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With a third of South Koreans now identifying themselves as Christian, Christian churches play an increasingly prominent role in the social and political events of the Korean peninsula. Sebastian Kim and Kirsteen Kim's comprehensive and timely history of different Christian denominations in Korea includes surveys of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions as well as new church movements. They examine the Korean Christian diaspora and missionary movements from South Korea and also give cutting-edge insights into North Korea. This book, the first recent one-volume history and analysis of Korean Christianity in English, highlights the challenges faced by the Christian churches in view of Korea's distinctive and multireligious cultural heritage, South Korea's rapid rise in global economic power and the precarious state of North Korea, which threatens global peace. This History will be an important resource for all students of world Christianity, Korean studies and mission studies.

This article on the mission theology of the church, a personal perspective by the vice‐moderator of CWME, draws on documentation produced by the commission and also responds to the Faith and Order document, The Nature and Mission of the Church. It is based on the trinitarian paradigm of mission referred to as missio Dei, which emphasizes the priority of God's sending activity in the world, by the Son and the Spirit, and the contingency of the church and its mission activities upon that. Therefore, it is concerned with the participation of the church in God's mission to and in the world, and from this perspective, has a particular interest with the actual, empirical church rather than the ideal church, recognizing that the church exists in many different forms in particular social, cultural, economic and political contexts. The article argues that the church is “missionary by its very nature”. Both theologically and empirically, it is impossible to separate the church from mission. Indeed mission is the very life of the church and the church is missionary by its very nature the Spirit of Christ breathed into the disciples at the same time as he sent them into the world. The mission theology of the church as it has developed in ecumenical discussion over the 20th and early 21st centuries is discussed in terms of the relationship of the church to the three persons of the Trinity: as foretaste of the kingdom of God; as the body of Christ; and as a movement of the Spirit. The article shows that being in mission is to cross the usual boundaries and bring new perspectives from outside to bear, and this is a never‐ending, enriching process.

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the theme ofthe Holy Spirit spresence and activity in creation led to discussion of "spirits," stimulated particularly by the plenary presentation of Chung Hyun Kyung. The term was variously understood to refer to evil spirits in the New Testament tradition, the spirits of traditional religions, or as a metaphor for sociopolitical structures. The discussion caused considerable controversy and was dismissed by some as syncretistic. At the same time, it suggested a new framework for missiology in a plural world. In this paradigm discernment of spirits will be crucial.' T he Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1991 was the first WCC assembly to focus on the Third Person of the Trinity and took as its theme, "Come, Holy Spirit-Renew the Whole Creation." The theme was a response to the ecumenical (re)discovery of the Spirit's work in the world (and not just in the church or the believer) stimulated by Orthodox pneumatology and Pentecostal-charismatic experience (Putney 1991:607-608; Raiser 1989:381-385), and popularized especially through the work of Jiirgen Moltmann (1992). The assembly recognized that there are many "spirits" in the world and discussed the relationship of "the Spirit" and "the spirits." This paper will examine the debate at and around Canberra, with particular reference to the plenary presentation of Korean theologian Chung Hyun Kyung, and discuss what was understood by "the spirits," the potential of language about "spirits" for missiological discourse, and the importance of discerning the spirits in mission.