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North Korea Tag

16 March, 2016

The National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) has released a statement urging President Trump to de-escalate the growing tensions between the United States and North Korea.

Tensions have risen due to the deployment of a US-supplied anti-missile defense system ‘THAAD’ (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) in South Korea. In response, North Korea has announced they’re preparing a nuclear weapon, and many are predicting Kim Jong Un’s regime wants to strike first before THAAD is operational.

In a letter to international partners, the NCCK has made a call for peace and asked for prayers.

“[These] weapons are terrifying Koreans with the threat of nuclear war. We want peace for the Korean peninsula,” they said.

“Please pray for peace and justice on the Korean peninsula.”

Join us in answering their call. Please pray for peace, justice and for the people working across Korea to prevent war and nuclear disaster.


Letter to President Trump

Dear Mr. President,

On behalf of the National Council of Churches (NCCK), I bring the warmest greetings to you in the name of God of Peace.

The National Council of Churches in Korea wishes to express our concern with the growing tensions on the Korean peninsula. For over sixty years since the signing of the armistice agreement, the people of the Korean peninsula have lived in fear of war breaking out again in an instant. Where President Obama had failed using “strategic patience” you have the chance to either succeed in negotiation or on the other hand to bring disaster upon us.

Especially we worry now as the THAAD missile defence system has arrived in South Korea, and North Korea has fired off four missiles in response. We fear the tensions have risen higher than they have been in decades. We ask you to move now. Turn back these steps toward war, and take up a successful strategy for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

We have heard your administration is considering a pre-emptive strike on North Korea as one of your options. We urge you to take this off the table, as it would guarantee an all-out war. In this current situation of upheaval around South Korea’s presidency and impeachment process, ruling party members are clamoring more loudly for South Korea to obtain its own nuclear weapons. All of these actions take us closer to open battle. Turning the Korean peninsula into a battlefield again would ensure our annihilation.

We ask you to seek dialogue with North Korea immediately to decrease tensions. Dialogue is the only way toward de-escalation and convincing the North that their immediate survival is not at stake and does not depend on military defense.

For the sake of our continued existence we call upon you to enter into dialogue and turn Northeast Asia away from what might begin a new world war.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Kim, Young Ju
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in Korea

This was posted in solidarity with our partners, the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK), the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK), the Korean Methodist Church (KMC) and the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK).

The National Council of Churches in Korea is the largest ecumenical agency in South Korea. Supported by the major Protestant denominations, it is at the centre of movements for human rights and peace across Korea. Many Korean churches are working faithfully to bring peace, reconciliation, and reunification to the Korean peninsula.

Photo via koreareport2.blogspot.com

16 August, 2016

Prayers for peace and reunification written on ribbons and tied together on the border of North and South Korea

 

The Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK) has published 100 Prayer Topics on Healing, Reconciliation, and Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Nation and invited partner churches to pray with them as they work for peace and unity.

The publication coincides with the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the Korean Peninsula from the Japanese in World War Two, a date marked by the church as the beginning of the Cold War geopolitics that led to the division of the country.

The Presbyterian Church of Korea invites its church partners and all “friends of the Korean church” to join with them in prayer and have written the 100 Prayer Topics so you can be informed on the issues that face the people of North and South Korea.

They have also developed a mobile app that contains the prayers as well as promptings to help you remember.

“It has been a 71 year-long unfulfilled liberation for the Korean people who have been longing for healing, reconciliation, and peaceful reunification.” said PCK General Secretary Rev. Dr. Hong Jung Lee.

Download the 100 Prayer Topics document

Download the app

Read the PCK’s full invitation to pray below


12 August, 2016

Dear Ecumenical Partners and Friends of Korean Church,

Warm greetings from the Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK)!

This year August 15th marks the 71st anniversary of Liberation of the Korean Peninsula from Japanese Imperialism following the end of the World War II. But the Korean Peninsula had been divided into the two Koreas by the superpowers, particularly the U.S.A and the former USSR. The Division brought the outbreak of the Korean War which recorded 5.5 million casualties and fixed the division structure on the basis of the Cold War system. It has been a 71 year-long unfulfilled liberation for the Korean people who have been longing for healing, reconciliation, and peaceful reunification.

In this regards, the PCK published the 70 Prayer Topics on Healing, Reconciliation, and Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Nation both in Korean and English last year. Once again, we have updated it and come to publish 100 Prayer Topics on Healing, Reconciliation, and Peaceful Reunification of the Korean Nation in Korean and English. We have also developed an application for smart devices so that whoever wants to join the prayer can easily download and pray for the Healing, Reconciliation, and Peace.

By sharing these prayer topics with our committed ecumenical partners, we humbly and sincerely invite you to participate in remembering the 71st anniversary of the unfulfilled liberation of the Korean peninsula due to the division, and specifically to join in our special prayer movement for the Healing, Reconciliation, and Peaceful Reunification of the Korean nation.

I heartily wish that you will use the 100 Prayer Topics by downloading here, and the mobile application here at your own convenience, in your church. Thank you very much for your ecumenical friendship and solidarity.

May the peace of our Lord be with you all!
Sincerely yours in Christ,

Rev. Dr. Hong Jung Lee
General Secretary
Presbyterian Church of Korea (PCK)

In a letter to Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, the World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed disappointment over sanctions and fines imposed on members of the National Council of Churches in (South) Korea (NCCK) after they participated in a dialogue encounter with representatives of the (North) Korean Christians Federation (KCF).

