Churches have increased, currency fluctuations on the international market still produce a major reduction of income. Continuing uncertainty in the world of finance demands constant vigilance on the part of the member Churches and the Alliance.
vV*
THE CHURCH TODAY IN SOUTH KOREA
Samuel H. Moffett
Whatever basic standards one uses to measure the strength of Christianity in any country — whether evangelism and church growth as some prefer, or social action and involvement as others might choose, or better yet a combination of both — by any scale of measurement the Church today in South Korea must be ranked high among the Churches of the world.
Like the South Korean economy, the Korean Church has mounted one of the most remarkable sustained growth rates in recent history. In every decade for the last forty years the Protestant community has come close to doubling its total membership. It stood at only 370,000 in 1940. By 1950 it had risen to 600,000, in 1960 to 1,340,000, and in 1970 to 2,250,000. Now, two years short of another decade, the figure is 4,000,000 (and some claim it is nearer five million). The Church is growing at about four times the rate of growth of the population.
If a Roman Catholic Church membership of 1,100,000 is added to the Protestant statistics, the total Christian community in Korea now numbers more than five million, which is about 14% of South Korea’s 36.6 million people. Government figures put the percentage of Christians even higher, at 16%, probably because they include an estimated 800,000 to a million members of semi-Christian cults like the commercialized communes of the Olive Tree Church or the Rev. Sun-Myung Moon’s ominous Unification Church (the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, to give it its full title) which seems to be stronger outside Korea than in it.
To appreciate the full significance of Korean church growth these figures must be set against similar statistics from elsewhere in Asia. Bangladesh in roughly 0.25% Christian, Thailand 0.5%, Japan 1%, Pakistan 1.4%, Indonesia 2.5%, India 3%, Burma 3.5%, Taiwan and Malaysia 4%, Sri Lanka 7.3%. Compared with these, Korea’s 14% stands out like a light on the edge of a shadowed continent. Only the Philippines with its large Roman Catholic majority outstrips Korea in ratio of Christians to the general popul-
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ation. In Asia as a whole the proportion is only 3 °7o. But 'he visitor to Seoul, the Korean capital, cannot fail to be impressed by the visible physical presence of Christians everywhere. He will rarely Ve ouf of sight of a cross or steeple. Seoul is said to have 2000 Protestant churches.
MISSIONARY STRATEGIES
No one factor can explain this rapid rise of Christianity on a continent which is still the least Christian continent in the worid. Some of the reasons, of course, are non-theological, such as the openness of the Korean temperament, the collapse of an ancient dynasty shortly after the entry of the Protestants, and the dec hne of the old, organized religions. Buddhism and Confucianism Other reasons would include the dynamic interplay of vigorous chr‘s ‘an attitudes in a non-Christian society. Christians, for example, helpe to lead the country’s ultimately successful independence ™v«nent and won nation-wide respect for the courage of their faith. Chnstians also contributed notably to the modernization of Korea, in medicine, education, agriculture, and in main social reforms.
