Wonsan Revival

Background

The Wonsan Revival was a movement of repentance and spiritual awakening that began in 1903 in Wonsan (in present-day Kangwon Province, North Korea). It is widely regarded as the starting point of the revival movements of the early Korean church. Its central figure, Robert Alexander Hardie (1865–1949; Korean name Ha Ri-yeong), was a medical missionary and a graduate of the medical school of the University of Toronto. He arrived in Korea in 1890 as an independent missionary supported by the YMCA, worked first in Busan, and then moved to Wonsan. In 1898 he transferred to the mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was ordained to the ministry.

Hardie had founded churches in the Wonsan area, but he had grown discouraged because they bore little fruit. He exercised strict oversight of church members, disciplining baptized members and catechumens who did not keep the Lord's Day and excommunicating members who had embezzled funds. His 1902 report to the annual meeting of the Southern Methodist mission is said to have been filled with disappointment in the Korean believers.

Course of Events

• Summer 1903: Mary Culler White, a Southern Methodist missionary serving in China, and Louise H. McCully, a Canadian Presbyterian missionary, began praying together for revival among the missionaries.
• August 24–30, 1903: The two women organized a week of united Bible study and prayer meetings with Hardie as the main speaker. While preparing his lectures on prayer, Hardie realized that he himself lacked the very faith the biblical text described. He publicly confessed his pride, stubbornness, and lack of faith before the Korean members of the Wonsan church.
• Spread of confession: Following the missionary's confession, Korean believers also began to confess their sins. Members who had harbored hatred toward one another were reconciled, and those who had stolen or embezzled made restitution. The repentance of Yun Seong-geun (also called Yun Seung-geun), an evangelist of the Saesulmak Church in Gimhwa, is said to have made a deep impression on Hardie.
• October 1903: The evangelist F. Franson held meetings in Wonsan and reportedly taught Hardie how to lead public revival meetings.
• Late 1903–1904: Hardie led meetings in Songdo (Kaesong), Seoul, Chemulpo, Pyongyang, and elsewhere, continuing to share his testimony and to preach.

Results and Influence

• Hardie's 1904 mission report is said to have been filled with joy over the inward transformation brought about by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
• In September 1905, four Presbyterian missions and two Methodist missions organized the General Council of Protestant Evangelical Missions in Korea. This body resolved to promote the revival movement in an organized manner, and this decision is credited with spreading the movement nationwide.
• The prevailing view is that this movement led to the 1907 Pyongyang Great Revival and subsequently developed into the Million Souls Movement.

Assessment

• Methodist: The Korean Methodist Church regards the Wonsan Revival as the starting point of the Pyongyang Great Revival. In 2023 it held an academic conference and a commemorative revival assembly marking the 120th anniversary of the "Hardie Spiritual Awakening."
• Presbyterian: Presbyterian theologians and denominational media likewise treat the Wonsan Revival as the origin of the Pyongyang Great Revival. They frequently emphasize that it began with prayer offered jointly by Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries, and Hardie himself recalled it in the same way.
• Scholarly perspectives: Some scholars regard the early revival movement, from Wonsan to Pyongyang, as a spiritual awakening comparable to the Great Awakenings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and America. Its distinctive features are said to include the fact that a missionary was the first to confess his wrongs before Korean believers and that repentance produced concrete changes in daily life, such as reconciliation and restitution.