The starting point of current buzzwords such as motae solo and motae beauty connects to the religious term ‘motae faith’. Of course, the religious meaning did not carry over. These are modern expressions created with an emphasis on the meaning of ‘from birth’. If so, when did the word ‘motae faith’ begin to be used commonly?

According to ‘Motae Faith that Became the Mental Culture of Korean Christianity’, contributed by theologian Kim Yun-Jeong (researcher at Kwansei Gakuin University) to the February issue of the monthly <Christian Thought>, the name ‘motae faith’ came to be used almost uniformly and became established within churches in the 1980s. Before that, various words and expressions meaning motae faith were used, such as ‘a believer from the womb’ and ‘attending church from the womb’.

An interesting point is that the concept and term of motae faith originated in thoroughly Korean traditional culture. According to a church history dictionary, there are two definitions of motae faith. One is a family religion shared through faith education after birth, and the other is faith transmitted from the mother while in the womb. The former is a general concept commonly found in foreign Christianity, and the latter is a unique concept found only in Korean Christianity. The concept of motae faith popularly recognized in Korea is the latter.

Researcher Kim presented four factors that had a major influence on the formation of the Korean concept of motae faith, first citing the cultural factor of taegyo, prenatal education. Taegyo originally formed against the backdrop of Neo-Confucianism, the governing ideology of the Joseon dynasty, with the economic purpose of legitimizing royal authority and maintaining the national labor force through stable childbirth. It is regarded as a representative Korean birth culture that was strongly encouraged within a patriarchal family and social structure. The culture of taegyo, which presupposes that the behavior, thoughts, and mindset of the mother directly affect the fetus, was linked with Christianity in the course of mission and developed into a Christian taegyo that values the prayer life and devout religious attitude of the pregnant mother.

The second factor was found in the Victorian view of the home held by the women missionaries sent to Korea. The Victorian view of women, based on a Christian family centered on the couple, emphasized the role of the mother in taking responsibility for the religion and education of children; this perspective was conveyed to mothers in Joseon as a value equal to the gospel and contributed to the restoration of identity and a change in consciousness as women.

The third factor was the social climate of the time. Amid the ruins and poverty left by the Korean War, within the drive to rebuild families and society through the education of children, society demanded of women the image of an educational mother. The last factor was the growth strategy of the Korean church during a period of quantitative expansion, which emphasized the image of an evangelizing mother.

The concept of motae faith made a major contribution to the revival of the Korean church, but it also faced criticism that it loses the essence of faith and takes on a secular tendency. A representative example is the entrance examination system. Every admissions season, special prayer meetings are held for test takers and many mothers pray earnestly, but the absence of healing for the great majority who fail, who most need consolation, is a typical aspect of a secularized faith that uses the church for entrance exams.

Researcher Kim emphasized, “Motae faith must be liberated from ideologization or secularization that arose for the benefit of society and the church and must serve to return people to the essence of faith.”