Probably even more important was the way Christians went about planting the Church in Korea. This was especially true of
the Protestants who came in 1884 Their early miss, on^y me hods
were evangelical, non-colonial and firmly disciplined. They stressed the necessity of personal conversion, lay evangelism and the training of the whole body of believers — not just the leaders in Bible study They expected Korean church structures, as they were organized, to be generally self-supporting, and they quickly turned over ecclesiastical authority from the missions to self-governing national Churches. Moreover, they did not polarize evangelism against social and political involvement. It was no accident that the greatest of the early Korean revivalists, the leader of the Great Revival of 1907-08, became also a leader of the Korean independenc movement in 1919. Three of the Republic’s first four presidents
have been Chnsuan.^iption ^ christian missionary strategies may fit
the Presbyterian pattern more closely than that of others, but it is not misleading. For the dominant fact of Korean Protestantism is the omnipresence of the Presbyterians. Almost two out of every three Protestants are Presbyterian (60%), and there are twice as many Presbyterians as Catholics. Here is a list of the large
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confessional groups and the number of total adherents claimed in each:
Presbyterians (6 or more bodies) 2,270,000
Roman Catholics 1 ,100,000
Methodists 700,000
Korea Evangelical (2 bodies) 350,000
Pentecostal (2) 150,000
Baptist (2) 130,000
Salvation Army 55,000
Anglican 40,000
Seventh Day Adventist 37,000
Nazarene 36,000
The list points to a disturbing feature of Korean Christianity. Church growth and Christian unity do not easily correlate in Korea. All the larger groups except the Catholics and the Salvation Army have suffered from schisms and most are still sadly factionalized. Presbyterians again are typical. Up until 1950 there was only one Presbyterian Church of Korea. Today they are divided into four major General Assemblies and a score of smaller splinters. To name only the larger ones, they are :
The (Jesus) Presbyterian Church of Korea (Hapdong) 1 ,000,000
The (Jesus) Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap) 800,000
The (Christ) Presbyterian Church in the
Republic of Korea (PROK) 230,000
The Koryu Presbyterian Church 1 70,000
BASIC DISTINCTIONS
Overly simple descriptions are dangerous and inaccurate but it is almost imperative to try to distinguish between so many similarly named Churches. All four Churches are evangelistic. But the Hapdong Presbyterians, the largest body, are often characterized as fundamentalist and separatist. Their Church is the product of the most recent of the Presbyterian schisms, in 1959. It separated from the Tonghap Presbyterians over alleged liberalism in the Presbyterian Seminary, and membership of the World Council of Churches which it opposed. Its closest international ties are to the more fundamentalist evangelical groups in the United States.
Tonghap Presbyterians, the second largest group, are characterized as evangelical and ecumenical. They consider themselves to be the parent Church but not without dissent, for Hapdong Presbyterians use the same name for their denomination, hence the Korean nicknames, Hapdong and Tonghap , both of which ironically enough
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mean “United”. This is the Korean Church which has preserved its ties to the missions which founded it as an independent national body in 1907, the United Presbyterian Church, USA, the Presbyterian Church US (Southern), and the Australian Presbyterian Church.
The ROK or “Christ” Presbyterians represent a split which occurred in 1953 over the issue of the independence of a second Presbyterian seminary (the Hankuk Seminary) from the control of the General Assembly which had censured it for teaching Biblical criticism. It is considered to be more activist, and theologically liberal than the other three Presbyterian groups. Its closest relation- ship has been to the United Church of Canada, and more recently to the German Churches.
The fourth Church is the Koryu Presbyterian. It separated in 1951 over the issue of the treatment of the lapsed, taking a stricter attitude toward restoration to the pastorate who had compromised by participating in Shinto shrine ceremonies during the Japanese occupation. It is a Church of classical Calvinists and theologians whose closest ties are with Reformed bodies in Holland and the USA.
All these Presbyterian divisions occurred in the 1950s, those emotionally and socially shattering years during and after the Korean War. More recently, in the 1970s, the country’s second largest Protestant confessional group, the Methodists, seemed for a time to be repeating the same tragic pattern of division, mainly over the authority of the bishop. They separated first into autonomous regional conferences which only with difficulty managed to reorganize into a federated unity. Then in 1974 a fairly large group calling themselves Renewal Methodists split off again and dropped the office of bishop altogether. Happily this latest Methodist division ended a few months ago with a tenuous but satisfying reunion.
More disturbing than these intra-confessional schisms is the fact that the kind of country-wide cooperation once symbolized by the Korean National Christian Council now enlists the support of only a minority of Korea’s Protestant Christians. As in other parts ot Asia the ecumenical movement is allowing some of the fastest- growing sections of the Church to become alienated and to slip beyond the range of effective contact. 54% of Korean Protestants refuse to belong to the National Christian Council. Of the Presbyterian bodies, only the Tonghap and ROK Churches are members.
