Chris Chun is Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center and Professor of Church History at Gateway Seminary.
Arrival of Baptist Missionaries and the Need for Theological Education in California
Nineteen months before California became the thirty-first state, the American Baptist Home Mission Society took steps to take the gospel to the “darkest spot on earth.” S.H. Cone, President of the Home Mission Society, challenged Osgood C. Wheeler (1816-1891) to become the first Baptist missionary to California with these words:
Do you know where you are going, my brother? I would rather go as a missionary to China or Cochin-China than to San Francisco. Don’t you stir a step, my brother, unless you are prepared to go to the darkest spot on earth.[1]
Cone’s jolting summons might not have been the most tactful way to recruit a missionary by twenty-first-century standards, but in this situation, it worked. Before Cone’s speech, several influential clergymen had tried to persuade Wheeler to go to California as a pioneer, but his answer was always the same, “I cannot go, sir” or “No, sir; I will not leave.”[2] But Cone’s challenge to go to the “darkest spot on earth” clearly intrigued him. Wheeler later recounted the drama of the call and his surrender to it:
After a night of prayer, without sleep, and at the close of an unusually earnest and agonizing season at family devotions, a burden as distinct as that which rolled from the shoulders of Bunyan’s Pilgrim, at the foot of the cross, was removed from my shoulders, and my wife and I arose simultaneously, and without the interchange of a word, both broke out in the song: “To God I’m reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear; He owns me for His child, I will no longer fear.”[3]
Wheeler’s heart and resolve were set. He and his wife made plans for the move that would shape California’s history. California was considered a dark spot in the mid-nineteenth century because, as American expansion moved further west, people got further and further away from church life and the pervasive influence of Christian society. People in the West often did not live near churches and were unable to attend church consistently, much less be church members. To address this need, the Wheelers answered the call to exchange the comfortable life of New Jersey for the untamed lands of the American West. Foreign and domestic mission boards, as well as Baptist leaders in California, understood the urgency. This movement of people into California due to the California gold rush captured the imagination of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
In 1849, however, the SBC faced several financial barriers that had to be overcome before sending someone to California.[4] A year later the Board of Domestic Missions decided to move forward in spite of these challenges.[5] The SBC commissioned one of their most prominent missionaries, J. Lewis Shuck (1812–1863), to contribute to mission work in California. Shuck had been the first U.S. Baptist missionary to China. Shuck was a man of warm evangelical piety and attractive personality. These gifts were instrumental in his laying a significant foundation for missionary work in China with the SBC’s Foreign Mission Board (FMB). His story as a pioneer missionary began during the meeting of the Triennial Convention of 1835 when an offering was collected for foreign missions. Instead of putting money into the offering plate, Shuck placed in a slip of paper that said, “I give myself.”
Soon after, Shuck married Henrietta Hall (1817–1844), and the couple was commissioned as missionaries by the Triennial Convention. They set sail for Macau in 1836 when Henrietta was only 19. The couple kept up a steady stream of letters and ministry updates to their supporters back in America. The churches grieved when Henrietta, at the young age of 27, died in childbirth. With her death, Henrietta secured a place in Southern Baptist missionary circles second only to Lottie Moon (1840–1912).[6] Shuck later returned to the United States to work with the newly formed FMB. In 1853, however, he accepted a new appointment from the Domestic Board as a missionary to Chinese immigrants in California, making him the first Southern Baptist missionary to that region. On June 10, 1855, after eighteen years of service in China, Shuck planted a Chinese-speaking Baptist church in San Francisco.[7]
The mass movement of people, spurred on by the race for gold, attracted many to California, but it was difficult to motivate pastors to go to the “darkest spot on earth.” It would mean leaving the comfort and security of more established pulpit ministries. Trained ministers and theological educations were a critical need. Shuck described the situation in California as being filled with “feeble Baptist Churches, most of them without pastors.”[8] Since few were willing to go west, the obvious answer was to raise up ministers in California among those who were already there. Recognizing the need to establish an indigenous church and provide theological education suited to California’s culture and context, Southern Baptist home missionary Harvey Gilbert (1811–1877) attempted to open a theological school in 1859.
