‘Hope for a change’

“THE Korean War ended on July 27, 1953 without a peace treaty being signed; an armistice was signed, and a de-militarised zone established between North and South Korea, but technically North and South Korea are still at war.”

Dr David Frame, World Mission Council member and Convenor of the Asia Committee is talking about his work for the church in the precariously balanced part of the world. “Like many of my generation, I looked in horror at wars like the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and in disbelief that the world has not learned any of the lessons of the past. The situation in Korea in particular has long interested me.

“Sanctions have been imposed on North Korea because of its nuclear and missile tests, but the people to have sufered are the ordinary people.”

David has more than a passing interest in the scientiic aspects of the demilitarised Korean peninsula. He has a degree in mathematics and natural philosophy from Glasgow University and completed a PhD in high energy physics – though he usually just calls himself a nuclear physicist!

“It’s easier,” he laughs.

David comes from Barrhead originally, but his professional life has taken him all round the world – including to the world famous CERN project under the mountains of Switzerland and France.

“I have been interested in science as long as I can remember, mainly in the physical sciences, even doing a short research project as a summer student one year comparing the abrasive efects of diferent toothpastes. But I am particularly interested in fundamental particle physics and astrophysics, in summary what the universe is made up of.

“After completing my BSc, I decided that I wanted to do a PhD, and the area that interested me most was what things are made of – nuclear physics and even smaller. I had been a summer student in CERN for a couple of summers so I knew a little about the subject and decided to do that. There was a major new experiment being started in CERN by the University of Glasgow together with some other labs, so before I knew it

I was out in CERN helping to build, then run and eventually to analyse the results. I met my wife-to-be, Gill, in Geneva, where we both went to the Church of Scotland, which is housed in the Auditoire de Calvin, where both John Calvin and John Knox taught. After inishing my PhD, it was natural to actually get a job working for CERN, where I helped build an experiment looking for a particle which many years later became known as the God particle – it was only many years later that the God particle was realised to be so important, but we didn’t ind anything at that time!”

David has done many other things since then, but still thinks of himself as a physicist. “CERN is a large international laboratory, straddling the Swiss-French border, where the most advanced, largest and most expensive experiments in the world are carried out by increasingly large collaborations of diferent institutions from round the world. The most recent experiments there are done using the Large Hadron Collider, which consists of a ring of magnets and experiments in a tunnel 27 kilometres in circumference. To give you an idea of the scale of these experiments, one of those which discovered the God particle is about 45 metres long, 25 metres in diameter and weighs 7,000 tonnes.

“Scientists have been trying to discover what everything is made of for many hundreds of years. From about the early 1960s, a huge number of diferent particles were discovered by smashing atoms together. Gradually a theory was developed of what everything is made of, and all the experimental results seemed to it, but there was one particle missing – the Higgs particle, named after Professor Higgs of Edinburgh University who had speculated on its existence many years previously.

The problem was without the Higgs particle, none of the particles, including all the ones we are made of, would have any mass (don’t ask how, it’s somewhat complicated!), but it’s because of this that it was jokingly called the God particle, and that stuck with the media!”

His interest in science has, for David, never been a barrier to his belief in God.

“You might have thought that working in an area like fundamental particle physics would have been a challenge to my faith, but it’s not, in fact, it is quite the opposite – the beauty of the detail of how the universe around us is constructed, whether at the smallest scale of sub atomic particles or the largest scale of galaxies, speaks volumes against it just being a chance creation.

“Scientiic research and faith and religionare not in conlict with each other, but are complementary – science tells us about the what and the how, whereas faith and religion tell us about the why of the universe.

“I have been an active church member as long as I can remember, starting in Barrhead, then later in Geneva when I lived there, then in Killermont Church in Bearsden when my wife and I returned to the UK, and now Pitlochry, where I am an elder and convenor of our church’s World Mission Group.”

David’s interest in World Mission was sparked while living in Geneva.

“I suppose that my irst interest in world mission was kindled when I met Gill in Geneva; she had been working for the Lutheran World Federation with an involvement with refugee and development work. More recently I became involved with Christian Aid in Bearsden, and have continued my involvement with Christian Aid in Pitlochry.

You might have thought that working in an area like fundamental particle physics would have been a challenge to my faith, but it’s not, in fact, it is quite the opposite.

“As convenor of the World Mission Group in the church in Pitlochry, it seemed natural to become more involved by becoming a member of the World Mission Council, where I have currently just become Convenor of the Asia Committee.”

The Church of Scotland has been a supporter of peace in the Korean Peninsula for many years.

“The Church has long supported the National Council of Churches in Korea’s (NCCK) Peace and Reuniication Programme,” says David.

