"Minister of the gospel and doctor of medicine": Dr. Robert Grierson physician missionary to Korea, 1898-1913.

Abstract

This case study of the medical and missionary career of Robert Grierson (1868-1965) with the Canadian Presbyterian mission to Northern Korea from 1898 to 1913 examines the practical context and implications of changing mission ideology in the early-twentieth century for medically trained missionaries. Historians such as William Hutchison and Robert Wright have argued that, in the early-twentieth century, Protestant mission theology began to replace an earlier strictly evangelistic model of missions, which had subordinated all missionary tasks to the salvation of souls, with a more socially oriented approach to mission which provided for temporal as well as spiritual needs. In examining Grierson’s early career, this paper explores the tensions experienced by medical missionaries under the transition from an evangelistic to a social gospel mission model. Robert Grierson was a pioneering member of the Canadian Presbyterian mission to Korea. He dedicated thirty-six years to missionary service there from 1898 until 1934. Unlike many of his colleagues, Grierson ar-rived in Korea with both medical and ministerial training. As a physician missionary, he expected to practice medicine and also to evangelize for Christ. Grierson championed the cause of medical work within the Canadian mission but, as an ordained minister, he was constrained by the practical realities of his ministerial responsibilities. Due to his extensive evangelistic duties Grierson was not able to develop fully