However, this vision of theological education for the West (or Pacific Rim) went underground due largely to the American Civil War (1861–1865), only to resurface when Isam B. Hodges (1895–1967) became convinced that it was God’s will for him to start a seminary in the West. This led to the founding of Gateway Seminary in 1944, (formerly known as Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary). The institution continues to provide theological education for the Western United States.[9]
Arrival of Baptist Missionaries and the Need for Theological Education in Korea
While this was happening in California, Protestant missionaries began arriving in the 1880s across the Pacific Ocean on the Korean peninsula. The story of the success of Presbyterians in Korea is well known, but the history of Baptist beginnings in Korea has not been as carefully chronicled.[10] Just as Osgood Wheeler was an important figure for the beginnings of Baptists in California, Malcolm Fenwick (1863–1935), a native Canadian, was a key pioneer for Baptists in Korea. Fenwick was born in 1863 and grew up in a religious family environment. In 1868, when he was five years old, he experienced the sorrow of his father’s passing, and due to difficult family circumstances, Fenwick had neither a formal school education nor theological training.[11] As with Wheeler’s earlier call to California, Fenwick’s call to Korea was dramatic:
“Lord, you know I am only a business man,” I said. “Go!” said He. “But I have not a classical schooling. I am not a minister. I have never been to a theological seminary, Lord.” “Go!” He said again. “But I don’t want to go,” I replied. That evening I hear Brother Wilder, of India, telling of a man dying of thirst out in the desert, crying for water. He said if I took him some water in a fine cut glass pitcher and handed it to him in a fine cut glass goblet, he would appreciate it. But if I had only an old rusty, battered can to take it in, he would gladly drink and live. It was water he needed.[12]
In July 1889, at the age of twenty-six, Fenwick decided to become a foreign missionary after attending the Niagara Bible Conference. Wheeler was drawn by the challenges presented in California. Fenwick, for his part, was compelled by Korea’s severe persecution of missionaries in the nineteenth century.[13] News made its way to Fenwick that the wife of his missionary friend was imprisoned in Korea and to be hanged for preaching the Gospel.[14] This event strengthened Fenwick’s resolve to serve as a missionary to Korea, even though he lacked theological education. The missionary to India Fenwick referenced who told of a man dying of thirst in the desert crying for water was Robert Wilder. Fenwick wanted to be the person who would bring a drink to the thirsty souls of Korea. With that compelling call, Fenwick set sail to Wonsan, Korea on December 8, 1889. When he first arrived in Korea, he was independent, not yet a baptist. After three long years of learning the language and reaching out to Koreans, Fenwick’s quest ended in failure.[15] In 1893, he returned to North America. During this time, Fenwick met A. J. Gordon (1836–1895) and built a close relationship with him.[16] Gordon baptized Fenwick, and heavily influenced Fenwick’s theology in a Baptist direction. Four years before meeting Fenwick, in 1889, Gordon had founded the Boston Missionary Training School in order to teach laypeople how to preach the Gospel using the Bible and prepare them for missionary work. Fenwick fit this description perfectly and received his training under Gordon’s leadership at this school. During his time in Boston, Fenwick embraced the Baptist theology of believer’s baptism and decided to align his work with Baptists. As a consequence, arguably the first baptist influence to Korea was through Northern Baptists (i.e., American Baptists) via Fenwick, Gordon, and the Clarendon Street Baptist Church of Boston, which was well known for promoting foreign missions.
Many of the leaders of the mission organization Niagara leaders, including Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) and A.J. Gordon, were driven by eschatological beliefs.[17] They shaped much of their effort in order to counter nineteenth-century higher criticism, Darwinian evolution, and theological liberalism.[18] David Bebbington describes these individuals as “strongly premillennialist, with their expectation of the imminence of the second advent injecting urgency into their endeavors.” He adds, “Education work and health care were not priorities for them, as the single vital task was saving souls in the brief time left.”[19] Fenwick was no exception to this norm, with a premillennialist perspective driving his ministry. In addition, he adopted Gordon’s concept of “faith missions” to his own ministry in Korea. This Boston Missionary Training School, with series of mergers and the efforts of Harold J. Ockenga (1905–1985) and Billy Graham (1918–2018), became in 1969 Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.[20] Having received his theological education back in America, in 1896 Fenwick returned to Korea.[21] Not only Northern Baptists shaped the early days of Baptist history in Korea, but in 1953, the Korea Baptist Seminary was founded through the efforts of Southern Baptist missionaries. Before getting into that account, however, the Japanese Occupation of Korea (1910-1945) will be an important detour to make.
