Eschatology and Ecology: Experiences of the Korean Church.

Park, Joon-Sik

Eschatology and Ecology: Experiences of the Korean Church. By Paul Hang-Sik Cho. Oxford: Regnum Books, 2010. Pp. xii, 260. 26.99 [pounds sterling].

In Eschatology and Ecology, Paul Hang-Sik Cho of St. Andrew's Theological Seminary in Manila, Philippines, grapples with Korean Protestant Christianity's predominant indifference to ecological concerns. An insightful study, it is the publication of the author's doctoral thesis, completed in 2004 at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Cho painstakingly explores the link between Korean churches' lack of ecological concerns and their prevalent other-worldly eschatology, which is deeply rooted in dispensational premillennialism, originally introduced by American missionaries. In part 1 he depicts in detail the ecological state of Korea, identifying and analyzing its destructive causes in relation to the country's rapid economic development. Providing a brief historical background to traditional Korean religions, part 2 focuses on examining the religious, sociopolitical, and economic soil of premodern Korea, which was conducive to the acceptance of the dispensational premillennialist eschatology. Part 3 investigates the historical and theological backdrop of dispensational premillennialism, critically probing the impact of its pessimistic and escapist eschatology upon ecological issues. Cho convincingly argues that this particular brand of millennialism has espoused an eschatology that severely undermines Christians' sense of environmental responsibility, for it embraces a dualistic worldview and simply awaits a divinely ordained cataclysm.

Eschatology and Ecology is an important work that rightly calls attention to the significance of the eschatological dimension in shaping ecological attitudes in Korean Christianity. However, it does not fully reflect on the complexity of Korean churches' social involvement, which, at some critical junctures in the history of the nation, defied the typical other-worldly, escapist social ethics of dispensational premillennialism. These churches were a vanguard in the independence movement against Japanese colonization, a prophetic advocate for democracy under the suppressive government, and the soil for the emergence of minjung theology during industrial modernization. Although dispensational premillennialism undeniably shaped its dominant eschatology, Korean Protestantism has manifested a complex and dynamic pattern of social engagement.

Joon-Sik Park is the E. Stanley Jones Professor of World Evangelism at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, Ohio.