Page 63 - A Dissertation for Doctor of Philosophy

not surprising, then, when Westerners claims that “all Korean people are Confucianists morally,

Buddhists philosophically, and spirit-worshipers (Shamanists) intuitively.” 143

Like the other religions, Christianity, and specifically Korean preaching, also received

significant influences from Shamanism. 144 Among these influences the Shamanistic worldview

and Shamanistic experientialism are the most salient. As children of nineteen-century revivalism

and evangelicalism, the first missionaries emphasized spiritual experience in their Bible studies,

conference, and prayer meeting. The result was the Great Revival in the 1900s. Worshippers

sought after emotional and spiritual experiences as a result of a type of preaching that stressed

the work of Holy Spirit, power of prayer, experience of divine healing, and speaking in tongue

by ecstatic encounter with Holy Spirit. By the introduction of American Pentecostalism in the

middle of the twentieth century, “the doctrine of Holy Spirit was reinforced in Korea.” 145

Daivd YongGi Cho the senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world largest

Church, is a representative of this type of preaching. When he interpret Matthew 5:3, "Blessed

are the poor in spirit,” he embedded in it the Shamanistic concept of blessing. He asserts as

follows:

Korea, ed. Harold S. Hong, Won Yong Ji, and Chung Choon Kim (Seoul: Christian Literature
Society of Korea, 1966), 149.

142 Moon Oh, “Korean Revival Movement,” 77.

143 Eun Kim, “Preaching of Transfiguration,” 29.

144
For a study on the relationship between Shamanism and Korean Preaching, see Hee
Keun Jin, “Preaching in the Korean Presbyterian Church with Insights from a Shamanistic
Worldview,” D. Miss. Diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1996.

145 Eun Kim, “Preaching of Transfiguration,” 69.