Featured JES Author: Minjung Noh on Evangelical Inheritance and the Infrastructure of Crisis: Korean Women Missionaries Reconsidered

Issue 60.4 of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies is now available via Project Muse.

For each issue, the Diablogue features one author and makes a full-text PDF version of their article available on Project Muse for 60 days.

In this issue, we feature Minjung Noh’s "Evangelical Inheritance and the Infrastructure of Crisis: Korean Women Missionaries Reconsidered."

Minjun Noh is a as associate professor at Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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In two sentences, what is the central argument of your J.E.S. article?

My article argues that contemporary evangelical missions often rely on a notion of disaster as something that can be managed and controlled through spiritual and material aid, while paying insufficient attention to the structural networks that perpetuate conditions of crisis. Using South Korean missions as a case study, I critically assess the gendered dynamics at work, while emphasizing that this discourse of disaster is not unique to Korean missions, but is widespread across global evangelical mission practices.

Your essay challenges how Christian missions often frame suffering as a call to act rather than a condition shaped by more profound injustices. What do you hope readers from different Christian traditions will rethink about how faith communities respond to crisis and suffering?

The difference between integrative or more progressive missiologies and evangelical missions (such as those associated with Lausanne or more conservative models) is significant, yet the latter are often overlooked or caricatured in both secular academic literature and progressive Christian discourse. While critical engagement with evangelical missions is essential, and while I write as a secular scholar of religion, I argue that this conversation must continue within ecumenical frameworks. Liberationist and progressive evangelicals do exist, and even comparatively conservative evangelical missiology and practice can acknowledge and address broader theological, structural, and global challenges. This essay approaches evangelical missions as objects of critical analysis rather than theological advocacy, attending to their global influence while resisting reductive or dismissive framings.

I aim to avoid othering or alienating particular theological perspectives from scholarly and public discourse simply because they do not align with modern liberal frameworks. In a moment marked by the climate crisis, neoliberal economic inequality, and political polarization, scholars, practitioners, and informed publics alike must pursue responses that move across theological and ideological differences. Religious studies is a field trained to think seriously about differences such as religious, racial, gendered, economic, and otherwise, and I see mission and missiology as a productive testing ground for how Christian communities might reimagine resource allocation and collective responses to chronic inequality. I hope this essay demonstrates a way of taking evangelical missions seriously from a critical perspective while offering insights that are both analytically rigorous and practically useful.

How did you get interested in the topic?

I conducted my doctoral dissertation research on Korean missionaries in Haiti, and I have been particularly interested in both the continuities and the new dynamics of this contemporary phenomenon. South Korean church history emerged from North American missions, and the fact that a missionized church is now actively missionizing the Americas raises important questions about reverse mission, transnational religious flows, and shifting centers of Christian authority, and these questions remain central to my research.

What is your next project?

I am currently preparing to revise my dissertation into an academic monograph. Alongside this work, I am developing several additional projects, most notably a reassessment of shamanism and possession traditions in comparative and diasporic contexts.

Minjung Noh has been Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion, Culture, and Society at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, since 2024. A scholar of transnational Christianity and gender, she examines Korean missionary movements through a critical-religious-studies lens, with particular attention to how race, gender, and power shape evangelical engagement in post-disaster contexts. Her research interrogates the infrastructures and ideologies that sustain missionary activity, situating them within Cold War geopolitics, U.S.-Korean religious alliances, and global evangelical soft power. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Haiti and archival research in Korea, France, and the U.S., her scholarship shows how Korean women missionaries both navigate and reproduce the structural logics of evangelical mission, including moralized care work, gendered labor, and centralized theological control and what it means in the transnational religious landscape. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Temple University, Philadelphia (2021), and an M.A. and B.A. in Religious Studies from Seoul National University. She has held previous positions at Drew Theological School, Madison, NJ (Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Christianity and Gender Studies, 2021–23); Wartburg College, Waverly, IA (Visiting Assistant Professor of World Religions, 2019–20); and Temple University (Instructor of record, 2016–21). Her research has been published in the Journal of Korean Religions, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and Religion, State and Society. Her current book project, "Transnational Salvations: Korean Women Missionaries in Haiti," is the first monograph that investigates the multidirectional religious dynamics among South Korea, the U.S., and Haiti through the angle of the evangelical missionary network built between and among these three nation-states.

Interested in the Journal?

Featured JES Author: So Jung Kim on "Speaking In-Between: Vernacular Spirituality of a Woman in Late Chosǒn Korea"

The Fall Issue 58.4 of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies is now available! For each issue, the Diablogue features one author and makes a full-text PDF version of their article available for 30 days on Project Muse. In this issue, we are featuring So Jung Kim’s "Speaking In-Between: Vernacular Spirituality of a Woman in Late Chosǒn Korea." A full-text PDF version of the article can be accessed HERE.

