A Miracle of Five Minutes: The Autobiography of Kim Sundo

Praise for A Miracle of Five Minutes

Miraculous Experience of Hurt Turning into Glory

Bishop Kim Sundo’s new book is an inspired and inspiring book. He was called to a life of faith in the midst of the deadly tragedy of the Korean War. As Kim Sundo faced death, he was called by God. I experienced a similar event in 1943 in the firestorm bombing my hometown of Hamburg. I asked myself a question: Why am I not dead as are my comrades and the friend who was next to me? For what have I been spared and now how must I live?

Bishop Kim Sundo surrendered his life to God’s hands and became a blessed and world-renowned pastor. I, too, surrendered my life to God’s hands; but for me, it took many more years until I understood.

Whoever has once experienced hurt turning into glory will discover signs of God again and again in the course of his or her life. And in the course of life with God, one harbors constant questions about our lives becoming challenges to our faith.

Kim Sundo’s suffering mirrored the sufferings of the Korean people, and the suffering of his people mirrored his suffering during the harsh Japanese colonial occupation, World War II, the Korean War, the unwanted division of his country, and the tears of separated families. Therefore, the existential import of his God-encounter carried resonance not only for the people in Korea but also for all oppressed, exiled, separated, and lost people worldwide.

Readers of this book may themselves experience their own hurts transforming into glory. I proudly recommend this wonderful book to all Christians and especially to those who do not yet believe in God.

Jürgen Moltmann

Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology,

University of Tübingen

A Life Lodged in the Majesty and Goodness of God

I met Kim Sundo at the Kwanglim Prayer Mountain outside Seoul, South Korea, when I was invited to lecture there and then I stayed a little while longer for a personal spiritual sabbath and prayer time. I fasted, and walked, in prayer and contemplation. Every morning I attended the dawn prayer meetings. All devotion was conducted in Korean but that did not hinder the spiritual immersion. Through the fervent prayers offered by students and their devotional worship, I experienced the transformative energy of it.

One day, as we began discussing the needs of the Christian community worldwide, the bishop suddenly dropped to his knees and asked me to pray for him. I was stunned. I then knelt and prayed for this man who clearly understood the depths of prayer far more than I. I sensed the energy of the Holy Spirit about him.

It was the spirit in the man that I felt instantly. Here is someone at ease in the shadow of the Almighty. Here is someone whose life has been formed by the habitual practice of the presence of God. Here is someone who, in the words of the apostle Paul, lived in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17).

The Korean Christian community has much to teach Christians worldwide. Bishop Kim Sundo is a premier example of the heart and mind and spirit of just such teaching. And now, through Bishop Kim's autobiography, we can all learn in intimate detail how such a life bathed in the greatness and goodness of God is possible.

Richard J. Foster

Theologian and Author

The Story of God’s Mighty Work through Human Vessels

God does not merely work in the abstractions of well-articulated theology. God also works in the unfolding tapestries of individual lives of persons who surrender themselves to God. God writes his story in the lives of ordinary men and women who submit themselves fully to God’s mighty work.

John Wesley famously declared, Give me ten men, filled with the Holy Spirit and fully committed to Jesus Christ, and I will give England back to God.

This is still how God transforms the world. He does it through people. One of the people God has chosen for his redemptive work in the world is Bishop Kim Sundo.

This autobiography is the unfolding narrative of the bishop’s life. He is a living testimony to the grace of God. God’s grace rescued him from certain death to become a pastor of the largest Methodist church in the world. I invite you to enter into this journey.

Do not read it as merely the story of one man’s life. Read it as the story of God’s mighty work through human vessels he has chosen. I highly recommend this autobiography of the life of Bishop Kim and pray that it will inspire you to know that we serve a living God who raises us up for God’s purposes in the world.

Timothy C. Tennant, Ph.D.

President

Asbury Theological Seminary

Title Page

A Miracle of Five Minutes

Kim Sundo

Abingdon Press

Nashville

Copyright Page

a miracle of five minutes

Copyright © 2015 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, P.O. Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988, or 2222 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37228, or e-mailed to permissions@umpublishing.org.

