The fact that late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century global Western Protestant missionary activities produced one of the most spectacular successes in South Korea is by now well known. The growth of Protestant evangelicalism in South Korea, achieved especially during the country's economic “takeoff” period after World War II, is unusual not only in the world, but within the East Asian region in particular. Despite this distinctive development, the phenomenon of South Korean evangelicalism has not received the attention it deserves in the Western academy. Timothy S. Lee attempts to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive mapping of the birth, growth, and distinctive character of Korean evangelicalism, starting from the period marking the arrival of Western Protestant missionaries in Korea in 1885 up to the present.
The book is divided into four chapters, followed by an epilogue that considers the recent travails of Korean evangelicalism. The first three chapters are historical, divided chronologically into three major periods of evangelical development in Korea that Lee considers significant. The first chapter covers the initial period of Protestant “planting” and subsequent expansion in Korea (1885–1919); here, Lee's main argument for the success of evangelicalism in Korea lies in its powerful spiritual and theological appeal to the Korean people as a religion of salvation during this tumultuous period of Korean history. The second chapter (1920–53) focuses on the critical role of evangelicalism as a vehicle for Korea's emerging nationalist and anticommunist sentiments during Japanese rule.
The third historical chapter investigates one of the most important periods of Korean evangelicalism in terms of its growth (1953–88), beginning with the chaotic and conflict-ridden period immediately after the Korean War to evangelicalism's “peak” of expansion in the mid- to the late 1980s. In this chapter, Lee's thesis for the success of evangelicalism in South Korea is the relentless drive for proselytization that characterized the Korean evangelical churches during this period, epitomized, for example, by the enormous evangelistic campaigns that drew millions of attendees, and that has enabled Korean evangelicals to view themselves as “standard-bearers” of global evangelicalism.
In the fourth and final chapter, Lee switches gears and examines the “configurational dimension” of Korean evangelicalism, making a cogent case for why and how Korean Protestantism has come to be dominated by the evangelical ethos, and how distinctive the Korean brand of evangelicalism is from evangelicalisms in other places around the world, especially its originator, American evangelicalism. Here, Lee focuses especially on one major characteristic of Korean evangelicalism that he feels sets it off from the rest—its intensely “practical and devotional” bent—a unique set of characteristics referring to the particularly fervent, devotional, and active nature of Korean evangelical religiosity.
Lee's work is a clearly written and a thorough study that presents a number of compelling explanations for one of the most intriguing questions in the field of modern religions: evangelicalism's unique and spectacular success in South Korea. Lee mines a wide range of Korean and English sources to put together a well-argued case to explain Korean evangelicalism's growth, highlighting a number of novel factors. In addition to illuminating the role played by a series of early, missionary-driven revivals that helped set the tone and habits of Korean evangelicalism, he persuasively explicates the critical importance of evangelicalism's relationship to Korean nationalist activity during the Japanese period, which helped legitimate evangelicalism's presence in Korea.
At the same time, Lee does not fail to examine how, as the nation approached the outbreak of the Korean War (1950–53), evangelicalism and most of its leaders began to take an antithetical stance toward communism, rendering it an increasingly politically conservative force. This conservatism found its full expression in South Korea after the national division. In his unpacking of this movement toward this conservatism, I found especially helpful Lee's accounting of the gradual transformation of Korean evangelicalism's religious character, from one that can be described as “activist” and reformist during the initial period of Japanese occupation, to one increasingly characterized by “introversion” and mystical tendencies, as the religion came under increasing suppression by the Japanese. Lee's exploration of several major themes relating to evangelicalism's pronounced growth between 1953 and 1988 is also important: the symbiotic relationship between the majority of the evangelical establishment with the authoritarian-military government, and, most important in Lee's view, the evangelistic practices of the churches themselves that were geared toward a single, overriding goal: proselytization.
Although I am agreement with most of Lee's assessments, my one critique relates to his almost sole reliance on the massive evangelical rallies that took place during the post–World War II period as examples of the churches’ proselytizing efforts. Korean evangelicalism's relentless proselytizing, as Lee is well aware, is something that is an ongoing, daily activity that takes place at the level of individual and group practices within and outside of churches by the members. Lee's spotlighting of this mundane but central dimension of proselytization would have rendered this chapter more well rounded and complete.
Furthermore, although I appreciate and agree with Lee's point regarding the centrality of proselytization to Korean evangelicalism's success, I wish Lee would have pushed further in a more sociological direction, which would have provided a more persuasive explanation for why such proselytization efforts may have found a positive reception in the postwar era in the first place. Although general explanations related to upheavals of urbanization and social change are not sufficient to explain why evangelicalism was uniquely successful in South Korea, as Lee rightly points out, there are nonetheless a number of other sociological factors that could have been more fully and fruitfully pursued in tandem with the themes of evangelical practices, such as proselytization.
The all too brief epilogue, in which Lee explores the “beleaguered” nature and state of Korean evangelicalism in the 1990s and afterward, is one of the most intriguing parts of the book, and a subject that I think Lee could have explored more fully. Korean evangelicalism, after experiencing a peak in the 1980s, indeed has been beleaguered by stagnant growth and a decline in general reputation among the populace; this is attributable to a number of factors, including political scandals involving prominent evangelical leaders, and the oversupply of seminary graduates from substandard or unaccredited seminaries who did not help enhance the image and reputation of evangelical churches and its leaders. As Lee reports, many of these graduates, unable to start new churches or find positions within existing churches in an oversaturated religious market, have also gone overseas as missionaries. Although everything cannot be accomplished in one book, one nonetheless longs to hear a bit more about this intriguing state of affairs and how this relates to the highly interesting phenomenon of “reverse missionizing,” in which Korean evangelicals, who increasingly see themselves as standard-bearers of Christianity, are engaged.
These minor issues aside, Lee's book is a valuable resource for scholars of Korean studies, religious studies, and lay persons who desire to know more about the fascinating phenomenon of Korean evangelicalism. This book is full of useful information and insights, and will prove to be important contribution across fields.
