More Than Witnesses: How a Small Group of Missionaries Aided Korea's Democratic Revolution

by Jim Stentzel (Editor)

The efforts and devotion of the missionary community provided democratic activists, including me, a ray of light and a source of hope and courage. The inspiring achievements of these "Foreigners with Hearts of Koreans" have helped lay a firm groundwork in Korea for freedom, peace, and justice to come into full bloom like pretty, tenacious wild flowers. ¬¬- Kim Dae Jung, Former President, Republic of Korea and 2000 Nobel Peace Prize Winner This splendid volume is a collection of stories about Korean Christians and missionaries, a powerful example of contemporary witness to the faith. Knowing many of the authors personally, I was deeply moved by their courage and constancy under such cruel oppression. All who read these accounts cannot but be inspired. - James T. Laney, U.S. Ambassador to Korea 1993 - 1996; President Emeritus of Emory University. As an activist for democracy and as a spouse and sister-in-law of political prisoners, I am personally indebted to the authors of this book, who provided safe breathing spaces for us in the grip of suppression and who kept information pipelines open to the outside world. Their deep involvement in our struggle made them truly "More than witnesses" and shortened the number of years it took to birth our democracy .- Heisoo Shin, author, scholar, teacher, human rights activist, women's rights activist, and member UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). There are times in history when small groups of Christians take seriously the biblical command to "bring good news to the oppressed, and ... release to the prisoners." That was the case with a group of Western missionaries in South Korea in the mid-1970s during the Park Chung Hee dictatorship. More than Witnesses tells the stories, some never before told, of how this courageous group informed the world of what was happening. It is a challenging and humbling account of being faithful in the worst of times, and has important lessons for all of us. - Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners and author of The Great Awakening.

509 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Kiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compilation of missionary stories centered on the 70s and life under the heavy hand of Park Chung Hee, as Korea entered and emerged from one of the many furnaces that forged it into what it is today. Known as the Monday Night Group, a variety of Koreans, Canadians, Americans and others, from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, found themselves being targets of the Korean CIA as they held clandestine meetings and used subversive methods to move information in and out of a heavily censored nation. Times were dark and the politics complicated, but this group of foreign missionaries found their calling to be like Christ by suffering with lowest and least of Korea in their struggle for justice, being accused of being communist while they did, and on a few occasions being deported. Their stories are startling and heartbreaking. They are also quite an education of Korea during that time. I’m impressed and humbled. That said there are theological and missiological questions that arise when gospel proclamation and social justice efforts are in play, especially in a cross cultural context. I applaud what I read in these accounts, but on a few reports the scales tipped so heavy toward social justice that they became universalist. In such trying circumstances it is easy to understand a person gaining extreme sympathy and love for the atheist who is tortured in the common cause of democracy while there were entire conservative Christian denominations being passive or even supportive of oppressive regimes. The complexity of that phenomenon is not lost on me. However, it doesn’t preclude me from saying that theological integrity and ethical integrity should go hand in hand in Christianity, and that historically conservatives raise the theological over the social and liberals the opposite. That general trend is present in these accounts as well. On the whole, I’m thankful for the lives and accounts of these brothers and sisters, and feel a deep gratitude, because my time in Korea has been enriched by their work and effort to tell their stories. I read the paperback, 509 pages missionary memoirs and modern Korean history.

[Caroline Cottom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave the book five stars because of the amazing work these missionaries did to help Koreans create a democratic system in the 1970s. The stories are fascinating and reveal Korea in a way that few others books have done or could do. Bravo to those who led the way and who wrote the book.