User:Heikdong/sandbox

= Dong Suk-Kee = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dong Suk-Kee, also known as D.D. Bell in America (May 5, 1881 - December 26, 1971 (aged 90)), was a Korean American missionary and Gospel minister.[1] He was one of the very first Koreans to carry on the work of early American missionaries (Henry Appenzeller and Horace Underwood) to help introduce Protestant Christianity to Korea, starting as a Methodist minister, working closely with L. Haskell Chesshir to help establish Christian educational schools, and later founded the first Church of Christ in Korea (1930). Dong was awarded the Presidential Award in 1996 by the Korean government posthumously for his active participation in the March 1st Movement in 1919, a call for independence from Japanese colonialism.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

Early life and education
Dong was born to Dong Ju Hong. He was one of the first Koreans to immigrate to Hawaii in 1903.[12][13][14][23][17] Dong entered the Department of Law at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Methodism. He received a diploma with the degree of B.D. from Garrett School of Divinity in 1913 and returned to Korea as a Methodist pastor. Upon returning to the United States in 1927,[16] Dong continued his education. He studied at Cincinnati Bible College from September to December 1928. He received a B.A. from Cincinnati Bible College[2][3] in June 1929 and M.A. in June 1930. His M.A. thesis was entitled, The Early History of the Restoration Movement in the United States. Its eight chapters traced the work of Stone, Campbell, and their contemporaries.[3][6][7][9][13][15][16]

Conversion
Dong converted to Christianity in 1903 while working on a sugar plantation in Hawaii and was baptized by Waterman via sprinkling late in 1904.[3][9][10][12][14][18][19][20][23] After his baptism, he left Hawaii and traveled to Nebraska, entering the Central School in Omaha. He studied there from 1905 to 1909, taking middle and high school courses to prepare for college. With Waterman's baptism certification, Dong entered the Department of Law at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Methodism and received a diploma with the degree of B.D. from Garrett School of Divinity. He then traveled back to Korea as a Methodist preacher in 1913.[3][4][10]

Evangelism and Founding of the Church of Christ in Korea
Starting in 1913, Dong preached for the Methodist Church in Korea for fourteen years.[5][10][13][14] In 1927 he returned to the United States to further his education.[6][17][18][21][23]

Six months after Dong Suk-Kee's return, in June 1914, he attended the seventh annual conference of the Korean Northern Methodist Church. Dong was ordained as jibsa moksa (provisional pastor) along with An Gyung Lok, entering the full-fledged ministry. After receiving his ordination, he was sent to the Jaemulpo (now Inchon) area. After that, the Naeli Gyohae Church named him its sixth minister, in which role he served from June 1914 to April 1917.[13][14][17][18][23] The church grew through his evangelistic efforts, and he remodeled the church's sanctuary and parsonage. The church also operated the Yanghwa Hagdang, a modern elementary school system whose playground he helped expand.[13] While pastor of the Naeli Church, he also was deeply engaged in Christian education through the operation of the Yanghwa School. In 1917, partly through his work, the school added Yanghwa Yuchiwon or Preschool, one of the first in Korea. At the Methodist conference of April 9, 1916, Dong was promoted to jangno moksa (regular pastor). A year later, in April 1917, at the tenth Methodist conference, Dong resigned from Naeli Church and took up the pastorate at Gyungsung Mapo Samgae Church in Seoul, remaining there until June 1918. While there, Dong also served as a professor at the Hyupsung Seminary.[3][5][6][7][8][11][21][22]

During a Methodist conference on June 11, 1918, Dong was reassigned from the pastorate of the Samgae Church. After that, he became the eighth evangelist of the Namyang Church in the Namyang area of Suwon, south of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province.[14] At the same time, he rode the circuit as an evangelist to churches in Osan and Jaearmni.[3]

On March 1 of the same year, he attended a rally in Pagoda Park and was arrested for participating in a national independence demonstration.[10][12][14][18] After his release from prison, Dong resigned from Namyang Church in 1920 and served at Cheongyang Church in Chungcheongnam-do until 1922.[19][20][23] After submitting his resignation letter to the Methodist Church in 1929, he formed the Korea Christian Mission with religious leaders and colleagues, sold Bibles, and raised more than 2,000 dollars for Korean missionary expenses.

