Ecumenical Participation by Japan and Korea

Ecumenical Participation by Japan and Korea

The assignment given to me is to make some brief comparative observations of the models of participation and the contributions made to the global ecumenical movement by the Korean and Japanese churches and Christians. I shall try to make a few very general remarks about a number of personalities who have participated in the modern ecumenical movement at different stages and, in doing so, will attempt to add some comparative comments. Often it will be enough to describe these personalities and their involvement in such a way that the comparisons will be self-evident.

Early Handicaps

The first important ecumenical gathering to take place in Asia was the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) conference held in 1907 in Tokyo. Delegates from many countries around the world converged upon Japan,

which had just emerged victorious from the Russo-Japanese War to become a significant world power. Korea at the time still retained its sovereignty, though reduced in the settlement of that war to the status of a protectorate of the Japanese imperial government. In the shadow of the Rising Sun, the Korean Christians made their first appearance on the ecumenical scene. The Korean figure present at this meeting was the Honourable Chi-ho Yun, former deputy foreign minister of the Korean government and one of the early Christian converts in Korea. Internal political crisis in Korea had forced him to take refuge in China where he had been baptized in 1887 by a Southern Methodist missionary. Later he studied in the USA, and he was subsequently instrumental in the opening up of Southern Methodist missionary work in Korea.

International organizations, whether Christian or secular, are normally dominated by Western leaders and the issues with which they happen to be preoccupied. Therefore, there has always been a tendency for people from the non-Western nations who attend world gatherings to be those who have been exposed to the West and either have linguistic capabilities or are known personally to the organizational leadership. Western missionary agencies, of course, have often been the channels through which non-Westerners have gained access to world gatherings. Most probably, it was inevitable in the early stage of the ecumenical movement, given the burden of inertia due to the instinct for self-preservation in all human institutions, that the problem of true representation was always a thorny question. Mr. Yun, however, was indeed an uncontested Christian leader in Korea at the time and, because of his social background, did not require any missionary patronage. In fact, the relationship was quite the other way around.

We find the same Mr. Yun at the International Missionary Conference (IMC) in Edinburgh in 1910. There were also

a few Japanese delegates – all of the non-Western participants were nominated by various mission agencies such as Bishop Yoichi Honda of the Methodist Church, Dr. Kajinosuke Ibuka of Meiji Gakuin, Dr. Tasuke Harada of the Doshisha, and Dr. Yugoro Chiba of the Baptist Church.

In the same year, Korea became a Japanese colony, as Japan joined the ranks of the world's colonial powers. It is almost symbolic that two plenary presentations were allotted to the Japanese delegates, while Mr. Yun was making an address one evening to a subsidiary meeting in Glasgow, far away from Edinburgh. The Japanese delegates were, so to speak, seated at the head table of the International Missionary Conference. Imperialism was the accepted order of the day, and the Japanese churches and Christians took their important first step in the modern ecumenical movement at the head table of the colonial powers, whereas the Korean church was forced to tread the path of an unrecognized and ambiguous identity among the colonized, a pattern maintained for many years. The WSCF Executive Committee met in Peking in 1922, with Helen Kim representing the Korean student group. This was the beginning of her long ecumenical involvement, particularly in the work of the IMC.

Many Koreans subsequently participated actively in the IMC, even after the formation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948, up to the time of its integration into the WCC in 1961. So did the Japanese leaders. However, it is rather difficult to assess, from documentary evidence, the degree of their participation in world conferences. For example, some Japanese leaders were invited to an earlier Faith and Order planning session, and the ecumenical chronicles duly record the silent participation of the Asian representatives. It may not be an exaggeration to assume that our Northeast Asian leaders of former generations were not familiar with the predominantly Anglo-Saxon way of conducting ecumenical conferences

and that the almost total neglect of the language difficulties of the non-Western delegates hampered their participation.

