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Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
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Acknowledgements
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Chapter 2 - Believers, Martyrs and Missionaries, 1592–1876
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
It is possible that in the first millennium the Christian gospel reached the attention of Koreans travelling along the Silk Road and by sea (Min Kyoung-bae 1982:36–38; K. Baker 2006:20–30; England 1996:103–4). Two arguments are advanced for a presence of ‘Nestorian’ Christianity from Persia on the peninsula in the seventh to ninth centuries, but these are not conclusive. The first is from artefacts of that date discovered in Korea (Moffett 2005:461–69). The second is from doctrinal similarities between Korean popular Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity, such as a belief in heaven and hell, salvation by grace, a compassionate female figure and expectation of a future saviour. During the period when the Mongol Empire controlled the trade routes with Europe, it is likely that Koreans encountered Russian Orthodox Christians and Franciscan missionaries, at least at the Chinese court (Moffett 1988:474–75; K. Baker 2006:61).
In the mid-sixteenth century, the Korean community on the south island of Japan (Kyushu) probably had contact with the pioneer Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier, who began his East Asian work there in 1549 (the existence of Korea was reported in Lisbon in the same year), or with later Jesuit missionaries who were based in Yamaguchi. Jesuits in Japan proposed a mission to Korea as early as 1566, and from then on different Catholic missions made repeated efforts to enter but without success. Their interest in Korea was not so much for its own sake but because the Jesuit visitors in Asia especially saw its strategic importance for the evangelisation of either China or Japan (de Medina 1991:34–38).
Maps
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Illustrations
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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- A History of Korean Christianity
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- 24 November 2014, pp vii-viii
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Frontmatter
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Index
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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- 24 November 2014, pp 355-361
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Chapter 1 - Introduction
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
Korea is crucial in North-east Asia both strategically as the chief crossing between China and Japan and politically as the nexus of interest of China, Japan, Russia and the United States (Map 1). In its current state of division, Korea is a serious threat to global stability and a potential source of widespread conflict. Yet this key component in North-east Asian relations is under-researched and neglected compared to the study of China and Japan. Furthermore, the religious dimensions of Korea’s history have tended to be obscured by political readings (Wells 2009:60–80). Surprisingly for a country with long Confucian and Buddhist traditions, within the span of 250 years, Christianity – in various forms – has had a deep impact on Korea and Koreans, including in what is now North Korea. It has played a prominent role in social and political events in the last two centuries; it continues to be a major factor in public life in the South; and it is conspicuous by its suppression in the North. Therefore the study of Korean Christianity and its history is vital for a proper understanding of recent Korean history and for any attempt to resolve the conflict between the Koreas.
From the point of view of the study of religions, Korea presents a rare example in which a substantial proportion of the population has converted to Christianity in a country where other world religions are already established. The planting of Christianity among the ancient religions of Korea and its rapid growth to 30 per cent of the population in South Korea is without parallel in Asia in modern times and demands explanation. In this process, the faith has been shaped by the Korean context and accommodated itself to Korean culture in ways which shed new light on the nature of Christianity and its relation to other religions and spiritualities. The interaction of Christianity with the religious plurality of contemporary South Korea is also a fruitful field for investigation.
Abbreviations
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Chapter 3 - Evangelism, Patriotism and Revivalism, 1876–1910
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
In the 1860s and 1870s French gunboats, Russian infiltration, American business and Japanese designs threatened Korea from all sides, and internally there was much suffering and unrest. It was clear that ‘Korea was not the arbiter of its own destiny but that its fate would be decided by outside powers motivated by their particular selfish interests’ (Lee Ki-baik 1984:281). By the 1870s many Koreans had heard of Christianity. Owing to Catholic resistance to oppression, it was well known that Jesus Christ had been crucified, although Christian doctrines had been distorted by Catholicism’s political opponents and by Donghak teaching (D. Chung 2001:68). Catholicism was known to be inclusive of the poor and outcaste and, like popular Buddhism, to have a compassionate female figure in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Catholicism had opened up Korea to outside influences and in many respects paved the way for modernity and for other forms of Christianity. But in the late nineteenth century Korea was strongly anti-Western and Cheonjugyo, the Teaching of the Heavenly Lord (Catholicism), was distrusted by many who associated it with treason and collusion with foreign powers.
Meanwhile, Protestant Christianity was spreading in East Asia, especially by the translation and distribution of the Bible and other literature and by literacy work (Neill 1990:209). The first Bible in Chinese was published in 1823, and the production of other Protestant literature in Chinese was booming. By 1870 there were about eight hundred different tracts and books, in addition to scriptures, commentaries and hymnals. Among the most popular were William Burns’s translation of The Pilgrim’s Progress and William A. P. Martin’s Evidences of Christianity (Dixon 2012; Oak Sung-deuk 2006). These were distributed by Chinese colporteurs in the employ of the missions and were certainly being smuggled into Korea by the 1870s. So, as had occurred with Catholicism, it was through Chinese literature that Koreans first encountered Protestant Christianity. These works were to have an ongoing influence on the formation of Korean Christianity through the terminology they introduced (Oak Sung-deuk 2013:308–10).