ISBN 978-16308-8834-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations noted NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotation marked CEB is from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.Common EnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotation marked KJV is taken from the King James or Authorized Version of the Bible. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Contents

Contents

Prologue

1. The Jerusalem of the East

2. Suffocating under Communist Society

3. A Miracle of Five Minutes That Changed My Life

4. The Search for My Family

5. Transition from Medicine to Theology

6. The Fervent Time of Seeking after the Truth

7. An Auspicious Friend

8. Inscribing the Spirit of Life and Healing in My Heart

9. Picking Up a Creative Habit from an Ordinary Life Situation

10. In Passion, Let Yourself Melt!

11. The Power of Prayer That Helps Us Climb the Stairs of the Vision

12. Hallmark of Love for Soul

13. A Challenge to Widen the Spiritual Horizon

14. Interference of God in Changing the Direction of the Dream

15. Dreaming of the Summit of the Vision

16. Arriving at the Summit of the Vision

17. Toward the Higher Vision

18. The Source of Power That Overcomes Individualism

19. Seize the Moment to Leap

20. The System of My Soul

21. Thoughts that Lead to Greatness

22. The Marks of a Building That Was Built of Visions and Ideas

23. Spreading the Scent of Kwanglim church

24. Retirement and the Succession of Leadership

25. Eternal Running Mate

26. Let Me Remain a Praying Priest

Prologue

Prologue

In the course of my lifetime I was once a baby, then a boy and a young man. At each stage I had dreams, worked hard to challenge them, and indeed made some of them come true. All along God worked with me and provided me guidance on all the steps I took.

I was a young medical student when I was forcefully conscripted into the North Korean Army. My spirit, I felt, was greatly stifled while under Communist rule. To save myself from suffocation I ran away for the freedom of faith. In five minutes of God’s grace, I found myself turning from being part of a North Korean Army medical detachment to becoming a part of a South Korean Army medical detachment. All of this happened in five minutes that I can never forget, that has been a major diving force to this date, and that will be so until the last five minutes of my life.

After experiencing a kairos of five-minute miracle, I saw the face of death in the battlefields, signs of the last days of humanity, and the fragility of my own existence. In the face of imminent death, I cried for the mercy of God and pledged to dedicate my whole life to the service of God, if spared.

The promise I made on that day became my life and the defining purpose of my life. Now the study of medicine gave way to the study of theology. I changed my path of becoming a medical doctor to become a pastor who is dedicated to healing human bodies and souls beyond mere physical ailments.

My middle years have been totally dedicated to keeping the promise I made with God. During that period I was a military chaplain, studied theology in the United States, and then returned home with a dream to build up a Methodist church that would be known as the most globally mission-minded church in the world. Having journeyed high and low through my life and now looking back, I ask myself, Who am I here and now?

Now at nearly ninety years old, what am I doing and what do I think of? What is the thread, if any, that knits my life throughout the journey? What has held me through all phases of my life, what provides direction and meaning even to this day? I am sure that the link to all the things in my life is God’s providence. I am certain my entire life, from top to bottom, from before birth and afterward, from my childhood—all the steps I have taken, all the people I have met, and all the things I have encountered—can be woven together into a big yarn, namely the yarn of divine providence.

And now I wonder what my story may tell the present generation. Think about the prophets of the past and their proclamations. We know their lives and their confessions were in line with God’s purpose. If so, God may have had a reason for intervening in my life. God may have wanted my story to reveal his divine purpose. There must be a providential purpose behind what happened to me. Being convinced of it, I desire to share my story.

I was born in 1930 in Suncheon, North Pyung-an Province (now in North Korea), and grew up as a sensitive boy under Japanese military colonial rule. Although quiet and reserved by nature, I spent my first fifteen years full of grudges and anger, wanting to throw stones against the reality framed by the suffocating colonial constraints. The Korean War broke out when I should have been nurturing my tender imagination and engaging my energetic spirit with constructive activities. I had no choice but to witness the horrors of war. I saw the fallacy of the Communist regime as a North Korean Army surgeon and strongly desired to escape from such folly. I experienced God’s miracle, which saved a hopeless young soldier who wanted to run away. In five minutes, God turned a North Korean soldier into a medical officer serving the South Korean Army.

I can never shirk this experience. The experience convinced me of the absolute providence and the absolute love of God! From that moment on, I lived positively. Ultimate faith in response to the ultimate will of God. Affirmation and resilient hope arising from ultimate faith! From then on, I had steady confidence that passes all understanding and never lost hope in all circumstances.

