wfn.org | Attitudes Changing as Korean Hopes for Reunification Grow

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

25-August-1997 
97320 
 
    Attitudes Changing as Korean Hopes 
    For Reunification Grow 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
    World Alliance of Reformed Churches Newsroom 
 
DEBRECEN, Hungary--Deeply entrenched anticommunist attitudes in South Korea 
are softening, making peaceful reunification with North Korea more likely, 
a South Korean Presbyterian academic said Aug. 14 as Korean delegates to 
the 23rd General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) 
presented a forum on Korean reunification. 
 
    "It is a gift of the grace of God that the [South Korean] church's 
swelling compassion and unconditional love of Christ can bring 
reunification," said Yong-Bok Kim, one of four Korean Presbyterian leaders 
to address the forum.  "Also, the North Korean church is discovering 
diaconal mission, which is a new theological development for them that 
contributes to peace," he added. 
 
    Peaceful reunification -- without violence -- is the prayer on the lips 
of Korea's women, said the Rev. Jung-Hee Sung.  Likening reunification to 
childbirth, Jung-Hee said it will inevitably involve both pain and great 
joy.  "If we look at our sisters and brothers in the Korean peninsula with 
a mother's feeling, the way to unification will be much easier to walk," 
she said.  "Instead of using our country's division for political purposes, 
all who are involved in the unification process must feel the pain of 
childbirth of a woman or of God." 
 
    Political manipulation and intrigue have been part of Korean history 
since at least the 16th century, said political science professor Jung-Sun 
Noh.  Noting that China and Japan discussed dividing up the Korean 
peninsula as early as 1592, Jung-Sun said, "Korea has been the scapegoat of 
the powerful countries for their colonial and neocolonial interests up 
until today." 
 
    The current food shortage crisis in the North, with reports of 
widespread deaths due to starvation, is not "an isolated fact," Jung-Sun 
said, but the result of longstanding interference by other countries and by 
"status quo policies" such as the United States' 47-year-old economic 
blockade.  Churches must help persuade governments that "human beings have 
a right not to starve to death in front of God.  Also, human beings have a 
duty to keep other human beings from starving." 
 
    In the midst of ongoing political hostilities that surround the Korean 
reunification issue, churches "must promote solidarity among us in the Holy 
Spirit," said Kyoung-Jae Kim.  Decrying "hidden ideologies" such as 
patriarchal politics, reliance on military might and economic materialism, 
Kyoung-Jae said that the churches -- North and South -- "must witness to 
the reconciliation and peace of the cross.  Reconciliation means committing 
ourselves as Christians to the sharing of our material and spiritual 
resources." 
 
    Responding to the Korean leaders' remarks, a steady stream of forum 
participants wended their way to the front of the auditorium, where they 
attached their handwritten prayers for peaceful reunification to a large 
peace banner. 

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