The
numbers of evangelicals in Asia has been small and mission work has been
slow. But there are two exceptions:
Korea and China. I am going to look at
Korea now.
The
first recorded evangelical convert to be baptised in Korea was in 1879. One hundred years later the evangelicals
numbered 10 million in South Korea, about 20% of the population. South Korea has become one of the great
sending countries for missions, with South Korean missionaries working in over
170 countries in the world (they are second only to the United States of
America in terms of numbers being sent).
Seoul is home to the largest church in the world, a church with a congregation
of around 600,000 (who meet in seven consecutive services in a 31,000-seater
auditorium).
Early Missionary efforts
Until
1905 Korea was frequently described as a hermit kingdom for the fact that it
was so closed to outsiders. This inhibited
missionary attempts to reach the country.
In
1884, when missionaries were still banned from Korea, Horace Allen arrived in
the country as an American diplomat.
Allan was a medical doctor. He
hoped to begin missionary work under cover.
His success in treating a court official opened up attitudes. Missionaries were permitted to establish
hospitals in Seoul (1 Presbyterian and 3 Methodist) and schools (2 Presbyterian
and 2 Methodist). They charged little or
nothing for these services and began to establish a good reputation for
Christianity.
Another
unusual event helped boost the favourable reputation of the missionaries. When the king came under Japanese control an
American diplomate with the aid of a couple of missionaries were involved in a
plot to rescue him. Unfortunately, one
of the missionaries had let slip what was to take place and the Japanese were
ready. However, when the diplomate and
missionaries went to rescue the king he clung on to them knowing that the
Japanese would not want a diplomatic incident.
Neither did the Americans. The
diplomate was reprimanded. This event
helped show that the missionaries were friends of Korea.
By
1890 the Presbyterians claimed 100 converts and the Methodists only 9. Not only were the numbers small but the
missionaries feared that some of these were ‘Rice Christians’ attracted by the
hope of receiving charity and money. One
missionary, John Nevius, came up with a strategy to test the sincerity of the
converts—in order to become a member of the church you had to bring a new
convert with you. This caused Koreans to
reach out to their fellow Koreans.
The
missionaries had a particular interest in the rights of Korean women. Half the mission schools opened before 1910
were girls’ schools. They objected to
the caste system and opposed Confucianism.
In
1905 Japan secured control over Korea, and they established direct rule in
1910. The Japanese closed newspapers and
banned public associations. Tens of
thousands were detained without trial, and many of these were tortured.
Revival through confession
In
1903 R. A. Hardie, a Canadian Methodist who had been wrestling with
discouragement had a special experience of God’s grace. This spread to his congregation and people
started coming to pray and study the Bible.
After 1905 the evangelical church began to see significant growth. In 1907 a ten-day-conference was planned for
Korea’s second city, Pyongyang. Five
hundred men attended on 6th January (and women had separate
meetings). ‘Man after man would rise,
confess his sin, break down and weep, and then throw himself on the floor and
beat the floor with his fists in agony of conviction … They would break out into uncontrollable
weeping and we would all weep together.
We couldn’t help it.’ This
revival began to spread across the country.
Thirty thousand Koreans applied for baptism that year. These revivals accelerated the transfer of
control for missionaries to Korean leadership.
One practice that remains to this date that began in 1907 is that of
‘Union Prayer’, where everyone present in the meeting prays aloud at the same
time.
Christianity and nationalism
Evangelicals
assured the Japanese authorities that they were not political. This meant that they were exempted from a
1907 ban of all Korean associations or organisations. However, preachers started teaching that
Japan was the Anti-Christ and the story of David and Goliath was used so often
in Korean sermons to illustrate Korea and Japanese that the authorities banned
it as subversive. This being said the
numbers of Christians was still small.
By 1918 they numbered around two percent of the population—around
300,000. Interestingly, in a world
dominated by colonisation, while Christianity was generally the religion of the
conquerors, in Korea it was associated with the resistance.
After
World War 1 the victorious forces, including Japan, met in Paris to shape the
new world. Korean’s stirred by the
American president, Woodrow Wilson, with the vision of national
self-determination and an end to imperialism.
Plans were quietly spread through the churches and on 1st
March a declaration of independence was published, signed by thirty-three
Korean leaders including sixteen Protestants.
This was accompanied by peaceful protests. The protesters sang Christian hymns like, ‘Stand
up, stand up for Jesus’, and ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.’
In
response to these protests tens of thousands were arrested, hundreds were shot
and religious gatherings were forbidden.
Japanese soldiers committed atrocities like the crucifixion of church
leaders and shooting at protesting and singing hymns and songs of national independence. Independence did not come from the Paris
talks and many felt disillusioned.
The
link between nationalism and Christianity was criticised by one Christian
journalist who wrote, ‘one who loves the nation more than Christ is not fit for
Christ … One who loves society more than Christ is not fit for Christ.’
Japanese Oppression
In
1932, a new Japanese governor-general began to require Koreans to participate in
Shinto rites. In 1937 the Japanese took
full control of Korea and banned the use of the Korean language. By then, Shinto rites had been forced on
Christian schools. The Methodists and
Catholics reluctantly accepted this, but the Presbyterians decided that they
would rather close their churches than comply.
This led to Japanese efforts to control the Presbyterian church. In 1938 the Japanese compelled the
Presbyterian moderator to approve the Shinto rites. The delegates dared not protest and the
motion was passed. In 1939 the Japanese took
full control of the Presbyterian church.