Immediately after the war I saw people lost in despair and hopelessness who were confronted by the total ruin of war. They were like the Israelites facing crumbled Jerusalem as they returned from Babylonian captivity. Nonetheless they were confident, singing we will never perish since God is gracious and merciful. Our people likewise turned songs of grief into the songs of hope. There I saw their will to life and their desire for a future. The affirmation of life proved to be the fundamental base for life.

Such desire of life was mobilized as the energy for industrialization of the whole nation. Economy boomed during the 1970s and 1980s, with the New Village Movement. Cities and towns were developed, high-rise buildings were erected and more growth was attained, especially after hosting the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Summer Olympics.

I thanked God for all the prosperity he was granting and thanked God for sustaining our people as well. I, however, could not but wonder as to what all the growth and development meant. I asked God, Lord why are you giving the fresh breath of hope to this country? What does all the industrial dynamism mean, and how should we conduct our lives in response to these blessings?

In my search for answers, I was led to recall a time of my childhood when I listened to my pastor Kim Jinsu’s sermon on the Exodus passage when we lived under the oppressive Japanese colonial rule and also of my days of youth when I hid myself in a secretive hide-out from Communist detection, read the Bible, and wrote prayers in my journal. Then I prayed, O Lord, grant us Exodus to this land! Allow us emancipation! Send us a leader like Moses!

Why did those prayers in those days suddenly occur to me? I wondered. At this juncture, when my earlier prayers for the independence and prosperity of our nation have been answered, and especially when I was asking for the purpose of such fulfillment, why did I recall my previous petition for the emancipatory exodus!? I soon realized what God providentially intended with our new blessings.

Well, in this blessing of prosperity there is a hidden meaning! It is not a mere blessing. It is rather a blessing that comes with a task in mission, of serving other lands. It is a providential and intercessory blessing. I heard the commission that led me to pray: Lord, grant me a church that can serve nations around the world. Grant me a church that can embrace the world and guide the lost souls before you.

I started to dream of a church that would seek more than simple growth, a church that would not simply chase after growth for the sake of growth, but growth to serve and to share! God blessed my prayers and allowed me to set up Kwanglim Church. God blessed Kwanglim Church so that it grew and flourished, but even during the prime days I never forgot why such blessing had been granted.

Fully understanding God’s mission, I prayed and worked to establish a church that grows to share and to serve. A church that delivers God’s people from sin to life, from despair to hope, and that rescues God’s people, especially those under great suffering, out into the land God promised.

Fifty-five years of my ministry flew like a speeding arrow, heading toward the target God had set for me: loving God, and loving my neighbor. Fulfilling God’s love through Kwanglim Church!

To accomplish God’s plan, I challenged myself to bring growth to the church and I could see it grow into what it is today. I did my best to establish a church based on prayer and the Word of God, a church that loves its neighbor through social service, and a church that shares the love of God by following God’s Great Commission.

Today, more than twelve years after retiring, I realize that my retirement is yet another challenge. From the 1990s, an influx of exotic culture and strange schools of thought made inroads into this country. Religious pluralism, postmodernism, waves of secularization, and many people now helplessly lured by the instrumental convenience in the migration from analog to digital technology!

I could not but just see traditional values being slandered, absolute truth and universal values being shoved away as obsolete by the novel and glittering fun the digital age is offering.

I agonize because I see Korean churches and their theological basis being infiltrated with secularizing thoughts instead of providing protection. Since my retirement in 2001, I have been troubled with such issues that, from the 1980s, have been undermining the maturing lives of churches in Korea.

Churches in Korea should continue to grow. But the problem is how to fend off the spread of dislocating cultural pressures. How can we set up a banner that heralds everlasting truth to prevent some of these contemporary thoughts from pulling down churches and the minds of the people?

What is certain is that we can no longer rely on churches in Europe and America for leadership in missional initiatives. The churches in the United States are still strong and firm, but are having a hard time coping with Asian economies such as India, China, Japan, and South Korea in the competitive race for the economic hegemony that may be decided within this decade. A host of futurists say Asia, mainly countries like China, India, South Korea, and Japan, will take hold of the world’s economy by 2020.

God will bless Asia with economic prosperity. Such prosperity should not be tarnished with egoism so that more doors can be opened for Asia to share and serve. God is planning to make his gospel reach every corner of the earth through such a movement of sharing.

Accordingly churches in Korea are seeking to make their members global Christians. It means they are not limiting themselves within their territorial boundaries. Growth in Korea, therefore, means growth for churches around the world, which certainly seems to be God’s plan for the future.

