On Feb. 5, the Foreign Ministry wrote to the Korean Foundation for World Aid asking it to stop members from traveling to Afghanistan, saying that the Islamic militants were known to be plotting abductions of Koreans as a way to win the release of Taliban prisoners. However, the Saemmul Church ignored the warning and kept taking applications for short-term missionary activities in the war-ravaged country until April 1.

Representatives from the Christian Council of Korea, the Korea National Council of Churches and the Korea World Missions Association meet at the Korea Christian Union Center on Thursday morning. The religious leaders discussed Korea's agreement to ban missionary activities in Afghanistan as part of the deal to free the 12 hostages held by the Taliban.

Twenty applicants studied Afghan languages once or twice a week for three months and armed themselves with medical and educational volunteer skills to aid their missionary activities. However, the church failed to prepare the volunteers for any possible abduction or other dangers. The young Korean Christians traveled at night using a rented bus, making them sitting ducks for kidnappers.

After the abduction, the church concentrated on playing down its responsibility, asking the press to describe the activities of the captives as “volunteer work” and trying to keep religious terms like “church” and “reverend” from appearing in reports. Yet all the time the church’s leading pastor Park Eun-jo continued making provocative remarks during service. In a sermon on Aug. 12, he suggested the abduction of the church members might be “a revelation of God” and the blood of the two hostages killed by Taliban kidnappers was “not spilled in vain” but would “bear religious fruit some day,” according to a Protestant online newspaper.

(englishnews@chosun.com )