The Connections Between Learning and Ministry

Dr. I Sil Yoon (PhD, GTU 2019) is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics at Yonsei University in South Korea.

In my work at the GTU, I was really interested in working with socially marginalized people. In our society, there are many people from various backgrounds. On the one hand, as our society is constantly changing, people claim that they’re pursuing openness and embracement of this diversity. However, on the other hand, there is a deeply rooted tradition of pursuing prejudice and discrimination and exclusion against people who are considered to be deviating from social standards and social norms. Because of these prejudices, I wanted to work for the human rights protections of socially marginalized people and to help people from various backgrounds. The GTU has been very supportive of my work in these areas.

What I liked about GTU was that with my life at the GTU and the classes I took, there was a continuity between them. They were not separate. In the classroom, we were talking about what kind of life we were going to live with this new knowledge we have. And outside of the classroom we were talking about the theories we had learned and how we can embody those theories in our lives.

Working with North Korean refugees was always my desire. Even before I entered the GTU, in my church back in Korea, I would meet a lot of North Korean refugees. When I heard their stories, I felt so bad hearing about the realities they had faced back in North Korea. After coming back to South Korea after I graduated from the GTU, I saw that those human rights violations are still happening. I really wanted to contribute at least a little bit to the human rights protections of North Korean refugees.

I am especially concerned about North Korean female refugees, whose reality is extremely tough. A lot of North Korean female refugees stay in other countries, including many in China, before they ultimately come to South Korea. They do this because they need an income and in South Korea, it is so hard to get a job. A lot of them end up staying in China. However, in China, they do not have any political membership, nor citizenship, nor a refugee status. They are always under surveillance, and they have to hide. They have to work illegally. And in the workplace as well as in their households, they are experiencing human rights violations which are very severe. After I heard their stories, I really wanted to contribute to the protection of their human rights. And I believe that there’s a role that Christians can play, that the church can play, and that religion can play in that work.

I believe that the church can be a place that is welcoming and supportive and that can practically help these people to be reintegrated into society, by connecting to the nonprofit social organizations, by advocating for the refugees, and so on. With this in mind, I integrated my beliefs and my research into my studies. At the GTU I took some very helpful courses related to the protection of human rights, such as Ethics and Social Reconciliation, Ethics and Social justice, and others. I did a case study on North Korean refugees for a few of my papers and for my dissertations as well. I also studied Restorative Justice, which I thought could be a very helpful model to support North Korean refugees. And the research has been ongoing as I continue to study these topics.

I always wanted to go into academia. At the same time, I also wanted to do practical ministry, at least part-time. I believe that doing theology and doing ministry are not two separate things. They are always connected with one another. So I have been trying to incorporate what I have learned in school into my ministry setting as well. A couple of courses I am thinking of teaching in the future are called Promised Land and Immigrants, which will talk about the hard reality of the experiences immigrants go through, and the roles that church and theology and religion can take. I also want to teach a Bioethics course that will discuss the hardships of sick and terminally ill people and how the church can stay supportive. I also want to teach about Human Rights and Social Justice. I taught that class last year for foreign students at Yonsei and I am considering teaching it for Korean students as well. With all of these courses, the inspiration came from the GTU, because they are concerned with the hardships of socially marginalized people, preventing the violation of human rights, and the role of the church and public theology—not only the Christian religion, but different religions as well.

The diversity and openness that the GTU is promoting can give hope to socially marginalized people, and is encouraging to the people who are pursuing social transformation. In addition to the other ways that the GTU is unique, it is also the place that enabled me to grow and mature so much. I believe that it is going to help many other people grow in their maturity as well. The GTU is preserving its traditions, established by the many scholars and ministers who worked there before, while at the same time, it is embracing changes and evolving. The GTU is growing along with future generations.

I am truly grateful that I can share the lessons from my time at the GTU—as well as the messages and advice that I received from the GTU community—with my students at Yonsei University. I will continue to strive to protect socially marginalized and oppressed people in our society and I hope I inspire my students to do the same