It is about time for pastors in Korea to stop getting doctorate degrees for the sake of getting better positions in bigger churches. Rather they should see if they are truly qualified to bring further development and growth to the churches.

In Korea, denominations appointing pastors by bishops and superintendents will not grow any more. Not to mention sects that have would-be pastors wanting to serve remote churches only on a temporary basis until they are ordained.

Churches in Korea are in need of evangelists. The demand for active evangelical leaders who can pioneer and bring growth to churches is high. Churches do not need pastors who are there to maintain already existing churches with administrative skills. The church does not need such a passive clergy but initiating and active leaders who plant new churches. Now we need pastors who preach, evangelize, and pioneer at the same time. The new situation calls for spiritual leaders who can preach the gospel with firm conviction, with a concrete practical sense of relevancy to their contexts.

At the same time, pastoral leaders should be able to earn the respect of their congregations with the integrity of holy living and works of piety. They should provide guidance to invigorate small-group and missionary meetings and be skillful in the daily operation and organization of their churches.

Many should seriously examine their complacent assumption that doctorate degrees may ensure the growth of the congregation and at the same time also eject their questionable desire to be appointed to or invited by large churches. What churches of our age are in need of is to go back to the basics, which should be their perennial banner.

The theory of deconstruction of postmodernism has managed, I am afraid, to deconstruct the minds and souls of modern men and women. Religious pluralism and its theory of understanding has penetrated deep into the Christian faith, but failed to provide any truth.

While there are ten paths that may be seen, yet only one may be taken for us to walk. Though religious pluralism may have disclosed ten pathways, nevertheless it allowed the church not one to travel by.

The biggest challenge to churches in Korea is the influence of secularism. Churches are being dragged by popularism and short, easy, and expedient approaches. They are compromising the value of worship, tailored to mere emotional levels, and producing members immersed in secular practices without properly nurturing them spiritually. Churches have failed to sanctify the world and instead are becoming secularized by the world.

The church is founded upon the gospel. Having the gospel in one’s heart is holiness and practicing holiness is evangelism. That is why a church should first restore holiness and secure distinctiveness from worldliness in basic orientation before reconnecting with the world. The church should, therefore, not just melt herself into secularization but rather create a spiritual moving force of attraction the world may find irresistible.

How can the church become irresistible? With what may it inspire? How can it be appealing enough to touch the minds and hearts of people? It can by practicing holiness and service through evangelism, the core of its very existence. It should reconcile with the world through service, but at the same time be distinct. Such duality can make the church more appealing and empower it to proclaim the gospel. It was with such understanding that we were motivated to build the Social Service Center, which has recently been completed.

I believe that churches in Korea need to be reinforced with the spirit of evangelism, holiness, service, and sharing. My fifty-five years of ministry have been a continuum and an extension of the horizon on this principle and I started to write my story with hope to further expand the horizon.

This book is my interpretation and assessment of my own life. It is a confession of an old, retired pastor who sees his life lived in its entirety under God’s providence. It is my confession of how God made me what I am today. I have tried to recount the story of my true self, how God granted me his vision, what challenges were to be overcome, and how I came up with the system that is in place today.

In the process, my faith grew stronger and the principles and rules I’d set for my ministry and for church growth came to fruition. I hope and pray that this book, first and foremost, reaches those who are called to holiness and those with pure passion for ministry, willingly and fully committed to the development and growth of their churches.

I also hope it reaches those who are living in wilderness, not knowing which way to go; those living in despair, unable to walk again; and those who wish to choose the right path over a speedy one. I pray that my story can encourage them and tell them your life is under God’s plan indeed unless you give up walking in his path.

As Richard Watson has mentioned, the future is not grasped by those who learn about it in advance, but by those who deeply reflect on it, I hope this book may pose critical questions to draw people to think more deeply.

1. The Jerusalem of the East

Chapter 1

The Jerusalem of the East

An encounter with Jesus leads to a discovery of one’s wounded self. It further leads to a discovery of the fact that one is formed in the image of God. Accepting it leads to the affirmation and the transformation of one’s self. Such positive change will enable a person to live in hope and in light, firmly believing in the world that exists beyond. This person will no longer choose to live in darkness, despair, and under the shadow of death. A life of a Christian, therefore, is all about opening one’s heart to seek light instead of seeing life through a window marred by anxiety, hostility, and prejudice.

My Hometown Suncheon

Many have described life as a road that we travel.

