[기독교 선교] Protestant missionaries

The Protestant Christianity was introduced by the American missionaries.

At first, in September 1884, Horace N. Allen came to Korea as a medical doctor of the U.S. Embassy.

 

In April 1885, Henry G. Appenzeller of the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, and Horace G. Underwood of the Northern Presbyterian Church were dispatched to Korea.

One month later William B. Scranton and his mother came to Korea.

Later on the Anglican Church (in 1889), the Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Church of Australia (both in 1889) and the Canadian Presbyterian Church (in 1901) dispatched missionaries to Korea.

 

The missionaries were eager to transform Koreans to Christians, convert Korean society with Christian teachings, and to educate democracy and modernization based upon the Bible.

During the Japanese occupation, the Protestant missionaries were dedicated to education and medical services evading conflicts with the Japanese colonial rulers.

 

Protestant missionaries

 

As mentioned above, the Protestant missionaries devoted themselves to teaching, preaching and healing Korean people during the hard times in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

At the first Sunday service on January 4, 2015, Reverend Lee Jae-hoon of onnuri Church in Seoul[1] said that the following missionaries seemed to be obligated to preach the gospel and to educate modern sciences to Korean common people:

 

• Mary Scranton (1832-1909) and her son, William Scranton (1856-1922) : She founded Ewha School in 1886. They were famous for the first Mother and Son Methodist missionaries.
• William James Hall and Rosetta Sherwood Hall (1865-1951), their son Sherwood Hall (1893-1991): They devoted themselves to teach and heal Korean people.
• Eugene Bell (1868-1925): He established a number of schools and hospitals at Jeollanam-do. His descendants are still engaged in preaching the Gospel and healing tuberculosis in the South and North Korea.
• William Forsythe (1873-1918): He was a M.D. evangelist and took care of the lepers in Korea.
• Elisabeth Shepping (서서평/徐舒平, 1880-1934): She came to Korea in 1912 and served Korean underprivileged people until her death.

Some of these foreign missionaries wanted to be buried in Korea. If you want to know whose graves are here, please visit Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery (양화진 외국인선교사묘원).

 

Prospects

 

As Korea has been successful in the industrialization and democratization, there has been a great turnaround of evangelism from inbound mission to outbound mission. Nowadays Korea is sending the second largest missionaries to other states all over the world.

For further reading, see the related KoreanLII article.

 

Note

1] Onnuri Community Church has set its 2015 slogan as "Go down lower and lower" (낮은 곳 더 낮은 곳으로).

2] Apostle Paul said, "I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome." Romans 1:14-15.