Protestantism and Politics in Korea
Spiritual Renewal and Social Reform in America
The Great Awakening was a Protestant movement that swept through the American colonies during the first half of the 18th Century. It was characterized by deep-conviction and emotive spirituality, led by such figures as Jonathon Edwards, George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley.
On it’s heels, the Second Great Awakening galvanized social and political activism and reform. Samuel Hopkins, a contemporary of Jonathon Edwards, took on the establishment of slavery, most notably in his pamphlet to Congress entitled, “A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of the Africans.”
With the American Revolutionary War in full swing, Hopkins was one of the few Americans to point out the hypocrisy of arguing against the “slavery” of British taxation while practicing real slavery at home.[1]
Charles Finney, a great American revivalist, challenged traditional gender roles by encouraging women to speak at mixed assemblies, which further energized the woman’s suffrage movement in the mid 19th century.
Such fervor and activity led to a generation of evangelists and circuit riders (itinerant preachers) that traveled the frontiers of America to minister at large camp meetings and churches — and by the late 19th century, American protestant missionaries began making their way into Asia.
Protestantism in Korea
In 1884, Kojung, the last monarch of the Chosun dynasty (1392–1897) and the last to effectively rule Korea, opened the doors of the “Hermit Kingdom” to America in the hopes of modernizing the country and protecting it from external powers.[2] Kojung believed that the Americans lacked colonial interest in Korea, unlike the Japanese and Chinese who had invaded the country centuries before.
Beginning with the Treaty of Friendship and Trade with the United States in 1882, Kojong began requesting the services of military and political advisors, teachers, and doctors.[3]
Historian and author, Daniel M. Davies writes,
Kojong reasoned that since the United States practiced the Protestant faith — a view which overlooked the Catholic, Jewish, Native American, and Black Muslim faith — the Protestant faith itself nurtured the way of life in the United States. Kojong perceived correctly that the Calvinistic ethic, albeit in a partnership with Renaissance and Enlightenment thought, had guided the development of American society since the 1600s. Beginning in 1884, he welcomed American Protestant missionaries with open arms and a warm heart. He considered them representatives of the United States who could help forge a close relationship with Korea.[4]
The result was a significant contribution to Korean society and culture. Protestant missionaries like Horace N. Allen, an American diplomat and Presbyterian, helped establish Gwanghyewon, the first western medicine facility in Korea (later renamed Severance Hospital). Horace G. Underwood, a graduate of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, founded Yonsei University. Henry G. Appenzeller, a graduate of Drew Theological seminary, founded Paichai Hakdang, an all boys school in 1885. These institutions still operate today.
Politics in Korea
As a progressive movement leader, Appenzeller did more than just produce technical men. He wanted to educate Koreans to be free and independent — to initiate something for themselves and society.[5] In fact, many American missionaries committed themselves to the Korean Independence movement in the face of foreign occupation and taught them how to debate.
Historian and author Chung Shin Park writes,
The Protestant churches and church affiliated institutions served as reform agencies that not only provided members with new knowledge and information, but also trained them in new political ideas and practices. Because no other groups rendered such services, the Protestant church community was the sole organizational center for reform activities in the late nineteenth century.[6]
National Enlightenment
In the wake of China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), protestantism in Korea galvanized a growing sector of socially and politically awakened individuals who formed debating societies and clubs, like the Hyopsonghoe, or Independence Club in 1896.[7]
That same year, Seo Jae-Pil, a teacher at Paichang Hakdang created The Independent, an early Korean newspaper and tabloid focused on national enlightenment. The paper eventually became the mouthpiece of the Independence Club before the club itself was dismantled in 1898.
Due to mounting pressure and censorship from the Korean government, which had grown weary of the paper’s criticism of the government and its officials, Seo agreed to sell the paper in 1899 for 4,000 won.[8]
Japanese Encroachment
In 1883, a year after the Treaty of Friendship and Trade, the United States began posting diplomatic ambassadors to assignments in Korea. Although relations increased between the two sides, the American government seemed to lack genuine interest in the plight of the Korean people.
It was behind closed doors that the United States agreed to permit Japan unopposed colonial rights to Korea, in exchange for unopposed colonial rights to the Philippines, which the United States had annexed in 1898. This “agreement”, known as the Taft Katsura Memorandum (1905), demonstrated the weakness of the United States’ commitment to Korea’s sovereignty prior to the Korean War.
The United States refusal to aid Korea underscored Dr. Allen’s vehement campaign against Japanese occupation as both a Protestant and statesman. Subsequently, Allen was dismissed as minister of the United States in Korea by President Roosevelt in 1905.[9]
With Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan finally secured its influence and control of Korea by eliminating its remaining rival and forcing Korean officials to sign a treaty in 1905, effectively making Korea a Japanese protectorate. Under these provisions Korea lost its right to conduct diplomatic exchanges with other countries and the Korean Foreign Affairs Office was dismantled.
A month after the signing, Kojung issued a Declaration of Denial and dispatched diplomatic emissaries to Washington to seek aid from the United States.
The Washington Evening Star, printed Kojung’s declaration on December 13th, 1905. It read in part,
I, the Emperor of the Korean Empire, declare that this Korea-Japan Agreement has no legal effect because this was concluded unlawfully by force. I did not sign the document and I will never sign it...[10]
Roosevelt refused to intervene.
Two years later in 1907, Kojong was forced to abdicate his throne, and in 1910, Japan officially annexed Korea completing its occupation.[11]
Religious Ramifications
Before Shinto ideology took root in Korea, Christians enjoyed relative religious freedom. Even under Japanese colonial rule, religions like Buddhism, Confucianism and Shamanism were protected.[12] However, as Shintoism began to spread, Christians faced a unique hardship in the deification of the Japanese emperor and worship of Shinto gods.