Neither the Faith and Order movement nor the Life and Work movement had any significant involvement by the churches of Korea and Japan. The 1938 Tambaram (India) conference of the IMC was convened under the dark clouds of international political crisis. Japan was at war with China. The famous Christmas Eve gathering of Japanese and Chinese delegates at Tambaram had a symbolic value, but it could not halt the relentless course of conflict. The Kraemer-Hocking debate was simply watched by the Japanese delegation; no serious intervention seems to have been made by the Japanese reflecting their particular experiences at home with regard to the Shintoism issue, the Religious Organizations Act, and the whole debate about kokutai (national structure/character). It may be true that there was already an overwhelming sympathy for the Chinese and a degree of resentment against Japanese expansionism, which would naturally have intimidated the sensitive Japanese leaders.

There was no Korean delegate present at Tambaram because the Japanese government would not recognize the existence of an independent national council of churches in Korea, and the Korean delegates would not go under the aegis of the Japanese council. The Amsterdam World Youth Conference in 1939 was probably the last world conference held until after World War II. Japan was represented by Kiyoko Takeda, who later became an important ecumenical leader. There was no Korean present at this meeting either.

Recent Disparities

The pattern of silent participation of Northeast Asian delegates to world conferences seems to have continued up to the formation of the East Asian Christian Conference

(EACC) in 1959 and the Third Assembly of the WCC in 1961. From the 1960s, we begin to see a new ecumenical leadership emerging in persons like Masao Takenaka of Japan and Won-Yong Kang of Korea. Their vocal participation in the world ecumenical movement reflects not only their personal qualities but also the degree of advancement and maturity of the ecumenical spirit in both countries. The ecumenical climate in Korea, however, has always been unfavourable due to the prevailing theological and political obscurantism. The whole burden of the cold war lay heavily on the Korean people, and it was always a struggle to overcome the stigmatism inflicted upon the small ecumenically-committed band of persons by people, both inside and outside Korea. This was a serious handicap for the Koreans, even when the world ecumenical fellowship provided necessary spiritual support, and the translation of ecumenism into the Korean context sometimes involved personal security risks.

Japan, on the other hand, has been more favourably disposed in the post-war period. Liberalism and the rising international consciousness of the Japanese people, along with the gradual enhancement of national privilege, have provided a congenial atmosphere for the more liberal Japanese to participate in international forums.

Because of limited space I am forced to risk sweeping generalizations. Up to the end of the 1950s, our common struggle was to overcome the problem of silent participation or a lack of opportunities for participation. But this is no longer true. We now have enough qualified younger leaders in our churches who have a reasonable degree of local as well as international ecumenical experience; and not a few persons have served in staff capacities in world and regional ecumenical bodies. The problems we face today are both old and new. The old problem is that of communication. Discussion at the world level moves ahead with its own dynamics of inertia

without fully taking cognizance of our local particularities. On the other hand, there is still a persistent apathy in Korea and Japan toward a global ecumenical endeavour. Even on this point, one can make the observation that the Japanese elite are more exposed through the printed media to the issues being debated at the world level. Theological journals like Fukuin to sekai (The gospel and the world) faithfully report the current issues and serve to generate discussions among Japanese on the relevance of these issues in the Japanese context. Affluence is often mentioned as a cause of Korean laxity, but this is not, in my judgment, a very convincing explanation. Surely one likely source of this unsatisfactory situation is the way programmes are organized by world bodies like the WCC, though I shall not elaborate this factor at this time.

Another difference is discernible among the personalities who have participated in global ecumenical conferences. Masao Takenaka, for example, symbolically represents the participation of the Japanese academic community, whereas Won-Yong Kang's presence is symbolic of Korea's ecclesiastical statesmanship. Each role involves certain advantages and disadvantages. While Japanese academics have more or less monopolized the ecumenical connections, church-based leadership has often remained aloof. On the other hand, when global ecumenical participation becomes highly politicized, as in the case of Korea, theologians have been deprived of their avenues for ecumenical participation. This, interestingly enough, seems consistent with the tradition of the modern ecumenical movement. In former times, there were more academics active in the ecumenical movement. Nowadays, we see more ecclesiastical faces. This also suggests that Koreans are largely latecomers to the worldwide ecumenical movement.

