the first of the future large Korean anti-cult movement. Lee answered that there was indeed in South Korea a problem with cults, but these were the [[Jehovah’s Witnesses]] and the [[Unification Movement]] founded by [[Sun Myung Moon]] rather than his own organization.<ref name="Calgary" /> He was also accused of practicing ''[[P'ikareum]]'', a ritual where female devotees have sex with the male messianic figure in order to achieve purity.<ref name="Kim" />

Park was arrested for fraud four times, although he initially managed to obtain lenient sentences due to his good relations with president [[Syngman Rhee]], to whom the Olive Tree offered the votes of its followers.<ref name="Moos 1967" /> With the decline of Rhee’s power and his eventual exile from Korea however, Park spent longer periods in jail, both for deceiving his followers with false healing claims and defrauding them of their money (which was then not declared to the tax office) and for illegal electoral practices supporting pro-Rhee candidates.<ref name="Moos 1964" /> Park was in jail from 27 December 1958 to 26 March 1960 and from 27 January 1961 to 10 January 1962.<ref name="Calgary" />

In December 1960, some 2,000 Olive Tree followers attacked the offices of the Korean newspaper ''[[The Dong-a Ilbo]]'', which had called Park a fraud, overcoming some 400 police officers who tried to protect the premises. The incident led to further media criticism of the movement, which was placed under police surveillance.<ref name="Moos 1964" /> The controversies did not initially affect the success of the Olive Tree, which continued to grow and open new churches and other facilities through the 1960s and the 1970s.<ref name="Lee" /><ref name="Moos 1967" />

==Decline after 1980== 
By 1980, Park had started presenting a new theology. He revealed that ninety-five percent of the [[Bible]] was wrong, [[Jesus]] was not the Christ, and the real [[Messiah]] was Park himself, who was also God the Creator, while the God mentioned in the Christian Bible was in fact a "king devil."<ref name="Calgary" /> He also taught he would never die and would enter the [[Millennialism|Millennium]] with his body.<ref name="Kim" />

Contrary to his expectations, only a limited percentage of his followers were ready to accept what scholar Kim Chang Han called in his dissertation a "radical divorce from Christian beliefs," and the movement quickly declined.<ref name="Calgary" /> Another reason for the decline was Park’s ill health in his last years. He suffered from [[diabetes]] and [[tuberculosis]] and was also diagnosed with [[schizophrenia]].<ref name="Lee" />

Park died in 1990 and his remaining followers divided into rival groups. The largest one, with a few thousand followers, continues its activities under the name The Church of Heavenly Father (''Cheonbugyo'', {{lang|ko|천부교}}). The center of its doctrine and worship is the claim that Park is God, indeed the only true God, and that his spirit is present in The Church of Heavenly Father, where it can be perceived through a divine perfume and [[Ectoplasm (paranormal)|ectoplasm]]-like manifestations.<ref name="Calgary" />

Founders of other successful Korean new religious movements were once members of the Olive Tree. These include [[World Mission Society Church of God]] and [[Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony|Shincheonji]], founded in 1985 and 1984 respectively. Additionally, the Dongbang Church, [[Tabernacle Temple Church|Tabernacle Temple]], Gospel Evangelical Association, and Eden Revival Association can also be considered sects that originated from the Olive Tree movement.<ref>{{cite book |last=Heo |first=Ho Ik |date=2016 |title=한국의 이단 기독교 |publisher=동연 |isbn=9788964475638}}</ref> Their theologies have been claimed to be influenced by Park.<ref name="Kim" />

==References==
{{Use dmy dates|date= April 2024}}
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Christian new religious movements]]
[[Category:Christian organizations established in 1955]]
[[Category:Religious organizations based in South Korea]]
[[Category:Self-declared messiahs]]