By 1925, primary school students and staff were required to attend local shrines as part of an Imperial-subject making initiative, otherwise known as “Japanization”; and in 1938, laws requiring Christian schools to visit Shinto shrines were expanded to include all Christians.[13] The Chosun shrine, for example, was a shrine dedicated to the Shinto god Amaterasu and Emperor Meiji.
The Great Revival of 1907
In 1903, a group of Methodist missionaries gathered at Wonsan, for a week-long conference of prayer and bible study. One of the missionaries, R. A. Hardie, was going to report his research on prayer when he felt stirred by the Spirit as he read from Luke 11:13,
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
The passage brought about in Hardie a deep conviction of sin. He came to realize that his missionary work till that point, had ultimately failed because he had counted too much on his own effort in ministry. What followed was a stirring in Hardie to share and testify about his experience.[14]
Hardie stood before the Korean congregation and publicly confessed his own pride, hardness of heart, and lack of faith. In particular, Hardie confessed of his own arrogance and attitude of racial superiority.[15] It must have been painful and humiliating, but his honest confession made a strong impact on the hearts of the audience.
The congregation responded in kind. They began to yearn for the same gift of the Spirit that had changed Hardie so dramatically. At subsequent meetings, Korean Christians confessed their sins, gave testimonies, and experienced and tasted the grace of God in a new way for the first time. This marked the first Holy Spirit movement in Korea at the conference in Wonsan in 1903.[16]
One year later Hardie was invited to Pyongyang to speak at a united conference held by Presbyterian missionaries. He spoke from First John and urged them to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, much as David Yonggi Cho, a prominent 20th century Korean evangelist and pastor would do nearly half a century later. These conferences and revival meetings were accompanied by great manifestations of the gift of the Holy Spirit reaching as far as Seoul in 1906, and culminating in the Great Revival of Pyongyang in 1907.[17]
Echoes of the Great Awakening
William Blair, a Presbyterian missionary who served forty years in the northern part of Korea, documented these meetings highlighting the fervent, public confession of sin. He writes,
Then began a meeting the like of which I had never seen before, nor wish to see again unless in God’s sight it is absolutely necessary. Every sin a human being can commit was publicly confessed that night. Pale and trembling with emotion, in agony of mind and body, guilty souls, standing in the white light of their judgment, saw themselves as God saw them. Their sins rose up in all their vileness, till shame and grief and self-loathing took complete possession; pride was driven out, the face of man forgotten. Looking up to heaven, to Jesus whom they had betrayed, they smote themselves and cried out with bitter wailing: “Lord, Lord, cast us not away forever!”[18]
These meetings and many subsequent meetings played a significant role in helping the Korean people release their grief amidst the Japanese occupation and the removal of their governmental system. People began to forgive and make peace with one another — and a powerful zeal for evangelism began to spread.[19]
Like the Great Awakening, a movement marked by the Holy Spirit and a wave of repentance swept through the nation of Korea.
Writer’s Note: This post began as a graduate studies research paper and was later adapted for Medium. My original intent was to better understand modern Christianity in Korea by exploring its rich history; however, it has became a personal imperative, to know my culture and heritage, and to better understand how these events have shaped my family and world view.
Korean, American, and Christian are all labels that touch people differently. As for myself, it is loaded with pain and anguish, but it also continues to inspire hope.
This post is not designed to be a comprehensive, nor unbiased representation of history, but an exercise to better understand the labels that define me by exploring them in the context of its history. My hope is that my journey through said labels yields a deeper sense of understanding of myself and empathy for others that goes beyond mere sympathy and platitudes.
Primary Sources
[18] William Blair and Hunt, Bruce, The Korean Pentecost and the Suffering Which Followed (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1977) 74.
Secondary Sources
[1] “Anti-Slavery,” The John Carter Brown Library, https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/jcbexhibit/Pages/exhibAnti.html.
[2][3][4][11] Daniel M. Davies, “The impact of Christianity upon Korea, 1884–1910: Six key American and Korean figures,” Journal Of Church & State 36, №. 4 (1994).
[5][6][7] Chung Shin Park, Protestantism and Politics in Korea (University of Washington Press, 2003) 123, 124, 126.
[8] Andre Schmid, Korea Between Empires (Colombia University Press, 2002).
[9] In-Sok Yeo and Yoon, Do-Heum, “Allen (Horace N. Allen, 安連, 1858–1932)” Yonsei Medical Journal 58, №. 4 (2017): 685–688.
[10] Young Park, Korea and the Imperialists: In Search of a National Identity (AuthorHouse, 2009) 115–116.
[12] Sung-Gun Kim, “The Shinto Shrine Issue in Korean Christianity Under Japanese Colonialism,” Journal Of Church And State Summer 1997 Christian Periodical Index (1997).
[13] Michio Nakajima, “Shinto Deities That Crossed the Sea: Japan’s “Overseas Shrines,” 1868 to 1945,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 37, №. 1 (2010): 21–46.
[14] Young-Hoon Lee, The Holy Spirit Movement in Korea: Its Historical and Theological Development (OCMS, 2009) 25–27.
[15] Peter Han, “Sent by God,” Presbyterian Record, last modified April 1, 2015, http://www.presbyterianrecord.ca/2015/04/01/sent-by-god-2/.
[16][17][19] Young-Hoon Lee, “Korean Pentecost: The Great Revival Of 1907,” Asian Journal Of Pentecostal Studies 4, №. 1 (2001): 74, 75, 79.
