Karl Gützlaff

Life

Gützlaff was born in 1803 in Pomerania, Prussia. He received his missionary training under the influence of German Pietism, a Protestant movement that emphasized personal religious experience and godly living over doctrine. He was later sent out by a Dutch mission society and worked among the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia. Fluent in Chinese, he served during the 1830s as an interpreter and physician aboard Western ships sailing along the Chinese coast, distributing evangelistic literature as he went. He later worked as a Chinese interpreter for the British authorities in Hong Kong, where he died in 1851.

Ministry and Accomplishments

In 1832 Gützlaff boarded the Lord Amherst, a merchant ship of the British East India Company, as interpreter and physician. The ship reached the west coast of Korea and reportedly remained for nearly a month near Godae Island, off Hongju in Chungcheong Province (present-day Boryeong, South Chungcheong Province). The party requested trade with the Joseon court but was refused. During this time Gützlaff distributed Chinese-language Bibles and evangelistic tracts. He is also said to have given medicine to the local people and taught them how to plant potatoes. Records further indicate that he wrote out the Lord's Prayer in Chinese characters and, with the help of a Korean, rendered it into Hangul. An account of the voyage appeared in his published journal of voyages along the coast of China, which introduced these events to Western readers.

In China he devoted himself to Bible translation and literature evangelism. He also founded an organization intended to train Chinese evangelists and send them into the interior. He made the need for missions in China widely known in Europe, which helped spur the formation of several mission societies. Hudson Taylor is also known to have been influenced by him.

Influence on the Korean Church

Gützlaff's visit preceded that of Robert Thomas in 1866 by more than thirty years. For this reason the Korean church remembers him as the first Protestant missionary to visit Korea, and accounts of the history of Korean Protestantism frequently begin with him. The fact that he gave the Bible and the Lord's Prayer to Koreans is regarded as significant both as the starting point of Protestant missions to Korea and as a very early trace of Korean Bible translation. A memorial and a church commemorating his visit are reported to have been established on Godae Island.

Assessment

Positive assessment: Gützlaff is regarded as a pioneering missionary who made early efforts in Chinese-language literature evangelism and the training of indigenous evangelists.

Criticism: He has also been criticized on the following grounds:

• Some of the ships on which he served as interpreter were connected with the opium trade.
• He worked as an interpreter for the British during the Opium War, and he is cited as an example of the relationship between colonialism and missions.
• In the Chinese evangelistic organization he founded, the reported numbers of converts and accounts of its activities were found to have been inflated, causing a major controversy.

Views on the title "missionary": Because his visit to Korea was brief and he was traveling aboard a ship whose purpose was trade, opinions differ as to whether it is appropriate to call him a "missionary to Korea."