Seeds Will Grow

On July 27, 2023, to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, which paused but did not end the Korean War, 500 peace activists gathered in Washington, D.C. for several days of Korea Peace Action.

At a prayer vigil on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking down at the reflection pond toward the Korean War Memorial, American Christian activists for peace in Korea prayed a prayer of public repentance for sins Americans have committed against the Korean people.

The prayer was read as follows:

Reader 1: We will now pray a prayer of penitence, adapted from Catholic tradition. As American peace workers, we confess these sins on behalf of our nation. Please read the bolded texts together, if you wish.

(brief pause… and then give a hand gesture to join the leader in reading the first line, which is bolded.)

We confess to almighty God, and to you our brothers and sisters, that our nation has greatly sinned – in our thoughts, in our words, in what we have done, and in what we have failed to do.

Reader 2: Though Jesus taught humility and service, we have sinned through national pride, sense of American exceptionalism, and willingness to dominate and rule other peoples. We have sinned in greed and gluttony for resources and power. We have sinned in white supremacy and rejection of Korean self-governance.

Instead of loving our enemies, as Jesus taught, we have sinned in fearful, hateful, and demonizing rhetoric of political enemies. We have sinned by justifying war and crimes against humanity. We have sinned by blessing violence, ironically, invoking the name of Christ, the crucified.

Reader 3: We sinned in our 1905 agreement with Japan, allowing Japan to annex Korea in exchange for U.S. control of the Philippines, without regard for Korean or Filipino people. We sinned by destroying lives and cities in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby introducing fear and threat of nuclear war to Korea and the world. We sinned by subverting Korean people’s sovereignty in 1945 and dividing the Korean Peninsula and its people like spoils of war. Leading up to 1950, we sinned through political support for and participation in extrajudicial massacres of many thousands of people in southern Korean.

Reader 4: After 1950, we sinned in war by civilian massacres, massive and indiscriminate bombing campaigns, sexual exploitation of children and women, and other grievous war crimes. We sinned through environmental degradation of the Korean Peninsula with carpet bombing and use of napalm in the active fighting and through our bombing practice, base expansion, and provocative military drills under the armistice. We sinned by introducing nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula in 1958 in violation of the 1953 Armistice Agreement. We sinned in our support for murderous military dictators and religious vigilante groups who murdered civilians, red-baited as Communists in South Korea. We sin by stoking fear of the DPRK (North Korea), accusing them of all manner of evil, while excusing our own national sins and our ongoing role in this conflict. We sin in our interference with South Korea’s internal affairs, while disregarding the human suffering of North Korean people through sanctions, travel bans, and international legal frameworks which further isolate the DPRK.

Reader 5: We sinned by allowing our nation to collectively forget this war – though it is yet unended. We sinned by breaking our promises in agreements to the DPRK. We sin by profiting from the militarization of Korea, earning money from weapons’ sales through our stocks, bonds, and retirement portfolios. We sin in our indifference to the suffering and humanity of the Korean people.

Reader 1 (gestures to read together): We have sinned through our fault, through our fault, through our most grievous fault.

Therefore, we ask the angels, archangels, saints, the blessed departed, and especially those gathered here, to pray for our nation that we may repent, be healed, be purified in our hearts, and transformed in our relationships.

(Hold the silence for a few moments before gesturing to all to join in the final sentence:)

May almighty God have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.

It is good for American Christians to understand the impact of American foreign policy on our brothers and sisters in other nations.

Would you use or adapt this text for your own public prayer or in vigils for peace in Korea?

Meaningful dates for such a prayer may include:

• Anytime during the Lenten Season
• August 27th – the date in 1866 when the crew of an unwelcome US trading ship took Koreans hostage in Korean territory and fired their cannons on civilian bystanders, killing 7 Korean people
• June 1st – the date in 1871 when US military gunships entered Korean territorial waters in defiance of Korean orders, an action which led to a US massacre of 243 Korean soldiers
• July 29th – the date in 1905 when the USA and Japan made a quid pro quo agreement on the colonization of the Philippines and Korea
• March 1st – the date in 1919 when Korean people began their independence movement, striving for independence from Japanese colonial rule
• August 6th and 9th – the dates in 1945 when the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing at least 40,000 Korean workers in Japan
• August 15th – the date in 1945 marking the end of World War 2 and the liberation of Korea from the Japanese
• September 8th – the date in 1945 when the United States Army Military Government in Korea was established, reintroducing many elements of Japanese rule, interrupting Korean people’s dream of national sovereignty and work for self-governance, and cementing the division of north and south (without consultation and against the will of the Korean people) through a trusteeship by the US and USSR, leading up to the Korean War
• April 3rd – The date in 1948 of the Jeju Incident, which led to an overblown US-ordered military response resulting in the destruction of 300 villages, 40,000 homes, and the massacre of 30,000 people on the South Korean island of Jeju
• June 25th – date in 1950, widely considered the beginning of the Korean War, which has not yet ended
• June 28-July 17th – dates in 1950 when an estimated 7,000 people were indiscriminately killed by South Korean military and police in the Gollyeonggol massacres, in the presence of US military advisors
• July 26th – date in 1950 of the Nogun-ri massacre, committed against Korean civilians by US soldiers
• July 27th – date in 1953 when the active fighting of the war paused; a peace agreement for cessation of hostilities has never been reached
• January – month in 1958 when the US introduced nuclear weapons to Korea, in violation of the Armistice Agreement
• March 18th – date in 1980 when the US-backed military government of South Korea massacred at least 200 democracy activists in the city of Gwangju with US knowledge and support
• October 28th – date in 1992 when Yun Geum-i was killed by U.S. soldier Kenneth Markle, representative of the sexual violence committed by US soldiers against Korean women during the US military occupation of South Korea (learn more).
• June 13th – date in 2002 when two South Korean middle schoolers were run over and killed by a US military armored vehicle
• February – month in 2019 when the US Navy Seal Team 6 illegally entered DPRK waters and killed a boat full of unarmed, Korean civilian fishermen
• March 6th – date in 2025 when civilians were injured and buildings destroyed in South Korea during a live-fire military exercise gone wrong

Please let me know if you use or adapt this prayer for your use. Thank you.