Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu Theses & Dissertations STH Theses and Dissertations 2011-05 Between Nationalism and Internationalism; Yun Ch'I-ho and the YMCA in Colonial Korea Lee, Yeon-seung https://hdl.handle.net/2144/8474 Boston University BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Dissertation BETWEEN NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM; YUN CH’I-HO AND THE YMCA IN COLONIAL KOREA By Yeon-seung Lee A.B. Seoul National University, 1982; M.Div., Seoul Theological Seminary, 1989; Th.M. Boston University, School of Theology, 2000 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology 2011 Copyright ⓒ2011 by Yeon-seung Lee All rights reserved CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……….……………………………………………………..vi ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………xi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………….……………………..1 II. TOWARD CHRISTIAN INTERNATIONALISM……………..……………………18 The Kapsin Coup (December 1884) and the Progressives in Korea The Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in China Vanderbilt University (November 1888 – June 1891) Emory College (July1891 – October 1893) Conclusion: Yun’s Christian Internationalism III. TOWARD CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM………………………………………134 Missionary Teacher in China (November 1893) The Independent (April 1896- December 1899) The Independence Club (1896-1898) The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Korea (August 1896) “On to Songdo” and the Songdo Christian Village (October1906) Conclusion: Yun’s Christian Nationalism iv IV. BETWEEN NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM..………….……...299 Structures, Orientation, and Paradoxical Nature The Pivot of the YMCA: Religious Work Holistic Missions of the YMCA Industrial Work To the Farms: Agricultural Work Crisis: The Positive Faith League and Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry Conclusion: The Nexus of Nationalism and Internationalism V. ONLY NATIONALISM……………………………………………………..…..…471 VI. CONCLUSION..………………………………………………………………..….483 APPENDICES……………………….……………………….….…………………..…491 1. A Korean’s Confession 2. Yun’s Address at Chicago Auditorium 3. A List of Modern Schools 4. Total Students and Graduates of the Anglo-Korean School 5. The YMCA General Secretaries and Presidents 6. The YMCA Programs 7. The YMCA Missionaries 8. Chronology BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………..………..532 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A modicum of footnotes occasionally implies more significant influence than it appears to credit. Compare the scholarly trajectories of two authors. One may perceive instantly who is the upstart benefiting from the decades-long and painstaking scholarship of another. My master’s thesis investigated the practices of women missionaries. The present venture veers toward the biography of one man. At this point, mission historians might experience déjà vu in recalling Professor Dana Robert’s American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice and her subsequent Occupy Until I Come: A.T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World. Just as Young J. Allen’s Anglo-Chinese College and the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge (廣學書館) tell a lot about Yun Ch’i-ho’s Anglo-Korean School and Kwanghak Sǒpo (廣學書鋪, the Society for Christian Knowledge), the orientation of a work often tells more about the pioneer than what the footnotes credit. With perspicacious eyes, Professor Robert has for decades chronicled missionary practices that others have abandoned. Such seasoned scholarship dictated her two-word comment, “very important,” right next to “YMCA” in the marginalia of my paper. The comment flung the door wide open to an entirely new terrain by prompting my quest for unearthing the history of the YMCA. Owing to the YMCA travel fellowship from the University of Minnesota and the help of its archivist Degmar Getze, I could dive into the archives that had been relegated to a dark depository, though finally relocated to the vi Kautz Family YMCA Archives. Previously shrouded by my prejudice, the newly discovered YMCA has been transformed for me from a banal gym to a repository of gold. Along with Degmar Getze, Ryan Bean guided me to important documents and sent a box of their copies to Boston when I had to leave the archives earlier than scheduled on account of a family funeral. Stacey Battles de Ramos and Kara Jackman at Boston University School of Theology Library, Lee Hyang and Nobohiko Abe at Harvard-Yenching Library, Martha Smalley at Yale Day Missions Library, and Laura Carroll and Sarah Quigley at Emory Manuscript, Archives & Rare Book Library also offered invaluable help to retrieve important sources. Living legacy of Korea, Professor Chung Chai-sik, with his prestigious scholarship traversing the East and the West has been a rare gift to the Boston University School of Theology and my inspiration for this project. I feel deep sorrow for the recent passing of his wife. Among revered professors, David Hempton—now at