SEOUL: They go anywhere – from African jungles to tribal villages of Afghanistan. Self-designated foot soldiers of Jesus Christ, Korean
missionaries travel the globe, looking for souls to save with the good book in one hand and cash in another. The apostles carry a special message mixing religion and politics, insisting that the Gospel saved South Korea from communism. Belief in Jesus not only saves souls, but delivers nations from poverty.
But if press reports turn out to be true that the South Korean government, working on behalf of the missionaries kidnapped in Afghanistan, paid millions of dollars in ransom, then the church work may have merely alleviated the poverty of a terrorist group. The global mission of spreading Christian faith has run smack into the US and NATO global mission against terrorism.
A Reuters news agency report quoting a senior Taliban official as saying that a
ransom of more than US$20 million was paid to secure the hostages’ release, though unconfirmed, is sure to add fuel to growing criticism of Korean missionaries and expose the growing complexity of an old globalizing force.
The kidnapping of 23 Christian
aid workers in mid-July, two of whom were killed before
release of the remainder, has revived criticism of missionaries’ no-holds-barred proselytizing. The zeal of some churches, often offending local sensitivities, has made the Korean missionaries controversial at home and abroad. Some countries such as China and Cambodia, with a historical view that
foreign missionaries are agents of imperialism, have banned them. South Korea’s foreign ministry frowns on work where the missionaries are not officially welcome and restricts travel to war-torn countries like Iraq and Somalia.
Eager to serve, however, some ignore the warnings, risking capture and death; Kim Son Il, a young, novice
evangelical worker, was beheaded by Iraqi insurgents in 2004.
This time, in addition to possibly paying ransom, South Korea obtained release of the missionaries by promising to keep them and all South Korean non-governmental organization workers out of Afghanistan and withdraw troops from that country
More abstracts about the Missionary work for the Taliban