People: Seong-Won Park

The man who gave so much energy to facilitating the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) covenanting for justice process is leaving the Alliance this month after serving 15 years in two separate stints on the Geneva secretariat.

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	Seong-Won Park

Seong-Won Park, executive secretary of the Covenanting for Justice Project, will continue his work as a professor of theology at Young Nam Theological Seminary, teaching liturgics, homiletics, ecumenism, practical theology and spirituality.

Park has been teaching at the university since 2004 when he reduced his WARC workload following the 24th General Council.

As a young theologian teaching at Seoul Theological Seminary, Park began involvement with WARC’s programme, Called to Witness to the Gospel Today, with an eye to bringing a two-thirds world perspective to WARC. The programme had been coordinated by Choan-Seng Song, who later became WARC’s president.

“I was sort of his successor,” Park said recently. “As soon as Seoul was chosen as the venue for the 22nd General Council, I became heavily involved in the preparation for the Seoul General Council.”

His first term at WARC ended in 1990 when he returned to Korea to serve as pastor of the Pusanjin Presbyterian Church in Pusan, the second oldest Presbyterian church in Korea. He returned to WARC five years later as the executive secretary for the Department of Cooperation and Witness.

Park, a minister in the Presbyterian Church of Korea, has studied at the University of Bern, San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Seoul.

He has been heavily involved in many ecumenical and social justice activities. He is a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, a member of the Theological Commission of the National Council of Churches in Korea and co-president of the Korean Centre for Watching on Speculation.

A gathering of colleagues and friends from WARC and the broader ecumenical community paid tribute to Park in August. Prior to that event WARC general secretary Setri Nyomi described the impact Park had on WARC as “incredibly significant.”

Nyomi added, “Seong-Won Park helped place the debate around economic and ecological justice at the heart of the Alliance’s theological and practical interest. His commitment to justice and human rights for all has left a mark on WARC and its member churches. And for that we are eternally grateful.

“And he performed this work – this ministry – with much grace. His shoes will not easily be filled. We thank God for Seong-Won Park’s ministry in WARC.”