But it would be an error to discount the important role which the Korean NCC continues to play in the Protestant community. It may be weak in support even from its member Churches in Korea, and it may speak for a smaller segment of the Church than it once
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did but there is no other nationally effective focus of Christian cooperation. A self-styled “Council of 19 Denominations” (there are only six denominations in the NCC) has occasionally and successfully sponsored joint events such as the great Easter Sunrise services , but it is not representatively organized .
The NCC, on the other hand, is at least freely and openly organized by a group of major denominations. It is also associated with an important network of Korean Christian service organizations, such as the Korean Christian Literature Society with its wide-ranging publications programmes, and the Korean Audio-Visual Commission which promotes improved methods and technologies of communicating the Gospel. Another such associated institution is the Christian Broadcasting System (CBS), with its parent radio station HLKY, a Christian landmark. It is one of the two or three top radio stations in the country and reaches the whole peninsula (including parts of North Korea) through a series of satellite stations in large population centers.
CHURCH LIFE
One feature of the Church in Korea that has attracted world- wide attention is the development of several very large congregations, perhaps the largest single Protestant congregations anywhere in the world. One is Presbyterian, the Youngnak Church in downtown Seoul ( Youngnak means “everlasting joy”). The other is Pentecostal, the Assembly of God Church on Yoido island in the southeastern part of the city. The Presbyterian congregation was started in 1945 by 27 refugees fleeing south from the communist takeover in North Korea. Today it has a total membership of 28,000, which is about twice the number of its communicant members and includes 2000 catechumens studying for full membership, 3000 in the Sunday School, and 10,000 “beginners” who have submitted their names as
interested inquirers and regularly attend services.
The Youngnak Church is divided into ten parishes subdivided into 458 districts so that what might at first sight seem to be a monolithic organization of huge Sunday services becomes, during the week, a fellowship of hundreds of small groups usually numbering not more than sixteen families each. The congregation has eleven pastors, 40 ruling elders, 281 parish visitors, 473 deacons and 524 deaconesses. It is not obsessed with its own growth, but has consistently branched out or hived off to form new congregations — 164 new self-supporting Churches since 1947. It is a member of the Tong hap Presbyterian Church.
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The Yoido Pentecostal congregation is even younger and larger, with a constituency reportedly as high as 50,000. Its great mass meetings have brought into prominent notice the growing influence SI* movement in Kotem ~ ^
ways that movement has spread independently into all the major
Korean denominations including the Catholic. • .
These two great congregations, however, are not typical. Most Korean congregations are small. The average Korean Church has a nucleus of not more than a hundred members . A surprising y high proportion of them are without ordained pastors, particularly in rural areas. There, outside the larger towns, most Sunday
services are led by elders or lay;Prea,che/'- ^ ® 35“
Protestant Churches in Korea at the end of 1978 was 14,1 3 5.
The Methodists and one of the Presbyterian bodies (RO Presbyterian) ordain women but only a handful hav® actaal'yf ordained and none, I believe, pastor Churches. The Confucian strain in Korean culture, male dominated, still runs deep and on this issue at least, finds reinforcement from traditional interpretations of some of the Pauline Bible passages. Yet the proudest social breakthrough of Christianity in Korea has been its key role in the revolutionary transformation of the role of women in society. Christians opened Korea’s first schools for women and today the largest women’s university in the world is Ewha University in Seoul, founded by the Methodists. From the beginning, women in the Churches have been a powerful force for social reform, for evangelism, for foreign missions, and for justice and human rights. . ,
Undereirding the growth of the Churches is a well-organized patteVno? Korean Christian institutions. There are 10 Protestant colleges and universities, over 150 middle and high schools, an innumerable Christian primary schools and kindergartens, as we a unique system of Christian schools called Bible C ubs. These are operated for children from underprivileged families who cannot afford the tuition which even government schools charge. Theological
education of course has a high priority where =h,urcb : “5 rapid but it is a little surprising to find as many as 80 listed theo ogical seminaries of which three are Roman Catholic. But only twelve of the major theological schools are fully accredited at the college level or above by the Ministry of Education. Enrolments are large,
for the growing Church demands more and more S each
Two of the Presbyterian seminaries have over 650 students each and if lower-level night school courses are included, more than
1 ’0(^wenfy-one Protestant hospitals and many clinics are present- day evidence of the pre-eminent part played by the Church in the
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medical revolution that brought modern medicine to the peninsula. Korea’s Christians are still pioneering in a multitude of ways: in research on urban social problems, as at Yonsei University (originally Presbyterian and now interdenominational), labor management, as at Sogang University (Jesuit), and computer engineering, as at Soongjun University (Presbyterian), which is also famous for its Christian Museum. The Christian community has also given leader- ship to national programmes of family planning, slum clearance and industrial relationships. The Korean NCC, in particular, has spoken out courageously for freedom of the press and human rights.