Penalties were imposed on Dr Noh Jungsun, Rev. Jeon Yongho, Rev. Cho Hungjung, Rev. Han Giyang and Rev. Shin Seungmin, all representatives of the NCCK Peace and Reunification Committee, who participated in a meeting with the KCF leadership in Shenyang, China, on 28-29 February this year.

In the letter, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit recalled that the WCC has been actively engaged in promoting peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula for more than 30 years.

“Through such national, regional and international ecumenical commitment and cooperation, the ecumenical movement seeks to witness to the peace of Jesus Christ and to make visible the unity of the Church in a divided and conflicted world,” he wrote.

Tveit referred to the recent escalation of tensions and confrontation on the Korean peninsula, and stressed that “It is especially in this situation that encounter and dialogue is even more urgently needed.” With regard to the fines imposed on the members of the NCCK delegation, he expressed a critical standpoint:

“We do not believe that penalizing encounter and dialogue between South Korean and North Korean Christians is a necessary or effective measure for reducing tensions and advancing the cause of peace; on the contrary. Moreover, such a measure impedes and undermines the longstanding inter-church relationship on the Korean peninsula that the WCC has sought to encourage over more than three decades.”

Tveit called on the South Korean government to revoke the penalties, and appealed to President Park “not to close channels of communication and encounter, but to intensify efforts to promote dialogue at all levels.”

Expressing the hope that “the cycle of threat and counter-threat can be broken, before the threshold to catastrophic conflict is one day crossed”, Tveit asked for President Park’s leadership “away from this precipice, towards peaceful co-existence and an end to the suspended state of war.”

Article originally published by the World Council of Churches (WCC) of which the Uniting Church in Australia is a member

Dear friends,

Greetings from the NCCK.

As the North launched a satellite, Kwangmyongsung-4 on Feb. 7, the Korean peninsula is being seized by furious waves again. In response to the nuclear test and satellite launch, the South and the US decided to deploy the THAAD and establish a MD system on the Korean soil. In a grave and surprising move, the South decided yesterday to close down Gaesung Industrial Complex, “the only remaining link that binds the North and South together.” Furthermore, the ruling party, Saenuri, is pushing an Anti-Terrorism Act which will certainly restrict people’s freedom and human rights.

We are having a week-long holiday, but in consideration of the gravity of the situation, the Reunification Comm. had an emergency online discussion and issued the following statement. We appeal to the international society including the ecumenical community that only dialogues and negotiations can resolve the present crisis.

In Christ,

Shin

Statement

Concerning North Korea’s Launch of Kwangmyongsong-4

The Reconciliation and Reunification Committee of the National Council of Churches (NCCK) expresses a deep regret on North Korea’s launch of Kwangmyongsong-4 on February 7 as it will heighten on the Korean soil the arms race among super powers and eventually threaten peace and stability in North East Asia. We are also greatly concerned that in the present situation the South and the US are jumping into the decision to deploy on the Korean peninsula the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and establish a KOR-US-JAPAN Missile Defense system in response to the launch of Kwangmyuongsung-4 earth observation satellite.

  1. We oppose the deployment of THAAD on the Korean peninsula.

The THAAD deployment will only increase the possibility of military conflict and clash beyond the Korean peninsula, in the entire North East Asia region. China and Russia are strongly opposing the THAAD deployment with the possible establishment of KOR-US-JAPAN Missile Defense system that will follow after. The THAAD deployment will aggravate a new Cold War between KOR-US-JAPAN and China-Russia, at the same time as it may offer a beginning that will lead the whole region to war. The painful experience of the Korean War has taught us that peace and stability in the Korean peninsula cannot be achieved by force. Hence we ask that both the South and the US immediately cancel the decision to deploy the THAAD and begin dialogue with the North, China and Russia for denuclearization as well as a long-lasting peace system on the Korean peninsula.

  1. We pose a fundamental question about the international society’s additional sanctions against the North.

The international society along with the UN immediately declared additional harsh sanctions against the North in reaction to the satellite launch. However the international society has to acknowledge that North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to launch satellites that are not equipped with nuclear warheads. Additionally it cannot be denied that the international society’s sanctions and pressures on the North have not created fundamental solutions and that they have rather aggravated the “vicious cycle of confrontation.” Therefore we appeal to the UN and the international society that it is not sanctions and confrontations but dialogues and negotiations, understanding and tolerance that will prevent total collapse.

  1. We urge Park Geun Hye’s administration to stop the attempt to pass the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Despite the fact that it has been publicly acknowledged that terror can be sufficiently prevented with the existing organizations and laws, the Park administration is attempting to pass the Anti-Terrorism Act using the North’s nuclear tests and satellite launch as pretexts. If the Anti-Terrorism Act, which is currently being pushed by the government and the ruling party, is enacted and implemented, absolute power will be centered on the National Intelligence Service and our society will face a non-democratic reality in which people experience severe restriction of their freedom and rights in the consolidation of the government’s power. With a warning that the Anti-Terrorism Act will heavily damage the healthy development of democracy, we urge the government and the ruling party to stop using the current North situation as a pretext to pass the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Peace on the Korean peninsula and stability in the North East Asia cannot be achieved through an arms race. Only dialogues, negotiations, understanding and tolerance will pave way for peace and reunification.

February 8, 2016

Kim Young Ju, General Secretary, NCCK

Noh Jung Sun, Chair of Reconciliation and Reunification, NCCK