Undoubtedly, Japanese Christians had a head start in the ecumenical movement. It is also true that Japanese

Christianity has been better known in the ecumenical world, and we can see two basic reasons for this. The first is that ever since the early phase of Japan's modernization, the Japanese elite developed a certain consciousness of being a creative link between the different cultures of East and West, and, on this premise, their global consciousness was nurtured. The second reason is found in the efforts of the host of intellectually articulate Western missionaries who diligently studied the history and culture of Japan and, by so doing, became effective interpreters of Japanese Christianity. The Japan Christian Quarterly is one example which owes much to such efforts throughout its existence. This is among the reasons why Japanese Christianity has been well reported in the West far out of proportion to its relative numerical strength as compared with Korea. The significance of Korean Christianity consists of more than its rapid growth or even its considerable influence in Korean society. There are many Christian laymen who are highly placed in many important areas of public life, and the opinions of Korean church leaders carry considerable weight in public affairs. There has not yet been, however, sufficient hermeneutical effort to understand and apply the historical lessons of the Korean church's experience.

Contributions and Critical Needs

Perhaps the most important contributions of the Korean churches to the global church are, first of all, their evangelistic fervour and missionary commitment; secondly, their capacity to endure the hardships of persecution; and thirdly, their down-to-earth pattern of congregational life, though mixed with parochialism. To be sure, the Korean churches have made no earth-shaking contribution to the global ecumenical movement. Their conservatism and resistance to change will, however, much this may exasperate progressive forces in the Korean church, remain for a long time characteristic features

of the Korean Christian temperament. Still, the Korean churches are changing, slowly but surely, in the direction of greater participation in the ecumenical movement.

Ecumenism has been more favourably introduced and received in Japan. There have been more ecumenically oriented studies and projects. The creation of the International Christian University is one instance, and the comprehensive study of evangelism in Japan under the auspices of the National Christian Council of Japan (NCCJ) is another. The policy statement on evangelism issued by the NCCJ in 1952 is still worth reviewing. Also, interaction between the world ecumenical bodies and the Japanese churches has been greater than in Korea. Perhaps the most significant impact made on the world church by the Japanese church is its insistence on world peace coupled with a clear cut conviction about the need for a ban on nuclear testing. The Japanese appeal to the Second WCC Assembly in Evanston (1954) against hydrogen bomb testing cleared the way for the ecumenical movement to become more actively engaged in promoting world peace through the churches. Clearly, the Japanese people should never forget their responsibility to remind the world that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated. Perhaps the cause of world peace and the campaign against militarism ought to be the decisive ecumenical issues for the Japanese church.

Enlightened minds throughout the world sympathized with Japanese Christian youth in the 1960s with their convictions about the tragic consequences of the futility of aggression imposed by external forces and particularly their protest against Japanese complicity. The issue was clear enough, and at the same time they rightly internalized the issue in order to expose the self- contradictions of the Japanese churches. It was truly a missiological examination.

The debates proceeded along that line. Though the whole ecumenical movement did not take cognizance of this important debate more openly, it is crucial that the historical debate took place. I am reasonably certain that it helped many earnest Christians to reflect on the self-identity of Japanese Christianity in the contemporary Japanese context. It is also an honest prayer of many of us non-Japanese that the present stalemate in the United Church of Christ in Japan (Kyodan) will be resolved so that the latent force of this important church can be released for the good of the whole oikoumene.

In that connection, I wish to make one simple observation. The internalization of the Christian pavilion issue at Expo '70 – charges and denials of Christian cooperation with Japanese economic expansionism – was a necessary process, but it is also true that there was a tendency for the issue to become parochialized. This parochialization made it very difficult to interpret and communicate the issue ecumenically. Many of those who were known in ecumenical circles remained relatively silent on this issue. Perhaps one embarrassment was the fact that the NCCJ had come out openly in support of the Christian pavilion and turned the whole thing into a Roman Catholic-Protestant joint project.

The point which I wish to raise is the degree of awareness of those youthful pavilion-opposing radicals as regards others' sensitivity to their important struggle. The opponents knew what was happening in the outside world. With the information overflow in Japan, one is bound to know. But intellectual perception alone does not generate the kind of enthusiastic mutual commitment that comes from real honest encounter. Solidarity means mutual existential involvement. In the closely inter-related world of today no one national issue must be allowed to become an absolutely parochial issue. We need all the good will we can muster all over the world just to solve

even some minor problem. Such is the extent of the dominion of powers and principalities in this world.