In the late nineteenth century, major world powers were scrambling for colonies. In Asia, imperialist nations aimed to carve out spheres of influence for trade and pursued colonial ambitions. Korea found itself caught in rivalries between China, Russia, and Japan, each seeking to exploit its resources. By 1910, Japan had annexed Korea and occupied it until 1945. For instance, Japanese banned the teaching of the Korean language and history. Many critical and invaluable historical documents were burned at their hands. Many Korean pastors, including a Baptist pastor trained under Fenwick, were persecuted under this colonial rule. In his 1962 Th.M. thesis at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, Robert Willocks, a contemporary chronicler, recounts an event involving a Baptist pastor that occurred a decade earlier. The Japanese prosecutor, familiar with Korean church hymns, interrogated Chong Kun Ee:
“Will the whole world be unified when Jesus comes again? Will there be no more Japan?” Pastor Ee replied, “That’s true.” Again the interrogator asked: Will I go to Hell if I refuse to believe in Jesus?” The answer was “Yes.” The third question was: “Don’t you think the Japanese emperor is an exception?” Pastor Ee said, “No.”[22]
This integration confirmed what the Japanize authorities had suspected from Korean hymn books and the Bible. From that point on, Pastor Ee and others were accused of “blaspheming the emperor of Japan,” and thirty-two pastors were arrested for failing to pay homage to the Japanese emperor, seven of them being martyred in prison. This incident is called “the Wonsan Persecution.”[23] Christian literature was burned and church buildings were either taken or destroyed. World War II ended on September 9, 1945. As the Edict of Milan (313) granted Christianity freedom of worship throughout the Roman Empire and the Act of Toleration (1689) ended persecution in England by allowing non-conformists the freedom to worship, when the US and its allies liberated Korea, they also liberated the Korean church from Japanese persecution, granting it the freedom to practice their faith. In many ways, then, modern Korean church history really began only after the series of these foreign occupations. Korea, which had been a Japanese colony for 35 years, was finally liberated and the country was divided at the 38th parallel into two separate regions (North Korea to be governed by the Soviet Union and South Korea to be governed by the United States). This, of course, led five years later to the Korean War (1950–1953).[24] Under Japanese occupation, much like for the early church, the temptation existed to compromise under persecution. Some Korean pastors participated in paying homage to the Japanese Empire and, as a result, were spared from persecution. Others, refusing to comply, faced severe punishment and even death. This period in Korean church life is reminiscent of the Donatist controversy in earlier church history.[25]
At any rate, the influence of Southern Baptists became prominent in Korean Baptist circles after World War II (1945) and more significantly after the Korean War (1953). Southern Baptists were able to make a significant contribution after the Korean War, beginning with tremendous relief programs and the pouring in of thousands of dollars to aid Christian work in Korea.[26] The war-torn country provided an opportunity for Baptists to support a more robust Baptist presence in Korea and Southern Baptists rose to the occasion.
Korean Baptists have a politically charged debate as to whether Malcolm Fenwick was truly a Baptist since he began as an independent missionary who founded the “Church of Christ” in Korea, not formally a “Baptist” denomination.[27] The issue surrounding this controversial topic is reminiscent of the debate over whether both John Bunyan (1628–1688) and Roger Williams (1603–1683) were truly “Baptists” in their respective British and North American settings.
Perhaps there may be merit to both viewpoints in the Korean Baptist setting as well. Without taking sides, however, it is worth noting that those who question Fenwick’s Baptist credentials argue that the true beginning of Baptists in Korea really commenced with the formation of the Korea Baptist Convention (KBC) in the early 1950s, when the first Southern Baptist missionaries arrived. Consequently, the argument is made by some that it was through the mission efforts of Southern Baptists that the KBC was actually founded and Baptist work in Korea formally initiated.[28]
The Church of Christ in Korea, after having been disbanded for two years, was restored in 1946. In 1949, the Church of Christ was renamed the Korea Baptist Convention and took on the label “Baptist.”[29] This change, along with modifications to its congregational polity, occurred after Korean leaders met with Baker James Cauthen, the Southern Baptist’s president of the Foreign Mission Board (now the IMB) from 1953 to 1979. Although the convention adopted the name “Baptist,” there has been controversy over whether it genuinely embraced Southern Baptist faith and distinctives or simply sought “financial support from a foreign mission body.”[30] Yet, Korean Baptist leaders decided to change their name to the Korea Baptist Convention. From this point on, the Korea Baptist Seminary, founded by SBC missionaries in 1953, was designed to provide indigenous Baptist theological education for Koreans.[31]
Conclusion
When looking at the beginnings of Baptists in California and Korea, striking parallels exist. Both started with visionary missionaries: Osgood C. Wheeler, who aimed to go to the “darkest places on earth” in California, and Malcom Fenwick, who went to Korea, where it was believed missionaries would go to die as martyrs. Baptist education began with these courageous pioneers. In California, Baptists saw the need for native Californians to receive theological education amidst the westward expansion prompted by the Gold Rush. The dream of theological education envisioned by Wheeler, Shuck, Gilbert, and others went underground, only to resurface after the Civil War. Similarly, in Korea, there was a need for indigenous Baptist theological education to help rebuild the war-torn country after World War II and the Korean War. Both of these movements led to the establishment of Baptist theological institutions: Gateway Seminary provided indigenous theological education to train ministers for Baptists in California. The key for Korean Baptists also lay in their establishing their own indigenous theological education.
