Worship for People with Cognitive Challenges in the Pandemic Era: A Korean Presbyterian Perspective

During COVID-19, many people in the world experienced tremendous suffering. Because of its strong infection rate, people avoided gathering. In these circumstances, public worship, which is the heartbeat of the church, has declined. The decline in participation is especially true among one group of marginalized people: the people who are cognitively challenged. Traditionally, the Korean Church has not had much concern about the matter of public worship and the sacraments for those who are cognitively challenged, except for a few churches which have special departments for ministries to special populations. During the COVID-19 situation, these ministries have slowed, which means that those who benefited have had few opportunities to join worship services or participate in religious education. Going forward, there is a high possibility of another pandemic. Therefore, it is time to prepare for the future. Some churches have utilized online worship and Zoom meetings, showing that the cognitively challenged can effectively participate in online worship and religious education if family members can help them. Churches should invest in new platforms which harmonize onsite worship and online worship and expand resources to create new software for Christian education.

Calvinism and Reformed Confessions in the Korean Presbyterian Church

The study of Calvin and Calvinism in Korean churches is closely related to the history and development of Presbyterianism in Korea. For the most part of its history, Calvinism in Presbyterian churches had been understood very limitedly in one of three ways: the Westminster Confession of Faith, Calvin’s Institutes, or the five points of TULIP. Such a narrow understanding, however, began to change after 1980 due to the efforts of scholars and doctoral students who had studied abroad and also with many books on Calvin and Calvinism being translated into the Korean language. This chapter examines this development by tracing the role of confessional documents adopted by the Korean Presbyterian churches. In light of the historical context, this chapter looks at how the first creed of the Korean Presbyterian Church called the Twelve Articles, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and other Reformed Confessions have shaped the identity of Korean Presbyterianism, which claims itself to be in the heritage of Calvinistic tradition.

The Barthian Predominance in Korean Theology: Its Origins and Problems

This study examines the origins, early history, and theological problems of the Barthian and Germanic predominance in Korean Protestant theology. The originators and most influential promoters of the predominance were Rev. Chai-choon Kim (1901–1987) and Dr Jong-sung Rhee (1922–2011), the theological and denominational leaders of the more or less liberalist Korean Presbyterian churches. Both of them went almost the same theological way: After getting to know Karl Barth and his dominance in Japan and deepening their knowledge of Barthian theology in the USA, they fought against the Korean Presbyterian churches’ conservative, Old Princeton theology on the basis of Barthian theology. Having witnessed the notorious conflicts and schisms of the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK), both Kim and Rhee presupposed that the principal culprit of the conflicts and schisms was the conservative, Old Princeton (Reformed Orthodox) theology that the American Presbyterian Korea missionaries had successfully planted in Korean Presbyterian churches. So in order to attack the missionaries’ theology as well as to justify their liberalist theology, both Kim and Rhee profoundly accepted the Barthian triumph frame: the Reformed Orthodoxy of the 17th and 18th centuries was defeated by the liberalism of the 19th century, which was, in turn, overcome by the Barthian Neo-Orthodoxy of the 20th century. Although the frame itself has recently been proved to be unfounded, both Kim and Rhee blindly accepted it and led their numerous followers to throw out both the missionaries and their Old Princeton theology. Nevertheless, Kim and Rhee ‘threw the baby out with the bathwater’; they led the next generation to be deprived of its own Reformed history, whose living legacy has been the missionaries’ Reformed Orthodoxy and Old Princeton theology. On the other hand, having accepted Barthian theology enthusiastically, both Kim and Rhee exploited it mainly to condemn the missionaries’ theology, ending up failing to integrate it into their own theologies.

Presbyterian Preaching

Presbyterian preaching grew from roots in the Reformation, particularly the Calvinist wing. The fullest early expression of the character of Presbyterian preaching is in the Westminster Standards, documents produced in England by an assembly of Calvinist clergy and laymen in the mid-seventeenth century. These documents described the key qualities of Reformed, and thus Presbyterian, preaching: sermons grounded in the Bible, containing significant doctrinal content, and aimed at teaching and edifying congregants.The authors of the Westminster Standards prescribed preaching that was substantive and lively, filled with biblical and doctrinal content, and touched the hearts of hearers. Throughout the history of Presbyterian preaching, however, these twin goals were often difficult to attain. This tension between intellectual, content-centered preaching and more emotional, experience-centered preaching among Presbyterian is evident in such events as the Old Side–New Side controversy in the mid-1700s and the Old School–New School conflict from 1837 to 1869 (both in America), in Scottish Presbyterian preaching in the early nineteenth century, and in Korean Presbyterian preaching during the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twentieth century.Today as many Presbyterian preachers use digital media and conversational-style sermons, a strong desire continues for preaching that is clear, deeply theological and biblical, impassioned, and relevant.