Has somebody said, a life is a journey? A journey! The road we’ve traveled! To everyone there is a time each looks back over the road he or she has traveled. When would that be? Is it because they are drawn by the past? Perhaps, but perhaps not. I believe it more often happens when they are lured by the future. One looks back on the road when he or she desires to walk as powerfully foreshadowed by what one hopes.

The road you walked may be a baiting hook thrown by the future. It may be an arrow that your vision of the future urged you to shoot, an arrow to which your deepest desires are attached. I want to designate this as a discovery, not an interpretation. I want to announce that on the road I have traveled and in every place I have dwelt I have discovered the providence of God and also the passion that propelled me to move more eagerly forward.

Would this feeling be similar to the way Moses felt when he looked out toward Canaan? In the land of Moab, across from the River Jordan, Moses was at the threshold of accomplishing his vision. Why did Moses talk about the road he had journeyed over, the story of Israel, just before the onset of the imminent future that he envisioned? Probably to prove that places such as Mount Horeb, the Arabah Mountains, and Kadesh-Barnea, which the Israelites had traveled through, were places deeply invested with a sense of the future. It might also testify that today’s Israel is in the process of being caught on the same hook, the vision of the future.

A journey is an aspiration. Only an aspiration forged by the future finds a path. A path is the result of frantic struggles in life forging it by walking even when and where there is no path. Aspiration is what drives one’s life, and providence is what brings aspiration to birth. It causes the heart to beat faster and commands one to leap until one gets blisters on the soles of one’s feet.

The providence of God and Israel’s deep desires open up a road for the Israelites. Providence lends desire to the road. If there is an eagerness to move forward through the complexities of failure and success, feasting and sorrow, joy and despair, then the providence of God will set the spark of aspiration ablaze.

It’s the same for everyone. When you look back on your life, you will be able to find your desires and the spaces where you were impulsively dragged by those desires. When you connect those spaces chronologically, you will see that the difficulties you have faced in your life turned out to be a kairos moment, a moment of opportunity for God.

The path of my life opens at Suncheon County, North Pyung-An Province. I could not start my story without saying something about the history of Suncheon. Suncheon is my hometown where I forever wanted to return. As foxes lay their heads toward their homes when they die and salmon swim against the stream to their place of origin to meet their death, Suncheon is where my cognitive and emotional instincts direct me to return and constantly nags my conscience in that direction. I’d want to affirm that my thoughts, my pastoral philosophy, my spirituality, my temperament, my very DNA spring from all that the history of Suncheon betokens. My pastoral philosophy, spirituality, temperament, and DNA stemmed from the Place of the historical meaning of Suncheon.

Suncheon, North Pyung-An Province, was called Jerusalem of the East! If we look back on the church in Suncheon, we know how Suncheon was a consecrated place. The church began in 1897, a large church with fifteen hundred people, led by Pastor Yang Jeonbaek. It was known as North Church. In 1910, South Church was established by Pastor Kim Seonchang, and it expanded into a large church with twelve hundred people. Given that the population of Suncheon was five thousand, it demonstrates that approximately 54 percent of people who lived in that town were Christians.

In 1914, Arthur J. Brown, from the Foreign Mission Headquarters of the Presbyterian Church of North America, said that the growth of Suncheon Christianity was much faster than the sum total of church growth in Seoul, Cheongju, Daegu, and Busan. On June 13, 1928, Dong-A Ilbo (newspaper) reported as follows:

The growth of Suncheon’s Christianity is unprecedented in the world. Since this place is called the Kingdom of Christianity, every religious visitor to Korea feels the need to inspect churches in Suncheon.

In the 1930s when I was living in Suncheon, a city with a population of thirty thousand, there were four churches on the four corners of the city. People attended one of those four churches according to the zone of their residence.

At that time, markets were held once every five days and they often overlapped on Sunday. When they overlapped on Sunday, the merchants simply walked to church with the crowd because everyone was heading there. Sunday was so crowded with people going to church that the market could not even open. That’s how holy Suncheon was! Looking back on it now, there had probably always been some sort of innate spirituality present in Suncheon.

