This article discusses and evaluates the ministry of an American laywoman missionary Mary Fletcher Scranton and her son William Benton Scranton, who founded the JungDong Hospital, SangDong Hospital, AhHyun Church, SangDong Church, and DongDaemoon Church. The writer first starts with the following questions: “How did they define their identity as a missionary?” The writer answers it in terms of their motive to apply for missionary and their direction for mission. Second, “What was their motive, method, and purpose of mission?” Third, “What was the heritage that they bequeathed to us and what lessons can we learn from?” Answering the above questions, the writer concludes missiological implications based on his research. In particular, he provides evidence supporting that Mary and William Scranton, as apposed to other western missionaries during that time era, did not try religious colonialization and did not intend to ingrain the western civilization into Korean society. In spite of the dangers they faced, they entered into Korea with strong aspirations of missions and in concretely have contributed to building the foundation for the evangelization of Korea by planting local churches and hospitals. The biggest contribution of Mary Scranton's ministry was to challenge the sexual discrimination imposed by Confucianist beliefs, by first starting a new school for women, and thus implanting a spirit that women can work cooperatively with men, not as an inferior, but as a partner, with equal rights. With the love of Christ, William Scranton also did his best to care for the poor and the weak by building new hospitals and pharmacies. In a word, Mary and William Scranton chose Korea to actualize their vision for world mission, and lived a successful life as the Christ’s disciples by understanding the history and culture of Korea and by serving for the poor people in Korea. In spite of their just and healthy motives, method, and purpose for their mission, they, like other western missionaries in that era, lacked to provide the missional church model to Korean Christianity. We cannot learn simply out of their deep dedication and desire to develop the missional church in Korea, enlarging the kingdom of God on earth and adapting to the Korean indigenous culture. This deficit came from their lack of missional theology, being simply lay missionaries, the Scrantons lacked the proper educational background in theology. Despite their deep passions, well intended will, and endless love of Christ, they were not able to grasp the bigger picture of the missional theology, thus falling short in accomplishing God's purpose for the Korean people and the world mission.

Since 1884, many western Protestant missionaries came to Korea. The missionaries initially treated of the spiritual perspective of Koreans as superstitious and ignorance-oriented. Especially in the field of medicine, the Western perspective seemed to be far advanced than the Korean traditional perspective. According to the Korean traditional view, sicknesses was in many cases caused by intrusions of spiritual beings. Therefore, to cure the sick, one had to cast out those spiritual beings out of the bodies through placations or by force. With such perceptions, Korean people were not able to overcome the hard situations caused by the contagious diseases such as pestilence, small pox, and typoid fever. Western missionaries could take advantage on those matters in order to help Koreans and thereby achieving the trust of Korean government. Even though Western science and medicine proved their effectiveness through such medical works, excessive reliance can cause one to fall into the idolatry of worshipping medicine instead of God. Throughout the development in the area of science and technology, Westerners have tended to look everything through the scientific perspectives. Through such trends Western societies were believed to run the course of secularization throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. God and His supernatural world have been marginalized especially in public areas. According to Professor Paul G. Hiebert, even missionaries with severe Western cultural backgrounds have difficulties in understanding the spirit world of the native people. Early missionaries to Korea were not exceptions. They also had difficulties when they first met the Koreans and tried to understand their spiritual view points. In contrast to the Westerners who generally do not recognize the spiritual beings around them, the Koreans recognized the spiritual beings such as ghosts, ancestors in almost every aspect of their lives. Koreans were famous in maintaining the practices related to such spiritual beings throughout their ancient history. When the missionaries first observed practices related to the spiritual beings, they judged Koreans to be ingnorant or superstitious. However, the missionaries continuously tried to understand the people and their worldviews. When they were unable to understand the Korean worldview on the spiritual beings, they resorted not to the Western naturalistic perspective but to the Bible. Through comparison between the Korean traditional perspectives and the Biblical perspectives, they discovered that the Biblical perspectives were more similar to the Korean traditional perspectives. And with careful observation and examination of the Korean ministers’ deliverance works, they changed their thought about the spirit world. The demons and spiritual beings which were regarded to harass Korean people were not supterstitions or fatacies. They were real beings confirmed by the Bible. The native Korean ministers contributed a lot in the paradigm shift from Western perspective to the Korean perspective on the reality of spiritual beings. The Korean ministers viewed the Bible differently. They believed Bible stories where the possessed were released by Jesus and his disciples. The faith of Korean ministers proved to be simple and firm enough to follow the practices of Jesus and his disciples in casting out demons. When the missionaries heard about the stories of deliverances by the Korean ministers and believers, they did not stop but rather carefully examined such behaviors in light of the Bible. The final criteria of missionaries were not the western but the Biblical perspective. With such criteria, they accepted and recognized the deliverance ministries of the Korean believers. Some missionaries, when asked if they could cast out demons out of troubled, succeeded in the deliverance ministries. In my estimation, the Nevius mission plan contributed greatly in making harmony and cooperation between the missionaries and the Korean ministers. God brought Koreans who were troubled with spiritual bondage into the Kingdom of God through such faithful servants of God. The reasons the early protestant missionaries to Korea brought such great success in evangelizing Korea were foremost their deep reliance to the Bible as the Word of God and secondly their deep understanding of Koreans and their ways of thinking.

본 연구의 목적은 초기 내한 선교사들이 한국 무속신앙을 어떻게 이해 했는지를 보다 종합적으로 살펴보는 것이다. 지금까지 몇몇 연구자들이 선교사들의 한국 무속 이해를 간략하게 언급하였고, 선교사들의 한국 종교 이해를 다룬 연구도 있었다. 그러나 무속신앙에 초점을 맞추어 보다 체계적으로 분석한 것은 존재하지 않는다. 그런 의미에서 본 연구는 초기 선교사들이 무속신앙을 어떻게 이해했는지를 살펴볼 수 있는 하나의 창을 제공한다. 본 연구는 선교사들이 인식한 한국 종교 체계 속에서 무속신앙의 위치를 다룬다. 한국인들이 무속신앙을 어떻게 느꼈다고 선교사들이 인식했는지도 다룬다. 한국인들의 무속신앙 인식에 따른 다양한 행동들도 분석한다. 한국인들의 무속신앙 속에서 선교사들이 기복주의를 발견했음도 살펴본다. 악귀와 관련된 다양한 무속신앙의 치유방법들이 선교사들에게 목격되었음도 살펴본다. 그리고 선교사들이 무속신앙을 비판적으로 인식하며 대결의 대상으로 삼았음도 확인한다. 본 연구의 방법론은 문헌연구이다. 선교사들은 한국 선교 경험을 토대로 책을 저술하였고, 편지, 잡지, 일기를 통해 그들의 무속신앙에 대한 견해를 드러냈다. 이러한 자료들을 분석하여 선교사들의 이해를 분석하여 정리하게 될 것이다.