Much like the fruits that came for Baptist life in California as a consequence of the founding of Gateway Seminary in 1945, the establishment of the Korea Baptist Theological University/Seminary in 1953 marked a significant turning point for Baptist life in Korea. As David Bebbington puts it, Baptists are a “global people.” Baptist beginnings in both California and Korea and, with them, the founding of Baptist theological education in each locale, constitute two stories that carry intriguing parallels that carry significant import not only for the inception but also the expansion of Christian life in the Pacific Rim. They are stories that deserve to be known, rehearsed, and celebrated.
Read more from the inaugural issue by downloading the full pdf or accessing the articles below.
[1] O.C. Wheeler, “The Story of Early Baptist History in California,” (Paper presented at the California Baptist Historical Society, Sacramento, CA, April 13, 1889), 12.
[2] Wheeler, “Early Baptist History in California,” 11.
[3] Wheeler, “Early Baptist History in California,” 12.
[4] Board of Domestic Missions, “Second Triennial Report,” Proceedings of the SBC (1849): 64.
[5] Proceedings of the SBC (1849): 42.
[6] Alan Neely, “Shuck J(ehu) Lewis and Henrietta (Hall),” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 619. See also, J. L. Shuck, Portfolio Chinensis, or, A Collection of Authentic Chinese State Papers Illustrative of the History of the Present Position of Affairs in China with a Translation, Notes and Introduction. (Macao, China: Printed for the translator, 1840); Jeremiah Bell Jeter. A Memoir of Mrs. Henrietta Shuck: The First American Female Missionary to China. (Boston: Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln, 1846).
[7] Sandford Fleming, God’s Gold: The Story of Baptist Beginnings in California 1849–1860 (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1949), 180.
[8] J. L. Shuck as quoted in Sam Harvey, “The Southern Baptist Contribution to Baptist Cause in California Prior to 1890” (Th.M. thesis, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1958), 24.
[9] Much of this section is derived from a previously published work. For the early history of California Baptists, see Chris Chun and John Shouse, Golden Gate to Gateway: A History (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2020), 5–29.
[10] Notably, some of the first were Presbyterian missionaries such as Horace Grant Underwood and Horace Allen. Malcolm Fenwick came to Korea only 4 years after these Presbyterians in 1889. According to Todd Johnson, in 1896, the total number of Protestants in Korea was just over 4,000. By 1907, this number had grown to over 100,000. This significant growth is attributed to the Pyongyang revival of 1907. Between 1950 and 1985, Evangelicals in South Korea experienced rapid growth, increasing from 600,000 in 1950 to 6.5 million in 1985. During this period, Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, the world’s largest church at the time, had 350,000 members, eventually growing to over 700,000. This marked the peak of Christianity’s expansion in Korea. See, Todd M. Johnson, “Korean Christianity in the Context of Global Christianity,” in Korean Church, God’s Mission, Global Christianity, eds, Wonsuk Ma and Kyo Seong Ahn, (Oxford: Regnum Book, 2015), 72.
[11] Malcolm C. Fenwick, The Church of Christ in Corea: A Pioneer Missionary’s Own Story (NY: George H. Doran Co., 1911). 3–11.
[12] Fenwick, The Church of Christ in Corea, 13–14.
[13] Catholicism was introduced to Korea in 1784, a century earlier than Protestantism. When Catholic missionaries arrived, they rejected jesa (traditional rituals of ancestor worship), viewing it as idolatry. This position not only led many Koreans to abandon Catholicism, but also prompted the government to impose a strict ban on the religion. As a result, a series of persecutions took place throughout the nineteenth century, leading to the martyrdom of nearly 9,000 Catholics. Andrew Eungi Kim, “South Korea,” in Christianities in Asia, ed. Peter C. Phan (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 219.
[14] Fenwick, The Church of Christ in Corea, 9.
[15] Fenwick, The Church of Christ in Corea, 56–57.
