An Exploration of Postcolonial Disciple and Practice of Evangelism: Participatory Action Research of the Auraji(Confluence) of Healing and Transformation

2022·26.3 MB·Korean

by  Sun Young Hwang

AN EXPLORATION OF POSTCOLONIAL DISCIPLE AND PRACTICE OF EVANGELISM:
PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH OF THE AURAJI(CONFLUENCE)
OF HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION
전도의 후기식민주의 제자양육과 실천에 대한 탐구:
치유와 변화의 아우라지(합류)에 대한 참여 실행연구

A Practical Research Project
presented to
the Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology

In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for the Degree
Doctor of Ministry

by
Sun Young Hwang
May 2022
Copyright © 2022 by Sun Young Hwang
This Practical Research Project completed by

Sun Young Hwang

has been presented to and accepted by the
faculty of Claremont School of Theology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements of the

Doctor of Ministry

Faculty Committee
Namjoong Kim, Chairperson
Hyun Sun Oh

Dean of the Faculty
Andrew Dreitcer

May 2022
ABSTRACT

AN EXPLORATION OF POSTCOLONIAL DISCIPLE AND PRACTICE OF EVANGELISM:
PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH ON THE AURAJI(CONFLUENCE)
OF HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION

by
Sun Young Hwang

This project started with my own experiences of failed attempts of evangelism. This
study suggests what I call Auraji evangelism with a postcolonial attitude as an alternative to
traditional evangelism. Auraji evangelism, was discovered through the experiences in my local
church ministry and my literature research on Korean Church’s evangelism. It overcomes
traditional evangelism based on colonialist attitudes and false universalism. I have conducted
experimental evangelism based on postcolonial understanding with research participants and
further continued the practice to overcome false universalism discovered in the process. In this
process, I have summarized the experiences of the researcher and the participants. A qualitative
research method was utilized, in which the researcher and the participants executed the
alternative together, and the changes experienced before and after the practices were analyzed. In
order to increase the reliability of the research, I measured changes based on the results of the
participants’ in-depth interview, the checklists, and the researcher’s field records. As a result,
changes in participants whether they were church members or townspeople as well as in the
researcher were observed. It is my sincere hope that this study will help shift the Korean
Church’s evangelism paradigm and have positive influences on its evangelism.
KEYWORDS: Postcolonialism, False Universalism, Auraji Evangelism, Qualitative Research,
Action Research
국문 초록
전도의 후기식민주의 제자양육과 실천에 대한 탐구:
치유와 변화의 아우라지(합류)에 대한 참여 실행연구

by
Sun Young Hwang

이 프로젝트는 나의 목회현장에서 전도를 해도 전도되지 않는 경험에서 시작했다.
이러한 경험을 토대로 이 연구는 후기식민주의 태도의 아우라지 전도를 대안으로 제시하며
실행했다. 아우라지 전도는 나의 목회현장과 한국교회의 전도를 문헌연구하여 발견한
식민주의 태도의 전도와 허위보편주의를 극복하는 대안이다. 그리하여 식민주의 태도를
극복하기 위해 연구참여자들과 함께 후기식민주의 태도로 전도하는 것을 실행하고, 실행 중
발견한 허위보편주의를 극복하기 위한 실행으로 이어갔다. 그리고 이 과정에서 연구자와
연구참여자가 경험한 것을 정리했다. 연구를 위해 질적연구에서도 실행연구 방법으로
연구했다. 이는 연구자와 연구참여자가 대안을 함께 실행하고, 실행 전과 후의 변화를 통해
무엇을 경험했는지 연구하는 것이다. 그리고 연구참여자의 심층면담과 체크리스트 그리고
연구자의 현장기록을 삼각측정하여 연구결과의 신뢰도를 높였다. 연구결과, 교인
연구참여자의 변화와 마을주민 연구참여자의 변화, 그리고 연구자의 변화를 발견하였다. 이
연구가 전도의 패러다임을 바꾸며, 한국교회 전도에 좋은 영향을 끼치기를 바란다.
키워드: 후기식민주의, 허위보편주의, 아우라지 전도, 질적 연구, 실행연구
SUMMARY

