Korean Protestant Christianity: a missiological reflection.
Park, Joon-Sik
The first Protestant missionary set foot on the Korea Peninsula in
1884. (1) The growth of Korean Protestantism in the past century and a
quarter has been extraordinary by any measure. Korean churches
experienced rapid numerical growth, in particular from the 1960s through
the 1980s. In 1960 the Protestant population was 623,000, and by 1985 it
had grown over tenfold to 6,489,000. From the early 1990s, however, the
growth rate of the Korean church began to decline. In 1995, according to
the Population and Housing Census Report, 8,760,000, or 19.7 percent of
the population, were Protestant Christians. During the following decade
the number of Protestants declined slightly, to 8,616,000, a 1.6 percent
decrease. During the same period, by contrast, Korean Catholics
increased by 74.4 percent (from 2,951,000 to 5,146,000), and Buddhists
by 3.9 percent (from 10,321,000 to 10,726,000). (2)
This downward trend has alarmed Korean Protestant churches, forcing
them to search for its causes and cures. Their responses thus far,
however, have been reactive and shallow; the churches have not yet
engaged in the critical theological self-reflection necessary for the
renewal of the church at a more fundamental level. Specifically, I
believe that Korean Protestant Christianity needs radical transformation
at the level of its ecclesiology. In this article I examine the past
growth and present decline of the Protestant church in South Korea,
identifying major factors in its advancement and their role in the
current downturn. I then propose an Anabaptist vision of the church as
an ecclesiological tradition to be integrated into a new vision of the
Korean church, and hospitality as the context for its mission and
evangelism.
Factors in Korean Protestant Growth
It is striking that Korean Christianity began virtually as a
self-evangelized church. Even before the arrival of foreign
missionaries, Korea had a small number of Protestant communities that
arose primarily through the distribution of the New Testament translated
into Korean in Manchuria by John Ross and his team of Korean
merchant-translators. The first portions were printed and circulated in
1882, and the entire New Testament was available in 1887. (3) The
translation of the Bible into the Korean vernacular also significantly
contributed to cultural revitalization and the formation of national
identity.
A visit to Korea in 1890 by John L. Nevius, long-time missionary to
China, turned out to be missiologically critical, for this was a time
when the "missionaries were still feeling their way toward an
over-all strategy for the evangelization of Korea." (4) The
so-called Nevius Plan, which stressed the crucial importance of native
leadership for church growth, "became the universally accepted
policy of Protestant mission in Korea," spurring the Korean church
to be independent and self-supporting. (5)
Besides the significant role of Nevius and his method, several
other factors help explain the rapid growth of the Korean Protestant
Church.
Historical and geopolitical factors. The historical and
geopolitical situations in and around Korea encouraged Koreans to accept
Christianity more readily than in other Asian countries. Korea became
forcibly annexed by Japan in 1910, and this tragic loss of independence
"decisively shaped both the nature of Korean nationalism and the
life of the Korean church." (6) By the end of the nineteenth
century, the majority of Asian nations had become subjugated by Western
powers and turned anti-Western; in Korea, however, the nationalism was
anti-Japanese. Koreans welcomed Christianity as "a viable channel
for expressing its nationalistic sentiment against the Japanese."