Harvard University— guided my dissertation writing for years as minor advisor, while he helped the coteries of the Popular Evangelical Study Group. Dr. Jonathan Bonk and Jean Bonk of the Overseas Ministries Study Center have been to me exemplars of Christian scholarship as well as servant leadership. Gina Bellofatto from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary finished editing my drafts in three weeks, without which I might have missed a critical deadline. Living legacy of a vast array of missionaries, Dutch professor Martinus Daneel poured out his vii youthful life for the people in Zimbabwe. His missionary spirit and profound scholarship, matched only by his humility, have been a great gift to the Boston University School of Theology. I am honored by his advice for my dissertation. My studies at Boston University benefited entirely from the Doctor of Theology Fellowship and generous fellowships from William Jackson, Anna Worden Lowstuter, Frank D. Bertha Howard, John F. Richardson, in addition to the fellowship from the Center for Global Christianity and Mission. In them are still alive the spirit of those Georgia Christians who supported Yun’s Songdo Christian Village back in 1906. Dean John Berthrong and Dr. Dana Robert delivered all those fellowships, while again conducting my dissertation defense with Dr. Christopher Brown, Dr. Christopher Evans, and Dr. Shelly Rambo. In his Church History Survey (TH 718), for which I served as a teaching assistant for two years, Dr. Christopher Brown emphasized empathy as one of historians’ most important faculties in order to handle strange documents from the first century and all over the world. Regretfully, I refrained from serving Dr. Brown’s course so as to quickly finish my dissertation writing within a semester. Instead of writing, however, I was embroiled for years in a chain of heartbreaking events, probably to incise into my soul what Dr. Brown called the historian’s requisite—empathy. Clambering out of the battle and finally crossing over the dike of defense, I find that those sore wounds have been miraculously healed. Through all those years of throes, Dr. Robert commanded me never to give up. In viii all those traumas, Rev. Kang Chŏn-gu, An Yŏng-sin, Dr. Koh Issac, and Chŏng Sun-a have faithfully stood by me, serving together the Korean Church of the Lord in Boston and its children of God. The messages of Rev. Lee Wan-taek of the Kwangsŏng Evangelical Church in Korea still lingered in my ears. Rev. Kim Myŏng-su of the Pyŏnggang Presbyterian Church supported me in the U.S. as generously as he had done on my departure to Russia as a missionary. Dr. Glen Messer imparted to me the wisdom he had gained through his own trials and toils. Dr. Kim Kap-dong, Dr. Lee Chŏng-hyo, and Dr. Choi In-sik at Seoul Theological University supported me with their prayers, while Dr. Brian Clark sent his evangelical wits and a long memo of prayer. Through those troubles, we have all been bound by a friendship and respect that surpasses national boundaries. A fullness of gratitude is all I can think of now. Still, the best companion and interlocutor for my urge to converse about history, society, and politics in Christianity, my husband, Rev. Park Chan-soo, is a walking Wikipedia. Not very authoritative, yet profuse knowledge that has accumulated through his learning over the course of decades comes instantly out of his brain. Our beloved daughters, Seong-kyul (“holiness”) and Han-kyul (“consistence” and “pen”), have been unmatched gifts from God that have taught me how to embrace the world with the Father’s heart. Our brothers and sisters, their spouses, and many more children of theirs are all God’s gifts that have taught us how to live with our neighbors as with our extended families. ix Remiss would I be without mentioning my father, Lee Hyo-ŏn, who loved to banter jolly talks with merchants at stinky fish markets on piers; it was his favorite pastime between his varied duties as a professor of economics at Seoul Agricultural College. Through his eyes, I could better understand Yun’s agro-industrial project for the poor and marginalized in Korea. I wonder how much he acclaimed Horace Underwood and Oliver Avison during his studies at Yonsei University. There on a hilltop, he dubbed my name as “research (硏)” and instilled in it his wish that my future research would “lighten the world like the rising sun (昇).” I repay him in this study with a small tribute to Underwood and Avison by exploring their contributions to the agricultural work of the Korean YMCA, and to my father with my unmitigated love of research. A series of hagiographies of the great men in the world was the best gift from my mother, Lee Ok-sŏn, which I read over and over again. What a relief it was when Dr. Robert said my dissertation should take a biographical approach and I did not have to dump large sections of my draft! She gave life to what my mother had sown decades before. As a parent representative at my graduation from elementary school, my mother delivered an address that would ultimately be in the last year of her life.