Ecumenical Prayer service for Peace and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula in Gospel Church in Seoul, August 2019.
There is an important event underway in South Korea, what is described as an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation. The theme is World Peace and the Korean Peninsula. The Church as a Community of Healing, Reconciliation, and Peacebuilding.
You are probably aware that North Korea and South Korea have been divided since the 1950s after the conclusion of a war in which Canada participated and more than 500 Canadian military personnel died.
North Korea continues to be a totalitarian regime cut off from most of the world while South Korea is a democracy with a robust Christian community of about 14.5 million. Over the years there have been tentative efforts toward reconciliation and family reunification but this has been a difficult road.
In 2022 the United Church was invited to participate in an ecumenical appeal where 10,000 of our members would sign a petition for peace on the Korean Peninsula. The United Church had a missionary presence in South Korea for a long time but eventually renounced all properties run by the denomination and developed a different relationship with the churches there. While there are admirable goals for the petition it didn't seem to get much attention in the UCC and didn't meet the goal. I signed it but I really wondered why given the current North Korean regime. Hey, sometimes the gesture matters as much for oneself as for the outcome.
Here are the main points:
End the Korean War and establish a peace agreement.
Create a Korean Peninsula and a world free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threat.
Resolve the conflict with dialogue and cooperation instead of sanctions and pressure.
Break from the vicious cycle of the arms race and invest in human security and environmental sustainability.
The irony is that the De-militarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas is heavily armed and guarded yet has become an ecological "ark" where many species flourish without human interference.
Will peace ever prevail on the Korean Peninsula? God only knows.
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