Some individuals emailed us voicing concern over JAMA’s call for prayer and repentance (see “Let’s Pray for the Tragedy at Virginia Tech”), saying that the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech is not the responsibility of the Korean American community but the act of one mentally disturbed man who happened to be Korean. We regret any confusion that some of you may feel and Dr. John Kim wants to offer a clarification (below):

Clarification in response to questions regarding our call for prayer on April 17th, 2007.

It was not JAMA’s intent in any way to ask for repentance based upon a spirit of guilt, guilt by association with an ethnic group, or fear of any “backlash” from those outside that ethnic group. It was also not our intent to, in any way, place blame on the Korean-American community or the Korean-American Christian community for what happened at Virginia Tech and correspondingly ask those communities to repent for “what it had done” in Blacksburg. If our message made you think that way, we apologize for the confusion and less-than-ideal wordsmithing.

One of JAMA’s hallmarks from its very inception is the constant plea for Christians, especially those of Korean descent, to, based on 2 Chronicles 7:14, repent for our apathy and indifference to the country in which we live and to pray for the healing and awakening of this nation. We believe that apathy and indifference are sins and that comfort and security are idols. Thus, in all of our conferences, publications (including similar letters after, for example, 9/11 and Katrina), and other gatherings, meetings, and events, repentance — individually and collectively — has been a consistent theme throughout.

In this way, while the tragedy at Virginia Tech was caused by a single individual, we were nonetheless burdened with a spirit of not only grief, but again, with a spirit of individual and collective repentance. In this regard, we did not find it inappropriate — or out-of-place — to ask for repentance in light of the Virginia Tech massacre, not because we are to  be blamed for what happened, but because tragedies can be wake-up calls to our own sins — whether or not we (or those sins) had any relation with the tragedies — and secondly, because Jesus himself, in response to tragedies, called for not only grief, but repentance.

When Jesus heard of a terrible tragedy that befell some Galileans, he responded: “Do you suppose that the Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this [tragedy]? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:2-5). Cf, “What To Say About Virginia Tech”, Dr. John Piper (amongst the ways in which we can minister to others in the face of tragedies, two ways Dr. Piper includes are: “Since rebellion against God was at the root of this act of murder, let us all fear such rebellion in our own hearts, and turn from it, and embrace the grace of God in Christ, and renounce the very impulses that caused this tragedy,” and “Point the living to the momentous issues of sin and repentance in our own hearts and the urgent need to get right with God through his merciful provision of forgiveness in Christ, so that a worse fate than death will not overtake us “) (April 16, 2007); Resolutions #8, Jonathan Edwards (”Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others, and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.”); see also Nehemiah 1:3-7.

When 9/11 took place, we at JAMA thought it was dangerous to interpret that terrorist attack and tragedy as God’s direct judgment on America and thereby mix politics with ministry since “[t]he secret things belong to the LORD our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29) and that His judgments are “unsearchable,” His ways “unfathomable.” (Romans 11:33-34). Nonetheless, we called on Christians to repent for our own and our nation’s sins and ask God for revival and healing (2 Chronicles 7:14), not based on any wrath-of-God interpretations or to place blame on Christians for 9/11, but simply to follow what we believe is one of the biblical responses to tragedies.

Similarly with respect to the Virginia Tech shooting, we asked Christians to join us in not only grieving and praying for the victims and their friends and families and for the healing of this nation, but to also join us in a spirit of repentance of our own sins and our sins as a community of believers and our sins as a nation (just as, for example, Nehemiah did), not based on any we-are-at-fault-for-the-shooting interpretations or to place blame directly on Christians generally (or Korean-American Christians specifically) for what happened, but because we believe in taking spiritual ownership of this country and that it is in these moments of tragedies affecting that country, these wake-up calls if you will, that repentance, amongst other things, is called for.

I hope this provides some clarification and understanding of where we are coming from.

Soli deo gloria,

John C. Kim