[Editorial] A tribute to Reverend Kang Won-ryong

The reverend Kang Won-ryong has departed. It is upsetting for us to send off a man who dedicated his life to the cause of peace.

Kang was a typical example of one of Korea’s Protestant elite, having been educated at Meiji Gaguin University in Japan and Union Theological Seminary in New York. But he always stood with the persecuted and alienated in our society. To build a more humane society, he dedicated his life to church and social reform.

These movements tend to demand extreme choices. But Kang chose the middle path. That sometimes got him labeled as a vacillator, but he believed that no conflict can be resolved without mutual understanding through dialogue. Such was also the teaching of theologians he studied with, such as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr. It was Kang who founded the famous Christian Institute for the Study of Justice and Development, upon his return from studying abroad in 1959, in order to build a culture of dialogue. He created the Christian Academy in 1965, giving Korea an even wider opportunity for dialogue between men and women, rich and the poor, business and labor, and different religions.

One of the regular "dialogue gatherings" organized by the Christian Academy was the Korean Conference for Religion and Peace. However, it was in fighting the contradictions of our society where he worked the hardest. In the sixties he concentrated on the problems of modernization and industrialization, and in the seventies he concentrated on social polarization and qualify of life issues for all.

By that time, divisions between ideology and political systems, the powers that be and the masses, cities and rural areas, and businessmen and laborers were already plaguing Korean society. It was at that time that Kang began to use the Christian Academy as a medium organization for education about overcoming social polarization issues. Well known names who participated in the organization’s activities include prime minister Han Myung-sook, Ehwa Womans [sic] University president Shin In-ryung, former National Assembly member Lee U-jae, and professors Kim Se-gyun and Jang Sang-hwan. People who took classes there included well known names in the labor movement during the seventies, such as current National Assembly member Choi Soon-young, Lee Chong-gak, Bak Sun-hui, sand Yi Yeong-sun. In April 1974, Park Chung Hee’s dictatorial Yusin regime arrested 137 of the activists and students there in the fabricated "Christian Academy affair," marking what would be the beginning of its long end.

Kang called dialogue "an old new way." He compared the spirit of dialogue to the sacrificial spirit of Jesus, who died on the cross as a slave. What Kang meant was that only love and tolerance without discrimination can overcome the disparities of our era. That means so much more today, now that he has laid a path for the rest of us.