Kim Kyo-shin

Life

Kim Kyo-shin was born in 1901 in Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province. In 1919 he graduated from Hamhung Public Agricultural School and took part in the March First Movement. He then went to Japan, where he studied natural history (the study of natural objects such as living organisms and minerals) at Tokyo Higher Normal School. In 1920 he was baptized at a Holiness church in Tokyo and became a Christian. He is said to have then studied the Bible for seven years under the Japanese Christian thinker Uchimura Kanzō.

After returning to Korea in 1927, he taught geography and natural history at Yangjeong Higher Common School and other schools. In 1940 he left Yangjeong, where he had taught for about ten years, to devote himself to publishing Seongseo Joseon. In 1942 the magazine was shut down over his lead essay "Jowa" (弔蛙), and he was imprisoned for about a year along with Ham Sok-hon and other members of the magazine's circle. "Jowa" means "mourning the frogs that froze to death." The Japanese police held that a passage in the essay describing frogs that had survived the winter alluded to the resurrection of the Korean nation. The episode is commonly known as the "Seongseo Joseon Incident." After his release, he worked to help Korean laborers at the Hungnam Nitrogen Fertilizer Plant, where he contracted typhus; he died on April 25, 1945.

Ministry and Achievements

• Seongseo Joseon: In July 1927 he and several like-minded associates founded Seongseo Joseon as a coterie magazine (a magazine published jointly by people who share a common purpose). The magazine carried Bible studies and devotional writings, and it remained the center of his work until it was shut down in 1942.
• Non-Church movement: The Non-Church movement (Mukyokai) is a Christian movement championed by Uchimura Kanzō. It places the Bible itself, rather than church institutions, the sacraments, or a clerical hierarchy, at the center of faith. Kim embraced this view and, as a layman, led Bible study meetings outside any church organization.
• Education: He is regarded as a teacher who instilled national consciousness and faith in his students through activities such as mentoring boarding students and leading the "Muresane" group. His students are said to have included Sohn Kee-chung, Ryu Dal-young, Yoon Seok-jung, and Koo Bon-sul. According to a widely told anecdote, during the 1935 marathon trials in Tokyo for the Berlin Olympics, Kim rode in a car just ahead of Sohn Kee-chung, cheering him on.
• Diaries: The diaries he kept in the 1930s have been published and serve as a source on his life and times.

Influence on the Korean Church

Although Kim Kyo-shin belonged to no denomination, he is frequently revisited within Korean Protestantism for keeping the Bible at the center and living out his faith as a layman. His writings in Seongseo Joseon, which addressed questions of faith and nation together, are studied in the history of Korean Protestantism as an example of indigenous Christian thought. In 2010 he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Merit for National Foundation (Geonguk Pojang) in recognition of his contributions to the independence movement. Because his remains lie in North Korea, he could not be buried at a national cemetery; in 2011 a memorial tablet in his honor was enshrined at Daejeon National Cemetery.

Assessment

Kim is highly regarded as a man who remained true to his conscience as a believer under Japanese colonial rule and devoted himself to education and the cultivation of national spirit. Established churches, however, reportedly kept their distance from him or criticized him on the grounds that the Non-Church movement he followed made light of church institutions and the sacraments. Supporters of the Non-Church movement describe it as an effort to put the Bible and the essence of faith ahead of institutions.