in crisis and finally chose a measure that had never
been used before and has never been used since. Ewha fired
five professors, including Professor Young Oon Kim, and expelled
fourteen students. The expelled students included five in the graduating
class. Yonsei also fired one professor and expelled two students.
The school chaplain of Ewha tried advising the students, “You
can attend that church after you graduate. That way, no harm will
come to the school.” But it was of no use. It had the opposite effect.
The expelled students protested vehemently. “There are many
atheists in our school,” they said. “And we even have the children of
traditional shamans attending our school. How can the school justify
expelling us and following the hypocrisy of this double standard?”
The school, however, stood fast. It simply repeated its position:
“We are a private school and a Christian school. We have the right
to expel any student we choose.”
When the media got word of the incident, one newspaper carried
an editorial titled, “Expulsion Is Wrong in a Country with Religious
Freedom.” This situation soon became a topic for debate among the
general public.
Ewha, since it was supported by a Christian foundation in Canada,
was concerned that its support would be cut if it became known that
large numbers of its students attended a church declared to be heretical.
In those days, Ewha held chapel three times a week, took attendance,
and submitted these attendance records to mission headquarters.
After the students were expelled and the professors fired, public
opinion began to turn in our favor. Ewha, in an effort to counter this
trend, began a campaign of false rumors too vile to repeat. Unfortunately,
as is so often the case, the more vile the rumor, the more people
revel in believing and repeating it as true. These false rumors began
to feed on themselves, and soon they took on a life of their own. Our
church suffered from this for more than a year.
I did not want the problem to grow out of control like this. I did not
want to cause problems. I tried to convince the students and professors
to lead simple, quiet lives of faith. I explained that there was no need for
them to leave the dormitories and cause such public trouble. But they
were adamant. “Why do you tell us not to come here?” they asked. “We
wish to receive the same grace as everyone else.” In the end, they were
forced to leave their schools. I was not comfortable with this.
After being forced from their schools, the students went as a group
to a prayer hall on Mount Samgak on the outskirts of Seoul. They went
to seek comfort for their wounded hearts. They had been kicked out
of their schools, their families were angry with them, and their friends
no longer wished to meet them. They had no place to go. They fasted
and spent their entire time praying with such emotion that their
eyes cried and noses ran. Soon, some began to speak in tongues.
It is true that God appears when we are on the edge of despair and
desperation. The students who were expelled from their schools and
cast out by their families and society found God in the prayer hall
on Mount Samgak.
I went to Mount Samgak and gave food and comfort to the students
who had become emaciated from fasting.
“It is bad enough that you’ve been unjustly expelled,” I explained.
“Please do not fast also. If your conscience is clear over what you have
done, then being insulted for it is not dishonorable. Do not be discouraged,
but wait for your time.”
Five of those students who were seniors later transferred into Sookmyung
Women’s University. But the damage was already done.
This incident played a decisive role and was the turning point in
gaining me a profoundly negative reputation. Newspaper reports began
to read as if all the evil acts committed by various religions were done
by us. People who at first reacted to the rumors with “Could it be true?”
now began to say, “It’s true.”
It hurt to be subjected to such unfair treatment. The injustice was
so intense that it made me angry. I wanted to shout out in rebuttal,
but I did not speak out or attempt to fight. We had too much else to
accomplish and had no time to waste in fighting.
I believed that such misunderstandings and hatred would dissolve with
time and that we should not use our energy to be overly concerned about
them. I pretended not to hear people say, “Sun Myung Moon should be
struck by lightning,” or the Christian ministers who prayed for my death.
But instead of dying down, the rumors grew ever more outrageous
with each passing day. It felt as if the whole world had united in pointing
fingers of accusation at me. Even in the heat of the Heungnam fertilizer
factory, I refused to let others see even my shins. Yet now rumors had
it that I danced naked in our church. Soon people who came to our
church for the first time looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, “Are
you the one who takes off his clothes and dances?”
I knew better than anyone that it would take time for such misunderstandings
to go away, so I never tried to argue with them, saying, “I’m
not like that.” We cannot know someone without meeting the person,
yet there were so many who did not hesitate to curse me without ever
having met me. I knew it was useless to battle against such people, so I
endured in silence.
The Yonsei–Ewha incident forced our church to the brink of destruction.
The image of “pseudo-religion,” or “cult,” became inseparably
identified with my name, and all established churches joined together
to call for the government to prosecute me.
On July 4, 1955, the police raided our church and took me and four
members—Won Pil Kim, Hyu Young Eu, Hyo Min Eu, and Hyo Won
Eu—into custody. Ministers and elders of the established churches
joined hands with secular authorities in writing letters calling for our
church to be closed. These four members, who had been with me from
the beginning, were forced to stay in prison with me.
The matter did not end there. The police investigated my background
and came up with a charge of draft evasion. But this, too, was egregious.
By the time I escaped my North Korean death camp to head south, I
was already beyond the age of compulsory military service. Still they
charged me with draft evasion.
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