(7) Furthermore, Christian education became "the nurturing ground
of nationalism, political resistance and democracy." (8)
The early growth of Korean Christianity thus became inseparably
intertwined with Korean nationalism. The nationwide March First Korean
Independence Movement of 1919 serves as a telling illustration of this
unique partnership. Of the original thirty-three signatories of the
Declaration of Independence, remarkably fifteen were Christians, even
though Christians at that time represented only I percent of the
population. Furthermore, Korean Christians became prominent
nationalists, even though the missionaries clung to their traditional
political neutrality and refused to embrace Korean nationalism. (9) In
the March First Movement, "Korean Protestants--by virtue of their
disproportionately large participation and suffering--demonstrated
beyond all doubts their commitment to the Korean nation," thus
gaining for Christianity its "right to be considered a legitimate
religion of Korea." (10)
Sociological and cultural factors. Confucianism has been an
integral part of Korean society and culture since the fifth century. The
Choson Dynasty (1392-1910) created the most Confucian society in East
Asia, even more fully than in China. From the fifteenth century onward,
Confucianism penetrated all facets of the society, regulating family
life, culture, and politics. Yet it carried certain values that could
readily resonate with or complement those of Christianity. James Grayson
describes the relationship between them as that of "dynamic
complementarity rather than of confrontation." (11) For instance,
the early missionaries' pioneering work in modern education was in
tune with Confucianism's profound reverence for learning, and the
missionaries' strict moral teaching was seen as consistent with the
austere moral code of Neo-Confucianism. Another element of Christianity
attractive to Confucians was its stress on filial piety, which was one
of the five relationships considered by Confucius to be the centerpiece
of a harmonious society. It would not be an overstatement to say that,
"in a very real sense, Protestant Christianity was built on the
foundation laid by the moral concerns of Neo-Confucianism." (12)
This complementarity, however, did not mean the absence of
conflict. "It was Christian rejection of social hierarchy which
appealed to many," but it was also "a hindrance to the spread
of Christianity." (13) On the whole, the vision of society heralded
by Christianity did not seem necessarily to be in irreconcilable
conflict with the Confucian social ideal. The initial complementarity
between Korean Confucianism and Christianity provided a favorable
setting for the rapid growth of the Korean church. Eventually, however,
Confucianism came to have a negative influence on the development and
maturation of Korean Christianity.
Religious factors. Like most Asian countries, over the course of
its history Korea has been deeply suffused with diverse religious
traditions. According to David Chung, "The religious tradition of
Korea had in a substantial way such congenial elements as the
monotheistic concept of God, longing for salvation, messianic hope,
[and] eternal life," all of which were conducive to the acceptance
of Christianity. (14) In other words, some affinity between traditional
Korean religions and Christianity made it easier for Koreans to adopt
the Christian faith. As Samuel Moffett aptly described it,
"Christianity did not deny much that people had loved in the old
beliefs. Like Confucianism, it taught righteousness and revered
learning; like Buddhism, it sought purity and promised a future life;
like shamanists, Christians believed in answered prayer and
miracles." (15)
Conversely, it could be argued that Christian conversions in Korea
did not necessarily involve radically disowning formerly held beliefs,
in particular those of shamanism. As the oldest religion in Korea,
shamanism had taken deep root in the religious beliefs and the worldview
of the Korean people. Because of shamanism's enduring and
permeating influence, it was typical as well as inevitable for religions
later introduced to Korea to assimilate certain of shamanism's
beliefs and practices--in particular, its predominant focus on
this-worldly and materialistic aspects of life. Christianity was not an
exception. It could be safely stated that the phenomenal growth of
Korean Christianity in part depended on mitigating possible conflicts
between Christian faith and traditional religious values.
Economic factors. From the 1960s through the 1980s South Korea
realized extraordinary economic growth, rebuilding itself from the
rubble of war and rapidly becoming an industrialized and urbanized
country. In 1990, in a little over a generation from the devastating
Korean War, its economy became the fifteenth largest in the world. This
swift transition from a rural-agricultural to an urban-industrial
society resulted in a mass migration of rural villagers to urban areas,
causing a widespread sense of intense dislocation and disorientation.
Social instability was inevitable, as well as a steady erosion of
long-held values and norms, including the breakdown of the traditional
extended family. A deep sense of alienation and uprootedness spread
throughout the country.
