The Protestant mission of the 19C showed a great deal of expansion in missionary works, which was enough to be called 'the Great century'. The Evangelical revival movement expanded toward Europe beginning from England and thus the interests of Christian missions in foreign ones formed a lot of mission societies. With this background, the London conference in 1888 turned out to be 'the great Centenary conference' as the first significant international gathering. There were discussions on missionary union, comity and the unity of church relating to division and competition caused by individual mission works of different mission organizations and were the urgent and strong suggestion of a permanent committee to mediate between different positions of the mission societies. English evangelical missionaries highly developed the idea of 'God's providence' shown in the hands of God working through the contemporary events. The same tendency of Providentialism was seen in the thoughts and theological emphasis of the London conference, 1888. They believed that God called the United Kingdom to preach the gospel in the same way that God raised the nations and kingdoms to execute compassion and judgement in the Old Testament and that they should obey the call. Although in broader perspective, the understanding of the divine providence can be seen as biblical like the missionaries viewed the imperialism of the times. However in reality it can be said that the idea was distorted by the mechanical understanding of enlightenment and by the national pride inspired by the English national power. But possibly it is a wrong and biased idea of our generation to seek only errors of Providentialism with the aim of criticising the Christian imperialism of the ancestors and ignoring their biblical assurance and strong faith of God's work through the history in broader meaning. The main four conferences discussed in this paper could fall into different categories as follows; Edinburgh, 1910 belongs to the 19C mission paradigm like the London conference, 1888, judging from its characters and tendencies, even though it was held in 20C; Edinburgh, 1910 belongs to the transition period from the 19C to the 20C, which has become the contact point of the modern and contemporary mission and at the same time, the new starting point of the contemporary ecumenical mission; Jerusalem and Tambaram belong to 20C mission paradigm. While the 19C mission put too much emphasis on personal interests and less on social ones, the 20C mission raised social interests and responsibilities of the gospel. Discussions of unity and comity were commenced in London 1888 to resolve the conflicts and competitive spirits caused by missionary works centered around the denominational mission societies in the 19C. Ecumenicalism and the emphasis on social gospel grew rapidly in the 20C mission, which began in Edinburgh 1910. During the 19C mission was the ecclesiastical mission, the ecumenical mission in the early 20C weakened the missionary role of the church. On the other hand, the evangelical viewpoint analyzed that the church was emphasized and its social responsibility ignored in the English mission conferences in the 19C. And thus all the concerns and debates of each missionary conference were the results of efforts to exercise the appropriate mission for each era. The movements and theologies trying to correct the errors of the previous missionary works and to renew the strained parts, resolved the problems or compensate the defects and at the same time, weakened the other strengths. In this sense, it is important to study the history of mission. Furthermore, it is not a favorable state to criticize the directions and ideas of each mission conference without any examination or to accept them without any criticism, whether from the evangelical or ecumenical viewpoint.

• 김미선(전주비전대학, 신학) | Kim Misun