Bibliography
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Chapter 4 - Oppression, Resistance and Millennial Hope, 1910–1945
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
The Japanese occupation of Korea, which began de facto in 1905 with the Protectorate, was formalised in 1910 by the annexation which brought the formal end of Korean sovereignty and of the Yi dynasty. The country became an ‘outer territory’ or extension of Japan. By this time the resistance armies had been driven into Manchuria and the Russian Maritime Provinces, and such was the Japanese stranglehold within Korea that military resistance was impossible. The size and powers of the Japanese military police had been increased, and these police now subjected Korea to ‘a reign of terror’ (Nahm 1989:219; cf. Kang Man-gil 2005:149, 158). Koreans felt humiliated and were also mystified by how Japan, whose earlier development had come from Korea, could now have such power over them (Ham Sok-hon 1985). During its occupation of Korea, which lasted until 1945, Japanese policy evolved and changed, and it had a significant influence on church life (Kang Wi-jo 2006).
Despite the dire political situation, the General Council of Evangelical Missions in Korea decided in 1910 to follow up the revival, which was intended to deepen faith, with an organised nationwide campaign targeting non-Christians. It aimed to reach ‘A Million Souls for Christ This Year’ and openly took advantage of this moment of ‘supreme national hopelessness’ to proselytise (T. S. Lee 2010:23–24; Paik Lak-geoon 1970:385; A. Clark 1971:185). The Bible Societies printed a million copies of the gospel of Mark, and revivalists from the United States were pressed into service. Christian adherents, who were estimated at only two hundred thousand believers, gave approximately one hundred thousand days of work to the campaign. Meetings were widely advertised, tracts were distributed systematically and house-to-house visits were made (A. Brown 1919:545). This movement inaugurated the pattern of revivalism that was to become characteristic of the Korean church (Paik Lak-geoon 1970:385–87, 413). But, not surprisingly, these activities antagonised the Japanese authorities, who were suspicious that this was some kind of revolutionary movement, and they intimidated those involved. Uniformed military police, along with spies, attended the special church services, and pastors were required to report to the police the names of converts, who were sometimes then threatened and harassed.
Glossary
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Contents
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Chapter 7 - Missions, Reconciliation and Public Life, 1988–Present
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
The year 1988 was a watershed in South Korea not only in its transition to democracy but also in its opening to the world as it hosted a highly successful Olympic Games. The 1988 games were the first occasion since 1976 that both the Americans and the Russians competed. The thaw in the Cold War enabled South Korea to establish diplomatic and economic links with Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries for the first time, while rebuffing North Korea’s efforts to co-host the games and thus isolating its neighbor. Hosting the games stimulated intense national pride in the South and great interest in other nations and cultures. There were a few concerns about the revival of Korean ‘pagan’ customs and culture for the opening ceremony, but most Christians welcomed the Olympics as confirmation of God’s blessing on Korea. In preparation for the games the Protestant churches held what was to be the last great mass evangelism event: the ’88 World Evangelization Crusade or ‘Soulympics’ on 15–18 August on Yoido Plaza. Although the total attendance was not the highest, the event surpassed all the others in its rhetoric about Korea as a chosen nation. With the world coming to Seoul, an outstanding opportunity for world evangelisation presented itself. Korea Sports Evangelism (founded in 1982) was responsible for the operation of the Protestant Chapel in the athletes’ village, which was attended by chaplains from all over the world and visited by thousands of athletes, including hundreds of Russians, Chinese and Arabic speakers. Furthermore, because of their familiarity with Western culture and the English language, and the exhortations of their pastors, many of the volunteers and interpreters for the Olympics were Christians who took the opportunity to share their faith and pass on literature. Local churches were matched to particular countries; some congregations attended events to cheer the competitors from those countries and even hosted entire teams (Cho Chong-nahm 1995).
Chapter 5 - Liberation, Service and Divisions, 1945–1961
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
Protestant and Catholic leaders in Korea welcomed their liberation from Japan on 15 August 1945 wholeheartedly and saw it as the opportunity they had been waiting for to shape a Christian future for the nation. Christian leaders urged that the Japanese be allowed to leave peacefully with no reprisals, while, ironically, popular wrath was directed at Korean collaborators instead (Foley 2003:25). The unexpected defeat of Japan was greeted more with relief than with ecstasy because, although the resistance armies had fought the Japanese occupiers for decades, Koreans were not the ultimate victors over them, and the circumstances of Korea’s freedom only served to underline the country’s dependence on foreign powers (Park Chung-shin 2003:158). The Japanese left behind a country with little national capital or technological capability and woefully unprepared – politically, economically, educationally, socially or culturally – for independence (Eckert et al. 1990:263; Kang Man-gil 2005:22, 98–100). Nevertheless, Koreans were ‘determined to construct a strong state as an answer to foreign domination, military weakness and economic “backwardness”’ (Armstrong 2007a:5). However, Korea was soon faced with even greater problems: another trusteeship leading to the division of the peninsula into two parts by occupying forces with a growing rivalry and the deepening of ideological divisions.
