Reflection on Global Ecumenical Theological Institute 2013

WHO IS OUR NEIGHBOR? 

A Short Reflection On GETI 2013 Program 

First of all I am very happy being a student of GETI program though only for couple days. I have a felicitous experience. My group faculty also asked me to have one presentation on eco-theology issues, particularly in Indonesia context. So it is a very wonderful and great experience in GETI, also for opportunity meet with many people from many countries.

One of the inspiring lectures for me was lecture from Dr. Seong Won Park in the very first beginning of GETI seminar. There are two points that very interesting to me which about his statement that “the minjung of minjung today are still every oppressed people not only in Korea, off course but in every our context, our nature that already exploited and particularly in South Korea context, are every migrant workers.” And other interesting point from his lecture is his information about the Korean Oikos Theology Movement. It is kind of training for youth people who came from Korea and other countries. The program is about peace talk, understanding nature through many programs including making slow food etc.

In my reflection I would like to emphasize my interest to Dr. Seong Won Park’s statement that “the minjung of minjung today are every oppressed people, exploited nature and migrant workers” or for short I put it in my understanding that our neighbor as a Christian should be every human beings and also other God’s creations, like animals and plants. But more than that “the minjung of minjung” for us should be every human being that somehow neglected by other human beings, under other human beings’ oppression, poor people, sick people, seen by others as nothing even without any values in their life (perhaps because their life conditions, their works option, their sexual orientation etc) and I am sad to say this, people who are not taken into account in church life. They are our really neighbor. Beside that we can see that other God’s creation as our neighbor as well. So because of that we have to treat them all with respect because we are not the owner of nature (only God is the owner).

I integrate my understanding of Dr. Seong Won Park’s statement with Dr. Nam Soon Kang’s statement. She said that Christianity has a dualist form which are oppressing and liberating people. For me even that is a fact that Christianity in its history revealed this dualist form, but as Christian we should choose our Christianity to be liberating people as much as possible, not oppressing people with narrow and limited theological horizon of our own.

So as Christian, we have to liberate our oppressed neighbor (the minjung of minjung) with our ministry and real actions. We have to help them find what we call “peace”. To do such things, Church should not be singing a same “song” with what our society sung, which are “songs” of injustice, oppressed, exploitation, violence etc. Church should sing different “song” even when Church does that will be crucified.