It should be noted that the period of the most explosive growth of
the Korean church coincided with that of Korea's rapid
industrialization, and that the numerical increase of the church mostly
occurred in urban areas. (16) Seeking to alleviate their enormous
physical and emotional dislocation and alienation, and searching for an
alternative community to the close-knit rural social networks, many
Koreans turned to churches. The churches in Korea were, however, not
merely a passive receptor of newcomers; they actively helped sustain the
moral and spiritual values of the nation in the midst of the
country's rapid economic transition. According to Grayson,
"Without the spiritual support of Christianity ... the Korean
nation would have lacked the moral and social coherence to survive the
massive pressures imposed upon it by the radical social and economic
changes." (17)
Adverse Effects of These Growth Factors
The very factors that spurred the growth of Korean Christianity
through the early 1990s had inherent pitfalls that eventually began to
negatively affect the identity and mission of Korean churches. First, it
cannot be denied that the Korean church played a major role in the
country's opposition against Japanese colonial oppression,
providing a crucial impetus for fostering a nationalistic consciousness.
Once the country became liberated, however, the church's intimate
tie with nationalism metamorphosed into alliance with the state. In the
1970s and 1980s, when the South Korean people were groaning under
dictatorial governments, which did not hesitate to use repressive power
to maintain their regimes, the majority of Korean churches remained
silent. By their apolitical stance they in effect sanctioned such
regimes. This indifference to the issues of social justice blunted the
prophetic mission of the church and resulted in the loss of its
credibility in society. It is noteworthy that, by contrast, the Catholic
Church in Korea during this time greatly enhanced its social visibility
and credibility by its active struggle for democracy, even at the
expense of institutional security, and it has grown steadily since then.
(18)
Second, the early receptivity by Koreans to Christian faith and the
ensuing church growth distracted Korean churches from the need to
continue working for the conversion of Korean culture. At some point,
Korean Protestants stopped pursuing "the steady, relentless turning
of all the mental and moral processes [of culture] toward Christ."
(19) Consequently, "the direct Christian influence on Korean
society and forms of cultural expression is disproportionately less than
one would anticipate." (20) Above all, the persistent influence of
a Confucian vision of a harmonious society based on hierarchical
relationships has kept the Korean church from overcoming social
stratification among its members. The existing hierarchy of the larger
society has often been reflected within the church, with the result that
those not valued by society have become invisible to the church.
The role of the church in enlightening women and elevating their
status in Korean society should be recognized. It was the Protestant
missionaries who first introduced formal education for women and thereby
paved the way for their attaining equal rights with men. However,
according to an ethnographic study of Korean Christian women, in
particular evangelical women, the church has served a contradictory,
double role--liberating as well as oppressing. The Christian faith has
certainly contributed to the reconstruction of their self-identity as
well as to their self-empowerment and social autonomy, enabling them to
cope with the patriarchal environment of the traditional family and
gender structure. Yet, most Korean churches have left women
"subordinated within the church hierarchy and authority
structure" and been successful "in re-domesticating
contemporary women for the [existing Confucian] family system" and
social arrangements. (21)
A bitter fruit of Confucianism in Korean Christianity has been the
development of clericalism, with clergy exercising excessive power in
both the faith and the polity of the church. A kind of "Protestant
sacerdotalism" (22) has limited the participation of laity--whose
fervent prayer and passionate evangelism have been a driving force for
church growth--in the church's life and ministry as true partners
with clergy; it has stifled the enormous potential of the laity as
agents of Witness and transformation both inside and outside the church.
Third, Korean Christianity's accommodation to shamanism, in
particular its predominant interest in this-worldly and materialistic
aspects of life, has produced a significant presence of nominal
Christians. Shamanism has tamed the radical claims of Christianity.
Consequently, Christian discipleship has been understood in narrowly
individualistic terms, often as a gateway to personal prosperity, while
its costly nature, as well as its communal and social dimensions, is
ignored or underemphasized. Unfortunately, Korean Christianity has not
yet critically reflected on and confronted its predilection for
materialistic prosperity. Nominalism has also led to a large number of
Protestants leaving the church. According to Gallup Korea's 2004
survey, among those who changed their religion, 45.5 percent had once
belonged to a Protestant church, in comparison to 34.4 percent who had
left Buddhism, and only 14.9 percent who had left Catholicism. Moreover,
both the 1997 and 2004 surveys revealed that, presently in Korea,
Protestantism is the religion least likely to be considered for adoption
by those without religious affiliation. (23)
Finally, the rapid industrialization and urbanization that once
created a favorable climate for church growth now adversely affects it.