So Jung Kim (Presbyterian Church, USA) is the Associate for Theology in the Office of Theology and Worship of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, PCUSA. She has a Ph.D. (2021) from the University of Chicago (IL) Divinity School. Her entries on James Cone and Womanist Theology are included in Charles Taliaferro and Elsa J. Marty, eds., A Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. She has published a reflection on liturgy during the pandemic in Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching, and the Arts and a book review for the International Review of Mission. She has taught as an adjunct at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, and in her present position, teaches and resources Presbyterian constituents in local, national, and global settings.

She has presented at workshops and panels in several settings in the U.S., including, most recently, the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. Ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA), her research interests involve several forms of theology, anthropology, Korean Christianity, and ecumenism.

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In two sentences, what is the argument of your J.E.S. article?

In my scholarly exploration, I examine the transcultural and transhistorical ramifications of ordinary language usage on Christian spirituality. The focal point of my analysis is the case of Yi Suni, a Korean female martyr. I posit that Yi Suni’s employment of sermo humilis, a literary style historically linked with Augustine, signifies a Spirit-inspired influence independent of Western missionary involvement. While prior research has addressed Yi Suni’s dual identity as a Confucian woman and a Catholic, I underscore the significance of scrutinizing her linguistic expressions, particularly evident in her letters, to understand better the challenges she faced within her transcultural milieu.

How does your reading of Yi Suni’s letters from prison help us to see her as more than a “virgin martyr” as typically understood among Korean Catholics?

In the ensuing section of this exposition, my attention is directed toward the spiritual dimensions of sermo humilis within Yi Suni’s correspondence penned on her deathbed letters. I delve into the intricate interplay between Confucian and Christian virtues, as evident in her writings. The discussion navigates through Yi Suni’s intricate negotiation of her conflated identity as a Confucian daughter and a Christian virgin martyr. I highlight the nuanced perspective that the contemporary emphasis on her ascetic life as a virgin martyr might present an incomplete portrayal of who she is – still, a filial daughter and a wife in a Confucian society.

In scrutinizing the text, I aim to unravel the multifaceted aspects of her identity, the messages conveyed therein, and how she grapples with the complexities of her era in a nuanced way. In the West, people tend to be classified into rigid religious categories such as Christian or Confucian.

What can Yi Suni’s story teach us about the fluidity of religious identities? 

The emergence of stringent religious categorizations in the modern Westernized world can be attributed not merely to “the West,” but specifically to its colonial and imperial impact. This influence has, in turn, engendered diverse forms of religious conflicts in the world under Western colonial influence. Yi Suni’s correspondence marks an early instance of this modern religious inclination, albeit an independent attempt to choose Catholicism with agency. However, despite the agency, her letters illustrate the inherent challenge in the notion of being committed to one religion between religious identities. The reality reflected in the letters underscores the coexistence of multiple religious affiliations within an individual’s identity and contextual framework.

I pose the question of whether the compelling force of Western religion, which necessitates choosing one religious identity over another, may engender confusion and potentially violate one’s choice to remain who she is in between more than two languages, cultures, and religions. Simultaneously, I wonder whether the possibility that acknowledging the fluidity of religious identities could alleviate such inner turmoil. Yi Suni’s utilization of diglossic vernacular language in her letters serves as a manifestation of this struggle, highlighting the complexity inherent in navigating diverse religious influences within her identity. However, we are still left with “what if?”

How did you get interested in the topic?

My academic journey has been centered on exploring various facets of Christianity and its global trajectory, encompassing both theoretical and practical dimensions. This led me to complete a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, Divinity School, which delves into the transformation of everyday language use in Christian religiosity and spirituality, examining its evolution within transhistorical and transcultural contexts. During this research journey, I encountered Yi Suni’s letters, which became a focal point in a chapter of my dissertation.

What is your next project?

As for my next project, I am developing my doctoral dissertation into a comprehensive book. This endeavor aims to serve as a foundational theory aligned with future works, contributing to academic discourse and offering valuable insights to religious communities in the diaspora.

Furthermore, my ongoing research expands into the intricate tapestry of Christianity as a religion and its spiritual practices. I explore how it integrates cultural, ethnic, and diasporic elements, focusing on the intersections of nationality, racial-ethnic identity, gender, and sexuality. This exploration is grounded in the understanding that these intersecting factors shape the lived, everyday experiences of individuals within the Asian diaspora. The resonance of these experiences extends across the transcultural and transnational journey of Christianity, manifesting on local, national, and global scales.

Thank you, Dr. Kim!