Afterward, he considered it unbiblical to use musical instruments in worship, so he switched to the Church of Christ.[5] Dong was first led to think about instrumental music in worship. He traveled to Nashville, learned more about the New Testament doctrines through the preaching of H.L. Calhoun and C.R. Brewer, and went back to Korea to begin a restoration movement by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Koreans and establishing the church of Christ in Korea.[6][7][8][10][11][13][15][21] Following his return, he worked with some of their missionaries, including Cf. Allen D. Clark.[4]

On November 29, 1930, Dong founded the Church of Christ in Korea[1][6][7][8][14][18][19][20] with the help of Song Nak-So and Cunningham of the Japanese Christian Mission.[4] Upon returning to his native province of Hamkyung Do (now North Korea), Dong consecutively preached the gospel for three weeks and converted 20 people.[14][18][19][23][17] The ten men and ten women (including Dong's wife) thus converted were baptized on November 29, 1930.

On May 22, 1931, Dong and McCaleb baptized 31 people in a nearby village. By 1940, he had helped establish seven churches in northern Korea[2][4] and five in the southern region.[13] He founded the first congregation in Seoul[14][18][19] and was instrumental in the early work in all the southern parts of the nation.[10] Dong was known among American churches as D.D. Bell (Ding Dong Bell).[4][8][11][13][22]

The March 1 Independence Movement
The March 1st Movement of 1919, a protest against the abuses of the Japanese occupying government,[7][8] involved several associates of Dong Suk-Kee. Pak Hi Do, pastor of the Gyeongsong Central Church and YMCA official and later one of the thirty-three signatories of the Korean Declaration of Independence, and Kim Sae Won, a teacher at the Sam-il School in Suwon, were leaders of the movement in the area. Dong Suk-Kee often discussed the independence movement with both of them.[10][12][14][20] On January 20, 1919, the Ichuneup Church in Gyeongi-do had an evening revival meeting at which Dong was the speaker. Pak Hi Do visited him there. After finishing his speech, Dong went with Pak to his room and had the following conversation: ''"It is time. The American President [Woodrow Wilson] has pointed out the right to national self-determination. It is time for us to be independent, also. We need to be careful. We had better not be stupid or careless." Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points had advertised the right of each nation to decide its fate free from outside interference."''

Having lived ten years in America, Dong Suk-Kee could understand American newspapers and had contacts with foreign officials. Because of his connections, he was often tasked with leading the meetings of independence movement supporters. On Saturday, March 1, 1919, at 2:00 in the afternoon, activists declared Korea's independence at the Taehwagwan Restaurant. Dong arrived an hour and a half late because he did not know that the venue had been changed from Tapgol (Pagoda) Park, the original location. By the time he arrived, the thirty-three leaders of the movement had left, but a student from Gyungsin School, Jung Jae Young, read the declaration of independence. After that, the students marched shouting Daehan doklip manse, Long Live Korean Independence. (From the Korean word for Long live, manse, came one of the names of the movement, the Manse Undong.)

At that time, Dong Suk-Kee came through Daehan Gate with the demonstrators. They passed out pamphlets as they marched among the major city gates of Seoul, sharing them with officials at the American and French embassies to seek international help for their movement. It is unknown when the Japanese arrested Dong Suk-Kee, but it is known that the police interrogated him.

During the March 1 Movement, the Jaearmni Church in Gyeongi-do was one of the most damaged by Japanese reprisals. When the church heard on March 15 that their circuit-riding pastor had been arrested, members began meeting by torchlight each night on a hill near the church, joining in the calls for independence.

On April 5, many church members gathered in the Balahn marketplace to listen to lectures by the youth group. The crowds cried out Long Live Korean Independence in front of the nearby Japanese police station. At the time, the chants spread to the marketplace as well. The surprised police officers attempted to control the crowds, beating them with their clubs. One person, Kim Sun Ha, was killed. The police bayoneted her in the belly. She died with the call for independence on her lips.

Ten days later, on April 15 at 2:00 p.m. in Suwon, a Japanese officer named Lieutenant Arita led a platoon of the military police of the 78th Regiment to the Jaearmni Church. They explained that they had come to apologize for hurting the protesters at the Balahn marketplace, especially Kim Sun Ha. "Therefore," they said, "everyone who is a male above fifteen years old should go into the church sanctuary and have everyone gather there. If everybody gathers there, I will apologize to them." The group believed him, so the twenty-one church's male Christians entered the sanctuary; after that, the police nailed the doors shut, soaked the building in gasoline, and set it ablaze. They also fired their weapons into the building as the women begged for their husbands' lives. The Japanese soldiers killed the women as well, burning their bodies afterward. They then burned thirty houses of church members. The soldiers also executed six nearby Gojuri Catholic Church members and burned their bodies.

