On the other hand, those outside the Minjung movement writing about it tend to start their historical analysis in the 1970s with the Christian leadership in the protest movement against the established Yusin constitution, which basically gave South Korean President Park Chung Hee unlimited power. In doing so, they make it seem as if the movement out of nowhere or was completely influenced by foreign religious trends at the time. In an attempt to seek a middle ground, this work begins the historical analysis of Minjung Theology at the time of the Japanese colonial period when eschatological concepts about the apocalypse and the second coming became very appealing to a hopeless people under the oppression of foreign occupiers. By placing the origin of Minjung theology at this juncture, it captures a major impetus behind Minjung Theology movement: the desire to translate the urgency of a passive, premillenial theology under a foreign subjugation into an activist, postmillenial theology under a domestic subjugation.
The Minjung Theology phenomenon can be further traced and explicated based on the periods of human history Ham mentions in his introduction to Queen of Suffering. These four periods are birth, growth, trial and completion (corresponding to childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age of human life). Another stage is added, namely "conception" to describe a critical influential period of Minjung Theology even though those writing about Minjung do not typically recognize as such. In this conception phase, an influential preacher espoused a premillenial teaching urging people to prepare for the end of times. In the birth phase, a predecessor to Minjung Theology explored his Korean roots and Christian faith and tried to fuse the togeteher. In the growth phase, several theologians almost simultaneously blended foreign religious concepts with their own indigenous traditions as they reacted to the government suppression of the democracy movement.