I serve as the Senior Pastor of Y church, and my ministerial focus has been evangelism. I
have experienced failures in evangelism and found internal conflicts in B village where Y church
is located. B village is a small town in Jeongseon, Gangwon-do. The village residents have long
lived in this town together and experienced conflicts both large and small. As a result, they have
formed small groups with like-minded people, and the conflicts between the groups deepened.
The people of Y church were also part of a cluster, and this explained the difficulties of
evangelism — especially the reluctance of people belonging to other groups to join Y church.
While recognizing these issues, I learned about postcolonialism and false universalism
while completing the Doctor of Ministry program in practical theology at the Claremont School
of Theology. Postcolonialism is a theory that criticized the unilateral, declarative, and coercive
oppression of colonialism. In addition, false universalism pointed out that the universality argued
based on universalism does not include all. I considered evangelism with the insights provided
by these two theories and discovered that traditional evangelism contained colonialist
perspectives and false universalism. In response, I suggested an Auraji evangelist course with a
post-colonial attitude as an alternative. Auraji, another name of the town, Jeongseon, Gangwon-
do is a Korean term that refers to a place where two streams of water converge making them into
one stream. The traditional way of evangelism was similar to a dominant stream’s merger of a
small stream, however, Auraji evangelism suggests two streams of water meeting together on an
equal footing and creating harmony based on postcolonial attitudes.
I first conducted a literature review on postcolonialism, false universalism, and
evangelism and then studied and summarized missiology and evangelism from postcolonial
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perspectives. I also studied false universalism and suggested various academic approaches to
overcome it. Finally, I reflected upon the evangelism of Y church and the Korean Church in
general and offered criticisms on their colonialist attitudes and false universalism in their
evangelism. Based on the foregoing literature review, I attempted to prepare a training course for
Auraji evangelists.
This was conducted as a qualitative study. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative
research involves the researcher directly intervening in the research and offering subjective
experiences by delving deeper into the research topic and purpose. While quantitative research
finds universally valid objective principles in a wide area, qualitative research attempts to
discover deep and subjective experiences in a small but specific area. With this reasoning, I
assumed the qualitative research method to be more appropriate for this study. In addition, I used
the action study method among the qualitative research methods. In action research, a qualitative
research method, the researcher thinks of alternatives and executes them with research
participants with specific changes in mind. I recruited Y church members along with the B
village residents as research participants and conducted research once a week for three weeks. In
an information session, I shared alternatives with them, and the group practiced them in the
coming week. Their practices were recorded through in-depth interviews, field records, and
checklists. I analyzed the data and applied insights found in the process to the next research,
which was repeated three times. To increase the reliability of the research, I used a triangulation
method with the three types of data collected.
An information session was held on November 10th, 17th, and 24th, 2021, and we
executed the practices every week. In the first session, I shared with the participants about
postcolonial attitudes found in traditional ways of evangelism, and we decided action steps to
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practice in the coming week. The data collected after the first week of practice indicated the Y
church members’ postcolonial attitudes, false universalism, and the pressure of evangelism they
bore as well as a sense of resistance that the village residents felt about evangelism. We,
attempting to apply these insights to the second week of practice, discussed how we could
overcome false universalism and thought of action steps accordingly. The data collected from the
second week of practice showed that the Y church members were feeling difficulty in restoring
broken relationships, which was confirmed by the village residents’ testimonies. We had an in-
depth discussion on false universalism in the third information session and postcolonial attitudes
to go beyond it. The final data collected found the Y church member participants’ lack of
proficiency in the Auraji evangelism method, and further confirmed their continued difficulty in
repairing relationships with others. On the other hand, the data also showed the village residents’
expectations on the rise for Auraji evangelism. The checklist, which contains quantitative data,
was analyzed after all studies were completed due to time constraints. As a result, it was evident
that residents had no interactions with those on bad terms with them, and the same was true with
the groups. In synthesizing all data, I presented a chart that showed the circumstances of B
village and the process of Auraji evangelism likened to flows of water.
Three major changes were observed through this study. The first was pertinent to the
change of church member research participants. They discovered colonialist attitudes in their
evangelism through the information sessions and changed into the ones with postcolonial
attitudes. As a result, they began to see evangelism as less burdensome than before. Although
they were not able to completely overcome false universalism, they recognized the aspects in
them and started pondering about how to fight it. Second, the village residents also experienced
changes. They grew less resistant to evangelism and even started having expectations for Y
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church implementing Auraji evangelism. Third was the change that happened to me. I had
pressured the Y church members about evangelism, and this research gave me the chance to
reflect and renew my determination to participate in evangelism with them with postcolonial
attitudes. Moreover, my previous preaching on evangelism that had been centered around the
urge to bring unbelieving village residents to church shifted to a call for unity and restoration that
will help build a loving and unified village where there is no distinction between believers and
unbelievers. I did not recognize false universalism in my ministry before, but now I have decided
on the future direction of my ministry to overcome the false universalism discovered through this
research. In the conclusion section of this study, I summarized the research contents and
expressed my gratitude to various people, followed by some suggestions for the future.

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국문요약

나는 Y교회의 담임목사이며 전도에 초점을 맞춰 목회를 했다. 그러나 전도가 잘 되지 않는
어려움을 경험했고, Y교회가 위치한 B마을의 갈등을 발견했다. B마을은 강원도 정선에 위치한
작은 마을이다. 이 마을의 주민들은 오랜 시간을 함께 지냈고, 그 시간 동안 크고 작은 갈등들을
겪었다. 그로 인해 B마을은 마음이 맞는 사람들끼리 분열하여 작은 모임들을 이루었고, 모임 간의
갈등의 골은 깊어져 있었다. Y교회 교인들도 B마을의 분열된 모임 중 하나였고, 다른 모임에 속한
사람들은 이러한 문제로 인해 전도가 되지 않았던 것이다.
이러한 문제를 인식하던 중, 클레어몬트 신학대학원 실천신학 목회학 박사과정을 이수하며
후기식민주의(Postcolonialism)와 허위보편주의(False Universalism)에 대해 배웠다. 후기식민주의는
식민주의의 일방적이고 선언적이며 강제적인 억압을 비판하며 나온 이론이다. 또 허위보편주의는
보편주의가 가진 보편성이 모두를 포함하지 않다는 지적이다. 이 두 이론을 토대로 전도를
바라보았고, 지금까지의 전도가 식민주의 태도와 허위보편주의를 담고 있음을 발견했다. 이에 대해
나는 후기식민주의 태도의 아우라지 전도자 양성과정을 대안으로 제시했다. 아우라지는 두 물줄기가
어우러져 새로운 하나의 물줄기가 된다는 순 우리말인 강원도 정선의 지명이다. 지금까지의 전도가
식민주의 태도와 같이 작은 물줄기를 큰 물줄기로 끌어들여 흡수되는 합류와 같았다면, 새로운
대안으로 후기식민주의 태도와 같이 두 물줄기가 동등하게 만나 어우러지는 아우라지와 같은 전도를
제안한다.
이 대안을 제안하고 실행하기 위해 먼저 후기식민주의와 허위보편주의 그리고 전도에 대한
문헌연구를 했다. 먼저 후기식민주의에 대한 이해를 도우며, 후기식민주의의 관점으로 본 선교와
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