“This programme seeks to raise awareness round the world of the situation in the Korean Peninsula, to apply pressure on governments to get sanctions lifted on North Korea and to bring about the signing of a formal peace treaty ending the war.

“Last year the NCCK decided to link the Peace and Re-uniication Programme with a conference in Japan, held in Hiroshima, which seeks to apply pressure on the Japanese Government not to change its position of paciism.

“After the Second World War, Japan drew up a new national constitution, including an article which formally renounces war as a means of settling international disputes, and also states that in order to accomplish this aim, land, sea, and air forces will never be maintained. The present Prime Minister wishes to formally revise the constitution of Japan. This move potentially ends Japan’s long-standing position of paciism and might lead to de-stabilisation of north-east Asia,” says David.

“Andrew MacPherson, the former Youth Moderator, and myself were honoured to represent the Church of Scotland this year at the NCCK Peace and Re-uniication Programme, and present a paper at the conference. David says the conference was an amazing experience.

“The conference in Japan was international and many countries were represented – Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Hong Kong/PRC, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and the USA, with around 250 attendees. It was also inter-religious, which meant that that we had people of diferent faiths there; in fact, about one-third of the attendees were Buddhist.

“Clearly it was very apt that the conference was held in Hiroshima.

“In order to set the context for the Conference itself, a number of study tours were arranged in the City of Hiroshima, allowing participants to understand at irst hand the horrors of a nuclear bomb strike by visiting a number of sites across the city and by hearing the stories of victims and survivors.

“We heard a number of presentations from diferent perspectives, including the one by Andrew MacPherson and myself presenting very personal viewpoints on why Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution should be retained. Perhaps the most moving presentation was that made, very humbly, by one of the survivors of the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima.

“A statement from the conference was developed which will be presented to the Japanese Government, urging them not to change the constitution, and ending with the hope that the peace process in the Korean Peninsula will lead towards establishing a nuclear-free zone in the whole of Northeast Asia.”

There were a couple of highlights from the gathering for David.

“The evening before the start of the conference, a candlelight vigil was held beside the A-bomb Dome to share prayers and hopes for a formal end to the war on the Korean Peninsula.

“The inal act of worship was an open-air service at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound in Hiroshima, a large, grass-covered mound that contains the cremated ashes of 70,000 unidentiied victims of the bomb, in which all faiths participated. This was particularly moving.

“A smaller group of us moved on to South Korea where we attended a workshop which reviewed the historical context for the Peace and Reuniication Movement of the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) and looked at the historical signiicance of the Panmunjom Declaration signed by Kim Jong Un, Premier of North Korea, and Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea on April 27 , 2018. This aims to bring about Peace, Prosperity and Uniication of the Korean Peninsula. “In order to understand the attitude of the people within South Korea towards peace and reuniication we visited a number of sites close to the Demilitarised Zone where it was possible to see North Korea.

“Several of these locations have now been made into “peace parks” or “uniication observatories”, and the message of peace, reconciliation and reuniication is very strong.

“A group, consisting of members of the NCCK and the foreign attendees at the campaign, was granted meetings with Lee In-Young, member of the National Assembly of South Korea, and Lee Dukhaeng, Secretary to the President for Uniication Policy.

“In South Korea I was struck with just how close many people live to the threat of war in their daily lives, with miles of barbed wire and watch towers alongside busy six lane motorways north of Seoul. I was also struck with the strength of feeling in the people themselves that they were going to solve the problem of the two Koreas and bring about reconciliation and eventual reuniication,” he says. But it wasn’t all work.

“On the Sunday morning in Korea, we visited Shinsam Church (Korean Methodist Church), out in the middle of the ields, where the pastor invited us to attend, and take part in, the Sunday morning service. We were invited for lunch afterwards in the hall next door, made by the ladies of the church.

“I couldn’t tell you what we ate, but it was delicious!

“Interestingly, though there is great negativity towards President Trump in the UK, the National Council of Churches in Korea feel that the recent meeting between President Trump and Premier Kim could be the start of a process towards peace, and must not be allowed to fail. Sanctions by the international community on North Korea harm only the people of that country, and should be gradually eased.” David says.

“We should encourage the Church of Scotland to apply pressure, through its Church and Society Council, on the Scottish and UK Governments for the lifting of sanctions on North Korea.

“Local congregations in Scotland should become more aware of the plight of citizens within North Korea and to provide tangible support for them. And that support could simply be to provide them with trees!

“The sanctions applied to North Korea mean that the people have less and less food, fuel and other basic necessities for living. In parts of North Korea, there are no trees left – the trees have been cut down for fuel. But trees can supply not only fuel, they can provide food – maple trees with syrup, and chestnut trees with edible nuts.

“There is hope for a change in the Koreas, and as a Church and as a community, we should support and encourage that hope.”