한국 초기 개신교 선교사 문서에 나타난 주제들

The Theological Topics in the Early Protestant Missionary Literature of Korea

Protestant Christianity came to the East Asia in the 19th century. The first Protestant residential missionaries entered the Korean peninsula in 1885. The missionary enterprise was determined by a form of Protestant Christianity known as Evangelism in 19th-century North America. In Korea Christian teaching was introduced to the Korean public in the main by the Christian literature prepared by the Protestant missionary organizations developing in the 1890s. In this study the Christian literature Is called the Protestant missionary literature, The Protestant missionary literature consists of the Christian works taken from the Protestant missionaries in China and the first Christian periodicals produced by the Protestant missionaries in Korea. This study is devoted to analyze the Protestant missionary literature and to describe the theological content of this literature. The result shows that in this literature are presented the four theological topics, namely Protestant doctrins, natural theology, apology, and social progress. Seen from the missiological viewpoint it is interesting to know the following two points, The first is that the four theological topics came originally from the Christian works produced by the Protestant missionaries in China This fact says that the theological content of the first Christian periodicals produced by the Protestant missionaries in Korea was much influenced by the theological message of the Protestant missionaries in China, The second is that the four theological topics were also found in the Christian works of the Protestant missionaries in Japan. These two points mentioned just above show that there is some link between the theological messages introduced by the Protestant missionaries in China, Japan, and Korea, Being viewed from this insight it is desirable that the study of the Protestant mission in Korea is undertaken in the context of China, Japan, and other Asian countries from comparative outlook.