For South Koreans, with the growth of economic stability and upward
social mobility, "leisure becomes a functional alternative to
religions." (24) The church no longer is seen as a place to search
for ways to cope with people's social insecurity and emotional
anxiety. In fact, economic prosperity has become a snare for Korean
churches, holding them in the bondage of materialism. Pastors of large
and megachurches now enjoy social prestige and economic privilege, as
the nation's economic growth has translated into increased giving
by church members. Impressive church buildings and a large membership
roll have become symbols of a successful church. Presently, we could say
that ecclesiocentrism, or "churchism," pervades Korean
Protestantism.
At its beginning, the Korean Protestant church was a home for the
poor and oppressed, and during the industrialization of the country, it
provided both moral and social stability to the working class. As the
country's economic prosperity began to benefit the church's
own life, however, the church unfortunately began to turn its back on
the poor and marginalized. With the middle class now composing the
largest segment of its membership, (25) the Korean church is no longer
able to communicate with the common people; it has become too rich to
hear the cry of the needy and powerless. In contrast, "to the shame
of many of the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church has never lost
the memory of its origins among the dispossessed members of society and
has made evangelism and ministry among the poor a primary focus of the
work of the church." (26) The Korean Protestant Church now needs to
remember afresh that evangelism is "to be undertaken from below ...
from the depth of human suffering, where we find both sinners and
victims of sin." (27)
Whither Korean Protestant Christianity?
Quite simply, Korean Protestants are now in desperate need of
transforming their ecclesiology. They likewise, in humility, need to
adopt biblical hospitality as the proper focus and ethos of all their
mission and evangelism.
Transformation in ecclesiology. Since the 1960s, the focus of the
Korean Protestant church has been rather exclusively growth-oriented.
Its operating missional framework is still that of growth, and in
response to decline, the church appears to direct most of its attention
to finding ways to reverse it. An exception has been minjung theology,
which grew out of the particular experience of South Korean people in
their political and socioeconomic struggles for justice in the 1970s and
1980s. It affirms Korean culture and history as the context for a proper
Korean theology, regarding the biblical stories and the social
biographies of the suffering minjung (lit., "the mass of the
people") as the two primary reference points. Minjung theology in
part arose in protest against the overall apolitical stance of Korean
evangelicalism and its indifference to systemic injustices; it has
challenged Korean Christianity to be more integral and prophetic in its
theology and practice of mission and to be on the side of the
marginalized minjung. This theology began, however, as a theological
exercise among intellectuals and educated groups. Whether it has become
a theology among and by the minjung themselves is a troubling question.
Lacking a grassroots movement like the Catholic "base
communities," it has not been successful in developing as an
organic theology.
It is crucial for Korean Christianity to continue to engage in
critical theological reflection in its particular historical and social
context so as to make its unique contribution to the understanding and
practice of the Christian faith. Yet it is equally important for the
Korean church to continue to be engaged with other churches and
traditions for mutual correction and transformation. I believe that
Korean Protestant Christianity must seek a radical transformation in its
ecclesiology; specifically, the Anabaptist vision of the church can
provide it with a fresh perspective and a much-needed corrective at this
juncture in its history. Up till now, Anabaptist ideas have had no
formative influence in Korean Christianity. There are presently only a
handful of Mennonite churches in Korea, all of which were started within
the last decade. Anabaptist ecclesiology has its own weaknesses, (28)
yet I agree with Douglas John Hall that this tradition, which has a
historic link with the radical wing of the Reformation, could be of
enormous help to churches that intentionally seek to disentangle
themselves from the "cultural establishment" so as to recover
something of their genuine identity and mission. (29)
For one thing, one of the marks of the Radical Reformation
tradition is its stress on the integration of evangelism and
discipleship. Evangelism is an invitation to discipleship; evangelism
and biblical demands related to committed discipleship are not to be
separated. For Korean Protestant Christianity, it is pivotal not to set
aside the ethical content of conversion for the sake of making the
acceptance of the Gospel easier. Korean churches have been rather
exclusively preoccupied with personal salvation and piety, ignoring the
call of the Gospel to social and cultural transformation. Korean
Christians' understanding of discipleship needs to be broadened and
deepened so as to include seeking justice as well as caring for the
poor, the excluded, and the stranger.
