Currents of Christian Internationalism: The International Missionary Council and the YMCA’s Rural Reconstruction in Colonial Korea

Abstract

The trajectories of international currents surrounding the Korean peninsula in the 1920s reveal the distinction of Christian internationalism that the IMC sought to implement for the Korean YMCA’s Rural Reconstruction. Amid the deluge of international currents of colonialism and communism, the IMC in partnership with the YMCA’s Korean nationalists crafted a history of international interactions in its nation-wide enterprise for village farmers under the stringent restraint of the colonial government, which demonstrate that the IMC’s internationalism did not exactly fit in the framework of expansionist imperialism or unfettered commercialism. Western missionaries maintained the overall stance of a church-state separation, but the IMC orchestrated the international transmission of religious, intellectual, and material resources for empowering Koreans and rejuvenation of the village life that had been systematically exploited by the colonial government. Through this engagement, the IMC displayed its distinctive characteristics of Christian internationalism expressing disinterested benevolence and alliance transcending national and racial boundaries, which may not be a full-fledged alliance with Koreans, yet too significant to be negligible. The Jerusalem Meeting stimulated the native cooperation among disparate ecclesial entities, organization of the Christian Rural Research Association led by Cho Mansik, and scientific research on agricultural problems and land usage by Lee Hoonkoo under the aegis of the Institute of Pacific Relation. It further provided an opportunity and field knowledges to cultivate a key official A.C. Bunce to prepare a land reform proposal for the newly established Republic of Korea. Not the grand theory of imperialism, but the micro investigation of the detailed process reveals that Christian internationalism in the case of colonial Korea operated not to undermine, but to undergird nationalism.