# Why Was the Presbyterian Church So Successful in Korea?



## Quatchu

I've been wondering this lately as we all know Presbyterianism in Korea is huge, but does anyone know what contributed to the success of Presbyterian missionaries in Korea?


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## KMK

Most of the Korean Presbyterian churches in my area seem to be PCUSA (which isn't really Presbyterian anymore)


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## Rufus

KMK said:


> Most of the Korean Presbyterian churches in my area seem to be PCUSA (which isn't really Presbyterian anymore)



There's Korean PCA churches, and conservative churches in Korea.


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## Quatchu

I agree Ken, i was thinking more along the lines of Korea its self, and the history of the church from there. Presbyterianism is the largest denomination in Korea, say what you will of liberalism that has crept in but the roots are still Presbyterian. I lived in Korea for awhile and there is Presbyterian Churches all over the places while its very hard to find any kind of baptist church, in comparisons to Presbyterians baptist are rare to come by. Honestly historically there must be reasons who Presbyterianism has such a stronghold in Korea.


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## Joseph Scibbe

I would think it had something to do with the covenant children and focus on families in the Presbyterian system. Very big deal with Asian cultures (or so I have been told).


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## Scott1

> Westminster Confession of Faith
> 
> Chapter III
> Of God's Eternal Decree
> 
> ....
> 
> III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels[6] are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.[7]
> 
> IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.[8]
> 
> V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, has chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory,[9] out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto;[10] and all to the praise of His glorious grace.[11]
> 
> VI. As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so has He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto.[12] Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ,[13] are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified,[14] and kept by His power, through faith, unto salvation.[15] Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.[16]
> 
> VII. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extends or withholds mercy, as He pleases, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.[17]
> 
> VIII. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care,[18] that men, attending the will of God revealed in His Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election.[19] So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God;[20] and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.[21]


.


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## Rufus

Joseph Scibbe said:


> I would think it had something to do with the covenant children and focus on families in the Presbyterian system. Very big deal with Asian cultures (or so I have been told).



I thought about that, I've also heard listening to Tim Keller that the topic of predestination is very magnificent to them, while here (in the West) its against free-will, etc.


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## Jack K

God largely used a Korean man by the name of Suh Sang-Yoon to introduce the gospel to Korea back in the 1800s. He was converted by Scottish missionaries and went on to be a Korean pastor and the man who first translated the Bible into Korean. Around the same time, American Presbyterians sent missionaries to Korea.

So I don't believe it was a matter of distinctly Presbyteran doctrines appealing to the culture. I think it was a matter of Presbyterian missionaries being faithful to their call, going there, and bringing the gospel. When that gospel took hold, the Korean Christians naturally became Presbyterians.

Since that time, the (largely Presbyterian) Korean church has sent out many of its own missionaries and has been a powerful witness for the gospel all over the world, particularly in the Eastern Hemisphere. My neice is currently studying in Tasmania and looked for a Presbyterian church to attend while there. She's found some sort of Australian Presbyterian church that's mostly made up of Koreans. And I remember meeting a young woman from Uzbekistan a few years ago. She was an ethnic Russian and a believer, so I figured her spiritual heritage was from the Russian church. Oh, no. She was proud to tell me she was a Presbyterian! It seems Koreans had been exiled to Uzbekistan during WW2, and while there preached the gospel to the Uzbeks.

God expands his church to all nations in such amazing ways!


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## Rufus

Jack K said:


> God largely used a Korean man by the name of Suh Sang-Yoon to introduce the gospel to Korea back in the 1800s. He was converted by Scottish missionaries and went on to be a Korean pastor and the man who first translated the Bible into Korean. Around the same time, American Presbyterians sent missionaries to Korea.
> 
> So I don't believe it was a matter of distinctly Presbyteran doctrines appealing to the culture. I think it was a matter of Presbyterian missionaries being faithful to their call, going there, and bringing the gospel. When that gospel took hold, the Korean Christians naturally became Presbyterians.
> 
> Since that time, the (largely Presbyterian) Korean church has sent out many of its own missionaries and has been a powerful witness for the gospel all over the world, particularly in the Eastern Hemisphere. My neice is currently studying in Tasmania and looked for a Presbyterian church to attend while there. She's found some sort of Australian Presbyterian church that's mostly made up of Koreans. And I remember meeting a young woman from Uzbekistan a few years ago. She was an ethnic Russian and a believer, so I figured her spiritual heritage was from the Russian church. Oh, no. She was proud to tell me she was a Presbyterian! It seems Koreans had been exiled to Uzbekistan during WW2, and while there preached the gospel to the Uzbeks.
> 
> God expands his church to all nations in such amazing ways!


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## elnwood

Joseph Scibbe said:


> I would think it had something to do with the covenant children and focus on families in the Presbyterian system. Very big deal with Asian cultures (or so I have been told).



