Korean Church Becomes 1st Asian Member of National Council

A Korean immigrant denomination with more than a fourth of its churches in Southern California has become the 32nd member of the National Council of Churches.

The Korean Presbyterian Church in America is the first Asian church body to be admitted to the Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican organization and the first new member since the Coptic Orthodox Church was accepted in 1979.

Nicholas Chongnack Chun of Los Angeles, secretary general of the church, said the Korean Presbyterian Church applied for council membership in 1979 but did not reach the required 20,000 membership level until this year. Membership was about half that large seven years ago, Chun said.

Volatile Subjects

The National Council of Churches, whose governing board meets twice a year, encourages the ecumenical movement toward church unity, adopts stances on human rights issues and through various commissions and offices addresses such sometimes volatile subjects as church-state separation and non-sexist language in worship services.

Not long after the Korean Presbyterian delegation was seated on a unanimous vote by the council’s governing board last week in Chicago, the board gave final approval to a policy statement asking the U.S. government to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea and to “hear the plea of the Korean people for reunification.”

The council’s statement, prepared after meetings with government and church officials in North and South Korea, said there “is a deep will among Christians on both sides to contribute jointly to finding ways to achieve national reconciliation, justice, independence and peaceful reunification.”

Calling it a “wonderful statement” that could help reduce north-south tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Chun said his delegation voted for the document despite the known opposition to reunification efforts by some segments of its “sister church,” the Presbyterian Church of Korea.

‘Better Able to Serve’

In thanking the council’s board for welcoming his denomination, the Rev. Chang Duk Choi of Los Angeles, the immediate past moderator, said that as a member of the council, “we will be better able to serve . . . not only within the Korean community but also in the greater community of Christians and non-Christians throughout this country.”

The Korean Presbyterian Church in America has about 180 affiliated churches in the United States and Canada, about 50 of them in Southern California. (Although there are several independent immigrant denominations, such as the Korean Presbyterian Church, many other Korean Christians have aligned themselves with existing American denominations. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a special Korean presbytery in Southern California.)

The largest congregation in the Korean Presbyterian Church is the 4,000-member Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles. Chun, an elder at that church, said that more than 2,000 adults attend the three Sunday morning services and 1,200 attend Sunday school. Young Nak and the independent Oriental Mission Church are considered the two largest Korean churches in Los Angeles.

Church Outgrown

The Young Nak church has outgrown its Fairfax Avenue facilities, once a synagogue whose 850-seat sanctuary is still adorned with Jewish symbols, including the Star of David.

Last month, the church completed escrow on a $4.5-million purchase of a 4.7-acre site east of Chinatown. “We looked for four or five years for a place in Koreatown, but we couldn’t find a site large enough,” Chun said. The senior pastor is the Rev. Key Yong Kim.

Chun, who heads the construction committee, said his church hopes to break ground in April for what will be a $2.5-million complex, including a 1,200-seat sanctuary. Its members live as far away as Orange County, the San Gabriel Valley and the San Fernando Valley, but Chun pointed to a map showing the locations of 17 smaller groups in the congregation that gather regularly in homes for fellowship and prayer.

Chun said the Korean Presbyterian Church in America values the cooperative spirit of church councils. His denomination’s western region also is a member of the large Council of Korean Churches in Southern California.

It is rare that church councils ever reject applicants, but the national council’s governing board turned away the membership bid of another Southern California-based church body, the homosexual-oriented Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, three years ago this month. Some member denominations had threatened to leave the organization if the Metropolitan churches were admitted, but the board voted after strenuous debate to “indefinitely postpone” the application.