Second, Anabaptist ecclesiology focuses prominently on the communal
nature of the church. It refuses to grant excessive authority or
prerogatives to certain ones in the church. Instead, the church is to be
a discerning community in which every member is heard and participates
in moral reasoning and decision making. More important, the church is to
be a "hermeneutic community" that gathers around Scripture for
faithful interpretation and committed witness. Since the Korean
Protestant church has been too clergy dominated in its worship and
polity, the communal nature of the church needs to be recovered.
Furthermore, the corporate dimension in experiences of both salvation
and sanctification should be restored and renewed. As John Howard Yoder
says, even salvation is not to be considered as only a personal,
individual experience but also as a communal reality. (30)
Third, Korean Protestant churches have become much too worldly,
allowing the secular and materialistic spirit of the age to penetrate
deeply their life and ministry. They now need to pay careful heed to the
"central importance of the Christian community as a new
humanity" or as "a new kind of social reality." (31) The
mission of the church is first and foremost to be and remain a faithful
community of faith with a new and distinctive identity and life.
Peoplehood and mission cannot be separated, and the life of the church
should not invalidate its witness. Evangelism and mission are
practicable and feasible only when there is a community whose life
reflects authentic differences from the rest of the world, in particular
with regard to power, Mammon, and violence.
Finally, the Anabaptist understanding of the Gospel as a message of
peace is crucially pertinent to Korean churches, for "participating
in national reunification remains an important part of [their]
mission." (32) A small segment of the Korean church has actively
engaged in the reunification movement, in particular since the 1980s.
Yet the general sentiment among Korean Christians settles for a strong
anti-Communist position, which has kept them from engaging reunification
issues from a biblically informed perspective of reconciliation and from
moving beyond their evangelistic interest and humanitarian concern
toward undertaking peacemaking initiatives. (33) Korean Christianity
needs to be reminded afresh that witness to peace is "something
very central to the Gospel ... [and] always a part of the Gospel."
(34) It is crucial for the Korean church to construct a theology of
reconciliation based upon the peace message of the Gospel, for without
forgiveness of the past history between the North and the South, genuine
reunification is not likely.
Hospitality as the context for mission and evangelism. A focus on
missions, especially very active sending out of missionaries, has been a
distinctive feature of Korean Christianity from the very beginning. In
1908, less than a single generation from the arrival of the first
missionaries, the Korean Methodists organized a missionary society for
Chientao (an area of China along the Korean border with a large number
of Koreans) and sent its first missionary. In more recent history, the
number of Korean overseas missionaries grew an astonishing 160-fold:
from 93 in 1979 to nearly 15,000 in 2006. South Korea is now the second
largest missionary-sending country, behind only the United States. In
the same period, the number of countries where they serve increased from
26 to 168. (35) Considering that Koreans are a monoethnic and
monocultural people, their active role in world mission appears even
more remarkable. Korean missionaries "have become known for
aggressively going to ... the hardest-to-evangelize corners of the
world," even at times being "at odds with the foreign policy
of South Korea's government." (36) In most mission fields they
are more readily accepted by the local people than are Western
missionaries, who may suffer from their own postcolonial guilt as well
as from a perception of their being imperialistic.
