About the Church & Worship Times

History of the Kosin denomination

It is one of the Presbyterian denominations in Korea that is entirely free from the shrine-worship issue, a congenital weakness of Korean Protestantism.

The denomination was formed around pastors and believers who had been imprisoned for opposing the General Assembly’s shrine-worship resolution during Japanese colonial rule—known as the released prisoners of faith. They called for repentance over shrine worship in the Assembly and, against liberal theology, pressed for a seminary of Reformed theology in the line of the closed Pyongyang Theological Seminary, carrying out a truth movement for the recovery of the church through theological education.

As part of what others called the Koryo faction movement they founded Korea Theological Seminary in the South Gyeongsang region. But the Assembly had already established Chosun Theological Seminary in Seoul after Pyongyang Seminary closed, so ecclesiastical power-holders in the presbyteries and Assembly expelled the released prisoners and the Korea Seminary group (centered in South Gyeongsang). Those expelled had no choice but to organize a general presbytery and form their own General Assembly.

Despite a just aim of church reform, they were criticized as lacking love and as condemning others, and were branded separatists. That verdict, however, was the fruit of the ecclesiastical arrogance of so-called leaders who had taken part in shrine worship, never repented, and seized church power, together with the presbyteries and Assembly they controlled.

Source : https://namu.wiki/w/대한예수교장로회(고신)