Chinese have focus on families too, but there are very, very few Chinese Presbyterian churches. I think it has more to do with the history of missions in the given country. In China, because of the persecution, the Christians are generally in house churches. It's no surprise that most Chinese churches in the U.S. are independent and baptistic.


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## LawrenceU

The Presbyterians were also very successful in the Kingdom of Hawaii; that is until their sons and grandsons bowed to the almighty dollar and ripped the nation from its rightful rulers and scammed the annexation to the United States. That very effectively prejudiced the Hawaiians against the gospel and swung wide the door for Mormons and also a return to paganism. The effects of this are still seen there.

Reactions: Sad 1


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## Reformed Thomist

I've long wondered about this. A relatively large percentage of the student body of the Presbyterian theological college/seminary (Knox College) at my alma mater is Korean.


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## Pergamum

Of course, it is all God's will, but God is pleased to use means.

Some outstanding missionaries and missiologists were involved in the efforts towards Korea.

Here are some links about John L. Nevius and his principles he taught to help make the Korean churches stand on their own and to fight dependency:

http://www.thefourthriver.org/PDF%20Documents/Nevius%20and%20North%20Korea.pdf

John Livingstone Nevius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Here is just a small snippet of the missiological principles that helped the evangelization of Korea:



> Nevius' New System, which we will call The Nevius Plan, differed markedly from the Old
> System that was popular among his contemporaries. As previously noted, the three main
> elements of The Nevius Plan were that the indigenous church should be self-propagating, self-supporting
> and self-governing.
> 
> If left as a general principle, this would not have been particularly
> controversial. However, Nevius insisted that these three principles should be immediately
> implemented -- all the very beginning!
> 
> -
> -
> 
> Self-propagation, the first of these three concepts, simply meant that native evangelists
> would evangelize their own people. New converts would, in turn, be commissioned as unpaid
> missionaries to their own people.
> 
> Nevius commented:
> 
> Churches should be encouraged to grow by throwing out shoots in the same
> manner as the strawberry plant. Whenever a believer was converted, he should
> become an active agent for reaching someone else.
> 
> Self-support, the second of these three concepts, had a few more associated rules. These
> rules included:
> 
> — No ordained pastor of a local church would receive payment from mission
> funds. When the church was ready to call a pastor, it should be ready to
> support him.
> — If a congregation was not ready to pay the full salary of a pastor, it had to
> either: use a volunteer minister or become a subcharge of a large
> congregation.
> — No church building should be built with mission funds. Private
> buildings/homes should be used until the group of believers could build their
> own facility with their own time/labor/tithes and offerings.
> — Scriptures should be sold, not given away.
> 
> Nevius regarded self-government, the third of these three concepts, as vital to an
> indigenous church gaining a sense of self-respect, self-confidence and independence of spirit.
> 
> Nevius comments:
> Temporary officers would be appointed by the missionary for each congregation.
> But as soon as possible, local churches should choose their own deacons and
> elders.
> 
> Additionally, Nevius taught that it is best not to superimpose upon an infant church a highly
> complex system of church government. Instead, Nevius encouraged church organizations to
> develop only as far as the church was able to manage/support it.
> 
> 
> The Nevius Plan included much more than these three self-propagation/support/
> government principles. In fact, many have erred in presenting the Nevius Plan to the exclusion of
> his other mission strategy principles. The most important of these other principles was the Bible
> Class System.
> 
> The Bible Class System was a training system to train unpaid leaders of local
> congregations. Only by developing trained lay leadership could the pitfall of the mission's paying
> local church pastors be avoided. Systematic Bible study included The Manual for Inquirers, the
> Catechism and the Gospels for all. Success of self-support depended upon the Bible Class
> System.
> 
> In addition to the Bible Class System, Nevius taught that missionary-evangelists were
> supposed to travel (“itinerate”) as much as possible in an Apostolic capacity. In his view, not
> having them remain in one place, avoided the dangers of missionaries becoming over-centralized
> and institutionalized as a permanent part of the local churches.
> 
> Part of this emphasis on missionary travel was Nevius’ teaching on comity. Nevius taught that missions were to confine
> their work to set geographic areas to avoid competition with other denominations and wasted
> energy.
> 
> Under the Bible Class System, new believers were required to receive
> teaching/instruction prior to baptism. In addition, Nevius emphasized strict adherence/
> enforcement of Sabbath observance, and prohibition of ancestor worship/plural marriages.