Because of the Korean church's own riches and power, however,
one of the possible dangers of Korean mission is to share the Gospel
from a position of cultural and economic power, not from that of
vulnerability and humility. The 1999 "Statement on the Mission of
the Korean Churches in the New Millennium" rightly warns Korean
churches of "the tendency of partnerships in mission to lapse back
into colonial and neo-colonial patterns of domination." (37) For
Korean missionary involvement to be of genuine service to the missio
Dei, it must be carried out in the spirit of biblical hospitality.
Hospitality to the stranger is both intrinsic to the Gospel and crucial
to its proclamation. Biblical hospitality never violates the identity
and integrity of the other, and it always calls for mutual respect and
recognition between evangelists and hearers, as well as between
missionaries and Christians of hosting countries. Furthermore, the
practice of biblical hospitality "integrates respect and
care," seeking "to respond to the needs of persons while
simultaneously respecting their dignity." (38)
Mission to North Korea could well be a test case for the integrity
of the Korean missionary movement. It definitely would be a
cross-cultural mission, for North and South Korea have lived in two
different ideological and political systems for more than six decades.
Given the economic superiority of the South, it is critically important
that missionaries welcome North Koreans with both respect and care.
Mission and evangelism must be carried out with sensitivity to the
fragility of North Koreans, resulting particularly from the heavy
economic dependence on the South that can be expected of North Koreans.
For South Koreans to welcome and accept North Korean defectors would be
"a very important precedent" for the Korean church's
mission of reconciliation toward North Korea. (39)
It is also pivotal for Korean missionaries to extend hospitality to
one another, and thus to overcome competitiveness and rivalry. In light
of the temptation to impose denominational patterns and structures on
indigenous churches, it is crucial that missionaries guard themselves
from creating or perpetuating on the mission field "the divisions
experienced in Korean Protestantism." (40) Partnership in mission
through the practice of biblical hospitality and mutual coordination
will prove crucially important, in particular in the future mission to
North Korea. The North Korean Church Reconstruction Council, formed in
1995 by the Christian Council of Korea, presented a three-stage plan for
rebuilding the churches in North Korea: first, to form a single channel
of evangelization to prevent missionary competition; second, to build a
single Christian denomination without transplanting the schisms and
splits of the South to the North; and, third, ultimately to enable
churches in North Korea to be independent and self-reliant without the
domination of South Korean churches. (41) For such a plan to succeed,
true ecumenical unity among the churches in South Korea should first be
embodied through the practice of welcoming and showing hospitality to
each other.
Conclusion
The phenomenal growth and spiritual vitality of Korean Christianity
are to be explained neither as an accident nor as the result of merely
historical factors. The Christian churches in Korea were firmly
established by the blood of martyrs, and they have rightly been known as
praying churches. In noting their status as the predominant religious
force in early twenty-first-century Korea, we thus wish to ascribe the
primary cause to God's gracious providence, which defies human
analysis. Yet Korean Protestant Christianity is now at a crossroads.
Either it can recover its essential identity and mission, channeling
anew its enormous resources of personnel and finances into participation
in God's redemptive work, or it can remain concerned only about its
own well-being and survival, unfaithful to the movement of divine
providence. The Korean church must turn from an interest in its own
numerical growth and institutional expansion, looking instead with
single-minded focus on becoming a hospitable and transformative
missional presence that is deeply involved in the struggles and
aspirations of Korean society, as well as those of the rest of humanity.
If Korean Protestantism fails to be renewed as a faithful, reconciled,
and reconciling community of Christ, we cannot assume that it will avoid
the kind of major decline that has affected churches in the West. Korean
Christians must take to heart the humility implied in the biblical
warning, "God is able from these stones to raise up children to
Abraham" (Luke 3:8).
Notes
(1.) This article originated as a faculty lecture at Methodist
Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, Ohio, on February 16, 2011. I
thank James H. Grayson for helpful comments on an earlier version.