Liberation and Christian Leadership, 1945
In 1945 Christians were perhaps only 2–3 per cent of the population but they comprised a high proportion of educated Koreans and so they naturally presented themselves as leadership candidates as the retreating Japanese hastily looked to transfer power. The man who accepted the invitation was Yeo Un-hyeong, who had studied at Pyongyang Theological Seminary and worked as an assistant pastor. He called for unity and restraint from the people and set up the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (CPKI), which brought together leading nationalists of different persuasions, including many Christian figures such as the intellectual Yi Dong-hwa, the 1919 signatory Kim Chang-jun and the well-known Methodist minister Yi Gyu-gap. Koreans mobilised themselves at the local level in ‘people’s committees’, of which most local chairpersons were Protestant ministers or lay Christian leaders (Armstrong 2004:119–20). On 6 September 1945, Yeo announced the formation of the Korean People’s Republic (KPR) and a schedule for elections. The new government announced moderate leftist reforms and denounced several hundred accused of collaboration as ‘national traitors’ (Eckert et al. 1990:331–32).
A History of Korean Christianity
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, Kirsteen Kim
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- 05 March 2015
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- 24 November 2014
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With a third of South Koreans now identifying themselves as Christian, Christian churches play an increasingly prominent role in the social and political events of the Korean peninsula. Sebastian C. H. Kim and Kirsteen Kim's comprehensive and timely history of different Christian denominations in Korea includes surveys of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions as well as new church movements. They examine the Korean Christian diaspora and missionary movements from South Korea and also give cutting-edge insights into North Korea. This book, the first recent one-volume history and analysis of Korean Christianity in English, highlights the challenges faced by the Christian churches in view of Korea's distinctive and multireligious cultural heritage, South Korea's rapid rise in global economic power and the precarious state of North Korea, which threatens global peace. This History will be an important resource for all students of world Christianity, Korean studies and mission studies.
Chapter 6 - Growth, Thought and Struggle, 1961–1988
- Sebastian C. H. Kim, York St John University, Kirsteen Kim, Leeds Trinity University
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Summary
South Korea in 1961 was still poor and heavily dependent on US aid. It had fallen badly behind the North in economic and technological development, and most people were mired in poverty. Chang Myon’s new government proved unstable, and Protestants called continually for Chang to step down (Park Chung-shin 2003:181). Fearful for national security, a group of colonels led by Park Chung-hee (Park Jeong-hui) deposed Chang and his government in a largely bloodless coup on 16 May 1961. Chang fled from the Blue House to the Carmelite Convent while trying in vain to contact the US embassy. From a Catholic point of view, Chang may have been a political martyr (T. J. Lee 2005:168), but the return to law and order was greeted with relief by many Koreans. The church reassessed its role in political life, and the Kyunghyang Shinmun, which had become virtually a mouthpiece of the Chang government, became independent of the church in 1962 (D. Baker 1997:150).
Park, a Buddhist, treated the main religions impartially. He won strong backing from Christians for his staunch anti-Communist stance and the Holy See was the first foreign state to recognise his government. Park knew the importance of Christian support and sought cooperation for his ambitious plans for industrialisation. During his rule, Park encouraged ethnic nationalism in order to develop a national spirit of self-reliance or jaju, which had much in common with the Juche philosophy of North Korea (Shin Gi-wook 2006:100–106; Wells 1990:163). Park was popular enough to win elections in 1963, 1967 and 1971, but he increasingly relied on military force and the terror created by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) to hold on to power. He was to preside over massive economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s and great improvements in rural standards of living, but this was at great cost to human and civil rights.
7 - The Word and the Spirit: overcoming poverty, injustice and division in Korea
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- Christian Theology in Asia
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- 05 June 2012
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Summary
INTRODUCTION
Christianity first arrived in Korea not through foreign missionaries but through a Korean scholar. In the eighteenth century Lee Seng-Hoon went to China to study, where he met a Jesuit missionary. Lee eventually became a Christian and was baptized in Peking in 1784. He returned to Korea and started to share his Christian faith, which led to many conversions. In 1789, when Jesuit missionaries first entered Korea, they discovered that there were already about four thousand Catholic Christians on the Korean peninsula. The Catholic Church grew rapidly, but between 1801 and 1867 it faced great persecution because of the refusal of Christians to practise ancestor veneration or worship, which was regarded as essential for national stability, and because of accusations that the Christians were in contact with European imperial powers. The persecution of 1866 was especially severe; about eight thousand Christians were martyred, and almost the same number later starved to death when they fled to the mountains. The country remained closed to the outside world until the Japanese imposed a trade agreement in 1876.
While the Korean peninsula was still closed, several Protestant missionaries who were working in China became interested in Korea. In 1832 K. A. Gützlaff briefly visited Korea, as did Robert Thomas in 1865 and 1866 (suffering martyrdom on his latter visit). The reports of their encounters drew the attention of other missionaries, who ventured into this hidden kingdom.
Contributors
- Edited by Sebastian C. H. Kim
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- Book:
- Christian Theology in Asia
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 01 May 2008, pp vii-x
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