A BRIEF HISTORY OF KOREAN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

This article is to introduce a brief overview of Korean Protestant Church education in English, which entails a summary of that history. Such a study involves a classification of previous literature conducted on the history of Christian education in Korea, all of which has been in Korean to date. This initial study is descriptive in nature and provides a framework for future study, which allows for the author to later introduce works that will argue for the identity and direction of Christian education in the country. The author divided Korean Christian education (KCE) history into four periods: Beginning of KCE, Suffering of KCE as a part of the Korean Church, Recovering of KCE, and Flourishing of KCE. The rationale for the four divisions in Korean Christian education history is chronologically concurrent with major political developments in recent Korean history. They coincide with the Korean suffering under Japanese annexation, independence from Japan, the Korean War, and the development of democracy in Korea. This is so because the history of Korean Christian education is inextricable from Korean church history and Korean church history cannot be explained without the backdrop of Korean history. As such, KCE history cannot be told alone apart from the history of the Korean church, nor can Korean church history be told apart from recent Korean history. Reviewing the history of church education in Korean Protestant churches, the author divided the material into four periods each having three sections: (1) Phenomena (Context) and Characteristics of the Period based on historical events, (2) Educational activities, and (3) Evaluation of Church Education and Christian Education within each period.