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Christianity Today, November 16, 1998 |

Bankrupting the Prosperity Gospel

Bong Rin Ro | posted 11/16/1998 12:00AM

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In my early years, I lived in North Korea. My father died during the Korean War of complications from malnutrition. Before he died, he wrote in his Bible this simple request: "Please return to North Korea some day and establish a church." It has been the goal of my life to go back to North Korea someday and fulfill my father's request.

My story, I believe, represents where the Asian church is today. We are passing through a dark tunnel, but we have not forgotten our heavenly Father's request to build his church. God has chosen the Asian church to proclaim his message of salvation to the nations. Ours is a young church compared to the West's. But it is a strong church, one that I believe will rise to the challenge before it—that of using the current crisis as an opportunity for cleansing and renewal so that it may give itself more diligently than ever before to the task of world evangelization.

Bong Rin Ro was interviewed by Ruth Senter, a freelance journalist and a former editor of CAMPUS LIFE magazine, who lives part-time in Seoul, South Korea.

Bong Rin Ro, 63, is academic dean and professor of church history and missions at the Torch Trinity Graduate School of Theology, Seoul, South Korea. E-mail: ttmklee@unitel.co.kr

In Asia Today

~ Asian evangelicals surpassed the number in North America in about 1987 and in the entire Western world (North America, Europe, and Australia) in 1991.

~ Buddhism and East Asian religions are the majority in Bhutan, Cambodia, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Islam is the majority religion in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, and Pakistan. Christianity is the majority religion only in the Philippines but is rapidly growing in South Korea, Indonesia, China and Singapore.

~ In 1949 there were 3 million Catholics and 1.5 million Protestants in China. Today reasonable estimates list 12 million Catholics and 63 million Protestants in the country.

~ In 1980, there were no known Christian believers in Afghanistan and Mongolia. Today these countries have growing churches.

~ The first largely Muslim country to see many Muslims coming to Christ is Indonesia. Some estimate a fifth of the population could be Christian today, though not all of these are of Muslim background.

~ South Korea has the world's largest Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and Methodist congregations as well as the largest theological seminaries. It is also the largest non-Western missionary-sending nation.

Source: MARC Mission Handbook: 1999-2000; Operation World (1993)

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November 16 1998, Vol. 42, No. 13

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