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## Pergamum

Also,

Here is another helpful link:

http://www.mrnet.org/system/files/library/western_affluence_and_missions.pdf





> A. Henry Venn (1796-1873) of the British "Church Missionary Society" and Rufus Anderson
> (1796-1880) of the "American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions" in the midnineteenth
> century.
> 
> 1. These Protestant missions leaders became aware that many of the missions efforts
> supported by their societies were fragile, dependent, and not growing. They isolated
> several causes for that situation and discovered the use of foreign money was a critical
> element of it. Missionaries, supported from abroad, settled in to "pastoral" roles without
> training local churches and leaders to do their own work. They were planting the wrong
> kind of churches and propping them up with foreign money and personnel.
> 
> 2. Almost simultaneously those two missions theorists and leaders developed the "three-self'
> approach to missions work, i.e., to plant churches capable of self-governing, selfsupporting,
> and self-propagating (Venn used the term "self-extending"). Their idea was for
> missionaries to plan from the beginning of their work to develop churches that be "at
> home" in the local culture (rather than cultural transplants) with local leaders who could
> lead the people to support with money and energy the work they wanted and needed to do,
> and themselves to spread the message of Jesus Christ to both their area and at a distance.
> 
> 3. The "three-self' movement, while very valuable and a responsible attempt to get over gross
> dependency and fragility, did not solve all the problems. But it was a major piece of
> thought in response to mission work that resulted in dependency--spiritual and
> psychological as well as financial.
> 
> 4. Of course, the assumption back of this effort was that mission work should not produce
> churches which would still be dependent on outside sources after a hundred years or more.
> 
> 
> B. The Nevius Plan.
> 
> 1. John L. Nevius (1829-1893), American Presbyterian, worked 40 years in China (1853-
> 1890) in various capacities. He knew of the ideas of Venn and Anderson and thought them
> through in terms of China. He saw the effects of heavily subsidizing Chinese missions
> efforts and offered healthy criticism. But it is easier to be critical than correct. So he
> developed his own proposal.
> 
> 2. He wrote Planting and Development of Missionary Churches, his version of the threeself
> approach, and it took this shape:
> 
> a. Christians should continue to live in their neighborhoods and pursue their occupations,
> being self-supporting and witnessing to their co-workers and neighbors.
> 
> b. Missions should only develop programs and institutions that the national church desired
> and could support.
> 
> c. The national churches should call out and support their own pastors/preachers.
> 
> d. Churches should be built in the native style with money and materials given by the
> church members.
> 
> e. Intensive biblical and doctrinal instruction should be provided for church leaders every
> year.
> 
> 3. After Nevius worked 30 years in China, the Presbyterian missionaries who were just
> beginning their work in Korea invited him to speak to them (1890). They decided to adopt
> the "Nevius plan." It was six years (1886) before they had their first baptism, but by 1894
> they had 236 members; by 1910 they had 30,000 members. That it was not Korea itself
> that made the difference is demonstrated by the careful comparison in that country of the
> Presbyterian work with the work of Methodists and others from the beginning until the
> 1960s. The Presbyterians, though radically divided today, have completely outstripped
> other groups in growth


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## NB3K

I would say that the Holy Spirit is the reason. And not just that, but there must be some of God's elect there.


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## steadfast7

Some thoughts from a Reformed Korean ...
The people and the land were transformed by the gospel, not concepts of covenant theology or predestination per se. It just happened to be that the missionaries were mostly Presbyterian and they held to a high standard of piety and commitment to Christ which resonates with the Korean ethos (they are a hard core people!). Whatever denomination the missionaries, the people will follow, as long as the gospel is embedded somewhere in their system. The revivals starting in Pyeongyang are attributed largely to the gospel healing embittered relationships that was growing among the Korean leadership and foreign missionaries in the early 1900s. Something of a charismatic outbreak occurred as well, which is why many Presbyterians and Methodists in Korea are fully sympathetic, if not completely convinced, of tongues speaking. Prayer, especially early morning and fervent prayer, is central to Korean Christianity.

However, there have been some significant departures from historic Presbyterianism. I grew up in the Korean Presbyterian church in Canada and knew nothing of the doctrines of grace or the Westminster confession until some friends began reading Grudem during university years. We once had a woman pastor our English congreation for a period of time and I soon found out that she refused to acknowledge the Fatherhood of God in her preaching and teaching (she was a single divorced mom). I left that church in which I grew up and began to lean more towards orthodoxy.

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Reformed Thomist said:


> I've long wondered about this. A relatively large percentage of the student body of the Presbyterian theological college/seminary (Knox College) at my alma mater is Korean.


 It's really unfortunate that most Koreans go to Knox, and it's largely because they are able to get ordained faster if they attend a PCC seminary. It's a hotbed for liberalism, with the dean being a practitioner of feminist hermeneutics. By God's grace, there's still enough orthodoxy in the Korean church (as in most cultures who were recipients of western missions) to stay within the evangelical framework. My own pastor during my teenage years and some friends attended Knox. Nice, godly people, but I would never sit under their preaching now.


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## Brother John

I agree with the many statements regarding Gods will. 

I also heard a sermon that Paul Washer said that Korea was mainly Presbyterian because the Baptist missionaries focused on children while the Presbyterian men focused on evangelizing Korean men and discipling them. That's coming from a Baptist. 

Sad to read the post that it sounds like the Korean Presbyterians have gone the route of the American mainline, I pray that's not true.


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