John: Kurt, let me start off by asking you about the NCCK. What is the NCCK and how does it work in Korean society?
Kurt: NCCK is the National Council of Churches in Korea, and they were the first mainline Protestant ecumenical council in Korea. Currently there are nine denominations who are members of NCCK, and the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK) is one of them, and the other Presbyterian denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Korea (PCK), is also a member. The NCCK provides a larger ecumenical umbrella for these denominations to come together, and do work together that is broader and more generalized than they could do on their own. But there is a lot of overlap. For example, the Reconciliation and Unification committee, to which I am connected, is made up of a lot of PROK pastors. The NCCK also connects churches in Korea with the World Council of Churches, and other national church councils around the world.
John: Tell me a little bit about your role. What do you do?
Kurt: If I summed up my role, I would say I interpret the work of the reconciliation and reunification department to NCCK’s international partners around the world. That is, my work is primarily to relate to partner councils and partner churches, and facilitate cooperation with the World Council of Churches. Right now that work focuses especially on the NCCK’s peace treaty campaign, which is a campaign to push for a peace treaty to be signed to end the Korean war. The conflict in Korea has been going on since 1950 and was paused in 1953 with an armistice agreement, but not ended.Right now that campaign has morphed into the “Korea Peace Appeal Campaign,” so a lot of my time is spent interpreting the Korea Peace Appeal Campaign to NCCK’s international partners around the world.
In terms of details, I do a lot of translations of Korean statements or Korean documents into English, or help to craft emails in English. I also help maintain a website for the peace appeal campaign. But then also through that, and through my role with the reconciliation and reunification department, I was later appointed as a coordinator for the “Ecumenical Forum for Reunification and Development Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula” (Ecumenical Forum for Korea, or EFK, for short). That's basically the forum that was created to maintain the meetings that had been happening between the North Korean “Korean Christian Federation” (the North Korean Christian organization officially recognized by the North Korean government), and the South Korean NCCK. Those meetings have been continuing on and off, though they're currently paused.
John: What would you say is the most important part of your work?
Kurt: I would say that the most important work is raising awareness among international partners, and for me especially within the PC(USA), raising awareness of the true nature of the Korean conflict, and raising awareness as to the responsibility of the US (and not only the US but also other Western Christians and Western nations) in the perpetuation of the conflict in Korea. My most important work is to build awareness, so as to equip people to become better participants, along with Christians in Korea, in the movement for peace; better participants in helping to end the war that's going on in Korea.
John: So what does the PC(USA) gain from the relationship?
Kurt: I like to describe my work as very overtly “reverse” mission. So whereas in traditional mission you have the western church sending missionaries out to convert and to save the uncivilized world, to civilize them, and Christianize them, and change them so that they can be more like us. Instead, I am sent out by my church, to learn about our partners, to learn about the actual situation, and about the complexities and the dynamics, and then to be transformed by that learning. So I am here, transformed by our Korean partners, transformed by the NCCK. And I take all that I learn through that transformation and I try to transform my own church. My job is to try to transform the PC(USA). So in a sense, I'm evangelizing the PC(USA), passing on to them the news of what God is doing in the Korean peace movement, and in particular, seeking to transform US foreign policy, and the way that the US church relates in an unhealthy way to the Korean conflict.
John: What is the most important thing you've learned since you came to Korea?
Kurt: The most blunt thing I've learned is that the myth that the US and Christians came to Korea and saved the poor, needy Koreans, and brought them freedom and democracy. That myth is not true—or at least not entirely true. The truth is a bit more complicated than that, and it involves some responsibility on the part of US Christians and the US government and the US military, in terms of leading the Korean people toward a war, or at least, creating an environment that all but guaranteed war, after Korea had been liberated from Japanese occupation in 1945.
That was a big change for me, because I came to Korea believing all that I had learned in history classes and what I had seen on the History Channel, the general story of: “those evil communists invaded because they're evil and because they want power. And we came in as good Christians and good, nice, freedom loving people, and we fought them and protected the poor, helpless South Koreans.”
That understanding started to crumble a little bit when I was in seminary in Chicago at McCormick Theological Seminary and I met Koreans who were also studying there, and then it crumbled a lot when I studied as an exchange student at Hanshin University in Korea for a year. I started to think, “oh, okay, so maybe democracy wasn't exactly what we brought, maybe dictatorship and authoritarianism was also a big part of what we set in motion in Korea.”
