불교포교 외부환경 PEST분석 = PEST Analysis of the External Environment for Buddhist Propagation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The propagation of religion is influenced by it’s external environment. So is Buddhism. This means that the propagation of Buddhism must be accompanied by an analysis of the external environment. The external environment of an organization usually refers to politics, economy, society-culture, technology, etc., and this paper used PEST analysis, an analysis method that includes these environments. PEST is an acronym for Political environment, Economic environment, Socio-culture environment, and Technological environment. This paper analyzes the external environment that affects the propagation of Buddhism: the separation of religion and politics (Politics), national income (Economic), multi-religious society (Socio-culture), and the fourth industrial revolution (Technology). Since liberation in 1945, ‘the separation of religion and politics’ has not been maintained through the mediation of reciprocal benefits between politics and religion. Their mediators are mainly elections and state subsidies, and the main targets of the religious community are Protestantism, Buddhism, and Catholicism. Among these three, Buddhism was placed in an unfavorable political environment for the propagation of Buddhism due to the government's implementation of a Christian-friendly policy. The impact of ‘national income’ on the economic environment of Buddhist propagation cannot be asserted. This is because there are conflicting research results on the relationship between the increase and decrease of national income and the growth and decline of religious propaganda. ‘Multi-religious society’ refers to the conflicting relationship with Protestantism in Buddhist Propagation. At the core of the conflict is the Protestant doctrine of “You shall have no other gods before me”. The relationship between the technological environment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Buddhist propagation focuses on the AI (Artificial Intelligence)-based metaverse. If the metaverse represents a “new future world of Buddhist propagation,” then AI is the “intelligent driving force” that powers this world—serving as the engine of intelligence that animates this new stage.