The present study is an investigation of young Korean Protestants’ views of other faiths and how they understand mission and evangelism based on those views. The empirical research shows that a considerable number of young Korean Christians have now embraced pluralistic viewpoint concerning other religions, along with the postmodern relativistic perspective about truth claims. This research concludes that both perspectives weaken the motive of traditional Christian evangelism and mission toward people of other faiths. The empirical research also indicates the urgency to recognize pluralistic and relativistic tendencies among young Korean Protestants in the history of the Korean Protestant Church. In other words, the emerging pluralistic and postmodern viewpoint, which is gaining popularity among young Koreans, is beginning to compete with the dominant traditional Korean Protestant exclusivistic theology of religions. Thus, we are beginning to see the competition between exclusivism and pluralism or relativism (religious and postmodern). An important missional issue regarding exclusivism and pluralism is that both can easily fail to engage people of other faiths. While the exclusivists close their mind and try not to listen to people of other faiths, the pluralists think it unnecessary to share the Christian faith. As a result they both have that the tendency to avoid engaging with the ‘other,’ that is, people of other faiths. In response, the researcher suggests “dialogical evangelism,” with the intention to escape the missional dangers post by both exclusivism and pluralism, and to encourage Christians to engage the ‘others’ in dialogue and love for evangelism. Having taken other faiths into consideration since the 1910 Edinburgh Conference of the World Missionary Conference, many mission thinkers have become involved in how to do missions toward people of other faiths. The dialogical approach to people of other faiths has proved to be a desirable way of doing missions. On the other hand, evangelicals have argued that its ultimate goal should be evangelism. Therefore, integrating the strengths of these two approaches, for the Korean Protestant Church and the new generation of Christians, the researcher suggests dialogical evangelism as the most viable approach to people of other faiths.

• 윤서태(서울신학대학교) | Yun Suh Tae