The Korean Ecumenical Movement and Minjung Churches with Focus on the Guro Industrial Area in the 1980s

Abstract

This paper presents historical research into the minjung church of the 1980s, a church that took over the mission for laborers as a substitute for the Center for Urban Industrial Mission (UIM) in the 1970s. Minjung churches reflected on the problems of the established churches and attempted to respond to the severe social context. Especially, the minjung churches in the Guro area sought out a resistant labor movement and tried to be a church for helping the oppressed minjung to be the subject. This study reveals the emergence of the minjung church with the interaction between transformative pastors, who undertook Missio Dei through praxis with minjung, and some activists of the labor movement who needed a church as a protective space from the oppression of the government. Minjung church provided the democratic labor movement with a basis for cultivating the organizational capacity. This study utilizes some primary materials, interviews of minjung pastors and oral witnesses of the members of minjung churches, which previous researches did not use. This study can provide basic references for illuminating the social status and theological meaning of minjung church and for seeking out a new way of mission.