Joint Statement of Pyung Yang Prayer Meeting for the Implementation of the June 15 Statement of Korean Peace and Reunification

We, christians in the South and the North, have prayed for people suffering with national division and have made every effort for peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula. We firmly believe that our effort for and exercise of national cooperation on the basis of solid belief in God would be to overcome national division. We, especially, have supported the June 15 Joint Statement and the October 4 Statement which are a landmark of “independence, peace, and reunification” and made positively our every effort for its implementation.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”(Matthew 5:9)

We, Christians in the South and the North, have prayed for people suffering with national division and have made every effort for peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula. We firmly believe that our effort for and exercise of national cooperation on the basis of solid belief in God would be to overcome national division. We, especially, have supported the June 15 Joint Statement and the October 4 Statement which are a landmark of “independence, peace, and reunification” and made every effort for its implementation. Today, however, in which we concern about that the South-North cooperation for reconciliation and mutual life-affirming has been shrinking and the South-North political relationship is getting blocked, we declare our commitments as follows at the 5th Joint Prayer meeting for the implementation of the June 15 Statement and peace and reunification, which is historically taking place at Bongsoo Church in Pyungyang for the first time:

1. We, churches in the South and in the North, will make our every effort with our wisdom and ability for its implementation of the June 15 Statement with our explicit position of “through our national cooperation”. We are sisters and brothers who should think of the other first as an inseparable national community. We will do our best for peace and reunification which is our long-yearning hope “through our national cooperation”.

2. We, churches in the South and the North, will do our best to establish peace system in the Korean peninsula. We believe that to prevent war and to achieve peace is an important matter to decide our national destiny as well as a mission task which God called us christians to take responsibility. We will make our every effort to accomplish peace system in this land and to build peace and mutual progress in the North East Asia as well as further in the world.

3. We, churches in the South and the North, will participate in humanitarian assistance and development cooperation in the North, and promote mutual exchange and cooperation which will contribute to national solidarity and common prosperity. And We confess that any kinds of intention to foster divisional system of mistrust and antagonism as our sin, and we are sure that to live for national reconciliation and peace and reunification in this land is to follow what God asks us to act for love, reconciliation and unity.

We again express our commitment to living as peace maker, thanking God for making us fill with its blessing and deep inspiration through this joint prayer meeting.

November 4th, 2008
The National Council of Churches in Korea
The Central Committee of Korean Christian Federation