What I am actually saying is that after nearly ten years of reflection and meditation, perhaps the time has come to initiate a new version of global ecumenical youth and student movements with fresh insight and vigor. Participation in the national, regional, and world ecumenical bodies still remains the business of a limited number of people around the top echelon of the denominational churches. These ecumenical structures are organized on a representative basis so that the number of official participants is necessarily limited. For this reason, it is more urgent and imperative than ever that more imaginative programmes be envisaged for a greater number of lay men and lay women to have creative ecumenical experiences on the national level. Likewise, grassroots level ecumenical projects need to be encouraged.

Another important question confronting us today concerns the training of future ecumenical leadership. In days past, many persons caught the ecumenical vision through their participation as youth in the programmes of lay movements, especially youth and student movements. What has happened to them? For almost two decades now, ecumenical youth and student movements have been almost totally paralyzed and demoralized, particularly in Japan. Korean youth, of course, face the very different problems of seduction and intimidation stemming from the peculiar socio-political realities of their situation. Theological institutions have not traditionally been the training ground for ecumenical leadership, and it is unlikely that they will be so any time soon. Unless something is done fairly soon, the chances of providing creative leadership for the world ecumenical movement from the Northeast Asian area are, and will be, quite bleak for a long time to come.

Renewing the Ecumenical Base

Who pays the costs of ecumenical services rendered by the regional and world ecumenical bodies? It goes without saying that the costs have, for long, been borne by the Western churches. The necessary international expenditures are largely beyond our means; it is, however, absolutely necessary for the churches in Korea and Japan to contribute a great deal more than they have so far been willing to give.

Ecumenical relations, for the churches in Korea and Japan, means, in most cases, those affairs which involve dealings with the Western churches. These historical links are precious and should not be taken lightly; however, even efforts to diversify the network of ecumenical relationships mean the quantitative multiplication of relations with more Western churches. There are many good reasons for this, though some of the motives are not necessarily wholesome. Why is it that, after all these years of involvement in ecumenical activity on the regional and world levels, we are still not able to generate in our churches a genuine interest in becoming more fruitfully related to the churches in Asia and other non-Western lands? Despite all the ecumenical rhetoric, our churches are far behind the secular disciplines and institutions in terms of internalization. This deficiency is particularly acute in the Korean church.

In recent years some of the Japanese Christian leaders have been deeply involved in a process of discovering the Korean Christian consciousness. Much has been written, and many commendable programmes have been devised. Unfortunately, the Japanese efforts have not been reciprocated by the Koreans, and there are understandable reasons for this. The actions in Japan are taken by committed people who occupy responsible positions in various walks of life, not

because the churches have taken official stands. Various official inter-church relations already exist; more spontaneous ecumenical encounters concordant with these ties should be encouraged. This, it seems to me, is something church leaders on both sides must seriously consider.

As mentioned earlier, the Korean academics have had very little opportunity to participate in ecumenical affairs. Consequently, there prevails a general impression that ecumenics is the business of ecclesiastical administrators. Ecumenical conferences are looked upon as premium chances for travel abroad, with expenses usually paid by others. Those who attend the meetings seldom report to their constituencies back home, nor is the general climate of the churches such that they are truly interested in hearing what Christians elsewhere are thinking – certainly not as much as WCC officials tend to think.

Various charges have been levelled at the usual coterie of people who frequent the ecumenical gatherings – that they are an international jet set, or worse, an incestuous ecumenical club – and not entirely without reason, since so many of the same faces keep appearing year in and year out. Such distorted images are bad enough, but equally deplorable is the fact that national constituencies very often lose interest in ecumenical events once their delegates are chosen. Thus, home constituencies help perpetuate the shallow image of ecumenical tourism by their ill-concealed assumption that it is the participants' own business while they are away.

For the Korean churches, it is perhaps advisable that opportunities be created for academics and lay men and women to participate in international (regional and global) gatherings, and for many more to participate in local projects with global linkage, so that new interest in the

ecumenical "movement" may be generated. This is also another way to tear down the ivory tower ethos of ecumenism and to integrate both the narrowly defined academic disciplines and the narrowly conceived professional interests into the mainstream of the missiological struggles of contemporary churches in Korea.