When the Rev. Kurt Esslinger spreads the word for the Korea Peace Appeal, he works from an incarnational perspective. Esslinger and his wife, the Rev. Hyeyoung Lee, have lived in South Korea for 10 years, and their son, Sahn, was two and a half months old when they moved there. Esslinger says he became a missionary to South Korea in part to come to terms with his birth nation’s involvement in the Korean War.
Both missionaries are ordained through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and they count the Episcopal Church as “an active participant in the ecumenical forum on Korea,” Esslinger said. Hyeyoung Lee is a Korean-American, and they met while both studying at McComick Theological Seminary in Chicago.
Korea Peace Appeal’s signature line, “70 Years Is Enough,” reminds non-Koreans of something Koreans know: although the battles of the Korean War ceased, the two nations remain in a place of “armistice wartime.”
“Technically speaking, the status of the armistice agreement keeps a war alive in the background,” Esslinger told TLC.
Under the armistice, the U.S. military retains authority over the South Korean military. “That means South Korea is not free to end the war if it wants to,” Esslinger said.
The campaign has a goal of gathering 100 million signatures for a document released in 2020, the 70th anniversary of the armistice. However many people sign the petition, organizers intend to present the document at the United Nations in the fall.
While Esslinger does not venture a guess about the hope of meeting the goal, “we’ve collected more signatures than we’ve ever collected before,” he said.
Esslinger objects to Ulchi Freedom Shield, “annual military exercises that involve practice strikes against North Korea,” he said. “We have this mutual provocation near Ulsan,” a city along South Korea’s eastern coast.
He cites a survey by the government that found older Koreans support the idea of reunification, with varying opinions about how that might happen. Among younger Koreans, there’s less interest in reunification but greater support for peace between the nations.
“Westerners may assume that the North does not want peace,” he said, and he thinks this belief could be tied to racist assumptions about Asians that preceded the war.
“The North has followed through on its comments and promises, but the dialogue has faltered because it needed U.S. approval,” he said.
The hope for the petition, he said, “is that it would be the opening of a door among U.S. decision-makers.”
Esslinger said that in his daily life, the conflict between the two Koreas feels more intractable, but in his missionary work he’s encouraged by “sitting with partners and talking about what’s happening in Korea.”
“The real monumental change came when the democratization movement broke the stranglehold of military dictatorship in South Korea” in 1987, he said. “Dialogue between South and North Korean Christians have had more of an effect” since then.
“I hope that people in the United States will be more willing to follow the lead of South Koreans the next time South Korea makes a move toward peace and dialogue.”
