As Samuel Huntington has asserted, this world suffers from tension and conflicts between diverse cultures. According to Paul Tillich, the core of culture is religion. There is no clear understanding of culture without appropriate understanding of religions. There has been a long history of tension between Christianity and Islam, although the two have the same Abrahamic tradition. Afghanistan began its Islamic tradition in the 18th century in the Pashtun tribe in the area of Kandahar. A Korean short-term mission team sent by Saem Mul Church was kidnapped by the Taliban armed troops. Two members of the team were then killed by the Taliban in July 2007. The rest of them were released after negotiations between the Korean government and the Taliban were made. Koreans had different opinions about the short-term mission team sent from the Saem Mul Church in the city of Sung Nam, Korea. Some people rebuked them. Others kept silence. Some churches encouraged them. In this critical situation, the Korean Church was embarrassed. This study attempts to offer some suggestions to help the Church overcome this crisis by providing missiological insights based on evangelical mission theology. First, missions need to be carried out according to the promise and the commission revealed in the Scripture. Second, missions should be implemented with the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the prayers of the church. Third, missionaries need to understand the various cultural situations of the area where they are called to serve. Fourth, churches and missionaries should be one in Jesus Christ as the doctrine of the Trinity states. Fifth, mission groups need to put a holistic mission into practice as Jesus Christ exemplified in His time on earth. Sixth, mission groups need to be free of an imperialistic paradigm in the age of postcolonialism. The Korean Church has to repent of negligence and pride over underdeveloped countries since it has become materially affluent. The Church needs to be incarnational in terms of attitude and holistic in terms of ministry in order to help the people to become Christians in a non-Christian world like Afghanistan. The blood shed by the two Korean short-term missionaries in Afghanistan will produce an indigenous church in the Islamic country because the blood of martyrs are the seed of the church as maintained by Tertullian in his Apology.

• 홍기영(나사렛대학교 교수ㆍ선교학) | Hong Giyoung