Table Of ContentA Critical Study of the Social Consciousness in the Sermons Preached in the Korean
Church: A Case Study of the Sermons by the Reverend Dong Ho Kim and the Reverend
Yong Gi Jo
A Professional Project
The Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement for the Degree
Doctor of Ministry
by
Taehyun Kim
April 2014
©2014
KIM
ALL RIGHT RESERVED
This professional project completed by
Taehyun Kim
has been presented to and accepted by the
faculty of Claremont School of Theology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements of the
Doctor of M inistry
Faculty Committee
Stephen Kim, Chairperson
Kathleen J. Greider
Dean of the Faculty
Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook
May 2014
ABSTRACT
An emotion of isolation of Christianity in Korea has been getting bigger and
bigger from its belonged society, since the year of 2000. That’s because of a dichotomous
thinking segregating Church from the World.
Church can be Church only when its duty and responsibility for the concurrent
society, the World, are carried out. The first responsibility is to do “Love” in the World
and accept it. The second one is to induce the World to walk through the right way with
whipping criticisms, as it performs the first one as well. But on account of the
dichotomous thinking referred above, it may well be a deserved consequence that
people’s disappointment at Church leads directly to a public emotion of isolation of
Christianity. In such circumstance, Church encounters a big crisis.
Church is a community of believers that constitutes the same World. Church can
never stand alone, nor perform its great calling, if segregated from the World, which
cannot simply bring about segregation itself, but also a seism to the capstone of Church,
that is a threat to its existence for the future.
I studied two representing preachers of Korean Church for this study to find out
3 deficiencies in their sermons, three of which are deficiencies of theology of Bible,
consciousness of Korean history, and Ecclesiology. And a conclusion could be drawn as
a result that three factors listed above must be sufficiently involved in their sermons to
become a communicating Church with such Public Theological sermons. Theology of
Bible cleanses our ears to hear ‘Public’ given by Scripture itself, consciousness of history
brightens our eyes to see social problems objectively, and Ecclesiology enlightens our
minds to feel how Church should do to blend itself with the World to accomplish its great
calling.
Privatized sermons make Church more privatized (isolated), whereas Public
Theological sermons make Church more public-oriented community. I hope that Church
will pay more attention to society through this study on Public Sermon.
KEYWORDS: Public Theology, Sermon Analysis, Privatization of faith, Publicity of the Bible
SUMMARY
A Critical Study of the Social Consciousness in the Sermons Preached in the Korean
Church: A Case Study of the Sermons by the Reverend Dong Ho Kim and the Reverend
Yong Gi Jo
The advent of the 21st century saw the status of churches in the Korean society
greatly fallen, which is well revealed in a series of ever-deluging media critics in relation
to Christianity and a number of online replies by anti-Christians, thereby indicating how
serious the antipathy to the religion is. Why does Christianity face such a huge crisis and
conflict in the Korean society? A variety of reasons include: a lack of ethics of pastors
and devotees, insufficient social participation, hereditary church authority, and church
growth ideology. One of the urgent issues of the Korean church is that churches fails to
hold responsibility for society but are a lack of social consciousness in understanding the
identity itself. For instance, the prayers for personal fortune and church revival occupy
most of the sermons preached on Sundays nationwide while there are few prayers of
happiness and prosperity of society and nation, and further the global human beings.
Ironically, the overseas missionary work which became an epidemic in each church in
and around 1980s had not sought social consciousness for those unfaithful but rather
focused to raise the status of Korean church, which was even deformed into a
competition. In this regard, the social consciousness of Korean church should be
reviewed from a serious perspective. This paper says that what is the most urgent is to
restore social consciousness by sermons. Lots of pastors have been prejudiced to
evangelistic preaching, the scope of which is just limited to personal and home ethics;
now, however, the churches should be changed into: those pastors in Korean church
restore the social consciousness of sermons to regain trust and further to go out into the
world.
The author conducts a case study based on the literatures, which is one of the qualitative
study methods.
The author does not conduct an interview technique but analyzes the documents
based on sermon manuscripts and video footages. The study mainly targets the pastors in
Korean church who are concerned about the conflict with society and seeking how to deal
with it; and gives the opportunity for them to witness how the sermons based on social
consciousness can show the new ethical suggestions and best practices toward the world.
That is to say, the study desires to examine on which theoretical and biblical grounds
such sermons with a sense of social consciousness can be embodied in the actual
pasturing environment, as well as what kinds of limitations they have. Furthermore, the
study helps those Christians who are disappointed with community due to a lack of ethics
in church to understand the social role and responsibility that churches should burden on
shoulders.
Despite the antagonism between different religious sects in the Korean church,
there’s an increasing interest in the public scope of churches and a few seminars and
papers have been held and written by those from the other sects; however, there has been
no study analyzing the sermons from a public theoretical perspective for the purpose of
embodying public theoretical attribute. It is the theoretical sermons in a sense of social
consciousness which is both the first and last step to restore the social consciousness of
church. This study has creative and contributable meanings in the way that it not only
presents where it is and where to go in relation to such socially conscious sermons in the
evangelical environment but also helps to give such sermons in practice.
C I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. *]-§-
Introduction...................................................................................................................................1
A. <3^1
Goal of Research....................................................................................................................1
B. <3^-5} uoVl3
Research Method..................................................................................................................4
1.
Research Method............................................................................................................5
2. < 3 ^ ^
Research Range...............................................................................................................6
3. 7*3.^% ^ 5 1^}
Data Gathering Method and Process.........................................................................6
C.
Thesis Configuration.............................................................................................................7
II. SH^-SW * apf
Korea society of the Korea Church Rejected.........................................................................9
A.
Korea in the Context of Social............................................................................................9
B. ^xfll-
Problems of Exclusion is Loaded.....................................................................................10
1. liH.51 ojej-o
The Difficulty of Evangelism and Missions.............................................................10
2. « 7}mL oH-x>
Reduction and Growth Christian Leavers................................................................11
C. -g-31^
The Problem with the Church Korea..............................................................................11
1. £5}*] 3M1
Ethical Element..............................................................................................................11
2. ^§->9
Publicity Deficiency......................................................................................................13
D. m ^ ^
Public for Public Preaching Church.................................................................................15
I. jE S^
The Public Nature of Public Theology and Church............................................................19
a.
The Development Process of a Public Theology...........................................................19
D. -1---- ----—|U|T —I O O T-i —I
Max Stackhouse of Public Theology...............................................................................20
C. ^ jea^ h^
Richard Niebuhr's Christian Social Ethics and Public Theology..............................21
D.
Publicity of the Bible...........................................................................................................24
1.
Old Testament...............................................................................................................24
2
.
New Testament..............................................................................................................29
E.
Definition of Terms.............................................................................................................31
1. 4l°o^
Privatization of Faith....................................................................................................31
9 ToL Tol AoI
Publicity...........................................................................................................................33
J. -1-0
Communication.............................................................................................................34
IV.
Research Result...........................................................................................................................36
A. Q&2., S-Ajo} 0^0]
The Reverend D.H. Kim & Y.G. Jo Feasibility Study of Preaching..........................36
B. 2012Yi £%■§. S-8-71 ^-Af iJlE At
The Reverend Dong Ho Kim & Yong Gi Jo Sermon Analysis...................................38
1. Q&S. ^ ^JE g q
The Reverend Dong Ho Kim Sermon Analysis......................................................38
a. Q3.QJLI
Sermon I ..................................................................................................................40
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