The theological
cracks in the church are the result of the fragmentation of differing
beliefs that have happened over tome. You can compare the disparate
entities of belief to the wars of the 20th century that put this whole
postmodern upheaval into effect. The geographic location where North
and South and East and West meets exists on the border between North
and South Korea is symbolic of the spiritual divide. It is a war
largely unresolved and is part of what George Bush calls his access of
Evil.
And if you have any idea of what goes on in North Korea you can't help
but acknowledge that what happens in the modern day concentration camps
there is evil. You can rationalize the separation all you
want with communist or capitalist dogma but that won't take the
absolute horror away. And if you live here in South Korea near the
ironically named Demilitarized Zone DMZ, you realize that people are
generally appreciative that they ended up on the American
occupied territory despite the American role in creating the whole
situation.
But that doesn't take away the horror that your family has been chopped
to pieces in a war that killed millions in the name of these modern
ideas of capitalism and communism, in a country whose indigenous people
had little exposure to the ideas of capitalism and communism. This was
war fought by foreigners in a foreign land about foreign ideas that had
little to do with the real Korea. When war started here in Korea this
country had only seen merely the beginning stages of modernism. The
message of the bible had also barely arrived and yet and yet Korea was
thrust into a war of opposing fragmented branches of the modern ideals.
This same phenomenon of enemies not knowing what they are fighting
against is what exists in the church today. You have a situation of
fragmentation where different cultures are developing their own
perspectives on truth. But if you look closely at the landscape of the
DMZ you will notice there is a buffer zone in between , and in this
buffer zone, out of the dust and destruction of the unnecessary war is
starting to evolve a wonderful unspoiled natural zone. In between the
cracks of the waring ideas of the different parties involves lies a
peaceful place uncorrupted by the noise of modernity running it's
course of destruction.
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And even now a train line being restored to reunite the peoples of
these countries. The point is to a people that are under the repression
of a regime that has not recognized the value of the separation of
culture, ethics and self consciousness it is a good thing to have a
symbol of modernization arriving on your doorstep. There are few other
symbols that capture the imagination of the modern age more than the
romantic symbol of the train of industrialization rolling in. What
North Korea has done is gone back to an era of pre-rational thinking as
an effort to escape the oppression of the occupying forces.
Communism in North Korea can hardly get used as justification for a
cold war when Korea did not have capitalism to start with. Those that
aren't familiar with Korean history can note that Korea had about 30
years of American Backed Japanese occupation before the war began.
Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that Korea fragmented
when the great symbol of modernism arrived. The United nations embodies
like few other organizations the values of, "We can agree to disagree".
And that is exactly what happened on the Korean peninsular.
As part of the one world order agreeing to disagree the united nations
fragmented on the boundary close to the 48th parallel and what is now
called the DMZ. If you go there there is nothing special about this
place today. It's a little like if you went to the tower of Babel, that
ancient city where they tried to reach the sky through their own
efforts. Well many would know how God sent down many languages to
confuse the people of Babel because they forgot about him. Well the
tower of Babel was destroyed and the remnants of that city
are a little like what is it is like to stand on the DMZ (I imagine).
But what is reuniting these countries is not weapons and the armory on
either side of the divide. It is the divide itself, that wonderful
stretch of nature that has evolved where both parties have said, "we
are not going to go there". That place of quiet and content free from
the waring parties is slowly but surely wielding it's power of
influence. This is not the position of claiming to have the monopoly on
absolute truth, nor is it the rejection of the existence of an absolute
truth as existing. From the middle of this DMZ you can get a sense that
God will have his way and restoration can take place in the cracks
between our ideas.
