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How Korea embraced Christianity
Former missionaries look back at a nation that's now the No. 2 source of Christian mission workers.
from the March 7, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Yet when the Moffetts arrived after the war, "Korea was very much torn up, with only one paved road in what is now South Korea," Eileen remembers. The per-capita income was only $80 a year. "Many people had no adequate housing, and some were starving at certain times of year before the next crop came in."
The newlyweds headed to the rural southeastern area known as Andong, where they learned the language, helped provide food and clothing for the needy, and traveled around to serve the country churches. Despite desperate conditions, Eileen says, "the people were wonderful – so committed, of good humor, and devoted."
The dynamism of Korean Christianity, many observers agree, is an outgrowth of the peninsula's unique history as well as the early role of indigenous leadership. Christian teachings were first brought to Korea not by foreigners, but by Korean diplomats who came in contact with Roman Catholicism in Japan and Manchuria. An active lay movement developed, but it led to controversy and periods of great persecution.
The first Protestant missionaries, American Presbyterians and Methodists, arrived in the late 1800s. The introduction of the Bible in the local language and the founding of schools for boys and girls helped spread the faith beyond the elites. Moffett's father, also named Samuel, was an early Presbyterian missionary.
"He landed in Pyongyang in 1890 on his 26th birthday and stayed for 46 years," Sam says. He founded the first seminary and began training Koreans.
"Samuel Moffett Sr. was a missionary of great vision and commitment – a major figure who educated native pastors," says Timothy Kiho Park, a Korean who directs Korean studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
One key to the rapid growth was the strategy adopted by the young pioneer missionaries, which emphasized developing indigenous leadership: "self-government, self-propagation of the faith, and self-support."
"This encouraged national leaders to take care of their own affairs without foreign control or funding," Dr. Park says. "They practiced it from the beginning, advising but letting the Koreans preach and run the churches."
And the Korean people, in desperate straits, were hungry for what the preachers had to offer. Japan colonized the peninsula from 1905 to 1945, and attempted to "Japanize" the population. In the midst of great suffering, Christianity apparently met people's spiritual needs. While some Koreans were Confucianists or Buddhists, "mostly [they were] shamanists and animists," Eileen says. "People often lived in fear of evil spirits."
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