When you look at the history of Suncheon, one may quickly notice the Hong Kyongnae Rebellion of 1811. This was a rebellion led by Hong Kyongnae against social discrimination on the part of a corrupted government and discriminatory practice of the bureaucratic authority in accordance with the lineage of the autocratic class. This led to the massacre of more than two hundred thousand people in North Pyung-An Province alone. At this time, Pyongyang, Cheongju, and Suncheon were the base regions. Suncheon was known as a hotbed of protesting spirits. It is perhaps due to this reputation that it was harshly targeted when Japanese colonial power later set off the 105-Man Incident. This incident suppressed social and independence movements by imprisoning many Christian leaders and educators, such as Yang Gitak, Lee Dongryeong, Yoon Chiho, and Jun Dukki.

Suncheon was long regarded as filled with progressive and assertive spirits. Even during the Japanese colonial era, people did not feel intimidated. It was also reputed as a place that was indifferent to the hierarchical system and rather more commensurate with strong community spirit.

The assertive and progressive spirit of this region was confronted with the oppressive measures by the Japanese colonial rule. At first, people found it hard and were seemingly crushed by the Japanese oppression. But as people came under the influence of Christianity in their lives, they found greater resolve in themselves for resistance. As a result, more than half of the population of Suncheon became Christians.

Meanwhile, Suncheon was comparable to the people of Israel at the time of the Exodus in giving voice to their demand for freedom and liberation. It became one of the three strongholds of the independence movement. Out of the thirty-three people who read the declaration of independence, five were deeply connected to Suncheon, and these people were: Lee Seunghoon, Yoo Yeodae, Kim Byeongjo, Yang Jeonbaek, and Lee Myeongryong.

Shinsung School, a mission school that was founded in 1906 by missionaries and Pastor Kim Seokchang, perfectly demonstrated the character and core spirit of Suncheon. Shinsung School produced many outstanding educators, such as Baek Nakjun (later president of Yonsei University), Jang Riuk (president of Seoul National University), Go Byeonggan (president of Kyungbuk National University), Jang Giryo (prominent surgeon), Cha Gyeongseop (founder of Cha Hospital), Jang Junha (independence and democracy activist), Park Hyeongryong and Park Yunseon (both Presbyterian theologians), and Bang Jiil (Yeongdeungpo church leader).

I was born on December 2, 1930, at the foot of Mount Namsan, Suncheon Town, Suncheon County, North Pyung-An Province to my father, Kim Sanghyeok, and my mother, Lee Suknyeo. I was the first-born of four sons and three daughters. My grandfather Kim Takha was an elder, who once studied at Pyongyang Theological School and was active as a licensed preacher in Cheongju, North Pyung-An Province. The well-known poet Kim Sowol was one of my distant relatives. I think his poetic gift in language seems to have been inherited by my second son, Professor Kim Chungwoon.

My family fully absorbed the Christian ethos of the town of Suncheon. My mother practiced a deep devotion to God. Throughout her life, she observed early dawn prayer services, offered her tithes, and faithfully attended church services.

By growing up in a Presbyterian family that kept a Puritan spiritual discipline, I was able to cultivate the holy rigors of a puritan lifestyle. Ever since I was a child, I could not even conceive an idea of lying, hanging out with bad friends, or going to places where I was not supposed to be. I received a strict religious upbringing and formation. Indeed, I began observing the early dawn prayer service since I was in seventh grade and remain observing till this day.

Through my mother’s faith, I have learned that the primary reason for any human being’s existence is to revere and glorify God, and those who glorify God should lead their lives with faithfulness and sincerity in good works. On reflection, I have found that Suncheon has been a blessing to me and, at the same time, represents a task to resolve throughout my life’s journey. Suncheon signifies a condensed history of Korean Christianity itself. I was able to witness the dynamic essence of Christianity at work in my hometown Suncheon.

Suncheon has instilled in me the constructive disposition toward action and positive thinking. However, later it brought a collusion. At that time, in my subconscious, there was an irreconcilable gap between the Presbyterian teaching of double predestination and the assertive spirit of a tiger that Suncheon instilled in me. The doctrine of predestination offered me an escape hatch. I thought under Japanese colonization, keeping the Presbyterian puritanical holiness was escape from harsh reality by simply accepting the status quo; but on the other hand, the spirit of Suncheon compelled me to throw a stone against the wall of the oppressive power in protest.

When I was in fifth grade, I happened to see a Japanese magazine, called King. There was a story about bandits and I realized that those bandits symbolized our guerrilla army for national independence. At that time, one of the seniors of my school, a Korean though forced to change his name to Japanese, Hayashi Gocho, gave his life with an airplane suicide bombing called Kamikaze Dokudie. At his death, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. We honored him and he was presented