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Book Reviews / Pneuma 33 (2011) 109-169
Meesaeng Lee Choi, Te Rise of the Korean Holiness Church in Relation to the American Holi- ness Movement: Wesley’s “Scriptural Holiness” and the “Fourfold Gospel” (Lanham, MD: Scare- crow, 2008), viii + 164 pp.
Te rather lengthy title aptly describes the content of this dissertation-turned-paperback. In deference to Dayton’s seminal work, Teological Roots of Pentecostalism (1987), the author traces the “fourfold gospel” from its American inception in A.B. Simpson to one of its international expressions in the Korean Holiness Church (KHC). In doing so, Choi offers a thick description of how this message was transposed from Simpson to the American Holiness movement, particularly as manifested in Martin Wells Knapp, then to Charles Cowman, the Tokyo Bible Institute and the Oriental Missionary Society (OMS), and finally to KHC. Te novelty of this work lays not so much in Choi’s primary objective to recover the identity of KHC (which she does not discuss in great detail anyway) but in her synthesis of how Simpson’s model lay the theological foundations of KHC, which, we are informed, constitutes about 25 percent of Korean Christians. While the subject is limited to the author’s tradition, its applicability lies well beyond those parameters. I make three observations toward that end.
First, one cannot help but be impressed with the volume of research that went into this work. Indeed, the notes at the end of each chapter comprise about a third of the total, excluding the 40 pages of bibliography and index. While many of the notations should have been shortened to save space (we do not need full bibliographical information given for the same works in multiple places), some of the entries do augment her thesis with greater detail. If nothing else, they demonstrate that Choi has “done her homework.” What I like about the structure of the book is how Choi carries forward the “fourfold” theme from Simpson and the Christian and Missionary Alliance (Chapter 2) to Knapp in Cincin- nati and the Radical Holiness Movement (Chapter 3) to Cowman, Ernest Kilbourne, Juji Nakada and OMS (Chapter 4), and finally to the KHC through Bin Chung and Sang-Jun Kim, former students of Nakada at the Tokyo Bible Institute (Chapter 5). She is attentive to the nuances of the fourfold gospel as represented by each character in her story, utilizing a biographical methodology to illuminate their individual theological perspectives in their respective contexts.
Second, the gist of Choi’s thesis is to recapture the roots of the KHC within Simpson’s theological framework and place that alongside her church’s emphasis on “Scriptural holi- ness.” Choi claims that by emphasizing the Wesleyan trajectory since its formation, the projection of KHC has obscured its historical origins in the American holiness movement and consequently has created within KHC an ambiguous theological identity, one that seems in danger of losing its fourfold balance. Choi notes that the content of the fourfold gospel was reinterpreted at each stage as outlined above; nonetheless, she ably documents the continuity of this fourfold theme as it transferred from person to person. I appreciated the attention she gave to theological development by keeping her focus on the fourfold theme throughout and the biographical means by which she ties that theme to each indi- vidual’s personal growth and understanding of the gospel. For example, while Knapp appropriated the fourfold gospel into his radical evangelical mentality, he did so without compromising the holiness convictions that made his ministry so attractive to like-minded
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157007411X554893
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 33 (2011) 109-169
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religionists. In other words, the message was re-packaged for holiness tastes while the four- fold structure remained intact.
Tird, Melvin Dieter in the Foreword is right to note that “the author’s focus on the four-fold theme opens up for us rich possibilities for parallel historical, theological and cultural cross studies” (vii). In this regard, Choi’s work provides a template for tracing the fourfold gospel’s influence into other religious contexts far from the shores of its American inception. For pentecostals, one can see how these themes in the holiness movement pre- pared fallow ground for revivals which would come later. Te KHC formed during and benefited from the revival taking place in Pyongyang and elsewhere in Korea in 1907. It suggests that cross-pollination does take place between like-religious movements, even where the content suffers alteration in process. Tis has rich implications for how such movements develop and interact with other movements both in local and global contexts, recommending itself to the libraries of students of the histories of both the holiness and pentecostal movements as internationally envisaged.
Aside from the occasional grammatical mistake, one of the more glaring omissions is the absence of any “Acknowledgements” page despite one being listed in the “Table of Con- tents.” I was also disappointed that there was so little evaluation in the rather abrupt “Con- cluding Remarks” (only 2 pages). Why is it important to recover the fourfold gospel for the future of KHC? What are the implications of this study for other denominations in Korea? How did other denominations respond to the holiness message? What does KHC have to say about the international holiness movement? Furthermore, it is also not clear in the volume whether KHC refers to a movement or to a particular denomination. Te text sug- gests a single organization while an early chapter endnote (p. 6n2) states that the author has in mind several denominations which fall under the rubric of “KHC.” Tis distinction should have been made more explicit in the text. Despite the brevity of the work, I recom- mend this for anyone with interest in pentecostal and/or holiness history, even if they are not concerned with the nation of Korea herself.
Reviewed by Gerald W. King
Independent Scholar, Grand Forks, North Dakota [email protected]
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