Church over Nation: Christian Missionaries and Korean Christians in Colonial Korea

This dissertation examines the interrelationships between the foreign Missions and the Korean Church in colonial Korea. In contrast to previous scholarship that assumes a necessary link between the Korean Church and Korean nationalism, this study focuses on the foreign Mission's predominance over the Korean Church as a major obstacle in the Korean Church's adoption of nationalism as part of its Christian vision.;The foreign Missions established controlling power over the Korean Christians by relying on colonial privileges such as extraterritoriality and financial wealth, and perpetuated their power over local Christians through Church and mission schools. By insisting on the separation of Church from politics as an ecclesiastical principle, the Missions prevented Korean Christians from engaging in nationalist politics. Therefore, Korean Christian nationalists who joined the Korean Church with the intent of making the Church a nationalist center were constantly checked by the mission-dominated Church authority and forced to leave the Church to pursue their nationalist aims, while the majority of Korean Christians stayed in the Church, remaining loyal to the ecclesiastical order. The increasing frustration of nationalist Christians eventually exploded in the 1919 March First Movement, the greatest nationalist uprising of Korea's colonial period. Many Christians participated in the political demonstrations of March First in protest not only to Japanese colonial rule but also against the ecclesiastical principle that prohibited Christian engagement in secular politics.;By highlighting the constant struggle that existed between the Protestant Church and Korean nationalism, this study argues that being a loyal Church member and being a Korean nationalist were incompatible roles in the mission-dominated Korean Church where the Church held primacy over the nation.