[16] For the extent of Gordon’s influence on Fenwick, see, Heui Yeol Ahn, “The influence of the Niagara Bible Conference and Adoniram Judson Gordon on Malcolm Fenwick and Korean Baptist missions” (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002), 115–175.
[17] For Gordon’s role in the shaping of late nineteenth-century North American Evangelical Protestant Christianity, see, Scott M. Gibson, A.J. Gordon: American Premillennialist (Lanham: University Press of America, 2001).
[18] See, Willis B. Glover Jr., Evangelical Nonconformists and Higher Criticism (London: Independent Press, Ltd., 1954), See also, David Bebbington, Baptists through the Centuries: A History of a Global People, 1st ed. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2010), 103–138.
[19] David W. Bebbington, Baptists through the Centuries: A History of a Global People, (Waco. TX: Baylor University Press, 2010), 228.
[20] See, Garth M. Rosell, A Charge to Keep: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and the Renewal of Evangelicalism (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2020), 1–33.
[21] Robert M. Willocks, “Christian Mission in Korea with Special Reference to the Work of Southern Baptists” (Th.M. thesis, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, 1962), 127. See also, Yoonbae Lim, “An Analysis of Educational and Theological Identity: The Relationship of Malcolm C. Fenwick’s Mission with Korean Baptist Church Growth” (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2021), 30–33.
[22] Willocks, “Christian Mission in Korea with Special Reference to the Work of Southern Baptists,” 145.
[23] See, Ahn, “The Influence of the Niagara Bible Conference and Adoniram Judson Gordon on Malcolm Fenwick and Korean Baptist missions,” 223. See also, Lim, “An Analysis of Educational and Theological Identity: The Relationship of Malcolm C. Fenwick’s Mission with Korean Baptist Church Growth,” 64.
[24] In 1949, the Korea Christian Baptist Convention promoted a partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention, and in 1950, they officially entered into this partnership.
[25] The Donatist controversy raised the question, “What should be done about believers who lapsed?” The Donatists emerged in the early fourth century, around the time of the Roman Emperor Diocletian’s persecution. They argued that sacraments performed by lapsed clergies who had betrayed their faith during persecution, but regained their positions under Constantine, were invalid.
[26] Albert Walter Gammage Jr., an early Southern Baptist missionary in Korea, suggested that ministries should work together not only within their own denomination but also with other denominations.
[27] Some are hesitant to recognize Fenwick as the founder of Korean Baptists because, strictly speaking, only a five-year period (1895–1901) can be considered genuine Baptist history during which the Ella Thing Memorial Mission operated in Korea. Others argue that Fenwick, who arrived to Korea on December 8, 1889—four years after Presbyterian missionary Underwood and Methodist missionary Appenzeller—was indeed the founder of the Korean Baptist Convention. Others also point out that although Fenwick arrived in Korea as an independent missionary, his followers established what is now the Korean Baptist Convention. Most Baptists maintain that Fenwick was a Baptist and the Korean Baptist Church only formally began in 1949, when the name “Baptist” was first used in Korea. My position is that Fenwick arrived in Korea as an independent missionary, but during his first furlough (1893–1895), he converted to Baptist faith and began working as a Baptist missionary. Indeed, Fenwick was ordained in 1894 by Gordon, a Baptist pastor. For a detailed argument with actual reference, see, Heui Yeol Ahn, “The influence of the Niagara Bible Conference and Adoniram Judson Gordon on Malcolm Fenwick and Korean Baptist missions” (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002), 97–105.
[28] For the origins and development of the Korea Baptist Convention, see, Yoonbae Lim, “An Analysis of Educational and Theological Identity: The Relationship of Malcolm C. Fenwick’s Mission with Korean Baptist Church Growth” (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2021), 36–42.
[29] Seung Jin Kim, “A History of Southern Baptist Mission Work in Korea: Its Impact on Korean Baptist Church Growth” (Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1995), 84–85.
[30] Seung Jin Kim, “A History of Southern Baptist Mission Work in Korea,” 84–85.
[31] Wan Kim has interestingly argued that indigenous Baptist theological education did not take place until 1977. This is because the first three presidents of the seminary were all Westerners, specifically Southern Baptists—John Abernathy (president from 1953–1957), Theodore Dowell (president from 1957–1965), and Albert Gamage Jr. (president from 1965–1977). The appointment of Jin Whang Jung marked the first indigenous Korean president for Korea Baptist Theological Seminary. See, Wan Kim, “The Influences of Baptist Distinctive Theologies on the Mission History of the Korea Baptist Convention.” (Th.M. thesis, Torch Trinity Graduate University, 2015), 102–104.