The missionaries heard about these unspeakable atrocities and reported them to the Western press. For example, the Canadian medical missionary Dr. Frank Schofield visited the Jaearmni area on April 17. He took photographs of everything there, including the bodies strewn everywhere. He transported the corpses by cart to a public cemetery and buried them near its entrance. He then wrote A Report on the Japanese Army Atrocities in Suwon and sent the document to America so the whole world could know about the massacre.

Dong Suk-Kee's whereabouts were unclear for the weeks after March 1, 1919. He was not detained immediately after the marches because he slept one night at the home of Professor B. W. Billings of Yonhi Junior College (now Yonsei University). W. A. Noble, an official of the Northern Methodist Church, met him on March 4, and later that night, the American Bible Society secretary, Mr. Back, also met him. On March 14, however, he was interrogated and detained at the Gyungsung District Court Inspection Office for violating national security laws. Therefore, his movements between March 5 and 13 are now obscure. In any case, he was sentenced to seven months of penal servitude followed by three years on probation. He was also forced to resign from the Jaearmni and Namyang Churches.[10][12][14][20]

During the eight years after his release in November 1919, he served in pastorates of the Methodist Church in both Korea and Manchuria. His appointments included Ichon (1919–1920), the Chungyang Gongju area of Chungchunnam-do (1920–1922), and Yonggotop in Manchuria (1922–1927). In Chungyang, he built the congregation's first building, founded a middle school for girls to improve their condition, began a music program associating the church and the community, and contributed to the Joseon Minlip Daehag Seolip Undong (Movement for the Foundation of Korean People's Schools), a society for promoting the establishment of indigenous Korean universities.[13][14]

During this time, Dong-a Ilbo, a major Korean newspaper, reported that Dong Suk-Kee and his church actively participated in the March 1 Movement, leading to constant surveillance by the Japanese police. The newspaper reported that on September 16, 1921, the Hong Song police arrested Dong Suk-Kee and detained him briefly. The harassment prompted him to leave Korea and travel to Manchuria as a missionary.[20]

During his five years in Manchuria, Dong Suk-Kee represented the Northern Methodists and played a prominent role in working out a comity arrangement with the Presbyterians. He also established the Yongdong School inside the Yonggotop Church, serving Korean immigrants in Manchuria who would not otherwise have received a good education. He wanted to give students a good sense of Korean identity and self-discipline to equip them for self-reliance.[12][20]

An unusual aspect of his work in Manchuria comes to the fore in his statement at the eighteenth church conference in 1925. He asked, "Is infant baptism biblical or unbiblical?" He requested an answer. He also asked, "If you are not an ordained minister or evangelist, can you baptize or conduct a funeral? Why has the Korean Church forbidden evangelists from doing these things if they're not fully ordained?" The conference agreed to allow each congregation to decide freely on the issues leading Dong Suk-Kee to begin asking the questions that inspired his move toward the Restoration Movement and the Churches of Christ.

Dong Suk-Kee was conferred the Korean Presidential Award by then-president Kim Young-Sam in 1996 for his contributions to the March 1 Independence Movement.[6][7][8][9][10][11][13][14][15][16][21][22]

Post-liberation work in Korea and America
After liberation, four churches of Christ were planted in Seoul and one in Busan between 1946 and 1949. Dong returned to the United States in 1949 to raise money for missions. When he could not return to Korea due to the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, he evangelized to Korean military officers who were being trained at the Army Infantry School in Port Banning, Georgia, sent missionaries after the armistice, and raised money for missionary expenses.[5][13]

Personal life
Dong Suk-Kee was married to Kim Emme. He had three children: daughter Dong Yang-Soon (eldest), first son Dong Choong-Mo (deceased), and second son Dong Young-Mo (deceased).[1]

Death
Retired from active duty in 1966, Dong Suk-Kee died in California on December 26, 1971.[5] He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Los Angeles County, California.[1] His grave marker records him as Minister D.D. Bell and below it his name in Korean as the Founder of the Church of Christ in Korea in 1930.[4][10][11][12][14][15][17][21][22][23]