THE KUKMIN DAILY

The theologians and experts from church circles who made presentations on January 13 at the “New York Forum on Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” held in New York City, agreed that the overseas Korean churches have a crucial role to play in changing the divided situation of Korea in this 70th year since its independence.

◇“Overseas Korean churches need to expand their political impact”

According to the analysis of Prof. Koo Choon-Seo (far left in photo) of Hanil Presbyterian Theological Seminary, overseas Korean Christians can carry out various activities to accommodate reconciliation between the South and the North, as they are located away from the Korean Peninsula, where anti-communist sentiment is very strong. In particular, overseas Koreans with acquired nationality in their countries of residence are in a better position to visit North Korea and to participate in humanitarian support for the North. Therefore, Prof. Koo advised that the overseas Korean church needs to take the lead in creating an atmosphere for South-North reconciliation. He said, “The overseas Korean church also needs to look for ways to influence the political process involved in the making of foreign policy by the respective countries… If both the South and the North Korean governments and the United States, Japan, China, and Russia, the four strong countries surrounding the Korean Peninsula, change their antagonistic policies, peaceful reunification is possible.”

◇“Needed: the common ground of reunification of the Korean people and North Korea mission”

Prof. Lee Kyu-young (second from left in photo) of Sogang University said, “In the case of Germany, the support given by the West German Church to the East German Church was never unilateral, show-off, or one-time support. It was service, tolerance, and sacrifice based on the love of Christ.” He elaborated that the Korean church, in and outside Korea, needs to form a common ground toward reunification of the Korean people and North Korea mission, and prepare a firm theology of reunification based on the Bible, just as the German Church did. Prof. Lee said, “The world Korean church needs to focus on enhancing the social and economic quality of life for South and North Korean residents, rather than making political and military statements, and on cooperating with international Christian networks in new areas such as preservation of the natural environment.”

◇“A balanced and objective point of view is necessary”

Senior Researcher Huh Moon-young (second from right in photo) of the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said, “The Korean church needs to make clear that liberal democracy is the “Maginot Line” for a peaceful reunification based on the Gospel, while it also requires an objective and balanced awareness that leans towards neither left nor right. He added, “We should neither fear a war for hegemony between the U.S. and China, nor become a bystander, nor try to continue the division out of worries about reunification costs. With a similar population to Germany’s (80 million), the to-be-reunified Korea should feel confident of its potentiality for peace and evangelization of the world.”

He continued, “The Korean church needs to learn the absolute love of the Cross, so as to be able to take responsibility as reconciler. It will not be easy to embrace the provocative North Korea, but the Korean church should trust that South and North can meet through philanthropy and love, and that the problem can be solved only through the Cross of Jesus Christ.” In conclusion, he suggested, “Let’s carry out a prayer campaign for the Korean church to hold a “grand revival for world mission and reunification through the Gospel” on August 15, the day the Korean people were divided 70 years ago, in Pyongyang, the Jerusalem of the East.”

◇ A debate on the merits and demerits of the “Sunshine Policy”

Following the keynote speech by Joel Wit (far right in photo), visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, there was a debate on the Kim Dae-jung government’s Sunshine Policy. Wit was a State Department official from 1993 to 2002 and is an expert on North Korea, and on U.S. relations to the Korean Peninsula.

“At that time the Kim Administration’s Sunshine Policy was not unanimously supported. When we look back, however, it deserves appropriate evaluation for its clear fruits,” Wit said, pointing to the active inter-Korean exchanges. He continued, “The tight North Korea-U.S. and inter-Korean relations from 2007 up until today proves that the Sunshine Policy was very much needed. If it had been continued, inter-Korean relations would be much better now.”

Senior Researcher Huh Moon-young commented, “The Sunshine Policy may have been a good policy for that time. But now is not the time to move back in that direction… Trying to bring reconciliation between South and North by that policy was a desirable effort, but the problem was that we let the North pull us. We need to follow what has been good, while making a complex policy suited to these times as well.”

On the other hand, Prof. Lee Kyu-young of Sogang University expressed the negative opinion, “The greatest contribution of the Sunshine Policy was that it made us realize the protection of liberal democracy should come first.”

◇“The Korean church’s Shinto worship under Japanese colonial rule was one cause of the Korean division”

Senior Researcher Huh Moon-young pointed out that the Korean church’s Shinto worship during the Japanese occupation had helped bring about the division of the Korean Peninsula. He explained, “I think the decision of the Presbyterian Church, Korea’s “elder denomination,” brought Biblical and spiritual divisions by accepting idolatry… Therefore, we need to repent for the sins of our ancestors, at the start of the reunification process.”

He mentioned examples of Bible passages that describe the return to the home country Israel (Daniel 9, Ezra 9, and Nehemiah 9), all of which include repentance of their ancestors’ sins, and related these examples to Korea’s circumstances. He said, “If we repent of our ancestors’ idolatry and our own sins of lust, corruption, and insincerity today, we may be able to make the river of reunification begin to flow according to God’s will.” Many participants responded with applause and “Amen! hearing his comment.

Article and photo by reporter Se Ook Koh (swkoh@kmib.co.kr) from New York, with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)


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