The Christian churches experienced rapid decline between 1937-1943. Churches were no longer allowed referred to
the ‘kingdom’ of God and the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation were
banned. In a gesture to the Nazi allies,
the Japanese banned the entire Old Testament in 1943. Shinto shrines were built in Christian
buildings. In 1945 the Methodist and
Presbyterian churches were forcibly merged.
There
were some examples of resistance. In 1935
a Pyongyang seminary a pastor preached a sermon entitled ‘Dare to Die’ against Shinto
rites. He died in a prison in 1944. Sadly though, many were compliant and by the
end of the Second World War there were examples of martyrs and also plenty
examples of compromise.
North and South
Following
the War, the country was divided in two along the 38th parallel. The Soviet Union occupied the north and
Americans the south. The Republic of
Korea was set up in 1948 in the south.
In the North Kim Il Sung came to rule in the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea. Kim Il Sung had actually been raised as a Christian and even
taught in a Methodist Sunday school.
In
1950, North Korea launched a surprise attack and quickly took most of the peninsula. Seoul was occupied for three months. Christians were targeted—many churches were
destroyed and pastors imprisoned. The
American-led United Nations force recaptured Seoul and briefly looked to take
the whole peninsula. Then the Chinese
intervened. There was a three were war,
which ended with the original border.
After
the war the south was impoverished. The
nation’s first dictator, Rhee Syngman was actually a Methodist elder. A student-led revolution toppled the
government on 1960 and then in 1961 there was a military coup. Park Chung-hee, the coup leader made himself President
in 1963. Park Chung-hee did it’s best to
recruit the support of the church. On one
occasion he even attended a prayer breakfast hosted by sympathetic pastors. To understand their support of this leader we
need to remember that communism was thought to be a real threat, with North
Korea just thirty miles from Seoul. He was
assasinated in 1979 but the military remained ion power. First genuinely free election 1987, and the
first civilian President was in 1992.
Evangelicalism
grew massively in the years between 1960 and 1990. Evangelicals made up less than 2.5 percent of
South Korea in 1960 and 27 percent (just under 12 million people) in 1990. This coincided with a time of unparalleled economic
growth.
Full Gospels
In
1907, during the Pyongyang revival, the newly founded Holiness Church (an offshoot
of Methodism) coined the word sunbogeum
(Full/Pure gospel). The Full Gospel
movement emphasised personal salvation, the Lord’s return and miracles.
In 1958 Cho Yonggi and Choe Ja-Sil founded a tent church in Seoul. Cho was a convert from Buddhism who had come to faith after a healing from tuberculosis, although that healing was not complete and he struggled with his health. Cho, who was twenty, was half the age of Choe, and married her daughter. The thing that set their church apart was their emphasis on prayer. Choe developed the idea of ‘triple prayer’—combining prayer in tongues, with prayer and fasting and all-night prayer vigils.
Cho
emphasised ‘specific’ prayer. The story
is told that early in his ministry he prayed for a bicycle, and a desk and
chair for his office. But God called him
to be more specific. So, he prayed for a
desk made out of Philippine mahogany, a chair with steel frame and little
wheels on the bottom and a bicycle made in the USA. He also prayed for worldly wealth for his congregation.
However, he did not want his hearers to
be materialistic or covetous but prosper and have enough money to give to
others. He also emphasised the need to
pray expecting that you will receive. The
church emphasises growth, reaching 100,000 in 1979, 200,000 in 1981 and 500,000
in 1985.
Cho
has not been without controversy, being given a suspended sentence for tax
evasion in 2014. While some of his
teaching may have lacked balance, he has generally not strayed far from orthodoxy,
unlike come of the cults that developed in Korea.
Christian offshoots
There
have a number of sects founded in Korea.
For
example, Hwang Gukju, in the 1920s claimed that Jesus had been grafted into his
neck.
The
Inside Belly Movement was begun in the 1930s.
It’s founder, Heo Ho-bin, interpreted her own drawn out phantom pregnancy
as a sign of Christ’s return. She believed
that the poverty that Jesus experienced in his first coming should not be
repeated and so set about making beautiful clothes for his return. Unfortunately, her church was based in what
became North Korea. The communists
rounded up her followers, executed her and burned the large stockpile of
clothing that had been made.
Another
northerner Moon Sun-Myung escaped during the Korean war. He set up the Unification Church (the Moonies). He claimed to be the Messiah, set to complete
the work that Jesus’ untimely death had left undone. He has an emphasis of changing the world
through ‘pure’ weddings blessed by Moon.
North Korea
North
Korea regularly tops the chart for persecution of Christians. The regime claims that there is religious
freedom but there is not. There were a
few pro-communist minsters who were permitted, including one who was
vice-president from 1972-1982. It is
claimed that Christians can open churches, but Christians prefer to meet in house
churches. These churches are heavily
monitored. It is claimed that there were
around 10,000 Christians in these house churches in the mid-1980s.
In
1988 one Catholic and one Protestant church building were built in Pyongyang. A second Protestant church building was built
in 1992. These were highly
regulated.
A
person found with a Bible can have their extended family ‘sent to the mountains’
(that is prison camps). It is normal for
three generations of a family to be imprisoned together.
South
Korean missionaries help North Koreans escape through China.
Conclusions
There
has been something of a stagnation in the growth of evangelicalism in South
Korea. That may be to do with the
numbing effects of prosperity and respectability (see Proverbs 30:7-9). Alec Ryrie, from whom I got most of the
information for this talk, related growth of the church to the growth on the
economy during their ‘tiger’ years. I
think that he underestimates the role of prayer and an openness to the Holy Spirit. I would seem that the churches that grow are
those who remain faithful to the teaching of the Bible and are open to the power
of the Holy Spirit.
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