"Minister of the Gospel and Doctor of Medicine": Dr. Robert Grierson Physician Missionary to Korea 1898-1913
https://archives.anglican.ca/link/article37459
- Author
- MacDonald, Laura
- Material Type
- Journal Article
- Journal
- Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society
- Date
- 2001 Fall
- Author
- MacDonald, Laura
- Material Type
- Journal Article
- Date
- 2001 Fall
- Volume
- 43
- Issue
- 2
- Page
- [171]-190
- Notes
- "This case study of the medical and missionary career of Robert Grierson (1868-1965) with the Canadian Presbyterian mission to Northern Korea from 1898-1913 examines the practical context and implications of changing mission ideology in the early twentieth century for medically trained missionaries. Historians such as William Hutchison and Robert Wright have argued that, in the early twentieth century, Protestant mission theology began to replace an earlier strictly evangelistic model of missions, which had subordinated all missionary tasks to the salvation of souls, with a more socially oriented approach to mission which provided for temporal as well as spiritual needs. In examining Grierson's early career, this paper explores the tensions experienced by medical missionaries under the transition from an evangelistic to a social gospel mission model" (p. [171]). "When the Canadian Presbyterian mission to Korea began in 1898, physicians were hired with the expectation that neither evangelism nor medical work would be done to the exclusion of the other. Bill Scott, a member of the Canadian Presbyterian mission who arrived in Korea in 1914, wrote a history of the Canadian mission in 1975, describing how at the beginning of the mission, 'medical work was evaluated largely on the extent to which it contributed to the winning of converts'" (p. 181). "When Grierson decided to devote himself fully to his medical practice [in 1912] he believed that his medical work was an extension of the gospel message of love and compassion. This was affirmed by his observation that his Korean patients needed and sought a reliable medical service at the mission station. The rising social gospel movement in North America prompted many missionaries similar to Grierson to observe social inequalities in their mission fields and look beyond their goal of conversion and carefully examine their tole in improving the moral fabric of non-Christian societies" (p. 188).
- Subjects
- Grierson, Robert, 1868-1965
- Missionaries, Medical - Presbyterian Church in Canada
- Missions - Korea
- Presbyterian Church in Canada - Missions - Korea
- Location
- General Synod Archives