CH7110 Korean Church History Chapters 21

Seungwoo Baik November 5, 2013

The history of the persecutions and sufferings of the Churches of Korea reached its apex when the Japanese enforced Koreans to go to the Shinto shrine service. The shrines were erected everywhere in Korea: in cities, towns, and even in villages. The missionaries vehemently opposed the practices, and submitted an appeal to the Government-General of Chosen insisting that it was absolutely impossible for the Christians to worship the Emperor who was claimed to be Divine by the Japanese Government. From the year of 1935, Japanese authorities forced the Christian schools in Pyeng Yang to go to the Shinto shrine service regularly. The leaders of the schools refused it, Yasytake Tadao, the Governor gave a grace period of sixty day, and in case they refused to the end, they would be expelled from the country and the schools closed down. Among the missionaries, however, there was a disharmony of opinions as to the question of whether the Shinto shrine service was only a national ceremony or an unquestioningly religious service. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was held in Pyeng Yang on 9th September 1938 and the new board members were elected. The next day, Rev. Park Woongyul on behalf of three presbyteries moved presumptuously the adoption of resolution regarding the Shinto shrine service and the publicizing of the statement of the adoption, insisting that the Shinto shrine service was a national duty. Japan made extensive use of this adoption of the General Assembly and the Religious Body Law for Korean Christians to go to the Shinto shrine service. Many Churches were forced to disorganize. The Dong-A Church (Baptist) was closed down on 10th May 1943. The Holiness Church was also heavily cracked down ordered to liquidate itself because of their theological tenet of eschatological world view which was accused of blasphemy against the Emperor. The Anglican Church was put under the supervision of Kohto Kazuo the Japanese General Supervisor and entered into the period of the Dark history. In this situation, some pastors such as Choo Kitchul and Sohn Yangwon chose to a way of martyrdom. Thus the Pyeng Yang Theological Seminary and more than two hundred Churches were closed down, more than two thousand believers were imprisoned, and more than fifty church workers were crowned with martyrdom. The position of the missionaries in Korea was increasingly perplexed and getting harder. Their disciplinary right by ecclesiastical regulation belonged nominally to the General Assembly, Conference, Presbyteries of the Korean Church, therefore they had to follow the decisions of the Korean Church. But they could not follow the transactions of the Korean Church such as the Shinto shrine service. They eliminated their names from the roll of the Churches of Korea, and then visited the towns and villages in the country in a capacity of individual evangelists. It is difficult to draw a sharp line of the period of time when the changing character of the faith in Korean Churches started because of its gradual nature of the progress of decay. Already in the middle of the 1920's, the pro-Japanese factor was operating in the anti-missionary atmosphere, and also there was a precedent in the sectarian movements claiming for Japanese Christianity. Moreover, the Japanese ordered the Churches to organize the Christian League of the General Mobilization of the National Ethos. The Methodist Church was subjected to the order and organized it in September 1940, the Presbyterian in December, and the Holiness Church in November. The Christian social movements were also hard hit. The reasons for their collapse were three-folds: the first one was the reaction of the conservative sectors in the Church, the second was the restriction of the Japanese Police, and the third one the turning of the persons related with the social movements to the Government policy. The repulsion against the social movement within the Church first appeared in 1935 as the turning point. The criticism coincided with the resignation of the Cynn Heungwoo from the post of the General Secretary of Seoul Y.M.C.A. for his personal misconduct and his association with the Positive Faith Group. The social movements were dissolved largely because of the Japanese putting a finger on the movements suspecting them as the resistant energy against the Japanese. Lastly the collapse of the social movement resulted owing to the turning of the personnels associated with the movement to the Japanese policy. The Japanese judged it most urgent to control thoroughly the Christian Churches, so they escalated the War-Time pressures by carrying out the policy of clarifying the Imperial Polity in 1936. However, The Japanese convinced that the Korean Churches would be liquidated if they were forced to change the basic constitution of the Church and annexed to the Japanese Church, so they decided to operate a machine for achieving their final objectives. The nature of the seminary in contemplation turned into liberalism when it was taken into consideration that the conservative and evangelical missionaries had gone and, Dr. Park Hyungyong the most rigorous defender of the conservative theology sought refuge in Manchuria, and that the vigorous Christian workers and ministers were imprisoned and martyred. 1. What can be the biblical grounds that the Shinto shrine service was not idolatry? 2. Could the ministers who accepted the Shinto shrine service do their ministries after the Independence?