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Pride, Sensuality and Han: Revisiting Sin from the Underside
Abstract
This paper critically reconsiders the earliest feminist critiques of Reinhold
Niebuhr’s doctrine of sin and sketches out succeeding developments in
feminist understandings of human sin and alienation. Borrowing the concept
of “han” from Korean minjung theologians to name the experience of brokenheartedness/
being sinned against that the feminist literature highlights, it
argues that han can be a precondition (along with anxiety) for human sin.
Finally, it asks whether there is room in Niebuhr’s system for an understanding
of han as a precondition for sin, and concludes that there is.
Niebuhr’s doctrine of sin and sketches out succeeding developments in
feminist understandings of human sin and alienation. Borrowing the concept
of “han” from Korean minjung theologians to name the experience of brokenheartedness/
being sinned against that the feminist literature highlights, it
argues that han can be a precondition (along with anxiety) for human sin.
Finally, it asks whether there is room in Niebuhr’s system for an understanding
of han as a precondition for sin, and concludes that there is.