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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2017
Several studies of the history of Protestant Christianity in South Korea have argued that the religion's rapid growth was chiefly because of the successful translation of the gospel into Korean language and thought. While agreeing that the foundation laid in this respect by early Western missionaries and Korean Christians was a necessary prerequisite for evangelization, this article challenges the use of a translation theory, such as has been developed by Lamin Sanneh, to describe the way that Christianity took root in Korea, both on the basis of conceptual discussions in the field of mission studies and also on historical grounds. It draws on research for A History of Korean Christianity (2014) to examine the years of initial rapid growth in Protestant churches in Korea – 1895 to 1910. Its findings suggest that rather than ‘translation of the gospel’ a more historically accurate description of what took place is ‘reinvention of the Church’.
1 ‘Protestant’ in this period of Korean history refers to Presbyterian and Methodist denominations.
2 Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 7 vols (New York, 1937–45), 6: 428–30Google Scholar.
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4 Note on transliteration: This article uses the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization for Korean words. Korean names will appear in East Asian order (family name first). Alternative orders and spellings will be given in brackets.
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12 Although Protestant translation activities had been going on since the 1870s, it was not until about 1895 that Protestant Church growth began to accelerate rapidly; after 1910 the rate of growth slowed. For figures, see Ryu, Dae Young, ‘The Origin and Characteristics of Evangelical Protestantism in Korea at the Turn of the Twentieth Century’, ChH 77 (2008), 371–98, at 397Google Scholar; Park, Chung-Shin, Protestantism and Politics in Korea (Seattle, WA, 2003), 16Google Scholar. Cf. the outlines of Paik, Lak-geoon George, The History of Protestant Missions in Korea 1832–1910, 2nd edn (Seoul, 1970)Google Scholar; Clark, Allen D., A History of the Church in Korea (Seoul, 1971)Google Scholar.
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