At the 44th Assembly (1959) the Presbyterian Church of Korea divided into two churches of about equal size (cf. no. 14). While TongHap maintained membership in the WCC and allowed for a relatively wide range of theological positions, HapDong represents the more conservative line. After the break, HapDong, with the help of ICCC, built a seminary. On the basis of its strict doctrinal positions it seemed logical that the church would unite with KoShin (no. 1). The union decided upon in 1960 did not last. It turned out that their seminaries were too different in their theological approaches. Some 150 KoShin congrs stayed with HapDong. Like TongHap, HapDong celebrated (in 1962) the 50th Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Korea. In 1965 it started the newspaper KiDokSinBo and founded ChongShin Seminary in SaDangDong. At the 64th Assembly (1979) HapDong suffered a further division. The church divided into mainline and non-mainline groups. The debate centered around two issues. The first was the authorship of the Pentateuch, and the second the relationship of the church to ChongShin Seminary. Rev. Kim Hee-Bo, the president of ChongShin Theological Seminary, advocated biblical criticism by denying Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch. As he was censured, 15 directors of ChongShin Seminary withdrew from the authority of the Assembly, changed the school into a university, and ran it privately. The non-mainline group soon fragmented further and gave birth to several more denominations (cf. below, nos. 3-40). HapDong, however, continued to grow and developed in the following years into the largest denomination in Korea. In 1986 an Assembly building was inaugurated, and in 1992 HapDong celebrated the 80th anniversary of the first General Assembly in 1912.
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