Reading Report #4

I was looking at books in Kyobo, the equivalent of Barnes and Noble in Korea, and I stumbled across this book. I had been looking for a book on the history of Korean churches for some time. It became clear in conversations with Sinae that my assumptions about Korean churches were not accurate. Of course, at that time my experience of churches in Korea were limited to the Church of the Nazarene which is supposedly the smallest denomination of the Wesleyan-holiness tradition in Korea. Of course I didn't buy the book right away. I wouldn't want to be hasty about buying a book now, would I? But I did toil to find the book at Yes24.com, the equivalent of Amazon.com, and I told Sinae I'd like to receive this book as a gift for my birthday. I'm embarrassed to say it took me what seemed like a year and maybe longer to finish this book. In fact I didn't finish it until Sinae and I took a trip to America last summer so it may have taken me longer than a year. This book is also as thick as the bible. I think I'm attracted to thick books, as you will see from future reading reports. I was a little disappointed to find that this book doesn't deal with contemporary issues because it was translated from a Korean work that was apparently published sometime in the 1970s. However, that being said, I still found the book to be helpful in understanding Korea's history. The downside of this book is that the translation is not always accurate so I found myself proofreading in my head in order to understand what the author intended to say. Some things to note: 1. The Catholic Church was the first tradition to come to Korea. This reality makes it all the more puzzling that there is such a strong line between Catholics and Protestants. In Korea, Catholics don't even call their place of worship a "church" but a "cathedral". 2. Presbyterians and Methodists were the next group to come. I want to say Presbyterians came first but I don't want to get too bold here. This explains why Presbyterians and Methodists (stating this order based on my historical understanding not on my denominational preference)are the largest bodies and why my own tradition, the Church of the Nazarene, is so small. 3. A desire to not be distinct. This subject has been the source of many heated conversations between Sinae and I. It seems that Koreans don't seek to have the same distinctive doctrines that American churches have which could be a good thing I suppose. In my experience, only ministers know the differences between denominations. Even Wesleyan-holiness pastors don't necessarily preach a strong message on entire sanctification because they don't want to overwhelm the person listening (I don't intend to stereotype. My understanding of Korean is minimal and I can only make this claim based on a conversation with one pastor). There seems to be a long history of American missionaries wanting to underscore the distinctiveness and Koreans wanting to work together. However, there were still problems even in single denominations over a liberal/conservative divide. Of course that divide was premature to the homosexual debate so the definition of "liberal" would be along different lines anyway.