(2.) Young-Gi Hong, "Revisiting Church Growth in Korean
Protestantism: A Theological Reflection," International Review of
Mission 89, no. 353 (April 2000): 190; and Jong-Seop So,
"Kaeshinkyonun wae holro soetoeha'go itnun'ga" (Why
is Protestantism alone declining?), Sisa Journal, October 16, 2006, pp.
34-38. According to the 2005 census, "the Korean population
consists of 23 percent Buddhists, 18 percent Protestants, and 11 percent
Catholics, with 47 percent nonreligious" (Jibum Kim et al.,
"Trends of Religious Identification in Korea: Changes and
Continuities," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48, no.
4 [2009]: 789).
(3.) For the significance of John Ross in the history of Christian
mission in China and Korea, see James H. Grayson, "A Spark in
Northeast Asia: A Personal Hagiography of a Scottish Missionary to
Manchuria, John Ross (1842-1915)," in Sainthood Revisioned: Studies
in Hagiography and Biography, ed. Clyde Binfield (Sheffield, Eng.:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 93-105.
(4.) Samuel Hugh Moffett, The Christians of Korea (New York:
Friendship Press, 1962), p. 59.
(5.) James H. Grayson, "A Quarter-Millennium of Christianity
in Korea," in Christianity in Korea, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr.,
and Timothy S. Lee (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2006), p. 13.
(6.) Myong Gul Son, "Korean Churches in Search for
Self-Identity, 1930-1970" (Ph.D. diss., Southern Methodist Univ.,
1974), p. 13.
(7.) Ibid., p. 14.
(8.) David Kwang-Sun Suh, "American Missionaries and a Hundred
Years of Korean Protestantism," International Review of Mission 74,
no. 293 (1985): 9.
(9.) For the missionaries' ambivalent role in the independence
movement, see Frank Baldwin, "Missionaries and the March First
Movement: Can Moral Men Be Neutral?" in Korea Under Japanese
Colonial Rule: Studies of the Policy and Techniques o f Japanese
Colonialism, ed. Andrew C. Nahm (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan
Univ., Center for Korean Studies, 1973), pp. 193-219.
(10.) Timothy S. Lee, "A Political Factor in the Rise of
Protestantism in Korea: Protestantism and the 1919 March Movement,"
Church History 69, no. 1 (2000): 120, 142.
(11.) James H. Grayson, "Dynamic Complementarity: Korean
Confucianism and Christianity," in Religion and the Transformations
of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches, ed. Richard H. Roberts (London:
Routledge, 1995), p. 76.
(12.) Ibid., pp. 82-83.
(13.) James H. Grayson, personal correspondence with the author,
March 18, 2011.
(14.) David Chung, Syncretism: The Religious Context of Christian
Beginnings in Korea (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2001), p.
179. Disagreeing with Chung, James Grayson states that "there is no
evidence that Koreans ever worshipped a monotheistic deity," and
that they believed instead in "a High God, not a unique divine
being" (personal correspondence, March 18, 2011).
(15.) Moffett, Christians of Korea, p. 52.
(16.) Byong-suh Kim, "Modernization and the Explosive Growth
and Decline of Korean Protestant Religiosity," in Christianity in
Korea, ed. Buswell and Lee, p. 323.
(17.) Grayson, "Dynamic Complementarity," pp. 85-86.
(18.) For excellent studies on the Korean Catholic Church's
transition from a ghetto mentality to active involvement in human rights
and the struggle for democracy, see Don Baker, "From Pottery to
Politics: The Transformation of Korean Catholicism," in Religion
and Society in Contemporary Korea, ed. Lewis R. Lancaster, Richard K.
Payne, and Karen M. Andrews (Berkley: Univ. of California, Institute of
East Asian Studies, 1997), pp. 127-68.
