Great Pyongyang Revival

Background

In the early twentieth century, the Korean Peninsula faced a crisis as it steadily lost its sovereignty in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War (1904) and the Eulsa Treaty (1905). Among missionaries, too, there was considerable disappointment that the results of mission work had fallen short of expectations. In this setting, in August 1903, Robert A. Hardie, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, led a Bible study conference (sagyeonghoe) in Wonsan. Such a conference was a gathering devoted to intensive Bible study over several days. On that occasion Hardie publicly confessed his pride and failings before the Korean believers. This event gave rise to the Wonsan Revival, which was characterized by public confession (the open acknowledgment of sins before others) and the renewal of moral conduct. Hardie subsequently led meetings in Songdo, Seoul, Chemulpo, Pyongyang, and elsewhere. After the General Council of Protestant Evangelical Missions in Korea, a cooperative body of missionaries, was organized in September 1905, it reportedly resolved to expand the revival movement in an organized manner.

Course of Events

From January 2 to 15, 1907, the winter provincial Bible study conference for men of South Pyongan Province was held at Jangdaehyeon Church in Pyongyang. The speakers included the missionaries Graham Lee (Korean name Yi Gil-ham), William L. Swallen, Charles F. Bernheisel, William B. Hunt, and William N. Blair, as well as Kil Sun-joo, an elder of Jangdaehyeon Church. More than a thousand believers attended.

The climax of the revival is generally identified with the meetings of January 14 and 15, near the close of the conference. Kil Sun-joo confessed before the congregation that, after a friend had asked him before his death to settle his estate, he had embezzled part of it. Missionaries and believers then confessed their own sins one after another, and unison audible prayer, in which everyone prays aloud together, reportedly continued late into the night. The sources, however, differ slightly as to the date of his confession. Some accounts also record that at these meetings the missionaries repented of their pride and prejudice, and the Korean believers of their resentment toward the missionaries.

The revival subsequently spread beyond Pyongyang to Seoul, Mokpo, and other places. Public repentance broke out wherever Bible study conferences were held, and this movement reportedly continued until around April 1907.

Results and Influence

• Church growth: The number of converts and of those receiving baptism increased greatly. The fervor of the revival carried over into the Million Souls Movement of 1909, an evangelistic campaign aimed at saving one million souls.
• Changes in daily life: Many believers abandoned practices such as concubinage, slaveholding, drinking, smoking, and opium use. The custom of seating people separately in the sanctuary according to sex and social status also reportedly changed gradually.
• Prayer culture: The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture holds that forms of piety distinctive to the Korean church, such as the early morning prayer meeting and unison audible prayer, emerged in the course of the revival movement that extended from Wonsan to Pyongyang. The early morning prayer meeting at Jangdaehyeon Church is said to have been started by Kil Sun-joo shortly before the Great Revival.
• Korean leadership: In the same year, Kil Sun-joo graduated from the Presbyterian Theological Seminary and became one of the first seven Koreans to be ordained as Presbyterian ministers.
• Interdenominational cooperation: Some regard the revival as the occasion that prompted Presbyterian and Methodist missionaries and believers to cooperate across denominational lines in education, medicine, evangelism, and Bible translation.

Assessment

Within the Korean church, the Great Revival is often called "the Korean Pentecost." It is regarded as the event through which Protestantism, once a foreign religion, took root as the faith of Koreans. Although accounts usually center on the Bible study conference at Jangdaehyeon Church, the Korean Methodist Church regards Hardie's 1903 Wonsan Revival as the starting point of the Great Pyongyang Revival. In 2023 the Korean Methodist Church held events commemorating the 120th anniversary of the Hardie spiritual awakening.

Interpretations of the social character of the revival movement diverge. Some scholars critically argue that the movement, which arose as the nation was losing its sovereignty, turned believers' attention away from national and social issues toward a private, inward faith. Others hold that the revival led to social changes such as the improvement of women's status, the breaking down of class discrimination, and the spread of enthusiasm for education. In 2007, the centennial year, commemorative movements calling for the repentance and renewal of the Korean church were held in many places under slogans such as "Again 1907."