Under the invitation by China’s Protestant lianghui, the first-ever 41 people representative team of Korea Christianity visited Shanghai and Beijing for a religious exchange, according to China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA).
Led by Rev. Jung-Hyun Oh, the Korea Christianity Pan-Denomination United China Visitation Team visited China from July 1-3. This was the first time for a representative team consisting of church leaders, government officials, scholars, businessmen, media groups from Korea Christianity to visit China, which was highly regarded by both countries’ churches.
The first day of the visitation consisted of the “China-Korea Church Exchange Seminar”, which was held at the Protestant Three Self Patriotic Movement/ China Christian Council (TSPM/CCC) in Shanghai. Both parties exchanged their views on the Three Self Principles, China-Korea Church’s present condition and relations, city churches, social services of the churches.
On July 2nd, SARA Research Center invited scholars from Peking University or Beida, People’s University or Renda, and Academy of Social Sciences Religion Research Center to engage in a scholastic exchange with the Korean visitors.
Six representatives from each country each gave their speech. The director and students of Academy of Social Science Religion Research Center gave their reports, and Korean scholars shared a report titled “The Competitiveness of a Nation that Walks Together with God”, which mainly provided an analysis of the role of religion from the perspective of social development; furthermore, the Korean scholars also explored the topics of Xinhai Revolution in 1911 and Christianity and various other problems.
On the last day of the visit, the representative team arrived at the SARA’s office and held a meeting with China’s religious affairs vice director general and the directors of other relevant department in the SARA to discuss about topics relevant to the China-Korea Christianity exchange.
Lastly, the SARA director general Ye Xiaowen greeted and gave a treat for the Korean representative team.
Reporter Luke Leung translated the report.
