wfn.org | Korean students prepare for ministry via “travelling theology”

["Franziska Surber" <Franziska.Surber@warc.ch>]

>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>News Feature
>27 May 2009

Korean students prepare for ministry via “travelling theology”

A Korean professor who has taken theology students to live with
nomadic herders in Mongoliaand with the urban poor in Viet Nam
believes he may be creating a new branch of theology, one which
he has dubbed « Travelling Theology ».  

Gyoung Ho Jeong who teaches Christian social ethics at
YoungnamTheological College and Seminaryin Kyungsanis in Geneva
for meetings of the executive committee of the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches (21-31 May).  

Jeong described his novel approach to teaching theology in a
review of initiatives by Reformed church institutions in response
to economic and environmental concerns. 

In Mongolia, Jeong’s students learned from herders about living
a lifestyle that respects the local ecology.

“The herders showed us that they could gather all their garbage
for six months in one small plastic bag,” Jeong marvels. 

“Each time they cooked rice, they would put a few grains into
the ground to say thank you to Grandmother Earth.”

Jeong laughs as he reports that students learned about caring
for God’s creation by literally getting their hands dirty. “When
the local people realized that we could not ride horses and would
be of no use for herding, they assigned us to collect horse dung
to enrich the soil!”   

The Korean group observed that, despite the herders’ care for
the environment, their drinking water is polluted by other
sources and is causing high rates of kidney problems. The
students left vowing to return with a kidney specialist.

“This is a process of learning from life settings,” says Jeong.
“It is not tourism.”

A second group of students travelled to Ho Chi Min City on a
peace mission to bring apologies to local churches for Korea’s
role in the American war in Viet Nam.  Jeong says it is not
widely known in Korea that from 1968 - 1971 there were Korean
soldiers fighting alongside American troops.  

“This involvement in the war effort helped Korea take off
economically,” Jeong says. “We are now a rich country because of
what we did.  So we must apologize.”  

The students were invited by the church in Viet Nam to visit
congregations where they brought apologies, the first known to
have been made by Korean Christians.  

Seeing the poverty in the communities they visited, the students
chose to eat frugally and to save their food money to contribute
to a project which is building houses for the poor. The savings
of USD $1500 will cover the costs of building three new homes. 

“My job is to train seminarians who will work in the future
world,” says Jeong.  “These experiences will affect how their
theology develops for years to come.”

>****
>Contact:
>Kristine Greenaway 
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>150 Route de Ferney
>P.O. Box 2100
>1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
>tel.  +41.22 791 62 43 / +41 79 508 20 43
>fax: +41.22 791 65 05
>web: www.warc.ch ( http://www.warc.ch/ ) 
>e-mail: kgr@warc.ch