REACHING OUT
The Korean Church is also a missionary Church. The first Korean presbytery, in 1907, commissioned a missionary to the islands off the southern coast. The first General Assembly, in 1912, sent Korean missionaries to China. Today every large denomination has its foreign missionaries. They serve around the world from Teheran to Sao Paulo, and from Indonesia to Los Angeles. Often their ministry is directed primarily towards overseas Korean com- munities, but an increasing number of Korean missionary societies, both denominational and inter-denominational, are stressing the urgency of cross-cultural mission, particularly in Asia.
This brief survey has purposely dealt primarily with the Protestant church situation and, within that context, with the Presbyterian Churches. It should be noted, however, that relations between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Korea have never been better A symbol of the kind of cooperation that has developed between them was the recent completion of a joint new translation of e
K°re^984-85 will mark the 200th anniversary of Roman Catholicism in Korea, and the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first resident Protestant missionaries. Already preparations are under way o commemorate the occasion with appropriate ceremonies Bu Korea’s Christians with characteristic zeal have decided that the best way for them to honor the past is to double their goals for the future. In evangelism, in church planting, and in Christian witness in every phase of life on the peninsula that is precisely what they
are already doing.
Professor Sam M. Moffett is Associate President of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Korea, and Director of the Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission, and a member of the Tonghap Presbyterian Church.
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\
CHRISTIANITY AND THREE CHINAS (I)
Allen O. Miller
One can say of China what Winston Churchill is reported to have said about Russia. It is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside
anemgma.e Westem World china has aiways been a mystery.
Unfortunately, Christianity, herself a mystery, has in recent centuries become a tool for the traders, the colonialists and the missionaries to attempt to solve the riddle and resolve the enigma in order to destroy the mystery. For all that, the mystery of China still remains and our Western predilection seems still to be to waste our .me trying to solve the riddle and to overcome the enigma rather than
“ TSa i, he, philosophy — ,he concept,, ,y of
yin and yang, expressed in the I Ching and so closely tied to the tradition of Confucius, but undoubtedly older and more profound
than his political teachings and social structures.
The riddle of China is her language — a set of picture figures with secret meanings that can both reveal and hide the mystery.
The mystery of China is the Spirit of the Chinese people The greatness of Mao Tse-tung is that he not only recognizxd this but that he never forgot it. His central teaching : Serve the people
'is not only a bit of practical wisdom for carrying out a successful peasant revolution but the expression of a profound sptntua1 truth remarkably like the biblical understanding of Israel as the people
°f GThis paper is written as a sequel to the author’s earlier projection of a wide-scale study of Messianic Movements which have arisen out of the Dronhetic tradition of the Hebrew Bible. It was entitled.
“Bearers of Peace, Blessing or Curse to Hu^an^jtVfaS”o1 World June 1978). These movements in the faith-family ot Abraham” include Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Liberal Bourgeois Humanism and Marxian Socialist Humanism.
The following paragraphs, on the history of China in the 19t and 20th centuries, are prepared to be read in this context. They fall under the rubric of a prophetic theology of history, a critic interpretation and evaluation of the impact upon China, since the early 1800s, of three competing messianic faith-claims, all arising out of the biblical promise of SHALOM : Capitalism, Chnstiam y and Communism.
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