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.

Ordering the Church: Ecumenism and the Three-Fold Ministry

The shape of ordered ministry remains an ecumenical stumbling stone. There is a wide gap between churches ordered by the threefold ministry of bishop-priest-deacon and churches ordered by different patterns of ministry. It may be possible to narrow the gap by detecting a pervasive threefold ministry of episcope/keygma-didache/diakonos in both presbyterial and congregational ordered churches. That recognition can prompt ecumenical exchanges concerning the relationship between office and function. The case of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, among the least open to bishops, is examined, recovering the possibility of personal episcope that can open episcopal, presbyterial, and associational churches to deepening mutuality and forms of reconciliation.

The Scottish Theological Diaspora

The Scottish diaspora in Australasia exhibits many of the characteristics of colonialism and post-colonialism. Initially the Presbyterian churches reflected their largely Free Church origins, with its Calvinism, memories of the Disruption, and evangelical churchmanship. In the Victorian period it again mirrored the Scottish Church’s opening up to mission, biblical criticism, and evolution. Two World Wars both strengthened the links to Scottish theology and encouraged a transition to ecumenism, especially in the Uniting Church of Australia, and to indigenization, with growing attention to Asian and to aboriginal and Maori theology. American influences became increasingly evident in pastoral theology. However, the personal and institutional links to all four Scottish theological faculties, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Edinburgh, and Glasgow remained and remain creative and strong.

1901–14—‘The Faith Society’?

Most contemporaries and several historians have assessed the religious state of Edwardian Britain pessimistically, but Callum Brown has recently contended it was ‘the faith society’. The picture is actually mixed. Relative to population, religious allegiance was reasonably stable, apart from the Free and Presbyterian Churches, which lost ground in terms of both members (whose numbers mostly peaked around 1906) and adherents. Sunday scholars, already in relative decline since the fin de siècle, peaked in 1904–10. Churchgoing also continued its relative decrease and sometimes fell absolutely. This reduction in attendances was across the board, affecting all three home nations, rural districts as well as towns and cities, and all social classes. Adjusting for twicing, weather extremities, and undercounts of Catholic Masses, perhaps one-quarter of adults worshipped weekly and two-fifths at least monthly. Attenders were disproportionately female. Observance of rites of passage remained strong, albeit the minority preference for civil marriage grew.

The Secession and United Presbyterian Churches

This chapter examines the work of theologians in the United Secession (1820–47) and United Presbyterian Church (1847–1900). Three significant thinkers were Henry Calderwood, (1830–97), John Cairns (1818–92), and James Orr (1844–1913). With others, these theologians addressed the relation of the Secession Churches to Calvinist orthodoxy, they promoted the cause of Church reunion, and they sought to provide an appropriate apologia for faith in the changing intellectual culture of the nineteenth century. Over the period of a century, a coherent vision emerged of a via media, or liberal conservatism, that became an enduring facet of the Secession traditions. A sub-narrative concerns James Morison who was deposed from the United Secession ministry in 1841 because of his views on the universality of the atonement. Morison’s Arminian theology was novel in Calvinist Scotland, but it proved to be a template for later evangelical developments.

The Liturgical Revolution

The nineteenth-century Scottish Presbyterian Churches witnessed a ‘Liturgical Revolution’. In part an expression of the wider Romantic movement, some ministers became concerned with the aesthetics of prayer and worship. Some began to publish ‘specimens’ of good practice. A major development was made by Robert Lee of Greyfriars, who published a liturgy that he used as a set form in Greyfriars. The Church Service Society was founded in 1865 to publish liturgies of the past, and drawing on the whole Christian liturgical heritage, compiled forms for the guidance of ministers. The century also witnessed the adoption of hymns in worship in addition to psalms and paraphrases, and the reintroduction of stained glass to adorn church buildings. A theology for this was developed by the Scoto-Catholics of the Scottish Church Society.