• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.72
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• pp.341-366
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• 2022

In Korean society, church once witnessed the period of its being considered light and salt. After the liberation, Korean church bestowed Jesus Christ's love to underprivileged neighbors in the industrialization process and organized practical participation activities for human rights and democratization. Nonetheless, church was sunken into quantitative growth without having qualitative growth. As church was cited as the epicenter of the spreading COVID-19, the image of selfish church has started receiving attention and there has appeared a criticism for immoral church tendency, which brought low trust about church. These things are resulted from church's failure to undertake its role with responsibility, in society. Such as this, church has lost its identity as the model of the Kingdom of God. In such a situation, church needs to remind itself of the enlightenment of the Ecumenical Movement, in order to recover trust and perform its mission. The Ecumenical Movement means accomplishing unification of the universe through a renewed church. This movement is aimed to create the earth as 'where humans can stay' and to consider the sustainability of mankinds. This purpose of this study is to examine political activities conducted for responsible participation in the church world and to find the way for church roles in this world. This researcher will attempt to investigate educational methods to help Christians in this world take full responsibility given to them, through an educational discussion about Christianity made in this context. This educational attempt means, in other words, political affairs also.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.66
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• pp.179-208
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• 2021

Due to COVID-19, the entire world is facing the unprecedented phenomenon. Amid the threat of the virus, the global community is struggling for life. In such circumstances, churches in Korea have been criticised as selfish groups threatening the community by spreading the virus. With such criticism, they are disregarded by Korean society because their immorality and exclusive attitude towards other religions and cultures were also mentioned in public. There are many reasons for Korean churches to lose trust from people. One of the reasons for that is the quantitative growth of church and expansion of the power of church, which is a direction that has been practised so far as a missionary goal. The zeal for spreading gospel has undermined the trust of church and become a deteriorating factor for mission, which is irony. In such problematic situations, the change of paradigm is required for new mission. The passion for evangelisation should not only focus on the quantitative growth of church; it should change its direction for serving the world in lieu with the plan of God for the activity of redemption on this land. A hint of such mission can be found in ecumenical mission. Ecumenical mission is a new paradigm which was discussed in ecumenical movement led mainly by WCC, and its aim is to participate in activities of redemption of God for life in this world. Christian education has been a tool for the expansion of Christian power in the context of traditional mission. Reflecting on the role of Christian education as such, the change of direction as practical movement for the kingdom of God was tried in ecumenical movement: the beginning of the discussion of Christian education based on ecumenical mission. Due to exclusivity, aggressive mission, and the excessive attention to the system of ecclesiastical authority rather than life, Korean churches, which have lost trust in this society, should recover themselves as the model of the kingdom of God, and the establishment of mission education based on ecumenical mission is required for them to become a community towards life. Furthermore, this is an urgent task for Korean churches to implement such mission education in a church community.