Korean SDA Mission 1917 and 2017
Compared
Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)
Understanding
the present state of the two Koreas is so complicated that it took me nearly
twenty years to get to the bottom of it. By living in both Japan and South
Korea I learned a lot about the situation on the peninsula. Korea is currently divided into South and North in 2017 by the 38 line or DMZ. They are
not on speaking terms although they speak perfectly Korean on both sides and
have both Korean cultures that are, in the words of the North Korean Han-sol
Kim interview on Youtube “we have lots in common and the things that we share
are more than the things that separate us”. He said in perfect excellent North
Korean English. North
Korea is an engine with definitely three pistons but since the Iran deal can
include now also two more pistons so that it is maybe five. They are North
Korea, Russia, China, Iran and Syria. Their participation differs in time and
period and when one stands back another takes their place or a new one emerge
and the others are in the backseat position. Militaristically, nuclear, missile
parts and economically they all share alike. The
romantic “moonlight concept” of president Moon, to use newspapers words, is the
hope of every South Korean but the five piston engine makes this endeavor almost
impossible. Satisfying one piston is not going to solve the issue. Especially
when there is no secret by some other pistons that they do not want an
unification on the peninsula. South
Korea is an engine with at least three pistons: South Korea, USA and Japan.
They cooperate with security issues and military as well as economically. To
list the minimum. For South Koreans unification is a prime issue. It
is online that Iran last year end tested a missile with North Korean parts in
it. Thus the Pentagon. Is Iran testing their nuclear development program that
they could not do any longer on Iran soil due to the Iran deal now on North
Korean backyards for badly needed cash due to sanctions strapping of North
Korea? No answer. The country is not like South Korea, an open book for anyone
to read. Reclusive, turtle approach, data controlling and foreigner stalking
there. That is what the youtube videos of visitors there all are saying. My
interest here is not politics and never has been. Politics is just the stage on
which religion takes place. In order to think religiously for the future of
South Korean or North Korean religion, I need to look at the reality on the
ground. The
current situation in North Korea is that reportedly, tourists cannot have their
Bible left in the Hotel room or they will get a 10 year labor camp sentence.
Incarceration. I am reminded that either Lenin or Marx considered religion as
the opium of the masses. I am also reminded by M. N. Rothbard in his 2009
article on Marx as “Religious Eschatologist” that Marx wanted to make Utopia
happen instead of waiting for communism to develop in an evolutionary way. He
expected that “The evil of the world must proceed to its height before, in one
great complete root-and-branch upheaval, it would be swept away.…” Now the
question of us in 2017 is: who is the evil? Communism
is not popular in the world. The masses are tired of standing in long lines to
get their daily foodstamp rations of bread and milk in order to survive hunger.
Religion
in North Korea is apparently there in a church that Kim Jung-Il built for the
Russian Orthodox engineers that were in Pyongyang with their families. The
Japan Times reported that two Korean priests were sent to Moscow for training. So
how many crosses can one find in North Korea of Seventh-day Adventist churches?
Can General Conference visit there and attend their meetings? All over the
country? In
South Korea there are Seventh-day Adventist churches in abundance. There is no
scarcity of religion. So far the government has not yet interfere with
religion but there are signs on the horizon that they will interfere with the
religious stance of religion, force them to accept the unwanted or doing things
that is against their own beliefs. LGBTQH and equality of woman to the absolute
are two of such issues that can cause upheaval in religion in this country also
as it is doing in the USA, in Europe and elsewhere so far. All about the UN
accepted equity principle of transgender tolerance advocated first at that
level in 2006 and 2007 in Germany also. Everyone is an “it” until they decide
whether they want to be a female or a male or not. World legal jurisprudence on
these skew matters is going to create persecution for religion since it cannot tolerate
this stance.
It
was not always so depressing for religion on the Korean Peninsula as it is
currently in 2017. Especially for the eager of South Korean to build hospitals,
churches, schools, universities, medical clinics based on religion and
religious perspectives as ultimate happiness, for North Koreans. But who is
blocking? Pistons.
Charlie
Chaplin said in the Youtube video on the
Great Dictator, a satire on Hitler: “Dictators free themselves but enslave
the people”. I did not say it, Charlie said it and who will say he is lying in
1942 in that movie? From
a 1934 Sabbath School lesson quarterly that is online on the Seventh-day
Adventist Sabbath School site there is a lesson on the Holy Spirit by A. T. Robinson. He provided a map of the whole
Korean Peninsula. Churches are all over Korea in the North and South in equal
measure. In the North at Soonan there is a School Library to be built in 1928.
Wonder if it is still there? Since 1953 we have never heard of it again. All
built with the vested rights of the Seventh-day Adventist church in that part
of the world.
Now I come to Word of God in Acts
17:26-27 “and He [God] made from one [nation,
originally when He created the World with Adam and Eve] every nation of mankind
[after the Flood in 2692 BCE when they were dispersed at Babel with confusion
of languages, a miracle by God to create separate entitites] to live on all the
face of the earth, having determined [by God] appointed times [1953-2017] and
the boundaries of their habitation [below or above the 38 line]. Why? Answer in
Acts 17:27
“that they should seek God, if perhaps
they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us”.
The
real role of nations is to provide opportunity for their citizens to seek God,
find Him and live fully for Him. Not for political icons, idols, humans, but
for God but respect their overseers and rulers as long as they do not expect
from them to contradict their faith to God. What God is going to accomplish through
president Moon and the tango with president Trump and Xi remains to be seen.
Seventh-day Adventists have their own agenda of hope in line with Acts 17:27.
Source: 1) See online the Sabbathschool network of Seventh-day Adventists site and at their
archive download the 1934 Quarterly by A. T. Robinson on the Holy Spirit. In
the explanation of the 13th Sabbath offering for Japan and Korea in
that year, it listed the amounts that the General Conference Sabbath School
donated to Japan and Korea for 1917; 1924; 1928 and 1934. There is also a map
of the “Japanese Empire” and dots in both Japan and Korea indicated all the
churches and institutions existing in what is today both South and North Korea.
It is possible to show in South Korea some remnants of these dots but one
wonders what can be shown in North Korea? There was a school at Soonan that was
getting a new library due to the funds given in 1928. That is in current North
Korea. The Newspapers indicated that American
Tourists who by accident left their Bible in the Hotel Room were arrested and
sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for trying to endanger the government
system.
2) M. N.
Rothbard, “Karl Marx as Religious Eschatologist” (10 September 2009). Time http://www.mediationsjournal.org/articles/marxism-and-eschatology-reconsidered