I Would Never Set Foot On American Soil Again: Religion, Space, and Gender: American Missionaries in Korea

By using three lenses of analysis not often used together, theology, space and gender, this dissertation explores the decisions, practices, and gender dynamics of one group of Protestant religious imperialists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Southern Presbyterian missionaries to Korea. The Southern Presbyterian's missionary theology drew not only from Presbyterian beliefs and doctrine, but also from more radical ideas outside the church. This more radical theology emphasized the importance of and expedient nature in achieving world evangelism. To advance world evangelism as quickly as possible, the missionaries' primary focus became converting Koreans to Christianity. Therefore, to convert Koreans, both Korean women and men, the Southern Presbyterians made two more changes, they created sex-segregated spaces to conform with Korean cultural expectations for spatial use and, secondly, used them for intimate, one-on-one evangelism, similar to the "inquiry room" styled evangelism of Dwight Moody. These decisions put American women to work in gender roles that mimicked those of men as primary evangelists, teachers, and tacit pastors to Korean women. These changes in theology, changes in spatial arrangements, and changes in gender roles characterized the Southern Presbyterian mission to Korea.

Importantly, all three of these transformations, when implemented on the ground in Korea, did not contradict with one another, however, instead contributed to the success of the mission with each change supporting the others. While the Southern Presbyterians espoused a conservative evangelical theology, that included conservative social values, their mission theology, based in their belief that they could help usher in the second coming of Jesus, superseded the upholding of Southern gender norms for women. Further, missionaries' intimate evangelism in sex-segregated spaces allowed for evangelism of both Korean men and women in spaces and existing religious styles Koreans already considered as appropriate for religious or quasi-religious activities.

By using three fields of analysis, connections between the rise of Christianity in Korea and missionary inner social dynamics can be seen. Specifically, the analysis sheds light on the significant role a group of evangelizers dedicated to certain theological beliefs not only shape a mission's endeavors but also the lives of the missionaries themselves. Theses lenses of analysis also show that much similarity existed between existing Korean spatial religious practices and the spatial evangelistic methods used by the missionaries. Also, changes within missionary gender roles can be explained which exposes the central work of evangelism done by not only single female missionaries, but married ones as well.