(19.) Andrew F. Walls, "The Mission of the Church Today in the
Light of Global History," Word and World 20, no. 1 (2000): 21.
(20.) James H. Grayson, Korea--a Religious History, rev. ed. (New
York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), p. 169. Grayson lists the following three
areas as demanding the Korean church's serious attention: creation
of Korean hymns, building of churches in a Korean style, and removal of
"unnecessary Western cultural structures and forms."
(21.) Kelly H. Chong, "In Search of Healing: Evangelical
Conversion of Women in Contemporary South Korea," in Christianity
in Korea, ed. Buswell and Lee, pp. 360, 366-67.
(22.) T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1965), pp. 167-68.
(23.) Gallup Korea, Han'guginuichonggyo wa chonggyo uisik (The
Religions and Religious Consciousness of the Korean People), part 1
(Seoul: Gallup Korea, 2005), pp. 4, 7; and Young-Gi Hong,
"Nominalism in Korean Protestantism," Transformation 16, no. 4
(1999): 139.
(24.) Chang-Dae Gwak and Jurgens Hendriks, "An Interpretation
of the Recent Membership Decline in the Korean Protestant Church,"
Missionalia 29, no. 1 (2001): 62.
(25.) Hong, "Revisiting Church Growth in Korean
Protestantism," p. 191.
(26.) James H. Grayson, "Cultural Encounter: Korean
Protestantism and Other Religious Traditions," International
Bulletin of Missionary Research 25, no. 2 (April 2001): 67.
(27.) Orlando E. Costas, Liberating News: A Theology of Contextual
Evangelization (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 31.
(28.) See Joon-Sik Park, Missional Ecclesiologies in Creative
Tension: H. Richard Niebuhr and John Howard Yoder (Frankfurt: Peter
Lang, 2007), esp. chap. 6.
(29.) Douglas John Hall, The End of Christendom and the Future of
Christianity (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1997), pp.
32-33.
(30.) John H. Yoder, "The Unique Role of the Historic Peace
Churches," Brethren Life and Thought 14, no. 3 (1969): 148.
(31.) John H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1994), p. 152; and The Original Revolution: Essays on
Christian Pacifism (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press), p. 109.
(32.) Eunsik Cho, "Christian Mission Toward Reunification of
Korea," Asia Journal of Theology 14, no. 2 (2000): 376.
(33.) For transformative peacemaking initiatives, see Glen H.
Stassen, ed., Just Peacemaking: The New Paradigms for the Ethics of
Peace and War, new ed. (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2008).
(34.) John H. Yoder, "The Place of Peace Witness in
Missions," Gospel Herald, January 3, 1961, p. 14. For different
approaches to reconciliation among Korean theologians, see Kirsteen Kim,
"Reconciliation in Korea: Models from Korean Christian
Theology," Missionalia 35, no. 1 (2007): 15-33.
(35.) Steve Sang-Cheol Moon, "The Protestant Missionary
Movement in Korea: Current Growth and Development," International
Bulletin of Missionary Research 32, no. 2 (April 2008): 59.
(36.) Norimitsu Onishi, "Koreans Quietly Evangelizing Among
Muslims in Mideast," New York Times, November 1, 2004, sec. A, p.
1.
(37.) The Council of Presbyterian Churches in Korea,
"Statement on the Mission of the Korean Churches in the New
Millennium," International Review of Mission 89, no. 353 (2000):
235.
(38.) Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a
Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 69.
(39.) Cho, "Christian Mission Toward Reunification," p.
392.
(40.) The Council of Presbyterian Churches, "Statement on the
Mission of the Korean Churches," p. 237.
(41.) Cho, "Christian Mission Toward Reunification," pp.
384-88.
Joon-Sik Park is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of World
Evangelism, Methodist Theological School in Ohio, located in Delaware,
Ohio. He is the author of Missional Ecclesiologies in Creative Tension:
H. Richard Niebuhr and John H. Yoder (Peter Lang, 2007).--jpark@mtso.edu