But even then I still had a sense of like, “Yeah, but also North Korea was so bad that it kind of made sense that we had to fight back. And we still did some good work. Maybe we could have been smarter about the way we did the war. But we still needed to do it, because, what if they invade? You know, you got to fight back, right?” And now I think, “Oh, even that was wrong; actually, everything that the US did, and prepared and set in motion, actually made it more likely that the ideological differences would be pushed toward the extremes.” Had the US not done what they did, a moderate middle would have been more likely to flourish. But because of US actions, the situation was more likely to push toward the extremes, with the result that only the extreme points of view were likely to hold sway. And so now I think, “Oh, actually, the US was pretty central in leading up to the outbreak of war.”
John: Was there any event or experience that really brought that home for you?
Kurt: For me, the turning point was visiting Jeju Island, and learning about the April 3 incident. (That’s the official title, but it is also known as the April 3 uprising or the April 3 massacres.) That completely threw my worldview for a loop:knowing that there was a campaign of massacres done by South Korea and supported by the US military, in South Korea, even before the Korean war began. I started to realize that before the Korean War had even started we weremassacring Koreans for the sake of our ideology, which we presented as “freedom and democracy,” but very clearly it was not democratic at all, and did not include any kind of freedoms for anyone who didn't care for US policies. Even if it wasn't US soldiers pulling the triggers, then it was the US military that set up the policy to put those people in power who were most likely to use their authoritarianism to destroy any opposition. This all but guaranteed that the most vulnerable people would suffer.
John: What do you see as the future, or what kind of words of hope do you have for how things can change?
Kurt: The more people are able to humanize the conflict, to humanize their images of North Koreans, the more things can change. I think it's like building blocks off one another. I like how Rev. Unzu Lee, who has now also come here to work from PC(USA), puts it: she calls it “stepping stones.” One person who humanizes their image of North Koreans is like one “stepping stone” who can help more and more people to step into creating an environment where we can respect each other's right for peace, and respect each other's fears and hopes and respect each other's needs. And I think from that eventually we can build a kind of real peace, not just in Korea, but in the Northeast Asia region.
But that's the long game. The short term is a little harder to say. So far, with the new American administration, what we’ve learned is: “Oh, no, even Democrats in the US, even progressive white people in the US, they're still going straight back to the perspective of conservative South Koreans and the South Koreans who supported dictatorship; right back into the same rut.” So I don't know what's gonna change things in the short term. It could be something that's a bit of a big surprise, maybe that even Koreans don't see coming.
John: What is the biggest challenge in your work?
Kurt: I guess it’s trying to figure out the best way to change the tone of the conversation. I can’t just come in and drop all my interpretations upon people and have them say, “Oops, oh yea, we were wrong, let’s just have peace with North Korea now.” It doesn’t work that way.
So I have to try to figure out what are the morsels that people can chew on first, so they can move in the direction of, “Maybe there is something to this—maybe what we were taught is not entirely the truth, maybe there is more to learn to change my assumptions about the situation.” The challenge is trying to figure out the best way to begin those changes, because there is so much resistance, so many obstacles.
John: One final question: do you have any special message for people in Canada —what do you want them to hear about what you have been saying?
Kurt: I love that I have become such good friends with the Canadian co-workers that have been sent here. There really is something important about stretching relationships, about building relationships beyond denominational boundaries. And not just beyond denominational boundaries and denominational identities, but also national identifies. The more that we reach out and broaden our perspectives—the more we reach out and create ecumenical communities with people and celebrate those differences—the stronger our communities are going to become. I am thankful for the chance to collaborate and cooperate with Canadians, as fellow non-Koreans participating in the Korean peace movement.
John: Thanks Kurt! You’ve given me a perfect opening to invite my readers to participate in NCCK’s Korea Peace Appeal campaign for an end to the Korean War.
See more about it on the United Church of Canada website:
https://united-church.ca/news/korea-peace-appeal-10000-signature-campaign-launch
The United Church of Canada has taken on the challenge of contributing 10,000 signatures to the NCCK’s peace signature campaign, so I hope you will add your signature and let others know as well!
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